muse in the machine

We may well try to listen
Though curled words fall upon deaf ears
We will crawl to our convictions
Though mighty winds blow straight through pretense

Call at your will
But for will there is no place
For future arms of
Black veiled brides
Fall dead at creation’s fists

Murder to the martyrs
Who built their articulate falls
Instead let us Sing lost songs to silhouette men
Who were saviors with no need for applause

We all bellow at the muse in the machine
With her courage, her course, her disgrace
As she charges the helms of our vessels
We shall sink beneath her inexorable grip

May you be freed.
May you be freed of me.
May you be made.
Be a made man, as the muse leaves the machine

Fresh

While it’s fresh. While the wheels are still spinning, and altered states of mind are still altering, I will do this. Before it become too late, before we are past our prime, before I wake up at 7am tomorrow and realize how silly I was this night before, I will document an evening. We are at some grandiose pinnacle that will never falter. I have a gut feeling that even 20 years from now, regardless of how kind or unforgiving music business and aging will be on us, we will always look back at right this very second and realize how spectacular it was. Where on earth would you find yourself in a bar crawling with respectively talented writers, singer, musicians, and minds, and stay all night enjoying the good company and cheap bar drinks. The possibilities are endless, the inspirations overflow, and if heaven were to bless us now, in a very average and expected demeanor, it would be exactly this. Brittle hearts finding broader spectrums. Gentle minds gracing greater stages.

For as much as I complain, really, there is no other place like this one. It doesn’t matter the end result of everyone’s hard work, poverty and struggling really, cause we’re all here now. And now is truly a lovely place to be.

We trekked all the way out to Brooklyn, and didn’t make a dime. We played, lugged gear, sweated, tried, killed, died just a little bit and didn’t make enough to cover the cab ride to actually get back home. We got free drinks and good company though, and in those payments you can’t ever really complain. For that is the brilliance of such endeavors. I guess we made just enough to get us through this night and into tomorrow. And tomorrow we will start all over again, our occupations, never ending. For even in slumber such motion will consume the muse filled mind.

But we can’t complain of our occupancy any more than we can of our poverty. We welcome these things, and there is absolutely no greater place to be.

a momentary thought

The city has been passive since we got here, leaving most of it's usual burden's to rest, sleeping soundly beneath the frozen asphalt streets. I haven't paused long enough to realize that I'm actually here. These days have been nothing more than a dream periodically woken by the light of day, or the shimmer received in kind eyes and warm breath beneath another's brow. It's cherry red, gleaming, fire of destruction into reconstitution, it's kid stuff, parades, lights and we're easy like this. Free men flow through the city streets unknowingly now protected by armor of purer hearts pacing themselves toward each other with rapid enthusiasm. The creators take their appreciated stages and squint their midnight eyes to the imposed smokey lights, showcasing this dewey skin's human condition. It's quiet in a small crowds arms of undivided attention. Gentle souls can travel freely through these places without fear of being harmed.

There is salvation for those in search. For those who fear not their conditions, glorious things are to come.

While you were out...

Dearest Friend,

I came by to give you a hug, but no one was home. In your absence, the room was hollow and I realized that having the luxury of love just down our dark and ominous corridor is more of a privilege than anyone deserves. Maybe sometimes over looked, and even taken for granted in its accessibility and open arms. A fault easy to fall into when inundated with general happiness and unrestricted love.

I went to your cabinet to feast on some bread and jelly and noticed that there was still coffee in the coffee pot. I had been thirsting for coffee, and was not expecting this lone room to provide it for me. Coffee, a delicacy, a necessity in the first hours of a breaking day. It looked promising, and I crossed my fingers in hopes it was still warm, as if it retaining heat would also mean this room was retaining more of you than I could actually see. I considered momentarily, and gently pushed by fingertip to the glass. It was warm, very warm, and I couldnt help but think it must have been by design of the hands that made the coffee earlier this day. Did you just forget to throw the rest out, or did you leave it there for the remote possibility of consumption by someone else? By me, more specifically. The thought of that prospect alone was enough to make lukewarm coffee engulf my tongue like a warm kiss of relationships long gone. Embellishing on mere possibility was enough to start the day off right.

The room was sweating and sticky in its own heat. I opened your window to let loose the moldy smell and constriction of air. I hoped this was good for you, upon your arrival home, whenever that may be. Because you deserve that comfort.

Thank you for the coffee.

City Streets Howl

The city streets howl at me despite great height and thick windows, they don’t loose their volume or presence. I forgot to go outside today, the sun left, and it’s eight o’clock in the evening. My humble room stays dark most of the day, despite personally installed lights and lamps trying to combat this dungeon like appeal. I can’t tell if this has been positive or endlessly dangerous. I’ve been trying to think of what I did with the day. A lot of things, but mostly negligible in a grander scheme. The endless things to fill the day with, I will always fall to sleep at night feeling as if I fell a little short of fulfilling. The mind in a constant frenzied whirlwind of possibility, the dance and shuffle of the marvelous experiences you can partake in. We have feasts before our eyes every single minute, and perhaps I’ve stuffed myself so full I can’t move.

