Pink - First Draft of New Song

Hey.

January always feels like a cold cup of syrup being poured into my bones.

Makes me sluggish physically. Inside, the mind races, hungers for change.

Here's a new song about love and color theory.  It's based on a somewhat controversial argument that's been touted on the internet about whether or not the color pink actually exists (or in fact, if any color truly exists beyond an interpretation in our brains)


lyrics

first verse

honey
were a pair
like a grin
and a glare
in the huddled musk
of dawn
i stare
you sleep
theres a blush
hidden flush of pink
and honey
im blue
green with envy
its true
seeing red instead
til the palettes leaden black
hearts gone slack
and i start to think

chorus
maybe were just
figments
simple pigments held together
by a lie
youre the racing violet
im the lumbering red
two steps behind
i try
and the space between
we call our love
were just like pink

second verse
im laying it bare
heart is medium rare
youre awake
and you share
as i shudder
weep
and sink
hand on mine
heading for the brink
you gently implore
keep your feet to the floor
reticent to explore
shoulder all your weight
inside
we confide
its absorbed like zinc

chorus

bridge
who named the rainbow
gave such significance
out of unkempt vibrations
truth that we dont know
stare in each others eyes
form a color
a shared delusion
maybe its all that matters though
be my playful guess
ill be your earnest
damask mink
our ministration
a tessellation
commingled pink

third verse
cotton candy
aint it dandy
fuschias a fine
ole time
champagne
its a party in your own brain
sip it
retort and slink
lets rejoice
that were
just
like
pink
compound
were ineffable bound
an agreement of sight and sound
transmissive
and a little bit derisive
tease me
ill tickle
breathe your wiles
dont blink
well compare
that effusive pink

chorus
maybe were just
figments
simple pigments held together
by a lie
youre the racing violet
im the lumbering red
two steps behind
i try
and the space between
we call our love
(our freckled love)
were just like pink

were just like pink

New Poem - Dinosaur

Hey.

Here's a new (for non-Patreon-types)  poem.

You can join in on the daily mischief - just click on www.patreon.com/jara and sign up!

DINOSAUR 

Dig tool's 

Blunt plastic at both ends. 

Takes precision. You can't just 

Jab into the slab. 

I coax my nephew: Tap Gently. 

Like you're knocking on a door, 

Some secret code.

He digs. I brush. Fervently,each sweep 

Scraping past the silt of what is known 

To find the fossils buried within. 

We're Making Progress 

Dr. Seibert, 

I murmur. He squints a smile, 

Takes both the dig tool and brush, 

Sets upon the yielding earth. 

I read from the kit's glossy activity 

Guide: Fossils Can Determine 

Many Clues About Dinosaurs, But Not All - 

Dr. Seibert pauses, 

Cocks his head 

In apprehension: 

Really? 

Sure, I say. For example, 

Color. There's no evidence of 

What hue a Triceratops actually was - 

So We Can Make 'Em Whatever We Want, he grins, 

Taps, Taps, and Grins. 

Yes. 

Very little dinosaurs become fossils. 

Time's a thief, 

And It takes extraordinary preservation, 

Little water, 

And - 

                                                                       His hands strike the surface of a shiny, 

                                                                       Jewel-like Tooth, 

                                                                                              embedded in the clay. 

                                                                        Yawning up in greeting. 

And I wonder, 

Will this memory 

Be an artifact 

Subsumed, decomposed? 

A story is a fossil where the bones 

Have been replaced

With questions 

New Poem - Misanthrope

Hey.

Here's a new (new to non-Patreon folk) poem.  Based on a true story.

To get daily, weird, wonderful stuff for pennies, just become a patron today!

MISANTHROPE

About

twenty-six days

before he died

in a suburb

in Idaho,

my grandfather

grew convinced

the neighborhood children

could sniff his senescence

and he took

to sleeping

with a loaded

Colt 45

under his pillow

My taciturn grandmother,

still daily

and for hours

(until her fatal emphysema)

composing her feathery hair,

finally hid

the handgun,

but expired

before sharing the location

So there

we were,

Growing up quickly.

Screening every parcel of

a pre-fab dwelling

(with a toddler inside)

Hoping first to disable

that final

fuck you

Gestured

by a man

whose field of fucks

had grown fallow for decades.

More skeleton and whisky

and cigarette smoke

than heart.

New Poem - Exodus

Hey.

Here's another new (for non-Patreon folk)  poem.

EXODUS

And with
the ground behind us,
trodden underfoot
by our congress

and when
the salted earth we
stained, mottles
and catches wind

We have,
without tears, without elegy,
without the
pale historian's scrawl,


Eaten our
dead.   We are ambulatory.
We march,
yearning for - what?

Not home.
Perhaps a gentle cove
Where children
Cannot spy ghosts.

New Poem - Friendship

Hey.

