Tag: Checkerboard World

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs On My Own Plants and the Emerald Kingdom

The Bear

Hi…. You know I am realizing one of my huge problems in life is being too hyper and impatient. I can’t bear taking more than 5 minutes to record a song & during that time I also managed to destroy a frying pan I really loved by setting it on fire, losing one bowl of macaroni and cheese by dropping it on the floor, one box of straws by dropping it on floor and breaking my headphones all because I couldn’t resist trying to eat dinner and record at the same time. And I melted a grill lighter on a lit stovetop.

The world was cold there was no easy place.
The world was flat nowhere to hide.
The winds would blow in a disorienting way,
Then they’d grow still from time to time.

The people run to you with smiles upon their faces
Then they twirl and disappear into a hat.
You were supposed to know which words were true
And which ones you should not believe but how could you know that?

The grass was green a checkerboard that never ended.
The men were tall and thin like stilts.
They danced so fancy with their bodies twirled and bended
Then they’d tip their hat and like a leaf they’d wilt.

They left green hearts upon the grass where you could see them
But it wasn’t clear what any of them meant.
Reach down to touch one and it disappears beneath your hand
But maybe that was never their intent.

The sun would rise while you were still asleep
To fill the air with yellow clowns.
Their yellow faces through your sleepy eyes looked queer
And so you’d close your eyes and lie back on the ground.

You’d wait til noon when you could see the men come running
On their skinny legs beneath the happy sun.
Maybe I’ll watch them dance and clap for them for one more day
A seal inside their yellow tent of fun.

But when the night came there was no relief.
It poured down like a jet black wave.
You shook with cold and an emotion much like grief
As though your feelings made a difference to a bear inside his cave.

The stars were shining but too far away to hear you
And the greatest bear was nowhere to be found.
You tried to think there must be something that you missed
But all your thoughts would squirt then dribble to the ground.

So close your eyes and let the memories come back
To spread like ink upon a page.
It could be that life is just a dream that we can’t understand
And you must lie unmoving while the stars dance in their cage.

The BearDownload

Her fur reminds me of a warm safe place where as a child I’d hide.



Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story Uncategorized

The Black Checker

Fuck me. Normally I’m somewhat average in terms of efficiency. Under crisis in August I rose up to become a top 10 performer. Mid September my balloon began deflating and now my life consists of staring at a mug until I finally get up and walk into a wall. Technically I still get a bit done but am nowhere near recommended levels of crispness for my weight range.

Is this a normal response to someone’s mind being overloaded by things they don’t want to think about? An early sign of AIDS? Right now I need to be calling the prosecutor’s office, visiting the courthouse, wrapping packages and taking them to the post office, doing some secretary work for a famous herbalist, cleaning the house since the front door is made of glass, stopping my plants from dying, cooking dinner so the meat doesn’t go bad, playing with the dogs to keep them from sliding into depression, plus I really need to buy a coat and some pants since the temperature keeps dropping and I gotta get these things and more done by six when the sun goes down.

Cause then I have my night time stuff to do.

But rather than performing the tasks essential to survival (in the end we all die anyway, right?) maybe I’ll just sit here drinking coffee and tell you how my empowermints are going.

The most important thing is that I completed my illegal drug empowermint. This was sort of the jewel in my empowermint crown to the extent that I kinda of feel I’ve peaked and have nowhere to go but down. Maybe that’s why I’ve been tailspinning. My whole life I’ve wondered how people obtain illegal drugs when there is no clear road to obtaining them. You can’t buy them in a store, you can’t ask people if they sell them, so how is everyone is high? Well it turns out the answer is friends.

I’d decided that friends were the next realm of empowermint anyway. You can know how to dig ditches and start a campfire but without any friends you gotta hard hoe to row. And I literally knew no one of flesh and blood. Now I know a few.

And I really, really want to write about them. But I don’t know if that’s rude. I’ve always avoided being friends with writers for this exact reason. Just like I’ve avoided being friends with musicians because they have no morals. And tall people because their heads are too far away from earth. And dark haired people because they are wusses. Thin people are harsh and intolerant. Fat people just chuckle when you want to talk about something serious. People with large heads are obsessed with conspiracies. Small heads look weird. Long necks lack commitment. Short neck means tiny brain. Men can be dangerous or break your heart. Women might assume you’re a lesbian and you end up having to eat their pussy just to be polite. There’s a reason to avoid everyone.

I almost feel I’ve gotten too many ideas about life stuck in my head and now I need to clear a few out. Men who eat pasta are gay. Men who avoid pasta are gayer. Drugs are bad because they’re illegal. Hot dogs are bad cause I once found a short thick hair in one. Bars are bad because ghosts live in them and they can get stuck in your hair then follow you home. Honey mustard dressing is bad cause if you eat it you’ll attract men who like to be done up the ass. Red attracts violence. Purple insanity. Black death. White can make you so spiritual that you attract dark sluts who give you aids. Orange can make you attract fun loving sluts who also give you aids. Gold will turn you into a man. Silver softens your brain. The world is full of things to be avoided.

More than ever I feel like a black checker all alone on a checker board. My player has decided he’ll use me to make his next move. He doesn’t have many checkers left. But whichever direction he moves me in I’m gonna get jumped. Maybe this is why I keep walking into walls.

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