Email to My Brother

Listening to Josh Ritter play his songs live on radio. Why this guy doesn't record all his stuff live in studio is beyond me.

Best songwriter I've heard in a long time, maybe ever.

Hitting the gym like crazy lately, and got the kids out for the first cold bike ride of spring on Wednesday. Radical shift in diet taking effect...Fresh spinach and mushrooms with almost every meal. No sweets at all for the last three weeks. On a path and turning the corner, physically, towards the athlete I have been and should be.

As always, thinking of you during all of these things. Most things I do, and the songs and poems I write, include pieces of Max and Will, Craig, Mom and Dad, and all my many brothers and sisters. I don't have space for all of you some days.

much peace,

tjb

I Am Not Clever

...but this song is a little, or what I have of it thus far.

Spaceman

Out into the ether, where the stars collide
and flash their long-dead smiles through the cavernous night
Good old spaceman won't put his helmet on again
He's out in the cold and the ghostlight wearing nothing but his skin

And beneath the sweet physicality, there's closed doors in our minds
We're miles apart in your tiny bed, and I'm leaving you behind

I'll choose the vacuum, where there's nothing I'm required to feel
Yeah nothing but want and wanderlust and a nagging urge to breathe
Into the outside through a blue-white picture frame
I can't see your face from outer space, I can't remember my own name

And to shed the false solidarity and barely murmured lies
There's a skylight above us, and I'm leaving you behind...

(Copyright 2006, Thomas J Burbach)

much peace

upon departure

Today is heavy upon my shoulders;
it began in disarray, before first light,
struggling back into my defenses from
the supposed sanctuary of your bed

So hard to leave you; almost your warmth had reached me:
In bits and pieces I was comforted until
a chill edge crept into your talk,
within me met an answering cold
and, of a sudden,
we are miles apart in your little
bed

Two penitents at opposite ends of the cathedral,
too proud to kneel in servitude to the one
cause worth serving; and so we lie, stiff-necked
and quite separate, and moving in separate directions:
you to your clandestine loves (a heat I may not touch),
and I to ponder, hands shackled behind my head,
why my own heart is so cold

_______________________

So I am brought unto the morning:
the sun drags behind him a formless morass
of clouds, slow as a funeral procession:
and I a faceless mourner, lacking
the wits to grieve.

Copyright, 2001 Thomas J Burbach

much peace