La la la la la la la la la la la la la la

Ah, icky thump, who'da thunk sittin' drunk on a wagon to Mexico

Ah well, what a chump, well, my head got a bump when I hit it on the radio

Redhead señorita looking dead came and said, "Need a bed?" in Español

I said, "Gimme a drink of water, I'm gonna sing around the collar, and I don't need a microphone"

Icky thump with a lump in my throat grabbed my coat and I was freaking, I was ready to go

And I swear besides the hair she had one white eye, one blank stare, looking up, lying there

On the stand near her hand was a candy cane, black rum, sugar cane, dry ice, something strange

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la

White Americans, what, nothing better to do, why don't you kick yourself out? 

You're an immigrant too, who's using who? What should we do?

Well, you can't be a pimp and a prostitute too

Icky thump, handcuffed to a bunk, robbed blind, looked around, there was nobody else

Left alone, I hit myself with a stone, went home and learned how to clean up after myself

2010 Soundtrack

In Progress

shoot #2 w/ Alexandros Megas

Chewing The Match

Sitting there

In a dark restaurant

3pm in the afternoon

Baseball cap on low

Dark sunglasses

Chewing the match

With English teeth

Legends

And whether

They’re created

Or remembered

Contemptuous ideals

Flesh made flesh

From book shaped boxes

Full of writings

Long since packed away

I suppose its real

At least on some level

When you’re in it

Living it…

But I have to wonder

If as you get older

And upon realizing it

And I hope

That if, like me

You’ll have the sense of humour

About who you were

While you were becoming

Who you’ll be…

There is magic in the world

But it can’t be packaged and sold

We each walk a path

And magic doesn’t work

The same for everyone

Beware your heroes

For that was theirs to uncover

But when they try to package

And sell it

All they’re selling

Is the lie…

The image

Nothing more

Than the beat

With English teeth

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

My Baby

No Ordinary Moments

Her Voice

Holding your tiny hands to help you sleep

Holding you in my arms, pressing you against my lips

Watching the smallest of movements in your fingertips

So much more beauty in the ordinary moments

Than I ever could conceive

This flowering soul

Entrusted to me to name

I look into your face and know

I’ll always see the same

And in between the lines

Connected by fate

And in between the longing

For better ways to communicate

I find myself in unfamiliar waters

This piece of meat, my flesh and blood

Crawls inside of me, a cancer

Penetrates every single part of me

The recognition that I have a daughter

How the sound of her voice

Can improve my mood

How looking into her eyes and seeing my own

Proves to me the existence of the divine

This miracle of human design

Fears of the dead and dying resurface

And my focus becomes concentrated

Tomorrow is a promise to no one

Priority to arrow the purpose

To raise this child

To never let that divine spark die

To be raised by this child

By embracing what’s uncomfortable

And having faith in the why

To never sacrifice the potential for success

For fear of the failure that could come

To not limit the self to perfection or even greatness

The art, the beauty, and the fulfillment

Knowing the true path to happiness

Comes only through the expression

To embrace the paradox

That the only perfection found

Is found in the imperfection

To turn the hanged man upside down

And watch him dance

To embrace every shadow

Leaving nothing to chance

To embrace the world

And with it, all change

To embrace being wrong

And loving it the same

To have the faith

That everything truly is in its right place

The way life pummels you, to take it in stride

To be confident that you paid for this ride

To learn to be alone without the need

To look forward to love without the greed

To never allow the world to dictate the passions of the heart

To spit in the face of feeble judgments

And to turn it all to art

It’s inevitable

That one day I’ll be gone

And I won’t lie to promise you

That I know from the other side

I’ll be looking down

None of us knows for sure

What lies on the other side

Faith has served me in my life

But for yours, the choice is yours to decide

I know I’ll always be with you

If nothing else, then in my writings

Especially these lines

I love you little girl

But give yourself the greatest gift

And never forget to love yourself

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Everything Is Beautiful

courtesy of grandma millie-moo

A Day For Change

Sofia Marie, 7.2.10

Awake

I've spent most of my life

Observing
What our supposed humanity
Imposes
Upon our actual humanity
I've seen what it does
To the soul
To the life and spirit

In us all

Our societies institutions,
Each of its grandest ideas

Each of the collective manifestations
And every one of our leaders

The political, the religious
…And even the spiritual
All, possessed…

By the feeble minded attempts
To reach our highest
To reach the divine visions
In us all
But they never seem to quite measure up
These would-be heavenly institutions
Ways to solve any and all problems
Paths laid with good intentions
But they always fall short
Always fall
Eventually…

