Anthony Kedis is rolling like a runaway train,
His voice carrying too much momentum to be stopped,
He just keeps rolling down a track of guitar solos.
It's unusually hot here,
As I wipe sweat from my brow.

My bottle of water is sweating on the table,
My eyes are stinging from the heat and perspiration from my forehead.

Flea is laying it out hard,
His slaps on the bass with specific design.
It's almost time to go to bed,
Got to get back into a rhythm.

I envy the men who can smoke yet run like an Olympic athlete,
I really do.
The best I can do is operate a machine gun or a rocket launcher,
With a fat *** of dip in my jaw.

I tap my index finger on the top of my cigarette,
The pier of ash that was building topples off the end.
The can is at my lips,
A pleasant burn on the throat when swallowed,
Imperial stout,
The warming burn reminds me of good bourbon.
The ***** beer agreeing with my palate.
A hard day started early,
My early ending is it's own reward,
To relax,
Kick back
And let the tunes carry me away.

I open my eyes against my will,
The light spilling in from the window at just the right level to bath my face in the rays of the morning sun.

Vedder's emotionally raw voice is coming from the radio in my clock,
His words attempting to smooth the pounding coming from my head,
But to no avail.

The harmonica an excellent segue to the playing of a song,
A complete opposite to Jeremy,
The strain on my eyes ease a little,
As I make breakfast,
It's almost gone by the time I'm writing this,
About to head out to do some landscaping.

Vedder is now telling us all a tale,
Of a boy who finds out a terrible news,
The man whom he calls his father,
Is actually his stepfather,
And that his biological father was dead.

His words haunting me as I go outside to work.

If one's body were a book,
What would mine say to the world?
Would it be a tale of injuries and woe?
Or like trophies to admire in the years to come?

Would my tattoos tell the story of why I got each individual one,
The mind frame I was in when I got them?

Would my thrice broken nose,
Crooking just slightly to the right,
tell tales of fist fights and rough housing,
or of the time I spilled face first into the cement, when my bike flipped on me.

What of the scars?
Do they tell of workplace accidents,
Of battle, of burns and tight scrapes?
When I busted my brow on a marble windowsill,
Or when I busted my cheek wide open from being hit with a pipe?

Tattoos a plenty,
Each could be explained like an ancient epic,
They are only put on because they are earned,
Through blood, sweat, and pain
By way of spiritual revelation and as a proclamation of faith?

Maybe it's the imperfections that tell the real story,
Wrinkles caused by a brow that is furrowed far too often,
Or the creaking of my right hand,
From when the fingers have been broken and bruised too much.

Would my eyes,
My windows into my soul,
Would they still be bright and shining, or would they be dull and weak?

Bill Wyman and **** Jagger are sitting down by the fire with me,
Preaching out from the tiny speaker in the small radio I brought with me,

The crackle of the fire and the upward avalanche of cherry embers into the air distract me for a second,
A dance of heat and light that has entranced me since I've been a child.

I light a smoke using a stick I've been using to stir the bonfire,
Fortuitous for me because I forgot my lighter inside when I last went to get more beer.

Drums lull me back into the song,
Jagger laying out the words like an expert mason,
His words are the bricks that the song is built on, sturdy and precise,
The message they lay out is strong.

That every man has a darkness in him,
It's been there since the very first sin,
A little devil on our shoulder,
Whispering sweet nothings in our ear.

The bonfire a perfect example,
The higher the flame,
The denser the darkness seems to pool,
Just outside the light.

At times you will be weak,
This is the pain of being human.

The song changes to one of a plea,
One of asylum,
From the chaos of the world at large,
A world that we had in 1969,
Desperate voices screaming for a stay of execution.
Would you be one of the people I wonder,
Who would stand against the night,
To save the hopeless and downtrodden.
A hero of the people,
And a bane to those who would do the people harm.

The fire has died down,
Only the bluest of flames are licking up from the wood.
I add another log as another song comes,
In a flash I am transported to England in the times of '66,
The viewpoint of a depressed youth,
Wishing the world wasn't as bright as it was.
The instruments slithering about like a cobra,
Ready to strike at any moment.

I take the large gallon bucket and upend it over the flames,
The water drowns wood and flame.
The fire hissing in pain as steam is given birth to.

The small radio now had Eric Burdon wailing to me Baptist-Style about the dangers of the Big Easy,
As I head back inside.

They sit in their little metal box,
A shell made for just the 4 of them,
Protected from the traditional claws and teeth of war,
But a deadly ***** in it's armor,
Easily exploited they can be.

Their little metal box is hot,
They're all slim,
The hatches are small,
The seats cramped,
You'll never see a fat tanker.

Close they are,
Close enough to operate like the intricate machine they pilot,
Words barely needed,
Maybe a grunt or a hand gesture will suffice.