Your Father's the light within all that you see

He fills up the ponds as He empties the clouds
Holds without hands and He speaks without sounds
He provides us with the cow's waste and coconuts to eat
Giving one that nice salt taste, and the other its sweet

Sends the black carriage the day death shows its face
Thinning our numbers with kindness and grace
And just as a flower and its fragrance are one
So must each of you and your Father become

-mewithoutYou
King Beetle on a Coconut Estate

Interrupting Moon at Five A-M

The urgent moon awoke me, wide and full, wide and full
The cold bright moon awoke me wide and full
Fin'lly that entire stretch from my lungs to my mouth
Is an indian drum, dry, stretched o'r too much emptiness
Percuss, percuss, thumps throat on hollow chest

The heart beats not at all, must have forgot, I don't recall
The heartbeat doesn't beat, I don't recall
I look into the void where the moon-burn was before
The dusty lime-like drink is only warmed up by the heat
By radiator-wet forehead and feet

Wet drizzle, dry bed, unsettled place to rest my head
Unsettled, restless place to rest my head
Its coolness has been robbed away by discontent dark grey
Its cotton changed to hot rough wool on a sore moon-burned cheek
Throbbing globe, aching sphere, dull refuge keep

forward motion?

I would like very much to inform you all that I've spent the week coming up with something new to post here but time has been dedicated to porch sitting and quality time with friends and family. Instead my day will be used as an opportunity to give a progress report...

The seven songs listed in a previous post have undergone some changes. "His Name was James" has been extended from a little, two part progression to a finger picked introduction to be followed by a few extra sections. On the new additions some of my talented friends will be accompanying me and contributing new ideas to improve upon the original concept. Aside from the expansion on this particular song lyrics have been finished for "Evergreens" and "Death Egg". I'd also like to take this space to say that the latter is actually an instrumental blues song that David and I wrote together and the recorded version that's being worked on is simply going to be a stripped down version rearranged for a single guitar. The other songs are receiving finishing touches and I've given myself a deadline of mid-May to complete the project.

Sorry for the brevity and lack of content.

I work, I sit, I pass time shuffling around the pillar island, drinking half glasses of water, and thumbing through hair. While my hand wears a print on my head, between awake and asleep, my ears pique. I'm hearing a young girl stating complaints and searching for solace from a voice on the other end of the phone. I'm hearing more than that though.

I'm hearing an attempt to convince herself that the current situation isn't her fault. She lists grievances that have been leveled against her in exaggerated tones and facial expressions. A phantom in her own stories, you hear nothing of her part. What is in her mind are the extremely unecessary sacrifices she made in hopes of justifying her love. A troubled boy enters her life with similar interests and she jumps. Leaving friends and home, traveling with him to a town in which she doesn't want to live. The bigger the inconvenience, the more the pain, the stronger she is convinced of their relationship. Months pass with his constant refusal of seeking employment, which results in an failure to pay rent. Now, faced with tough decisions, she is at a loss. As a substitute for making a decision, she complains, denying her role in this state of affairs. That's where she is, roughly fifteen feet away, back-tracking through a year's complications.

I open my eyes and look over my left shoulder. At the back of the restaurant a man stressfully sifts through checks with forgotten birth dates and missing driver's license numbers. More years are piled on his face than he has lived. But I am not seeing just my boss.

I'm seeing the formerly successful member of the european lumber industry. A business his father built, and he inherited, honoring his family's name. And then the war. People fleeing homes, soldiers forcing them from their vehicles along crowded highways. I see a small family, walking back after its conclusion, in hopes of some remaining familiarity. They find their house burned to the ground. Two growing young boys and a father wondering how he will provide for them. His relatives having been doing well in the states, and it seems the most logical plan. After spending a few years in the city, although his restaurant is providing more than sufficiently, he cannot supress his country roots. They move to a small town and set up shop, but italian is not in high demand in such a rural and uncultured area. He makes enough, but with a growing family and slowing economy, only enough. Close margins force an added attention to detail, and the lines continue stacking upon his brow as he scans the checks.

I scratch my stubble and wonder if there are any tables at the moment. My question is answered by two hefty women, one chattering between gulps of her chicken alfredo and the other nodding as she inhales her lasagna. But I see beyond their lunch.

I see them sitting on benches outside of outlet malls, multiple bags from beall's and old navy stationed by their ankles. As they are heading back into town they see a billboard for a restaurant they have never heard of. Pulling in, they notice a woman descending the steps of the courthouse, and comment on her wardrobe or standing in the community. They briefly examine the menu, ordering the only items they know how to pronounce. The clinking of their furiously shoveling silverware conducts the gossip.

