this evenings sky

I see a faint pale band of pink above the blue of and early evening Minnesota sky. Pink and blues—girl and boy—female and male—yin and yang—positive and negative—this and that—a horse of a different color, indeed.

 

What kind of horse do you suppose that would be, pink and blue. Black and white would be a zebra. Are zebra muscles black and white? What’s black and white and read all over, a newspaper in the 1950’s. Not so now. Now there’s color even on the front page. But not the color I see in this evening’s sky.

Old Is a Thief

Old is a thief

I can’t sing like I did

Don’t have the highs of a kid

Blind to dreams I once seen

Old you’ve stole my life away

Old you are a thief

Now I look out through my window

Comes another season for change

I don’t answer the call no more

I’d rather stay out of the rain

I’d rather stay outside of the game

What’s old blues to do?

Feel like I’m loosing her too

Baby looks at me with tears

No love, no where, no cares

I hear the melody beyond me

heart breaks like glass from the pain

The songs I loved I can’t sing

That belongs to yesterday

Still there is a due to pay

What do I do now with my life

Where do I go to find my peace

Out of time, the door is closing

Old you’ve stole my life away

Old you are a thief

Questions of Heaven

A place where down is up

A place where tears are cried only in joy

A place where no one is better than another

A home that can’t be foreclosed

A place to live that’s paid in full

Heaven; I don’t see it, can’t touch it. I don’t think about it much till times like this when I think about some one I know who died.

My daughter died. If there is a heaven she’s there. Heaven must be filled with little children who didn’t have to suffer these streets ruled by the prince of darkness for long.

This is darkness-heaven must be light. If this is all ‘see touch feel’ then heaven-if it’s real- must be something different. Something inside me says ‘spirit’. Are there really streets paved w/ Gold, if so that don’t mean much too me-gold, silver, stocks, bonds, annuities. All that is nothing to me.

Maybe there was an error in translation. Maybe the streets aren’t paved with gold but paved by God.

Whatever?

I need heaven to be a place of ‘satisfaction personified’. Heaven would be living without need, greed or cravings. No drugs or battles of the bands or T.V. In heaven I could type and edit with out spell check or grammar check to show me how ignorant I am and impede my flow.

Heaven: Satisfied, pleased, at ease. Heaven would rain peace. Heaven would be a place of senses. Here we have 5 or so-smell-touch-see and so on. In heaven we would just ‘KNOW’. We would not be afraid of a man because of the color of his skin because we wouldn’t need to see his skin and the fears attached to it based on fear.  Or maybe we’d see it but would know the peace that goes beyond all understanding and welcome that brown man, yellow man, white man to the hood and look forward to his kids playing with mine.

Heaven would have all the splendor of the seasons with out the need of an entire new wardrobe to accommodate it. The seasons would accommodate us. Oh, yeah, all our needs would be met.

And all the souls departed we would meet again. We will not cry from sorrow. We will not be depressed. There will not be bi-polar but one pole like a giant standard that is tall, high above us all, a beacon shinning bright on everyone for everyone so everyone could see. A beam of light to show the way– that light be HE. In heaven there’ll be no need to debate if god is He or as some must include-a She.

All that foolishness we will leave behind. It will be left here with all trouble, left in a pile, left in a heap. Here when a house is foreclosed they haul in a dumpster and the dumpster gets filled with waste and the throw away of the displaced tenants. My dumpster’ll be filled to capacity, overflowing if I go to heaven. If not all that left over stuff will still fill the dumpster and be hauled away but I’ll be dumpstered too, attached to the trash and throw away of this life.

I love the passion of writing and creating. To think I would not need to create, or be free of such pain that creates the need to create. I don’t know-can one create in heaven without passion-pain-suffering, with out something for which a need to express is insatiable? Trying to satisfy a sorrow, joy or fear or trying to know the unknowable might become unneedable in heaven. I just don’t know. See, I just don’t know.

If in heaven we are all satisfied, maybe we just feel this thing I feel right now as I pour my self into something that is so frustrating but at the same time feels so good. I feel it right now, this attempt to understand and bear my soul….to God and to my self.

But wait, theo’s and scholars and doctors of religion and pastors and preachers preach over and over again that God is more than a feeling, or feelings. ‘Can’t trust dem feelings boy’, only trust the Word, and the Word will lead to works that lead to the faith that leads to understanding—‘damn, I just don’t understand it all.

Will I understand it all in Heaven? Will I get to heaven if I don’t understand it and do it what ever it is? Love God with all your heart and soul and then Jesus added and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

I’m flying blind, I’m out of my league and outta my wits. I gotta bail, call this thing I call art quits.

