Music By Hand, Music By Heart...

I don't listen to what music critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what music is. what is a critic anyway, but a faultfinder? i hear music playing all the time. some days it sounds round, and i can see it turn colors. my last two performances felt "groundbreaking" because i finally reconnected with the guy who wrote the songs. for awhile i found it too painful to try to juggle both personalities. my music is bipolar, and i'm comfortably dealing with chips on both shoulders. every time i write a song, i lose a friend. i strike the wrong chords in people i guess. im like a dj of the soul. i mix and match silence and sound. light and dark. hope and despair. all in an attempt to make your bodies jerk! some mcs will tell you to throw your hands up to play to their own egos. i'm indirectly asking you to assume the posture of pray, and see G.d. at one time i had many friends and mundane worries. "Music is a gift that feels our heart each day!" i laugh at such optimism. for writer, music is a curse that fills one's soul with a certain melodic emptiness. music by hand. and music by heart. i prick my finger to pen these poems. otherwise who i am would never show up on the paper. i am tired now. i will sleep until my inner demons return.

nothing like i thought it would be...

i miss writing. where have all the words gone?

A Little Bit of Nothing Left...

Today, as I was walking by a man sitting on the ground with a sign asking for change, I looked down and was debating whether or not I should give him money, and as he looked up at me, he said, "Remember that you are mortal..."

Over the last two months or so (that I haven't been writing), I've been busy trying to find a cohesive narrative and cinematic parallel between what I'm going through and what the rest of the world is going through. My original goal was to try to create a situation where I would/could serve as a poetic mediator between the lines on the paper (that space where life happens). The whole dilemma of identity is rather restraining - like a straitjacket in a sense. Then I thought.... what if there were no rebillions against constraints, and all our metaphors were the exact same?

The idea of "Identity" has a built in death element. But in this scenario, the death is the liberation, so without it, the possibility of a new self (of growth) is an impossibility.

So I sat, pondering the idea of freedom - of escaping the fixed "self." Is it possible? If it is possible, should it be?

I'm so far from heaven, at times I feel my sins are a way of getting back at G.d for... for my perceived "talent." I don't know if I'd call what I have a talent though. Not in that sense. I still find it hard to believe that people would actually pay to hear my voice talking about whatever.

Imagine making a grilled cheese sandwich for you and your friends. Imagine it was one of those summer days when you come home a bit earlier than normal only to find that there's nothing in your house but old milk, bread, and some of that good ol' government cheese. So it's you and your boys in Granny's kitchen, and you're like "fuck it! I'm bout to make this food'." So you get out the bread and the cheese and start putting your Chef-Boy-R-D thing down. You make everyone a sandwich, and get out a few glasses for the water because the milk is in chunk form at this point. You all sit down at that little ass table, and begin making soul business with the grub. Your boy looks up and says, "Jesus man, this is fucking delicious!" And your other boy is agreeing saying, "Homie, G.d blessed this sandwich."

They finish, and leave you sitting there feeling like you just got played. You comment to yourself, "Corny ass niggas. Come over, eat my shit, and bounce!" Only the next day, that group of 3 has grown to 8, then 15 the day after that, then 50. You think to yourself, "Man, this is crazy." Your boys are eating, they happy, you're happy, but you starting to get tired. You gotta keep feeding them though, because for a lot of them, this is all they got. It's cheaply made, and the ingredients aren't that good, but they love it. You know you aren't a chef deep down, and even try to tell them, but they aint having it. To them, you are the greatest thing since.... well sliced bread. You go to sleep because you're exhausted. You been making grilled cheese non-stop for months now.

You fall asleep accidently, wake up, and its 2008. This same group of friends has grown to an absurd number of people. Some of your original friends are still down, but they kind of resent you now like, "Fuck that nigga. He act like he too good for grilled cheese." SOme of those friends actually hate you now like, "dude is corny. My grilled cheese is way better than his. I used that good cheese from where the white people shop." You still got a few people who legitimately love your sandwiches, and it feels good, but now you're on call and have to try to anticipate when they'll want it, and how exactly they'll want it. Everyone has an opinion on your sandwiches now, and in your mind, you're like "It's just grilled cheese!"

You never asked this. You were just trying to give a little of what you had. A band-aid for a gun shot wound. Now you're both hated and love (more hated) for trying to help. People who don't even know you go out of their way to sabotage you because they don't/can't understand that you were only trying to fill a void. Your sincerest attempt to provide the people you cared about most with means to help justify their END(troduction) have become the primary reason why they and other hate you.

People, it's just grilled cheese. I made the best I could with what I had. Hate it or love it, a few ate, which is always better than anyone going hungry.

Or so I thought....

AJS

Our Beautiful House of Cards...

