Scarecrow Song

Once I saw an angel caught in a web of confusion

I used my wisdom scissors to cut her free.

She flew down to me and whispered her confession,

and now I'm stuck in the web she left for me.

A man walked by I could tell he had no eyesight,

the blind man turned and said "I could see just fine".

"I'll cut you down from your troubles only after midnight,

but to do it for free well it would be a crime."

Seasons pass and hungers grow as is certain,

the sun never ever shares it's light with me.

I was sentenced here by kindness and deserted,

by the very same angel I helped set free.

Then one night I heard her voice through the darkness,

she heard me singing about my woes.

"I'll help you if I find you through this emptyness,

but I can't see you for my eyes are closed."

She called me an angel as she clawed through the darkest night,

to find a burning arrow to light the sky.

She had no scissors and so hope was a dwindled light,

but she continued until her hand found mine.

"Angel will you tell me how all of this came to be?"

"Miss I'm no angel just a lonely scarecrow."

She said nothing as she pointed to my back leading me

to see two giant wings and a glowing halo.

So now we sit as stone statues of antiquity,

an angel holding hands with a scarecrow with wings.

Forever forgotten forsaken by those who can't see,

forever forsaken as they never will believe.

Against the Sense

There is only one person.
There is only one heart.
There is only one
Hate.
Beginning.
Pain.
Revolution.
Love.
One time. Smile. Kill.
Community.
One act. One of each.
Family. Effect.
One end. One joy. One good and the love of good.
Only one under many skies.

Age

We keep more than we remember, and in fact we keep it all and store it deep within and under the "identity", which floats on the surface of our self like seaweed does over a colorful coral reef. We keep it all, ingrained into our structural integrity, absorbed by our cells through a tender type of osmosis that’s not at all violent in its raw, obscured efficiency. Those twin conquistadors, time and experience, are liquids which are completely absorbed by the heart and mind; and our bodies, not only containers of these murky fluids, are the reflections of the weight of the two. Measured by memory and fueled by hope, there is an inherent value we are all born with which either dignifies or blasphemes these phantoms we collect, and its organic judgment, which can show no mercy nor benevolence, is reflected in our lives by our bodies and on our status as the price to pay for the gift of having been created.

A Child in Court

"I prefer to make snap judgements with little or no information. My opinion is founded on impulses which are entitled to irrevocable rights. As a result, there is not much I can admit to not knowing." 

Townes Van Zandt - Rake analysis

RAKE

I used to wake and run with the moon
I lived like a rake and a young man
I covered my lovers with flowers and wounds
My laughter the devil would frighten
The sun she would come and beat me back down
But every cruel day had its nightfall

- This is quite evident; an old beast who is nostalgic for wild times gone. If we take the moon and night as symbols of mystery and transcendent passion, and juxtapose them with the day, which would be self-awareness, doubt, and mortality, this song is much easier to profile. Larger, stronger than the devil, he lived as a rake - collecting experiences into piles of a divine and meaningful life.

I'd welcome the stars with wine and guitars
Full of fire and forgetful
My body was sharp the dark air clean
And outrage my joyful companion
Whisperin' women how sweet did they seem
Kneelin' for me to command them

- The line full of fire and forgetful is probably the most revealing in this song. Forgetful of what exactly? Full of fire, full of vitality and will - the feeling to be overtaken by the current of a destiny. But forgetful? Maybe forgetful of all the small insignificant things we hold onto; identity, opinions, hurt and trauma. Forgetful of a past seamed by pain and confusion. Whether right or wrong, outrage, a popular feeling nowadays, is only possible in the perceived clarity of some truth. And this truth he has is validated as women bow before him. Forgetful of the things which murk his mind and righteousness.


And time was like water but I was the sea
I'd have never noticed it passin'
Except for the turnin' of night into day
And the turnin' of day into cursin'

- The conceptual reality of time is 2 dimensional, flat, easily bypassed when aware of larger realities; the flow of it demands focus when living in the world of men. But he obviously chooses to get to the point of it, meaning he felt so much in tune with the vibrancy of life that time has been properly minimised and put into its rightful place. But then night turns into day, energy begins to wane, doubt resurfaces, probably the truth of his loneliness - and all he can say is “Fuuuuccckkk!”

