Speck of White

A speck of white

Upon a summers evening

Faded light

Rejuvenated and renewed

From all that has been imbued

Rest has created eyes awake and wondering

Speck of Yellow

Falls through dusty windows upright

Suns glistening final rite

A palette covered with yellowish sweet

Continuum of summer heat

A speck of Green

On Summers lawn

Dew in the morning

After a crisp dawn

A speck of Blue

On a skycap so true

Gravity holding us down on this world

Keeping us protected from weightlessness

The true story of me and you

Told through the colors

Wheeled through life and illuminating our sky

We take moments out and away

Cry and laugh

Rejuvenated and happy

This is created through color invigoration

The sensation of happiness and vigor

Rolls through

Into

Me and you

 

The Contaminated Mind

Trash dumps filled with leftover garbage

Garbage bags filled with pieces and puddles

These puddles draw out into spaces

Spaces filled with black remains

Stains upon white napkins

Akin to other refuse piled in lumps

The waste collects from experience and form

From all the toxic air and electricity 

Running from head to toe

Upon this I know that I have a polluted mind

Taken away from the productive line

Filled with worries of which I have no control

Over the flow of my life and the rhythm in which I live

Overflowing with fears of a new life lived

Why is the mess a strong figure in my eye

It takes away from the blue in the sky

Filling it with murky uncertainty 

Certainly I can change this inhabited space

With the greener liking 

A space where life can grow 

Leaves fold into the soil and build life anew

I must push forward and never look back

Pack all that I have and journey to greater lands

This is my challenge to set free 

The chaining’s of the must terrible kind

And let the trees and flowers bloom 

Replacing my contaminated mind

The Sweet Smell of Rejection

Nothing like the sweet smell of rejection in the morning

To receive the call an early warning

Its not the right fit but I wish you the best

But if you had to receive a grade you failed the test

Refreshed I see it in a morning sigh

No more than a simple rejuvenating sign

That more must be done to push forward

No looking back or retracting your hand

Giving my best out there I cannot look back

The evening lines have been drawn in the sand

Take a breath and begin again

This will seem to happen every now and again

I take it as a compliment

That the successful plans have been laid

I will not give into some cheap demands

To jump at their will fall upon their command

People look for something to fill their own void

All the while they hold stiff while creativity is destroyed

Looking for something to replace the old

Will make the fillers seem out of place and cold

Wet and waiting on the driveway of replacement

Taking what just comes along seems way to complacent

They want someone who will fit the mold

Casting away the unique and the wanderers

The fearless and the bold

For someone who does not mind to grow mold

Upon their creative gears and will simply listen to their peers

Me that I am not and surely never will be

What will ever become of me I guess I will wait and see

As for now I am content on my bed of worthlessness

It does not fear me to be alone out here calling

Much better than rich and my creative mind mauling me

I recluse back to come back stronger

Eager to fight again

Rejection is nothing more

Than a reason to start again

The Daily Routine

Ah the challenge of keeping creativity alive in my life. As I am pulled to try and sell the art and the creations that have already occurred. It is hard sometimes to step back and try and let the creative juices be heard. So I sat down to try and document my daily routine of keeping creativity alive in my life. So here it is – enjoy!

The daily routine

Wake up in the morning

Make sure to exercise

Work out the arms and the thighs

Get back and get cleaned up

Got to write and practice

Keep the routine up

3 or four hours later

I now sit at the compu-tater

Life’s lines complex yet defined

I make this no place to wine

Letting go on paper what must be done

Seemed like a good idea

Challenging and fun

Poems must be constructed daily

This challenges what I have to say

About beauty, art, and the progress of today

The challenge is not to conform

But to set a new aggressive norm

Creativity must be engaged often

Or else the course muscles will soften

Decay and leave your soul

Looking for someone else to enroll

The creative spirit can be fleeting and gone

So I must capture these spirits in songs

Poems, writings, and other means

Or else I will be left with nothing

Creativity gone and no job to boot

I look pretty bad now in a business suit

Full of aspirations are these writings

Even though my mind is rattled with distractions

I must be real and stay ahead

Better off here trying

Than creativity dead

Derailed

This is an ode to one strange night in Paris. A place that will go unnamed. It was a dinner setting – with all the markings of a great club. Lights low, waitress attentive and helpful, but the singer was a bit strange. She took the stage Vegas style in this little French club and everyone began to wonder what was going on. She was pure entertainment that is for sure. But I am not quite sure what for. So here it is a poem to an akward night in Paris. Cheers!

It was akward

awuk ward

The way she sang

Staring right at the crowd

No one had the heart to say

It was too freaking loud

Enjoy a beverage and relax

She turns her music up

Through the stacks

Of speakers to her right and left

The tone she sang with

Had my ears screaming theft

But what a soul she had

With so much power and command

Her volume fluctuated

No one had more passion than

Her

She grabbed the mic

In confident fashion

Lights turned low in the Paris club

She came bursting through

The loud speakers above

The club dripped with fashion

Attention to detail

This karaoke

Sent the place

Derailed

Off ended

Crashing crusading

Singing shaking

It was all but over when I had to leave

It was entertainment

She had the right awa

That I can’t beseech

Her

Or anyone else

On this night in Paris

Just off the boulevard

Lifeless Piano

Checked into a hotel yesterday. Walking in I noticed a nice, but not too nice, piano sitting looking lonely and needing to be played. Just to ring out for a couple of minutes maybe ten at best! However I was denied very admittedly – I even felt lied to. They just don’t want any “kids” to touch the piano. It is a sad thing – which got me thinking – what is a piano with no one ever playing it. So here is a poem for the situation as it went down. Enjoy!

