Dreamer

1.
so often his dreams brought answers
locations:
of lost objects;
of needed things.
actions:
to be employed:
to leave undone.
solutions:
to fix the stage lights;
to. . .

so often his dreams came true.
but now
he has only nightmares.

no monsters (save sometimes himself);
no snakes, no spiders;
no falling through the air;
no vehicles out of control;
no atomic flash death
inhabit his nocturne.
only people.
people
once friends, confidantes, lovers.

what are they now?

2.
one night he dreams,
in exquisite detail,
of a broken wine glass
one perfectly dagger shaped shard
still solid to the stem.

his dream self,
using the crystal blade,
slicing deeply, cleanly, easily
a graceful swaying avenue
up the underside of his left arm,
across the elbow’s crook
and into his armpit (strange, no hair)

some days later a drink
slips from his hand.
he picks, from the mess of wine and shattered glass,
the object he recognizes from his dream.

with great care
wraps it in a scarf
and saves it for later.

paper stars

he remembers
silver paper stars
on the ceiling above his bed
but no one else does
the ones who would
are gone

he knows
she put the stars there
just for him

but now
she is gone
and only he remembers

the sandbox
by the back porch
where he could dig and play
hour upon hour
he remembers

and how he cried
to discover the birds
devouring his modeling dough
carelessly abandoned
on the table
in the yard

he remembers
how she laughed
and made him more

but now
she is gone
and only he remembers
only he remembers
only he
he only
remembers
paper stars

old, fat, stupid

(recovered from local archive)

i seem to be finding way too much frustration in my daily life of late. it makes me kick myself, as i tend to believe that one creates the circumstances in which they find themselves. so when i am beating myself against the impenetrable wall, i usually step back only to discover that i built the wall myself.

to wit, yesterday i wanted to wear my new jeans to my gig. now i do not often buy new clothes so the recent decision to spend a few bucks on myself for new jeans was a fairly major event in my life. having lost weight over some time, i had resorted to wearing some older, smaller jeans for about a year. but as if on cue they all wore out in concert with one another, which is fine i like wearing holey clothes as much as the next pope, but occasionally i need to wear more intact pants.
but the new jeans have apparently vanished into thin air. i tore my room apart looking for them to no avail. i looked thru every pile of clothes on my bed or floor. i looked thru every drawer. i searched my closet. i looked under the bed. i looked down the sides of the bed as it is nestled snugly into a nook. i went thru every stitch of laundry. i searched until i had worked up a sweat and an extreme case of frustration.

how can this be? where are those damn jeans? mischevious brownies or elves? i tend to doubt that this is so.

only one to blame is myself. i am a lousy housekeeper and clearly i mislaid my pants. perhaps they will be uncovered one day. perhaps not. perhaps i inadvertently threw them into the outgoing trash. idk. but clearly it is my own damn fault, one way or another.

so i am frustrated and angry with myself and feeling old, fat and stupid.

new world

o brave new world without forgiveness
o heartless world that holds no hope
o cruel world witholding love
o hapless world i reject you
for i believe in soaring spirit
and i believe that change does come
and i know that song can save you
and i know i’m going home

sometime back

sometime a vast and empty chamber
sometime a noisy, crowded room
sometime a serpent slithers singing
sweet the note
oh, sweet the note
and tap the walls, oh, tap the walls
open eyes and carefully listen
(is she trees)(is he frogs)
the child casts the spells
in infinite complexity
in all directions
so delicate fragile in their strength
the cosmos quivers as angels await
the interpretation of the final gasps
of musical bears and, oh, those bears
sway and swing yet strike no chord
yet strike no chord
sounds from the other side of the gate
footsteps and murmurs of unseen passers-by
he wonders and imagines
in childhoods fancy
that casts the spell
that shapes the dreams
and tries to remember
who it was
(and where it was
and when it was)
that gave him such magic

guitar chronicles, part 3

So, the coffee table got cleaned up.

I started being interested in the “British Invasion”, though still enmeshed in folk music. But, the Beatles, the Stones, et al. were making inroads to my musical interests. I started longingly pouring over the catalogs again, coveting electric guitars, and for a while I was fetished for bass guitars.

Sometime in here I pretty much destroyed the guitar I had quested so hard to obtain. In total ignorance, I removed the nylon strings and replaced them with steel Black Diamonds. It was not terribly long before they pulled the bridge right off the top of the guitar with a sickening cra-a-a-ck as I sat and played! I was disconsolate as you might imagine. Tried gluing the bridge back into place, but ignorance raised again its ugly head, of tools, of materials, of methods, and this was unsuccessful. Eventually, added a tailpiece which made it sort of playable once again, but not really. Spent a summer mowing lawns (God how I hated that job!) and delivering newspapers on a crappy bicycle that I had to repair almost daily. Finally scraped together enough cash to buy another classical guitar, fairly decent one this time, an Espãna which I still possess.

