Posted on by Kevin

Watching

On this day, I would have been in the crowd, watching the procession. Had I the wisdom to know what was going on, I would not have had the courage to stand in the way. I would have watched him climb the final hill, and I would not have helped.

Even so, regardless of the part I played on Friday, on Sunday, the Good News would be given to me, for me. There is not a thing I could do to change that. There is not a thing anyone can do that puts them beyond the Good News, and that’s the part that Christians need to keep reminding each other.

We do not have the authority, nor should we ever have the desire, to place limits on Grace. God’s love is given to everyone; we can not presume to declare otherwise.

I’ve been gone from the house for 3 hours. My cats, who spend the entire night downloading Youtube videos of wild animal calls and playing Jenga with anvils and wind chimes, have not moved.

I’m guessing it was a nice, peaceful afternoon.

 

Rich McClear

The letter that follows was difficult to write because I do not want to cast a pall over a wonderful community event, the Wearable Art Show. But I promised myself that when I saw racism, even inadvertent, I would not remain silent. I had a good friend who once gently called me out when I made a comment that was offensive to another friend and I was grateful. I hope this will open up a discussion both here and elsewhere.

 

To the Editor,

Fifteen years ago I led a project to train Roma journalists in Slovakia. My students were honest and hardworking, but a stereotype followed them, limiting their opportunities. The Roma are an ethnic group commonly called Gypsies. My students were constantly confronted with discrimination based on the stereotype “thieving Gypsy.” At the end of a day’s training, we wanted to have a dinner at a local restaurant, but my students were refused entrance. After the training, I had trouble placing my qualified students as interns because of the fear that they would steal.

 

It is easy to spread stereotypes and, unfortunately, that was done at the Wearable Art Show this weekend when one of the acts portrayed Gypsies as pickpockets. The problem was compounded by jokes from the podium about watching your wallets when the Gypsies come.

 

The dancing in the act was very good and the costumes wonderful. I am sure that the participants in the show did not intend to demean any ethnic group. But they did help to reinforce and spread a stereotype that, unfortunately, sticks to all members of the world Roma community. That stereotype leads to discrimination. As a community we must work to avoid demeaning a class of people and judge each person on his or her own merits not through a stereotype. My wish for my former Roma students in Slovakia is that someday they may be judged as individuals, or as Dr. King says, “by the content of their character.”

 

Sincerely,
Rich McClear
Sitka.

Posted on by Kevin

Eisenhower

I heard a piece on the radio about the Eisenhower memorial. He may be the most under-rated president in modern times. When the Russians launched Sputnik, there were several options we could have taken. We could have launched a protest of some sort, asserting our airspace. We could have developed a method to destroy satellites that cross over NATO boundaries. Instead, we launched SCORE, and cemented the idea of free space that the Soviets started with their “fellow traveler.”

To imagine a President who did not make that decision is to imagine a world today without communications satellites, weather satellites or a GPS system.

Posted on by Kevin

Love is love.

A year ago today, I posted the following;

“Valentinus was arrested for performing forbidden weddings for soldiers, who were forbidden to marry. Claudius II feared that husbands could not also be soldiers but love is love. Valentinus defied his government and performed the ceremony anyway. We honor him for that now with his own day.

“Happy Valentine’s day. Hopefully our government will soon not stand in the way of a couple’s right to marry.”

Since I wrote this, the couple I was thinking about, that had been broken apart by Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, have gotten together, with full benefits unhindered by DOMA.

Progress.

Posted on by Kevin

Pete…

Pete and Toshi were married 6 years before Rodgers and Hammerstein jeopardized the production of “South Pacific” by insisting on including the lyrics “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear/You’ve got to be taught from year to year/It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear/You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

It was WWII, she was a Japanese-American who was born in Germany. They went on to be partners for 70 years, loving each other. When the world threw rocks at them, they took some of those rocks home, and they used them to build the hearth of their cabin.

“Old Devil Hate, I knew you long ago
before I found the poison in your breath!
When I hear your lies, my lovers gather round,
and we rise to fight you one more time.”
-Pete Seeger

Well may the world go,
The world go, the world go,
Well may the world go,
When I’m far away.

