Time I Whisper - First Draft of New Song

Hey.

I feel like I'm either close to shutting down or to the start of career-defining work.

Not sure what.

Winter and depression and doubt can muddy that diagnosis.

But I'm here.  I'm clicking quietly away.


Got a new song.  For me. For anyone wondering out there if it's their moment to eke out a sense of purpose, to be known.  To be bold, and compassionate, and sharing. To prosper. Even be loved.

Here we go.


lyrics

first verse

ive given up on suffering

chant
is it my time i whisper
is it my time i whisper

tucking in for winter
ill see you spring

chant

prechorus one
see me lay down
beg the night my soul to keep
know
ive never earned love good as sleep
head crooked
watch the silence fill the room
year spent chasing urequiteds sweet perfume

chorus
legs
if you gotta run
talent
if its hard won
signal
like a flare gun
lets make it binding
make a promise to finding
what were worth
dearth of motivation
moldy conversation
leaden deprivation
am i unwinding
is the madness still grinding
me

verse two
im getting smaller
take less space
chant
staring out the subway
and i see my fathers face
chant

prechorus two
see me talk less
every word its a thought grenade
you wont catch me turning round
seeing what ive made
blood
the lost traveller
my guide
ill course
ill scribble on
this little wick of pride

chorus

instrumental

verse three
ive buried loss
so calm collect
chant
still mouthing syllables
in a manner circumspect
chant

prechorus three
see my debts paid
by my spartan living style
im just a monk serving nothing but my own guile
write
and i summon in the air
a little nonsense
no one seems to care

chorus

New player on ODES AND NONSENSE - King of the Hobos Cast Soundtrack -

Hey.

There's a cool new player on the website.  You can stream and listen to all of my original songs written for my one man hobo musical: KING OF THE HOBOS .

Heck, if you'd like to keep some of it for your very own, each track's available at Bandcamp for a buck each, and the whole album's as cheap as 7 dollars.  Go to it!

To stay updated on new information about this show, "Like" our Facebook page!

 - Jara

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Pardons a Cockroach

A Divorced Dad Pardons a Cockroach

He’s home.

Counted couples on the train chugging

Home.

From the newly-minted lovers to the

Barely patient partners pressed together,

Silent.  Like a wall of night. Looking outward.

Teeth gritted, bobbing with the rails.

He can’t help but feel like he’s being humored,

Cosmically. The scuffed, metal doors open, a bucket seat becomes

Available.   These couples spy his infirmity. He is

Their cautionary tale.

Home.

And all his burden lifts:

Clothes scuttle. He creeps to

The bathroom, faces his

Toothpaste-accented reflection.

Then, from the corner of the shower tile,

Almost from out of sight,

A thin, brown roach hugs the wall.

He sighs.  Leans close, whispers to the creature:

Tonight, I wish you peace.  Come tomorrow,

We’ll war again.   He taps off the lights,

Leaves him to his gestures.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Plucks Out a Nose Hair

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Plucks Out a Nose Hair

An hour, maybe two,

Since the alarm slightly coughed.

But he’s not moving.   A to-do list

Sits folded on a desk, some ten feet way.

And thin-crept dream pours into dream:

A face of a childhood love with their mouth torn and missing,

Then, struggling to move his possessions out of a casually crumbling house.

With one final effort,

He guides the loom which shapes the scenes.

But it’s still wrong.   Still wrong.  A freckled, curvy

Sculptor enters. She smells like cinnamon.  They make

Love, unhurried and sure.  With an awareness of the frail and the glory.

And then she dies. So soon. She’s stricken with cancer,

And the dream flashes to a dimly lit bed,

Then the footnote of darkness.

And he’s awake. 

A chorus of sobs.  

Not ready to start.  

A widower of fantasy.

As a reflex,

He reaches with his right thumb and index finger,

Finds a nostril,

And pulls.  Hard.  Sharp.  No time to reflect or stop.

A crack of sensate shivers echo,

And a long, twisted, black hair is collected.

He smiles. Breathes again, ragged but alert.  All is reset.

He lifts the covers.  He finds his feet.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Howls At the Moon

Hey,

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem. 

A Divorced Dad Howls at the Moon

The moon,

She’s a bone-white eardrum

Stretched bare across a littered sky.

