it’s what we add to the black and white, a direction neither left or right, choosing neither blind or sight.

it’s the parenthesis that holds what we really mean–plainly, optional, neatly avoidable.

it’s the revision of the revisionist’s history, a pylon marking everything, then, now, eventually.

gray is a man born to a king
who knows there’s no rank between coal and his ring

gray is the silence that steers to right
that thing that was said between the sheets that night

it’s a handshake firm between
not friends
not enemies
not companies

people
hands
skin to skin
laughing mouths and shots of gin
bearing witness to what we’re in
she carries on without us then

by rank and file they walk the plank
of a ship that sailed long ago and sank
we raise our glasses and give thanks
cheers and clink and clink and clank

away
we stay
in the gray

rung out and folded
we fill our lives with a stark brand of cold and warm
press the will of men
will you then?

tamed by the noise
incensed by the silence
informed by the dormant heart that sets until you claim it

switch it on and blame it
for leading dim to dangerous
fluorescent and courageous

beauty won’t berate us
entertain trust
and then what?

religious
and then dust

I jotted this down while in Chicago, in a Field Notes memo book while sitting in a trendy coffee shop that serves their brew–not from some commercial machine monstrosity, but made to order by the cup–on a wooden tray with a mug and a decanter, while they played the Fleet Foxes entire Sun Giant record, because fuck other coffee shops.

Coming back to it now, I really like it, but I completely dismissed it initially as disingenuous scribbling because I wrote it in the context of the most painfully rote hipster/poet/artist stereotype I can imagine.

But then I do this every time I begin something creative. Even something as small and fleeting as this. I find some reason to discredit authenticity and value in my own work.

I’m too self conscious and I’m a people pleaser. A terrible combination. But now I write for a living. And now I realize that’s where my self criticism and evaluation belong, because I’m writing for them. But everything outside of that–it’s for me.

The more I let that sink into my marrow the more I’ve been enjoying re-kindling my affair with writing, and the more free I feel when I sit down with my guitar and a 4 track recorder.

Creating should be therapeutic, and at times astounding. So, here’s to less is this clever enough? or is this trying to be too clever? and more is this fun? Do I feel free?

I’m not good at talking
Or mending up the tears
The time that I am biding
With a lonely wicked stare

The shadows fight for freedom
You’re a prisoner of war
And everything you’ve worried
I’ve worried twice before

And the birth that’s overtaken
The steering wrecks the fate
Put the love we have for loving
In a safe and arid place

The clothes we’re occupying
Silhouettes that swell
Making us look bigger
Than the world we’d have to fill

A cold front is moving
It’s pressing underneath
The covers that are warming
The color of our feet

Everything you’ve run from
Is locked inside a drawer
And everything you’ve worried
I’ve worried twice before

I have a lot of “unfinished” writings in notebooks, on notepads, on sticky notes, in Evernote, your arm… (hey, check). I put unfinished in quotes because when I write creatively it rarely feels finished to me. But sometimes it’s better to accept a compulsory and concise moment of creativity as just that, and not try to add on to it. So I’ll be posting some of this stuff (read: dumping it on you) in an effort to get more comfortable with my more fleeting side.

Kings and queens
And midnight trysts
Forlorn bonds
Indolence

Little empires
We intend
To rule ourselves
To the end

But egos rise
And give way
Crutches fall
You never change

Stilted up
On cigarette butts
You barely see
Above your cup