"A Single Thought"
New album of poetry performance with guitar and cello accompaniment.
Full Lyrics with Time Stamps
"Samsara" (0:00)
We stood around the fire
that night,
strangers to ourselves,
souls far from home,
stranded on this far-flung and forlorn
fold of the vast wasteland of form,
in some kind of interdimensional waystation,
someone’s back yard.
We were all the main characters in separate stories,
long and wild ones, but
somehow we all ended up in that scene together,
wondering if destiny had a purpose,
all awestruck and quiet
around the fire that night.
I strummed soft smoky bittersweet notes,
Steady, simple, continuous,
a blanket of consolation
that wrapped us each in our separateness
and kind of snuggled us all together.
Notions flared up occasionally,
wispy and wistful,
or sparking and popping out of the fire ring.
“How did I get here?”
“I wonder what ever happened to so and so…”
“What could I have done differently?”
“How am I gonna get out of this place?”
“My soul isn’t from here,
but it can’t remember where home is.”
“I wish the child-me could know how loved he was,
But he never really knew and now he’s dead,
and buried somewhere
inside me.
But maybe he can hear me tell him now;
I see his ghost playing and running around in my dreams some nights.”
“Dreams make perfect sense,
Why is being awake such mindfuck?”
Now and then
we looked into each other’s eyes for a moment,
maybe a little more,
with sad smiles and
soul’s light glowing through
those sweet heartache eyes
of warm moist clay,
cheek bones and brow worn down
to an earthy grace
of surrender and determination.
Yeah, now and then
we look into each other’s eyes for a moment,
but mostly we all stare into the fire,
half hypnotized.
Is it because,
behind the flickering
flames of this life,
a constant light and warmth reminds
us of some kind
of eternal home,
a place to rest in belonging?
Or do we stare into the fire
so we can put our backs to home,
the cold dark space surrounding us,
stretching beyond the beyond,
whispering to us,
reminding us that sooner or later
we must return,
whenever our spirits decide they’re finally done with this samsara.
Did we stay too many times in this world,
clinging to some kind of self?
Are we the abandoned orphans
or are we the runaways?
nobody can remember.
But I know that whether we live infinite lifetimes
or die a final death,
not one of us will make it out of here.
"Almost Full" (4:12)
The table was so long
I couldn’t see where it ended.
An incredible banquet
of countless dishes
crowded together and out into the distance.
I picked up a plate and excitedly moved along
sampling this and that.
Many dishes were marvelous and delicious,
many shockingly foul and bitter,
but I found while the flavors faded,
all were worth trying.
I grew anxious.
Some dishes emptied,
but I wanted more.
And it occurred to me
that my stomach couldn’t possibly fit
a taste of everything.
It hurt to see all the tempting treats
I would have to leave
untouched.
Half way down the table,
with its beginning and end both in sight,
I noticed so many things I wanted to taste
weren’t even
on the table.
Rage and disappointment!
How could this be my banquet?
This is all there is?
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
It was the chef.
I was just about to complain,
but she spoke first,
in a voice of wry and friendly humor:
“It’s funny!
You are here
and you have been given
an exquisite banquet,
and yet you’re upset,
because all you can think about
is what you couldn’t have.
Ha!”
She handed me a glass of water,
almost full,
winked,
and walked away.
"Words Are Curious Fingers" (6:20)
Words are curious fingers
Feeling into my tight spaces.
Words are sonar pulses;
echoes describe my inner places.
Words hang around my too-many key rings;
I know one of these has to be it!
Words are the clothing of my thoughts,
Revealing and concealing with their fit.
Words are walls I follow with my hand
In this house without lights.
Words are the shape of this labyrinth
That I must wander all night.
"Just a Dream" (7:10)
You set out from your old barren house of wood
into that great spacious twilight so full
of mystery
about to be born,
bundled up
advancing through windy fields of tall dry grass
under the heavy storm cloud sky,
driven by purpose,
hardly conscious.
The dream from lifetimes past
had returned for you,
like an unseen brother
haunting from every horizon,
pulling you back to that place.
You will know it when you arrive
but only the dream knows the way there.
only the dream remembers
where the tablets stand,
marking where you keep the artifacts buried,
the clues you’ve collected through lifetimes,
fragments,
each showing just a precious piece of who you truly are.
Maybe once upon a dream you will complete the puzzle
and finally know your origins
and the destiny that centuries have been preparing you for.
As the first drops of rain fall,
you come to that old place.
