Long Road (day 1501)

I feel I’m suffering alone.
I feel my eyes are closing off.
I think that there’s no way
I’ll live
To tell all of my stories
From this very long, long road.
Because it is a long, long road.

I had a hand in my own truth.
I had desire cutting deep.
I feel there was a moment
When all
I had to do was dream
Enter in this long, long road.
Because it is a long, long road.

I have never let go of emptiness.
I have held out my heart to sing out loud.
I had the chance to make
A life
With everything I dreamt
Along this very long, long road.
Because it is a long, long road.

I needed one too many paths.
I needed to let go of this I knew.
I have always believed
We are
Passionate indeed.
So we’re all a long, long road.
Because it is a long, long road.

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Dimes (day 1473)

Sure, flick flies off the dashboard.
A lonely state of mind,
Flipping dimes to catch a rhyme
To fill up these holes.
A sad song isn’t it,
It’s rambling on.
It’s a deserted road
On a long haul,
Fifth gear kind of haul
In a ’79 automobile.

Dimes by Ned Tobin

Saving Grace (day 1441)

Movement arts can break my heart
Shifting me forever more,
Until sun comes to warm my fun
With a source of everlasting.
But even then, in spite my reign,
I spit out glowing embers
That shatter reason and
Break peaceful truths,
Leaving the middle road
A piece of saving grace
I dare not tread to lightly.

A Proper Man’s Time (day 1381)

Darker abstracts of our life
Face open windows
When calms begun once again.

In a proper man’s time
There’s a short road to freedom,
In a proper man’s time
A line’s lost in old wisdom.

Could the full moon retreat life,
Could it catch hold of time?
When the blinds keep a blowin’.

In a proper man’s time
There’s a short road to freedom,
In a proper man’s time
A line’s lost in old wisdom.

Old dog’s been here resting
Against the old wooden door.
Got his head in the sunlight,
Open window no more.

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Hell is My Political Agenda (day 1356)

Our political agendas are nauseating.
They’re stuffed so full of capital letters
That the underlying messages of our society –
Hell, even our cultures,
Are suffocated with exhaust stacks and bottom dollars.

If I could have dreamed up a Heathenistic Hell,
I’d put city roads and destruction for progress
Right at the top of that scorched list.
I’d decree land had suddenly become a commodity
We could sell simply because we had a gun that said we could.
Just like young adults unable to find their righteous paths,
Explicit lyrics contaminating the innocent minds,
My Hell would be a prescribed better way, mothers.

Did you feel my heart as it’s ripped out every single day
When land mines help fight swollen populations,
Planted in a war to help save lives?
War to not war! Fight fire with fire!

And in my Hell, in my political agenda I call my country,
I would give us hope, every.single.day.
We would wake up to the smell of progress
And desire to capture it in any way possible
So that it could be shared with anybody we knew.
We would mutually feel good about the loss of our trees,
Because our heads were buried so deep in our electricity
Where we were collectively dreaming about
Ways to continue our progress.

For my simple pleasure I’d have dandelions everywhere
As symbols of true health and prosperity.
I’d pull up my old lawn chair, warm beer in hand,
And watch as all the sinners pulled out their organic chemicals
To spray the evil yellow root to death.
On the cold days when there were no death machines
I’d read my botanical books and let the rain
Wash tears into my Hell.

For me this is the saddest thought of all,
Because in spite all my attempts to rectify ignorance,
I would be a black seed living in my own true Hell.
I would be a puppet, inspired to raise my voice
And told that I do mean something to this Hell.
There I’d be, red faced eating my poisoned earth,
Handed another blank Party card
And told why I should be excited.

San Francisco - 201202 (144 of 809)

What Happened To Us (day 1355)

“What happened to us?” we used to say.
Now we just roll our eyes at passing strangers
Doing strange things.

Now we just wave our flag and sip lemonade
While we wait for our favorite 6PM
Radio show to keep at our time.
What happened is we became victims willingly,
We accepted our lonely road
With righteousness.
We held our heads high and believed in a constitution
That was created and sworn upon in vain, in contempt, in disbelief,
Yet all of these cowardly apparitions
And beautiful speakers continued to wow our humble thoughts into thinking
It was all peachy.
It was ordinary.
We fought the ordinary and they learned to tell us it was remarkable.
We fought the remarkable
And they told us it was right.
So we changed channels but drank the same milk –
We never did find that girl,
But we did learn to cool the voice of reason
With fireworks and birthday parties
Because we deserved them.
We were hard workers and deserved our fruits.
We were hard workers and we accepted our lonely road,
But fought it believing what we’d been sold.

Sometimes I gaze into her eyes at night. She whispers words I’ve never heard before,
And we count backwards from our chairs
Until we reach a new paragraph in our romance novels,
And soon it’s time for tea.

Mind Space (day 1278)

I want to fall into a little break in space
Like angels upon lazy-boys,
Smoking cigarettes with the nuns.
My open mind shifts constantly
Between a bad habit and good morning sun,
Where there’s no better maker,
No fuller shade of gray
To take care; once was into the future.
French rhymes upon my tongue,
Little tea cup stains around my working scribbler,
Two dollars for the road,
And my mind’s not made up yet.

