[your name here]

When have you yet lived up to your name?
you prodigy, you idol
whose household fame
whispers and worships your lifelong
claim--
You will deliver if they will receive
your love and soul, your heart in a pewter
locket
if they can consider, if they can believe
it wasn’t bought with a tarnished quarter.
If your name was shorter they’d remember,
but you insist size matters
as you eat a bowl of bullshit straight
and drink personality from a glass bottle
like the sincere pretender you are,
because playing guitar isn’t fun
without an audience,
and you don’t believe in an audience of one.
If your name was quieter they’d listen
but they can’t hear for all the shouting.
If you said it clearer eventually they’d come,
but you insist it should be harder and faster,
and you write songs like painted plaster among porcelain.
They claim vows of love and soul.
So blame your guitar
and shameless glass bottle
you’ve carried around for so long,
because the audience
heard. Even you
forgot the words,
when all you’ve
been singing
is your name

all along.

I Know There is God

I know there is God.
For how else would Spring come again?
I know there is God.
For I have heard Music,
And fed my hungry soul with
Its fulfilling vibrations,
And shared all those nights with you
Its compelling evocations
Of heaving chests
Of swelling hearts
Of clenching fists
Of ends and starts.
I listen and I feel
(they are one and the same)
And I know there is God in Music.
For could love be a mistake?
I know there is God
For I have felt the green grass
And filled my gasping lungs with
Fresh-cut crispness,
And shared all those nights with you
We have seen all the stars
All fifty stars
All five hundred stars
All five thousand stars
All five million stars
Until the whole sky was stars
And our bodies were made of stars
And the sun reflected off Jupiter and Mars
And the moon, shining, cheeky bright
Saying, “Do you see God in the night?”
I watch and I wait
(there is more to come)
And I know there is God in the Stars.
For how have I come so far?
I know there is God
For I have kissed until I ached
And rendered myself vulnerable
By parting my lips against your own,
And shared all those nights with you
Pressing skin against skin, together, alone
Cheek against cheek
Heart against heart
I tasted your breath
I smelled your cologne
We loved and made love
(we could not make it stay)
And I know there is God in a Kiss
For God is in Love
And God is in Bliss
And God is in Stars
And God is in Night
And God is in Charity
And God is in Plight
And drifting to sleep, I can smile as I say
I know there is God.

The Cockeyed Optimist and the Straightfaced Pessimist

A Cockeyed Optimist met a Straightface Pessimist
As she went uphill and he travelled down
Said the Cockeyed Optimist to the Straightface Pessimist,
“I am afraid to turn around –
The hill is so steep, and the bottom so far
Do you yourself know where you’re going?
I would suggest staying here, right where you are
Not a slip of the grip or a trip without knowing.”
The pessimist smiled (oh the irony there)
and glanced backways, upways over the hill
“But when,” said he, “when you’ve gone, where?
When you’ve got to the top, can you go upward still?”
“As surely as you can fall downward,” said she,
“when the bottom you’ve hit and are sinking.”
And there they both sat, and forever will be,
Looking not up nor down, and all the while thinking.

Oh God.... I Can't Do This!

“Maybe I will just disappear, and
open a restaurant in Lancaster,”
she said stuffing
her face with cold
pizza. His slippers
were on top of her cold
naked feet and he nodded.
Money was the difference between
her life and an ownership and
all she had ever been was an investment
(and a big one at that).
Under the benefit of teachers
if she wasn’t a teacher too, the money would disappear.
“I could feed people what they wanted to eat
and what I wanted them to.
And you would give them the music
they wanted to listen to,
but only if you want them to listen to it.”
But money
is what held her back
from escaping schedules forever.
“Spend one-fourth of a century doing
the same thing
every day,”
she said and he nodded.
“Is it really in preparation to do
something else – the same something else – every
single day for the rest of your life?”
He knew she was right -
Because of money
she would spend the rest
of her life in the one
place she had worked
for her entire existence
to leave.

i just might turn these things into the exclusive content of my blog.

And on Facebook too.

Memorable conversations in the past two months...

Ever since getting Windows 7 and the Snipping Tool, I have been saving pictures of hilarious conversations. Like these beauties.

We are all made of stars, and we have been from the start.

The Adventures of Eugene, Mayzie's egg.

Not a lot of people know this, but I have a son named Eugene. He's still in the egg stage right now. I'm a bird. Oh, and my name is Mayzie La Bird. Eugene is a bastard; his father, Tweet McFirth left me for San Juan, slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am style.

This is Eugene's tattoo. I told him not to get it. It's only gonna stretch once he hatches.

Eugene has some eccentric tastes.

...and some not-so-healthy habits...

He went to nursing school for a while, but it is tough to sucher an open wound without any arms, so he dropped out...

...to try his hand at sleigh-pulling. I told him he'll get better once he gets used to his wings.

Here's a photo of him chilling on his free time. Listening to Iron & Wine.

He really enjoys hunting a lot.

Here he is during his "cinematography" phase.

He was a great lifeguard at his school's pool.

Awww. Me and my son.

Auntie Jamie, before all the plastic surgery.

Eugene is currently staying with Kian, who is taking great care of him. I'll see him as soon as I get back from vacation... but there are too many attractive men here in Palm Beach!

What About The Big O?

Aw, here we all are - Red Hook Winery, formerly known as The Ragamuffins

Tom on bass

Kian and Joe on guiars, with Kian on vocals

Myself on keys and vocals and Crazy Steve on drums

We ROCKED IT OUT this weekend. We were a shoe-in for first place, of course, but that is only because we are AWESOME! I love us a lot. Our setlist was:

1. Wordless Chorus - My Morning Jacket
2. Fools - Kian McCollum (band original)
3. From - Dr. Dog
4. Back of My Head - Kian McCollum (another band original)
5. Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder

Can I just tell you we happen to be amazing. After a weekend of practicing, performing, and partying we got together tonight with our spoils (The first prize was a laser machine to use during shows... it is epic) and recorded a rough cut of our song "Fools," then sat and wrote a new song in the dark by the light of our laser show, entitled "Made of Stars." And no, we will not change it despite the fact that Moby has a song of the same name. As far as I am concerned, we thought of it first.

You'll see us around, I promise you that.