You find the tablets
but they are blank.
The words you chiseled
with countless pairs of hands and eyes
through ages and lives
have worn away.
Indecipherable.
Rain fell heavy and you sobbed and roared
at traces of long lost lifetimes now fully erased.
You dug madly through the muddy red earth
with your fingers
until they hit the box of artifacts.
You hauled it up, set it on the ground, and lifted its lid as lightning
snapped the sky high above you.
Inside were the figurines, the music box, the pictures, everything.
But all had been drained of magic and meaning,
the aura of clue and enigma washed away.
Now they are just empty things.
You smashed the stones and walked away.
Back in that old wood house
You found some comfort.
Dry,
coals still warm.
You shouted a mad laugh and
dashed your jar of ink against the wall,
reading the dripping calligraphy
to learn the purpose and first clues
of the great new adventure before you,
because the only way to find your destiny
Is leaving it all to chance
when you are just a dream.
"Birds" (10:03)
I have seen a bird
cowering, shivering, shy.
I have seen another bird,
extending
its wings,
pushing powerfully on
air
until it rises,
finally soaring on natures invisible currents.
"After the Party" (10:40)
After the party
the clown stands alone at home
sobs uncomforted
"Abacus Cadabra" (11:00)
Crows gathered on the telephone wires,
some clustering, some apart,
Sometimes scooting this way and that.
Just for fun
Creation does its crazy maths
on this abacus of feathers, bone, and flesh,
rubber, copper, and electricity.
Math never adds up to anything more than itself.
Numbers move themselves so seriously,
oblivious, yet to to discover
that all their accounting and squawking and shitting
will never calculate a solution to the problem they’ve made
of life’s value.
"Tonight" (11:50)
Drop near-sighted fuss.
Let’s just enjoy being here.
Tonight we will die
"It Was a Good One" (12:11)
Sometimes in dreams
I have tea with a sweet Russian lady.
We sit in our cottage
at our little table
between the open door and window.
The ever fresh days,
white, blue, and yellow,
rush in and around us
with the children.
She was once my wife,
and this cottage and these children were ours.
We meet here
so we can remember, reminisce,
relive that lifetime, feeling
all it’s moments at once,
folded into this place
forever
in time between all times,
resonating even through the fog
of a new life.
I wake up crying.
There’s never enough time.
I lay wondering who she is now.
Could we recognize each other awake?
In my next life,
when I dream,
I hope I’ll visit this one I live now.
I hope I can sit with Mom and Dad and John,
and hold Lady and Penny while they bark and lick my face
like I just got home.
I hope I’ll read again with the children I taught in my classroom.
In my next life,
when I dream,
I hope I’ll visit this one I live now.
It was a good one.
"Old Red Shed" (13:55)
Old red shed
Old rusty Masterlock
Old shingles still sparkle
and moss finds its way over and under.
Those old double doors,
each marked with the X of boards
from corner to corner.
Old sloppy paint job.
It could use a new one.
And a good washing too.
Spider webs hang tight
but bend enough in the breeze
so the sun can light up threads
in new ways.
"Strange Bird" (14:52)
Frantic
I grabbed at a thought and missed.
Terror
as two flew from my arm’s hold.
I was clutching a wild flock to my chest.
Obsessed eyes scanning back and forth,
Trying to notice which would try to escape next.
Wings fluttered in my winced face and
Beaks pecked at my eyes and
Another slipped out and flew off and “I NEED YOU!”
One had an urgent message still tied to its leg,
Another was pretty,
And another I wanted to wear on my shoulder,
to repeat and validate everything I said,
And another,
the most crucial of all,
was for dinner.
My precious thoughts!
My precious…
I couldn’t hold them all.
One by one I let them go,
sacrifices made in anxious surrender
and faith.
Watching them fly off,
I was caught by the wide view of heaven.
Laughing,
I remembered
it had been right in front of me all along,
I hadn’t been holding my thoughts.
They had been holding me.
Free
and facing the spacious fullness of life
I raised my empty arms in wonder and gratitude.
A strange bird landed
in my palm.
I didn't grasp.
I held it graciously, like the ground holds our feet.
The strange bird looked me right in the eye
and said, “The important ones will come back
exactly when you need them,
but they will need a place to land.”
"Original Face" (16:45)
The smooth, fresh snow of youth,
glowing with light still whole,
conceals the rough rock faces
sculpted countless lifetimes.
What spring-born creature could know
the land’s shape before the winter?
The melting reveals,
but not before it alters.