We are divine
But we are not here to be divine
And every time we try
We'll fall short of the divine
Because in our minds
We know…
Only in our hearts
In our souls
Can that divine power shine

Society, all of us assembled
In our ‘collective’ humanity
We conquer by divide…
We separate and label
And give name to all the animals
To the sky, the creatures

Each of the features
And everything else

We label to separate
The feministic, and misogynistic
The right, and left
The conservative, and liberal
The democrat, and republican
The Muslim, and the Jew
The Christian, and the Atheist

Coins, each with 2 sides

One and the same
But labeled to divide

But to live, to truly live…
It’s not about being divided
And it’s not even about being one

From what I’ve seen

And what inspires me…
It’s about being yourself
Living fearless and unapologetic
With heart, and passion!
Character, and substance!
And true compassion…
The power comes from defiance
Energy, and inspiration
Come from this same defiance
Defying all that ‘humanity’ imposes
Upon the breath of the heart
This conformity,
The death of the soul
Slow death!

The slowest of the slow…

And after living this much of my life
Searching for the balance
Between
Conforming
And feeling my heart scream
The only thing that inspires me
Are the acts of people
Who defy outwardly
This delusion in conformity
There are at least three ways
Of looking at anything
At it… In it…
And through it…
The only way to listen to your heart
Is to listen to your own voice
And your own voice only!
Not the voice of reason
Nor the voices

Of humanity’s betrayal and treason
People will always, often
Try to talk to you about what’s important
But no two people
Share the exact same beliefs
And no two people
Are ever fully connected at the seams
So any lofty denial

Should never be
An ambition
Especially not the idealized entrapment

Of normalcy…

Trust nothing
Yet ignore nothing
Watch the seeds
That people around you
Attempt to plant
See through their ambitions
Their agendas
Then release yourself
From their expectations of you
Give yourself the gift
Of maniacal unapologetic laughter
In the face of their manipulation
In the wake of their imposed guilt
And never breathe either in
People will always find ways
To have their feelings hurt
And maybe it will be your face that they see
When finally
They scare themselves
Awake!

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Easier

If you really want to understand,
To see
Where a person lacks integrity
Listen
To the words they choose
To the temper they lose
Every word has multiple meanings
And every word gives away
Its definitions
In the way it sounds
In the way it was constructed
And in the way they chose
The context of the crafted prose

We all get what we came here for
Our hands hold the only guilt
For opening each of these doors
Its the difference between
The mistake
And holding onto the belief
That you didn’t make it
Retrospect and hindsight aligned
The proof following in the unfolding of time
In the so many ways

I've so often lost my way

So many of the harmful influences
I’ve time and again allowed in
So many of the illusions
Where I've put on the blinders
And believed them in
I sit and watch it all
The past playing like
Black and white projections
Upon the wall
The friends come, gone,
And come again…
The love come, gone,
And come again…
The potential come, gone,
And come again…
But the tiger doesn’t change his stripes
And the angst ridden boys
Can’t let go of the strife
But like they say
Can’t lives on wont street
And no matter how much you'd like to
You’re never quite able
To wish that away

It’s obvious

That the most of us
Don’t ever really ‘grow up’
We simply choose a direction
And unfortunately
Through the recapitulation of the path
And the recabitchulation of the wrath
I've come to realize
That the hate

