Categories
Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

The 5 Friends

This airy song is probably not the best thing to publish at the heaviest moment of the year’s wheel, but still, here it is- a simple song about 5 sky blue friends.

 

 

Five Friends

 

They walk the road together;
they walk it side by side.
They hold each other’s hands;
they stretch out five men wide.

The sky stretched, too,
a flag of morning glory blue.

See the five of them
walk into the convenient store.
One of them buys the bread,
the other four wait by the door.

That’s what friends do-
they always hover near to you.

When they wander, when they roam,
they will hit the road together.
If one day they build a home,
they say they’ll live in it forever…

what a word…
so carefree and so blue, like a bird…

The five friends eat their meal
at a table that is round;
they never wince and cringe
to hear each other’s munching sounds.

But why?
Because these friends were dipped in sky,
their nerves never run dry.

The five friends walk the road
in matching jeans but different shirts.
They share a bag of snacks,
passing the bag both back and forth.

No concerns-
the five friends don’t believe in germs.

Five friends sit by the fire;
they listen to the music play.
One friend is asked to dance-
these friends are all too shy that way…

turning pink…
perhaps they could just sit and think?

The five friends seek advice
from a wise man at the church.
He says that friends are great,
but still you have to put God first.

And they agree-
but where is God?- He’s hard to see.
Is he a friend inside your mind?
Or could God be the sky?

The five friends vote on it-
the vote is five to none
that God must be the sky;
He shelters everyone,

so clear and sweet,
surrounding us with time and dreams,
surrounding us with space to explore;
that’s what friends are for.

Download OGG: Five Friends

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Uncategorized

Little Man

 

Little Man

 

Little man look to the sky; the world is something blue.
Bridges rise and bridges fall; they will not hold for you.
Bridges rise and bridges fall; you doubt the things you’ve seen.
Did a man cry out in pain or was that just a dream?

Little man look to the sky and let your blue eyes burn.
Bridges rise and bridges fall; there is nowhere to turn.
People everywhere have thought the rain would never end;
Standing in the cold, that’s when they learned they had a friend.

Clouds descend upon you and they fill your eyes with white.
If it’s necessary to do something, you’d rather do what’s right.
Clouds descend upon you and you doubt the things you things you’ve seen.
Did a man cry out in pain or was that just a dream?

Clouds descend upon you, knock you down onto one knee.
Please don’t marry her, little man, you need more time to be free…
People everywhere have thought the rain would never end;
Standing in the cold, that’s when they learned they had a friend.

Winds blow in from everywhere they cut you day and night.
If it’s necessary to do something, you’d rather do what’s right.
Winds blow in from everywhere; they bring the scent of pine.
The world is something far away, a blue and icy line.

One day you will cross that line, uncertain what you’ve seen.
The images will swirl and fade like walking in a dream.
People everywhere have thought the rain would never end;
Standing in the cold, that’s when they learned they had a friend.

Almost everywhere, they thought the world would never end.
When the ending came, that’s when they knew they had a friend.

 

Download MP3: Little Man

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

I believe I can Fly

 

I Believe I Can Fly

 

Why you want to touch something so warm
When you know life is cold and it’s back to the war?
Why would you want to see ribbons tied to the tree
Every spring? Life is flat. Ribbons don’t mean a thing.

Or else maybe they do and the problem is you
Watch the kids sing and dance. What’s the matter with you?
Don’t you want to play play? Smile and dance the whole day?
No I don’t. Let me sleep till I gather my strength then I’ll weep.

Obviously there was a time
I believed in the sky, I could dream, I could fly
Then he came to my life, a man fresh out of prison
I thought he was wise like a purple magician

Well, I never believed, but I had to pretend or
He’d lift up his big log and that was the end
Flat on the ground with my face in a ditch drain
Watching the water flow learning the language of pain

Learning languages darker and deeper
Learn how to play dead and be a mind reader
Giving a hand job with only your hand
Was it Shakespeare who said “Villainy- your name is man?”