You look at me now, and don't think I don't know
What all your eyes are a sayin'
Does he want us to believe these ravings and lies
They're just tricks that his brains been a playin'?
A lover of women he can't hardly stand
He trembles he's bent and he's broken
I've fallen it's true but I say unto you
Hold your tongues until after I've spoken

- These verses are aimed at the world of men. He knows he’s different, the eyes of people around him reflect his solitude. These people shoot words at him intending to rupture his glory, and since he is sensitive, naive enough to believe people are like him, he considers what they say. They tell him his visions are psychological, perhaps he needs to see a therapist. They tell him he is crazy. He considers what they say; this breaks him because they don’t exercise love through support.

I was takin' my pride in the pleasures I'd known
I laughed and thought I'd be forgiven
But my laughter turned 'round eyes blazing and
Said my friend, we're holdin' a wedding
I buried my face but it spoke once again
The night to the day we're a bindin'
And now the dark air is like fire on my skin
And even the moonlight is blinding.

- The experiences he raked up fill him with a pride that only he is a witness of; a true rebel, he revolted against the entire structure of what has been built by others. This pride satisfies the need for definition and purpose, but it is impossible to maintain. Like Icarus at his highest point. Townes decided not be a hypocrite, and to go as far as he could into what romantics dream of. But like Icarus, he found that all those dreams are as insubstantial as clouds. He thought he would be forgiven for this mistake, but we keep, collect, and judge ourselves off of every experience we have (even if we seem to forget them). Excessive living creates the highest highs and the lowest lows  proportionate to each degree, and when the new season of his life comes, the binding of day and night, of truth and reality, of the feeling and the world without heart - there’s nowhere to recover. The system dawns, enlightening mysteries, and the life-loving feelings he remembers he once had only serve to remind him of his failings to maintain them. This hurts, and he can’t tolerate this new truth. The moonlight now illuminates the limits he never knew he had, and unless he adapts to what he now sees, he will suffer as cursed as he once felt blessed.

Adam and Eve (song)

Where shall we go, with the storm coming near

we've got to find some place, beyond the clouds where we'll spend the next year.

Someday i will find, your shoes next to mine

and with your song in season, I can't compare, nothing more blessed under time.

And there is no reason to look behind with the road still ahead

and there is no reason to try and find those things better left unsaid.

There's nothing back there but pain stretched over time

dramatic illusions we'd soon forget everything will be fine.

Darkness gets dawned, the coldness gets warmer

I've seen your face before the dawn

and I've seen it in the darkest corner.

And there is no reason to look behind with the road still ahead

and there is no reason to try and find those things better left unsaid.

Adam and Eve, ours names shall inspire

our home will be the birth of laughter our lights getting brighter.

Where shall we go, and what shall we could we fear

our eyes are open the apple is bitten we shall keep what we hold as dear.

Untitled Song in A

Everything dies and passes away shouldn't you know that it's true.

But since we are here and breathing today shouldn't we see it through.

Clowns paint tears on tracked faces the dancers aren't dancing at all.

Telephones ringing machines do the talking there's no one there to answer the call.

The music comes soft from the concert hall and and we don't have a care for anything at all

The angels are bitter but that how it goes, the saxophone player blows

a tune from the basement.

Your stack of cards makes a pretty house but you'd swear it's stronger than cardboard

Past meets future trivial here and nows, the present's an uncomfortable bore.

Jesus Christus, builds doghouses, he'll sell you one for a dollar

it protects you from the human monsoon, as long as you don't take off your collar.

Dodging traffic is everyone's business but the preacher's hoping that it's not endless.

Coloured schemed suits file in from the weather.

It doesn't get any better

always a coin away.

Visions are blurry but everyone talks, around the corner a dirty phone-booth walks

to an all night diner to ask for some change, people don't you think it's strange,

here you get used to it.

