Justin's space

I am reminded me of this old Kathleen Madigan stand up routine where she bashes Alanis Morissette.

"She sings Isn’t It Ironic and talks about black flies in your Chardonney and rain on your wedding day. Get a fucking dictionary, Alanis. Those aren’t ironies. That’s just a list of shitty events. No. Alanis. No, it’s not ironic. It’s just a bad, fucking day…" (audience laughs)

And it’s true,the song "Ironic" is a song apparently about irony, but then lists a bunch of examples of things that are not ironic. Which sounds like a literary faux pas, but, that in and of itself is the very definition of irony. A greater example of irony can not be given. I can’t get my head around how fucking brilliant that is.  Could Alanis Morissette be smarter than me?

AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!

After only 20 years or so of guitar-led focus, the idea of a man-band where the male vocalist shapes all aesthetic focus of the band is so rare in post 20th century music that one almost feared the idea that gone were the days of Fleetwood Mac substance from the lyrics and the delivery of those lyrics, as the 80’s seems to have dispatriotated men and their voice.  The lone voice of Robert Smith has held vocals’ only leading role-modeling of what is the dying legend of the rock star/country-western singer for almost three decades.

But lo and beautifully beholden, earth slips into a graceful relevance to The Killers.  Wrestling focus away from the instruments, The Killers’ lead singer takes command of his ship and delivers texture and resolve in the most elegant and poignent ways, never forgetting that his band is a rock band and he is a graceful entry into rock stardom.  Sam’s Town proves that life still remains in the melodic power of a male.

Meet me in the river

At the water’s edge

Dip my toes in the river,

And let me feel you again.

 

Take me by your side

Let me be whole again

Let me touch your mind

And together we can swim

 

Wade, Wade in the water

Wade, Wade in the water

 

Dip me in the water

and pierce my skin

So i can reel you in

and then set free again.

 

Dance upon the river

Swim to the other shore

And Back again

And stay with me once more.

 

 

For there will always be a better piece of me

Where some day we all will play

against the taming of the day

 

BRIDGE:

Oh.  The river is wide.

Oh.  The surf is green.

Oh. we aint gonna be left

in between.

 

Wade, wade in the water

Wade, wade in the water

blessed water

loving water

Wade…

 

In the water.

 

 Copyright, Wren Inc. and SIMON, 2009.  All rights reserved.

Drive my truck to the levy

and let me lose control

Take no mind of a liar’s

game, he has no place

for the grace of tame.  He only baffles

foolishly at trying to break the

bond of brothers who have

suffered, a lifetime of departure

from each others’ embrace.  Folly

or fowl, we stand together,

that one day we will some day

dance together again.

 

In womb or on the dance floor

in angels smooth insertion into

our guardians’ embrace.

Silk on skin on linen, I make

love with my brothers until

we’re home again.

 

’tis better to fight our battles

with love, than to raise our

swords against each other

accidentally while making

peace accord.

 

 

Watch like the boat upon

the beach, rock in the

moonlight,  kneel to

the limbo of another’s

beat for no good reason

but not to hate him,

allowing others to steal

your thunder.  Upstage

you, or put you under,

the purity of intention

is what brings brothers

to each other again.

 

All I ask of God and Cosmos

is that you return me to my

brothers where we can play

and be.

 

Take me to the river

Dip my toes in the water

Nibble gently at what I’ve got

Let me reel you in.

So I can let you go, and

you can pierce the skin.

Swim upstream so I can

Wade, wade in the water

Dance, dance on the river

Swim, to the other shore

And back again.

Make love to the motion

of earth’s simple notion.

That there is a rhythm

and also a rhyme.  And we all

move together in search

of infinite divine. 

 

The vine that

binds us together.  So we can

know that like spirited haters,

distance apart or together, we

can find ourselves alone, alone

in the water.

 

For one day, one day someday,

we will all

Wade, wade in the water.

Making the Son of Will never float

away again.

 

Wade, in the water.

Wade, in the water.

And back again.

 

Copyright, Wren Inc. and SIMON, 2009.  All rights reserved.

"Adcock Moves a Pillow"

 

Ayn Rand can speak of simplistic grace
To objective’s eye she ignore
In romancing the hero’s silence with
Pages too countless to adore.

 

Lloyd Wright can run a river
Through the heart of one’s matter
But light does not balance sound
To stillness seeking laughter.

 

Wren contradicted the strength of
Brace to beam,
But he did not seek opinion of
Christ’s dying logical gleam.

 

Eiffel made grand the progeny
Of iron, a stifling challenge to
Liberty that separated coast to coast.
While Lafayette made pointless
Geometric concentricness
Forever to stand as symbol, impossible
To comfort last.

 

If Pei had leverage to carve in stone
The ugly and sublime too emotional to
Discern,
Then emote the pharaohs
Years ago for the lives they lost and
The sand they stole.