Maybe he said it, but who would believe it
When nothing has happened till no one has seen it?
Too many things that have never occurred
I saw with my face in the water, the images blurred.

Scenes of night murders, black powder voodoo
Family and close friends cooked into a stew
I did not want to see it, much less to believe it, but
Water in my ears would not let me leave it alone.

Then one day I arose he was gone, and
I was not the same, but the world had marched on
Full of fair-weather friendships and white powder smiles
Won’t you tell me your story, sit down and stay for a while?

I would prefer not to, when you’d never believe me
I walk down the street and there’s black things I see, but
No one else can see them and they’d never believe them
Doomed to walk this earth with only one single friend.

So do I believe in the white unicorn?
Yes, of course, for he saved me with his silver horn, and at
Night we lie down and discuss all the black things
My finger, his horn, with eternity rings.

Until one day the black will reach it’s highest power
We’ll steal all its secrets in that final hour
Then maybe I, I’ll believe I can fly, so
We’ll smile at each other and we’ll turn to the sky.

 

Download MP3: I Believe I Can Fly

Categories
Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Toy Horses

 

Placing the helm on my headToy Horses
I see the clouds up ahead
Please let me ride.
Please let me ride.

Holding an egg in my hand
I fear the battle at hand
Don’t let me die.
Don’t let me die.

Raise your flags, men
On toy horses we ride
Life, like a dream
Stretched forever into the blue sky.

Twenty-one days to the shore
A trip to the well will add seven days mores
Time to cry.
A time to cry.

Dipping my head in the well
I hear their pink voices clanging like bells
If you want to be forgiven
You must leave us a pink ribbon.

Why do I need to be forgiven? you ask of me
Twelve years ago I deserted my company
This led to the death of three men who depended on me.

But my life overwhelmed me
It seemed so absurd
To die when the meaning of
Life was still blurred.

But now I can see that survival is vain
When death is the trophy of gold that all souls seek to gain!

Now we will ride to shore
Mermaids and seashells will witness our war
We are high
For tomorrow we die.

Horses scratch their hoofs on the checkerboard grass
War frees the soul from its vessel of glass
We are high
For tomorrow we die.

 

Download MP3: Toy Horses

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Plants and the Emerald Kingdom Purple, Magic & Sorcerers Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Crumbles of Myrrh

 

Heaving myself to the top of the hill
I already know what I’ll see
Beautify, simplify, tell the truth or denyCrumbles of Myrrh
Nobody leaves this world free.

Look all around me, the clouds that surround me
No one can doubt that God’s demons have found me
Swallow me up in their stomach so blue
Death waits for me as it’s waiting for you.

Hand me that anise now, hand me that tonka bean
Hand me that red root that’s wrapped in a golden string
Hand me that iron kettle, hand me that copper stir
Hand me the fish that we smoked with the balsam fir…

Why? Why?
God I Trusted You
Can you deny that
You left me here, here all alone?
Add a crumble of myrrh and a chip of the ankle bone.

Bitterly I cry
My dreams were buried alive.

Sleep under stars as confining as iron bars
Nobody knows what I see
So many people beneath the same steeple
Not one of us ever breaks free.

Cry cry
All you babies
I can only despise the way
You beg down on your knees
A big smile on your face- won’t you help me, sir, pretty please?

Hand me that bitterness
Hand that thickened blood
Hand me that finger that washed away in the flood
Hand me that acid bile
Hand me that molded cheese
Hand the sperm of the man with the skin disease.

My belt I untie
My dreams were buried alive.

Walk down the hill with a weight off my shoulders
Giving high fives to the trees and the boulders
Soon I will reach the road, soon we will meet again
Carry your satchel and smile like a long lost friend.

Hi Hi
Friend, it’s been so long
Glad to see you again
Look- a beetle crawls there on your shoe
Let me kneel on the earth; let me crush it for you.

Dust on your shoelaces
Dust on your fingerprints
Sprinkle some more on your pocket that’s filled with mints
Sprinkle some more on your hood and your hairy do
Stare in your eyes as the stars come alive in you…

Open your mouth wide
My dreams were buried alive.