Well may the skiers turn,
The swimmers churn, the lovers burn
Peace, may the generals learn
When I’m far away.

Sweet may the fiddle sound
The banjo play the old hoe down
Dancers swinging round and round
When I’m far away.

Fresh may the breezes blow
Clear may the streams flow
Blue above, green below
When I’m far away.

Well may the world go,
The world go, the world go,
Well may the world go,
When I’m far away.

– Pete Seeger

I have never in my life taken the metaphor of a new year as literally as I have this year. I just walked away from one of the best jobs I have ever held. A job that I spent 10 years working to get back to after having given up essentially this position at the Centennial Building in Sitka. As of tonight, I no longer work full time for the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.

Tomorrow is New Years Day, and after that, I will be a Natural Resource Specialist for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. A new year, not only a new job, but for the first time since College, a completely new field, well within the Masters of Public Administration I am working towards, but still completely new for me.

So, with a lump in my throat for the old, and barley containable excitement for the coming new, I sing that most wonderful of New Years Songs;

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let’s sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again

Altogether shout it now
There’s no one
Who can doubt it now
So let’s tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again

Your cares and troubles are gone
There’ll be no more from now on
From now on …

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So, Let’s sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again!!!

A peaceful and joyous 2014 to you all.

When the song of the angel is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks
The real work of Christmas begins.

To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoners
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among brothers
To make music in the heart.

-An unattributed Quaker

I was thinking about the long-term effects of the ACA (Obamacare), and there is one thing that strikes me as potentially very big, but I have not read much about it.

One of the advantages the United States has traditionaly had over Europe is a very mobile population. With no passports between states, people can move to where the opportunity is, and sometimes do with very dramatic results (think the ’49 gold-rush, the current oil rush going to North Dakota, or the flood of workers getting temporary work rebuilding after Sandy). With Europe opening its internal borders, this advantage has been somewhat blunted (but only somewhat, there is a very large matter of scale).

The ACA, by removing preexisting conditions, is removing a strong incentive for many people to stay in their jobs. As our economy improves, and as we see more jobs available, do you anticipate a more mobile workforce?

When I was in college, a group of us were looking at influences on the music that influenced us. Velvet Underground kept on appearing over and over. The joke became that they were the most influential band you’ve heard about but never heard.

There seems to be a weird disconnect today. Many on my Facebook friends-list are spending the evening listening to the Velvet Underground, while posting professionally written tributes to Lou Reed that basically read like that old joke. “There was this band; you have not heard of them, but they were influential to a lot of musicians you have heard.”

That’s not the half of it. A young Czech dissident was visiting the United States when he ran across Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa. He brought the music home, and bootleg copies became the soundtrack of Prague Spring. Later, much later, after the rebellion was destroyed by Soviet tanks he laid the groundwork and tried again, borrowing the name from the Velvet Underground for the Velvet Revolution.

Vaclav Havel is said to have once told Lou Reed “I am President because of you.”

That’s the nature of art. Not that it influences other artists in a vacuum but that it influences the world in sometimes unimaginable ways. I doubt that Lou Reed had any idea that what he was doing would be highly relevant in Czechoslovakia in 1968, much less in 1986, but it was.

That’s the promise of art. Art matters because it has an impact that reaches beyond even the artist’s own vivid imagination.

That being said, if you read many of the tributes tonight, you will find that he was “influential to a lot of musicians that you have actually heard about.”

Dad has some good things to say about it, but Facebook won’t let me really link to it, assuming I am only trying to link to where the Velvet Revolution and my family intersect. The link is good, but I encourage you to check out Dad’s post on Facebook as well.

Velvet Revolution

Velvet Revolution Category

Sometimes you hear something about the creative process that completely changes your relationship to, and understanding of, a piece of art.

Doc. Pomus wrote an amazing number of songs. You know some of them, even if you don’t know he wrote them. He got into music after polio took both his legs as a child. He became a blues singer, and then started writing songs when record labels saw no future in blues for a white, Jewish man in crunches.