Time is inching by. I'm feeling more than just seconds slipping by. I'm realizing that it is from these seemingly endless variables that one single moment is comprised.

The Watch-Spring Metronomadic

Ardent hushed arbors, and
Gardens echo approachers
Sellers of squash seeds and thymes
Trollers of dirt roads to bleach-whitened she-town
Now pluck, tune and strum her taut laundry lines
Till she resonates out in her groves, dells and downs
Knock loose that dust, that fresh cedar smell
Smooth her neck with the cup of your palm, then
Resonate, ciliate the sense on our drums,
Pass o'er her pastures, you fingers and thumbs,
Bootleathern, healers, brushers of stealth-strings
Sneak to her, rescue from chilled retinue
Disquiet her nerve-rooted enamel houses
Her cold posts, winter lamps, and choral white porches
Vibrate those ivories, from placards to gums, and,
Picking out fruit-flowers of things yet to come,
Sing warm songs from elbows, given words by our sons
And dance future daughters in one-two's and three-fours!
'Nowned coolness 'verberates dappled by sun
While we major in C-sharp, three-octave chores
And a quiet, old B-minor-flat nods and hums

Gabriel Ballard, 3/19/2010

The Shifting of Tides

An uproar of laughter and good, though drunken, cheer passed through walls not fit for privacy. Past a door marked "B" there was silence. The old man who inhabited the cramped space behind sat on a leather couch, cracked with time, and stared with a certain emptiness out of the facing window with shutters thrown open. The walls were wanting of a new coat and peeled in an unsightly fashion. A chip of ancient paint fluttered from the wall and drifted across the room, settling on the knee of the elderly man's pressed pants.

He glanced down, plucked the little chip between his gnarled index and thumb, and glanced meaningfully at it. His head cocked ever so slightly to the left as he examined the chip, consciously frowning as he deposited it into an empty, glass ashtray. Death crossed his mind for the first time since his formidable years in the service of an ex-lover's father who had employed him during his reckless twenty-somethings. In the midst of emotional upheaval brought on by dissipation of this affair and loss of work he left the country, fled to Spain, and had ever since dwelt on an overly-romanticised loss of love in the leaky, decrepit apartment in Madrid. Every day for forty years he had rifled through old photographs of her and drove himself into a vacuous hole as the lines deepened on his brow. She had been exquisite. As a young man he savored each word she spoke, drank in her elegance, breathed deeply the aromatic delusion of love. He was intoxicated by the misconception that she had returned these emotions and had always since been hung over, recuperating from the loss.

For some reason he saw fit to accept the pain now. A pile of yellowed letters he had written to her shortly after his arrival in this place hid a worn though unread Bible. He lifted the book with shaking hands, plagued by arthritis and flipped pages that cracked like dry leaves underfoot in late Autumn. Pausing in the book of Job to read a few passages he couldn't help but laugh a bit at himself. The old man's suffering was a product of withdrawal from society and he became aware that his exile was but a choice made, his own open consent to welcome loneliness. There was a second chance for life awaiting him patiently which had only just become apparent. He had woken from a dream to meet life and sank to his knees before a dusty coffee table. He was made to endure this hell he created by design and he could not begin to imagine what wonder awaited him beyond the four walls surrounding him.

Lighting a thin cigarette, hand-rolled and a bit loose, the newly released prisoner peered out of his window at the courtyard below. Several Spaniards and English women, intoxicated by both the beautiful accents and rich wine, danced with the fervor of adventurous children. A stream of blue-grey smoke passed his cracked lips and dispersed outside the window. Below a well dressed young man looked up to the second story window where the old man stood. The younger of the two smiled brightly as he tipped his fashionable cap. The elder for the first time in years felt happiness spread through him and manifest itself as a wide grin. His knees went weak and his chest tightened. The young Spaniard's smile melted to concern when the old man crumpled to the cold wooden floor still smiling, musing at the idea of joining the fiesta.

Inspiration: "Yr Cherry Bomb" Vid & Double Triple

I know it's old, but I just love this stuff - the music and the visuals. I think it's a remarkable, even textbook example of design synthesis with sound instead of text. The album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, from whence this single comes, was released in 2007.



Yet another incredible work by the ever impressive Double Triple. Looking at their design website makes me pretty much mad with design jealousy. Exception: I already had the minimalistic thumbnail concept drawn up for my own site before I saw theirs. Don't let me pat myself on the back for simple ideas anyone could have conceived. Also, can anyone tell yet, that I am a sucker for bright colors? *Looks around furtively.*