here

having finally
accepted
a cordial invitation
i'm green as grass
even though
i've been

here

quite a while
from the looks of things
my own likeness
tastefully framed
on the scarred walls
then scattered about
books
and magazines
with familiar words
i must have uttered

here

in a burst
just shy of tearful
i shove them away
this simply
cannot be
hard to describe
how it feels

here

because
i am just
what i am

disillusioned

i turn my gaze
to the big bay window
such a perfect summer day
fluffy cotton floats in the blue
meeting lush verdant foliage
many creatures abound
in air and on land
great and small
two by two
too much
to take in

here

yet

i notice
a closet door
cracked, it beckons
crammed with boxes
of childhood drawings
mommy, daddy and kids
with the dog and a cat
one might think
all was well
except

i know better

then

i hear music
from another room
songs from the radio
speak
to the moment

but how

can it be
that the moment
had a finite beginning
yet
never seems
to end

here

one foot out

rolling

down a hill

biting and licking

as two pups

just fed

so it seems

only yesterday

they wake you up

emotions pull

right arm

toward the left

mind pulls the other

far to the right

a heart

in torsion

faced with lies

but not from lips

we convince ourselves

out of sheer pure

ignorance

sosad

same old

song and dance

inside quiet moments

truth screams but silently

she needs more of him

yet he longs for

everything

else

lie with me

lie with me
and listen to some jazz
it's on the radio i love the sound
on a saturday night how we work so hard
can we do it all by doing everything?
lie with me
so i don't lie alone
saturday night seems right for the sound
we can leave the light on you can read if you want
if you still can't relax
maybe i'll rub your feet a while
just lie with me and listen to some jazz
even days like this when we need to make something
why this crazy life running around?
lets make some time
that's why they play jazz
on a saturday night

Splinter

We were strolling along a sunny yet secluded trail with white-petaled blooms and her brother when a sliver from a twig made its way into her foot. She's a bit freaked as I try to fish it out.

We're both in high school, at least she would be soon, as far as I knew anyway. She's kinda tan and really shy and stacked like a cinderblock bunker.

No wonder she's freaked, I should be. Maybe I am. We've been going out for just over a month and we're on our way to where her dad lives.

Although I'd never admit it, our phone conversations are just starting to take on a Muzak quality. She writes me letters that I keep in a 12-inch cake tin.

The splinter is in with a toenail and I'm not even used to the way she smells yet, but her lip gloss tastes like wild cherries.

Her parents split last year and I hear it was pretty nasty, leaving her mom with seven boys and one helluva daughter.

That first night we'd stood in the church parking lot with her AquaNet bangs and the denim jacket she wears with everything. She playfully bites my tongue when we kiss.

I grew up in the township and this is my first city girl since I was four. Damn those brown eyes.

She gets an Anthrax poster for her room because I have one, but she generally goes for a pinup of Kip Winger with some kind of bulge.

At one point during the "surgery" she gets antsy and I playfully smack her on the leg and she playfully makes a big deal about it.

One time we stood on her front porch during the rain and burned cheap incense sticks from some store at the mall.

Her dad was staying in a trailer with her uncle, and come to think of it, she smells somewhere between musk and a basement.

Usually I see her where she babysits, and this fact delays the blow of my parents learning about her home life, where there are always flies in the kitchen and a loaf of bread with the bag left open.

Then again, maybe there was more to that slap on the leg. I just wanted her to calm down, but it could be the discomfort from the tiny fragment is really not as big a deal as she's making it.

Another time we walked by a house that had burned down in her neighborhood. I took home a pair sunglasses from among the rubble, they were way too big for my face and I just threw them in a drawer. Whenever I opened it I got hit with that aroma you can never forget, smoke from materials never intended for combustion, someone's life changed in minutes.

When I meet her father he seems entirely out of phase from how she'd described him. I still have the cake tin.

Bobby's House

Coolest thing, you can get out-of-town radio stations through cable, like 105 WTUE that's usually blocked out by elevator crap unless you drive a ways south of here. Sometimes day-oh is cool to crank up during a party, gets the girls shakin' anyway. WDAO. The Soul of Dayton.

I always watch the evening news for some reason, and when I'm here I can at least catch Frank Reynolds on ABC.

So I'm once again hagnin' out with Belinda. Bell from Hell, she pretends to not like being called that. She's babysitting her cousin, uncle Bobby's infant daughter, although, I have no clue why his wife's redheaded sister Paula can't watch the baby since she practically lives here.

Bell gets bored with the news so we switch to MTV. Not sure what will ever please the girl, she gets agitated when they show Donnie Iris because he found a stone fox blond to be Leah. Evidently every Caucasian female within visual range is the enemy of her soul, and she sighs when Paula bends over near the TV to put something away, as if those pale legs and bony butt cheeks are much distraction.

Feeling around under the velvety sofa cushions yields some lint, 19 cents, a Bic lighter, and a slap from Bell who's obviously not interested in discussing it, let alone what's in my pocket.

The other day I scored a tape dub of a new group called Def Leppard. Still can't believe the first song is really about that.