At his wedding, he told his wife that she shroud go dance with people, after all, it was her wedding. He went on to joke that she was coming home with him anyway, so who she danced with didn’t really matter.

Years later, he co-wrote “Save the Last Dance for Me” on the back of one of his old wedding invitations.

Shannon sent me to Costco with a shopping list today. She knows me well. Her list included landmarks that I could not help but find.

“Head towards the light with the bad ballast. From there, go one isle towards the back of the store, you will find the pita bread.”

I love my wife. Her talking my language made for a nice, quick trip.

Posted on by Kevin

Conservation

This story is an interesting example of how the government in asking citizens to do something may have inadvertently triggered an opposite response.

1) Water main breaks. The city has 12 hours of clean water in reserve.

2) Police ask residents to conserve water.

2a) (not mentioned by Police) the city had access to a secondary water source, but tapping it would have contaminated the water system, rendering water undrinkable for 2 weeks, requiring water to be boiled. At no point was the city in danger of running OUT of water.

3) Without knowing that emergency water was available, some residents hoarded water (filling buckets, bathtubs, what-have-you), potentially using up the water reserve, and forcing the decision point for use of the un-sanitary water to be moved up.

It is interesting scenario. How could the city have communicated things differently, and what outcome would that have presented?

Water main rupture draws attention to Sitka’s backup plan | KCAW

After a contractor accidentally ruptured Sitka’s primary water main, workers rushed to repair it. (Photo courtesy of Jay Sweeney)

There’s a remarkable thing that happens in the change of the seasons. We have a window of brilliant, in-your-face color that is fall. Then, a wind-storm comes by, and it’s all gone.

But then the remarkable thing happens. You look to the hills, between the blowing fog and sun, and you realize that there is more color than ever. Burgundies, reds, greens, golds, yellows greys and browns, all previously hidden under what announced itself as the color of fall. All just waiting to be seen.

Posted on by Kevin

The Government and the Market

Here is a perfect example of the externalities of Federal spending.

The State of Utah is going to pay $1.67 million to the federal government to have federal parks within the state open for a week. The parks are usually expected to bring in $100 million for the month for the state economy, so we’ll say $25 Million a week.

Utah’s national parks will reopen despite ongoing government shutdown

Leaders in Utah say they found a way to get around the government shutdown.

Tonight’s random lesson learned from putting the iPod on shuffle. The baseline for Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” is essentially the same as the baseline for Loreena McKennitt’s “Lady of Shallot.” This probably explains why both songs put me in the same general mood, even if thematically one is about being true to yourself, the other about the dying when you finally decide to look outside of Plato’s Cave.

There is one ridge of trees between the rest of the woods and my neighborhood. Whether it’s because the trees are sheltered in some way by the wind, or their roots spent the summer under cultivated and watered lawns, the overnight blow left them leaves.

The result is that this morning shown down on the (for now) beautiful desolation of early winter’s greys and muted reds of the hillside brought to a full stop by a band of bright orange defiantly holding on the the last breath of fall.

2 vignettes came from the walk from work to my car through the Pirate Pub Crawl.

1) A busker singing “Folsom Prison Blues” in an over-the-top Disney “Pirates of the Caribbean” accent (“I stabbed a man in Port Royal, just to watch him die”).

2) A running fight between Peter Pan and Captain Hook down 4th Aventine, that ended with Tinkerbell being stabbed to death in front of the Avenue Bar. The crowd started madly clapping, bringing Tinkerbell back to life.

We are getting to the magical time of year. Ice crystals form in the air, and create effects with lights that I understand rationally, but can’t grasp on any other level.

Last night there was a full halo around the moon. It won’t be long until streetlights create orange spires that reach to the sky.

On nights like that, I want to put different color gels on all the light, and see if we can fill the night sky with streaks of yellows, golds, golds, greens, and if we can get a bright enough light, purples.

