Good Music

Good music bleeds. Good music cries when it is sad, and it screams when it is angry. Good music goes beyond what the critics say. It stands tall and says “fuck you Rolling Stone. I kick ass despite you.” When the undertaker comes, a good piece of music will knock him on his ass. When the floods wash away mankind, a good piece of music will float atop the waves of washed-aways and swim before the survivors. Good music is strong and heartless while at the same time merciful and loving. Good music is a beaten dog that will not surrender to maim and mange. When the last pop tune flies off the shelf, good music collects dust in the back row, uncannily aware of its own magnificence. Music dies in the memory, and leaves a lasting imprint on the mind; good music, that is. And all this, is to say nothing of great music.
Great music is a massacre to the temporal lobe, pinching every nerve and bursting every blood vessel. Great music inspired the rise of Sitting Bull and begat the fall of Rome. Only the greatest drums served to win the harshest battles, and only the strongest horns helped to wake the most calloused soldiers. Great music suffocates when you hear it, and from sea to shining fucking sea, great music will venerate the plow and manifest itself within the mind of the homesteader and the Gold miner alike until every god-forsaken soul has the spirit within him to do whatever god-forsaken task his mind is set out to complete. Great music is a sinner in the hands of an angry god. It defies nature, right and wrong, left and right, up and down, life and death, choice and fate, depression and ecstacy, drugs and sobriety, heirarchy and democracy, killers and doctors, lawyers and saints. Great music is a cancer to mankind which we do not rid ourselves of because the pain hurts so fucking good.
Great music is the orgasm that sex can never acheive, and it is the experience that life can never physically quantify.

In Love with a Voice

          Have you ever fallen in love with a voice? Something low, loving and longing? I have. I wonder what the voice sounds like when I can’t hear, or what it would sound like if she spoke to me, as I have never spoken with her. I hear her soft, heavy tones on a regular basis, and I’ve never replied. She sings songs; sometimes I sing with her. I want to every time, but sometimes I know it is best to listen.
               I lie on the floor and let her notes breeze past me. I wonder what she sounds like in the morning. Would those vibrations hit my ear in the same, perfect, way? When the highs rang out, would I still shiver? When the lows hummed, would I still be frozen? I imagine myself closing my eyes, rolling over the bed and allowing our lips to gently touch. She would still be singing, speaking, breathing. Her sounds would tickle my lips, and I would quiver in ecstacy. I would be drawn closer, she would speak quieter until her words were more physical than audible. This is my quiet quiet love of her soft resonance; this is my desperation for her…viberations.

Live

School will come and go.
It is the lovers turned friends
and friends turned lovers
that will be remembered.

It is the hard times
and the hands held
and the cards dealt
and the money lost.

It is the tragedy
and the comedy
and the fate
and the future

Overall, it is the experiences
and the inexperience
and the experimentation
and the excrement that is thrown at us.

Life is the loud noises
and the sad silences
and the biting kisses
from people you do not sympathize with.

Life is the death of our own mental slavery
life is the enslavement of the beast of time.
Life works for those who work it.
Work lives for those who know not how to live.

Still,

Work hard,
Live long,
Kiss gently,
die strong.

Caress the back of the unknown lover
Hold tight the shoulders of a wary friend.
Kiss the lips of the life-long light-hearted.
Perhaps, your own heart will be lightened.

Climb a tree.
Or a rock.
Spill your blood
while the people around you applaud in amazement.
For your show is theirs.

Fight wars overseas,
or under sheets.
Scratch the former,
anticipate the latter.

Deny the rules.
Defy the rules.
Satisfy the soul
by drinking deep the natural liquor of life
to obtain a drunkard’s enlightened stupor.

Above all, live every day
expecting, and willing,
to give your last breath of life,
in the same world of wonder as you gave your first.