Hermit-ville

Perpetuation
Attempted movement
A rouse

Seeking
Without action
Peering around corners
Unwilling to step

Parallel lives
Fighting the same middle
Open to everything
But one

Pretend conscience
Pretend enlightenment
Pretend intentions

Afraid to hurt
But hurting more
Hurt one free another
To what end

Placed where we placed
Wishing, wanting, desiring
More
But not really

Focus on contentment
Not moving on
Growth a facade
To indulgence

Fight or flight
Flight
Run away
Live to disappear

Stepping out shines a light
Back to hermit-ville

1. Room at the Top – Tom Petty
2. Swing the Cellar Door – Hey Rosetta
3. Skinny Love – Bon Iver
4. My Backwards Walk – Frightened Rabbit
5. Waiting for My Real Life to Begin – Colin Hay
6. Lucky You – The National
7. Search Party – Wintersleep
8. About to Walk – Throw Me to the Statue
9. Melody Day – Caribou
10. The Hill – Marketa Irglova
11. Almost Lover – A Fine Frenzy
12. Fade Into You – Mazzy Star
13. Why Does it Always Rain on Me – Travis
14. Hands on Fire – The Stills
15. We Still Need A Song – Hawksley Workman
16. Blood Bank – Bon Iver
17. You Were Loved – Hayden
18. Stolen – The Brian Jonestown Massacre
19. Roll Roll and Flee – Nikola Sarcevic
20. Poke – Frightened Rabbit
21. We Made a Pact – Hey Rosetta

From the Outside

It’s self preservation at it’s worst
Only giving out just enough of yourself to hint at connection
Giving into fear, pain
All in an attempt to avoid pain & fear

Never giving all
Always alone

It’s a search for happiness
Even contentment would suffice
Nothing is ever what is sought
an ongoing struggle against yourself.

You have what others seek
You seek what others have
It’s not enough for them
It won’t be enough for you

The wall never falls
It’s been up so long, you don’t know what’s inside
To chip away at it is to chip away at everything you know
Instead you muse, philosophy
Relate to music, poetry, lyric more than anyone, anything

You stop writing
blaming a creative slump
In truth, it’s a fear of self discovery
You touch at it
Hint at growth & awareness
Until it gets too real

That which you honestly seek, will never be until you let go
the rain starts off and it wakes you up
you can’t sleep with that racket on the roof
you get up slow but you can’t get going
it seems this morning the lowness has won
did you stop to see? mediocrity and your self pity,
they were stealing a kiss, look at their lips, still shiny
did you notice that happiness
happens less the more often you stop to find where it’s been hiding
you say, “it’s not my fault that i get so low
there’s a weight on my soul that just keeps pulling me down,
it’s pulling me down, i swear it”

so come on by my house and unleash me your monsters
with you at the helm we’ll go crashing around together
don’t mistake some initial hate for something more that cautionary
cause baby this is love, i’ll come down to hell to keep you company

of all the days we’ve got we should be screaming out…
of all the days we’ve got we should be singing…

what’s to be done? one hundred and one
in a tent for twelve with fingers and elbows
in innocent ribs, we’re minding our business
we’re just minding our business instead of minding our minds
in times when the storms could ravage your clothes,
the sound and the color could render you blind
and the throes of a nightmare can sing you to sleep
then some foreign machine wakes you up at a mean hour
but heaven is there, under your hair,
it hides in the noon noise way up in the air
like a bird on the breeze
waiting for you and maybe me too

whats there to do? one hundred and two
are out on the doorstep and they’re pushing the bolts back
they’re wanting in, they’re humming our hymn
everybodys singing like beautiful birds…
everybodys singing like beautiful birds…
everybodys singing like beautiful birds…
in the trees, listen to it, it’s easy man, you can do it too
sing: i know what i want
i know what i need
cause it’s the simplest thing

of all the nights we’ve got we should be stepping out…
of all the nights we touch we should be swinging around from house to house

if i could cheer you up it would mean so much,
clowns in love and laughing it off, laughing it off, laughing it off
you say, “its not my fault that i get so low
but to drown you too, that’s a sick way to love, it’s a sick way to love,
it’s a fucking sick way to love”

Nothing’s Gonna Change My World

In the cities and the gutters

where our burdens all surrender

to the pressures of cold weather

& the pressures of one another

Along the sidelines of the city

where the buildings block the light

The hours tend to linger

as the winter discounts the light

Lock yourself inside.  Stay out of the cold.  If we could allow ourselves the freedom from pressure, from expectation….hmm.  That’s the good life.  But often, the heaviest weights we carry are the ones loaded by our own selves.  To lock yourself away, is to confine yourself with your greatest critic.  Go out to the city, that you fear.  Look for freedom there.

And the hopelessness of our descent

and the pressures under which we went

are buried in the shadows

of a Parkdale basement

I see history repeat itself

but stutter from the lies they tell

Use a war for distraction

while the politicians cash in

We continuously look for hope in others.  In ‘great’ people, bringing a ‘great’ change.  The only thing that seems to change is who we place this hope in.  The war just belongs to a new country.  A new society becomes the symbol of industrialized greed. or another of utter suffering.  ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’.  How many people know this, or have the bumper sticker?  How many people do it?

We give up.  Over and over again.  Something minuscule changes and we get a second wind…..then give up again.  Take a look at the ‘irrelevant’ moments of your past.  How many of them were truly dealt with or just moved to the bottom of the pile, buried under ‘more pressing’ maters.  We can’t deal with the small…we will never tackle the immense.

Now, emotions grow in rows and rows

Regurgitate the tv shows

The understatements that they sell

confuse the youth that guide themselves

We can buy the loss of faith

their vision blurs while they concentrate

Discard all your feelings

killing time while you wait

FOR LIFE

TO PASS YOU BY

We live the lives we created.  The change we seek, is merely a piece of what we created.  We don’t want it, it will never come.  We can’t live a ’sweet sixteen at thirty three’ (Hayden).  We will never achieve a station where longing is absent.  Allow it, seek it, but never stop moving forward.

FOR LIFE

TO PASS YOU BY

~Cuff the Duke

Sorry

Sorry to those that tried to read my last post, and couldn’t.  I took it down, I may put it back once I get a proper version, finished and complete.  I rushed it and posted something that I didn’t like.  If it’s a big deal comment I’ll send you the link, but it needed to be detached from this page.

I don’t know if that makes sense?

Dreams

It’s funny how this works.  You want to write about your reality when things suck.  When they are good you almost feel bad admitting it.

That may be a topic for another post, I’m too tired to dig into it.  But it’s where I am currently.  I am sick, and it sucks!  I was going to write about how much that affects your perspective, and regardless of how open minded we may think we are, we only see what’s right in front of us……..hmm something else to dig into later.

Anyway, then I read this quote by Edgar Allan Poe, and it changed my thought, it instilled a creative spurt, I started working on some of my photos, with renewed vision.

Daydreamer

I think I find it uplifting, that despite our worlds ‘slacker’ (& I am that) view of day dreaming, it just may have merit.  This may just be good news for me, cause I do it a lot.  It is a conscious dream, not one you experience, but far more pointed to our real wants and dreams.  Again I’m too tired to work this out so you have to deal with my sick thought process.  Basically, I thought it was a cool quote.  I guess I took the long way of explaining that.

‘They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escapre those who dream only by night’ Edgar Allan Poe