Fretboard

When I write it as if I am being directed or supplied with ideas, like a Ouija board. When I sit down with the guitar I am often surprised, my fingers already seem to know the song and the poetry is revealed instead of composed.

My fret board is my Ouija, I go where it leads me

Never lets me down it's stories abound

In time my mistress and my master

creating the heavens and disaster

No telling where it leads and no one but me can decipher

My fret board is my Ouija, I learn what it teaches me

it's stories are old and to new to be known

Restless am I, foolish am I

compared to the calm of my strings

No one really knows how the story goes, so for now

            Let's just listen

Maybe it will tell about some private hell

or maybe it will sing about some pleasant things

All the ages and pages of man 

dance and linger with my fingers

Who am I to be brave who am I to be afraid,  I am nothing

Love and lust and life so robust

Or the tattered seams of broken down dreams

I am lost I am found, marshaled by the sound

of the strings of my guitar

My fret board is my Ouija, I go where it leads

Idlewild

High on a mountain in Southern California I found my happy place. It is not a geolocation I need to revisit as now it is always with me. The divine moment has long outlived the original experience.

Sitting here in Idlewild, gonna settle down and take a while 

And find out, what really moves me

I don’t care if I ever come down

My whole road is a cloud

It’s quiet enough that all the voices in me

Have a chance to say what they want to be

I know there’s other people somewhere,

But all that matters, all that matters to me is they’re over there

    I have my castle, and heaven’s light fill my skies

    I will stay on my mountain until I forget I have died

No one near me for miles around

I’m gonna try and see, what’s right in front of me

The air is so crisp and my mind is so clear

Gather them all, gather them all up and let go of all my fears

    I have my castle, and heaven’s light fill my skies

    I will stay on my mountain until I forget how many times I have died

If I get a little glimpse, I’m gonna hold on to it, never let it go

If I get a little glimpse, I’m gonna hold on to it, never let it go

If I get a little glimpse, I’m gonna hold on to it, never let it go

Play for Me

Candle light and acoustic guitar while tangled in the sheets inspired this moment after my lover had fallen asleep.

She likes it when I play in the morning, strum as the sun goes down

What could be better, she joins in when the chorus comes around

Play for me, play for me she said

I like it when she sings in the morning, when she sings through a smile

The late night whispers, watching her chest fall and rise

Sing for me, Sing for me I said

Her voice and my voice and god filled the room

Each other’s instrument, we sang our hearts tune

No tomorrow, no yesterday

We sang and we played

Play for me, play for me she said

Sing for me, sing for me I said

Nothing to Lose

An exploration into the human experience of fear in our lives. Do we embrace it, ignore it or transform it? 

Cinderella was a middle class flunkie tattooed and pierced skateboard junkie out on the streets trying to learn it all
She had done this and she had done that read all the latest self-help crap in the waiting room waiting on her therapist

So you pretend you'd like to meet her Walk a mile in her shoes
But Cinderella she’s not worried ‘cause you know she's got nothing to lose

Adonis was sure he was best in town didn't want to compete so he stuck around on the very street he had learned the game
Never peered into the beyond a killer whale in a terrace pond was how he planned to stay until his dying day

So you imagine your just like him Security looks good to you

But Adonis he's not worried 'cause he knows he will never have to chose

Jesus was a patient man he come from a strange forgotten land inhabited by the likes of you and me
A builder by trade a dreamer at heart he knew someone had to touch the spark bring the whole damn thing tumbling down

So you believe you understand him Try to take your part of the pain

But he's standing right beside you and he's smiling in the rain

And you know he would never share his pain

Birthday Suit

What better than to stay in the love bubble all day? Some days it is all I want to do.

Woke up this morning in my birthday suit, opened my eyes and saw a bowl of fruit

The butter got soft as I got hard and the flowers in the vase looked so alive

I touched her shoulder and I kissed her head, no way we were getting out of bed

Sticky fingers running down her spine and the look in her eyes said she was all mine

I’m not getting out of bed today

    You can go ahead and call it a waste

    But I know if you were in my place 

    You would do the same thing

Morning lights showed morning smiles, the bed clothes are in a pile

Rubbing noses while our fingers and toes explore and our lips never part

The Fruit bowl has been upset, what else would you expect

Strawberry stains on the pillow case but all I see is her pretty face

I’m not getting out of bed today

    You can go ahead and call it a waste

    But I know if you were in my place 

    You would do the same thing

How Love Grows

Met a gent in a cafe in Amsterdam who pursues love based solely on visual beauty. His approach got me thinking about the search for love and how we go about making love feel safe for ourselves.