Then along came the Byrds! Yikes! I still remember the first time I heard them on the radio, lying in my bed one night listening to the radio. “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me…in the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you.” Folk Rock!?!?! You betcha! Made to order for me I was sure. Rickenbacker electric 12 string and Dylan all rolled up in one effin’ amazin’ package! (Side note: I would give most anything to be able to feel so excited about something now as I was able to then. Sure, I discover new pleasures now and then to this day, but, never get the same ecstatic excitement that I used to. Function of age? Or is it true that we are in a culturally stagnant period of history?) Anyway, the Byrds, with McGuinn’s lead lines on that 12 string, the harmonies, what is there to say that has not been said a million times before?

Then Dylan went electric and the world changed for me once again. This was a validation of the two sides of my musical interests being compatible, even integrated.

So, I was in high school and began to connect with other teenaged musicians. I acquired friendships with guys who played in bands that actually played in public, and got paid even. In the city where I lived there were ‘teen clubs’ if you will, where a dollar or two gained you admission to some smoky venue with a snack bar and a small stage where local bands played on weekends. Great place for me to make friends, though once again, my father hated that I went there. (Have I mentioned that my father was an ex-marine become, at the time, a cop?) Actually, I was expressly forbidden to go to these places and there was hell to pay whenever my father discovered that I had been. Which in fact, is where I had been on most weekend nights and not hanging out at the homes of friends, the usual untruth I presented.

Anyway, I had somehow, rather inadvertently become ‘cool’. Part of it was perhaps due to my being the first kid in my school, and maybe the whole city, to be sent home from school for having hair that was too long! (Snap, it was barely longer than the hair I have as I sit here typing, and I do not have long hair. But, then and there, any sort of bangs on a boy was hair too long for school, I guess.) Part of it was perhaps my tendency to dress in denim jeans and jacket. That I wrote poetry and songs. That I was running with intelligent and interesting people. That I showed up regularly at coffee houses and high school hootenannies to play and sing material a bit more interesting than the old folk stuff, Limelighters, New Christy Minstrels, whatever. The fact is that I WAS COOL! Girls found me attractive and sensitive; guys thought I was interesting and daring. Maybe I was, but you know, I did not exactly know it then. I was experiencing the usual teen angst, “No one likes me.” “I’m ugly.” “I’m not good enough.” The whole litany.
What I discovered was that when I declared my intention to start a rock and roll band, it did not take long to become an actuality. There were players among my acquaintances who were eager to sign on. As I did not have an electric guitar, I fronted and sang. It was a gas and a pain in the ass at the same time.

house

the child wanders the empty house
seeing only best at twilight
through the large rooms
full of stillness
alone alone
who does this?
has this boy been abandoned?
yet the world is seeming his
unfettered by adult restrictions
he comes and goes
especially early in his day
money, unknown denominations,
found in the purse kept in
the cupboard by the stairs
tobacco from the cigar box
on the little table in the alcove
who will he be
who will he be
he awaits the answer
yet little changed

guitar chronicles, part 2

I have been thinking about eggs Benedict and how i should not be eating such a treat. I better get myself out for a bicycle ride today and drop some calories.

Hmmm, just noticed that my hand smells like fish! why? I rarely eat fish, tho i should do so more.

Right now i am finding my mind filled with thoughts about what to do with my now spare laptop. Might convert to Linux, or maybe put apple leopard OS on it, either way it will still be for recording.

Enough about my day to day, on with the story.

So, I began learning more songs, formed a short lived folk trio, took up horseback riding (western), JFK was murdered in Dallas, and then the Beatles hit the scene. I had been among the first on this continent to hear about them as I happened to have, at that time, a pen pal in Liverpool who used to go on about them. I remember thinking, like, “oh yeah, sure, British rock and roll, god, what a joke.”

Of course at the time I was still very much into the righteousness of the FOLK MUSIC scene, starting to discover Odetta, Baez, Dylan, etc. Looking down my nose at rock and roll, I am sure. My pen pal, Marilyn, (you know it’s funny I still remember her postal address after all these decades. If she still lived there I could send a letter today.) actually sent me these British trading cards of the Beatles that I wish to god I still had. Probably be worth a few bucks today!

Anyway, the Beatles phenom started to well up on to these shores. I think my first glimpse of them in action was a clip without music on the Jack Paar show. I think it was all a joke about ‘long hair’ and screaming girls. Then the singles started to turn me on.

When they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show I got so excited and infected with the beat that I threw up all over the living room coffee table. My father failed to be amused. (When i was a kid, I had a fluttery stomach. I threw up a lot. I guess it was the excitement of the music. It might be hard to understand for someone who has grown up with the beatles, stones, zeplin, etc . as the elevator music of thier lives.) And now I wanted an electric guitar!

memories of snow

Where I have lived for the last many years it virtually never snows except in the mountains. Just as well too judging by the way people do not know how to drive in it when we do happen to get any sort of dusting of snow on the roads, which happens maybe every fifteen years or so. Well, snap, people here don’t seem to know how to drive on wet roads even. Maybe people in California don’t know how to drive at all, tho that does not seem to keep them off the roads!

Anyway, trying to stay on point, I did grow up in a part of this country where we got sub zero temperatures, snow and ice in the winters. (A large part of the reason that I no longer live there.) So I do know about things like building snowmen, having snowball fights, ice skating and sledding down snow covered hillsides. Not all the memories are quite so idyllic however.

