Wind howling,
Lightning arcing,
Rain falls in great painful sheets,
With thunder booming like the yells of some great giant,
Woken from his eternal sleep.

I wonder what it feels like,
To be struck by one of those voluminous bolts,
To be ignited by plasma who's degrees are in the thousands,
To be burned out to the core.

Give me that sweet soul-******* blues,
Where my heart drops,
My mood drops,
Quicker than a stone in a well of *****.

Wail out to me that poor county tune,
With the man who lost everything,
Save for his heartache and a guitar,
Where he tells me of that bad juju.

Caress me with that sad ballad,
Of that woman who you love unconditionally,
Who can't give you what you need,
Where you can't ever get back that piece of your heart,
A piece that will forever be wilted and grey.

I'll drink it up,
A sponge that is fit to absorb it,
I'll do it all live long day,
I live for it,
Maybe it's a subtle masochism,
To hold my own pains at bay.

It keeps me up at night,
The future,
Such a beautiful place of impossibilities,
A place that holds the laughter of my son,
The tears over my just-passed wife,
And my grandchild's love of books.

Leon Russell is tickling the ivories tonight,
Playing in his liquid and impossibly smooth way,
As I pull another Lucky Strike from a half empty pack,
As I contemplate the feeling in my gut.

As if an invisible hand is tugging at my stomach,
Gentle but firm,
As I contemplate the words you just sent me,
Sending me into a spiral with effortless ease.

Making me pour over every punctuation mark like it might be the Rosetta Stone that'll decipher the text you dropped into my lap before you headed to bed.

Leon croons and I ponder,
Tap tapping ash into a growing pile upon the ashtray,
How could such a slip of a woman make me so nervous I wonder,
Like I'm rock climbing without a belay.

Keeping me on my heels,
Giving me whiplash in the worst kinda way,
Loving the way it feels,
But hating how the matter won't just stop bothing me and leave me to lay.

As Leon wraps up and exit the stage,
Good ol' Taylor saunders up and after taking a seat at the stool,
And begins to expertly play.

Realization I think begins to dawn,
And frankly scares me shitless,
To find that the text is actually a wonderful and terrifying grenade in disguise.

It is only after the ultimate sacrifice by the hero,
That the rewards are to be reaped,
And that just astounds me.

Because it is in these stories that the sacrifices are made just after the hero finally has a chance to become redeemed or to have finally experienced life.

Rage can come on many forms,
I classify rage as an angry form of grief,
Why grief you ask?
Because rage is a sort of emotion that has sharp hooks that dig into your heart,
It changes your behavior,
And it isn't good for you,
And 90% of the time the only way to end it is to let the fire just burn itself out.

But changing gears now,
What would you do if you were to realize you were the bad guy in the play that is your life?

When do the justifications end and justice actually gets served?

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.

Sitting and swinging,
On the bench of my Grandfather's lakeside home,
Where warm summers were spent,
Learning to swim, ski, and fish in Kentucky waters,
Where I read The Stand in a week,
When I was only 13 years old.

Where I plinked at soda cans with a BB gun,
Had corn on the cob, hushpuppies, and catfish,
Had annual family putt putt competitions,
And night's filled with dominoes and stayed up until 3,
Just sitting on the porch and watching the moon bathed lake,
Passing a J and listening to the crickets,
Softly holding discussions regarding topics from music to the planets,
We truly talked about everything.

That summer we spent fixing up that job boat, swimming the half mile across the cove without a life jacket,
Where I truly felt at peace.

Sitting on the porch,
Drawing from an ice cold bottle,
I think back to my childhood,
Tyler Childers yodeling into this pre-summer air,
I'm drawn back to when I was six...

My father's father babysitting me,
Taking me for a walk through his garden,
Filled with carrots, tomatoes, and onions
Which he tended to every day,
I remember asking him what it meant to be a hard worker.

He paused to look at me,
In that way he would,
His face seeming to scrunch in on itself,
And after a moment,
As it always would,
Would return to it's natural state.

He told me to wait there,
And was gone but a minute or two,
He came back with a bucket and some trowels,
And had us digging up the veggies he grew.

It felt like hours to my children's mind,
But was probably only a minute or two,
The bucket was filled,
He paused in his labors,
And told me to give him my hand.

His hand dwarfed my own,
Dispite it being ravaged and shrunken with age,
He held my hand up for inspection,
And with a slight grin,
Turned to show me what he saw.

It didn't appear to be anything to me,
Just some dirt and grit on my hand,
Until he explained with wise words,
"A hard worker ends his day with dirt under his fingernails, Louie, that's all that needs to be seen",
And with a nod,
We went inside,
To wash up for chili and franks.

I never knew that he was sick.