Has always been
Easier

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

The Feeling

It was a cold day in April

Not quite yet spring

The sky seemed often overcast

Matching my drifting moods in those recurring days

I could feel the coldness in my cheeks

And perhaps that’s all

I understood that it was time again

I knew that things had somehow changed

Not by some choice

But by simple recognition

I had somehow managed to outgrow my own life

Again

Things soon fell into their natural order

And life became increasingly quieter

I knew that I too

Had changed

Months passed

And I’d spent much of them alone

Finding simple ways to occupy my time

Never feeling quite at home

I’d sometimes struggle

For meaning

For some stretch of understanding

But it made no difference

I’d even sometimes fiddle with hope

I waited for some moment of precognition

But nothing came

And eventually I’d forget

My preoccupation

And became immersed in

New distractions…

New ways

Of living life…

Daily life…

And little haunted me in those coming days

And those feelings slowly faded away

Many years have passed since then

And I can’t say I’d even recognize him

But retrospect shows the many dips in the road

And I can say with some clarity

That no matter what we feel

In those eras, what’s real

Is all lack of logical understanding

When this world opened me up

It was for me to fill the cup

And I may never know what it all meant

But what I’m truly left with is

That sometimes what’s important

Is just the feeling

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Fading Oblivion

I watch them fade

Back into the distance

Back to where they probably came from

Back to where they belong

Satellites drifting

Into their clusters

Into their likeness

Into oblivion…

And I’m not sorry, and I’m not sad

Because it’s been so long now that it’s felt this way

That I couldn’t begin to pretend to feel bad

And I'm reminded of Whitman

Not to mock them for their humanity

But I'm literally disgusted by the hypocrisy

The impotent façade of positivity

Forgetting the balance of both

Yes, even the negativity

You who claim to understand karma

You who claim ‘allergy’ to drama

You’ve created a safe haven, a nest

A dream getaway for today, at best

You’ve become but a shadow

Of all you once were

A child, full of breath, and alive

With passion, with heart

Yes, one who often bled

But one who always seemed to understand

That therein was the art

And only I have watched you

Through the linear and non-linear years

Putting in all that valid work

Trying so hard… just to get here…

Your medicines, your years of therapy

Your religion and your science

This brood to which you bachelor

This mask to which you’ve mastered

This divinity to which you’ve doctored

Show me one person, just one person

That it’s truly healed

Not helped, but healed…

Not worshipping the supposed anecdotes and trials

Nor left addicted to its candy, the ever-welcoming denial

Because the true healing happens

Only in the subconscious mind

Inside the deepest of emotional tides

But your definition of help is relative

And your meds, so much more than contraceptive

Crutches: the toolbox, the carpenter, and the cross

Useful ways to explain the unwanted away

Sacrificing so much beauty

As acceptable loss

You’ve forgotten so much of who you truly are

Forgotten the passion, the truth, the heart

Lost even your ability to write

Believing to your soul

In the methods, the might

That they actually possessed the power

To make everything alright

That this trusted wand was yours to wield

To abolish all of that deep-rooted fear

To make each moment of doubt, the most

But ‘-did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?

And what have you found?
Yeah, the same old fears…

…wish you were here…-’ (pf)

And as it suits you, I can take the blame

The belief demolitionist is a mask I wear

With pride, not with shame

I tear it all down like the beast I am

Because that’s what I do

It’s what I’ve been gifted & able to do

And yes, I choose to enjoy it as much as I can

But you can call me by name

Because I accept my nature

My failures and strengths, the same

I don't hurt people for fun

I shoot fire in attempts to wake them

Often yes, by tearing them down

Not out of some writhing angst

But from this place, is love

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Better

To do better…

To be better…

Where do these ideas come from?

Self-congratulatory visions of utopia…

Because one can always do better

In the eyes of a world

That ignores

What it means

To live with
Heart!

Sitting around all day

Making 2cent analysis

About everyone you know

At the end of that day

All you’ll really know

For sure

Is that you wasted the day...

And all your little diagnosis’s

Are only distractions

From what you actually need to deal with

…Your fear

…Your shame

…Your regret

All the things you don’t want to see

The answers you feel

But turn out anyway

Because, to you

There’s no answer to your dilemma

But only because the answer that’s come

Isn't valid to you

Peer-driven desires

To reconcile things in life

That are contradictory

Or at least, appear to be

All so you can have

The things

You think

You want
But that’s not going to happen

And when you finally realize that

You’ll try

You’ll try to change the world around you

By changing

Or trying to change

The people around you

But that’s not going to happen either

What you need to do

Is open your eyes

To what you don’t want to see

This muted witness to its own life

Afraid

Even when it pretends

It isn’t

Afraid of getting to that point

Where it can admit

That you can never truly know anyone

And that you currently

Don’t

To admit being

Alone

Its this fear

That makes someone filled with regret

Attempt to fill their thoughts

With faith

In religious promises

Of the afterlife

…Not another life

But the afterlife…

Because they don’t want another life

They want rewards,

…Gifts for their 'sacrifices'

Not another life

To take what’s been learned onward

They don’t want to take it with them

When they go

Why?

Because they’ve wasted this life

Doing better…

Or trying to

And being better…

Or trying to

Placing their faith in integrity

All their actions filled with integrity

And every righteous choice made

Based upon that same integrity

Not from the dreams that screamed

From deep within their hearts

Too many of us believe in advice

A word all too often

Misinterpreted as wisdom

Advice that sounds righteous, utopian

Or filled with integrity

But the mask is pretentious, at best

Hiding the fact

That all it’s ever served to do
Was to help someone

Who’d long since forgotten how to live with heart

Cope with regret

As they were bleeding out whatever worth was left

From their aging bodies

And their saddened souls

So please

Don’t give advice

Or at least

Don’t ever give me advice

On how to be ‘better’

Or about being ‘better’

Do me the favor

Of only giving me advice

That’s actually

Made you inspired

That’s actually

Kept your heart

Like that of a child’s

Alive!

