just got back from the Cities - where i took in Sarah Lee and Johnny, the Old 97s, Northern State, and Cake! And i fucking met the last two!!!

but i feel like writin' some more of that thar poetry, so ah reckon i'll-a do that. Have a good one, reader, and stay smilin'!

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on the way to Mecca

10/24/04

in this mist I walk ahead
of the pack
a druid in the forest draped in a bonewhite chant

beneath my steps the concrete lies cold, draped
in a sheet of rain, reflected light
dripping from streetlights a thousand miles away
but my memories and eyes tell me, encouragingly,
it’s only a short walk
however, to my smiling heart and featherweight soul
it seems like a
lifetime
as I walk these old paths in this old city
that pulses and teems with purple anticipation for the
upcoming baptismal on first and seventh -
a thousand souls washed
clean tonight in the soft tears of an acoustic guitar

restraint – it’s out of the question
this fire draws me in like a sullen moth
looking for release
so I walk faster

almost running
feet slipping on the rain-slick sidewalk
full in the knowledge that
sometimes the inside wait is
painful endless forever
like the feeling of time ticking by in days
not seconds
as your plane empties in the night
you’re stuck in the back
feet trapped in molasses two feet deep
that’s eight years old and smells faintly
of that life you left behind
just a few hours ago

the wait, yes, oh its long
it is forever
but in my church I’d wait forever
for just one second of backlit blues notes,
a sweaty, searing, red and yellow solo,
or a common glance of thankful recognition
after the applause

that wait’s nothing
and I could run forever beneath the floating soul
of the city dark and alive
I would
but it’s only a block away
and I know my pack will catch me
eventually