Moving Staircase [song lyric]
HERE’S A SONG I JUST COMPLETED. It’s been lying incomplete “in a drawer” for a while. The title is “Moving Staircase”. It’s a metaphor about the importance of communication and its failure in relationships (especially in relation to letting the fallout from old hurts from the past — what I call “strange yesterdays” — interfere in the present). Six verses, two refrains and a vocal bridge. A Living-Room Video of this song is coming tomorrow! Here are the lyrics:
Here I stand with my feet on the ground,
working out when to go
up the stairway which seems heaven-bound.
Doubting, how will we know?
Scherzo [poem]
three steps forward one step back
another two are sliding sideways
soon there’ll come the (fountain)
mountain moment when we both
discover that we’re right on track
but now we whirl around this room
where I’ve not been before
as tentatively we will spin
and waltz at least until the dawn
The Door of Risk [poem]
On this anticipatory morning glory dew
while mounting sun bows deeply
to the fading was of Venus in the blue
empyreality of now foreboding sky
the sweetsome scent of certainty
invades my normally pristine sense
of ever-omnipresent randomness
with delicate sharp insistent fate
Mercury Retrograde
I LOVE MERCURY RETROGRADES! There. I said it. So here we are again with all the drama from people about how their lives are falling apart and everything is going wrong, simply because it’s another Mercury Retrograde period. This is when — for three weeks, three times per year — Mercury appears to be going backward in the sky from an earthly standpoint. (Currently it is the period from May 19th till June 11th). All over Facebook right now you can see comments like: “OMG!!! When will this retrograde finish! Can it get any worse?” or “Help! Merc Ret! Think I’ll just stay in bed!” To read all these remarks, you would be forgiven for thinking that the entire universe was involved in a conspiracy against humans (and pets, according to some folks!) in order to destroy them each time there is a Mercury Retrograde! Headlines on astrology articles don’t help, such as “How to Survive Mercury Retrogrades”. What in hell is going on? Are we so under threat from the Universe that we have to have some kind of survival plan?!? The question I have to ask is “Why do people zone in only on the potentially negative aspects (and selectively too) of this astrological phenomenon instead of seeking with wisdom the beauty in the event”. Yes! The Beauty of the Mercury Retrograde! For that’s how we should think of it. Now there’s an idea to scupper so much popular thinking on this issue!
What a Difference a Guitar makes!
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A GUITAR MAKES! For as long as I have had a guitar in my hands, I have had a lover. To put it simply, my guitar is my mistress. I use that word not in the sleazy connotation of a man’s extra-marital woman-on-the-side but according to the 6th meaning of “Mistress” given in the Oxford English Dictionary: “A woman, goddess, or thing personified as female that has control over a person or is regarded as a guiding influence”. To say that my guitar is a “guiding influence” in my life is an understatement. When my guitar sounds and feels wonderful in my hands and ears (which can change according to many variables, such as humidity level, the strings used, even the material of which the saddle pins are made, etc.) it makes me feel wonderful too. My guitar is an integral part of, and an extension of, myself. The sounds which come from her vary according to my mood; but her very presence in my life fills a vast hole where there would be one. Just as much as is my body, she is like the Graphical User Interface between my soul and the world. Just as much as in passionate lovemaking, she is a conduit for my soul’s creative expression. With my guitar close at hand, I am never alone. I am fulfilled. (I even have a sneak peek at her each night and sigh with gratitude before I go to bed 
🙂 ).
For Love of Truth [sonnet]
That which is false is merely truth disguised
by fear — aversion to both light and love.
For truth is love’s own twin, the two despised
from deep within a frozen-fisted glove.
“There is no truth”, says one deluded soul.
“There’s only what each one thinks to be right”.
This vain philosophy they now extol
and in that shallow notion they delight.
On the Beauty of having Fun
ON THE BEAUTY OF HAVING FUN. I learn a huge amount from music — not only from composing and performing it but also from listening to it. One of my greatest teachers through listening to music has been the composer, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). From his symphonies (nine completed and one unfinished, in which he proposed to catalogue “the whole of life”) I have learned so much about joy, angst, heartache, irony, ecstasy, tragedy, beauty, hope, horror, love, death, oblivion, life-force, demons and angels — not to mention how much he has taught me about counterpoint, harmony, melody, orchestration and conveying philosophy through music. But there is one of his works which I had, in a sense, avoided throughout the many decades during which I have listened to his music. His 7th Symphony. Decades ago, I had heard some of the last movement and had recoiled at what seemed like the enforced crassness of it. It seemed so uncharacteristic of his depth that I counted it as an aberration in an otherwise amazing repertoire. That is, until I found out a couple of months ago that it was going to be performed by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra (one of the best in Spain) on June 19th, in a concert hall less than an hour away from where I am living. So, since that discovery, I thought I would revisit this music and see if it had something new to tell me. What a journey that has been!
Teardrop Trundle [sonnet]
A drop of liquid formed a rivulet
upon my shaved and barren thirsty cheek.
That pilgrimage is like an amulet
of moistureful and downsome dribblespeak.
I drank it all and drowned in salty fire
through which I saw the open velvet thighs
of what’s to come: A freak perched on high-wire.
A dream for countless fakes to vaporise.
How to say “Goodbye!” to your self
THREE DAYS AGO, I put one of my poems on here, entitled “Today, I Bid myself Goodbye”. I then received a message saying: “Hey, Alan, are you depressed? Why would you want to say goodbye to yourself. That’s weird”. So I have written this article as a form of reply. Although I am grateful for this guy’s concern, I must say that I am not at all depressed. On the contrary! I can, however, understand why some may be unfamiliar with the idea of saying goodbye to one’s self. So this is a kind of commentary on the poem designed to show what I meant by it.
1. WHAT DOES “SAYING GOODBYE TO YOUR SELF” MEAN?
Firstly, I should say that saying goodbye to your self does *not* mean that there will be no ego whatsoever. One would cease to exist if that occurred! One does actually need some healthy aspects of ego purely in order to survive in this world. Neither is it a reference to any kind of suicide, which some might think on a superficial reading of the title.
Today I bid myself Goodbye [poem]
Today, I bid myself a firm goodbye.
I thought I’d better get it over with
instead of waiting calmly till the end
when everything I think I am or was
will have dissolved: Confetti whispers
dissipated on the icy wind of death —
my final breath a sigh of unfulfilled
and thenceforth nameless dreams.
The Naked Troubadour 