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.

I sent you
A text

And immediately
Imagined

The screen Of.
Your phone in.

The reflection of
your bright
beautiful eyes.

when I wake up at 3 am and go for a run I feel like I am withering away. Maybe it's because I hold my breath the entire time?  I'm just trying to find myself again.  I don't know what haunts me more, his face or my face saying goodbye to me; vacationing in some crevasse of some mountain no one has ever been to.  I bet that's where all those girls go.  That's where we all are.  Laying on our backs all iced up and empty.  like some sort of book club for ripped up woman.  I wonder how filled up that mountain is?  How full of empty women?  I bet no one lives there, the wailing must be unbearable.

Off on a tangent
My fingers in transient
Clasping and clutching
sensing and touching-
While they still can,
Before our crossroads split
And exigency omits
That peculiar feeling of familiarity
And all absconds that impression of clarity
Then it is goodbye
With all relics of that high
All remnants of our contingence
Because our futility is insistent

Justin Chancellor is blowing my mind,
His timing as he hammers on his bass,
Setting the tone in the picture Maynard James Keenan paints as he rips through the events,
A great separation between sects of the faith,
The horrid fate of a monolith,
To crumble and burn,
Alone and lost,
Adrift a raft of ashes,
Floating out to sea.

The taste of tobacco, tar, and ash is too much at that moment,
I stub out the smoke,
Taking a swig of cheap beer,
To wash down the rancid taste.

The song changes again,
Keenan belting out about his dark passenger,
Making all his victories taste of ash,
A most dreaded specter indeed.

My mouth is no longer bone dry,
I really need to quit,
Trust me.