Trust

on By 3 Comments

Hollow words
Fall like leaves
Orange and yellow
Vibrantly dead

You won’t use them
With me

Traveling to the sea
I left you sleeping
Looking for answers
To unknown questions

Standing in its power
Wishing I could be swept away
Under its power and might
My fear bleeding into the undertow

It haunts my dreams
This body of overwhelming force
Its understanding, just beyond reach
She beckons me
“Come to me, and just let it all go”

Emptied
I journey home
Hoping to find you
Watering potted flowers

Some things you trust because it has been earned, other things you trust because it has the power to consume you, but gives you the opportunity to release your anxieties…without asking much in return…and you walk away the better for it.
I will never fully understand what it is about the ocean that makes me feel whole. Perhaps the beating heart sounds of the earth, or the salty taste of the environment….like sweat, blood, tears….amniotic fluid. She is both my mother and my father in my dreams, depending on the context and what my gut is experiencing.
A lovely strangeness…a mystery to enjoy, never to be fully revealed…a love affair experienced for anyone who ventures behind her veil.


Black Coffee

on By 7 Comments

I was born in the city
Not too far away from here
People come to call me
There ain’t nobody here

Then you came a-knockin’
Done rattled on my door
And ever since that fateful day
You dropped me to the floor

If you ever think you’re gonna go
You just better let me know
‘Cause I hate drinkin’ my coffee black
Sittin’ here all alone

Baby you’re the sweetener
Baby you’re the cream
If you told me you were leavin’ now
You know I’d have to scream

Make me some of that coffee baby
Just make it any old way you  want
It’s alright with me
Make me some espresso, I don’t care

It’s all good to me!

Next week is our 38th wedding anniversary….so I wrote this for my baby.
Poor thing, she doesn’t drink much coffee any more….but every now and then, we sit over a long cup.
The song….(just a jam)

Anticipation

on By 2 Comments

It was 2011.
I was making photographs of crows.
Off in the distance
Some 500 meters
A black cloud.
Like a monochrome
Psychedelic mass
Changing
Yet united

Watching
Abandoning the shot
Mesmerized
At the gracefulness
Of the hundreds
Of little bodies

Now walking
Increasing speed
Running
To the phenomenon
Trees blocking my view
Panting

They’re right overhead!
Peculiar calls
Bank left
Floof!
Was the sound
Just above the treeline
SWOOSH!
The roar of 500 pairs of wings

So excited
Camera fumbling
Check settings
Raised and ready

Nothing

They were gone!

But they are animals
Animals are habitual
I’ll be back tomorrow
Oh yeah,
You’d better believe
I’ll be back tomorrow!

Such was the beginning of my photographic journey to include starlings in my multiple exposure pieces. Starlings, the dreaded invader-bird. To watch them murmurate will change the heart. It is a wonder to behold.
Will they return this year? We will see before too long…their numbers have been diminished over the years and I fear those few first years will not be replicated again.

Dream Sequence 5

on By

I have added a second ambient music/video to my youtube channel!

Dream Sequence 5 features video of butterflies I find on the trails I travel. If you are looking to be excited, this may not be for you. The intent for music is wholly devoted to the ambient cause….a backdrop of sound to allow one to concentrate on something else.

In San Diego, we are mostly an arid climate. Even near the Pacific most of the terrain is chaparral (low brush and smaller trees). The video was made near the San Diego river. It is lush with trees and every year around August, the swallowtails come to look for mates. This year I decided I would document this event.
The swallowtail will find “highways” between trees and follow a pattern of flying within these lanes. A male will approach a female and emit pheromones in an attempt to woo a female. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.

There are a few clips of cabbage whites in there too….they are very abundant here.

The dream sequence number originates from the titles I give each music composition when I sit down to create it. I liked the #4 effort more than the previous three so that one ended up first on the list for posting. Eventually I will back into the first three as I add entries. 

The Video:


My next effort will be of ocean waves and more peaceful music.
Thank you for your support!

Tribal

on By 7 Comments

(About being a child. The smell of fall triggers a waterfall of emotion.
  Freedom is lost to structure and the renewed experience of being chosen or rejected in the new/old social setting we call school)

Darkness falls earlier these days
Without fail
The melancholy wells up

Like thermal mud-pots
Boiling over
With pent up anticipation

Soon there will be a choosing
A renewing 
Confirmation of what I already know

The abyss in my stomach returns
As I reach out
Clumsily grasping for tree limbs

Eyes closed, over the cliff I go
Encircled by perfection
Conscious of every rejection

Life cycles ended in harvest
A new year
But we’re told it’s not yet new year

If I open my eyes
Will I hit bottom?

Oils on canvas – 16″x20″
The sixties was a time when a child would grow up outside. Mothers would tell their children “go outside and play”. We would….oh we would. We were almost feral….until it was time for dinner.
Going “back to school” robbed us of that freedom, and brought the testing of our worldly social skills to the fore. Some of us were very good at it. Some of us simply blended into the lead-painted siding.
Fall for me has always been painted with these experiences, even after all these years.