there must be somewhere
between my ear to the ground
and my head buried deep in the sand
where I can follow all these events
without this common sentiment
of falling victim to thinking
that the end times must be imminent
but all of the wonderful, mundane, and horrific
have gathered in this place
and it's all too much to try and envision
the coffee shops
mass shootings at least once a month
one stop super stores
and Earth's elegant phenomena
all love and hate that came before
and eating organic
complete strangers sleeping next door
what the hell did I inherit
and we've already put ourselves through a great deal
jumping out of burning towers and owning other people
so now all I'm willing to live for is to
lessen others' suffering
within our endless cycle of
destroying and recovering
now paralyzed when I begin to see
the scope of all that is happening
civil wars erupting elsewhere on Earth
dark matter
small dogs that fit in your purse
birthdays
restaurants
exorcisms
wealth redistribution
terrorism
socks with sandals and
rigged economics
class
castes
cancer
and what ever is next
I don't know
and where in all this could I possibly fit in
just one of seven billion
blindly thrown
to the front row
as everything unfolds
much like the Mayans played sport with human heads
and Romans spent their days off at the Colosseum
it's not as if that's all gone away
and I'm not sure we'll be seen as so different
but yikes if you strip all the context away
our home begins to look horribly insane
when all art and entertainment ever assembled
only strived to make a jagged rock feel just a little more gentle
and I was born
between a chrome utopia
I can't even imagine
and a tribe in war paint and animal print
in the trial and error of dying and adapting
incredible and saddening
where every other thought
somehow ties itself back to
how is any of this happening
and all of these attempts to
just shake hands with the unknown
palm readings, satanic rituals, séances,
or freaks out looking for bigfoot
have the right idea
just wanting to shed some light on what's just out of reach
it's just the best place to find some truths probably not in
the psychic readings on your palms crease
I mean the first thing man must have sold
omitting sharp rocks and women had to be
these promises they couldn't keep
so make no mistake about our tiny geography
squabbling bits of matter in a system of impossible immensity
and though looking at our size
you'd think the small stuff would get pushed aside
it'll probably take freezing your ass off
in another ice age for anyone to bridge that divide
this hole of having no answers
has been filled with the bodies of our ancestors
so wheres this meaning in being beyond insignificant
through all of time the answer right in front of our eyes
in the people we wander through whatever this is with
how'd I end up in this crippling situation
unable to cope with the smallest of changes
it'd become unhealthy and unsustainable
and all far too comfortable
and so much subtly eating at me
working in the background so I couldn't see
how I'd built a defense against being sincere
til an occurrence in Utah brought it front and center
trying to forget the train wreck I left back in Texas
unaware of just how deeply I had been affected
but through this mountainous landscape
and what we snuck through the TSA
I finally woke up from this horrible state
I'd unknowingly slipped into.
of mental traps I watched myself
set down then walk into
in the mirror I jumped back
from this bathroom intruder
this primitive animal
spruced up in patterned fabric
and anything else I am is a miracle
these two unusual states helped me to translate
an otherwise unreachable appreciation
for our completely ridiculous living situation
and I took this all with me on the plane back to Dallas
this feeling that I can't quite verbally distill
but from my window seat
the world looks completely still
as I watch the clouds making shadows on the hills
that world down there has no room to be taken seriously
a blip of life in uninhabitable blackness
and if that's all it is
Dear God what am I
a monkey in a sky bus
obsessed with making
meaning out of madness
don't acknowledge our hurling through some unknown infinity
how we're all tapping into this bizarre energy
or imagine the ecosystem swimming through your body
what it takes to really make space learn to walk around consciously
or how we're all locked in a state of transition
where time tears apart those who put their trust in it
just hurry and look away before this all gets far too heavy
don't acknowledge how fast this human paradise could end
by the endless possibilities that we weren't expecting
don't question the constant content screaming for our attention
or how every night we all have otherworldly visions
don't dare discuss true intimacy behind locked doors
or the completely unhinged thoughts we all have but never show
just hurry and look away before this all gets far too heavy
am I supposed to outright ignore
how dark we know this place can get
as if we're to act like it's all vacations
and naked twenty something brunettes
cause I have ripped out the hearts of those I love
like a violent Aztec sacrifice
responded to such a kindhearted I love you
with total silence
talked someone I've known all my life
down from an early death
and most of my dreams nowadays
are nightmarish manifestations of my regrets
costarring:
demons
and old girlfriends
my father
and dancing skeletons
there's really no way to reach old age
without doing some damage
and though life's not quite as advertised
somehow we manage
"one holy Friday per year
endless lines in every town
to buy junk from some country
we couldn't pronounce
the bar had become set at extravagance
houses now monuments for the inanimate to inhabit
but what other sane response was there amidst all life's tragedy
than diving into anything pleasantly distracting
just following a precedent that had always been in place
every problem put off until it was far too late
while luxury cars, scotch, unsinkable yachts
served to drown out the far off
sirens and deafening gun shots
while messy mini vans and identical houses,
isolated us into thinking that's all that there is
and looking back on the early twenty first century
there's no other time I would have rather lived
just to watch the world as it went through all these sudden shifts
and the times just seemed to veer so deeply off script
just past the sixties and the hippies, civil rights, and suddenly
to the war in Vietnam, napalm alongside roller disco
to the eighties cheesy films, while anytime a bomb could fall
on to the nineties what a strange place to be born into this all
yet I'm thankful for the madness that's happened on this planet
documented our suffering so you don't take this era for granted.
