Tuesday, July 28, 2015

My Blade Runner, Replicant-Roy Moment


Life as
an explosion
of moments;
beyond the counting,
like the stars
brilliant, piercing,
burning and
so much bigger
seeming, even as they point
out the experience
of your expansion
into an abyss
of mind,
missed meanings
and the recoil
of distant times
and the traces
left of places.

The gravities,
the raging passions
and impacts
that formed
the where,
and who,
that now
breaths in
the incomprehensible
wonder
of the whole,
as much
as to still be
breathing at all.

Some
so hot
some
so cold.
Some
so massive
and dark
on the soul,
how
can what they illuminated,
and fused
to harder parts,
still reach you.
And still
allow
that here
you are.

You remember
certain mind posts
alone the way.
Quiet spaces
alone with
your one candle
flickering
to keep the dark
at bay;
so many uncertainties,
so many fears,
for meaning
or value or
the possibility of progression,
to any point of understanding.
And wondering
who will I become
20 years from now.
And how
will he hate
or love
me despite
what I missed
or squandered
or took advantage of.
All of the mistakes
and the pain
of not always
owning the shame.

And here
at an arbitrary
page of age,
do you still
yearn for another volume?
Do you quake
to quit
or yearn
to burn
on another
smoking
go around?
Flame out
or flame on
or just flip a coin?
If you have to ask
you already know
the answer.


Sitting in the early dark, and the quiet reproach, of cedars


The trees stand
for something
far beyond
what we take
as the measure
of time
and getting some
how or where
in the space
of what boards
or feet
can cover.
They remain
so patient
in their calm
approach to growing.
A stance
for a presence
that just knows.
An easy faith
that what is needed
will happen;
Just watch
as water rises
to their expectations.
And the wind
always comes
to give them their voice.
What the wise will
hear as a hush.
For what you say
is as much
about how
you hold forth
on what you can feel.
For you should
have such limbs
to hold up in
the sky
and so much
life to climb upon.
As well as
the reach
to touch
and taste
the understanding
of every molecule
that abounds you.
And when
you make the cuts
to stay the burn
of what you waste
around you,
Just know
that it is your own
legs you chop
away from any
ground with the roots
to make a stand on.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Remembering a truly great group


I have to admit that I was not a big fan of "The Dead." They had a few songs I like a lot of course, but I was always more of a split personality music wise between folk and folk derivatives, and straight forward rock in the form of both the Southern Boys (Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Almond Brothers, the Georgia Satellites etc.) and a host of other regional sounds (Bachman Turner Overdrive, Three Dog Night, Styx, Little Feet etc). With regular forays with the Brits into everything from Pink Floyd, The Who and Ten Years After.

The Dead were, after all, a band best appreciated as a live performance group as each was a thing unto itself, something my cousins were always trying to impress upon me. The one thing, though, that you really had to admire about them was their "Wall of sound." Something matched only, if at all, by Pink Floyd when they played the King Dome in Seattle back in the eighties (defying the notorious bad acoustics to a degree not thought possible until then).

In any case, though, I celebrate their 50 year anniversary with the true "Dead Heads" everywhere if, for no other reason, than the fact that even ordinary rockers, or folk singer wanna-be's, appreciate pumping out the big sound, regardless of the genera behind it.