A confessor,

A bolt of crinkled paper suspended in quiet,

A discontinued firemen’s net  -

 Scuttled by the grave of time.

He’s in the backyard,

Stripped to the waist.

Sober.   The weekend toys

Lodged neatly in plastic tubs.

Feeling the downy grass on his bare toes.

It’s one am.   And yet, he can’t stop living this day.

There’s more action to be made.  Exaltations,

Dream-seeding, corners to clean.

There’s an itch. An implacable itch,

He fills his lungs with twilight air,

Deeply, and then,

In stark surprise of himself,

He barks.  A feral, joyous, cry.

Moon-bound.   He, he is saying:

Hear me, you lunar mistress.

I am living. I, I  am slowly getting fine.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Makes Faces at a Baby in an Olive Garden

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Makes Faces at a Baby in an Olive Garden

Meals at The Olive Garden,

Like all other workaday tragedies,

Aren’t planned; they’re the epilogue

Of a series of tiny, innocuous mistakes.

The conference was out of town.  He didn’t

Know anyone.  Wasn’t about to grab hot wings

With the Tri-State sales team at Hooters.  Only real choice.

Minestrone soup comes cold and tastes like the East River,

Beyond the meaning of the word “salty”, with some half-hearted

Rubbery shapes – could be celery, could be parts of an old tire.

But he’s starving, so he smiles, faintly, sips quietly.  Cuts the acrid taste

With forkfuls of his dry salad and a snatch of breadstick.

Just then,

From the table to his right,

A baby begins to sob.

Not a tantrum, or a cry of mischief,

But something more portent.  Fear, an awareness

Of death?   A grip of resolute sadness?

He nods.  Makes sense.  It’s the Olive Garden.

We’re all feeling that way.

But the baby won’t cease.  His family’s lost

In their chatter, cooing over their glossy dishes with too much cream,

Baby’s cry is lost but for this man.

So he rises to action. Cleans his soup spoon.

Wets it lightly with his tongue,

And places it, gingerly,

Atop his nose, balancing it there.

Then opening his mouth wide like a bass.

The baby turns, surprised, cries softer.

The man continues.  Drops the cutlery,

Plumps his cheeks until they’re wide

And flush as balloons.   Baby falls silent.

For his finish, the man seizes two breadsticks,

Crams them artfully into both sides of his mouth,

And claps his hands, an eager walrus.

Baby howls and giggles with delight.

And sometimes, that’s enough.  Sometimes that small,

Connective gift for a stranger – that’s the rivulet of mercy,

To forget, for a second,

That you’re a man alone in an Olive Garden

On a Tuesday afternoon

Not so much eating food as enduring it.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Lights a Match in the Dark

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Lights a Match in the Dark

What happened before, it’s uncertain.

Some conjecture could be entertained:

Maybe he was powering the microwave

And the fridge from the same Pre-War socket.

Maybe a squirrel, eager and naïve,

Made itself into a mortal circuit, up on the

Power lines.   The author, the author of this poem

Was running late.  Missed a train.   The world does not

Cotton tardiness,

And sometimes all that’s left for the belated are fragments, antecedents,

The custodians of memory.

There’s a box on the ground, and two spent sticks.

Perhaps he struck the first phosphorus….

(the author pauses, frantic for one last word for alliterative cleverness,

Readers will forgive if you’re witty, right?)

Philosopher?

(no – too disconnected)

Phoenix!

(ah!  Now you’re cooking!)

….and watched the lip of flame lap against the matchstick,

Seeing his home, with new, threatening shadows, thin, speckled light,

And then cursing as the fire bit his fingers, unaware,

And fell to the floor.  He lit a second match,

Somehow smote the stray fire from the first,

And lit a candle.    Birthday cake scented,   Clearly he didn’t buy it.

Was it a gift?   Was it hers?  Did she leave it behind?

There’s no love for it, that’s sure.

It’s ringed with dust.  Bears a sickly, sweet smell.

Based on the wax, must have burned for hours.

He lit that candle, sat there in the clip of light,

And then did – what?   

This is where an author would lie.   Strike down a narrative

Taut and absolute.   Support it with lush, stark imagery.

 But not today.  Today, that man shall keep his mystery,

Those hours spent bearing a candle, alone, self-comforted.