Figure It Out While I'm Down

July 1, 2005

I’m not saying it’s good, I’m just saying it's long enough. At this point it’s a one-night effort. Sort of an expression of frustrated optimism, doing one of those weird cyclical patterns I occasionally fall into. The indents in the stanzas that have them represent a different voice or attitude. Should be a song eventually, but the variations in the line rhythms will make it tricky to put together.

What do we know?
What do we care?
What are we coming to?
Are you coming too?
You know maybe it’s not there…

But I’ve no reason to be down here in the first place
And no reasonable reason to be nowhere after all,
Going nowhere telling no one that I’ve got nowhere to fall.

But I’ll figure it out when I get there.
I’ll figure it out while I’m down.
With nowhere to go but up, at least maybe,
Well, maybe just nowhere to go
But if I figure it out without falling down, you’ll be the first to know.

Where have I been?
Where did you go?
What are we running from?
Aren’t you having fun?
Wouldn’t you be the first to know?

But I’ve no reason to be leaving in the first place
And no reasonable reason to be anywhere at all,
Going anywhere for anyone who can peel me off the wall.

But I’ll figure it out when I get there.
I’ll figure it out while I’m down.
With nobody left here to tell me I’m fading,
Or maybe just somebody else
But if I figure it out without falling down, you’ll be the first to know.

Something in the Wind

February-April 2005

I… am not really sure what to say about this one. Very much a jumble of thoughts over a period. Originally, it owes something to “Suite – Judy Blue Eyes” but it didn’t stay songlike.

There is something in the wind
And in the January sky
That does not know me anymore
Than I know who I am today.

Yet I follow in my footsteps
Back where I have gone before
And find I’m wishing that the dawn was near at hand.

But I was born to be a gypsy
I was born to be a poet and a fool
And she was made to make me restless
Reckless wandering before the break of day.

Yet I follow in the green grass
Back where early morning sunshine
Will only make me turn my head away and wander on.

But I was born to hear the rhythm
Of the sunshine in the swaying trees
And though I know not who I am
I know more than I will ever find to say.

Yet I follow in the wilderness
Where her heartbeat moves the rivers
And the streams of time just might flow back to me.

There is something in the April rain
That tells me what I’ve left behind
And I wonder how it knows me
And if ever it will all come back my way.

Misbelieving

June 2005

A statement of sorts. With a structure that is either complex or just sort of unstable, I can’t tell. This is one that’s had bits and pieces done for over a year, so it’s something of a composite of feelings. Also, it proves that I really just like playing with words.

I hold that the universe is
Inextricably inexplicable
To itself.

And our hold on the universe
Is amenably untenable
And not so firm
As it seems.

But we are not lost until we let it go
We are not blind until we see it so

And the universe holds with
Benevolent ambivalence
Something apart from us
And is stranger
Than it seems.

But there is no hope unless we cry
There is no faith unless we try
You wonder how and I’ll wonder why
But we cannot fall until we fly

And the universe keeps throwing
Unexpected undetected
Unbeliever’s miracles
At us.

No Particular Night or Morning

June 4, 2005

The title comes from a Bradbury story about dying in space. This is slightly more optimistic, but it’s especially a good song for being up all night and confused as fuck.

---

I’ve got no sense of direction
I’ve got no sense of time
I’ve got no particular night or morning, night or morning,
Holding me down
Holding me down

You wake up to gray and don’t ask if it’s coming or going
Because you don’t really care and no one really knows
But still you think sunsets are beautiful
If that’s what it is or it isn’t, and if it isn’t, it’s all very fine.

I’ve got no sense of where I am
And no sense of home
I’ve got no particular night or morning, night or morning,
Lifting me up
Lifting me up

You go to bed in the half-light and call it a mystery
But mysteries are meant to be solved and you’ve given up
But still you think sunrise is wonderful
If that’s what it is or it isn’t, and if it isn’t, then that’s alright.

Rising, falling
Bathed in starlight
Drifting into dreams of untold intuitions
And journeys that end where they start
And I’ve got no particular night or morning, night or morning,
Guiding the way
Guiding the way

Storm Petrel

2002

Another early work. Storm petrels are a family of birds that, as I am led to understand, are capable of diving underwater and coming straight back out. The coolness and metaphorical-ness of the image prompted this poem. The meter is funky, and I like what comes out in the rhythm, although I’m not sure if parts of it completely work.

A small dark bird and a fell dark tempest
A dark wild wind and a dark blue sea
The bird is tossed by the three dark furies
Yet beats its wings upon the storm

The wind in howling hatred rises
The little bird rises in the gale
The sea’s white teeth all gnash in hunger
Wind meets sea with a dreadful wail.

The wind in fury not yet sated
Now beats the bird beneath the waves
The sea receives the speck with pleasure
To send it to its dark wet grave.

Yet up form the swell of the whirling whitecaps,
The little bird bursts alive and well
The tempest screams with awesome fury
The little bird sings upon the storm.

What Lurks Behind the Stars

2001

One of the earliest works to assume a completed form, Later expanded into a sonnet for an English class. I’m not sure what to think of it now. To me, It feels very different from my current stuff.

What darkness lurks behind the stars, that man
Should gaze so raptly to eternal space,
Like some forgotten sentry made to stand
In wait of some infernal foe to face?

And if it is not darkness, what then? friend?
Though few find friends by gazing in the night;
A thousand lamps their radiant rays out send;
Perhaps they seek for our celestial light?

Humanity then seeks itself above,
For friends and foes we have in fair supply,
But purposeless I will not call such love
For brilliant fires far off upon the sky.

My musings her mean nothing to the night –
But I must leave… the stars are quite a sight.

Runaway Train Lost Woman Blues

April 2005

This was written for a girl just familiar enough to be fascinatingly incomprehensible. It wants to be a song, but I haven’t actually figured out how to sing it.

---

She was dangerous for all the right reasons
I was doomed in all the right ways
I was falling in love like a runaway train
And she never knew what to say

Well, you’ll never get anything perfect from her
But she might be the perfect girl

Well it started ‘round four in the morning
And it ended at eleven PM
And if I had to get hit by a runaway train
Well, it might as well have been then.

No, you never will understand what she does
But you know she does it well.

It was then I started drifting backward
It was then I started drifting free
And though she couldn’t keep me from falling apart
She made me do it elegantly.

And you’ll never get what you expect from her
But she might give you what you need.