Fast forward a couple of years,
And I'm playing in the creek of my childhood home,
Looking for snakes,
And enjoying the day,
My mother came out,
Looking upset,
And called me in,
That we were going to go see Grandpa,
And with that my heart soared.

It didn't soar long.

He looked so small,
In that sterile hospice bed,
But as children often are,
I was oblivious to the situation,
And ran up to his bed.

He was so weary looking back,
Ravaged by cancer and time,
His face a roadmap of hardships,
Of trials sustained through the years,
But not seeing this then I ran up to him,
I smiled and said,
"I'm a hard worker Grandpa, just like you said!"

Adorning the undersides if my nails,
Black from creek mud and grime,
Some life returned to his dying eyes,
And dispite not being able to speak,
It didn't matter,
No words needed to be said.

It was the last time I saw him,
So long ago it seems,
But that old man taught me a good lesson,
That I won't ever forget.

Being brought back to the present,
Bone tired after a 12 hour shift,
I look at my hands and grin,
Grin at the carbon encrusted nails and oil stained creases.

The signs of a hardworking man.

When we talked today,
You called me a bear,
Some hulking beast that could scare away the dangers of the world,
But behind your eyes I could see what you wanted to also say,
That I would also try and scare away the rest of the world at large,
To lumber through the forest alone,
So that I could not be hurt by anything ever again.

I saw that hurt in your eyes,
That while as this great beast I would fight and die for those I love,
My isolation would always make this number always too small.

I see you too though,
For if I am a bear, you are a hawk,
Flying in the sky so far above.

Your ability to see so much so clearly with but a glance nearly scares me,
But your cries are welcome all the same,
Giving warning of the dangers that I cannot see,
I rely on your honest calls to keep from wandering through these woods belligerently,
Giving me a cooler perspective,
Calming the storms in my heart and in my head.

But little hawk,
Do you not isolate yourself too?
Where my self-imposed exile is in the trees and mountains,
Is yours not in the sky and clouds?
Your high perch gives you sight for miles,
But none can reach you there.

I know you don't mean to,
And perhaps I read too much into this metaphor,
But my offer will forever stand,
Remember to swoop down and visit this simple bear every once and a while,
And I will endeavor to join you in the blue skies whenever I can.

This evening I was listening,
To the ebb and flow,
Maynard James Keenan was telling me a tale,
One of struggle and heartbreak,
The passing of a person he loved,
After 27 years in tribulation,
That she would finally be free.

It reminds me of when I was a child ,
When a person very close to me died,
Cancer ravaged their body,
A brilliant mind imprisoned in a failing vessel.
He was smarter than any of us,
And because he knew what the endgame would be,
That there would be no last minute solution,
No magic cure,
Because he knew that he was calm.

The way he carried himself,
Knowing that terrible truth,
Was nothing short of legendary,
Every stride with purpose,
An in-extinguishable fire in his eyes.
And in the end he greeted the end that we all must eventually face like a cool summer breeze,
Knowing that he would no longer feel the pain,
That of his body turning on itself.

He was better than us all,
Someone we should all aspire to be,
We're glad he has peace,
That he was finally called home.

I dreamt last night,
Of rolling  hills and fields oh so green,
A place I've never been,
Of places where my ancestors wandered, foraged, and lived,
The land of faeries, kelpies, and the Bean-nighe.

One side of them were cutthroats, scoundrels, and raiders,
The other descendants from the Pict kings and slayers of bears,
Warriors one and all,
Rebels and criminals too.

Fleeing to a new world,
Given different names,
Settling down in the land of Quakers and holy men,
Where war would call once again,
Spilling blood in a civil war of a different kind.

Trickling water through a brook,
Down from the mountain and into a stream,
Gently carving into the land a tale,
A sad yet happy tune for all to hear.

Mountains to those not from here,
Hills to its inhabitants,
Safeguarding those who live here from the poisons of the modern world,
Locking away it's people in a small slice of time.

Moonshine is made here,
Where the big bucks wander,
A place where the turkey, elk, and illusive bobcat roam free,
Where the hawks, warblers, and grouse abound,
Bears trundle,
And hill folk dance and sing.

Home is where the heart is,
They say,
But to me that is just not true,
Home is where the spirit lies quiet,
Sitting contently in a gentle stupor.

I pack my bags,
To travel south,
To visit where my soul will lie quiet and still,
Where the people are full of life and the land is quiet,
Nestled in Appalachian mountains and hills.

It is a land that borders near-untained wilderness,
An hours drive from anywhere truly uprooted by man,
Where the morning's sun is greeted by smoke-like pillars,
That billow up from the mountains ascents.

It is a land of shine and fiddles,
Of guitars, trucks and barns.
Where your neighbor is your cousin,
His neighbor is their brother,
And his neighbor is his Ma and Pa.