20 years ago this fall my family was in Albania. “The place to be in ’93” was the tag from VOA Europe, the radio station which helpfully provided a soundtrack to our visit. You could hear VOA Europe from cafes and bars, along with mix tapes that included Ace of Base “All That She Wants” or “Happy Nation,” and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” Tirana was an amazing cacophony of noise and sound. Car horns, radios, friends yelling, and construction work, Western music, it never got quiet.

After a month of living in Tirana, we took bus to Vlora for the weekend to see Anila’s hometown. The bus ran out of gas before we got there. Unfazed passengers with better language skills flagged down passing cars and were on their way; we opted to wait for the next bus. It was a beautiful night. For the first time since getting to Albania, things were quiet.

There was a full moon that shown down orange and red on the fields. The moonlight reflected off of a few of the bunkers that littered the countryside, remnants of a mad dictator who ran the most isolated country in Europe. 700,000 bunkers that served to remind Albanians daily of the control he had over their lives.

We were picked up by a second bus that brought us to Vlora. Over the weekend, Anila’s family shared with us friendship, food, stories, and a polyphonic music that predated and outlasted the madman. A music of a people who were more than their government, no matter how oppressive it may be.

Once I knew what to listen for, I heard echoes of that music all over the place; sounds that made Albania different. Back in Tirana the noise was still the same. Nothing about the city had changed while we were gone over the weekend. How I listened made all the difference. The cacophony became a fusion. VOA Europe was not the soundtrack to the city, it was a very small part of a much larger and richer soundscape. It was simply the part that I had been trained to hear.

One of the many things that Albania taught me is that you hear what you listen for. You find what you seek. Sometimes, you need to question whether your question is preventing you from hearing what is really there.

Posted on by Kevin

Shannon

A better poet might have the words to describe my love for you,
A better painter might paint his canvass just the perfect hue.
A dancer might set in motion the perfect scene to view
But another man can’t speak my heart, so my words will have to do.

I could tell you that your love is far more fine than any sand
Finer than the finest cloth touched by a master’s hand
Finer than any watchman’s works to ever tell the time,
Finer than a vintner can make his best-aged wine.

I could go a very different route and talk about a rose.
I could talk about a living friendship; a love that grows and grows
But my words can only fail me, and it is time, I suppose,
To accept that my love for you cannot fit within my prose.

The words I want to use are the grandest of the grand,
I beg my muse, I threaten, I coerce and I demand,
To have the perfect words, to make you understand,
But the best that I can do is to simply take your hand and say I love you.

Posted on by Kevin

North Wind

This came from a writing prompt, it holds no indicators as to my present state of mind.

 

The cold wind blows.

That cold north wind, That wicked wind.
The damp that cuts you to the skin
You promised that you’d leave this pen
You swore you’d never see again
But summer’s gone, your trapped within…

And so it goes.

Summer jobs paid winter bills,
The binge that warmed you through the chills
That got you through last winter’s ills
All those Goddamned little pills
That kept you mind off cold grey hills

This life you choose.

This land ain’t what it aught to be.
You thought you’d find prosperity.
Now you find you live of charity
With happiness a rarity
In a land of bipolarity

And the cold wind blows.

Posted on by Kevin

Molly Malone Redux

A peddler from Dublin was she,
And there never was fairer to see.
As she pushed her wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Any man who had eyes would agree.

She peddled her fish at the fair
She did what she did with a flair
Her parents before her
Did strongly implore her
To sell fish and fend off despair

You don’t hold despair off for long
Too many things simply go wrong.
As her parents, they cried,
She took fever and died,
But she lives on forever in song.

Posted on by Kevin

New to the fair

Sing to me an ancient song,
Add modern words, I’ll sing along,
We’ll dance a dance passed down through time,
To the sound of our ancient, modern rhyme
We’ll talk about our mutual friends
An open circle never ends,
We’re joined by easy vibrant strands
As our web of friendship, it expands.

The past and future gather here,
For all who care to gather near
The fiddle calls the dancer’s round
As accordions and banjos sound
A caller calls us out to dance,
Around the maypole, children prance
Now as closing time draws near
I’m blessed by you all gathered near.