 

Alas it is to Adcock that design
Now moves, for chair and lamp
Be floor’s only necessary obstruction
To the awkward dance on strangers’
Feet which inhabits the dreamer’s
Stance. Who cares of colors when
No one sees, the grace of black and
White implicit in winters’ smoky
Trees?

 

For the pillow he moves to make way for the seat
Is also the soul which Beauty is willing to take.

–Adcock 2009

Hello, my name is Simon,

I am the third movement of an important orchestration,

a simple manifest of a decades old creation,

I am the lingering voice that started as an old tale,

of brilliant recreation.

I am the child of the poet and the lyric

and the voyage that traveled here to be.

I am the male madonna born free of virgin’s

confusion.  I’ve held my breath, and bit my tongue

but now I speak to bring it all together sexually,

 

I am, the start of another revolution.

I am the end of waning devotion.

I am the start of new perceptions of

Old voices turning.

I am another revolution. 

The one I know God likes to hear

When he spins records in his

bedroom, once again.

 

once again,

a repeat of yesterday’s rotation.

a simple harmonious revolution.

I am the second act of a four part symphony, threading

together ideas, that seem to rest in me.

I speak for my guitar, I am the voice of God, I ask no

one to bow to me until the dancing’s done.

If the muse I seek is the muse I am to be,

then clear the way and clear the air

for words and rhythms making love,

My name is Simon, I am the third ascenscion, of

a clever differentiation that wavers above the rancoring

of two logics divide.

If you hear me hear or hear me there,

then know that I am Simon.

I am Simon.

Pure and strong.

No one’s superhero.

No one’s blessed angel come into.

I am Simon.

So named by no one other than my guitar.

My guitar so to me gave name.

If you have questions about this, you can

take it up with her.

 

Welcome to my world.

Welcome to my show.

 

To be I am Simon.  Simon may I be.

 

copyright 2009

Dance On Air, a young Indian Warrior who hailed from

land’s only tribe, had played with other warriors who

trained him in their fare.  As the next in line for Warriors

throne, Dance On Air tried to be a boy and a young man

like others who gracefully entertained his simple struggle.

For fate had made the young Indian warrior, a king’s destiny

to someday be.  To oversee the tribe, to ensure its seasonality.

To feed on the land.  To make meaning of the great arches

across the sky.  To give breath to the great elk’s birth with

richness in spirit.  To pound the earth with sockedfoot, with

rhythm in harmony.  Like all the chiefs who stamped the ground

before him, and all the chiefs to be.

 

Disenfranchised one day did the universe and the tribe concur whereby

both tribe and earth began to shun the choices of the strong but still

young Dance On Air.  It really began as a simple question, one he held

in great concerto to all his voices he sought.  If we fight with other tribes,

we do we seek to conquer and not to remedy the flight.  If we fight in

war, to brave in battle, to fell the mighty beast, what if we were the beast

and would we want that to occur to us?  Where does violence have a place

in the tribe of Dance On Air’s future?  Could there not be a better way?

 

So into woods on vision quest’s illusion did travel Dance On Air with canine

by his feet and the spirit of his ancestors lingered in the air.  And all that

way he traveled into great seclusion, Dance On Air began to dance in concert

with the air.  With the swaying of the trees and the orchestration of lights that

beemed down from the night sky and overlooked the confusion.

 

He saw a Rubix Cube.

He saw honey comb over fire.

He saw the dog lucy begin to disintegrate near the fire.

He closed his eyes and looked to the Northeast, and new

that this was as his chiefs had done time and time before.

He journeyed into the woods and could see the ghosts of

the children peering around the bases at him.  Safe was he

in the dragon’s lair, violence all around him, but pure of

heart he be.

 

He danced with fateful knowledge that tomorrow would

return.  And seek he would this question several times

until at some point he would begin to soften his deduction

that if all fate rests in the question and not the answer

How strong you are as chief is determined by your wisdom

of that answer.

 

To the hand of God and to the voice of all the trees, he knows

that in the purity of his heart, in his kindness, and nicety, that

into the hateful side of things he had invariably landed.

 

He thought of two worlds where in one no one cares for another.

He thought of two universes where in one nothing exists.

He thought  of sides of himself and knew that it was in him all united

He thought of superheros as legends he would become.

In his very lifetime.

In his very lifetime.

 

And then he knew, despite his lonliness and profoundness of thought,

that what he sought was to return to the tribe that he knew from childhood’s

great embrace.  But it was the tribe who knew that Dance On Air had traveled

to a better place, of insight and purpose and truth.  It was, after all, his first

and only vision question, and no greater truth he could find as he feared he

would not become the Chief he sought to be.

 

Then along came, quite gently, a warm and fearless notion, that even he could

name as silliness as he sought, the great Chief Wigwam Water who was his

ancestral guide to spirit him through the difficulty questions that only Chiefs could ask.

