Lily

Lily looked out the window listfully. It was beginning to get dark and slightly fresh in the valley, and the summer promised to pick up and go elsewhere.
If I´m a songwriter, why is it so hard for me to publish my songs? Do I have to admit that I´m a dysfunctional composer? Well, I am.
Lily kept losing herself in eternal variations: the sincerity of alternative options had become an enemy for her decades ago. And when she slipped into certain chord progressions which would better be described as trapdoors, the drive went from positive to negative and she´d stop playing altogether.
Lily cringed recalling that sullen, all too familiar reaching-for-the-power-button-moment which recurred too often... could it be that hidden forces were conspiring against her with her own creepy unbeknownst aid?
Maybe a cigarette...
And who ever guaranteed that, if you´re lucky or unlucky enough to have one, your vocation will be fully functional? Having a vocation is only that: an inner calling. There's a number of choices that don't quite come through but don't violate the clause of responsibility towards a patriotic or spiritual mission either. You can pretend you don´t hear, or answer with complying sweetness and then do as you please, or act like a fucked-up teenager, or be authentically docile...But nothing you do is guaranteed to work. Even with the most perfect machines, the result is the result... of much else.
No, a vocation is no guarantee of functionality. Maybe for some it´s more like a steaming pizza right on the other side of a 7-foot-tall, 7500-volt electric fence...
Lily had stopped counting the total songs she had almost fully composed, a while ago. Far from being a source of pride, this futile attempt at feeling historically productive only added to the anguish. The thing that stumped her the most was how, while the self consuming star of a song was irradiating its light, coming into being, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for days or weeks, her energy had no end, and she was in love with the song, in another dimension, let´s tritely say. And then, after a while and due to partly unknown factors, she usually couldn´t listen past the 20th second, as if the song had let her down. There had to be something she was missing. It was a depression, it was the classic STEOS moment (Skip To End Of Song)... It was Judas and Christ at the end of time... and then, not happy with that either, even if who would be, give me a break, after a while it was sometimes all wonderful again, and ooh! and hey I'm a frikkin genius and shiiiiat what a brains and sensitivity I carry... to the point of song completion! What the hell?
Oh Lily, Lily thought.
Oh Lily.

Fall This Way

bring on the autumn apple,
I can´t stand this summer one more day
let the chlorophyll leave
and then let the leaves go
give me the joy of the sudden gust
free me from my need to go
give me my loved ones in this room
I'll stake it out
I'll order in
I'll gladly dance my dance
from here

Gruubs´ Eagerness

General Perkins explained to Gruubs that he did not intend to write a book. Not even a series of short stories.
´Not even a series of short stories, Gruubs.
I´m an impressionist, you see.
I don´t need all the notes but I can flood you with them if I need to.
The structure is to evade a two-level structure, or pyramid if you will, to not have a sum of parts except the individual components scooped out of moments in unlikely lives and persons, all the more real the more surreal.

´So, Gruubs, you do follow don´t you? ´

Gruubs nodded with eagerness.

´Am I not glorious? I´ll just depict moments, lived by scarcely brushed in characters, who become familiar unconsciously by the complicity in the tone I myself, the host of my listeners and readers, will delicately paint for them to tread.´

´You are truly remarkable, General´.

Pleased with the response, General Perkins turned to leave just in time not to catch a glimpse of Gruubs, who was bending down to retrieve his copy of Heidi and a chipa guazu.

Riverside Talk

sometimes you think if you´re determined enough you will overcome obstacles,
but what happens is you don´t pause long enough to consider the obstacles, to study them and figure out what exactly it is you´re trying to conquer.

for example, in a long-term project you may think the problem is the physical challenges and difficulties of the tasks involved, but maybe the problem is that very particular, frail and inexorable moment when you get stuck and you don´t understand why.

after drifting off completely and a bit destructively, your mind resets and your memory may even have recorded that you were unaccountable with the practical aspects, or that you couldn´t deal with the visible props of the stageplay. And you think, oh weak I´ve been and should take advantage and sin some more, before you gogo, no seriously, if I´m determined enough I will surely not trip up next time...

you really do think it´s the step you didn´t get to that got your nose on the ground? oh, you don´t. oh, you do, once in a while?
let me spray this out: there was another prop, and another, and another, that you did not acknowledge, that you did not consider, look!
g.a.s.p.
n.o.d.
and perhaps you should be determined not to overcome obstacles like a blind christ,
but to master your stage play.

now it´s time for your nap, my little genghis.

After Dark

Her mommy was thinking of the enormous whirlpools of spiritual energy in words like

                                                        DISENCHANT

Window in the Pain I (Sweet Slumber)

you've been through a thousand lives
nine-nine-nine of which are fond
of glowing bright before your eyes
as sweet slumber comes along

the wind brings the autumn brings the wind
crisp news evading your reaching hand
the wind kicks the window in the pane
testimonies lost and lost denials wisped away

the north-south current and the east-west current
and the renaissant cypress are heaving
to stay still
to stay still
means not that these fears will stop wreathing

Injustice

i used to be afraid of losing
till i lost everything
except my fear of losing
so what's the deal

Busy Universe

There's no space for me at the moment.
Should I make myself some?
What matter should I displace?
What energy should I disperse?
Won't I be sorry?

At the Cosmos Cafe'

very well very well, our usual plate of despair, I see...
will you have some chips with that, Ma'am?

nono, waiter, nono, my despair?
you know how it is: all the better the more bitter!

Wish Fury Were Deaf

yes, I wish fury were deaf
I wish nothing had the power to fuel it
losing myself to my anger is sad
losing my anger to my sadness is mad
...and losing my madness is bad oh so bad

Boo and the Blue Bloop

why does it seem to me that everything I will ever do is meaningless?
have I been wasting my life?
what's all this dreamers' shiiet?
have I been mislead?
have I not changed?