I thank you for the time we’ve spent
Though the time it was not long.
I thank you for companionship,
For dancing and for song!
I thank you for the time we’ve spent,
And time we’ve yet to spend.
But most of all I’m thankful that I can call you friend.

Posted on by Kevin

New friends

As I climb into the spacious skis,
Above the fruited plains I rise
Fresh hellos, and sad goodbyes
Old friendships born anew.
An asphalt spider web below
Stretches out too and fro,
Street lights keep it all aglow,
And I search the cars for you.

Though we haven’t known each other long
With some folks you just feel like you belong,
You feel the need at least for one more song,
When you know the road ahead of you is long
And I must admit I can not comprehend
The different ways our lives and stories wend.
Or why I’m certain that we’ll meet again,
Or why I know I’ve found in you a friend.

All too soon I’m way to high
I wave to you a soft goodbye
You may see me in the sky
As you drive to somewhere new
This plane will take me far away,
You car will dive you on your way
It’s the nomad’s price we pay,
“Hello and adieu”

And though it’s sad to go our separate ways
I’ve not seen my own bed for days
And though I’ll go anywhere that pays
a girl back home that fills me with clichés’
And I haven’t seen her in quite awhile,
It’s too long since I’ve seen her smile
I’ll share with you many a mile…
but at home I have to rest awhile.

At home I have to rest awhile.

Posted on by Kevin

Waking Up is Hard To Do!

Dawn do-be-do dawn dawn, it will soon be dawn do-be-do dawn dawn, it will soon be dawn do-be-do dawn dawn…. Waking up is hard to do.

Don’t take my sleep away from me!
Waking up is such misery!
Sleep until the sky is blue,
‘cus waking up is hard to do,.

Remember when, you said sleep tight,
I should be sleeping all through the night!
Let me sleep the whole night through,
‘cus waking up is hard to do.

They say that waking up is hard to do.
Now I know, I know that it’s true
Don’t say that night’s at an end.
Instead of waking up I wish that I could hit the snooze again.

I beg of you… please comply.
Don’t you know my sleep’s in short supply!
A full night’s sleep is overdue.
And waking up is hard to do

Posted on by Kevin

Song for Shannon

Sleep my love, in your dreams your dreams you must pursue
Sleep my love, for your dreams will guide and shelter you.
Do not fear what the world brings for tomorrow the world is born anew.
Sleep my dear, sleep my love, for the world will be dreaming too.

You can’t know what lies in store, in the world outside your door.
Caution and kindness, and trouble on the wind!
You can not lie in fear, of things you should not hear,
You are surrounded by your own, your friends and your kin.

Sleep my love, in your dreams your dreams you must pursue
Sleep my love, for your dreams will guide and shelter you.
Do not fear what the world brings for tomorrow the world is born anew.
Sleep my dear, sleep my love, for the world will be dreaming too.

The world inside your head, as you lay back in your bed,
Cotton candy trees under rainbows in the sky.
It’s a world that you own, let it be your home,
Until you wake tomorrow morning, and your dreams teach you to fly.

And then tomorrow morn, once you’ve lost this morning’s scorn,
The nasty names, the hurtful games that made you almost cry
A new and better day will bring a new and better way,
And tomorrow’s new horizons will kiss today’s regret goodbye.

So sleep my love, in your dreams your dreams you must pursue
Sleep my love, for your dreams will guide and shelter you.
Do not fear what the world brings for tomorrow the world is born anew.
Sleep my dear, sleep my love, for the world will be dreaming too.

Posted on by Kevin

Danny boy, by request…

Sing Danny Boy, the drunks, the drunks are calling.
From pub to pub, my protests were denied.
I protest hard, yet now I am complying
Tis they that fill my hat so I abide.

Call me a hack, but I’d rather sing a disco.
Or listen to a third grade talent show.
But I must eat, and pay rent on my condo.
So Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I “love” you so.

And as you watch, you’ll see my spirit dying.
I’ll sing the song, though dead the song might be.
When I say I love the song; I’m lying,
Please still kneel, and leave some cash for me.

