The Imagination is Stronger than the Sword

The only limit we have is our imagination,

although it's hard to believe it when you are bleeding.

I am not going to tell you to imagine that the sword did not cut

but you can imagine that you will heal

stronger with the scar.

Country Roads

Driving down the country road, the engine rattled. It was the middle of the night, and the corn on either side of the car seemed to be growing taller the further down I went. The gravel was white, and led the way. The headlights shone on, but beyond them was inky darkness. I knew I was coming up to the bridge. My heart leapt as the white owl shot up out of the tall grass, its wingspan seemed to be 8 feet wide, it was like an airplane hovering for a moment in slow motion, then gone in an instant. Breathtaking. I drove on, now acutely aware that I was just another animal in nature. 

I pulled up to the old blue farmhouse, and the light was on. It glowed like a lightning bug in the middle of the pitch darkness. When I turned off the engine, all was quiet. When I opened the car door, a cacophony of crickets pierced my ears.

Inside, the place was empty. The clock on the wall seemed so loud, as I drifted off to sleep I could have swore it was a gypsy jazz guitarist, scraping on the strings, performing right next to me.

Ripped from the Notebook April 2020

 "Lockdown has given me what no other situation, other than death, could give me--freedom from my own bullshit."

Toy Necklace

There are a million miles of guitar string

between me and you, the memory of Nashville, and my broken teenage heart

what a fool I was, and not even a good fool

not even a crying in a beer fool

just a grasshopper type fool

then decades later--I thought I met a master

he wore a dark hood

and talked of Draconian things 

and I thought he must be the king of the underworld

or maybe the mountain

and his harsh words surely meant he knew it all

no one knows it all

and it seems silly now

like a toy necklace.

Ricochet

I am the echo of a madman in the subway

running down the marble, the metal and the steel

curving at the corner

falling at an angle

rising to the archway

reverberating in the shadows

Seen and Unseen: Study of Time

The guitar had been in a closet or on the floor, it was beat up pretty bad;

time had taken its toll on it, the same way a mountain would wear away

and the rocks would crumble, slowly over time.

The old woman was at the park every day for a year, feeding pigeons

in her blue parka.

Then, one day, she wasn't.

With physical things, time wears them all away.

My feelings and emotions whirred inside of me like a tilta-whirl

and platinum planes of ideas and moods broke apart

relationships severed the knife of distrust cut each rope

the broken pieces of the plate lay shattered on the floor

the bruises were on the skin, the stitches were in place

what can heal all of this?

With the unseen, time heals all wounds, time brings distant things together, and time completes the whole.

Time takes, and time gives.

The Tea and the Toil

The tea is hot and steaming, refreshing yet scalding

I take a moment in time, to embrace what is only mine

this moment, this tea, this me.

The toil is everywhere, it is in my bones

My hands ache and my back aches and my feet ache

and my head hurts and my arms are sore and my toes are even sore.

I build and move, I shove and push, I twist and turn, I slant and fix.

I toil for others, and jobs I did not invent,

yet these jobs invent me, I become someone new

based on 

what I do.

The Puddle

In the still waters of the seventh lake

her stoic face is 

glass-like under the stars

reflections of the magic heat

glow in a thousand twinkling seeds

meanwhile

my feet move 

fast, the passing cars

splash as neon gasses and huddled masses

push on through

it was just a moment that I saw her

because I stopped to look.

Perfect Snow

This snow is the perfect kind of snow.

It is fluffy, fun and magical.

It bites my face gently

making me feel like I am a cat

with whiskers

sitting by a fireplace.

Another View of Peace

Blast me to high heaven, the feathers on this bird are shining 

The light is screaming in my mind

light is the presence of something

darkness is the absence of light.

Cram before the exam, the stripes on the tiger are bending

The jungle is screaming in my mind

Terror is the presence of something

Peace is the absence of terror.

As the tiger rustled through the branches, they quivered, sending the bird above high into the air.

Banging at the Door

It's beeping, it's driving me

Keeping it's wide and then

Comfort here and again

explosion

forgot to lock it.