Taking a momentary break from KING OF THE HOBOS prep/freakouts (opening this Thursday!  Playing for three weekends/11 shows!  www.kingofthehobos.bpt.me

Here's a Patreon poem.

FRIENDSHIP


Two days.  That's all we had.
Abducting him.
Sat him down across a second-hand computer.
Made it plain:  You're not leaving
This apartment, seeing the seasons,
until the work's warm, stapled, and delivered.
Until you graduate.


Joe and me, we slept,
we slept in shifts.  Kept him awake
with coffee, with brainstorming paragraphs,
with friendly fire from burp guns.
Seemed
impossible:  Kueberth put off
six term papers and now,
the clock was bleeding dry.


By the fifth paper's
end, and the last
frappicuno,
Kueberth wouldn't stop shaking.
He was a grasshopper on a
saucepan.    Suffering just so because
he knew how damn close
success was.  Shuttered his muscles.
Closed his eyes, headed for the bathroom, locked
the door.


It was then that I knew that sometimes
you have to drag those you love
into victory's barbed wire.
With what tools and nonsense
this stubborn beast of time provides.


With my father's
creative mischief,
I picked open
the lock.   Found him
sitting, sobbing.  Leaning next
to the unused radiator.


And, out of some
perfect madness,
I began to speak
in a gruff, patchy brusque.
For twelve minutes we spoke,
metal and man.  Called myself
Thermidor (the heater's name),
Teased and cajoled Kueberth
to get those fingers
moving.


That he did.
Haven't done many selfless acts
in this time.
But seeing him take that
stage,
sneaking pictures several thousand
miles away of him,
a wide-grinning wife, a baby girl,
I'll keep those moments.   When I
put my wretched self
to use.

Poem - CD

Hey.

Here's a poem I wrote for Patreon about my oldest nephew (who turned five this month).
I think he's pretty darn cool.

CD

There's an allosaurus
Neck deep and ravenous
Inside a hapless stegosaurus
When he slams shut the book,
Wheels to face me,
and whispers:
I've just released a new song.
He wants to be
a gardener
a singer
and a paleontologist.
All three careers tasked
With the ministration
Of patience, digging deeper,
And solitude.
I clap my hands, gesture to the
Theatre of the living room.
He grins, a bit too tightly,
Spins in another dervish,
(as if shaking himself braver)
Ambles to the center.
A beat, he oversips a breath,
He sighs and with that exhalation
Every bone wresting him upright
Surrenders.
Puddle of nerves crawling towards me.
We tickle one another,
And as we play, I wish I could tell my nephew:
Fear does not weaken us; it simply
Develops a deeper appreciation
For song.
For, before I had a voice,
Before I trusted that what came forth in sound
Was useful,
I'd hold concerts in pillows.  I'd sing
Quietly to push tears back inside my sockets.
With breath finely tuned I'd attend each sore
And aching bone.
We sing to keep living.
There is no rhythm, no explicit coda, no familiar chord in
Our frightening seconds.
We sing for ourselves, a constant performance,
Pulsing like the veins
In a newborn's skull:
Here.

Here.
Here.
Here.

Here.

Orange County - First Draft of New Song

Hey.

In between all the worrying about hobo stuff and just making it through August in general, I ended up knocking out a draft of a song about my old stomping grounds.  I explained more about it to the Patreon folk.  Join for as little as a buck a month, and get all kinds of bits and baubles!

lyrics

first verse

in the year before i left
i lived alone
just on the border
letting dust collect
no self respect
an emotional hoarder
i was
calcified
drought from the
tears i
cried
good friends i
pushed
aside
when love is gone
and youre
three hundred pounds
and all is aching
you just hold tight
dream every night
the plans youre making
for if they
did not land
end up
upon this island
i would have died
by my
own hand

chorus
every weekday id drive into
orange county
the culture of the office park
a bounty
upon my head
the seasons a bleached white
bone
had my fill of the pleasant folk
orange county
germinates
firm handshakes
and a static grin
their keepsakes
its heaven if youve got yours
if you dont
get gone

second verse
in the year before i left
i sold or gave away possession
head down
working sixty hours a week
walling off all the wild depression
didnt self reflect
sever and disconnect
just made some money
to leave this town
when love is gone
and youre the serving class
who wrestles dishes
tends strangers daily
fakes a grin and grants their wishes
heeds
each couples call
brings counsel
feeds them all
meanwhile youre starving
your heart
you grind

chorus

bridge
just dont give
up
mark it all
down
youre older you
find
that the hell preaches
wisdom
just dont give
up
keep making
time
the works gonna
save you
deep breath
keep your
word true

chorus
every weekday id drive into
orange county
the culture of the office park
a bounty
upon my head
the seasons a bleached white
theyre a bleached white
bone
had my fill of the pleasant folk
orange county
germinates
firm handshakes
and a static grin
their keepsakes
its heaven if youve got yours
if you dont
get gone

if you dont 

get gone

guess i best 

get gone