Inspired.

If you want.

if you want to know me
know the darkness, the silence
in which grow my roots
the grasping, ink-stained creepers
that wind around my arms
sometimes and
drag me into the past

if you want to understand me
understand the urgent smile
the tightrope laughter
on which I teeter
containing an ocean’s raging despair
precarious, eager
to salt the face of my earth

if you want to find me
find the neverending
yearning for something like
how I sometimes imagine
home must feel:
warm, quiet, gentle
what and where I am not

if you want to touch me
touch the knife-edge between
hurricane and eye
where manipulation dies screaming
where meaningless artifice is
ground to powder, and only
stark, ravaged stones speak

if you want to hold me
don’t
I was held once, and it
didn’t end well

if you want to love me
love the great divides
the paradoxes my arms
hopelessly strive always
to span - the masks, the truth,
the calm, the storm, the ache,
the joy, the was and is and
someday will be.

Going forward.

a standing axle
watching whirring spokes
parade in blurry excess
uncertain
but overcome with the certainty of
some mysterious, imminent
impending doom

the breakneck forward motion
momentum of past decisions
carrying through this current
uncertainty
a narrative with a
single beginning and a
single middle
but a plethora of unwritten ends

~~~

what’s a girl to do,
having rejected whole cloth the
NormalTypicalStandardAccepted
speeding down unexpected paths
fueled by youth and guts and
a crippling fear of inconsequentiality

only to find herself, one distant day
sooner than she expected perspective to
put down its foot,
a standing axle surrounded by whirring spokes,
crossroads enshrouded,
unclear destinations with less clear
journeys stretching the chasms between
here and there

what she did not want
she still does not
what was not her path
still is not
but she has not the vigor anymore
for endless questions and
trying lives on for the sake
of wandering

she never wanted to fit in
but she’s starting to wonder if
maybe she doesn’t want to fit,
just a very little,
somewhere -
to know a world where, if she left,
there would be a her-shaped hole
that no one and nothing else could fill

~~~

a standing axle
a spoke-less, solid wheel
molasses movement
ponderous and steady
a breath and a pause
holding court before
every creaking cycle

arriving on a threshold
one slow foot at a time,
not breathless from a race,
but gently
with space and time enough
for delivering quiet poetry

I love it when a cloud eats a skyscraper.

Solstice.

Dark times reign
In surly thunderheads, laden with
Angry cascades of hail
Heated gusts
Carrying humid tempers
Weather swings,
Violent as any mood

O Sun
Turn your face to us
We entreat you
Shed your mourning veils
Cease weeping
Blaze golden among the heavens
Once more.

Soothe the pained earth
Calm her weary skin
Drive the tempests forth
That the ravaged lands
Might shrug off debris
Blink at dawn’s brilliance
And heal.

O Sun
You who have presided
Over timeless marching
Spinning through eons
Oblivious to their passing
Teach us the dance of
Your shining.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

When I was teaching myself how to play the guitar, I used to keep my crappy $50 student guitar right by my bed. This meant that I could play right up until I was almost asleep, and could essentially lay in bed on the weekends and practice without even having to get up. I can’t decide if that’s because I loved playing so much, or if I’m just incredibly good at finding creative ways to indulge my inherent laziness. Tough call.

Because of this habit, the first song I wrote, I wrote in bed. It came in a rush, music and lyrics all at once, and I sang through it a few times laying there twiddling with my crappy guitar before hopping out of bed to get a pen and write it down.

The song attached to this post wasn’t written in bed, but it did come all in a rush like that. It showed up one morning as I was getting ready for work. I’d taken a few minutes to play through a song (playing a couple tunes in the morning does me as much good as fifteen minutes of meditation), and then next thing I knew, I was writing somethign new. I don’t know if the speed of the writing has anything to do with how close to home the lyrics are, as if they’re just unfiltered and raw, straight from my subconscious….but it took a minute for me to feel like I could even perform this in front of people.

But, since I’m doing all this therapy getting in touch with my emotions and stuff…I decided to have some guts and put it out there. And I think the song is actually some of my better work, even if it does play into that angsty-chick-with-acoustic-guitar stereotype I often try to dodge. C’est la vie.

Who I am
Who I was
Who I might be someday
All the masks I have worn
All the games I have played

I’m so tired
I’m exhausted
I can’t do it anymore
I’m through pretending I care
What all this struggle’s for

And I don’t have the answers
To questions I was never asked
But I’m pretty sure my future
Is the wages of my past

All this suffering
All this pain
All my sorry tales of woe
I’m leaving them behind
I don’t need them anymore

I’m putting down
All those burdens
I picked up so long ago
They were never really mine
So I’m just letting go

And I don’t have the answers
For questions I was never asked
BUt I’m pretty sure my future
Is the wages of my past

I’ve been dreaming
I’ve been hoping
I’ve been wishing on stars
Someday I’ll be free
These chains around my heart

Come on sunrise
Come on morning
Come on brand new day
I’m ready for beginnings
That all work out my way

I don’t have the answers
For questions I was never asked
But I’m pretty sure my future
Is the wages of my past

I don’t have the answers
For questions I was never asked
But I’m pretty sure my future
Is the wages of my past

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Songs show up for me in different ways - sometimes it’s words and I set them to a tune later, sometimes it’s a melody that needs lyrics. In the case of this tune, the idea for the song hit me at work and marinated for a day before I sat down with the guitar after work one night and pulled it all out at the same time. It’s a bit of a departure for me, in that the lyrics are much less literal than my usual style. In reading them back, I kept stopping to rethink them because they didn’t actually make literal sense….but I found, in the end, that the right words were there already.

