"Words are only words but we turn them into gifts... then we seem confused as their meaning slowly shifts"

2009. Real or not?

"The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's own or real life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life."

C.S.Lewis

“You live your life as if it’s real, a thousand kisses deep.”  

Leonard Cohen

Happy New Year everyone. Enjoy the journey - forget the destination.

A lone verse looking for a song

Sometimes, as with I Looked At Myself Today a song arrives in my head virtually complete. But at other times it starts with a seed...a line, or a verse...that needs to germinate before the whole idea can grow into a finished piece. I have had this particular verse sitting around for months waiting for the rest to find its way onto the page. I think it has to do with the old saying that you can "never go home again" - but the danger when you tackle these old thoughts is not having anything new to bring to the idea. But I do like the notion of "scattering the casualties of desire".

THE FORGOTTEN PLACE

There's a need that burns

like a forest fire

Scattering the casualties

of my desire

From Hong Kong to London

From Bangkok to Rome

From New York to Rio

To a forgotten place called home

©2008 Dave Tutin / openDmusic

A new poem:

After posting a comment on my friend Jeff's blog, I wrote this little examination of whether great people ever really think of themselves as having "mastered" an art or achieved all they could achieve.

GIFTS

Picasso on his deathbed said

I know what I want to paint

Mother Teresa said on hers

I know I am no saint*

We raise some people to great heights

to appease our normal pain

We cannot bear the loss of gifts

we'll never see again

*I know neither of these people actually said these words.

 But perhaps they thought them.

©2008 Dave Tutin

A new song that came out of nowhere

This thing poured onto the page in about five minutes. I have this weird feeling it has about ten more verses I haven't written yet.

I LOOKED AT MYSELF TODAY

I looked at myself today

I didn't know this man

I remember how it used to be

I remember the plan

Age and fear got in the way

That's all that I could say

When I looked at myself today

I looked at myself today

Though it was hard to do

I couldn't see myself

Except with you

Loss and greed held sway

A sad political play

When I looked at myself today

I looked at myself today

In a mirror that wasn't there

I seemed like someone else

Gave myself a scare

Death and love at bay

In a place where demons stray

When I looked at myself today

I looked at myself today

The time it just seemed right

The night was too revealing

So I did it in daylight

But the sun's reluctant ray

Had nothing to convey

When I looked at myself today

I looked at myself today

Saw hope and faith were kissing

In a shadowed corner where

Something was still missing

I tried to kneel and pray

Saw my soul in disarray

When I looked at myself today

©2008 Dave Tutin / openDmusic

A passing thought

If a rich man drinks he's a connoisseur

If a poor man drinks he's a drunk

Some things that shine are diamonds

Some things that shine are junk

Sometimes it takes a tourist...

Hi. I've been away in the desert for a while - literally. New Mexico. But I'm back to continue my ramblings on whatever crosses my mind.

Just before I left for the trip, it was a case of someone crossing my path rather than something crossing my mind. It was a young woman on the N train. A tourist.

Most of us New Yorkers know that the N train no longer stops at Cortland Street. It hasn't since 9/11. Because Cortland Street station happens to be right beneath the eastern edge of where the World Trade Center used to be.

This young woman looked extremely confused as our train hurtled (well, crawled actually) through the station without stopping. I explained what was happening and she told me, as I had expected, that she was visiting Ground Zero (I can't tell you how much I hate the fact that this nuclear related term became attached to what happened in downtown Manhattan!) I told her she should get out with me at the next station and I would show her how to walk back to where she wanted to be.

It was then she hit me with a question, made all the more powerful by her faltering English.

"It's been seven years. Why is it still a hole in the ground?"

Damn good question. For which I had absolutely no answer.