Your hair like a fire licks your face and you move with subtle grace.

Your eyes solve riddles, lips give solace

if you go it'll be a waste.

Flapping your wings against the chest of death, he holds you tightly by the heart

you've escaped with love for far too long now but you swear it's worth just a part.

Now you wait at the rendezvous

in your summer dress with a letter to

the stranger who made it hard for you

to stay inside your skin.

It's a tragic comedy.

And the voices of children echo through time

they are tinted with sorrow a particular kind

frozen but mobile dementia of love

we must be considerate of

the faces in the window.

Coming to Terms

The night floats by in time like an escaped balloon explores and soars in the air.
Dreams rebound off the wants and the needs of the child that lives inside.
Drifting there through the early hours priming for the day,
when all desire meets an end by either coming true or flying away.

Power

Judgement waits
under a motionless sky
and it sits on an hourglass
without a human heart to keep it warm.
But it has two mouths
one to chew on words
and the other,
to devour its interior.

It is impartial only in proportion to the size of the accused.

Confusion

When I was younger I dreamt of an uncorrupted certainty, and I spent all my time walking along its white beach. I grew bored over the years and so I created phantoms to keep me busy. I became so attached to these ghosts that I treated them as royalty.
Eventually, and through no effort, I convinced myself that the heart of their kingdom lie in the black castle in the sand.

On Painting

Robert Frost was once asked in what direction he saw the future going, and he answered -"to absolute materialism". I imagine that he said it after a heavy sigh, lamenting a more primitive time where mysticism and the fear of the unknown fueled the need for his art. I don't want to focus on poetry in this, but I do find this relevant to this issue.

In centuries past visual art served multiple functions. To my mind the most profound of these was to glue the community together through a narrative. Since literacy was limited, the mythos of a culture passed from one generation to the next, belief systems became engrained, and everyone within the community had a visual point of reference to digest its values and identity. Through its historical implications or otherwise, this was the primary function of all art up to modernism.

At the beginning of the 20th century, when technology had dramatically advanced to the point where the narrative could be told in many different kinds of medium, the visual arts reacted by becoming more subjective and personal. What became represented is not an objective reality, but more of a focus on perception. (The main problem with this is that any sort of profundity assumes the viewer is actively engaged in taking something from it, which more so discards the need for a narrative.) The last communal narrative through painting in the art world was killed by Freuds psychoanalysis.

The 20th century gave birth to a extreme focus on individual identity, the expressionists, Dadaists, and surrealists being the labor pains of this phenomenon. The concept of time within the art movement became more condensed. As a result the modernists magnified it. A spectre in the background of any painting, time and its significance was always present. (Time is the most minimal of all subject matter, as it requires the least thought. In fact, it requires no thought at all!)

There is no difference between what a person perceives and what a person essentially is. And since ones identity is reflexive of his generation and time, the perceptions he experiences are relative to the boundaries of his culture. In the west, as a result of technology, which empowers identities under the microscope of reinforcement, the culture has put more and more weight onto individual expression, not realizing that each artist is actually an agent of his generations collective body. No one is a revolutionary. All are reactionaries.

So what are todays art and artists reacting to?

As Robert Frost predicted, absolute materialism (and its mother, relativism.).

Snuggled quite comfortably in the luxury of no longer having the need to say anything real and true, as it hides behind relativism, art has been free to explore what the psyche ultimately leads to, its own mortality. The ego is a construct, and fears death as it has no physical body which could die, yet aware that it must. It protects itself from the fear of death by illusions of relevance. Its physical manifestation is the vomit on the canvas. It builds a material body. Since a narrative can be told more effectively in other mediums, high art has resorted to mummifying moments, ideas, mental images, skills, and it preserves them to adorn the individual egos glory proof of once existing.

It was Krishnamurti who introduced the idea of the egos deathless substance. Basically, his point was that we surround ourselves with inanimate objects, things, and we are addicted to having more, because these things will never die. They are not organic, objects are immortal as their material will never decompose (in a lifetime). The mind relates, the ego mimics.