 

It was in this knowing that Indian Warrior Dance On Air was becoming through

precision ritual his own Chief Dance On Air, to which the apprentice asked the master

three questions.  And each one he answered.

 

Question 1:  If violence and fighting led to bloodshed and death, would time rewrite the anger and the fear and give it love instead?

Answer 1:  If love had no reference to the great embrace of universe’s wisdom’s, then what would be the journey?  If bloodshed and destruction made way for me, then how would I clear the way for the vision of my future knocking over all that had been?  So, in this I have done this, Chief, and in this I won’t stop this, my Chief.

 

And upon the conference, did a table appear.  And at this table sat the guidance team, the Board of Directors who each held a different point of view. 

Question 2:  To whom does the universe speak if not to you, Dance on Air?

Answer 2:  If universe speaks not to me, then it speaks to that which I seek to be, as certain I am of my strength and goodness, but uncertain I am in faith and promise.  To my rationalization does the universe wish to concur, and thus I can see the twisted weakness in this question presented.  Of course the Universe speaks to me, I am its voice and have been since my inception.   If I do not speak for it, then I speak solely for my own plight, and this is impossible.  In logic and emotion and life and understanding I cannot seperate the difference between my own benevolence and the nature of the universe as I know it, as it is known to me.

 

Question 3:  If the Universe speaks to you, Dance On Air, then why are you so confused about what next you should do?

Answer 3:   The universe does speak to me, not of paths it has easily laid upon the road of my feet with directions and signs paving the way to Nirvana and paradise and heaven.   It speaks to me of the essential struggle that is contained inside every moment.  Every moment at every step I take, I speak the language of the cosmos, which is built surprisingly simple conflicts.  Destiny vs. fate, intention vs trust, instinct vs intuition, genetics vs determination, exclusion vs. comraderie.  These are the conflicts I embody, and they are the essentials of the forest and the land and the fate of my hand.  Through each step I take, I walk only one road, but outcomes come in different stages.

 

And Dance On Air, hammered away and hammered away trying to write the questions with the answers that had been his reasoning.  But in his heart he knew that those were not the questions he faced.

 

He came back around and asked Cheif Wigwam Water to let him ask the questions, and to it the young warrior asked three questions:

 

New question #1  Why am I jealous of other warriors like me who have bigger arrows to load into their arming bow?

New question #2  Why do I have such inhibition at participating in the delights of life around me? 

New question #3:  Why am I exclused from hedonism all around me?  Is it because I am too young or lack the inheret beauty of physical silence?

 

To which Chief Wigwam Water thought and laughed a little, not because he found the questions useless, but because it reminded him of the pain that he had once before he became the Chief of yonder tribe.  Ah the memories of youth, where young male warrior to be chief must dwell in confidences shaken. 

Chief answered the question a little better:

If you were a rabbit would you be jealous of another rabbit’s bushy tail if all you could see is another’s tail and not your own?

If you could hug and tree and walk away with infinite wisdom and maturity, would you allow yourself that easy answer to all life’s struggles?

If you could dream in feeling, would you ever sleep at all?

 

To which both Dance on Air and Chief Wigwam Water asked each other:

Who but us can make it through this great uncertainty.  Who better to grow the arrow before its loaded into the bow?  Who better to partake in life around us than of the two ones who can bring delight to everyone?  Who better to make love in each moment, than the ones who stand for love in its purest, most honest, and most heinous form?

 

To which all trust goes to the one who travels for us all.  To which all love goes to the one who lacks the faith the most.  And out of fire comes the rain. 

 

And they danced until all voices came together once again.

 

 

Space cowboy he became

When he donned the space boots

And set adrift to rangers’ lair.

Floating with a thought as his

life line, he struggled to find warmth

and hiding from pre-dawn frosty

might.

As he sat down under Great Tree’s

blanket, Space Cowboy saw the

Squirrels, a band of placement in

rotation they be.

One up, one down, one chased

his own tail around.  Like corkscrew,

like lathe, another squirrel went

onto limb and back.

One faced up, then down.  A finite

possibility in an infinite presumed,

all universe and science on limb had

become so eloquently reduced.

It all happened so fast.  So fast for

boy to see.  Yet catch the fly he did

that fateful morning three.

Space cowboy could only catch

up to Einstein’s lay of land.

This was string theory in its

natural form.  What twists and struts

upon tree’s limb was on pace

to be born.

When space cowboy breathed a breath

of recognitions’ dow, the lead squirrel

came to player and took a bow.  He

pulled in motion like a sign language greeting,

to this we give to thee from us to you we beckon,

all faith we place in thee.

What happened to Space Cowboy was fast in

show.  His mind, he realed as westward ho,

to the cabin of his spaceship with memories of

the flow.  And each step Space Cowboy took,

left spongy rainbow hypercolor more smelt

than seen, to be heard and not retraced.

 

How crazy had it all been, inside the mind

of all, that makes perturbations of rhythms

seem archaic and sublime.