your own chosen speed

I just finished watching Don't Look Back, a 1960s documentary about Bob Dylan, which proved to be as fascinating as I'd been led to believe it would be.

Dylan always has a profound effect on me, as anyone who's read this blog before will attest to. I've made room for other artists in my radar recently, but this has brought back his enormous blip, sending all the smaller ones flying offscreen. He's amazing to watch, not only while performing, but especially when other people are performing; his gears turn so clearly. He's the real deal, no bones about it. Every second of every minute is pregnant with musical fetuses that blossom and fluoresce in that curly-haired cranium. Some are fortunate enough to grow, others wilt and erode away for good. But the process is remarkably noticeable, and it's proof that he's something else.

This got me wondering of course, as I can't help but be a human about this sort of thing. Am I the real deal? Underneath every personal encounter, every mindless routine, every moment of hot- or cold-blooded emotion -- is there a layer of music-truth? Maybe there doesn't have to be in order to be "the real deal." And it probably doesn't do any good to ruminate on it. Dylan probably didn't sit at his typewriter, debating his own integrity on the vaguest of scales. But he had the devotion of millions to dissuade him from such idle activities. I don't got that.

What I can say I have, at least in the last two weeks, is such an involuntary, overwhelming pull to my music, that I can't focus on anything else. This happens to be good, as there are several unsavory things I'd rather not focus on at all.

I was going to try having some new songs recorded and ready to post by this weekend, but that's looking doubtful. How about some lyrics I'm working on instead? Yes, you say? You'd love to peruse them? Well, splendid. Work in progress, mind you. In case you're curious, each verse is two stanzas, and each chorus is two stanzas.

"insect angel"

tarred and feathered
by request
ten years of blood
vitamins and microchips

they gave me lights
so I could see in the dark
and cut me like a diamond
so none could see me

break my skin
plant a pill
they smell your smarts
before you think of the end

dread Gilgamesh
left ancient dragons boiling in me
I’ve written it on mile markers
but no one believes

through fishflesh eyes
look long, look long
see the indiglo dials
see the secret codes

eraserburn
I checked their hands
and saw the spots
they’d tried to forget

blood from the sky
smells sweet
but they’ve torched my files
and now I can’t reach what I need

what will I be?
all the televisions burst around me
at the symphony
I hear different things

obsidian
are the laws and the liturgy
radars cannot see
the fiberglass coming out of me

this insect angel
is still fixed on the starball
bulbous and stuffed with light
hideous, hideous

I’m classified
and stuck in time
like a sugarmelt
I could swear I once was good

roy g biv
in an oil slick
manta rays blot out the sun,
blot out the sun
think of the end