Cracked rock tumbles
and loose earth washes away.
Blue, pink, and yellow surprises
speckle receding white,
as the land awakens slowly,
slipping the blanket off
its bed of green grass,
blood brown soil,
scattered, quiet stone.
The frozen white light shatters
into the many colors.
The mask melts at last,
and the terrain
of a well-worn face
appears.
I wanted to meet you
while we still wore some snow.
I wish I could have seen
you through your seasons.
And I wanted you to see
how I became.
I wanted someone
to know.
But it’s just as well.
We will be glad to find each other already unfrozen,
wearing our warm ridges lovingly.
We will share stories of spring and summer,
imagine the blossoming and burning.
Sometimes story is better than sight.
Like neighboring mountains,
have we already seen each other
shaped through the countless cycles?
Who can remember?
But I will know you when I see you.
You will have, as I do,
a snow capped peak,
a special and secret place
standing out above you,
fantastic,
unreachable.
I want to gaze up at your original face,
hidden forever by first snow,
so the light can tease me
with your wink.
"Canvas" (19:11)
It always starts with a bright pure canvass
But every painter knows the next thing that comes
Is the darkest layer.
From then on,
Every value that comes is
a little lighter.
The bright pure shine doesn’t come back until the very end
In just a few spots of highlight,
Where the unbroken spectrum can reflect into your eyes once again,
Now surrounded by all its sides revealed,
Nested in all it had hidden at the beginning.
"I Am a Ghost" (20:10)
I am a ghost.
Sometimes I drift through the city
among the living.
I observe them
going through their motions.
They can't see me.
They hardly see each other.
Bodies without spirit.
Me?
I’m a spirit
without a body.
It is lonely to haunt,
to see and not be seen.
But, ah! the thrill of encountering another ghost!
The relief and longing fulfilled
as our eyes meet,
crossing the distance in less than a blink!
We move towards each other
through the crowded graveyard.
At last to be seen!
And by such a spirit.
One who saw the dream behind the illusion,
One who wasn’t strong enough to submit
but had all the courage to rebel,
One who smashed their tight shell,
One who cut off their Earthly anchor
for freedom to pass through walls
and see the other sides,
adventuring through worlds and times!
How sweet it is to have found each other!
But
we ghosts can no longer become anchored,
even when we want to.
Knowingly, we drift our separate ways.
But we are eternal
and we know
we will meet again
and again.
"Young Love Forever" (21:40)
The old fisherman walks the shore
a bit before the sunset,
steady, patient, and quiet,
working to make peace with life.
His wife has passed away and his children are grown
and somewhere else
they have lives of their own.
Alone he must make his peace.
He is almost soft and empty enough,
at last,
for the fullness of life
to fit and breathe
comfortably inside of him.
But the old fisherman shakes his head
and smiles, a little sad,
as his longing haunts his surrender.
He gently steps along the line
where waves and sand
have playfully wrestled
in young love forever.
"Firefly" (22:50)
I used to have a saying,
“It’s always darkest
just before
It gets even darker.”
It came to me
while blindly,
awkwardly stumbling
through freezing, starless night.
Night without end.
Without premonition
I abruptly find myself
standing in a brilliant clearing
and as I shudder and sob and laugh
and all the confusion
the turmoil
the fear
fall off,
I look behind
and the way I came in utter darkness
is now a gold-lit path.
I now understand how
it all had purpose,
All of it,
pulling me with perfect grace and certainty.
If I had chosen what I was doing
and where I was going
I would have never come
to the right place.
There was a path
even when I didn’t think there was a ground
beneath my next
s
s
s
t
e
.
.
.
p.
My guide was a firefly.
A humble, diligent, wise point of light,
from nothingness appearing
just long enough to indicate the way
to stumble
just a little further
before fading back into the immersing shadow
Now, as I struggle along through darkness
I remember that everything is revealed in hindsight
and hindsight has at last given me this foresight:
though I don’t know where I’m going
or how I’ll get there,
I will arrive at precisely the right place
and then I will understand why it had to be so.
The nights are so long
and the days but moments,
but now I can trust the darkness
and the firefly.
I can breathe deeply,
and laugh,
while blindly,
awkwardly stumbling
through freezing, starless night.
"Little Beauties" (25:00)
Find little beauties.
Take a closer look.
As your focus narrows
the object expands
beyond measure.
What was once a discrete object,
limits defined,
is now a world without end,
just as Earth is a neat, little sphere from far away
but on the ground it is an intricate plane
stretching off into infinity
all around you.
