When a light goes off
In a cold and distant sky
I look up
With wipe dried eyes
The world needs good people
Full of life and vibrancy
Courteous and full of decency
Does the world become darker
Or does it balance with new light
Finding new ones
The giving kind
For all of mankind
I hope that the lives of new souls
Bless the world
Wherever we go
For when we loose light
We now are the light
We must aspire to be bright
In a world that goes a little dimmer
When we loose a beautiful light
The city has a way of changing you
Rearranging you
To make something new
And strange
To help you understand
The inner wirings
Of man
There are days
When the end lays ahead
A clear finish
Instead of a benchmark
Days when my soul can rest easy
My mind I can appease
Yet on other days
There is this
Infinite tease being played on me
This mind wander
Aways second guessed
Slowing thoughts helps to
Slow emotions
That if I can just reach one goal
At a time
I don’t have to set every single one
In motion
So on these days I try to slow down
Realize even walking is an even pace
On this Infinite Race
“I will FUCKING KILL YOU”
The words bellow from the belly
Of the loosely dressed man
On Manhattan Ave
Across from Manhattan Inn
Enough vigor and resolute
To carry the words to my own
Windowsill
I crept to the window
The man seemed unwell
Ill
I couldn’t make it out the clear
Words strung about a 100 bill
–
“Why don’t you come over here”
“See who the real man is”
The street lights illuminate his
Contorted face
I pull back from the window screen
He glances in my direction
As he walks towards Manhattan Ave.
And Nassau intersection
–
I am fully engaged at this point
This rage within this man
Has the whole neighborhood up at
2 AM
–
Cars rumble past blurring
What was said
What was heard
I could only faintly here but a word
All this rage and anger
Over a C note
On that note I better get back to bed
–
Whatever he had said
It was life in the form of entertainment
I am not upset from the loss of sleep
Just tired
Whatever kept that man up
Had really shook him
On just another night
In Brooklyn
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
Studio hours
Layered with contoured flowers
Decisions scoured
Around and over hours
Speakers pushing vibrations
Ears in full salutation
Summed with amps
Knobs awaiting determination
We apply ourselves
Throughout the daytime minutes
–
I hope
For more synchronicity
Pulling together songs
In artistic creation
Keeping the I can
In a world of can’t
Can lead the mislead
Push the final pedal down
Until the spring rose is dead
It is important
To believe in what you can’t
That someday you can
Be where you want
The belief
Rather than stricken grief
Must grow
People won’t think twice before
The remind you once more
That you have never done
This before
Heed only to your own calling
Hold yourself up
From falling
Let hope and belief grow
Let it take you were you want to go
Raining on summer plants
Thirst quenching with water
For your soul will grow
Just like a spring plant
When you say you can
In a world of can’t
A late evening in Chicago. Had a nice time enjoying some drinks and laughs with friends. Hope you enjoy. Cheers!
–
The young working class
Service industry of Chicago Illinois
Sparse light in a dim bar
Conversation flounder and puff
Into inaudible crackle
Faces gleaming orange and yellow
Filled with powder and fluff
Men reclining willfully to distant music
Irrelevant and monotonous
Pushing eardrums back and forth
Jaws pumping laughter heralding
Anger dispensing
Question asking
Bar tender looking for connecting eyes
Asking quickly for a drink
Tip jar sitting silent yet demanding
Women relax on sofas talking about dinner and evening plans
I am but a witness to these thing
On a late Friday night
In Chicago Illinois
A Cup of Songwriting 