History Teachers

Fix your eyes to the blackboard American boy.

In spite of the awful things you’ve found,

Right up to your last breath, raise your voice.

While the echoes rain on the glory bound.

You’ll hold hands with hatred and bleed out your faith,

And leave scattered ashes laid to waste.

But it’ll come to pass, where the first are last,

There’s a peaceful place that I’ve found.

We’ll make our stand where the streets go wild.

On the jealous curse of a rival’s blood.

You’ll fall in love while the nation dies,

And watch the golden wheatfields wave goodbye.

We’ll sing eulogies from wide open mouths.

While each whisper carries from town to town.

And it’ll come to pass, where the first are last,

Oh, there’s a peaceful place that I’ve found.

Every son and daughter from ages past.

Knows the good old days aren’t coming back.

But, everything we love is united here.

May that usher you through all your years.

And it’ll come to pass, where the first are last,

There’s a holy place that we’ll find.

Francoise Hardy Gave Dylan the Cold Shoulder

"She had boyfriends by now, too. But it wasn't until Mick Jagger described her as his ideal woman that she thought of herself as attractive. Bob Dylan had shown interest, too, and honoured her in a poem scribbled on a record sleeve. He needn't have bothered."

"I had no interest in him as a man, only as an artist," she says. "He took me to his hotel room after inviting me to a show in Paris, and played me two tracks he hadn't yet released, I Want You and Just Like a Woman, but he wasn't a very attractive man, and didn't seem well in himself. Jagger was different. He is someone I could really have fallen for. Unfortunately, he was with Chrissie Shrimpton at the time."

Peruvian Valium

I might suggest virtue.
You might suggest restraint.
But we're better off inside of no certain plans that we've made.

The world keeps a' callin.
And she'll answer with no solid doubts.
Where you find your boredom, you'll find she's nowhere around.

Blue bicycles, dark neighborhoods, paths that lead downtown.
I'd venture to guess she's better than most that I've found.

The radio spouts a tale.
'Bout some drifter without a leash.
I'm inclined to wonder if they're talking about me.

The midnight's bathed in ink.
The horizon's bathed in gold.
The South is always hot, the South has always been old.

Mere goodness, wholly received, at ease like you wouldn't believe.
I hear songs from the heavens at night and they sing me to sleep.

Self-assured enlightenment,
Is common practice where we're from.
But when you peek underneath, you'll notice it all comes undone.

So call it a narrow escape,
Call out words from far away.
For strangers and outlaws, painted women and transient change.

The lines on the map have captured her, and for what it's worth.
I never said much, but I'll be damned if I waste my words.

So, keep me in mind, and I'll keep you in mine.

Age is Wisdom

They say youth is wasted on the young, and I completely agree.  The older I get, the happier I get.  I'm happy now.  I'm happy even when I'm not happy.  It's JOY.  Joy is different from happiness.  Happiness is temporary.  Joy is everlasting.  I am grateful.  Living grateful, and that's alright with me.

Self Destructive Zones

I feel like Walt Whitman's whore...
The 30's are indeed dirty.
The kickback seems right, but the walls are tighter.
Maybe you were my last chance to be happy, but maybe not.

Maybe I'm sleepwalking and tired.

This god-forsaken basketball tournament isn't making anything better,
My friends buy me drinks, tell me, "chin up."
My chin is up, but my ass is dragging.
I've been trying to fuck my way out of this broken heart.
It's not working.

So, I'll cut off my hair, and write more songs,
And tell myself I needn't worry.
"Just dedicate yourself to your passions,"
I tell myself, with an exclamation point on the end.
But all I can ever really think of is looking at her face in the middle of her bed.

Talk of Surrender

Your armored weight could level an empire.

With brittle ends all twisted in barbed wire.

I don't care what they say, nothing is fair in love and war.

All across the horizon the flags are torn.

I've set wheels in motion that can't be taken back.

Your slender frame, all wild in exile.

The assassins search, but your trail went cold while...

The film maker made his story, and now the band has their muse.

The troops are lined up and loaded, burning through their fuses.

And it hurt me.