but even with the chaos that came now and then
it was a far better time to be alive than it had ever been"
I read to think of death as a punctuation
and before the sentence ends find something worth saying
but how could I capture this life on a page
it took me my whole life up until the last couple days
to see the best thing to do is let some things just go unexplained
and I've read about the rise and fall of civilizations
how we can't see if they're rising or deteriorating
until the collapse is within times grasp
knocking even the most powerful
people of the past down to
long since forgotten facts
collapsed ruins
and museum artifacts
but the sum of all my thoughts don't begin to make a dent
no amount of microscopic scrutiny will make this all make sense
I'm fixated
downward spiraling
on where this whole thing's headed
some days seem like perfection
others, end all Armageddon
Dear God every question is just a branching path of dead ends
is this place in disrepair
as everyday I do nothing but watch from my chair
and I've read some novels but not in a while
my attention spans receding to that of a childs
seeing mountains of text only remembering the headline
til misinformation is passed around like cheap wine
that stains our teeth one sip at a time
and it seems that things just cycle into some new form
the strange styles of the past become the new norm
bright fluorescent light from a dimly lit candle
from goats
to gold
to paper
to these plastic rectangles
all while
I'm here 'cause stars were kind enough to explode
and I know at this point
"Live in the moment!"
is some meaningless phrase
only ever spoken
by thousand year old hippies
and awful motivational speakers
but I think there's a lot of truth to shifting
attention from self talk that has no use
to the world that's taking place
to keep from getting caught up
in your own mental head game
cause I've spent too much time warping
passing thoughts into outright warfare
psycho analyzing and unfair comparisons
and there's nothing more damaging
to your day to day environment
than treating your closest relationships
like subjects to a scientist
and though we all don't suffer the same amount
many don't take into account
you have no real gravity
of the pain strangers carry so casually
and how often do we really see through our eyes
held hostage to the old we continue to visualize
or moments that haven't happened yet
built up so much we'd rather welcome our own death
and it doesn't help that
all our screens have a camera looking back
like narcissus' pool's now sold in glass
encapsulating all known information
but used for our own social reincarnations
I've talked with monks, nihilists, mormons, and flat earthers
and the most important lesson learned in my life's first quarter
is that there's a piece of me somewhere in just about anybody
and this inability to see yourself in others
cornerstones all conflict in one way or another
but how could I look at the past and think I'd have done any better
so to the worst of human history
all I can do is surrender
cause there's no way to undo what's been done
the crematoriums have been filled
and we've seen what happens when we split the atom
all that remains is to carve out some way to live with this
and if the people of the past could only see us today
dear God
the tribal tattoos
fake plants
and running just to stay in shape
some would probably take their chances
being chased by wild dogs in the savannah
though it's dangerously easy to think that by contrast
we've transcended that homicidal past
in a century or two
they'll have a long list to look back and laugh at
and I hope they're kind enough to have a sense of humor
when they look back
no
but there's no way to undo what's been done
the tide slowly swallowing the coast
our monuments built atop slaughtered bones
all that remains is to carve out some way to live with this
serial killers
astrology
concentration camps
nudist colonies
online dating
quiet meditation
drone strikes
psychedelic hallucinations
gorgeous national parks
and violent revolutions
to be honest
to be kind
to be disillusioned
Christ, this is just the beginning
the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
stock market crash
Siddhartha
explaining his eight fold path
crumbling temples of greek mythology
the hollywood sign
near the picturesque beach and
monks lighting themselves on fire in protest
just focus on breathing when there's
so much we can't even process
Christ, this is just the beginning
it can be far too overwhelming
locking eyes with all human history
to see us for who we really are
every instance of well being and suffering
and in any other time I'd be dead my first winter
an underweight, half blind baby with asthma was never
to be anything but a predators appetizer
but these strange times are exactly what led to my survival
and the sixty some years I hope to have left on this planet
this is all just a long way of saying
this life is bananas
penniless slums
suburban yoga classes
Columbian exchange
filing annual taxes
growth within silence then
sunlight on the horizon
hydraulic fracking
magic healing crystals
mountainous landfills
and rising sea levels
Christ, this is just the beginning
artificial intelligence
collapsing ice cap cliffs
from infancy fits
to a finished bucket list
crowded slaughterhouse
nuclear fallout
somehow moving both up and downhill
brief witnesses to an endless cycle
Christ, this is just the beginning
how much we and this place have changed
from the skyscrapers all the way back to the caves
whether our enduring capacity for kindness
or targeting a crowd with explosives strapped to your chest
this world always finds an unexpected way
to leave me out of breath
and though this all needs to be acknowledged
it doesn't have to be infested with such seriousness
there's an unbreakable perseverance to the human spirit
and there's a kind of lighthearted cosmic joke
woven into all of this
"All the Wonderful and Horrific"
Cover Art by Randall Kirk Jones
December 2016 - June 2017, 4'x4', Oil on canvas
Deepest thanks to my friends and family, as well as to Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Dory Previn, Kendrick Lamar, Randy Newman, Rene Magritte, Heironymous Bosch, Robin Pecknold, Joanna Newsom, Sam Beam, Josh Tillman, Jim Carrey, Conor Oberst, Sam Harris, Bob Dylan, Joe Rogan, Taylor Goldsmith, Bryan John Appleby, Alan Watts, and Duncan Trussell
Alec Bowman perfectly captures the dark soil under the pastoral world of British folk with this collection of melancholy originals. Bandcamp New & Notable May 12, 2020
A trio of songs from indie rock veterans, “3ingle” showcases their songwriting skill with pared-back, acoustic arrangements. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 8, 2018
Stirring Americana set to acoustic arrangements and topped by the legendary Alice Gerrard’s lovely, world-wise voice. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 23, 2023
”Seawheel Acoustic” delivers captivating melodies and heartfelt lyrics in songs that are equal parts soothing and enchanting. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 10, 2023