Some are in fact rather horrific! Like delivering newspapers through snow up to my thighs, then coming home with frostbitten feet. Or the time for instance that I went with my jr. high girlfriend to her brother’s farm to go ice skating on the pond there. For some reason we decided to wander away from the farm and were a couple of miles away walking along an apparently frozen over river. We noticed these coupons blowing around that said “Pick Me Up, I am Valuable!” Foolishly believing that proclamation we began to scurry about picking them up.

The long and the short of it is that I chased one too far out on the ice, which suddenly gave way beneath me and I found myself over my head in the freezing  cold water. Pretty damn scary. As I floundered trying to pull myself up onto solid ice, which kept breaking off where ever I tried to get a purchase on it, my girlfriend stood safely on the shore laughing her fool head off! As you probably figured out, I did not go to a watery grave that day tho it was touch and go for a bit! Now with me soaking wet, in freezing temperatures we made our way to a road trudging along until we came to a roadside store where we had to beg the shop-keep to let us use the telephone, as neither of us had a dime for the pay phone.

Yeah, she had stood there laughing while I was fighting for my life! Never felt quite the same for her after that, in spite of her being the best developed (if you get my drift) female in my school.

Shivering as I remember that day.

guitars and me, part 1

Lemme see now, I guess that actually my first instrument was a Mattel Mickey Mouse Geetar, a sort of tenor guitar or baritone uke, modeled after the one Jimmy Dodd played on the Mickey Mouse Club television show. It was made out of plastic and had four nylon strings with tuning pegs, no gears. I was about five or six years old. My grandfather, a fiddle player back in his day, taught me to tune it via the old ‘my dog has fleas’ tune. I had absolutely no concept of chords at the time, and at the most can recall picking out single string simple melodies, e.g. mary had a little lamb; twinkle, twinkle little star.

Later I took a shine to the clarinet (who can explain these things? The only thing I can remember that may have turned me on to it was hearing the instrument referred to as a “licorice stick”.) I joined the school band and took private lessons from a man whom I feared and hated. The whole experience was so traumatic that I sometimes marvel that I did not turn off to music entirely! Fortunately (!?!?), I fell ill and was hospitalized with what was eventually diagnosed as a lung fungus, and the doctors felt that the clarinet should be put aside for a time. I never returned to it and that was the end of my rather less than prodigious woodwind career.

A few years passed and I became very interested in folk music (circa ’62) and lusted for a guitar. My father did not quite approve of the genre (pinko, beatnik, commie, faggot music, don’t you know!) and it took me over a year of begging and fantasizing over pictures of guitars in mail order catalogs, (back in the day all the companies, from Sears Roebuck to Monkey Wards had pages and pages of inexpensive guitars! A true golden age.), before I could convince him to let me trade in my dust collecting clarinet on a cheap no name classical guitar from a local music store. Probably could have done better just to sell the clarinet as it was a rather good one and we did a straight across trade for the cheapest guitar that they had, but live and learn as they say. And anyway, I did not know beans about what was good in a guitar in those days and this one LOOKED like what I wanted.

I also got a beginners instruction book that got me started on chords and songs like GO TELL AUNT RHOADIE and such. These were not songs I wanted at the time and as soon after that as I could, I bought a Peter, Paul and Mary (incidentally, the very definition of everything my father objected to about folk music) songbook. Now I had songs I wanted to play and chords to go with them but when I tried to play them the guitar part just sounded completely WRONG! I was trying to utilize the instructions from the beginner’s book to “pluck the bass note, and strum the chord.” Very unsatisfying, yet there was no one in my life to help me fathom this mystery. I knew no players, I was young and stupid, and was just lucky that I didn’t get even more exploited than I did.

Anyway, I began to take the bus into the downtown area most Saturdays and spent much of my time there hanging out at the music stores, eyeing the guitars and perusing the books. I was too timid (or was it proud?) to try to explain my conundrum to the guys that worked in the shops, which might have led to enlightenment sooner. Or maybe they would just have tried to sell me books and/or lessons with more of the “pluck the bass note etc.” school.

Then one Saturday, as I looked though some folk song anthology that included a section on technique I came across a reference to “Travis picking”. It was described as plucking the bass notes with the thumb of the right hand and picking out patterns of notes from the chord with the fingertips, or nails, of the same hand. At first, I remember, I was confused, and reread the passage quite a few times while some unconscious part of my mind was processing this new information together with the sound of the guitars on the records I listened to. Suddenly the revelation burst through into my consciousness, like, my very own road to Damascus!

I hustled out of the music store to jump the first bus back to my neighborhood. Getting home I rushed straight up to my bedroom and in a matter of minutes was fingerpicking a fair approximation of PP&M’s “Polly Von”. What a rush! I cannot describe adequately the state of my consciousness that afternoon. I was excited, ecstatic and elated!! I played and learned until my fingers were totally raw. I am still amazed at how suddenly it all fell into place for me that Saturday, how it was almost easy all at once. A life changer for sure!