It's a land of quiet reflection,
Far removed from the roar of highways and cities,
Where if the world were to end,
It would take weeks to know,
And would be bo real loss in the end.

The people are hard,
But gentle at the same time,
Always willing to give a helping hand,
They have tales to tell if you've got the time,
I recommend bending your ear and listen.

It's mountains are steep and treacherous,
Infested with snakes, ticks, and venomous spiders galore,
But watch your step, make the ascent,
And it's views are worth the trouble.

The food there is genuine,
Made with love and care,
Whilst simple it makes its taste so much more true,
If you aren't careful you'll gain 30 pounds,
On this hearty holler food.

And the sky,
Oh the sky,
May be my favorite part of all,
The bluest blues,
The whitest whites,
It's sunsets a tear inducing menagerie of reds purples, pinks, yellows, and golden hues.

As the last bag is packed, and my car is gassed,
I ache for my spirits home already,
For it is someplace I can never visit often enough,
A place where I am most lackadaisical and happy.

For in the hollers loving embrace I am sheltered from the pollution and dread of man,
Where for but a fleeting moment,
Frozen in time,
I can feel like a kid again.

Creed Bratton strumming along,
Singing the oral history of his hometown,
The place from which he departed to embark on his great adventure.

I sit here in the dining room,
Looking contempitave at near empty pack,
A lone cigarette lays a little worn,
The last defender in it's paperboard Alamo,
I ponder at it for a moment before lighting up.

The guitar resembling the chugging of a train,
Rumbling down Californian rails.

Even the time changed resembles the screeching of brakes upon those rails,
Upon those iron horses,
Before chuggin' along once again,
Tempo and mood increasing once again,
Before passing by and roars to the horizon,
Chasing the setting sun,
It's sounds disappearing eventually into the passing wind.

Draper's voice is lulling me to sleep on this night,
Singing an old gospel that brings water to my eyes,
Bringing forth memories that are warm and bright,
Along with the realization of just how fast time flies.

My darling son,
I write this one for you.

You're so far away,
Still so many months from meeting you,
And meeting the man you will be.

I can't wait to see your first steps,
To hear your first words,
To take you trick-or-treating the first time,
To absolutely embarrass you with my antics.

Will you like music like me,
Will you be as sharp-witted as your mother,
Will you be as much of a hellion as your old man,
Will you be as ambitious as the woman I've come to love so much.

What will be your favorite sport,
if you like them at all,
What will your greatest fear be,
And how can I help you conquer it?

You know you already have scared the living **** out of me approximately times,
And that made your mother laugh each time,
I swore to her that I wouldn't be a worrier,
But we both knew I was lying.
How many more heart-stopping moments do you have planned for me, I wonder?

How many times do you think I'm too strict,
That I make your life unfair,
That I just need to chill a little bit?
How many times do you think I'm a stick in the mud,
Not knowing I was a steely-eyed warrior,
Who traded in his sword for a swaddle blanket,
And his bullets for a Babybjorn,
Doing so with a smile on my face.

I look to the far future,
Where I see you in a suit,
Some of your best friends by your side,
Nervously awaiting the arrival of your bride,
In this glimpse you glance over at me,
And you'll see I am so happy.

Looking further,
You'll be in scrubs,
Perhaps with an unshed tear in your eye,
And tell your mother and eye that your own son is born,
That my son,
Will have my heart so filled with pride.

But that is so far away,
My Boy,
And for now I just await to hold you,
And shed a tear of my own.

My son,
We can't wait to show you how wonderful this world can be.

Eddie Vedder's voice is raised barely above a whisper,
He's saying his goodbyes to society,
Wishing for them the best,
But saying ultimately he didn't belong with them.

I felt like that once,
When I was embarking as a fresh faced kid,
To fulfill his dream of serving his country,
As an infantryman,
And when I arrived and as I was trained,
It felt like I was finally in my element,
With people who thought like me,
Our Drill Sergeants were the perfect example of what we could be if we applied ourselves,
Our First Sergeant; an example of what we could do if we pushed ourselves past what we were traditionally taught wasn't possible,
Our commander was the kind of individual that you whisper about,
A Captain with a very inked out past,
An old man playing a game where men tended to die young.
Walking within the vicinity of such individuals was akin of walking amongst giants.
We as recruits all started out without much confidence,
What little we did have,
Was false confidence.
These men taught us what it meant to square up and get nose to nose with a whole load of nasty with a **** eating grin on your face.
We were immortal.

I sit here alone years later,
About to start the next chapter in my life,
When it dawned on me.
We knew each other when we were immortal,
We're not immortal anymore.

I walk on,
For I'm the only one on the street,
All is quiet at 1:35 a.m.,
As I try to clear my head.

Afraid of failure,
Afraid of the walls,
As they slowly close in,
Constricting tighter and tighter,
Running out of options,
Running out of air.

