a song I know all the words to

It took me awhile to get back to this exercise.  It must be a measure of youth, a rite of passage if you will, to listen to the radio and devote to mind the lyrics to two thousand terrible songs.  I feel old now, but those songs that made the top 40's lists in the late nineties have made the "golden oldies" station.  The eighties has been solidified melodically among the ranks of Frank Sinatra and the Beatles, so it was only a matter of time.  Still, I can begin to imagine what it will be like in forty years when I'm beginning to get old.

In any case, there are literally thousands of songs ingrained in me.  Remember back in high school or maybe community college when they'd tell you about oral story telling and you couldn't even imagine having not only the Iliad but the Odyssey memorized as well?  Going around town to town selling your wares in the form of a well-told story, sending out a brass bowl to collect the days coins.

Maybe in the future all of us of the MTV generation will travel around singing out those many songs whose lyrics probably amount to an epic poem or two and whose many tones have the true feel of an emphasized tale.  Sure, hats are far more in fashion, "pass the hat" and all that, but it all amounts to the same.  Even Homer must have been kicked from a street corner or two for "loitering."

Unfortunately, so few of the songs etched across my brain pan have any true effect.  And perhaps this, above all things, is the tragedy of my generation.

3:15 Experiment, Day Six

the good feeling
    is warm like
a cat on the hottest day of the year

it evelops fast and
    uncontrollable, sunrise,
that night has ended

the knowing that loneliness
    has passed affects
the retinas first

when they ask, they,
    a thousand years from
now, you'll remember only sun

ears, you command, stop
    your searching
wind is simply wind

the tiny cat tongue
    can cut in a way but
recognize this is love

the purring is not
    a sign to self loath
a message from an angry world

feeling those vibrations
    under empty hand
the heart's trembling will calm

and that good old feeling
    is the universe ever expanding and large
and always inescapable

3:15 Experiment, Day Five

the Truth

capital T

spills more like

puked out

food poisony

but longer

dream a little dream of me

then nothing

silence in chest

mind whirls

be still

I've fallen and I can't get up

expectations

talk talk talk

not enough, T

or too much

just human

little more

lot less

take a pitcher

scoop it up

carry it all

to the water

pour it away

capital t Truth

drown away

3:15 Experiment, Day Four

She couldn't say no

when asked directly

the thought of being nuisant-ly

was enough to drive her outward

abandoning the thoughts of the self

and all its many idiosyncrasies

the self-born inability to be burdensome

facilitated the transformation of self

into someone else

who was still she-y

but also very much

an apparition of the requester

with all the touch

of a Tokyo godfather

Yakuza bossesque

she maybe would cut off the fingers

of her lieutenants and her clients

saying it's all the same

even as they morph themselves

into someone very much her

only an exhale before

3:15 Experiment, Day Three

night noises internal

one knowing, the certainty.

"the cat plans to eat me"

not simply when I've

gone and

"shed this mortal 

coil" but with the

knowledge that mortal

coils are a rare

delicacy themselves

3:15 Experiment, Day Two!

Note: I remember being super sore from yoga....


Step forward, slide right
Weight carries forward, diagonal
To the closet, to the mirror, to the door
Breathing meticulously
Straw with hole sound
and a tuff tuff tuff
depend upon your stomach
much like a hair tie
snaps so often and fails
the floor does not
h-a HA! six seconds
fingers tied beneath the chin
and shoulders low
elbows elevated
meditation is sometimes
quite a bit like dying
in all its many forms
weight to left let
weight to right leg
balance, breathe
go back, far back, way back
change

3:15 Experiment, Day One!

Note: Remember, this is unedited stuff-- I haven't even read it yet!  The 3:15 Experiment has a bunch of silly folks waking themselves up at 3:15 a.m. all through the month of August to write random dream thoughts down.  The whole point is not to edit them or even read them 'til the end of the month.  Cheers!

Silence would be best.
In truth, it mostly succeeds.
But then, where it fails
the end slowly wanders in
more oozing or dripping
than anything human
and what it ends
one couldn't say, mostly
because the fear is there
intense and coming
from someplace deep
making it feel profound
but truly more profane
we sleep to forget
the confusion of change
occurring far more often
than anyone, anyone
would ever care
to admit.