Sigur Ros

I went to see sigur ros this Friday with my best friend JD and his squeeze Kirsten at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. They did not disappoint. All the best bits from the last 4 albums including the new album and one track from the recent split live/studio eps as well. Sinful. Stretching out from where we sat was this spectacular view of the Bay Bridge, and behind it San Francisco, my once and future home(again). This is by far the most cerebral show I have seen in a while. Rufus Wainright was more about stage and craft and Matmos was bizarre and experimental. This was altogether different and wonderful. A magical evening capped by the the most well timed rainstorm I have ever been caught in. Pizza, veggie burgers, jelly beans and two great friends walking in the warm rain. I met up with my friend Matthew while we waited at B.A.R.T. He had also been at the show and we got to catch up and trade stories. Always the music fan, we swapped recent purchases. He was also getting over a recent flu and promised to hang out soon. We parted in the city and I went on my way back to Mark's place. That's another one for the peak experience catagory.

Robyn dipped his hand into the elixer, swishing it around with his hand and said "this is what we've got and I know your name." before disappearing down the other side of the hill wearing a summer hat and not much else. he clutched a string bow and fiddle under one arm, going to-I-have-no-idea-where.

Phases of The Moon (flowers for Mark)

if there was doubt
and uncertainty
and fire where I rest,
then might I reach
for a piano
or the phases of the moon
for the answers
(they are elusive)
while I relearn to stand.
my species has been pinned and mounted
in a box that's been lost
somewhere at the top of the world.

Words to describe these things
feel awkward, weak and overpowered.
I struggle for the lesson
to teach the invisible,
to embrace the negative space
inside you.
Like water dripping from a
from a leaf into a lake,
from a causeway unto the state at play
highway; washing all the
oil and blood away.

he pressed on...
he pressed on...
he pressed on without you.

That I wanted to kiss,
that I wanted to be,
to eat, to be inside
and outside you.
To find someone
Who will not be afraid,
stand against staid,
unfettered by the light
of missed yesterdays.



along for the ride

jumble and thud

like you know
when you look down
the remote chance
of finding love
falls from your hand
and to the ground...

Its a luxury
that you find these days
haunted steps to haunted places
a place to lay my pillow
a constant in red
a home to hear when the voices come
and try to bash my head.

the sky is dreaming as I walk by
the vaguest shadows melt
into the darkness
and I don't ask why...

Its a luxury you find these days
the paint peels
the water drips
Which one of these ship
did you get lost on?

Sleep walking on the ballustrade
your balance is the only thing
that plays
your walking and talking
and sleeping and strolling
over our heads where myths
and tears are blocking my harmony...

Automobiles In Perspex

Fidelity

well, we've never spoken of love
and with that I am okay.
For me the things
that used to mean safety
all at once begun to change.
I used to think I needed
my life to be a certain way.
But all things change,
As I have changed.
I won't be that way again.
I used to hold stones in my heart
for the time I spent away.
Propping up people,
just trying to maintain,
fighting to heal others
while ignoring my own pain.
But if there's one thing I have learned,
Something I have taken from it all.
Its that you can't protect your heart
from sadness or limp along
Laughing while others watch you fall.
Its a real life when you realize
No plan will ever catch the man.
You got to pick up what you need
Learn to march on again.

Sounds-Like

Silvery metal spikes
pierced the darkness
of an unlit mind.
And in blackness,
Where all thought forms
A hand reached out and down.
Hands made of silver
and hands made of fire.
Disappearing over and over
like silver arrows in a stream,
like brushstrokes that paint away
the years of confusion
and lost desire.
demons banished to limbo,
defeated by 10,000 guitar notes...
or one Durutti Column solo.

Oblique Viewpoint

Glimpse

just a glimpse
is all that i'd like
a picture of all the faces,
of all the different people
other people want me to be
wish me to be,
wish that I wasn't...
and isn't it funny?
that I...wish I could be...
all those different people...
as long as As it meant
I didn't have to be me.
just one glimpse
Of the man
who's always on top of things
who's never lonely
who is secure in his place
and universally satisfying
if there is such a thing
who ignores the voices
when they come calling
in a life spent beguilled
full of false starts
and drifting...

Will I look into your eyes
and know your face when I meet you
at the end of time?
In the mirror of reverses
we'll see each other,
that man and I.
All the questions will be answered.
in the palace of the dark swords,
where expectations die off
like wilting leaves in july's hot wind
and my hand in your hand....
Its just a glimpse...
that's all we have.

Where I Stand

Ship Of Fools

I pulled on my boots.
I looked down
and a thousand miles below
my feet were coral beds
awash in fish
and endless
blue.