 

Download MP3: Crumbles of Myrrh

Categories
Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Man and Bird

 

I met her on a Thursday when the clouds were so high,
and the mountains reached up like a perch for the sky.
She wore feathers the color of air;
I was crusted in callouses left by despair.Man and Bird

Though she chirruped soft sounds I could not understand,
she smelled blue as the wind and I was just a man;
so I offered her my finger as a wrinkly perch
and I carried her like sweet bride right to my church.

I felt joy descend on my cheek like a wing…
All my life I’d been searching for a woman with the blue eyes of spring!

You know, most women are so heavy always clumping their brooms
as they glare from the side of an eye filled with gloom.
I don’t like them, I don’t need them, I don’t want to say why;
but I did love this sweet bird that fell like an egg from the sky.

But gossip grew after only one week
when the maid saw me lower my lips to her beak.
I won’t deny that my mind was impure;
I fingered her soft head and I would have done more.

But I can’t have my life ending in ignominy
Though I’m old I have gold and I’ve earned every penny.
In a perfect world, she’d be my bride and help me to spend it;
instead I carried my bird inside where I knew I must end it.

Standing in the shadow of a chandelier I told her
that I would not be the man to hold her.

She looked at me through lacy eyes marbled with pain
then she flew away, my little bird, I stood there and leaned on my cane.

And it’s true that it haunts me that look on her face;
shadows flow through my heart- yes, I made a mistake.
But I’m a man, just a man- what else more can I be?
I can’t butcher myself in the press so a bird can be free!

Fly away birds, fly away; you know the spring is long gone…
there’s no seeds for you here on my manicured lawn.

Let me rest in my evening chair in the sun’s pinky glow.
Life ends in regret, that’s our world, and its always been so.

 

Download MP3: Man & Bird

Categories
Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Uncategorized

i could love you

 

i could love you Poptart James

the touch of silk, the smell of rose
that’s life, that’s the way it goes, i know
the smell of rose and lemonade
close my eyes, not afraid, oh no

everyone that seems to care they feel so far away
imagine that love fills the air, imagine it will stay

i could love you, i
who could love me, not i

a hand that’s overgrown with hair
touch me, that means you care, i know
a hand that smells like lemonade
every day sweet love is made, oh no

big eyes circle round the town
go ahead and stare
big eyes circle round and round
don’t look for love, i looked, it wasn’t there

i could love you, i
who could love me, not i

the smell of lemonade and rose
close your eyes imagine that love flows
the feel of silk where petals lie
please don’t say that love can die, oh no

white clouds settle on the ground and fill the neighborhood
feel my head spin round and round, this must be something good

i could love you, i
who could love me, not i

 

Download Mp3: i could love you

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Uncategorized

Best Friends Forever

 

 

Mommy

 

 

Download Mp3: Best Friends Forever

 

you bought me candy and you held my hand
and we walked, just the two of us, there on the sand
and we watched the horizon so far away
and i smiled- i knew it would all be mine someday

but then when you left the horizon turned flat
it was an empty line, who wants to waste their time chasing that?
and all the dreams were shadows that left the world colder
and the future was only a place to get older and die

death was everywhere behind every smile
it fueled the people’s dreams, they drove mile after mile
but i stood there, just waiting for my time to run out
tousled by the purple sheets blowing about

in a wind that came from somewhere, but from where no one was sure
life was just a riddle then, so pointless and obscure
that no one even tried to answer it, they just drove faster in their cars
wanting to go anyplace as long as it was far

from the place they were born, a birth they could not even remember
memory was a flashlight, a tiny handheld ember
that we used to move forward, but never to look back,
while behind us a presence grew so ominous and black

and in front of us we were certain we heard footsteps descending
we knew they were death’s feet, heralding our ending
for i’d seen my own mother slide like a child into his robes
so we focused with exclusion on the things we could control

studiously shining our little lights on tombstones
memorizing names that belonged to the bones
and at times i would lie down and dream i was dying
i’d close both my eyes and watch purple flags flying

thru a sky with two moons and my hands would grow colder
would my mother recognize me now thirty years older?
would we walk again, the two of us, on a beach in the sky?
would i feel hope again when i found a world where you don’t have to die?