The photograph implies nothing. It captures action in time. But what captures the mind in time?

There is no aim of modern art outside of an intimate expression of a specific idea. There is no mission except to exist and to be recognized as existing. The idea is taken as it is, worshiped as tangible, but justified as it is not. It's communal function, to affect others, and to influence their ideas and general philosophy. Through provocation or by cleverly appealing to the intellect, the methods used are no longer the seasoning of the idea, they ARE the idea. Thus, modern art has turned one-dimensional, almost forsaking the need for interpretation. Whether this is a good or bad thing is not important, it is. Even if the original aim of the artist is to illustrate transience, through a temporary or self-effacing model, or by more topical methods, the “idea” is the child of an ego which seeks to live forever by its impression. The real message behind any contemporary painting is not the idea itself but the flexing of the egos muscle. It exists as it can be seen.

A painting is the minds material stamp on existence and by magnifying the moment and condensing time to an instant, a declaration of immortality. Materialism and true selfishness can not evolve to anything else.

(The materialist philosophy eats itself and makes itself redundant, as it elevates individual expression to a height that vaporizes all of its context. That is why most people consider high art to be ridiculous. It is justified. And as absurd as this is, there is a need for it, as this is symptomatic of our generations philosophy.)

So, to end, because of the rapid evolution of technology and the advent of the materialist/relativist world-view, high art has found itself stuck on the only theme it has left, a theme which the creative narcissist will never exhaust......death in time. The artist is a tool of an ego which challenges death by inflating its importance and materializing itself on the canvas through an idea.

Minimal in the truest sense of the word.

House (song in A minor)

In the house of Good and Evil

the man is king but the words are weapons

it doesn't matter, the king he's angry

he doesn't know that it's all a game.

He has a queen, her name is Irony

she don't know much, but has some money

she dyes her hair and loves shopping

she can't remember her maiden name.

The queen she walks, into a steeple

her folded hands, they pray for safety

her tired eyes, they need new vision

she takes communion accepting doubt.

They sit together in the park

and there's no reason to be talking

and all around them, are brilliant colours

but they only see in black and white.

Prayer

Heaven take those who try to stand.
Bear in mind to measure their strength and
smooth the rougher parts of their paths with soft clemency.
For those whose designs are extraordinary must cope in being agents of your magnitude.

P. PERCEPTION

I'll paint you a picture

so you could see

what lies between dream and reality.

And there will be a tiny spot

of ash and lipstick.

When you look you'll first point to

colours in form soft on the eyes

with spaces between shapes in lovely patterns.

But soon you'll notice

nothing more,

than the little spot in the corner

getting bigger.

Ignore the colours for a moment and find that

that the colours never existed at all.

Only that spot

- no longer there

which has erased what you thought you saw.

Fall

The stars own the sky and the moon wonders why
all of its children who dim their flame
can only be what they are not
and can only see in peripheral.

What demands these giants surrender
with mouths that taste many words and not a minute under
to dream, to falter, these are balloons in high skies.

What else can one do when the frontier feeds the distance?
What is lost when nothing has been gained?
The birthright of light, the pedestal, the flame!

Queen Luna, in elegant dress,
has tired eyes forced to witness
poor extensions stubborn in their spheres,
and little birdies who have never left their nest.

The stars own the sky and
they welcome us in
nothing is absolved yet the door remains open.
The moon wonders why and with a heavy sigh,
passes the time collecting eternal children.

Hieroglyphics

I was standing at her door

with my fist raised but paused to knock

because I could hear her movement inside

and did not want to disturb the life within.

But after battling myself my hand

decided to hit the door and

set fate in motion.

When she answered she wore no smile

as her cat ran out

and greeted me with her whiskers.

I didn't know what I could say

when she studied me with her eyes.

My hand reached for a gift in my pocket

when she asked if I ran out of lies.

I gave her my keys

and she invited me inside.