I will try to not kid myself as I begin to pick up pace,
That smooth voice still pouring out at the back of my mind,
My pace picks up yet again.

A trot,
Could barely count as a run,
But the slight relief of the gentle breezes is all I need to spun me further,
Faster and faster,
As the tempo picks up a second time.

It's all I can do to keep it below a sprint,
As my lungs start feeling dry and hot,
My heart ratcheting it's beat up to a whole nother level.

The walls start to fall away as I finally break free,
If only for a little while longer.

The Wanderer meanders west,
Atop his horse,
Topping the dusty mountain crest,
Pulling his steed to a gentle stop,
To give him the moments necessary to process what he sees.

A great forest aflame,
A creature most glorious and terrifying,
Charging up mountains and sending up great pillars of flame.

Tidal waves of orange and red dash themselves upon these ridges,
Sending a mist of super-heated embers down the other side,
Beginning the process anew.

Great billowing towers of black smoke that roils and is in a constant state of flux,
Losing form as it ascends miles high.
Such beautiful and glorious destruction that could ever be seen,
An apex predator that could not be tamed.

The Wander turns his horse around and meanders back,
Changed from this experience,
The likes of which would never be seen again.

It hits you like a semitruck,
One that is loaded with lead weights and ******* bees,
It's like a switched is flipped and your mind is transported to an earlier time,
To when you were younger and more brash,
When the calm flame that resides within you rages into a towering inferno that threatens to burn anything that stands in its way.

Past goals that you once thought impossible to reach now seem trivial,
And that you can now blow through them like their made of wet tissue paper.

Your hands start to shake like nothing else,
Not from fear,
But excitement,
It's like all your senses crank up to 11 and beyond,
Everything is crisp and vivid.

You're ******,
Your not sure at what,
But you know you're ******,
And it's not a spatula anger,
It's the kind of rage that people are wary of,
For it's one that is tempered by calculated thoughts and an even rationale.

The real dangerous kind.

You need to get up,
To do something,
Anything.

But sometimes the inferno will burn everything up,
Leaving only smoldering ruins and devestation.

I never tried to describe the thrill of inspiration,
Let me try it here,
Maybe you'll understand,
That odd sensation of a muse that strikes with such a odd sense of glee.

A shudder at the lower back,
Like when you get a chill,
Tingling in the thighs,
Like you just squatted 400 lbs.
Accompanied by a shiver in the knees.

A quiver along the shoulders,
Like you're riding on some great wave.

Where do these words come from?
Are they from my heart or my brain?
Do the flow forth from some great vault hidden away in my soul,
Or are they plucked freely from the wind?

Where is it that our inspiration comes from,
From the world around us,
Or from within?
Can our natures influence the world around us,
Or is it that nature that influences us?

The spider was patient,
It had all the time in the world,
For it had been around since time immemorial,
So it lied there in the woods,
Waiting for its opportunity.

The child was curious,
As all children are at that age,
As to why the sky was blue,
Why the grass was green,
And why wasn't he allowed to go into the woods alone.

The inevitable inevitability happened.

So the child went out alone one day,
To see what was all the fuss,
And it was then that the spider took the child into it's awaiting arms,
To be yet another tribute to the forest.

Mediocre rhythms,
Mediocre rhymes,
Where is it this road heads?
Take me to where the Mary Jane grows like dandelions,
Where the magic mushrooms lay thick like a carpet on the floor.

Who gives a **** where the future lay,
20 years down the line,
'Sept what regrets one has about not livin,
Grabbing the tail of the tiger of electronic sonic sound,
Flying through the airwaves so fast it makes your cheeks flap like a 90's cartoon.

BREATH! SCREAM! SHOUT FOR THE LOVE OF ******* GOD!!!
Give it your all and leave your reservations at the wayside,
Cuz we aint stopping to ****.

Spend your nights as an outlaw,
Fly by the seat of your pants,
Give a down-on-his-luck feller the coat off your back,
He sure as hell needs it more,
Curse up a storm,
Yell up to God,
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!

Call me manic,
Call me a *******,
Call me a brilliant man,
Carry my cold corpse to a pine box and dump it in,
Cuz I plan on saying ******* to the funeral industry,
Let the worms and the bugs have my bag of meat,
Carry on and sing a song,
Have a shot and chug a beer in my memory,
Sing a drunken song and cheer.

You said the other day that you saw people as puzzles,
That each person was a whole is a picture comprised of pieces,
Each piece a picture all it's own.

You said that you liked the picture my puzzle showed,
Multifaceted and colorful,
Each bringing in new prospectives that you didn't see before.

But that little monster that resides in the corner of my mind wonders,
Will you always think the same?
What about the pieces that are waterlogged and warped,
The ones destroyed by rough handling,
Careless placement leaving them bent and even torn?