You know the piano sitting there is just a piece of wood

I remarked to the lady at the hotel counter

She looked confused and had not understood

That if an instrument makes no music

what is it

it truly is no good

sitting neglected

disconnected from the rest of the world

If it could speak

what would it say

I am sure it would be ready to play

sing and project

overbearing owner has no soul for sound

he just simply looks to protect

and deflect any “kids” from the wood and strings

the one thing in life that is truly made to sing

the lady looks at me again

treating me as if I were ten

and then says

I can not have the “kids” banging on the keys

surely she could not have meant me

but she did

so in reply I jabbed

a piano locked is just a piece of wood

I hope that you can enjoy that

this she truly understood

as I walked away feeling quite sick

One sentenced resounded in my mind

LONG LIVE MUSIC!!!

Wonder

Video

This is a song about how my mind seems to wonder at all times. I have a very curious personality – and I feel this song really captures the way I feel sometimes. Enjoy!

Light and Meaningless

This is just a piece written out of inspiration after watching a documentary about a pop star that has had her “big break”. I found the most ridiculous part of the movie was how they talked about her writing had developed her vocabulary. Then they showcased this horrible song overusing mediocre simile. So I have some simile thrown in for effect here and how ridiculous it is to claim that good simile can create good poems. It can help, definitely, but I believe there is a lot more to poetry and learning how to write than that. On top of all of this, she still co-writes all of her work with major hit writers. So lets not get over zealous with how much she is doing. Anyways – RAWK!

Heartbreak

Why does every song have to be about heartbreak

As though what you say

Has never been said

The book that was written

No one actually read

Or took any time to look it over

Over and over

My stomach turns listening to stale bread

Filling up the holes in my head

With words so light and meaningless

Where is the controversy in all of this

But a love song will sell

It will land you on the charts

That is all you should care for anyway

Get charted make some dough and roll away

I have no appetite for that no calling for swooning

My heart cannot be pulled anymore by this

Songs about how ones hearted is wounded

Do I really have to be relatable and and marketable

At what point does all of this become a song

Whether I seem to have it right or have it wrong

I can debate this question all night long

When my eyelids glue open to ceiling above

There is no point to this all when push comes to shove

The feelings fall like honey down a wilted tree

I used the word honey there

Isn’t that so creative of me

I have no calling for simile or rhyme

I just try to create what I feel I can call mine

A concoction of words so bitter and so timid

Just the flesh of a peach left when it is pitted

Try to make something small everyday

Quick painting of what is going on around me

To look back one day and truly be able to say

The meaning was left in the heart of the words

There truly is no right way

Great Nostalgia – 13 Years Ago

Tonight post is short and sweet. We just rocked out at a sweet house party in Downtown South Bend the night before our big show here in the bend for St Paddy’s Day. I am kinda wiped out – but I will give it my best. I am feeling a little nostalgic because I realized that tomorrow will be our biggest performance in South Bend ever and I have been playing in the bend for 13 years!!! Holy shit! I played my first show when I was 15, my mom dropped me off at a local coffee house called “Higher Grounds” in DT South Bend. It was an amazing show and now tomorrow I will be on stage in front of 8,000+ crazy to look back at the journey – and funny how life works. But I am super excited – a poem will be written post show to summarize the feelings and emotions. For some reason word press is not letting me space correctly so this will be read by using commas (not for grammatical purpose)

All the chatter, Play it this way and what is the matter, Chords still ring out, I cling to this guitar like a mad hatter, I have seen many a shops open and close, Sang them a song before they had to dispose, Of all their assets and move out of town, Kinda sad to think that I would never again see them around, This town or any other for that matter, People have come and gone, Some great inspirations, Some not so much, But in some meaningful way it was my life that they touched, I think back with great nostalgia to the first show posters, My life since those first days has been nothing short of a great roller coaster, I have now traveled from coast to coast, I have found places I loved the least and the most, With my guitar I have traveled, I say this not to boast, My humble beginnings playing in Coffee shops to onlookers playing chess, I did not have a fabulous voice, I can honestly say that I gave it my best, Only 15 looking for a grand time, Little did I know that love and a calling I would find, Years went by, I continued to play, I tried to give it a little something just about everyday, Then music led me to my love, She landed in my life as gentle as a dove, She would sing I would play, Anywhere and we did not worry about pay, 10 years have gone by since then, I can not believe it has already been 10, Now we get to play on a much great stage, I guess you could say that we have turned the page, From the empty coffee houses to people packed in, I used to know this city when the music scene was thin, Now it is robust and growing, Songs are being written, People now create great art, I am humbled to think that I played just a small part, I hope South Bend continues to grow, What it will become in ten years nobody really knows, To do my part I will just continue to pick up my guitar sing and play, I hope for the best for this city one day, Wishing it the best on this St. Patrick’s Day.

Futile to Fertile

Spring is right around the corner. On a warm spring day this came to me as I relished in the final days of winter. Those days are some of my favorite of the year. Enjoy!

Winter days fade

Into spring

Quiet mornings

Where the birds

Sing

The final snow

Begins to melt

And fade away

Winter is moving out

And

Must be on its way

For today

I admire

The winter cold

Windy gnarly

And brutal

My attempts to leave the Midwest

Always seem to be

Futile

Until the fertile lands

Of spring bloom

Once again

Bring back

Warmth and summers moon

All of this will be back

Very soon

And soon indeed

It will bring me joy

A young child

With a brand new toy

To run around under the sun

My heart swells

When it is warm

How the feelings come back to me

On this winters morn’