So I've been trying to finish this song for you... (you know who you are). Help me finish it here:


Our Beautiful House of Cards...

Verse 1
Bereft of the old,
But blessed with the new,
I cried myself blind
Crying tears over you
Love and gratitude
Trump grief...
I felt the weight of the world
Every time I heard you weep

Bridge
Love's dart pierced my vacant heart
How superficial this art
Just wanting to be heard
Forgiveness seems absurd
When fights break hearts thrice

Chorus
I'm a slippery slope with no hope
Throw me a rope...
"Hang in there" we whisper
Another failed attempt to forget her
Both on her floor and in my mind
The pain of a burned picture...

Verse 2
You kissed by the book
I wrote to be free
You left during winter
Cast me out to see
All the mistakes I've made

[INSERT YOUR HEART HERE]



Inspiration for the song:

"(Another Song) All Over Again"

You've been alone, you've been afraid
I've been a fool
In so many ways
but I would change my life
If you thought you, might try to love me
So please give me another chance
To write you another song
And take back those things I've done
Cause I'll give you my heart
If you would let me start all over,
Again

I'm not a saint
I'm just a man
Who had heaven and Earth
In the palm of his hand
but I threw it away
So now I stand here today asking forgiveness and if you could just please
Give me another chance
to write you another song
And take back those thing's I've done
Cause I'll give you my heart
If you would let me start all over
Again

Little girl you're all I've got.
Don't you leave me standing here once again?
'Cause I'll give you my life
Yes I would.
If you would let me try to love you

So please give me another chance to write you another song and take back those thing's I've done

'Cause I'll give you my heart
If you would let me start all over
Again

Again, oh,no no ohh

You know I love you, yeah
give me one more chance
No no, no no no no

NO STRENGTH BUT YOURS...

NO STRENGTH BUT YOURS...

pain has taken away my practices and filled me with poetry. i tried to keep quietly repeating, NO STRENGTH BUT YOURS, but i feel i shouldn't. i used to be respectable, shining, and stable, but who cam stand in this strong wind and remember those days?

we rarely hear our inner-music anymore, but we're all dancing the dance nevertheless.

never the less!

i started looking for you the minute after i heard my first love story. you hate me so much you'd rather cage my inner-bird, keep me from flying free, and mute my song (when deep down i know it feels like throwing stones at a mirror).

but you won't know....

you won't know...

We work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work.

2008 has seen many changes for me. I've lost more than anyone should have to, and wouldn't wish a year like this on my worst enemy. That is not to say that I have not recieved my fair share of blessings. Despite all that has happened, I am still here. Still Shears, and for that I am eternally gratefull.

The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends. "O insupportable and touching loss!" I think Horace wrote that Anger is a brief lunacy. And a lunatic I've been - driving myself nearly insane. A person whose actions and manner are marked by extreme eccentricity and recklessness.

I have learned though. And I shall never return to this place I've been trapped in again. The Return of Samo, like "The Growth" marks the beginning of one era and the ending of another.

SAMO as a neo art form.

SAMO as an end to to mindwash religion, nowhere politics and bogus philosophy.

SAMO as an escape clause.

SAMO as an end to playing art.


i love you so much i'll try my best to forget you ever existed. these long, lonely nights will turn into beautiful SONrises and you won't be there to witness it.



witness it.



one night a man was crying. "you won't know" was playing in the background. crying out loud and weeping are great resources. remember, thats all a nursing mother does is wait for her child to weep or cry. but you thought because my tears fell inwardly, i felt nothing. i felt everything. i gave into my own weakness, and tried to give it to someone that i thought could help me. do not think i was ever concerned with being acknowledged by them, or that I ever cared what they thought. only you counted.

i gave you this opened heart as G.d gives gifts: the poison of their spit on my face became the honey of growth.



but you wont know.



"You Won't Know"

Hey hey hey! Mr. Hangman,
Go get your rope

Your daughters weren't careful,
I fear that I am a slippery slope
Now even if I lay my head down at night
After a day I got perfectly right

She won't know...
She won't know...
She won't know...

So pray little Kay, love is just God on a good day.
And you can't blame your mother,
She's trying not to see you as her worst mistake
And I wish that I could tell you right now (...I love you)
But it looks like I won't be around
So you won't know...

You won't know...
You won't know...
You won't know...

So believes in me, believe them
You think I'll let you down
Well I won't
They can fire everything they've got
What do you think? I'm sunk?
I will float on (...and die)
I have burned the bush that covered my light
Even though I'm scared I won't burn that bright

You won't know...
You won't know...
You won't know...

You're never going to feel as full as you felt
So let's go outside and we'll play William Tell
Take your time drawing a bead
I'll stand as still as you need
'Cause you're so good at talking smack,
Heart attack
But you're the apple of my eye anyway

My smiling face that's on my head is on a silver plate.