I know that you'll say that it doesn't matter,
And perhaps that may be true,
But I know there are some pieces that even I don't like,
They're ugly, repugnant, and even grotesque.

But I shall place my trust in you,
a fragile piece of my heart,
as you become a piece all you're own.

In time perhaps you'll become that final piece,
that makes my picture whole

Cresting the peak of the mountain,
The Wanderers stopped their wagon for a moment,
To take in the glory before their eyes,
Great mountains all around,
The bases of these monoliths of time shrouded by clouds and mist,
Hiding their true size,
When the clouds were shot through by the wind,
It completed their effect,
It was as if the mountain peaks were islands,
Protrutions from an ocean of soft white.

They had traveled for days,
Their horses sore,
Treacherous was their way,
But the reward could not be ignored,
A prize of knowledge and lore,
Pieces of puzzles that they needed,
For solving it had evaded both of them for so long.

Their reasons for answers were different,
Brought together by chance,
But it was as if their fates intertwined,
Curling around one another like creeping vines until they would not, could not be separated.

One was an individual formed from facts and an urge to adventure,
Away from family for the first real time,
She was the summation of the terrerial,
Things as solid as the wooden boards beneath her feet,
The other was formed by instinct and an urge for purpose,
Experienced in the world and it showed,
He was the summation of the ethereal,
The abstract, like the legends and folk tales of old.

The fought for different reasons, yet the end goals were the same,
Two individuals bound down a path of hardships and toil,
Trials and tribulations that neither could imagine was in store.

But it was something both knew could be conquered,
For touched by fate were they,
As they got their horses going again,
They descended down the path,
Into the mists,
Into the horror and unknown.

Call in the kids from the yard,
Won't you love?
Supper is ready,
And the table is set.

Our children run in,
Excited to tell us all about their day,
Of school subjects they're excited about,
And all the new friends they met.

You look at me with an amused look in your eyes,
When they complain about their troubles,
As if it will be the hardest thing they'll ever face,
And I smirk too, amused as well but also filled with melancholy.

I open my eyes,
And I look over to see you sleeping next to me,
And I look back at the dream I just had.

No,
Not a dream,
Just a glimpse into the future,
Just around the bend...

How much of a difference,
Does a few hours make?

In the grand scheme that is time,
A few hours can be both nothing and everything,
Windows of opportunity,
Constantly opining and closing,
With just a few ticks of the clock,
Some never to return.

When our lives are a summation of these things,
They seem to take on a new importance, no?

One door closes,
Another opens,
A labyrinth of opportunities and pitfalls,
With no guide to possibly be found.

So take a moment,
Collect yourselves,
There are a million opportunities more,
And fear not the unknown,
My friend,
It is the recognizable that should be feared.

John Denver is my guest on the porch,
Gently playing off to my right,
As we take in the morning before us.

Sky a spectrum of pastel blues and gentle oranges,
Clouds upon the horizon a regal purple,
Water rippling gently forward,
To lap upon the pebbled shore.

Bald eagle perched up in his nest,
Surveying this beautiful land,
An avian king of the lake,
His stance is one of grace and imperious splendor.

Drive hard through the night we did,
To arrive at our perfect morning scene,
To leave behind the abject horror of the concrete and rebar forests,
To this place where God would go to fish.

Gently swaying on this bench,
Listening to Denver's crowning tune,
Everything feels just right,
In the land of lakes so blue.

Can you give me a moment to gather my thoughts,
and let me know if I'm wrong,
but are there just some days where everything just seems to click?

Where the turbulent winds of the world calm for a second,
Realization comes in that allows you take stock,
and let's you come to the conclusion that things aren't as bad as they seem?

We're on a trail of time,
Spanning such a cosmic range of distance,
and that we get so wrapped up in the here and now,
we simply forget that the trail doesn't just up and stop around the next bend?

Hard times end,
Storms come to a stop,
and the sun will arise once again,
The body dies,
but the soul travels on,
and the world rotates again.

Clocking in,
Trudging on,
Grinding the nose down to the bone,
Clock out,
Et cetera,
Ad Nauseam,
Goes the routine of the last of the Blue-Collar poets.

Can't think of words,
Too dog-tired to think of rhyming schemes,
Too sore for clever entendres,
Too broke to focus on fixing verses, stanzas, and metrics.

Thinking of the too-long day,
And the too-long day to come,
Fighting for a long shot of a good-night's sleep,
For a glimmer of a decent day off,
Clawing for a decent day's pay.

Sweeping up the metal shavings,
Spattered with hot, hot grease,
Bones broken by falling boxes,
Maimed by unsafe machines.

