the gravity

we all mean well, I am thinking

two boys watching at the window

for their mom to arrive in an SUV

baristas laughing, singing

along with canned music

all the Catholic school kids

upstairs, yelling, guffawing

 

joy and boredom play out

even here, at Corporate Cafe

 

and when the world crashes

when the Earth drowns

when people abuse their positions

like the people before them

and people rally to keep them 

right where they are

it's still true, I believe

we all mean well

 

something just gets lost

between the rainy afternoon

and the umbrella

the mistake

and the recompense

the danger

and the overreaching defense

the fear for your own survival

and the fence you build

to keep out the ghosts

 

offer some grace

maybe, be forgiving

don't let those bastards

get away with it, oh, no doubt

but don't hate

 

that's the gravity

that keeps the whole ball of dung

rolling ever faster, heavier

downhill

origins

if time flows

in 2, or more

directions

Brad Mehldau playing

I Am the Walrus

might be the origin

notes rising, smashing

ocean waves, vying for

the sun's attention

and poor, ickle Johnny

letting his knickers down

the weirdness of it all,

born at the ocean floor

reach out

to see me

is to see yourself

somehow

fat and dour

ill at ease, never still

you may notice

a small bit of your grace

a smidgen of your global neurosis

in any case

you're stuck with me

as all of us

are stuck with each other

reflections of reflections

reach out

make a new friend today

you will be making friends

with yourself

all over again

ending the age-old animosity

covering the soft heart

of our vulnerability

that touching each other

we will tremble and weep

and that pain of joy

will be our solidarity

of tantra, blah, blah

raising of prohibitions

barring no action

nothing forbidden

taking the poison

judiciously

freely choosing

the minor key

the flatted B

the healing

injury

deep, round voices

synchronicity 

of conscious choices

authenticity

elusive bird

caught the lie

before it was heard

finding truth

in all things,

inferred 

With or Without You (#2)

 

1987

I emerged from the pool, chilled to the bone, energized. Picked up my towel lying on a bench.

Guitar notes, looping, cutting, from the overheard speakers in the natatorium.

It was an Olympic sized pool, making it impossible to do more than 30 or so lengths each time I came. I came twice a day. It was my therapy and my bane.

Weighing 120 pounds, the water was freezing to me. I would get in that water and sprint my laps, trying to swim faster than my thoughts. It was the only way I could outrun the depression.

Swimming kept me super-charged for up to 2 hours. I was relatively clear-minded in that time, my depression incredibly lifted. But this was my bane, too, because it was so damn psychologically taxing, like swimming along that yogi’s razor edge.

Between the time we had driven to the concert in Detroit until now, I had fallen ill. A grave, clinical depression, anorexia, anxiety.

Sometime in that space of two years, I had gotten religion, Eastern religion. I meditated at first with enthusiasm and blind ambition. I was going to take enlightenment by sheer force of will.

But the mystical path kicked me on my ass. I could recognize my own attachments and aversions, take steps to eject desire and anger from my mind. But hubris and lack of self-compassion were in my blind spot.

I stood toweling myself off, my ears demanding that swooning guitar to reveal more. Bono’s voice kicked in, “And you give yourself away…give yourself away…” My buddies had said they’d played some songs from their upcoming album at that concert. This was it, The Joshua Tree. It was first exposure to it.

Oh my, what a lovely song. It made me ache for the old days – when I was a civilian, uninitiated into yoga meditation, a carefree college kid.

But there was something else here, a gift from the band whom I had passed on two years prior. “I can’t live…with or without you…”

Yes, this was my story, more than anything on Unforgettable Fire had been. What I was doing couldn’t be called living, neither could I live bereft of God, my divine Shiva.

With or Without You (#1)

 

1985

We saw the marquee as we approached. “U2”, the sign read. Underneath it, “The Waterboys”. All with little fanfare.

We had been under the impression that The Alarm was opening, a spectacular double bill that brought me and four friends to downtown Detroit from Ann Arbor.

The music hall was not a big venue, nothing like a stadium, not even like the Q here in Cleveland.

I was enamored with U2’s last album, The Unforgettable Fire. Imaginative, a sidelong glance at how they felt, encountering America. Passion, grief, longing. The Alarm was a newer band with just one EP out. They were equally fascinating to me, evoking a sense of revolution, punk heroism.

I had heard some from The Waterboys, was disappointed by the fact that they were opening. It’s not that they weren’t intriguing, just that…this was not what I had come down here for.

I told my friends I was going to get some food and would be in the car when they got out.

They were disappointed, but not shocked. At 18, I was known for my odd behavior, impulsiveness. As they stood in line to enter, I went to the corner, scalped my ticket for fifty bucks.

In search of the perfect sausage sandwich, I found a late-night deli.

There was no seating inside. There was a dent in the bulletproof plastic sheeting lining the inside of the restaurant. I enquired of the cashier sitting behind the hole, like it was a clandestine drug deal. I was soon handed off a piping sausage in a soft roll, piled high with onions and peppers.

Walking back to the parking lot, sucking down my quarry, I passed a movie theater. The next film playing was Under the Cherry Moon, a Prince movie. I could easily have made it in time for the end of the concert. I equivocated, but decided to pass.

Finding the car, I curled up in the back seat, sleeping until my friends returned.

if nothing occurs

nothing strikes me

coffee in a paper cup

yellow awnings, dirty, wet with rain

the day unfolds

things go as they must

this is fine, I guess

this turn of the roulette wheel

what misery I may get

at bay, just for this hour

snow and voices, choices slung back

to haunt us

what we do with them

take a gamble, a step into the bramble

"eggs in the briar patch"

if nothing occurs to you

wait a couple of minutes

*quote is the name of a David Byrne song