An Architect and a Mason

An architect tells the mason
To pile bricks on the back of the ground
To be a mason in holy exaltation to an edifice that would never list his name in the cornerstone
To be a mason making better than love his rough hands drawing streams of rock
Familiar and lovely
To be an architect’s name, an engineer’s name
Chiseled upon the base of another’s sweet labor
The moon tells the water to coil about the shores
As a snake from a basket
To be the serpent water in glistening sussuration
Lit by a commanding distant crescent
To be such intimate water dancing viscously
Upon sand and rock under celestial design.
To be the moon’s face so icy for all to see
To leave all else in darkness.

Suicide and Street Performance

Sunday morning I played at Steak Hut, a little diner on the corner of Trumbull and Lafayette. They always have music on Sundays, usually folk or bluegrass. Saturday night, a friend killed himself, so the diner was populated with hugs and grief and my slow somber songs.
I lost it during "Patriots..."

"Will you please sit on my knee and will you comfort me, I don’t really want to leave..."

as Louie joined in with a vocal harmony and Marquita played trumpet.

This winter broke my heart to peices.

Monday, I borrowed a bike trailer to take my xylophone downtown and try to hustle up some money. I made $2 in an hour and a half then got kicked off the property in front of the Compuware/Hard Rock Cafe.

A crying homeless man gave me one of those dollars while the suits scuttled by with their sagging bottoms and clean-shaven sneers.

I hadn’t spent time with you in years Dave. You helped me in a time when I was truly in need and I’ll never forget you for that. You brought people together with such grace and elegance, with your cool intelligence and depth of heart, and you became a cornerstone in our community of misfits.

Future Names

In Detroit we all have future names,
Mine was scrawled like pigeon scratch on a picture of a split eye, brown and blue, stored under a winter eave.
I held a hand and threw fairy tale words into the empty vessel attached, like you were an old roman jar,
Don’t worry, my love, one day your worn old ceramic will be life and those fairy tales, written by some ancient hand,
Will be yours as well...
In some bright future name

I don’t think I will know your name and my skin feels like pottery when I consider that.
For all the teks and trons and bits and bytes that passed through our cerebral wires,
I could read some radiance, some distant explosion like the birth of celestial life, the opposite of imagining the universe
Backward to a pinpoint and disappearing
the unwritable rush of newborn matter, an un-wordable tempest
And I would gladly bathe in that storm
And I would lovingly let you go as you ask me to stay

We all have future names and you’ve dubbed me "never"
I would cry that name like a gunshot, break it like a bottle
But I would hear it in every gunshot and see it in every broken bottle
And I would lovingly let you go as you ask me to stay

We all have future names and you can always rename me
I would sing the new name like a hymnal, tattoo it on my hand
And that storefront church would give birth to celestial life,
A myriad of names

The Turtle

When I was ten, I found a turtle on the side of the road. Maybe it had crawled out of a ditch. I picked it up and took it home and kept it with me. It was a painter turtle. A couple days passed and I decided I would do the right thing and take it down to the lake, just like in some old Disney movie. My brothers and I went down to the beach. When I reached the water, I took the turtle out of my overalls where I was holding him. I put my face close to his and started saying my goodbyes. "Well Mr Turtle, I'm gonna miss you. I think you'll be a lot happier in the water than living with.." *SNAP* It's beak clamped down on my nose and held on. I didn't yell, nothing and my eyes filled up with tears. My brothers were close by and I knew I wouldn't be able to live this down if they noticed. After about thirty seconds, the turtle let go and retreated into his shell. I fought the urge to chuck it as far as I could. I calmly set it down on the water and it swam away. Walking back up the beach, my brother saw my wet eyes and thought I had been crying. He hugged me and said "It's really for the best little brother."