Keep the Blue-Collar poet in mind,
As you operate your computers,
Sitting in your White-Collar dream,
For their fledging numbers dwindle,
That will never get the chance at your dream

When I first moved out of my parents place,
And got an apartment with two of my buddies,
They asked why whenever I wanted to relax,
I'd have a beer and listen to music,
Why not play video games or watch TV?

I looked at them and remembered why,
It's what my grandpa would do when my grandparents babysat me ,
He'd be sitting in his chair, chewing some tobacco and listening to the radio,
Big Bands blaring out of the tinny speaker,
Enjoying the shade of the screened-in mud room.
And when I was a little older,
My dad use to sit out on the back porch after a hard day's work doing landscaping,
Nursing a cold beer and be listening to his records, which he had set up right by the backdoor, it's screen door allowing the sound to pass through with ease.
Sometimes Led Zeppelin,
Sometimes Rush,
Sometimes it was a band of some local talent that was all the rage for a week back in 1974.

Now it was my turn, even years after the revelation, that it was their way to decompress,
A reprieve from the days struggles.
For me it's a dining room that has a sliding glass door that opens out into the back yard,
Where I can play songs of my choice,
Either from albums I've gleaned from record shops over the years,
Or CDs burned , a gift from one person or another that everyone seems to collect over the years.

I'm almost out of smokes,
I realize,
This thought halting the ruminations I was just having,
I need to also choose a new record or CD,
Maybe getting a drink wouldn't be too bad either.

12 jobs,
9 cars,
78 Summers,
5 partners,
Such odd yet specific numbers.

Grains of sand through an aperture,
Tick tick tick goes the pocket watch,
Tock tock tock goes the grandfather clock,
Bing **** goes the church tower,
Cookoo goes the antiquated clock.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days.
Glimpses, figments, memories, experiences.

Snippets, songs, albums, discographies.
EP, LP, Concepts, compilations.

Take a breath and see what you can,
For here one minute,
Gone the next,
For the Law of Averages is the way things have always gone,
And the way it's always went.

People think our legacies have to be based on wealth, ideals, and land.
When in fact it's our instincts.

Du Chene and La Plante preach through the wires,
As I light up a smoke,
Watching the candle gently sway ever so,
As these two bear witness to the making of legends.

Personal courage,
To tell one's personal tale,
To cast off the societal thirlage,
And wander to where the predators wail.

They sing in perfect synchronisation,
The country twang of Du Chene a contrast to La Plante's,
Her vocals heartbrakingly beautiful,
As if the entire swath of water that is the Mississippi were as smooth as glass,
With the ability to turn as haunting as the memory of a lost love.

The skill to keep your wits about you,
Are needed in lands such as these,
And if you survive your legends will grow,
Gaining momentum to match the distance you travel and the tasks you complete,
Traveling with you,
Like the sensation of stain in a long healed wound,
That occasionally ghosts along the area.

That after your gone and long faded, Your travels will live on,
A wraith along those old and now overgrown trails,
To morph into something almost alive,
With each retelling of your tale.

Winding down their tune,
The music takes a calm tone once again,
Like how you imagined the eye of a hurricane as a kid,
Slowly winding up again a tad as if to hint at the struggles ahead,
They sing of where they wish to be,
And their willingness to bear the brunt of their tasks to reach their promised haven.

Their first gig,
Where they were headliners as opposed to being the opening act.

It had been a couple of months since they had formed,
And a couple of times they had almost lost their way.
But find their sound they did,
Improving all the while,
They had transformed into a solid opening band,
But no more,
It was their turn to shine.

5 minutes out,
The jitters were settling in,
The Frontman took a swig from his luke warm beer,
Trying to calm his shaky nerves.

The Bassist in the Drummer shared an amused look,
For they had been there before.

It was time,
The stage lights for the place burning bright,
And it is here that they tear into their first song with gusto.
Heartrendingly honest and raw,
For the Frontman it was a releasing of demons,
That held him back in the past,
Their hooks in our protagonist's flesh being ripped free,
The weight being lifted from his shoulders

The Frontman was finally set free.

Actually got some sleep,
Surprise surprise to all,
The thunderstorm raged throughout the night,
The clap accompanying the flash so loud it would awake others,
But it I find relaxing,

I awoke to it being dark outside,
Which I found odd, considering when I awoke dawn had passed an hour ago.
The clouds so dark that it would cancel the sunlight.

When I was a child my parents took our family to Florida,
To see for the first time ocean and sand.
One day it was to storm in the afternoon,
The front coming in from the gulf,
So right after lunch we went to the beach,
To watch the storm come in.

Clouds of ashen gray and inky black,
Towering miles high,
All you could see was this wall of nature's wrath, stretching as far as you could see north and south.

I had been awestruck by the power of the world's forces,
Of the way the proverbial slate could be wiped clean,
But for now I'll just sit here and smoke,
Watching the early morning rain.

