Tag Archives: youth

A Thing Gets Old: ottava rima

A thing gets old because it starts out young
and in the spring has little or no care;
of consequence and karma, yet unsprung
in early life, it remains unaware.
Perhaps in early August, comes a sign:
an aching in the knees on summer nights;
still youth imagines everything is fine,
and pushes ever onward, come what might.
The spring and summer can’t imagine snow,
nor feel the cold that only winter knows.

A thing starts to get old once it is born;
it yearns for growing up, and fails to guess
that once maturity arrives, it forms
an outline for a coffin, more or less,
the narrow limit into which one’s life
is slowly shrunk and whittled down to fit.
The miles and years prune new growth like a knife;
a slight pain first, then you get used to it.
So spring and summer’s sap is drawn away,
until at last the first September day.

A thing is old inside while still a child,
when talent and potential seem so vast;
thus, even when it grows unchecked and wild,
each spurt of life fades quickly in the past.
The flame burning in June so bright and cruel
it catches fire to the surrounding wood,
so quickly can exhaust its store of fuel
and leave but soot and ash where forests stood.
How gray and cold November’s earth can seem,
when March and April’s frolics are but dream.

A thing gets old because that’s what things do:
each born carries a bury in its heart;
a life is but a journey to get through,
there is an end in everything that starts.
What’s sown in spring is harvested in fall;
the rains of summer feed December’s snow.
If you would have a part, you must take all;
to miss a piece, one might as well not go.
Yet who would dance less hard or long in Spring,
just knowing the hard Winter it would bring?

10 APR 2017

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The fainter stars

I wonder if the fainter stars,
those not more distant but less bright,
their fuel perhaps reduced by age,
the entropy that comes with time,
feel they burn just as brightly now
as once they ever did.

Do they, confined to shrinking space,
expend their last remaining years
reflecting inward, on the past,
where once they outshone all for miles
and lit even the darkest skies
with brilliant rays and fervent heat?

If so, that may provide a clue:
why old stars fade with memory
and seem to slip away in shame,
neglected as both power source
and lesson for the young white dwarfs
who do not yet know of the dark.

I wonder, when the light grows dim
and will not give much warmth or glow –
for older fuel is often best.
Green wood is wet behind the ears
and fails to catch without some aid,
while dry and brittle kindling needs
the slightest spark to raise a pyre.

So sad if those much fainter stars,
those not more distant but less bright,
their fuel perhaps reduced by age,
the entropy that comes with time,
feel they need not burn just as bright
as once they ever did.

03 APR 2013

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Anti-Virus: a complaint or lamentation

I wonder how the world would be
if thirty years ago,
instead of playing thankless gigs,
a soundbyte of a show

I’d done when merely seventeen
(and better then, than now)
would have been made, and hit the ‘net
(God knows exactly how),

gone viral, and been seen worldwide.
Would I have been star?
I wonder, would I then have bothered
LEARNING the guitar?

By that, I mean becoming part,
just part, of what it means
to gain through time some mastery,
by living in between

the wanting and the knowing how,
the skill and the desire,
each note both torture and caress,
both kindling and the fire.

True art is more a crucible
where souls are bent and forged,
than an exciting carnival
where egos are engorged.

I wonder now, when looking back,
on things that could have been;
and thank the gods for then and now,
and the time in between.

What good would I be if back then
I’d caught on like a flame?
I would have not learned anything,
and been, today, just lame.

03 MAY 2011

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Better Your Dream Dies Young

Better that your dream dies young,
its promise as yet unfulfilled,
a youthful willow Juliet
to your enamored Romeo,
than that it live until old age,
when riddled through with cancer scars,
its cracked voice jaded with regret,
it makes your life a nursing home
where you both wait
to meet the grave.

Better that your dream dies young;
so you can shake your head and laugh
when those who posture, pose and preen
still with the vanity of hope
(which is religion for the young)
expound upon their charted course,
imagining the world will care.

Better that your dream dies young,
instead of sadly lingering on,
its beauty faded, spine curled in,
and what was once a lucid wit
reduced to shriveled memory.
Let it go in your youth,
while you still have enough time
to mourn, and move on.

27 NOV 2007

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Here is the Crossroads

Here is the crossroads where you finally know
you’re too old to say you’ll die young.
It’s early summer; fall’s on the horizon.
Your spring has most definitely sprung.

It’s not about giving up on your wild days,
but some dreams must wither and die.
Sooner or later the moving parts wear out;
to think otherwise is to lie.

What was appealing in the hope of vanity,
the religion of your youth,
just lingers on as weary, sad echo;
embarrassing, to tell the truth.

