An incoming message
On the telegraph sounder
From a high desert ghost town's
Skeleton brass pounder

The wires have all disappeared
So how can this message be?
Maybe E. Clampus Vitas
Has the answer for me?

Years have gone by
Lives lived and died
The news about his accidental death
Deep down in the mine

I wrote this in a daze
In an old soul haze
Out the window she gazed
Her endless numbered days

What is real seems not
A fleeting moment is caught
Existentialist thoughts
Our days cannot be bought

Here we are today
Time means our decay
A passing cloud each day
Yesterdays already gone away
 

E. Clampus Vitus
Means nothing
A country form
Of DADA

Preserving history
Is their mission
Like Bodie, CA
Just splendid

I want to join 
The ECV
Their mission and fun
Appeals to me

It must be a primal instinct. Music. The rhythm, sound, melody and all other aspects can influence how you feel, and deeply. I think only love is like it as far as the affect it has on your soul.

I make music mostly to try to communicate thoughts and feelings that course through my brain. I'm a thinker - nothing too deep (like studying philosophy) but since I've been a computer programmer for 41 years, I do like the logic in philosophy.

I absolutely love learning how things work. Mechanical, Electrical and the most complex of all, human things. Music has a logic but is much more human than mechanical or electrical things. 

I also love the romance of history and definitely am an "old soul". I love old things that evoke feelings and moods and spark imagination. Rust and cracked old composite things and paint patina to me are things of great beauty and which have soul. Very few things in life have soul, but when you stumble on one of these, you just know it.

My reentry into playing music and writing songs - after being away for 30 years has just reached the point where I can easily take an idea or vision and set it to sound. I'm not the best musician, but in the last two years since picking this up again, I have grown greatly and I'm very pleased and proud of that.
My guitar, bass and keyboard skills have improved noticeably. Learning Cello has been addicting and in November it will be one year playing that. My lap steel, dulcimer, mandolin and violin skills are very basic, but I find that those instruments are secondary to my main musical interests. 

I suck as a singer, but while I will never be known as a song writer / singer or artist, attempting to sing is really important. Some of the best tin pan alley song writers couldn't sing if their life depended on it. I have heard covers of songs that were better than the original.  Some famous artists are pretty poor singers but exude feeling and emotion that makes up for it. Examples include Jonathan Richman, Dylan or Jeff Mangam from Neutral Milk Hotel. I'm trying to suck as bad as their singing! My dream would be that a decent band or artist would take my song idea and make it great. 

Music, every single day has always (and now even more so) been a very important part of my life.

Ephresiens 23:12
And the Devil 
Came unto him
And anointed him 
With rocks

Not just any rocks
But columns of basalt
Chiseled to a grey blue
Perfection

The columns above
Rejected these rocks
After being admonished
By the Devil

Just when you thought
The coast is so clear
You tried to sneak by
The devil appeared

He made you an offer
You should have refused
He owns life's casino
You didn't have a clue

Make a mistake once
Just fine, make it again
(Expecting different outcome)
Is insanity defined

Windswept dusty
Almost moon-like
A place 
Without 
Words

Two generations
Come and gone
Will we
Ever
Learn?

Down the canyon
Water flows
Quenching thirst
For modern man

Through age old
Granite cracks and fissures
Waving natures
Gravity hand

An old tree
An heirloom
Green Apple tree
A small tree

Year after year
Magic green apples
Fill this tree
Who never asks for much

This tree might
Live longer than me
Offering its apples
To the next family

The sky grew dark
From blue to grey
The winter chill 
Descending early

The quaking aspens
Caught off guard
Shivered in green
Quickly changing color 

The winter wind
The howling wind
Caught all of us
Off guard