Islands of Stockholm canals of Amsterdam, marks in my passport shaped who I am

I met her in an airport bar we shared the same disease, where we came from was good enough, good enough to leave

I’d seen that smile before on a running child, all grown up now still running wild

The way the wind blows, does anybody really know How love grows, how love grows

Hills of Santa Fe, Isle a Montreal, voice inside my head I can’t deny it’s call

I met her in a railway station, we shared a cigarette, her name was Glenda how could I forget

We spoke of life and things less absurd, the harder I listened the less I heard

The way the wind blows, does anybody really know

How love grows, how love grows

Eternity washes over me, a welcome surprise, 

Life becomes poetry and I find myself mystified

Sins of Miami sounds of Cambridge Sq, I never forget a place once my love’s been there

Rose was a sight to see hanging in Dorsey, up there looking pretty not too much to say

I guess I liked her best I knew she’d never change, she liked to listen so I played and I played

The way the wind blows, does anybody really know

How love grows, how love grows

Where’s My Baby

When you find it, you always want it close. The physical pain we suffer when we are apart from our lover is all too real.

I need my baby now, where can she be
I need my baby now, it’s getting dark, too dark to see

I need my baby’s voice, where can she be
I need my baby’s voice, come and make sense if the world for me

I need my baby’s love, where can she be
I need my baby’s love, come and comfort me

And I need her love, need her love right now
I need her love, need her love right now

Where’s my baby now, riding on a jet plane
Come Saturday evening, I am feeling no more pain

She has plans for me, driving me wild
Teased into ecstasy, been too long a while

And I need her love, need her love right now
I need her love, need her love right now

And I need her love, need her love right now
I need her love, need her love right now

Mona Lisa

Symbols are imbued with intellectual constructs and meaning relative to a particular zeitgeist. The meaning is often weakened with the passing of time and they essentially become art on the wall. Many symbols are used as decoration because people enjoy the visual or because they inspire a feeling, and yet there is no connection left to the original meaning.

It all had to start one day, was a thought that never strayed
But it was written, quill to a page, along time after that day
Like an artist with a brush, history's been given the human touch

Hang, Mona Lisa hang

Hang, Mona Lisa hang

Left my donation at the door, made my way across the stone
Thick fragrance filled the air, leaving me to stop and stare
At the savior on the cross, I know, I know I don't feel saved

Hang, Mona Lisa hang

Hang, Mona Lisa hang

I know, I know there's got to be more

I know, I know there's got to be more

I know we've got to show more  More

Hang, Mona Lisa hang  Hang, Mona Lisa hang

Hang, Mona Lisa hang  Hang, Mona Lisa hang

Hang on 'til it all comes down

Let Him In

When an elder departs, there is often a big hole left in tradition. 

The folk scene in Greenwich Village was in full swing when Uncle Chuck landed in a small apartment with a few roomates in the early 60s. Richie Havens lived on their couch when he first arrived in NYC. His band was negotiating a record deal when he was drafted for Vietnam. While stripped of his dreams, he never stopped playing. As soon as the plates were cleared, the instruments came out and his tenor voice shared the mysteries of the world through song.

Took his big guitar from St. Louis to catch the fever in New York City
MacDougal St height of the 60s, quite the time to make the scene

You heard his voice climb through the smoke, of opportunity and restless hope
Music became his gospel and he traded in the cross for a guitar

He found love and he found grace, learned to grow down created a place He could slow down, raise a family
What measure to use in the end, he gave me music and 2 best friends
Mt Rushmore won’t stand long enough

Let him in

Who’s going to sing those songs, Oxdriver, Mariah, Poverty Hill
When I listen hard, I hear them still

And those high notes soaring above us all when we sang our hearts out under the stars Those moments we were one

Let him in (all) Coal Tattoo
Let him in Soda Cracker
Let him in Louise rides home
Let him in Down by the river
Let him in Skillet Good and greasy
Let him in Can’t help but wonder
Let him in Ain’t the morning lights pretty

And I know when my days are done, lonesome road meet setting sun
Sitting up in St Peter’s chair, will be Uncle Chuck when he still had hair
Singing me “Goodnight Irene”
He’ll turn to the angel counting my sins and say, “He is a folk singer”

Let him in, Let him in

Nuptial Song

I wed myself to music in this instrumental exploration.