Oh the heart strings
Pulled in every way
Frayed
Dismayed and overplayed
I relish past moments
With pleasure
Small delights
Love beheld in my eyes
Yet it is lies
Nothing more
Nothing less
Just a quest into the past
No answers given
No questions asked
But in a very uneasy way
There is always lust
In such great nostalgia
What is past is past
What is gone is lost
What I want I will take
What is left I will leave
It’s just another little
Sentimental Tease
I heard the little guys squealing through the night
What was I supposed to do
Nothing else I could do
I had to trap them
Get them out
I woke in the morning as I would any other
Dreading a certain task that
Lie in my certain future
However this was a task
I loathed
This is New York and I have a renter coming in later
So sometimes I just have to
Thrust each foot
One in front of the other
I peak around the corner to discover
Not one, or two
But three rats entangled in a sticky mess
A sweet concoction
A paste
Tieing mouths, feet, and bodies to the goo
They writhed, and gnawed, up and down
Breathing fast as they could
Little did I expect what I saw
But quickly I understood
It was a small family all stuck there
I have no soft spot for rats
But I did feel a bit queazy
And I do have a renter coming in this afternoon
So off they go
Somehow an article of ours had been entangled in the mess
So I slowly worked the chord out
While the rats writhed more and shouted
Their high pitched scream
This is not the city I had grown up to know
But here I am with gloved on
Trying to pull chords off rat family
Entangled on a board of sticky sweetness
Not quite sure how I got here
–
So I dispose of the rat family
Breathe slow
And return to my day
–
My wife wakes up
We talk about the rats
I was not excited about the conversation
But I had taken care of it
The next topic on our minds
Food Stamps
I never thought we were that bad off
But somehow
The rats, the rent, the life
It comes at a price
That we are just coming up a bit short of
So we talk briefly about opportunities to eat
To have more food
“Seems like we are perfect candidates”
“Yea” I respond
“I don’t see why not”
–
This is all to the setting of the biggest looming opportunity
We have ever had in our lives
We have dedicated our lives to our art
Somehow opportunities are sometimes presented
Rather than sought
–
So as I sit at the piano to rehearse
I realize
My life
Somehow
As weird and dysfunctional as it can be
Makes sense
Eyes slap open
With the crack of the jackhammer
It’s 9 AM
Monday in the City
I rush over to close the small gap
In the window
The loud crash of shovels
Iron cast on asphalt
Giant machines with splendid
Saws, jacks, and hammers
Traffic held back
While the men hit the ground
With cement hammers
The window to the city
Has shown so much to me
It is a true story
Yet an untold anomaly
Of jackhammers
I grew up in the soft quiet fields on Indiana
Acquaint myself
To the new sounds
Of my surroundings
In hopes of doing good
Doing everything you should
Stood proper ready for arrival
But in between every single line
Stands the true test of mankind
Finitely undivine
Some poor fellow with bright light
Shines upon a small error
Eroded and undone
Your lips begin to tighten
As you realize you have failed
At this one chaps small finding
I strive for the perfection
Perfection as far as my detection
But there will always be
Other perspectives
That feel less connected
Intersected with our vision
Even though I do my best
With good will and intention
There is nothing that can prevent
This holier than thou
Intervention
I didn’t want to do it
I guess I kind of had to do it
Shit we do to make it through
Renting out half the space
The rat race isn’t even
Half way through
The smell of cabbage in the morning
Warning that the uncomfort of life
Is seeping through
–
It wild the way we hustle
People bustle
Plan for the next month
Once again feeling uncomfortable
But I guess in a city
Where rules are only enforced
Rather than exist
This small task I complete
To make it through the month
Cause if not I call it quits
And back on the road I’ll be
With only half my wits
–
I’m not running some grand hotel
Not even a bed and breakfast
Just trying to make time with no roomates pass
The hosting seemed to be the only option
In a city
Where the Attorney General
Might be hot for me
But I guess I’m damned if I do
Damned if I don’t
It’s New York City
The only answer I can not give
Is
I won’t
Unconscious desiring
Subconscious manifesting
Hoping on some dream
Of breaking out of the cycle
Money in
Money out
Dinner bought
Rent Owed
–
I wish to make it out
Even to the middle class
But these days
Not even the middle class
Can pass
The boundary
Set up in our system
Of class
–
The city tells me there is no middle
Either you own
Or are owned
There is not much between
The filthy rich
And the much lesser known
Hustling makes you feel alright
But SOMETIMES
It just is not enough
To get you off the ground
For a bigger flight
–
So my ode is this
I’m not trying to hit it big
Or swig Courvoisier from the jar
I’m just trying to get by
With a little extra to put away
Living for today
So this is my ode
I have nothing more to say
“You do this every God damn time!”
Exclaimed the man
Hands half thrown in the air
While he ripped the door of the old van
Open
“Fucking Bullshit – that is what it is!”
His head full of dark hair slightly covered
With a Yankees hat
Strewn to the right
The short stout man
Flung the back door of the transport van
Wide open
Hoping to rip it from the hinges
Anger, rage, discontent, dismayed
His voice rang up through the brownstones
Like a choral chamber in a church
He disappeared into the van
Throwing out both one more explicative
Cargo equipment
His friend walked drooped at the shoulders
Slowly recovering the bulls rage thrown
“I’ll tell them what I am going to do”
I wipe my eyes for the first time
It is 7 AM on Manhattan Ave.
This is not unusual
But rather more intense than not
I pull my face close to the glass
Feeling the winter cold briefly pass
My nose
Must be cold out there I think
Unfortunate soul
Throwing out the kitchen sink
But all on a good Tuesday morning in Brooklyn
Now
Back to work
What is the cost of a dream
Not the capital or the initial investment
More importantly the hours laboring and spent
Rather than being well rested
What is the emotional cost
Is it two tokens
If I could somehow come up with a value
Two tokens of life
If it all works out do you get those back and more
Are you delivered from seeing your time
Wasted in hopes of achieving
Rather than just ending poor
And broken
What is the average
Per day
If not achieved is it wasted
Thrown away
Can I accept this
Failure is only owned when you label it
Give it a name and recognize it
But I refuse to do so
Call it reckless
But this is how it goes
I must continue on this path
Continue to let go
To see anything through
Through and renewed
To see what these life tokens can do
Continual postage
Send me on my way
Held back
Deferred another day
What can send me out
Into the world
Hurled out with no precise measure
Regardless of challenges or pleasures
This will be my postage
Paid upon sending
I have paid it due
For once my stamp is applied
I must see myself through
The purpose behind
The green outside
In a winter morning
Simple prose upon warming
Keep inspiration flowing
The more you make
It’s yields keep growing
So at 9:20 AM
Hoping for a new set
Of inspiration
Looking for new adventures of writing
Looking low
Hoping the ideas are not hiding
I let my fingers and mind go
And this is what it has to behold
A Cup of Songwriting 