I will be leaving soon though. The night calls. And I have a lot of eating to work off. We’ll find gods and monsters. We’ll dance to the constant rhythm of our million feet rocking together. We will fall at each other’s doorsteps, uncomfortable and afraid. The sound will carry you through. Chance, will take good care of you. Surely, libations will befriend me, and when I finally stumble home to slumber, I’ll be gently rocked to sleep by sweet whiskey’s peace and the dream of humming city streets that no longer howl at me.

delicate, verbal snapshots

pieces from a closely kept notebook

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01.04.05
the conductor

the lovers laughed cold
as their weightless hands
and heavy bodies
inspected their condition

what price do we pay for sentiment, for comfort?
what sacrifice is made when all senses scream,
halt! this is it.

your final destination?
the train stops here, now you may land and be grounded
now you may build your world from the
scraps of beauty and misfortune you've been
collecting for hundreds of lifetimes

the conductor tips his hat to you and
in the winking of his eye, indicates
that indeed, this destination is yours

and he has seen these destinations
seen the doe eyed children hand in hand
seen the creator's build life,
he has seen them

he has seen the squandered time, salvation..
hands of the poor mans redemption
rejected
by hearts too worldly conditioned to care

but the conductor only winks,
as if to transfer all omnipotent knowing
into the crevices of your vessel
words are most often unnecessary
when your pulse beats straight into another's

in the ebb and flow of the conductor's eye
an invocation
of both futile lives
and the faith of an ornate future
soon you too will find

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

01.11.05
11:45 pm

If ever I
stumbled to your door
begging for shelter no one else would afford
If ever I
gave all my ways
to the pull of your gears, long turned into place
If ever I
loved
I did you
If ever I
broke anything
I did this too
If ever I
never meant to pull from the seams
know that it was for you, only you
I'd try at the very least
If ever I
scolded my own lies
it was by the light of faith
that I let gently die
beneath our shadowed, palm-to-palm ties
If ever I
woke with relief
it was by the shape of infinity to come
forshadowed between your borrowed sheets
If ever I
failed, to be good to you
know that I fought
until blood fall
If ever I
hear you question the curse
may you rest easy, dear
with no regret from this discourse
If ever I
lived, I surely did within you
If ever I
tried
how i tried to be true.

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01.11.05
my city love

french toast in the mornings
tucked in before bed
you, my city love
will always be with me

you, my city love
who saved this lost heart
years before, forgotten by
the racing pace of a millions pulse

tied tight to the inflection
of your own mostly solitary tongue
i found my way down your vessel
to rest in the comfort of your throne

started with the disclaimer
of neither's expectations for anythings
and bit our tongues when devouring
hopeless attempts to evade this implication's inevitability

i miss you, my city love and i always will
there will never be another of you
not in the city markets
not in the thousand subways tracks
or perpetual traffic sounding
not on the stages, not at the bars
the island of infinity will never again find such hearts.

fare the well.

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01.28.05
Return

The sharp snow engulfing the streets is worlds away from the streaming subway holes below. The fluorescent glow transfixes the thousands of pattering eyes, there they all are, so somber by all outside accounts, yet their mere existence and excess of collective energies bring my visions back to full blown technicolor. Gradually, you feel your body melt into this limitless collective of motion, of life. Bustling, gurgling, ripping from it's structure. Your feet become weightless as you pass through these wonderland scenes. Embers rose from deep within my gut and I felt revived to all around me. Reminded of the substantial effects such fervently provocative city protocols can induce. Pushing the budding soul to seek further, greater truths, convictions and interactions. Here was mother Manhattan back to greet me with her now gentler hands. I guess she was over her upset of me wanting to never return to this wretched place, to just stick to the creature comforts of a real home, with a real history. In her forgiveness, I too forgot all consideration of possibly living anywhere else but this city. I remembered the essence of reason in my need to reside in such a place, despite it's endlessly harsh in's-and-out's, and despite it's fist of ambivalence. Home was now to be found in these swirling motions, sounds and fluctuations. A constant change and challenge to lift hearts and heads.

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02.01.05
winter's casual observation

black is the unspoken uniform of new york city.
black, sleek, wool, leather, silk, the finest dark threads,
no doubt made by meticulous hand made hands,
a glamorous price tag affording you a place as a mere silhouette

mostly places next to others in this dark abyss, turning you into only
an unknown with no reference for the divide between individuals.
but my how they do look nice juxtaposed next to the snow,
they always stand out when outside in the cold
they are so, manhattan aren't they?
perhaps trying to hide their fame
or scandal
in a cloak of unwritten codes