When life’s too busy to speak

I always forget my friends

When I need them most

Yet remember them always

When life’s too busy to speak

leaving only the snakeskin they’re worth.

Look at whoever

made you feel inferior

misplaced or intolerable

and ask yourself:

Whose burden do they carry?

Then remind yourself:

That weight is not meant for you.

Now tell whoever

made you feel inferior

misplaced or intolerable

you love them

And watch:

Their puzzled concern, still only for themselves.

Then walk away

leaving only the snakeskin they’re worth.

What have we done?

I am not quite sure exactly what

Some parent’s expect of their children

In terms of success and failure

Because of course each individual is unique

In their own belief system developed through life

Though I do know exactly what

Some middle aged men and women

Expect of their parent’s, which is

Love and Understanding that

Love and Understanding means more to them

Than any award or prize, delusions of wealth

And superfluous measures of success

Handed down from Great-Grandfather to Grandfather

Then Father to Son who’s soul purpose it often seems

Is to belittle the latter, like some draconian wheel

Turning itself in circles, only to cause

An endless cycle of fear and inferiority

Leading nowhere fast, leading nowhere good

On an endless road of resentment and ill worth.

And we don’t ask for this. We are born to this.

We are flesh and bone

Fueled by the imperfections of our father’s

Father’s, father’s son

Who one day will understand he did nothing wrong

Oh Mother, dear mother

What have we done?

In the Delaware of my mind.

I stand here blind

With tears in my eyes

Surrounded by the life

I’ve always dreamed

Thinking of you there

Alone and in fear

Knowing no one’s called in weeks

Except myself and another

Who I hope like I

Told you you’re loved

And have done no wrong

Like I’ve too

So often thought

Living year to year like a vagabond

Drifting through the mud of life

It’s hard but man it’ll be alright

Look West I’m here in the dead of night

Standing by this olive tree

In California I no longer dream

Living mine the best I can

Drinking with you

Hand in hand, walking I can see

The two of us, then cracking crabs

Pig Beaches on parade

Just two lost souls, now growing old

What’s left is yours to keep

For nothing lost is truly gone

Now Lady Garth I see her too

In the Delaware of my mind.

Norwegian wood aglow

Actually I am, as

Real as they come

I see us in Alaska

Enchanted we are one, so

Love me lovely star seed

My hand is yours to hold

Among the valleys

Northern lights

Norwegian wood aglow

Be the light

Be the light

you longed for

in the darkness

of childhood.

Seated in the summer sun

Seated in the summer sun

drenched in heat

reading a novel, alone

how sweet.

With memories of you

drenched in heat,

feet stretched out

along the beach.

Where in the summer sun

you’d sit and read

a novel too, my mother

sweet.

While you’d watch us kids

the swimming sea,

and how you read

effortlessly,

I never wondered then

like I do now,

how a quiet lesson

could teach me how.

I turn each page

my mind at rest,

my mother’s sun

warm on my chest.

Through the air vents of my room

I’ve known a many artist in my day, say

Today old friend you come to mind

And how for a short time, your voice divine

Scratchy and old, though, you and I know

Age is just a number and it’s you who’d show

Me this: Dear, Gavin Heron Vante

Who needed a place to rest his weary head

For the night I offered you some bread

Where that night you had said, Ah man!

I haven’t seen this show in years, mind if I watch

Married with Children, Amen! Amen!

Then later I’d record you playing all the chords

I always had wish I could, watching your fingers

Slide and swoop through Sloop John B

I tried to sing harmonies but who was I kidding

Aloof in my eagerness to know everything and all

You had to offer and more, more, more I cried

Singing, drinking in the night like two old friends

Because we were in fact just two ageless nobodies

In the effortless night of somebodies

Giving me your time, cradling my wine

Looking through old photo’s now

I can still feel your spirit sing softly through

The air vents of my room

The next morning of course, saying farewell

Dropping you at Austin’s Coffee

Collecting your bicycle and taking the trash out for a buck

Needing my fix of early morning talkie

That I’m sure no one ever really gave a hoot about —

Now I hear you’re out of the Coma

That took you too soon like a phantom in the night

You were right when you told me

To take it easy man, oh man, Gavin Heron Van

Where there is no plan there in lies the plan

I now know the meaning of that age old saying

Those were the days, good sir, I give my praise

Sincerely,

Dave

P.S. There’s a place for you here, always

Call me crystal and I’ll make this clear

Call me crystal and I’ll make this clear

The world’s your oyster, won’t you be a dear?

Remember us, when you’re famous

Such a dangerous manifestation

Bite the bullet trigger happy kid

They said break a leg behind closed eyelids

Opportunity, don’t blow it

You’re a shooting star, now show it

Call me Ishmael cause I am drowning quick

Wailing never got you through the thick

What more could we ask for?

Through closed doors

Another kid’s born in the grave

By the third day he’ll be saved

Another wick is burnt too late

Just one more spirit and you’ll feel great

Wipe the Chalice, next in line to drink

Every word has meaning, child

who’s never’d time to blink

Manhattan’s in the Village

You know what they say, don’t yuh?

Can’t live with em, can’t live without em

But don’t get me twisted, I’m not talking about women

though the skin beneath my tongue’s still sore

my heart’s still heavy and well

there’s nothing quite like seeing her smile come morning

but anyway like I was saying to this jug of doom

in the evening gloom where I choose not one but two

and then two more to boot because, well, hell

who am I kidding? Nobody but the moon this evening

cause it’s this bitter sweet feeling

the kind you feel deep down in the rumbling, stumbling night

where it all gets so far gone, where nothing meaningful is born

where it all makes some sort of convoluted sense

and alas, once again I am but the floorboards dull creak

where I am like the riverbed flowing calmly and discrete

where life is but a dream and I am dreaming once again

of you dear friend, rustling like the leaves at my front door.

Oh dear friend, how I long to walk the beach again.

How I long to hear your sick, silly, sweet voice again

like those long ago up all Friday nights of old

all those Brooklyn winter blue’s and yellow streetlights

guiding us home, or at least to Crown Fried Chicken where

like two youthful bums we’d scavenge our pockets for change

enough to buy a couple chicken wings, coke, and pint

enough to settle the bone, cold, sidewalk snow till home

where we’d fall arm and arm up stairs

to that old wood, smoke filled, railroad apartment you’d call Grove.

And though I don’t often pray, in my own little way

I do for you now as I did then, driving back to my Long Island apartment.

I pray this little song of self, this little song of you, this small token of my appreciation

for your boundless soul and effortless style and class.

I ate too much cheese, I’d shout while holding a kitchen knife to my throat!

Where in a Polaroid our youth is kept,

where so many nights while you slept I wept,

where you’d give me your bed for a smile,

where I’d talk with Forest about everything and nothing for a while,

long enough not to feel alone in that maddening, crazy New York glow.

So I write this little poem, not enough but enough to show you

I’m still listening through the terror behind the walls.

Dear friend,

How are you?

I can’t live with you, but hell, I can’t live without you.

Manhattan’s in the Village

God knows we never had the scratch, aligned

I feel inclined to take this time and offer you my best

impression not impressed?

CALL ME SPIDER! CALL ME SPIDER!

I just had to get these salami’s off my back.

I just had to sing this short praise of you Mac.