And I shall smile, as coins they shower around me.
And my abode will warmer, sweeter be,
I’ll pay my bills, with music that confounds me,
And this song’s allure will always puzzle me.

© 2005, Kevin McClear

Posted on by Kevin

The Wrecker

This boat was built by weathered hands and made of weathered wood.
She’s taken men to sea for fish through bad times and through good.
She’s fished the banks and sold her wears on both Atlantic shores.
She sailed through time; outlived her prime, and she’ll go to sea no more.

Through wind and snow, through weathered blow she saw her crewmen home.
Through snapped spars, through broken shrouds, through oceans white with foam.
She’s worked hard, and with her crews, she’s built a strong rapport
Her lines now marred in the breakers’s yard, she’ll go to sea no more.

This grand dame, now without her name, waits upon the morning light.
Tomorrow we do our breaker’s work, but she’s still whole tonight.
One last night see her whole, to admire and adore
She dies tomorrow in the breaker’s jaw, she’ll go to sea no more.

Her woodwork tells of bygone skills used in days of yore.
The Craftmen’s skill built a hull that’s solid to the core,
With a chain saw and with no such skill I’ll do what I deplore.
Salvage blends with scavenge, and she’ll go to sea no more.

I retain a copyright on all my work. (c)2004

Posted on by Kevin

Vertigo

For those of you who tend to read into my entries, don’t panic. I felt the need to write a song, and asked Sarah to give me a word. Sarah, dear Sarah gave me… vertigo. Gee. Thanks. As always, I retain copyright to this song, this is very much a first draft, and is very subject to change. The third section is a complete break from the first two, in both melody and meter. It is much faster and much more frenetic. There is a retard that covers the fourth section. A tempo after the fourth. The song requires a lot more orchestration than most of my work; it may be a poem forever.

In the morning, I get out of bed; the coffee has been made,
The dishes cleaned by another machine while my bills are auto-payed.
Fresh bread bakes in a bread machine as I pour some lemonade,
I look to my computer where the headlines are displayed.
The microwave cooks my eggs while I take the time to shave,
So where the hell is all this time that these things are supposed to save?
I’ve been often told I’d do quite well if only I’d behave,
I’ve done my time, just to find it’s something else I crave.

I’m wallowing in discontent and I can’t tell you why.
I fell trapped, and I can’t explain no matter how I try,
If someone suggests I might need help, I can only but deny.
But I need help now. I need a friend, with friends in short supply.
Every path I look down now, I see a new dead end.
Every bridge that I have burned used to be a friend
I can’t help but feel alone, as downward I descend
A panicked madness rends a mind I fear will never mend.

I don’t know where to start when everything’s entwined
All theses thoughts are giving me vertigo of mind,
I’m running through a labyrinth my every move confined,
I try to get more ahead but I’m falling more behind,
If I look into my future I’m afraid of what I’ll find,
I fall into a melting heap and pray for someone kind.

You come to me you read my mind
You read my mind and understand
You understand and take my hand
You take my hand and suddenly
And suddenly,
And suddenly,
And suddenly,

It’ll all be fine,

Given time.

And we’ve got time.

Please give me time.

You’ve come across a bridge I swore I burned so long ago
I thought that all our friendship was but flowers in the snow.
Why you chose to come back now I really do not know,
I cannot see myself as worthy of blessings you bestow.
You tell me what has passed between us happened in the past.
Even icy tundra in the spring is green with grass.
I tell you I feel fragile, like fine Venetian glass.
You tell me to quit whining now, and get up off my ass,

A velvet glove you offer me, around a rock hard hand.
You tell me that you know my pain; you say you understand.
You help me get up to my feet, then alone you make me stand.
I take a few steps by my self, and that’s all that you demand.
You are right beside me as I fell my courage wane
Your simple stop to aid a friend now feels like a campaign
But with you confidence in me in I know I can maintain,
And with your help, my dear true fiend, or my life again I’ll reign.

Posted on by Kevin

Unsent Letter Home

Thanks go to Sarah N for help with collaboration, I maintain copyright to the song.

