In Rome,
There is silence.
Church bells lay still,
Once grand city,
Echoing the trills of black birds.
Their song, a lost cry of those who died.
In the deathly silence,
Of the plague.

There once was a man from Kilkenny
Who purchased a pipe for a penny,
     Then filled it with wacky
     And woolly tobacky,
And smoked himself dumb at four:twenny.

They'll hurt you darling,
But only if you let them.
They'll burn you down,
But only because you're beautiful.
They'll mock your song,
But only for the fact they've never known their own sound.
In time darling, they will love you as well.

The first time around,
We didn't plan,
We talked in tomorrows,
Because we knew it would end.

Yet on our second go,
We planned it all out,
Now we talk in years,
Because I only have to wait seven more,
Before I can put a ring on your pretty finger,
Though for now that's fantasy.

If you come home,
You'll find me far from sleep,
Staring out the window counting sheep.

Breath stilled from stalking memories,
All of the joyous laughter we once held dear,
Now, to me, your ghost is near.

Yet, still,
If you choose to come home,
Do not wake me, let me rise from bed,
Realizing I no longer am alone.

I play the gora,

mother is silent, she sees --


that I don't hear her.

half of you remember cd’s
and half of you don’t
either way,
here it goes;

back then, I was living under rules so strict
it was almost impossible for someone to live.

no matter how much I tried to hide
or stay out of the way,
and no matter how much I tried to help out
and do my part;

I could never meet their standards.

what was good was never acknowledged
and what was bad was over-exaggerated.

basic existence was a crime
and the consequence was
always a long and
drawn-out
lecture

and as unsettling as
the home life was
I had my car,
the outside world,
and the hunger for
mischievous adventure.

and so, staying at home
was the last of my options
as I ventured out with no plan in mind
and a whole lot of time on my hands.

now, someone could easily get bored
with this formula;
I mean, you only could go out
to eat three times a day,
you could only visit friends
when they were around
and going shopping
was only a temporary fix
if you had money to burn
but this formula could also
be very interesting
if you’re creative enough
and you had
the knack,
the niche,
the crave
for something.

and so, I found myself traveling
to A LOT of local record stores.
I didn’t care how far away they were,
as long as it was reasonable within
the vicinity, if I knew about it,
I was there: Kiss The Sky,
Rediscovered Records,
Record Breakers,
etc., etc., etc.

I was always on the hunt for something obscure,
something no one else had and to me, it was like
gem or a hidden treasure I had unearthed upon the world.

my fixation for music was growing
as mammoth as the variety in my
cd collection.

music was becoming the sole foundation
to the underpinnings of my necessity:
it’s what kept me alive, out of trouble,
it was there when friends were not,
it fulfilled those empty spaces
it quenched my thirst for
wanting something more out of life.

I spent most of time, driving around, popping in one cd,
listening to each note, each lyric from beginning to end
before switching it out for another.

Lee Ving, Richard Hell, Darby Crash, Henry Rollins
all spoke out to me more with one verse
than all those lectures I had endured
from my patriarchs.

my cd book had become quite impressive
to my other bevy of like-minded friends.

and then it was stolen.

which crushed me.
but what’s done was done and
I had to move on, rebuild

and at seventeen dollars a pop,
my bank account was diminishing quite rapidly
as I tried to gain back what was rightfully mine.

I dreamt about becoming a thief
or a drug dealer to support my
addiction to music.

but not long after,
I had built a body of music
more vigorous with stout
than its previous
ancestor.

of course, there were a few gems
I still haven’t recovered
to this day from that incident
but thats beside the point.

the point is,
my folks may have incarcerated
my soul with diction and delivery
while they hid for themselves
in the oratory of delusion,

but
music was always there;
it was alive
it ran through me
it tickled my spirit
it shook my emotions
it boosted my endorphins
it got me pumped, it got me ready
for whatever life was gonna throw at me,
to face the cliche and to face repercussions,
I knew it was going to be ok as long as there was music
to fiddle with my nerves and provide comfort within my heart.

I had a dream,
That all love was true,
That was the reason I found you.

It was on the frozen ocean,
I was in a white suit,
You were in a black dress.

We kissed patiently,
As the orchestra played it's lovely tune,
My mind began to stir,
Fading from the thought of you.

I'm gonna get me a record player,
So I can throw on jazz vinyls,
Classical symphonies, modernistic musics, raptastic tracks-ish.

So I can hear those low notes blow,
Those high notes reach, whistle, then pop,
So I can listen to all 'em tunes,
That got me thinking about you non-stop.