Yeah it hurt me.

Fools rush in, but there's really no rush.

I learned that lesson.  From a fool who didn't say enough.

One who found a safe harbour in a shelter of silent grace.

With your tiny frame ... in Carolina blue.

I've set wheels in motion that have nothing to do with you.

A disarming offensive with a lack of fortitude,

And that might’ve killed me.

Yeah it might’ve killed me.

All through the ranks, there's talk of surrender.

I couldn't find it in me to finally pull the trigger,

And it killed me.  Yeah it killed me.

Spitfire

Poison Extraction

How many times have allies – visible and invisible – come to our aid when we walk our true walk.

Mile Markers

I normally keep this shit close to the vest, but if we can manage to...

1) Keep me out of the asylum.
2) Allow Seth and Dustin to remain the voices of reason.
3) Drag Richard along and key in on motivating him.

We have a real chance at turning the hot water on.

Admittance

I guess I've always known this.  Probably coming around the bases a bit late on this epiphany, but I think I've finally realized something about myself.  Everyone my age has been looking for "the one."  I've been looking for "everyone."  

I Think This About Says It All

He Did It All For a Girl, You Know

Cable-Knit

Let me see if I can demonstrate this for you.
I am not afraid.
Shine on your skin is like the goddamn rocket's red-glare,
And you are the bright bursting light.
Raining slowly down on the sweaty onlookers,
With their heads up and mouths agape.
Toothy smiles.
In awe.
Eyes glimmering and wide.

Your explosion, pulsing far away.
Pushing through with waves.
Splintering load-bearing spires.
Force with a blow back.
Nail scratch.
Exhale.
Detail.

I was watching you from a hilltop far away,
And I knew I'd know what you've known today.
That there's some unavoidable wall of sound,
All the way around,
From my guitar, to the ground.
To the heavens and bottomless hell,
Time and space unravel unbound.

The creases in your sheets are small satin highways for my fingers.
In a warm hazy dawn beyond.
With the curtains drawn.
Over downtown.
In a town so lucky and free,
Burning the legends,
Tickling me.

There are entire armories of endorphins firing,
Only on the spark of your desiring.
I guess I buried my reservations.
Maybe in my sleep because I don't remember the dig.
Somewhere beyond midnight.

This is the scenic route.

My Darling, My Sweetheart

I absolutely love this song.  It's close to perfect.

Upstage on the Front Page

Ahhh, you ought to be more careful when you're out bumping around the night.
How clever do you want to be?
Help.  Helped.  Helping.
Frown.  Frowned.  Frowning.
Drowning.  In a clockwork sea of neon lights.
Cracked up, burned out, nervous, out of mind.
If you see me coming, jump in your getaway car.
Tonight, I'm a power chord crashing.
In an augmented key.
Are you afraid of me?
Through a sonic slide, I'm earning my pride.
Cracked up, burned out, nervous, left to right.
So many girls dancing.
Wild children unhinged.
Holding sweaty drinks in the air.
Silky curves, silhouetted by sundown.
I know what that look means.
Summer's hands around our necks again in the sticky air.
Tintype, oil-swipe, reversal of the curse.
This town is the red-hot center of the whole damn universe.
Youth is at a standstill in this city.
Maybe this city has stolen me.
God, it's wonderful.
Don't ever lock me up.
I have so many things to do.
I see green, I see blue.
Smile.  Smiled.  Smiling.
I understand why Peter Pan never grew up.
Or had the inclination to.
I want to meet absolutely everyone.
Underground vigilantes.
Smirking, shit-eating grins at the Fourth Reich.
Back on the ranch, they hold their fingers on their triggers.
They cast their vote.
This lovely America.

Isn't it Pretty To Think So?

