An Ostracized Welcome

For some reason

The feeling of isolation

Does not bother me

Ostracized

Rather than welcome

Is something that I find welcomed

For in the subtle disapproval

I found

Holding steadfast

To my own principles

Some will appreciate this

Others will laugh and dismiss

Find something

Refuse to cave in

It has taught me that what people

Find important

Is not always important to me

That is all that I needed to see

To understand that if I stand tall

Don’t give in

The reward of being me

Alone amongst a crowd

Rewards the soul more

When I fall asleep at night

That is really all

I can ask for

Weather or Whether Not

The city sweeps past me 

On days when I can’t get up

Blowing past 

Places to go

Whether the weather 

Be clear

Or snow

I rest while the worlds whirls around

Outside my window

In a place 

That never slows down

Soul Pride

I took my friend from Sweden to the JFK
As we stood looking out the window of the train
I heard her say
That the Manhattan skyline made her remember the city
Trains passing by
Yet oh so pretty
NYC set on the evening sky
I will miss this place said with a sigh
Upon which it dawned on me
How lucky we are
To be
Citizens of this beautiful
Amazing
Country
What others would do to be come one
Get married, fall in love, sneak in, to get it done
But me I am set on this land
Born 20 steps from Lake Michigan
I found my pride
My soul
My heart owned
This seductive city
To call my own
But with pride comes
Responsibility
From sea to shining sea
We make this land great
Or terrible
It’s as easy as our demeanor
Can make it wondrous
Or meaner
We represent this city to travelers
Make it proud from skyscraper
To gravel
Take a moment to recall
What it means to be American
What all it is
What pride and joy
That we live in a great land
Our hearts deploy

Express Success

The teetering success 

Hinges upon the ability 

To express

The words communicated

From mind to hand 

Delivered neatly 

Thought out 

Without distress

These words exceed

Or fall short

That is no fault of my own

Just a lack of understanding

New territory unknown

The Eager Morning Awaits

Some days I count

Other days are spelled out

Each letter taken

With care and attention

T

Thunderous and thoughtful

Thinking it through

O

Offering wonderful oblique

Opaque moments

D

Dazzling distractions

Distant drunken cousins

A

Ample amounts of inertia

Aching in mornings

Y

Youth charged nights

Young and yearning for life

 

Returning to metrics and numeric

Counting days

Passing like reflector strips

On the vacant highway

1

2

3

Passing by the seats of you and me

Today we take each moment

Cherishing

We try to own it

What we say

What we do

The eager morning awaits

Me and you

Cost Driver

What drives cost
The cost maker
Takes us passenger
Recklessly driving
Swerving
No idea what where we are
Or were we are headed
Corporate HQ wants to know
How it can keep
Every penny free
Food becomes commodity
Consumed by you and me
The cheaper it is
The less I recognize
What it is I consume
They will be selling air
At higher margins
Very soon
I’m just trying to make rent and stay alive
While the money type
Keep costs low
On this reckless drive

Radiohead goes Public

I just heard that Spotify the music streaming Internet software company is going to go public in the coming year. So as a full-time musician, I was shocked to realize that this corporation and it’s soon to be investors, are going to be able to make money in an industry where the employees – a.k.a. musicians – are rarely ever paid. I have reviewed my paycheck of four cents from thousands of plays from Spotify over the past four months and I find this be hard to believe that they are going to go public and make millions of dollars with their investors, and yet they still have no plan on how to compensate the exploited musicians. Is amazing that investors and a company can make money in an industry where musicians are not even come fair wages. Sickening. I propose that Radiohead go public along with Spotify, this would at least give me a reason to be excited that a band has found a way to make money and survive in this market, rather than some bullshit high rise corporate executive. The sad realization, it is easier to make money exploiting hard working bands, than to be out doing hard work, creating great music and being a band. So to this I say, screw you Spotify – and long live rock and roll.

-NP

Certain Uncertainty

Mary’s not going to pay her bills on time
No concern for fine cheese and expensive wines
Riding subways straight
Under the streets
Standing upright on sore feet
Asthma machine is 6 feet deep
Her certainty in uncertain
Uncertain of the next job
Or the next paycheck
Not contained in simple
Passages from underground
I wish to help
For I stand helpless
These poems ideas felt a million times before
What can I offer
What can I do more
These circumstances I can not change
Take her world rearrange
Life fruit lay in her bounty
For I am the one who must need pity
Wanting to help
With nothing to give
Yet neither of us should shed pity on others life lived
So I walk on
Battle over
Defeated
Destroyed inside
Maybe if I offered help I would feel alive
But I walk through the tunnels to my next passage
From the subways to the streets
And on with life

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Unsophisticated Unassuming

Morals low and high
Splashed with city water
On my mouth side
Competition wanes complicates
Waning on in many days
Lungs
Feet
Hands
Sore
We made our way on the eastern shore
We wake up every morning and ask for more
Pedals pushing hearts bumping
We ask simple question
Answers looming
Under the winter storm
Warmness yearning
We wake
We rise
We take
Opportunities blooming
So unsophisticated
Unassuming
We wake up
We rise
We take