One Too Many

ONE TOO MANY

I wake to push the limits of a dream
to confront my fears and demons
to put the night back in the box
to capture all the night weasals
add color to empty easels
overcome cholera and measles
you must learn to fly in your dreams before you walk
before you talk you must move
from the center of the dream
to the edges of waking and wanting and having
to the edges of believing and living

Do you have to believe in something
just to want to live in something solid
to love somebody fluid
that is the essence of desire
the wanting and the having
the mystery of the other
it's mind over mother
pushing both farther and father
stretching the lie, blurring the lines
forgetting the story losing the script
making it up as you go along

you cannot troll the surface
you have to dig deep to find the meaning
to get the the cherry the prize in the box
so you search only to find
just another tool in the box
a curling iron and ironing board
bored and ironic
irony curling and curing
the lines keep on blurring
there are limits to living
there are limits to believing

others  may be living outside the law
even mothers can be outsiders
dads are no different
they live outside the law
outside the womb waiting
fathers are always left wanting
like strangers in a crowd of crows

famous words of wisdom that I told my chickadee
: don't eat anything bigger than your head:
this was my sage advice
Only to have my daughter tell me, on one sunny day
we see two men walking down the street
arm in arm, one bare chested with nipple rings
and a pair of sunglasses dangling from the ring,
"Dad, this is where I draw the line."

childen must be taught but they also must be listened to
same wise daughter reminds me to color outside the lines
Outside the lines outside the dream,
I want to retaste the candy of my youth

to go all throwback thirsty

gorging on memories and
pictures filled with beauty
marks moles, but in the end we are just meat
different cuts of meat

there is the  beauty and there is the butcher
carving out a piece for only themselves
baring their souls then serving with pecuniary permission
souls with cutlery and culinary peculiarities
it is sweetbreads and cod lips
only petty cash and peonies

slavery and solving puzzles

ointments and unguents

salving and having

this is how we feed the imagination

This is how you open a life
baring your soul in public

it is learning to live with your heart wide open 

it is deciding just how open your heart can be and still be living

can you live with your heart open?

Are you ready to receive ready to be ready to live to love

 are you still hungry for food and friends?

there are too many hearts yet to break
to crack open to attack with a pen a pole
a poke a roll in the sack
Only you can decide the laws to follow
it is not without consequence
But you get to be honest or not
you can push away the loss and dross
you can journey to the hole of the donut
to expand upon the soft gooey center
you must make the rules to break the rules
there are sorting decisions there are edits and incisions that can be made
in the end there is only one question that matters
how far can you stretch your heart
how far can you stretch your holes
to receive love and life and madness and sadness
before deciding that you can only have
one too many assholes in your life?

Before and After

Before and after.

RCA- not the dog listening to his Master in the megaphone, but the
Right Coronary Artery.
May 21 2007.
100% blocked.

May 22 2007.
RCA - the river runs through it.  Through the miracle of modern science and a deal with God struck up in the air above NY on the way to Atlanta.
God, I said.
If you are there.
I have had a great life.
But if there is a reason for me to still be here, if there is still more for me to do, please get me to Atlanta.
And I arrived.  And I made a joke about the widow maker, and ended up in an emergency room, and I survived to tell this story.  A story of how a small piece of chicken wire opens my heart to an expanded life.
I'M ALIVE!!!!

Flash forward 8 years.

Some friends of mine are no longer here.  They did not have the opportunity or fortune to survive.
Dave Gregg.
Brian Goble.
There are more.
Wendy Dobreiner.
My love and best of the best of good thoughts go out to all of them.
Christ, I miss them.   Too young.

2014 was another year of growth and wonder, and death and beauty.

There was a time and it returns from time to time where I feel I have a time bomb in my chest.

Rather than making life seems more dear and precious, I feel the need to push.

Push myself to new adventures.  New music.  New relationships.

Because to stay still to stay constant to not change is to die a little each day.

And I can't make time for that.

I am grateful for this bonus, this extra life and I am grateful for all the friends who I have seen in the past week who reignite memories from our past.

These beautiful people who are real people with real lives, who without any help from me, without any attention or contact from me, continue to live and breathe and make their own memories.

Which makes me feel insignificant and special - all at the same time.

And we have a new year upon us.

Who survives?

Who finds love?

Who becomes a grandparent?

Who loses a parent?

Who gets flowers this weekend?

Who gets to have such great fortune as I have had this past year?

Truly I wish that you all have an unbelievable new year.  That you have an incredible month, week, day.

Because at a certain point, like maybe the day after you are born, it is all a bonus.

Life is a gift.   Open it.   Take it home and love it.   Hold it close to your heart.

Listen to it's song.   Read it's story.  Life it like you will not live another day.

Because we never know.

Don't wait for anything.  Take it and make it yours.

Find someone or something to love.

And love it with all your heart.