You will get older; or else, the alternative:
cease to get any at all.
If you’re not into the dog days of summer,
there’s no way to make it through fall.

Here is the crossroads where you must decide
for the future, or cling to the past;
let the illusion you’re living youth’s fantasy
go, or else you might not last.

26 APR 2007

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Leaving Something Good

The kind of bands that play
the music that I write these days
seem few and far between;
somewhere between grasping the brass ring
and the consequences
lie some broken dreams.

Just for myself, it doesn’t matter much;
but without substance,
how can we survive?
When everything is so disposable,
how will we prove
that we were once alive?

A lifetime isn’t long enough
to waste a single ounce of what you find;
in every hour’s experience
there’s suffering and pain and being kind.
To think your generation’s got it right
is tanamount to being blind
unless you’re learning from the past, living the now,
and leaving something good behind.

The kind of songs that live
in memory aren’t written
for the copies that they sell;
They represent a drink of water
in a world that seems to build
only dry wells.

And for those who’re never
thirsty, maybe it’s enough
imagining a drink;
but so many die in deserts,
waiting for a single drop;
it makes you think.

A lifetime isn’t long enough
to waste a single ounce of what you find;
in every hour’s experience
there’s suffering and pain and being kind.
To think your generation’s got it right
is tanamount to being blind
unless you’re learning from the past, living the now,
and leaving something good behind.

14 JAN 2007

Listening to John Hiatt’s Chronicles, and thinking about the parallel between some distinctive voices: John Hiatt, Richard Manuel, Van Morrison, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker. Yes, they can lay on the coals and push the volume, but each of them is most effective when they approach the breaking point: when you feel as if the next note they sing may well be their last. And it got me thinking about something I read regarding Joe Cocker — that he was willing to do physical damage to himself in order to do proper service to a song. You may well wonder, and surmise that it would have to be a pretty damn good song to be worthy of that sacrifice. Which brings up another question altogether: why inflict such self-suffering on mediocre material, on art that isn’t likely to last the month, let alone the decade or millenium?

Learn from the past, live in the now, leave something good behind. Explaining that to a generation that thinks it can learn how to play like Eric Clapton by listening to Eric Clapton perhaps is a waste of time. Talking to a Deadhead whose only concept of music is the Dead and other “jam” bands, without realizing the scope of music from which the Dead drew their inspiration, maybe is wasted breath.

But maybe it isn’t. There’s a line from the movie Footloose where preacher John Lithgow asks, “If we never trust our children, how will they ever become trustworthy?”. I wonder along a similar tangent: “If we never share with our children why our music (or anything else about our culture or lives) is important to us, and all they get is our CD collection when we die, how can we expect them to appreciate why we bothered to keep it for their inheritance?”.

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Midlife Chrysler

Some dreams are meant to fade away with age;
starting another chapter means you’ve got to turn the page.
What seemed the promised land back in your youth
becomes a lawn to mow, and it’s the truth:
it’s hard when you start watching from the side
when you remember how it felt to ride

It don’t get good mileage, doesn’t have too much appeal
The tires are going bald, there’s a loose screw behind the wheel
When we’re on the street I’m sure that people stop and stare
Don’t where we’re headed, but I hope that we get there
We keep getting old, but not much wiser
Welcome to my Midlife Chrysler.

Sometimes its hard to try and act your age;
just ’cause you’re getting old, doesn’t mean that you can’t rage.
But battles won or lost don’t make a war,
when you’ve got more to lose now than before:
Yet it’s hard to let that feeling slip away
when the balance of your life is yesterday.

It don’t get good mileage, doesn’t have too much appeal
The tires are going bald, there’s a loose screw behind the wheel
When we’re on the street I’m sure that people stop and stare
Don’t where we’re headed, but I hope that we get there
We keep getting old, but not much wiser
Back in the shop … my Midlife Chrysler.

You may call it vintage, but it’s not the same as wine;
Past a certain point, you end up tinkering all the time.
Then the parts start wearing out that are hard to replace
and all that mileage shows up on your face.

You can’t put a wild beast in a cage;
and there behind the curtain, you’re still standing on the stage.
The pace is slower, but the view is grand;
we can watch the young fools, hand in hand.
This ol’ ride’s still rolling, and there’s room enough for two
No telling what this crazy heap can do…

It don’t get good mileage, doesn’t have too much appeal
The tires are going bald, there’s a loose screw behind the wheel
When we’re on the street I’m sure that people stop and stare
Don’t where we’re headed, but I hope that we get there
Sure we’re getting old, but somewhat wiser …
Hop on in my Midlife Chrysler.

28 APR 2006

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