So they say,
They say in heaven
There's no husbands and wives
On the day that I show up
They'll be completely out
Of their forgiveness supplies
And I cant use the telephone
To tell you that I'm dead and gone
So you won't know

You won't know...
You won't know...
Yeah, You won't know...

A Lucid Spoonful of Never More...

Tonight, I make amends with old best friends by saying goodbye forever. If he that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it; than I should have come across this redemption I seek many times over. for the past few months, I've spent my nights yelling my dreams at the moon, and wishing upon a burning star of my mind's own creation. Tonight, we mourn the death of... I, know what words to say, I just am not positive that I can fit them in my mouth. I hope you heal. I hope I heel. Thank you for Growth...

A Laugh
A Cry
A Prayer
A song... for you.
A final Goodbye.

Goodbye.

"He that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it"
~ Turkish Proverb

Hard to say...

Hard to say...

This lust to my brain almost feels like a gun... point, aim, shoot! You say "she" turned her back, that she was never really there. i don't know if i believe that, but what you say sounds so much like poetry, i give you the benefit of the doubt. i think she loved me. she told me she did. she stuck around... you say i'll never understand it from a woman's perspective. that a woman knows.

The singer finished singing and she's walking out
The singer sheds a tear, her fear of falling out
And it's hard to say how I feel today
For years gone by and I cried

It's hard to say that I was wrong
It's hard to say I miss you
Since you've been gone, it's not the same

But you say I need to let go. You insist that that's what she's done. you say i never had her to begin with. you whisper "she loved you not" in my ear while i lay there pretending to be asleep.

Worse than the fear it's the lie you say she told me a thousand times before
Worse than a fear it's the knife
But it's hard to say how I feel today
For years gone by and I cried

Maybe she didn't love me. Maybe i deserve this. maybe she was right to... you say you love me. you tell me i should trust you. you know she has my heart, but swear that you'll find me a new one to love you all the more with.

My worries weigh the world, how I used to be
And everything, I'm cold, seems a plague in me
And it's hard to say how I feel today
For years gone by and I cried

you tell me you love me, and ask to wipe my tears. it's so hard to say, but maybe you're right. maybe she never did. i wonder though, what makes your promise better than hers? you asked me to let that part of me die... which leaves me half the man i was. but you say you'll still take me. take me?

Amen.

Gone, and a cloud in my heart...

No words said on my death,
No poetry at my funeral.
no kisses left apon my lips.
no secret whispers of goodbye,
no lasting lovers left behind.
Only these words on this page searching for Love's heart.

Love will read these words to feel connected. i will write them to feel at all.

tonight, i say goodbye to all that i am. all that i was. and all that i'll be.

Favorite Book: Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends. ~Richard Bach

Goodbyes are what I'm best at, yet they are what Love hates most.

It's no one's fault but my own. So when it's all said and done -
No words said on my death,
No poetry at my funeral.
no kisses left apon my lips.
no secret whispers of goodbye,
no lasting lovers left behind.
Only these words on this page searching for Love's heart.

They'll never know. They'll never understand. When it feels that good, it has no choice but to hurt just as much. It's a double-edged blade we never learn to hold.


What I realized tonight is that o die and part is a less evil; but to part and live, there, there is the torment.

Goodbye love.

Another Song (All Over Again)

this war i fight i can no more.

i am empty.

i can't love again.

i won't love again.

i strained my love until it "restrained."

i forced it out, but slipped my heart in it's pocket as it walked away.

keep it safe for me. put yours back together, and forget i ever existed.

i've been a fool. i'm so sorry.

another chance might mean another mistake. and for that reason, this is goodbye. accept my apology. i'm not half the man i thought i was. maybe it's possible to love someone too much. maybe it's that I didn't love myself enough.

i hope these words find your heart, and help heal it. find happiness. and please say a prayer for me.

you're all i hoped for.


"(Another Song) All Over Again"

You've been alone, you've been afraid
I've been a fool
In so many ways
but I would change my life
If you thought you, might try to love me
So please give me another chance
To write you another song
And take back those things I've done
Cause I'll give you my heart
If you would let me start all over,
Again

I'm not a saint
I'm just a man
Who had heaven and Earth
In the palm of his hand
but I threw it away
So now I stand here today asking forgiveness and if you could just please
Give me another chance
to write you another song
And take back those thing's I've done
Cause I'll give you my heart
If you would let me start all over
Again

Little girl you're all I've got.
Don't you leave me standing here once again?
'Cause I'll give you my life
Yes I would.
If you would let me try to love you

So please give me another chance to write you another song and take back those thing's I've done

'Cause I'll give you my heart
If you would let me start all over
Again

Again, oh,no no ohh

You know I love you, yeah
give me one more chance
No no, no no no no