Mix Tapes

They say the shortest distance
between two points is a straight line.
Well I say the shortest distance
between two souls is a power chord.
For some of us music fills the cracks
that life forgets about.
It's the glue that holds us together.
It's what bonds these loosely knit souls.
These songs are memories.
These albums are friends.
These artists are saviors.
For us,
sharing music is sharing a piece of yourself.
Mix tapes become an act of communion.
It's through this that I
give a piece of myself to you.
A unique piece that only you have.
My only wish is that one day this
may be a memory,
and that a smile will crawl across
your face as you remember it.

Islands

Some people just weren't cut
from a cloth that protected them;
that shielded them,
that deflected the cruelty
that lay before them.
Their cuts weren't crooked or jagged.
Their hearts were sewn on their
sleeves and fully exposed.
They were strip mined of their
true feelings and emotion;
pure honesty and love.
They stumbled forward on this path;
soul's worn thin,
hearts worn heavy.
They look like you and I,
but it's the eyes that give them away.
It's in the way that they don't look
past you,
but at you...through you.
They devour your words like
the ending to a murder mystery.
And sadly they'll never see things through.
They burst and bloom like fireworks
on a hot summer's night.
They begin to feel the ache.
They begin to feel the ants and worms
crawl on their skin and devour them with
each passing pour.
They follow the tracks.
This wave of mutilation,
this self destructive cog lodged deep
within them is the only thing making them
feel human.
Joseph Campbell spoke of them when
he said:
"We live as we dream, alone."
And despite modern technology
opening the freeway of global communication
they are still islands.

A Stone

My thoughts linger
like the smoke in this room.
They dress themselves in familiar
shapes like apparitions,
and though they never speak;
their intentions are always know.
It's in these vague states of remission
that we connect as people.
Your quiet candor always implied
a depth;
a sense of density that I know now
was just a ploy.
But in youth,
silence always seemed like a form of revolution.
But all you were revolted against
was your longing to open up to me,
and when you love a stone they take
the shape of everything you've been
yearning for.
I know the day he left he took your heart
with him like a prize;
a charm or lucky rabbits foot.
But every night as we lay,
my chest to your back;
I hope a new heart begins to grow.
I hope that vacant cavern fills anew,
and that my heart will teach yours
how to beat again.

Fantasy

Walking down King
smoking a cigarette;
listening to Elliott Smith.
The world feels so small.
It feels like I could walk to you,
like all these miles between us
don't mean a thing.
These dirty Vans,
these old Levis,
This dingy flannel that smells
like I pulled it out of the lost and
found at The Cave.
This is what the broken fighter
with tired brown eyes will look like
before you.
And maybe you can meet me halfway;
somewhere in the desert.
We'll stay at a roadside motel and I'll
buy you a whiskey.
And just as your smile materializes it shatters.
These sirens,
these god damn sirens put me
back in my place.
They pull me away.
The red hot lights burn through
my thinly lit veil.
Then the world snaps back
to it's ever growing presence
and you just get further away.
This city,
this world,
they can strip a man of hope
and make him feel alone in a crowd
of millions.
And you were right,
might as well just let go
of this fantasy.

I'll Catch Up

We all want to be remembered for
who we tried to be instead of who
we were.
James Dean,
Marilyn Monroe,
Jim Morrison;
eternal.
And me,
I wanna be remembered for
being a bastard with a heart of gold.
A bruised angel and a callus swine.
When I die I want the whiskey to flow.
I want people to remember ME and
not who they thought I was.
And at last call I want them to forget me.
But if you're going to grieve me;
grieve me at a bar with friends,
a pint and a good juke.
Grieve me when you fall in love
and reach for her hand in the dark.
Grieve me when you're at the Denny's
on Slauson and gage at 3am
after the show of a lifetime.
Grieve me at the sing-a-long to
a good punk song.
Crack a smile when he breaks your heart
and you're spinning the mixtape he gave
you on your third date.
Smoke a cigarette for me at last call
when Sinatra is spinning.
Some men were meant to live forever,
most of us will just fade away.
But when the time comes you'll crack a smile
and remember who I really used to be.
Robert Frost said:
"Nothing gold can stay."
And Johnny realized that before his time.
But I'll lift your sadness with this
stolen line;
"I've got promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep."
And one day,
when I get there.
I promise you,
I'll catch up.

I Still Wanna Be Your Dog

*This isn't a good piece, I know. But for anyone who writes, this is how we get along. This is how we're able to live. Not everything is golden.
**"An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness."- Henry Miller

***"The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature."- Henry Miller
I remember the morning you said
"I think I could fall in love with you case."
I remember the nights you spend dedicating
songs to me like love struck teenagers
at the point.
I remember 6 underground,
I remember all the songs about
the west coast.
I remember how you made me feel alive,
how I no longer felt like I was
just waiting to die.
I'd stay up all night just to hear your voice at dawn.
Your tough exterior
and that east coast hardness.
And sometimes you said words so
seldom spoken they sounded
foreign as they left your lips.
And now I try to forget those three
small words that echo in my head
and in the caverns of my chest.
I'm trying to forget
that I was good at making you smile.
I'm trying to forget everything we shared.
I'm trying to forget you
compared me to your father.
I'm still working on all those plans
and promises.
Not for you, but for me.
I've never made a promise I couldn't keep.
But I'm in the same spot you found me,
Kasher still sings me to sleep.
Tomorrow night is New Year's Eve
and you'll have your choice of boys to kiss.
I'll drink my whiskey and kiss my cigarette,
but they won't kiss back.
So have a happy New Year and remember
there will always be a boy on the
west coast who is thinking about you.
Then, now, and forever.

Captains Log

I exhale these thoughts onto a page
like my last cigarette at 5 am in late October.
I see them taking form
and taking shape;
telling a story...
telling my tells.
Telling tall tales of drinking
and being unbecoming,
spilling secrets like a man
who is about to die.
But these secrets,
these stories of whales the size of ships
and mermaids whose lips
were modeled after lust,
are true.
The urban legend is that of a family;
wife...kids...domestication.
Some men dream of seeing the sun
rise over the sea,
while others dream of seeing it rise
over a white picket fence.
While other men have seen their future
in a port on a long island.
But the lighthouse always burns out
at sunset and it's time to set sail.
Every man will always want what he
doesn't have.
And for the one that has everything...
enjoy it while it lasts.