Wander across the vast, vast
leaf.
It could take weeks to explore
all the way
from tip to stem.
To travel all if its roads
could take a lifetime.
Hike the peaks and valleys
of the texture
of a paper.
Everything is strange and wonderful
except for the old ideas you kick around.
The deadness you see in the world
is only the deadness of your withered ideas
reflected back at you,
which you mistake for the truth.
Clean your eyes
and let them receive
the vitality and intelligence
of the endless and alien
construction of the cosmos
on display
in all the little beauties.
"Wake Up" (26:56)
If we were truly awake
to what matters in life,
we would
play and laugh, enjoying just each other
with uninhibited delight
because we love each other so much;
we would
savor the unfolding instants,
soberly staring into each other’s eyes,
cursing and praising time,
because we love each other so much;
we would
meditate together on the truth that we will have to die,
grieving and sobbing and wailing and pressing our bodies together,
hating to let go
because we love each other so much;
we would
break every politeness and taboo against expressing love,
break our fear of loving too much,
break our fear of receiving too much love,
BREAK our hearts open
purposely and urgently and desperately,
knowing everything depends on succeeding in this,
because we love each other so much.
If we were truly awake
to what matters in life,
we would.
"Church" (28:15)
Earth,
most Holy Church of churches.
People pissing in the pews
Windows either broken out or boarded up
Cigarette butts stomped into the floor
And that pile of shit and garbage
that people started in the corner
is starting to spill all over the place.
Gah!!!
Don’t they know this is a FUCKING CHURCH?!
No, they don’t.
Our ancestors all knew
but now most have been trained
not to notice
And soon enough we will all die
of starvation, dehydration, violence, poison, or sickness,
corpses strewn and piled
quiet and still
in every room.
The church will go on standing
but what good is a church
if no one worships there anymore.
"Little Box" (29:20)
You thought you locked your feelings
in a little box.
But now you realize
you’ve played a little trick
on yourself.
You’ve locked
yourself
in little a box,
and you’re afraid to come out
where the wild feelings roam.
"Digger" (29:48)
I’m always digging
I don’t know why I can’t stop.
Maybe I always want to know what’s underneath.
Or maybe I’m never satisfied with what I see.
There’s got to be more.
Sometimes I see a glint down there
Or imagine what’s below those
unremarkable surfaces
and then I just can’t help it.
I dig. I'm a digger.
You can always uncover a new space.
Sometimes it’s bright under there.
Maybe part of me knows that the only way out is through.
Maybe there’s another sky down there.
So I dig.
Often I want to go wandering out wide
and sometimes I do.
But mostly I dig.
Intently.
I’m getting somewhere.
Maybe a wiser part of me knows
the greater adventure is to go in, inner, in-est.
“Sorry,
I'd really love to see you tonight
but, um, actually
I have this really important digging thing I have to work on...”
Maybe I can’t help digging through the past,
piled up and decomposed.
I extract nutrients,
organic matter reduced to elements
that can become new life,
old materials to combine in new ways.
I find artifacts
that can help me see my way backward
and forward
at the same time.
Maybe some part of me remembers that,
while I’ve tried so hard to build myself a
certain way,
the real me
was already built
Perfectly
but got buried long ago,
and its excavation is now an emergency.
Or maybe I’m really just looking for a simple home,
A place to plant myself.
Maybe my secret is that I’m a seed
So often I ache to rise
to new heights.
Instead I just keep digging down deeper.
But maybe a wiser part of me knows
like a tree does
That you can only reach higher if you stretch deeper.
Maybe I’m digging a well.
Maybe I’ll strike the aquifer beneath all forms,
feeding each variation into being.
And one day,
after a lifetime of digging,
if nothing else
I’ll have a grave
and I'll crumble into it,
graceful,
grateful.
There’s dignity and purpose in digging it yourself,
starkly aware
that is what you are doing.
"A Blessing for You" (32:50)
May you be happy.
May you feel light.
May you allow a smile to gently spread through your face.
May your eyes be open and clean.
May you release your apprehension
and be filled with supple strength.
May you stand tall and rooted,
pulled taught from above and below.
May you remember that your appearance
comes from the inside out.
May you remember that you’re someone
who people are pleased to meet.
May you never forget that you are lovable.
May you often relive memories of the love you have known.
May you remember that the purest happiness is there inside you,
always shining just behind the clouds.
May you fly beyond them
on the gust of a single thought.