"blood moon" - 11/2/14

when I was 15 years old I met my first love,
in of all places, Rostov On Don, Russia.
we met under a full moon, in a town square
where a dozen teenagers from America and Russia
were discovering just how alike we all were, initially
rhapsodizing about the music we loved. I only spent
a week getting to know this person before I had to
return to my life as it had been before it was
'technicolor', so to speak; before one brilliant,
insightful, soulful and hilariously funny young man's
affections toward me hinted at the meaning of life.
while I did see him again - he eventually made it
to America against seemingly impossible odds -
obstacles in the form of parents, college, and
deportation got the better of youthful romance.
on nights like tonight, when the moon is as big
as it can possibly be and I feel especially small,
I wonder where he may be, and if he is looking
at the same moon, as he always promised me

he always would, no matter what.

"how songs are born" - 11/2/14

sometimes you meet an equally strange
kindred spirit someone you may have known
in another life long ago or maybe only seconds prior
depending on your interpretation of time
the meeting itself is a kind of misguided magic
what are the chances of changing mundane's mind
especially on a weekend when life's symbolism's
in a stupor searching for something graspable, concrete
still in the wink of cynicism's eye you may be swept
up into spiral staircase-like questions of the holiest
most irrational kind and only then, ill-fated,
is it time - since you asked - to sit down
shattered by the looming sound of "no"
and imagine what "yes" would taste, look, feel like
for the sake of simple sanity yes, this echo

of "what" ping-ponging "if" is how songs are born.