The call went out,
The people,
They answered,
For it was something they all heard in their heart of hearts,
The outcry of "ENOUGH!!!"
Enough of the tyranny that was the monotony of daily life,
Like puppets on strings,
Or the marching on of drones.

The call went out,
Both far and wide,
And the people,
They answered.

In the blink of an eye the lightning flew across the ocean,
Flying far and wide.

I think back to 5 years ago,
To those days in northern New York,
Where my life felt like some coming-of-age tale,
Coming into my own.

Each day was its own chapter,
Shenanigans and hijinks,
Bar room brawls and short-lived loves,
Drunken tattoos and crutching on snow 2 feet deep,
Barracks parties and field exercise tomfoolery,
Oh, how it all seems like such a dream now.

Fleeing from authorities,
Cackling with buddies as we disappeared into the crowd to make it to the next bar,
Showing up to work on Monday with a recently broken nose, blackened eye, and ****-eating grin,
With my buddies sporting similar signs,
Our First Sergeant taking stock of these injuries,
And walking onward with a little smirk.

Walking through Watertown,
Feeling the age of that military town,
Filled with secondhand stores and oddities,
My God such a surreal dream.

Stuck in bed,
Knee wrapped up in bandages,
Protecting all the stitches beneath,
Looking out the winter at the blizzard outside,
Craving a working leg more than the percocet,
And knowing that the dream was coming to an end.

Laying here in our bed,
I've never felt more alone,
You once gave me comfort and love,
Now anger and scorn.

I long for songs I've never heard,
For places I've never known,
I long for people I've never met,
For events I'll never go.

I long for a 5 hour cut of "The Thin Red Line",
The red dust of a northwestern Australian road,
For a red streaked sunset at a burning man,
An applause from the crowd lauding my accomplishments.

Give me my peace,
That I had so few years ago,
Give me back my confidence,
Give me back my home.

I long for my place in the world,
I long for not feeling like the fool.

It zips forward and past,
Through and around,
Tick Tock goes the hazy clock,
Apples decay to fuzzy and shriveled husks,
Beside blooming lilies.

Just five and a half years,
Transformation in the oddest of ways,
arriving bitter and broken,
Moving along this next path as excited and improved.

Momentum gaining,
like breaking into a run downhill,
where any moment's hesitation brings devastation and disorientation,
Heartbeat hammering from a stone solid 50 to 105,
is it anticipation that drives this acceleration.

Ecstasy of movement and insanity,
like feather brushes of fae-like intent,
getting lost in fogs of spirituality and philosophy.
Brutal momentum of guitar strings being finger picked,
Psychically projecting images of brutal revenge and bitter grief

Madness? No
******....

What are you, a cop?

Missing a step now,
the stumble turns into a tumble,
as the green of the grass flash past, as does the blue-white of the sky. Blue then green, blue then green,
blue green,blue green, blue green,
bluegreen, bluegreen, bluegreen
bluegreenbluegreenbluegreenbluegreen.

The hill turned out to be a cliff,
stomach roiling as I fall,
into some fantastic and manic vision below.

It's late out,
Michael Trent and Carry Ann Hearst are spinning me a tale,
Of which they constructed around the end,
Of two Musicians,
Crossing paths many a time on the road of life,
To only find out their paths soon merge.

Now ain't that interesting?
To think of those we meet at crossroads,
Only to find out soon enough they are the ones you come to rely on most.

Crossroads,
So many crossroads,
To weave a pattern much like a tapestry,
Where do your crossroads lead?

Neil Young is on now,
A song written in a time that he was homesick,
In lands far away,
Even though he had no home to go back to.

A place where it's lush and green.

There's a Russian word for an ache like that,
It's called tocka,
A great longing and anguish,
With nothing to long for.

The clacking of metal as components are slid into place,
The precision machining of the parts would make a novice go nuts,
But this isn't my first rodeo,
Using the buttstock to hammer out a pin that has a tendency to stick,
Then the feedtray cover is freed.

The components are checked up on,
Scraped free of carbon if any is found,
With a homemade tool that works better than any you could purchase.

CLP is applied lightly,
An old rag used to clean up any excess liquid.

With the same amount of precision and care is used to assemble her,
Piece by piece,
A symphony of moving parts and deft finger movements.

Functions check complete,
This Lady is ready to dance.

They took you off life support,
The day the willow flies died,
I went back to work,
Finished my shift,
But to tell the truth I felt hollow inside.

You were already brain dead,
The doc's said,
That you wouldn't be in any pain,
But all that was running through my head,
Was memories of disturbingly good meatloaf,
And looking forward to you birthday cakes made from scratch,
Every single year.

I thought of the horror my mother must be going through,
Watching her life long friend,
Tube down her throat,
Having to watch her pass.