The first thing I noticed was the red stain on her old and expensive carpet. There were no books on her shelves,

only pictures as cistern memories, her holy beads and triangle bells.

She asked if I wanted some coffee and I asked if she had any tea.

She went to the kitchen and when it was done she handed me the cup reluctantly.

She was wearing a red party dress with her long black hair covering her eyes but not her ears. Her crucifix was on the table, next to my full cup of tea and her empty cup of coffee. We looked at the clock at the same time, and when I stood to leave she told me to sit down she enjoyed my company. I hesitated when I sat, and when I did finally sit her cat jumped from behind the couch and scratched me on the lip. And when I pushed her away she bit my hand. When I decided to stand she tore at my legs and then ran. I smiled and pretended nothing happened while she rose and walked to her bedroom. The pain was so much that I cried whispers into the air hoping she would hear them but knowing she didn't want to. It was raining and I listened to the staccato symphony of beads that sounded as if they were in mourning. I listened and thought I heard nothing.

While she was in another room I took off my jacket and used it to cover the red stain on the carpet. I then noticed that her shelves of memories had not one picture of me. What does this mean? I thought as the blood pulsed in my veins and stood in her home. The black and white pictures showed old boyfriends and living relatives. "She has been loved by more than one God" I said aloud as she walked back into the room.

She had her hair tied back in a ponytail, so that her eyes and ears were left open. She also changed her clothes from the red party dress to her pink pajamas, and her crucifix, no longer on the table, hung from her neck over her heart. She held bandages in one hand and a remote control in the other. Forgetting that she had the remote, she walked to the stereo and turned it on. Not finding any music she liked, she turned it off and sighed. I suggested that she play her violin, which sat wasting but waiting in a corner. She smiled an old smile and and said she might after she bandaged my wounds.

The cat was purring next to me on her couch and the sun was coming out with her touch as I was thinking how grateful I am for having the strength to knock on her door.

I.D.

There are no walls but that which we make.
Dissolving forms and breaking shapes
-without limit, within the boundaries only we define,
until the fine point expands as far as it matters.

Like a drop of water consistently spreading.
If it has enough substance it'll never stop growing.
The constant pulse of living chance, molecular miracle,
in itself it's own decision.

There are no walls but that which we make.
Immortal forms, turning clouds into stone....



....and back again.

Should

The world is on fire. It's moving too fast. People should be nicer, compassion should rule. The poor should not have to suffer, and the night shouldn't be dark. A million pieces of frustration, advice of drowning men and princesses with blood in their twats.
The world should be better and everyone should understand. Everyone should just be at peace. Keep mouths closed, don't break any hearts, don't kick animals, don't fuck children. People shouldn't eat red meat, don't disrespect the elderly, and on and on and on ad infinitum because the world is on fire but the imagination can see it better.

The imagination can see everything better. Animals don't need to be intimate with science or improving on a cold look or hard cock.

"We should be nicer to one another" vampires say with eyes caressing the neck. Always a "should" in the tradition of decay.

The world is on fire. It's moving too fast. Information flies through the air, absorbed by our senses, disfigured by the wet chemistry of our minds....out of our mouths and into the air again. All of this on a spinning planet travelling through space with the momentum of a thousand catastrophes.   

Ecce Homo

People laugh at a comedy and cry when it's a tragedy. They soften their hearts with a romance and they reflect in reality. But what do they do when it's none of the above, or a combination of love, death and laughter? What do they do when faced with the true magnitude of what life has to offer? We learn to live with what we have, finding solace in dreaming of what we want. All the while we waste precious hours given to us by fate, time, God, nature or whatever you wish to call the architect of life. We work with what we have, and want what we have not, all the while we are bound by the ruthless gravity of what is possible in the passage of time.

 

The smile in the peripheral. The beating, bleeding heart.

Song lyric from Apollos Plea

Oh! Daphne we are running

from blindfolded mirrors and horizontal time.

Not knowing where we're going,

just seeing each others crime.

If we can just

stop and be,

maybe one day we'll see and we'll cross the chasm

that separates

you and me.