 

I go to work early ‘fore the sun comes up
The northern lights are shining as I warm up my truck.
I warm up my trunk, at the lights I stare;
I wish I had your fingers running through my hair.

We were wed in June, had a brief honeymoon,
We were just getting settled when our baby came to soon
Jenny came too soon, we were unprepared,
I wish I had your fingers running through my hair.

Jenny was sick, she was getting pretty bad
We needed money quick, so we mortgaged all we had.
We mortgaged all we had for a doctor’s care,
I wish I had your fingers running through my hair.

I needed better work for to pay off the loan,
But the local corporations were all cutting to the bone.
Cutting to the bone, good jobs were rare,
I wish I had your fingers running through my hair,

I heard that up north the jobs were good
I knew I had to leave you and I knew you understood
I knew you understood so I paid the airfare,
I wish I had your fingers running through my hair

I’m working at a job with better pay,
And I live in a flophouse 12 hundred miles away.
12 hundred miles away from Jenny and you,
but when the debts are paid we can start anew.

Things aren’t as easy as they used to be,
There’s a woman at the bar with her eye on me
Her eye’s one me, I’m tempted and I’m scared,
I wish I had you fingers running through my hair.

This is not the way I wanted it to be,
I keep seeing things I don’t want to see.
I don’t want to see the woman from the bar
but the distance from you, it seems so very far

I leave from work alone every day,
I drop on my knees by my bed and I pray
I pray that I’ll soon be with Jenny and you,
And we won’t be worried about bills that are due.

I pray that when I finally come home some day,
Jenny will remember her daddy far away.
Far away from her when she learned to talk,
When she took her first step, and she learned to walk

I’m cold and I’m alone, but I’m going to make do,
And I’d do it all again for Jenny and you.
Jenny and you are my only living cares,
till I once again feel your fingers in my hair

Posted on by Kevin

Storm Surge

I’m in that kind of mood, I guess. Again, I retain copyright to this.

I started writing this for a dear friend. I think, in the end, I wrote it for myself as well.

The Storm surge gave us warning, with storm birds on the wing,
The wind is in the trombone, as the rigging starts to sing,
The First storm of the season is coming through our town,
Your lines are fast, your hatches latched, it’s safe to now bed down.

The stories you have shared with me of when your skies turned gray,
shows that you can hold your own, while your face is stung by spray
some storms have blown you over, for others you’ve held fast
It’s not the first storm you’ve endured it will not be the last,

This may well be the worst storm yet, but you’ve said that before.
I’ve seen you smile through your concern of what’s outside the door.
The tempest may be blowing, and your house may moan and creek,
the house you built is solid, and it will safeguard your sleep.

Tomorrow when the blow is done, you walk again outside
To see what gifts the storm brought you upon the ebbing tide.
No one can claim it’s easy, the storm based acid test
But we take what we are given, and we do what we think best.

Posted on by Kevin

Home

It goes without saying that I maintain a copyright on this and all my other poetry. This song is also less than an hour old. It is not a final product yet, so I welcome any and all comments in it’s formation.

Home is where the heart is, but where the hell’s the heart?
I’m looking for a new home now, just don’t know where to start.
I’ve been pondering a scary thought, a thought that might be true,
I think my home, I think my heart, just might well be with you.

You might be a new career, or just a place to stay.
A thing to do to pass the time, or watch it pass away.
A job, a friend, a new song penned, a story formed anew,
If you would give me peace of mind, I would give my life to you.

I sit here feeling homeless, in a solid well built house.
I haven’t found my reason here, a job, a life or spouse.
I guess until I find my home, I’ll have to just make-do
until I find out what you are, and spend my time with you.

Posted on by Kevin

Festival’s Over

The festival is over, the party’s at an end.
Where we met mere days before, we now prepare to leave as friends,
the cleaning crew is hard at work as I walk out the door,
but it’s hard to try and say goodbye, so I walk inside once more.

And I thank you for the music, it flows through my blood like wine,
I stole that line from a different man at a different fest at a different time.
Though at times we see just differences, it turns out in the end,
we meet with many differences, we leave with many friends.