Here! Now I’m done.

I’ll put the pen down. The talking and the writing between me and God, what I call my passion to write/feel/communicate to the only ONE who understands me will be put away till the next time.

Maybe this then is what heaven will be. A place where there is no need for the term 24/7.

No time. No interruptions or a schedule or appointments or place to be to take me away from my passion, my very own session with Him. Maybe that’s it, my passion will be Him.

If so it’s there I want to go.

A place where down is up

A place where tears are cried only in joy

A place where no one is better than another

A home that can’t be foreclosed

A place to live that’s paid in full

BARONS AND PROPHETS OF SELF HELP FROM GOD

I have a problem. I have many problems, or so all the stuff I read is trying to convince me. I am my problem. My problem is I, or, in my case, us, since I am bi-polar. At least I still have a sense of humor to humor us, or me, or me and I, whatever.

They, the barons and prophets of self help from God say God is the cure. They say so many things—‘Best Seller Say All,’ all for $27.95 at Borders or Amazon. Order your copy today to have a brighter tomorrow. Yaha, I’ll get right on it—set the clock, start the time NOW! I’m tracking and processing stuff, (word processing in fact).

According to these writer guys of God, I am the gloom, and made so by my own design, in the people parade. I am the rain predicted, ‘…..for at least the next 40 days and nights, a flood of foolishness will rain down on anyone in close proximity  to……’ my name is omitted to reduce a case of liability. I conclude that I am liable, and to make matters even worst I am very easily thrown off the track.

There was a subject, a topic or at least a point I was going to make in this journal entry somewhere,,,,,,let’s see, where are those notes.

Ok, here we go.

Let’s get onto the journey, into the dark. The more light I attempt to shed on my journey the darker I become. The hope begets hopelessness. In the definition of hopelessness I see me. The stories of those whose hopelessness and despair become those who’ve over come those obstacles don’t inspire me. In fact, those stories rip me and point out so clearly that I do not have the stuff to be s success story in another man book.

Books of inspiration torment me and cut at my soul. They affirm my misalignments, my off centeredness, out of balance. I spin toward not a destiny but a disaster. Alas, that just may be my destiny and I have all my finger and toes, arms, legs, I have no cancer that I am aware of (dare I say yet?). My mother still lives alert at 86. My son is marrying the mother of their child, my granddaughter, an angelic vision I am allowed to see. Well, hmmm, there’s something.

I’m looking at a world from outside, I’m in a bubble, or the world is in a fish tank and there is a field, a force field of separation between me and life, all the comings and going, all the activity and doings of life.

Professional Sports, now there is a major diversion of reality if ever there was one and as you would no doubt be surprised, I have given up on watching it, live with comp tickets or on the television. I’ve given up on being a sport-or a sport supporter. What does that have to do with any of this? There are 7 husbands in the cull de sac who rotate garages as spectator arenas for the Vikings, the Wolves, The Wild, and the Twins. What time I have and the things I see, read, think just does not fit in their garages. To many boys and their toys.

I’m perfect candidate for an 180◦ success story. I am I am one who should sore to a final field of victory over darkness, a vale that chokes my mind, my days, my nights my sleep, my sleeplessness.

I bed with a blanket of sorrow woven by my own design using threads of 60 plus years of failure trying to make a mosaic quilt of some bright thing to block our gloom. What tripe. I’m just selfish, insolent and intolerable for any thing that isn’t about me.

This is the point when I must point to the beginning of this entry.

‘I have a problem. I have many problems or so all the stuff I read is trying to convince………..’

Yes, we’re right back where we started again, and again, and again, and

The End

Odd Prayer

Father—God, I want my face to be on you—as I lift my field glass’s to study the birds that come to the feeder I fill and refill each day with food, I want my field glass’ of soul an spirit to be on you, as you fill and feed me.

You watch me, you listen to me. How are my actions? How are my words?  Is my mouth clean, are my lips safe and secure speaking only truth and curse free? Am I as I am?

The sun comes up again and again. I get up to meet it and watch the wonder of the new day being born, now that’s a miracle.

I wish, want and ask that someday I am able to watch the sun rise over a beautiful body of water, a lake, the ocean, Superior, a river, St. Croix, even Phalen would be ok. Until that time, the sun rises over me and I am alive with it and in it no matter what the weather may be.

I am in God as God is in me—I am in the world as a reflection of you Father—of your patience, or you love, of your caring.

There are things to do for you today, but like the morning fog, they still be only a vague shape forming. I pray I don’t frivolously waste the time you give me, that what I do matters to you, that I keep my mission statement and my purpose in life in mind; that my purpose is your purpose too.