"These are the final lines of the novel, presenting Brett and Jake’s final dialogue, spoken in a taxi at the end of Chapter XIX. Jake has endured an attack by Cohn and helped Brett in her seduction of Romero. Brett has pushed Romero away and now finds herself alone again. In this concluding passage, the lament over what could have been is truly poignant, and for many this represents the novel’s finest moment. Just as Brett voices, one last time, the dream that the two of them could have had a relationship, a policeman raises his baton and symbolically signals a halt. The car’s sudden deceleration presses Brett tantalizingly close to Jake, echoing a number of similar scenes earlier in the novel, but the barrier between them is quite clear now. Moreover, Jake’s slightly cynical and bitter reply shows that he has no illusions about their relationship. He seems to appreciate the fact that a relationship between himself and Brett, if such a thing had been possible, would have been unlikely to end differently than any of her other failed relationships. Yet Jake’s subtle doubts only increase the poignancy of the novel’s closing lines. Their relationship is revealed to have been merely a beautiful dream, a dream that is now slipping away forever."


And so it is.

Good Lord

This latest move is interesting, but typical.

Stick and move.

Don't Forget That Lazarus Died Twice

It's funny when you've got nothing to sell,
How easy a woman can condemn you to rot in Hell.
Just as well.

Well, it's not for sale.
It never was.
It's mine.
I expect it always was.
And I believe it always will be.

She's sweet.
Or,
So I thought.
I'm slippery.
Can't be bought.
May not ever be caught.
In that way, anyway.

I disagree.
Wholeheartedly.
I don't "deserve to be alone."

Deserve.

What a tricky word.
A jilted woman is a tricky verb.
All action and anger.
Vicious slurs.
Hell hath no fury, is it?
Yes.
It is.

Too many movies does this.
That grand old story you just know will happen for you someday.
Everyone's tidy and nice, in their summer dresses and suits.
When the wind blows a sweet breeze,
Ground easy under their boots.
But take someone who doesn't get what they want;
Ahh, they'll show you the threads that stitch them all up.

Some kind of balcony confession.
Curtains I didn't ask for.
Befriending my friends.
Whiskey at my door.
Letters in the mail.
I get leery when you get clingy.
I get gone.
I go away.

In my perfect world, you're just there.
And it's nice.
In your perfect world,
Well...
I'm nowhere.
Can't be.
Won't be.

So arrange it some other way.
Merriment on the way to marry.
Some lucky fella to lay in a hammock with you,
And count the stars.
They're all blinking for you two,
And your love.

While you're at it,
Remember that Lazarus died twice.
And tell me now what you think about life.

So hold your tongue.
I bite back.
No way to act.
I'm sure your momma taught you that.
At least, she should've.
Maybe would've.
Could've.

Your ideas for my happiness,
They are not congruent.
One does not involve the other,
And one exists without the other.
"I just think you're going to miss out."
Well, if I do that, I guarantee you I will.
I'm doing what I'm doing so that I won't.

Don't talk to me about 6 years of yearn.
Show me your pile of ash,
Then take a peek at the villages and forests I've burned.

I believe you're missing the point.
I know what I want to a great-grand-silvery-white-blinding-diamond-tipped-razor-sharp-point.
And before I die, I'll reach for it and stretch for it and scream and cry, and flex and sweat and run and bleed, and grasp and claw and want and need, and wave and point and pull every bit of sinew and joint.

So whatever the hell was,
And whatever the hell would be,
Can rest easy in Hell.
Right where you want me.

You Were Right About The Stars

Today, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot turned 10 years old and one of my good friends died and left this world.

Cancer is an awful thing. When it can take a towering inferno of a man in the fleeting breath of a moment and rob a good family and host of friends of his considerable love and unceasing lust for life.

The intolerable sadness and infallible nostalgia I personally associate with that album can't help but dig it's fingernails a little more into my day and make me shudder at the synchronicity. Even if it is inside my own experience. It's my unique narrative and it makes me sad and thankful all in the same sweep. Things we love often meet up in unexpected ways. Even in unwelcome ways. But that is the bittersweet poem we read as a voyager in all of this. We are all connected in some way. I still believe that. I am sad today. But I am hopeful too. My friend died in an honorable way, like a true man, and Jeff Tweedy will have died written Jesus Etc. Lives well lived. Everyone truly is a burning sun. You can come by anytime you want. I still believe that. Videbo te iterum.

I Miss Someone