The Ground Beneath me(haystacks for dead french painters)

When it will give way
to the remaining days
to all the strands of hay
outside in a field somewhere

we were running around
time cast aside
tree fruit ripening
but we're dying on the vine.

Its been a long time
out here
in these fields.
where fallow and formless
the days became aimless
and they were mine.

one line merges
into the next
they all connect themselves
somewhere where you and the pen
break up and fall apart.
You tell it your secrets
reveal yourself
in art
but you reveal yourself
no matter how
because that's the way you are.

Post 911 National Identity?

Its all here. You don't even know it yet.

Post-Perfect

Well, its the dawning of another era....failed, faulted and somehow still beautiful. Its raining sunshine out here in San Francisco, California. Everyone is supposed to be beautiful but its so damn hot you wouldn't know it from the frowns. Every day something interesting is happening. Even tonight something interesting may happen. You can't always get what you want but you can have fun trying....Tons of new work coming up on the horizon...mermen, sailors, devils, fetishists, invisible haunted skeletons and their lovers all dance around in my drawings of late. The wind blows by my head as I write this entry...the soft first breeze on a very hot day...visitors here....from the void...electrical circuits heat and conduct...DSL communique...energy flowing over like the crackle in an old FM transistor...sputtering out...sputtering....

Moonburns

The sun burns like a copper fire in the late evening sky.
Dryness, asphault and children play in the streets.
The uncontrolled and ancient coil inside my chest
Unravels; lost for a night
In passionate chaos.

Licorice & Latex

Multiple Personalities

Would You Kill To Kiss The Pain Away (The Iron Drum)

suitcase in my hand
waiting for autumn
the humdrum of the human wire
trying to find some heart...

I'd like to find a way
the get inside the crackle
of the stereo and find
a note inside sweet jane...

An Artist, always dreaming
looking at the moon
and screaming or singing
questioning the sky...

Is there a place for the willful,
the forgetten sailors and lovers,
foregone erotic attractions,
the remains of a lost age?

Nostalgic Futurists Ride Again!!

Plumfield Academy

Those were different times, they were....

When I was a much younger version of me, I attended a private school called Plumfield. I need to preface the story by telling you this was no ordinary private school. No, you were probably thinking of some idyllic pastoral setting, horseback riding and lessons in grammar and how to talk politely at society parties, but you'd be so very wrong in your thinking!

In reality the school seemed to mostly function as a repository for several class fulls of wayward and heavily damaged kids, divorce refugees and the just plain doomed. I saw more drugs there in my first few months there than I did the remaining 5 years of public school which followed my experience at "The Academy".

Of course I fit in quite well-I was pretty fucked then-I could barely stay in one universe at a time in those days. Ritalin and hyperactivity meant I spent most of my days lost in some foggy notion of what it meant to be a real person. I knew I existed but had no rational sense of self yet. My unconsciousness was hijacked while I spent the bulk of my time spinning my wheels or writing crazed poetry about the men's faces that appeared on my textured bedroom walls as I came down every night...and spoke back to me.

I wouldn't say that Plumfield was a horrible school but its quite telling that by the time I was back in public school at 14 I could barely do basic math and even simple division was outside my comprehension. It would take a further 4 years to get some semblance of proper learning environment. I used to question if my struggles with poor writing over the years could be partially attributed to that period of time but rarely focus on that stuff these days.

While I was there I met quite a few kids that you could just tell were already on their way out as they walked in the door. Lots of teenage drug use and a few spectacular cases of abuse. I was there personally because of the fights I was getting into in public school. I was a target, a bully's dream. I never fought back and became terrified of what would happen to the other person when and if I did.

While Plumfield gave me a buffer from that it also exposed me to some of the seedier sides of life long before I should have been. I am going to start writing about some of these sides over the coming months in an effort to reconcile some of those days with who I am now-and then consign them to the bins of history. IN any case its going to be funny, hair-raising and tragic all at the same time. Tune in tomorrow...

What Can Anybody Do But Sing? (poetry fragments)

But you're singing in the dark
whistling in the shadows
what can anybody do but sing
right before the blast?

No one has to ask
A single smile
or the glint in an eye
the man inside me
wears no masks
and raises concern
over style.

Will he shake when you are away
and does it matter
what anyone is thinking?
What can you ask from all this?
why spend time and understanding
on something that's only a rumor?

I think I need to have another drink,
another chance at super hero stories
another viewpoint that isn't tainted
about a friends former glory.

But if tonight I could lay
my head on your shoulder?
Close my eyes for one time now
while the world stops
everytime you walk in the room.
And you say that they look closely
but I just walk by,
don't even try
walking past a thousand decibels of static
in this ghost town so very far from home.
MY gaze is on you, going through and out,
into the night sky, the leaves, the stars
and the lights..