Eyes stinging from loss,
Anger bubbling deep inside,
Need to go get drunk,
Smash some ****,
That's a healthy way to deal with it....

Right?

Your raspy laugh, joining into with my mom's fit of guffaws,
At some dumb inside joke,
That all started when you two were still in grade 5.


I get home to the apartment,
Bring the whiskey to my lips,
It's frostbite burn making it's way down my throat,
To pool,
Swirl,
And radiate out,
Making me numb and glacial cold.

It was so unexpected,
That's the rub,
To blindside us,
To make this hurt so raw,
But it's the fact that you were one of the TRULY good ones,
That's what chaps me most of all.

One of those special breed,
That makes you want to shout up at God,
To unleash your grief, anger, and dare I say it, hatred?
To spit in the face of some divine plan?

It poured down though,
A downward deluge so bad it's as if it's Him confirming,
That he is saddened by having to do it too.

She told me as they wheeled you out of your hospital room,
The staff lined the hall,
As they wheeled you to that surgical suite,
Where you were to perform your last physical act of kindness in the world,
To donate your lungs and and kidney to people who desperately needed them,
And that makes me tearfully wonder too.

Will they ever know of you,
Your gentle nature and generosity,
Loving demeanor and benevolent heart,
To help all those that you knew?
....
That they took you off life support,
They day the willow flies died,
Where the sun was bright,
It poured down lake Erie,
When the angel trumpets bloomed.

Gentle brushes upon a strong back,
Clouds of dirt going airborne with each pass,
A metaphorical cleansing of my own soul parallels the cleaning of the coat.

Gentle eyes that peer past barriers,
Caring not for the ****** past that is seen behind the walls,
But instead focusing on the soul that built them,
Perhaps there's some good there?

Scraping muck and awful from ***** hooves,
Shedding spiritual mud and dirt from crevices in my heart,
Making it lighter with each pass.

Tack is put on,
The gentle creak of leather and tinkling of metal buckles and clasps,
Tightening down violent thoughts and keeping them secured.

Bit gently slipped in,
Caring being taken to ensure a comfortable fit,
Control being given back to my life.

A step into a stirrup and with a swing of a leg being settled upon the back of this beautiful creature,
Ears tilted back,
Listening to her rider.

Peace,
Contentment,
Healing.

I see you there,
My sweet warm spring rain,
Coming 'round that worn & weathered bend again,
My sweetness,
My Queen.

Glimpses of you,
Carried upon warm gusts,
Through the torrent of winter sleet,
Tempered by grace and kindness,
Making me see that sweet morning dew once again.

Making my head swim,
Sweat breaking from my brow,
Rivulets caused by the intensity of your love,
Matching any summer haze.

You carry forth a great message,
Of coming life in blooms,
Rather then heralding Fall's doom and impending gloom.

So sing to me my May Queen,
With your soft words of gentle wood,
The sounds of supreme love and understanding,
Calling forth in me everything good.

Eddie Vedder's voice is the one singing on the song,
But the words were written by Otis Redding,
When he was out experiencing the world,
Contemplating his future after R&B.

You ever had experiences like that?
Where all the curtains are pulled away,
And you realize you need to plan your next step.

Have you planned yours?

Alone a tired man writes,
The scratches of pencil on paper his only companion in the room,
Writing down his experiences,
Hoping someone will read them one day.

His shoulders are slightly slumped,
As if weighted down by all he has seen and done,
A physical presence that never leaves him,
A great yet terrible burden he bared.

His once -sharp eyes are slightly dulled,
As if to filter the things he now sees,
Through the tint that is the past.

His hair is grey,
The dark hair he once had long since changed,
A new grey hair with every lesson learned,
Lessons he writes down.

Scars can be easily seen on his tan skin,
Traversing from his gnarled fingers,
Up across the backs of his hands and disappearing up past his elbows,
Hidden by his rolled up sleeves,
A roadmap of past knicks, cuts, and mistakes.

The scratching continues in the room,
With pauses only for him to put a filled piece of paper into the growing stack,
Drawing a blank one and continue writing once again.

Oh how I wonder,
How Napoleon felt on that ship,
Seeing the coast of his beloved France recede into the distance,
Never to be seen again?

How did it feel,
When the Emperor stared out,
Upon the ocean and horizon
The salted spray that kissed St Helena,
Also kissing his brow?

In those last days,
Did he recall his beloved France?
Did he visit his men and subjects,
Did he see it in his mind?

In those final hours,
Did he hear the people chant,
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!
Did he hear his army sing Le Chant du Départ one final time?

Upon the arrival of that grande finale,
The final moment,
The End,
Did he think of François and Léon as much as Josephine?
Did he feel that laurel-wreath upon his head one last time?

Was he scared?