Bobby's wife came home drunk one night and gave Bell a watch, only to turn around and accuse her of stealing it. Whatever the case we made an adventure out of driving by in my parents' car and tossing it into their yard, careful to remove any fingerprints, as if that mattered.

Bell is this pouty dark-featured mix of Native, Italian, and toilet cleaner. Somehow that all adds up to a bubble you never can pop, at least while remaining somewhat a gentleman. She won't let me thumb through Bobby's record stash while anyone else is here but it's probably all country shit peppered with Eagles and Steely Dan. Her dad had almost methodically cheated on her mom, Bobby's little sister, sometimes right in their home, not that her mom is any angel.

I'd been in kindergarten with Paula. She always seemed to be hiding something behind her freckles. She had some dude over here one night and he tried to give Belinda some of his milkshake while she was half asleep.

My cousin tells me they have over-the-air subscriber TV down in Cinci, they give you a descrambler box and show movies and sports, sometimes concerts, even dirty movies if you pay extra. Sometimes my folks and I go down that way for baseball games. Not sure if I'd ever want TV bad enough to pay for it.

People tell me I'm missing a lot of fun by kissing Bell's behind. Even her own mother.

I think I should get a dirt bike. Actually I'd feel more at home on a scooter but those seem kinda nerdy.

Five bucks says there's a recent Doobie Brothers LP somewhere in the house, and probably some stuff I don't wanna know about.

also ran

nomatter what it's still an honor to be esteemed as worthy to be among the few to get past the first cut to share laughs and times to at least give her right of refusal even though you don't make the last cut for whatever reason how much richer is life for the experience because basking in her radiance for even just a while makes it ok to not concede defeat yet celebrate the journey

first nite

Andy didn't even look around or give a cue, just sucked in a big breath across the mike then let it rip -

"SMOOTH UP IN YAHHHHHH"

Thankfully Jake was able to whip out the first chord, but my bass wasn't even turned up and I had to maneuver around the bottom to manage a crude fade-in. Way to keep us awake, dude.

It was obvious we hadn't done a lot of sound checking, and the whole idea was just to get our feet wet tonight - hell, we're not even getting paid - but I'd hate to catch a whiff of how this sounds in the crowd. All I can hear is the massive rented Ampeg behind me and hopefully Donnie can keep us going on the skins. We had to set up around the piano and the old Hammond that doesn't even work, and they weren't able to take the pool table out of here so it's just pushed to the wall. For some reason I'm surprised there's not an old cigar store Indian standing next to me.

I feel Don's kick and crack, and hear lots of brass over my rumbling BOM-BOM-BOM-BOM-BOM-BOM-BOM-BOM, but not much else.

It doesn't help that Jake's old deuce combo is seriously underpowered and I have to keep watching his hands, but still, the crowd seems to be getting into it. Andy has a way with things up front and he's probably our best hope at the moment. I suppose if I'm the perfectionist in the mix then we need some charm and abandon to balance it out. It was his idea to mix in some party stuff and I had to agree, but I still can't wait to dig in to the rest of the set. Man, if we could only bring that B3 to life I'm sure it would share some timeless wisdom on the classics we do later on.

So we reach the big finish, everyone balls to the wall, and Andy's soulful wail to bring 'er home, then through my ringing ears I could make out the small crowd sounding fairly worked up already. As he starts in with the opening spiel I was hoping he'd ask how we sound but it would seem he's got his groove on already, the train has left, no sleep till Albuquerque.

"Is it gettin hot in here already? Ohh yea-yahh, babies we are burnin UP! Time to call tha FI-YAH HOWSE!"

Sure wish we could have put some reverb on him at least, kind of a sharp slap when he projects.

But at least it's comforting to really feel the riff take shape over there when Jake starts churning it out. He's really coming along even after just two or three years, kind of a natural.

For better or worse we do a few more rockers as people loosen up, and to my amazement, Andy turns around and says "alright boys and girls, we gonna take tee-yun to give y'all time to pre-PARE yourselves forrrr...what comes next, so play nice out there!" and then tries to put the mike on a stand as it threatens to feed back.

Everyone grabs their ears as they watch his attempts to shield the mike, with varied results, then I realize I'm closest to the cord and run to unplug it while trying to keep my instrument from banging into stuff. What no one bothered to tell me is that my right hoof is wrapped in a cable.

Somehow I am able to stagger the other leg gradually and come down into some kind of lunge, but not without manhandling the strings before I'd had a chance to turn down the pot. Since I was still in front of my amp, the ensuing thunder quickly goes epic, a giant saw ripping through my body as I fumble for the plugs. I reach them after a month and three days.

As I ooze onto the floor with the bass on my chest I faintly hear fits of laughter. My head feels like a throbbing potato baked in a reactor meltdown. I'm pretty sure the buzzing in my teeth is actually to the point of emanating its own sound.

Pretty soon Andy comes into my field of view, hovering above rubbing his ears, nothing but grin in between 'em.

Someone in the seats yells "PLAY SOMETHING BY SPINAL TAP," stoking the crowd's laughter.

Andy glances out there and then back to me. "I think we're a hit, boss," he gloats with batting eyebrows.

With my left hand still grasping the neck of my bass, I close my eyes and slowly lift the middle finger.