skonen_blades

Hey there. So I went to see the Solomon Sparrow's Electric Whale Revival Show tonight up at the Cottage Bistro on Main Street and was totally blown away. I stayed for both shows and they differed wildly, just as I'd hoped. I wrote a lot of stuff down on napkins and here's my attempt to turn it all into one poem. If you feel like it's going all over the place willy-nilly, that's probably why. I think the germs of some really good stuff is in there but for now, I just wanted to get it all down. Also, I slipped in that dusty piano piece from a few days ago. It just seemed to fit. See what you think.



Passing Thoughts


If you want to give me a ticket for speeding you’ll have to catch me first.
Flash your lights. Give me the siren call that will make me jump off of my own ship to swim towards you.

I’ve been using a white bedsheet flag of surrender as a sail, kidding myself into thinking that living safe is the only way to cross the ocean.

I’m not much of a swimmer.

I was born with the wool pulled over my eyes.
Count to three and snap your fingers, I’m begging you.

I stay in the freezer to keep fresh, afraid that I’ll go bad in the heat you offer.

May I never be so deep in my own life that I don’t listen.

And this is what getting older is. The answer to the question “what would you want if you could have anything?” is no longer “Claudia Schiffer” or “A lamborghini” or “a mansion on a private stretch of beach.”

The answer is “one more hug from my dad.”

And the fossil of my heart will be a honeycomb.

Like a crow in a shoebox.

At the archaeologist’s dig, every rib has a letter.

There’s a reason why they called that family The Cleavers.

And I’m a salmon flexing like a madman against the current up the river Lethe in hell, drinking like a fish in order to forget.

My birth and my death are the bookend parantheses that hold the aside of my life tenderly.

My life was a guitar played by my father and when he finished playing, he smashed the guitar on the stage before heading for the exit. Now I’m taking piano lessons.

Looking at my piano, I notice the dust. The keys in the middle are shiny and polished from my practicing but the keys at the very top and the very bottom are dusty. They are the extremes that are rarely touched.

It occurs to me that this is life.

The majors that thrill and the minors that wound.
The sharps that cut and the flats that bore.
Energy equals Middle C squared.

Highs and Lows.

These forces pull on everyone and most people live their lives in the middle of that tug of war.

And you only get good at playing if you practice.

Beauty only exists in the eye of the beholder. There is no beauty otherwise.

”It’s a good thing I like pink.” She said in the hospital, referring to her scars.

“Last time I checked, love is legal.” I said. “Let’s open a practice.”

If the apple that Eve ate brought down the garden of Eden, I feel queasy about the American Dream being fed by apple pie.

I like last place because I can look around during the race.

When I’m near you I believe that, like forward and backward, awkward is also a direction.




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