The cleaning crew has kicked us out the sky is turning grey,
at a greasy spoon we pass the time as you prepare to fly away,
I really should be on my way, the road ahead is long,
but for the long ride home I’ll be alone, so sing me one more song.

And I’ll thank you for the music, it flows through my blood like wine,
I don’t know when we’ll meet again, so one more song, one more time,
Tell me one more story as the night comes to an end.
It’s time to fly, but not “goodbye,” but “till we meet again.”

This page and it’s contents are copyright © 2002, Kevin McClear

 

Posted on by Kevin

Going Home

Home is where the heart is, or so the people say,
I feel my blood pulse through my veins, my heart feels miles away.
I do not wish to share your bed, nor wish to go away.
I do not wish to leave you though I know I cannot stay.

Headlights shine before me down a long and empty road.
The empty seat beside me has become a heavy load,
an empty space inside me that’s as lonesome as the road,
and I guess I must admit I’m going home.

The night has come, and much too quick, it’s time that I move on.
Before I go, before I leave, sing me one more song.
Tell me one more story, let us greet the dawn,
For just tonight, ignore that what we want to do is wrong.

Headlights shine before me down a long and empty road.
The empty seat beside me has become a heavy load,
an empty space inside me that’s as lonesome as the road,
and I guess I must admit I’m going home.

I can not stay with you, so I dive this road towards home,
the apartment that will great me will be silent as a stone;
a place filled with treasured goods,  a place I do not own,
a place that mocks me, tells me nightly I’m living quite alone.

So headlights shine before me down a long and empty road.
in the silence of my car, I dream of lightening my load,
of someone sitting next to me, as we gaily share the road,
I dream a dream of really going home.

 

This page and it’s contents are copyright © 2002, Kevin McClear

Posted on by Kevin

Swan Song

There’s a barn swallows nest in the dimmer rack,
the producer ran screaming and he ain’t coming back.
I just heard a pop from the stage left stack,
and the sound board op had a heart attack.

Swan song, when things go wrong, the bloody show must still go on.

Fire marshal hates the main grand stand,
leading lady hates the leading man.
Critically the show has just been panned,
and the show’s in the hole by a couple of grand.

Swan song, when things go wrong, the bloody show must still go on.

I tried to hold the opening but the opening couldn’t wait,
even though the costuming was a half a month late.
There is a lot to get done before “curtain” at eight,
and the damn tech. crew is on their “Star Trek” break.

Swan song, when things go wrong, the bloody show must still go on.

Sound system sounds just a little out of phase,
can’t get it fixed for a couple of days.
The director’s caught in some “feel good” craze,
and I can’t read the script through the nicotine haze.

Swan song, when things go wrong, the bloody show must still go on

 

This page and it’s contents are copyright © 2002, Kevin McClear

Posted on by Kevin

Kevin’s Modern Fairy Tale

I was just out of college when I wrote this…  I had a job sweeping a warehouse.  My life was… not turning out exactly how I had planned.

 

A knight’s care for a maiden fair,
A dream for both in love to share.
A courtship shared by me and you,
A love shared, both brave and true.
Gallant deeds, and joyous laughter,
and, finally, a “happy ever after.”
We remember children’s stories well,
And try and live a fairy tale.

As I drove to work today,
the fairy tale seemed far away.
During work the dream was clear,
that I’d come home to find you here.
But I came home to find, today,
a meeting held you in its sway.
I understand all too well,
This doesn’t fit the fairy tale.

We’re Held together by shared dreams,
We’re Held apart by separate schemes.
Separate lives, separate days,
a shared path, but separate ways.
But with friendship, love and with care,
there’s still so much more in life we share.
So if the tales can’t fit us well,
we’ll write our own damn fairy tale

A nightly prayer for a lover’s care,
A dream, a life, a love to share.
The water is wide, this much is true,
we’ll row together, we’ll make it through
With shared deeds, with shared laughter,
And yes, a “happy ever after.”
A partnership that fits us well,
as we write a modern fairy tale.

 

This page and it’s contents are copyright © 2001, Kevin McClear