or would death be there, as well, would he slide through the curtain
a jack in a black box who makes pain so certain
when he scoops out the fruit and then leaves me the rind
until i’m clawing like an animal for a way to feel full inside

when you were here, i was here, i occupied this place,
but now my heart is stretches like an ache throughout space
i look everywhere to find you, people tell me to let go
but i see their eyes shine with a demonic glow

i will follow you, i’ll follow you, i’ll fight through the veils
we will meet again, i don’t know where, but please let your trail
lead me outside of time where we can hold hands forever
and i can dream again, knowing we’ll be best friends forever.

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Uncategorized

Flags on the Rail

 

A Pirate Wedding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok… well, I suppose this is a song about the pirate Blackbeard.

I first heard this song (in my head) five years ago while walking along the banks of the Ohio River in Owensboro, KY. But the next day I returned to Louisville and was working in my garden when I heard another song (this one about flower fairies) set to the same melody. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to write two songs with the same melody, because I dreaded the moment someone would say, “Hey, those songs have the same melody.” I was playing open mics around Kentucky, where the presumption was that you must suck, or else you wouldn’t be playing open mics, you would be dancing on a golden stage. So, I was feeling a little sensitive, and to avoid potential criticism, the Blackbeard song was buried and forgotten.

Until yesterday, when I heard it again, and decided to write it down, because if God can write multiple songs set to the same tune, then so can I.

So this is a song about Blackbeard. I have written a number of songs about people on boats, although I don’t know why. I have no interest in boats in real life. I also write a lot of songs about soldiers, and even gay love between soldiers, although once again I have no idea why.

But, I suppose the world of the unconscious is different from this world and the meaning of things aren’t the same. In this world, my favorite activity is shopping for scented soaps, but I will probably never write a song about that. Nor would I write a song about how much I appreciate special people in my life. That would be weird and nauseating, not to mention bad luck. Songs seem to come from a world that is upside down and backwards to this one. Their ways are not our ways.

 

Download MP3: Flags on the Rail

Categories
Nashville Red, Soldiers, & Fire Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Uncategorized

Made Love to My Father

 

I made love to my father and now I must pay... The True Story of a Confederate Soldier by Julien AkleiWell, it looks like this is my final song! I have finally recorded and posted all the songs I have written so far. Phew. Now I am free to move on to something new… maybe I will grow my fingernails out into out long, golden talons studded with rhinestones and tiny teddy bears. Ah, that sounds like paradise!

I think this is a decent song for my grand finale, because… well, I remember when I wrote it, the sky was so so blue and the song unfolded page by page in my mind like a storybook, filling me with a sense of eternity. Which is to say, I have positive associations with it.

Also, this song captures a world I frequently try to capture in my songs– a place I call “Checkerboard World.” Checkerboard World is more or less the same as this world, except that everything seems slightly more luminous, more crisp and defined. Plus there is a giant checkerboard that covers the earth and one in the sky as well. The checkered squares in the grass are large- maybe 10 feet wide on average- but in the sky they are even larger, maybe up to a mile wide! But the size of the checkerboard grid varies from place to place, sometimes expanding, sometimes condensing. It all depends on how much space the space contains.

But don’t confuse Checkerboard World with heaven. This is not the land of golden angels. There are still thugs in their dark alleys and scoops of chocolate ice cream that topple onto new white shirts. But there may be something about the clarity and spaciousness of the place that makes it easier for people to recover completely from the bad things that do happen. And in Checkerboard World there is no time, meaning there is plenty of opportunity to sit and cry for as long as you need to. Well, technically time does exists, but only as a way of subdividing eternity, which stretches out around people in all directions (like a checkerboard). Even death is nothing but an opportunity to evaporate up to the giant checkerboard in the sky so you can pour down again like rain.

Download MP3: Made Love to My Father