I’m not positive how to accomplish it, and most times doubt intrudes on my faith but I don’t quit.  I hunt and peck, I reach, I pray in this way. I make decisions and mistakes, and retractions and realignments and re arrangements, but always on my mind and in my YOU are there.

My days are filled with learning and doing.  Knowing you, more of you and what you would have me do is what I do.

Therein I am fulfilled. I have a purpose. I have strength. I have good health. I am strong. I can and do make right choices. I shun the dung and hang on to your word.

This prayer today is not only for me but for all your family, my family and friends as well. This pray is even for the lost as well as the found.

May my walk today be on ground that is never shaky, always solid, always you.

Amen and Amen

Commitment Prayer

From whence do these commitments that confound me, confused me and bewilder me come from.

The only real commitments I have made and must keep are to you God, to my marriage—to my son—to my mother. At times even these commitments turn me and make me want to run, but I stick and stay, not always in perfect harmony but with faith we persevere.

Commitments are made to easily. Words flow so easily from my mouths with out checking in at my brain. People sometimes take the words I say and bend them where needed and use them for a purpose. Then the ambush arrives, days weeks or even months down the road I am ensnared with baggage I don’t want to claim.  The only commitment I really need to make and keep and those I mentioned above.

To be on guard against commitments is stifling to me. If every word I speak must be weighed, judged, and metered out so as to be sure I am not entering into some commitment that will come back later and bite me, then I would be better to keep my mouth shut 100% of the time.

I admit to a fear of commitment, especially those made unintentionally. By this time in my life, after all the binds I’ve gotten myself into and the sweat I’ve spent getting myself free, I should be aware of those/those situations beforehand and speak my disclaimer up front, loud and clear.

Sometimes these unplanned commitments feel like the grasp of a specter’ hands. They undo my sleep and cause much anxiety.

Now let me pray, “God, pepper me with wisdom in choosing my words, make me clear my meanings and intentions. Allow clarity and undo misunderstandings before they start, for the sake of your peace as well as my own.

“Thanks you God for my gift of the written word, if even only for our communications. Thank you too for the songs I sometimes can make of these words and the rhythms and melodies they can be arranged with. Please bless me again with the desire and ability to perform, for you and for others with freedom and real love and graceful pleasure.

“Help me to know what commitments to make, what words to avoid. Proofread my words to keep me from creating a trap of commitments I don’t want or need.

“Father keep me, my family and friends safe and in good health, and finally keep us strong against the invention of ‘bad commitments’.”

My contentment has expired

I’m down
I’m dark
bottled up in the blues

Bad taste
in my mouth
wonder at the use

No comfort
no joy
words of love are half true

I’m deaf
I’m blind
Dark night of the soul

You try
you cry
Our season of discontent

I run
you hide
no getting get away

lost talent
why try
I’ll live and fade away

Oh yeah
It’s sad
rip up this dark impression

Read Psalm
Read Luke
God break through

need change
Look back boogie
Tradition is but a moment in time

The truth
No clue
Every mouth sells a fix

Old songs
Sound new
Born from fading melodies

Oh Lord
where in the earth are you
solid ground not here today

My ticket has expired

My contentment has expired

I’m down
I’m dark
bottled up in the blues

Bad taste
in my mouth
wonder at the use

No comfort
no joy
words of love are half true

I’m deaf
I’m blind
Dark night of the soul

You try
you cry
Our season of discontent

I run
you hide
no getting get away

lost talent
why try
I’ll live and fade away

Oh yeah
It’s sad
rip up this dark impression

Read Psalm
Read Luke
God break through

need change
Look back boogie
Tradition is but a moment in time

The truth
No clue
Every mouth sells a fix

Old songs
Sound new
Born from  fading melodies

Oh Lord
where in the earth are you
solid ground not here today

My ticket has expired

I can’t sing like I once did
Don’t have th drive of  kid
Blind to dreams I ounce seen
There’s no ‘mo passion in my heart

Now I just look out my window
Old is why it’s all changed
I don’t answer the phone to jam
I’d rather stay inside insane

I still hear the melody that’s out of reach
like glass my heart breaks for the past
The game I loved and lived to play
All belongs to my yesterdays

What’s old blues to do?
feel I’m loosing her too
Baby looks at me with tears
No love, no where, no cares

Out of time, no fire to play
It’s all in ‘yo mind is what they say
Now in what key do I sing my life?
In what Psalm do I find my peace

I can’t sing like I once did
Don’t have the derive of a kid,
Blind to dreams I once had
No ‘mo passion in my heart

today there will be an awakening

As you look into my heart Lord
tell me what you see
this can’t be all there is
there must be more to me