A song like this, I find super tricky to call “done,” just because I have such feelings of uncertainty about it. When the lyrics seem so surreal to me, so decoupled from my usual direct, literal approach to lyrics…I’m never sure that they quite make sense or convey what I convey. In this case, I had to listen to it over and over for a few times…and eventually, I felt like the mood, the feeling, was there, even if the words weren’t as straightforward as I generally like my lyrics. In addition, I revamped the melody about six times, trying to keep musical phrases I enjoyed, while also axing bits that were too repetitive. So here we are.

The lyrics are below, and feedback is welcome as always at TariRocks at gmail dot com.

Lost my way in an alley in Chicago
Chasing moonlight spilling off the lake
Siren song of city streets
Crowded trains of empty seats
And sleep buildings keeping me awake.

Can’t remember just why I was looking
Or what it was that I was looking for
What secrets was I seeking
Or were my bones just creaking
Tired of all the roads I’d walked before

Where the street signs don’t go
Places tour guides never know
The dark is just as bright
As the sparkling city lights
That will someday lead me home.
That will someday lead me home.

Fell off the map right on the sidewalk
Trying to get my feet on solid ground
Truth is I don’t mind
I’d rather fall behind
Than spend my whole life flailing all around

I’m not sure I ever wanted safety
There’s times that safety surely does appeal
The sharp edge of my reasons
Blinks through all the seasons
And I’m standing on the brink of something real

Where the street signs don’t go
Places tour guides never know
The dark is just as bright
As the sparkling city lights
That will someday lead me home.
That will someday lead me home.
That will someday lead me home.

Rainy Days and Other People’s Words.

I don’t know why rainy days so often require the application of other people’s poetry, but for me, they often do. Today’s re-discovery was Max Ehrmann, mostly known for his infamous hippie manifesto, “Desiderata.” I like that, and most of his work….but especially this one, which is now in the running to be my favorite poem ever.

“Wanderers” by Max Ehrmann

A clear, cool night. I have been reading, but the thoughts of man do not solace me.
I raised the curtain and looked at the moon, clear and silvery; and I brushed some of the unrest out of my mind.
I know all the theories of the moon.
There have been times when the symbols of science have robbed me of some of its mystery and charm.
But no one can explain the moon any more than a grasshopper can explain me.
In youth, the moon promised too much.
But now I understand better; that was not the moon’s fault.
Also the moon and I have this in common:
We both are wanderers across the night.

Over the course of the day, I came across another work I felt the need to post. It’s fabulous.

“The Journey” by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice - - -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations - - -
though their melancholy
was terrible.It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do - - - determined to save
the only life you could save.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Last week marked seven months since I Officially Nervously Broke Down. When I think back, it’s kind of amazing to see where I am now in comparison….but I often get hung up on how far I have yet to go to be anything like “normal,” or at least where I’d like to be. I’m still working on building my energetic reserves back up, so maybe I can have a rough day and not be totally wrecked such that I need to go home and stare at a wall until I can carry on a coherent conversation. It would be nice to feel like I’m not at the mercy of chance’s whims.

That idea, of keeping on keeping on with the firm belief that things will eventually sort out properly, is what inspired the lyrics to this tune. The melody, on the other hand, came to me after watching Bela Fleck’s documentary about tracing the roots of the banjo into Africa, “Throw Down Your Heart.” I kicked it around in my head for awhile, and of course it wound up coming out of a blues place.

Hilariously, in my catalog, this is pretty close to an actual happy song.

The coolest part? Instead of having to haul out the mics and stands and my four track and cables and then hook everything up to blah blah blah the usual recording ordeal….I recorded this little demo on my Android phone, using an app. It took two seconds, and easily produced a “good enough” demo. I mean, sure, on my four track, I could edit out the dead air and that loud as hell inhale at the end, but mmmmmmmfuckit, this took me two seconds and will do the trick. I aint’ trying to be a sound engineer.

Here are the lyrics, and feedback on the song itself – most assuredly NOT the production – are welcome to TariRocks at gmail dot com. Thanks!

Holding on
I’m just holding on
Yesterday’s gone
And today’s all wrong
And I’m just holding on

Keeping faith
I’m just keeping faith
Tomorrow’s gonna bring
Better things
I’m just keeping faith

And oh, I know
It’ll get better someday
Oh, I know
Good things are coming my way

Taking time
I’m just taking time
Hoping I’ll find
A little piece of mind
I’m just taking time

Breathing deep
I’m just breathing deep
At the end of this rope
There’s gonna be some hope
And I’m just breathing deep

And oh, I know
It’ll get better someday
Oh, I know
Good things are coming my way

Holding on
I’m just holding on
Yesterday’s gone
And today’s all wrong
And I’m just holding on

Grand Lobby, Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas, NV. February 2011.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV. February 2011.

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