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’57 Appaloosa (day 1227)

Can you control my yelling as I short my conscience to your wedding?
-Laughing with the children blowing bubbles down by the pond-
I didn’t expect to see your friend Lucifer standing there
As I convinced you to drag the fresh linens through tumbleweeds of mystery
-It is the style, I explained bitterly through my clenched teeth-
Amazed to know you fret over the cake with your eyes opened so wide
Calming the sunshine with sips of refreshments from white dixie cups
-I chewed all around the top rim of mine, unable to resist the feeling-
Your sawdust left a trail for the onlookers to follow as you trailed off into obscurity
“Madness” they muttered under their breath directing their eyes to your mother
Her hands were boiling with innocence; a fools bargain at the end of the road
-My loaded shotgun wasn’t a toy gimmick to be taken lightly, though I held it so-
Even the village authorities didn’t know what to make of it all
Trained as they were in 39 different methods to disengage a situation
A calming hustle settled over the observers
-I came prepared with my gradient tinted aviators and beer cozy-
The ’57 should-be-retired Cadillac rolled on over the loose gravel
Unnerving the guests as her tumbleweed dress sat down amongst the tears and stains
Rat piss and shit and splintered deluxe leather upholstery
Sporting a vintage look you can only get from years of missing affection
-I couldn’t help but remark on the timing of it all-
Doorless I was on my sturdy ’94 Bronco, I still had a radio good for the local DJ
But oh was I jealous of the missing hubcap on that old Cadillac
Rattling free as they sped through the streets, top always down.. it was a ’57 after all
We all knew they were notorious for having glitchy automatic tops
Plus, the rust on that thing was shining so bright in that heathen sun
-I turned to the wild thing next to me, nearly popping out of her mid-twenties figure dress-
“Say Cindy-Lou, I’ve gotta cooler full-a-beer, two lawn chairs an’a good-ol-radio
Wanna grab my shotgun an’head on up to the ol’ mine and shoot the breeze?”
-I could see it in her eyes it wasn’t the beer she was after-
Her nose rings and solid gold spacers told me she liked firing shotguns
Wild women always had a soft spot in my heart
Their unnerving contradictions always dropped my caution to the wind
But I rolled out of there with my spirits singing about Friday nights
2 good speakers in the ol’ Bronco: front right and rear left
-I wasn’t spitting sin, I was just riding on the gin waves of the 1230 nuptialities-
So we left those 76 long jaw’d and sweating visitors at those old rodeo grounds
The automatic shifter kicked a bit as it shifted into third
But the dust wasn’t settled from the ’57 Appaloosa
Rattling down the never happier road to short lived elation
We turned right when they turned left
We headed higher as they got down; after all it was honeymoon season
In the land of Friday nights and worn out shotguns

Fond of a Maiden (day 1101)

When wanderers showed me another decision,
A lane up ahead lifted options adieu.
Where once was a path littered with madness unforgiven,
Turned swiftly to a road which lost was a given.
Down, through, and past ghouls where I roamed
A length I did witness had I hardly been borne.
Beyond intents, beyond deliberation
I was lost in a path for forever ambition.
Launched into desires like a reflection upon me
I shared all I had with a widow of seven.
She laughed at my folly through havens and glens
That caused me much heartache of which I’m still shaken.
I was laughing at the tragedy I’d been witness,
In all of my givens I was never victim,
Save only of dreaming eternal desires.
Here was my folly; deeper than madness,
Here was the road I had swiftly been given.
To which [luckily] my stars had been lifted to heaven
Aloud as I lay beneath all these twilights.
Then at once – without warning –
As I kissed my last maiden goodbye
I witnessed what I had openly given.
Shared with my gallantry: a picnic in the glen,
A light long been forsaken.
Here I was dined like a royal brandy-wine
A Mister to a noblette, a guru to affect.
Like my littered path of madness unforgiven,
I was handed a chance of a rosy countenance.
Here I was left as if struck by forever,
Struck daft by the eyes of life’s fairer.
So out of my lands I had mended and mined,
Through wild abandon chalked plenty with lust.
I found I had seen what’s never forgotten.
Here I was. Here I decided. And here
I lept at the chance to grow fond of a maiden.

Dress Rehearsal Stranger (day 1089)

I’m a dress rehearsal stranger
Without a fixing for the road.
I’ve been picking up the faggots
That get me kicked out of the bars.
Did you walk away a stranger
Cause you were too caught up in gold?
Or was the ever piercing sidewalk
Grabbin’ tight your leathered soles.
Melting through my summer windscreen
Before the widows shake their brooms.

We were wrestling with officers
Gettin’ some fiction on their tongues.
Laughing without smiling
It’s been a mighty cold balloon.
I haven’t forgotten promises
With cheap hotel hookers
But the minister I never knew
Said, “Man, it’s not right timing after all.”
For there was one forgotten apple
That lay rotting on the ground
Which everybody avoided
Conscious fingers up their nose.
Butler’s on my side
To tell me all he had to say
Which was spoken very dryly
As he fit the classic part.
So I knew at that very moment
All their was ever said to know,
Which took me down to Georgia
To lay down my old guitar.