It is said with the eyes we see
the visions of the soul
so as you look int0 my heart
let me know that there is more

I rise with the Sun
to see this new day
I rise with you and know in my heart
today there will be an awakening

My less today feels like more
content I wait the opening door
In hopes I’ll find the melody
to make this day a song

So look into my heart Lord
Tell me what you see
one whose failed but hopes to rise
As you spend this day with me

mornign at the coffee shoppee

As one who is extremely hard of hearing on a rare occasion I don’t fight with the noise that continually assaults me. I turn it around and allow it to become a song – not quite a symphony – but for just for a few moments I allow it to melt into a tapestry for my ears to arrange into dynamics and crescendos of life sounds in action – sound in motion – eyes closed – eyes open – papers rustling, hot milk espresso machine screaming ‘ HOT MILK!’

Laughter of people, barking of dongs, oops, I mean dogs, people trying to be heard over the noise of other people.

Is that XM Radio or Muzak, what ever!, it competes and completes the ear show for this morning at the coffee shoppe.

Then, enough, to turn it off I finish my French Roast, cinnamon toast and go jump on my bike and ride.

Oh the silk of just the wind touching my ears.

Nice

Of a Broken Heart Tattoo

This is not about you

It’s about pain not understood

Inked in brilliant passionate colors

Of a Broken Heart Tattoo

The pain is seldom seen

Hardly ever what it seems

Pain ignores and sours hopes

Haunts awake, haunts in dreams

Pain is universal

There is so much from which to choose

It is what it is and what it could be

It’s a child gone, a parent aging, an empty bed and room

Smiles undressed are fears

Some think them to be a salve

They last but a moment, and they pass

Bright fades fast to insincere

Gurus profess its ‘mind’

Advise being master of matter

Clichés cook up my anger

Insensitivity wants me to scream

The art of love is lost

Eyes blind by tears not rain

Whoa to those who play

And geode me to explain

The hurting is inexplicable

The pain owns the soul so well

Come the time to give it up

Toss it to the devils well

The pain is seldom what you think

Hardly what it seems to be

I’m Pawn-Puppet-Sheppard-Saint

Bound to its restraining chains

This is not about you

But ‘bout pain not understood

Inked in brilliant passionate colors

Of a Broken Heart Tattoo

Her advise; Go lay down!

I’m really troubled. I am lost. My purpose driven life is with out purpose and my driven life is like a bumper car ride at the fair.

So much confusion! Running out of time. What am I?

Ok, today I DO feel like a good father, that’s one thing ugh?

But am I a musician, a writer, a…… No, it’s like that whole me is gone to weeds.

So, you tell me to go lay down and this email is the result.

Hmmm, not what you expected when you told me to chill?

Me neither.

Ok, it’s ok. I’m able to handle the next few hours of thought congestion.

All my whiney frustration goes on while you work you ass off every day in a cube farm.

I’m so spoiled; I’m a brat, off meds but still crazy, like a drunk who quits drinking but still acts like an ass hole.

I will add this to my good fatherhoodness, that I feel I do have a way with words, a way with songs too, but to what end.

That’s the point of my misery today!!!!

All of all of it, to what end?

Don’t bother answering this email. It’s just space balls.

I love you.

Quandary Face Book: Whose Got The Guts!!!

Quandary

FaceBook is becoming like TV.

I don’t watch TV.

I see it in the other room where Deb watches it constantly, Idol, Cake Boss, D Housewives, Stars dancing.

Why would anyone want to be an idol?

So you think you can dance, so what, go dance just do it with out wanting all this approval from texting Americans for it.

This curmudgeonistic view is going to take a beating I just know it.

Hopefully it will be too long for most people to read or lost on the horizon of the REMOVE button.

Then again, why do I feel the need to do “this”, it’s like wanting to be an American Anti Idol.

Meaningless, Meaningless, it’s all so meaningless. However, you must admit it takes guts.

Maybe that’s what it’s all about, guts.

OH!!! I’m getting it now.

It’s Whose Got The Guts!!!

To one who sees who I was

You are kind to refer to me in the ways you do. You remember me as I was, that is not as I am. I would wish only for your success, that what you think and feel you need to obtain through honest efforts and true passion for the gift of being able to give to others through music.
If you listen to my  songs on my cd’s you would know me better than the memories you have of me on stage.
Don’t mis read me here, I regret not a lick I played or a remark I made the people I jammed with and bantered with.
The times they change and I have changed as well. In fact, I search more for meaning in my day than places to play or songs to sing.
You my boy have been handed the torch. It’s bright in your hand, let it burn high and bright so others may see.

Joe Juliano