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Work

They open the doors

They take care of us

They introduce us to

Others like us

They pick up the pieces

The things we choose not to do

Not to take part in

Not to indulge in

Not to waste

Our time with

And for this

We allow it

But not that alone

It’s from them that we get

The candy we want

The beauty that is beyond us

The taste of skin

Of sex

Of success

The shiny toys

We’ve always lacked

The ones we never felt worthy of

All the missing pieces

But time folds

And not in our favor

We fall to sleep

Eternally

And in our wake

They’re left to tell our stories

Through the veils of their perceptions

And those perceptions

Through the veil of their own worth

And so they tell the story

Accentuating each moment

Where credit can be theirs

Finding someway towards

Their own worth in yours

You are dead

Immortalized in some documentary

Or some television hour

Tainted by their vision

Of their own 15 minutes

Of worth

But it’s your worth

Your fame

And they forget that

It was your vision

All along

Long before

They’d come along

Nothing is free in this world

And I guess

We have to remember

All

That is truly worthy

Is our work

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Tools

It’s a complicated way to be

Mainly, me

Torn between two ways of being

Fitting in

And not

Living two lives

What I should be doing

And all the other things

I should be doing

One born of responsibility

And the other

Born of intuitive seeds

In not making choices

The choices are still being made

Time is a wastin

But that’s not scary enough

To make the most of us

Move

Fear is a powerful tool

But whose hands weild it in your life

You?

Or the fear itself?

Tools are all we need

In order to see

Just a little bit

Differently

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

All Before

Weep for yourself, my man
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep little lion man
You're not as brave as you were
At the start...
Rate yourself, and rake yourself
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head..
But it was not your fault, but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear,? Didn't I, my dear?

Tremble for yourself, my man
You know that you have seen this all before
Tremble little lion man
You'll never settle any of your scores
Your grace is wasted in your face
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck
Now learn from your mother..
Or else spend your days biting your own neck

But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear?

Meditation

What It Felt Like

There was something about her

That made me want her

Although

She drove me insane

I hated her little chirps

Her games

But in her presence

I felt inspired

Fearless

In awe

I wanted her

Badly

The way she moved

The way she smelled

The way she paid attention

But things

As always

Were more complicated than that

We sparred

Figuratively

Actually

It was more of a dance

She wanted to see me

I wanted to show her

And so

Neither of us

Got what was

Desired

And the game

Became played

I opened another door

And closed this one

But I’ve not forgotten

What it felt like

To be inspired

And alive

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn

Starving The Indulgences

As if the need arises

From the empty silences

From the uncomfortable moments

Of old connections

Now known to be long since lost

Be it family

Or friends from previous lives

You can taste it, smell it

When there isn’t very much to say

…To speak of

…Or even to compare

But you don’t act yourself

It’s that something in you

That holds you back

Stemming from the obviously fears

Fear of those who once held you in high esteem

Releasing you

From their expectations of you…

And so it begins

The mentioning of forgotten names

And the latest gossip

Of anyone you’ve shared history with

They start to chatter

And you start to chatter

To indulge

To speak so far beneath you

And anything you may believe

You’d typically say

And it doesn’t matter

If it’s your father

…Or your gay brother

…Or your sick sister

…Or your dead mother

You’ll speak ill upon them anyway

And for what purpose?

To avoid some uncomfortable moment

To strive for some sickened level of comfort

Through the chatter

Through the noise

Through the bowels

…Of foulness

Or is it the need to compare?

To find some way to “better than”

Due to some rising insecurity

But it doesn’t matter

What your specific reason

May be

Because nothing excuses it!

And I find it disgusting

Yet I’ve found myself doing it

Repeatedly…

…All the same

It takes a really strong person

To be who they truly are

In a world like ours

To fight the urges

To starve the indulgences

To embrace the silences

And to be righteous

Without acting righteous…

I watch myself fall short

Of who I believe I am

Of who I know I am

And I don’t like it

Yet… here I am

But I think its time

For the giant sleeping to arise

For this part of me not to escape

But to regain fighting the good fight

There’s far too much at stake

Mainly, my life

Because I’m no one to judge

But somehow that doesn’t seem quite enough

There are far too many indulgences

That I’ve allowed …in myself

And more …in others…

My will must be more than this

More than these lives

Ripe in their pettiness

There are no pretty severed ties

All that’s left to fester in the fray

And you yourself the only water

To wash it all away…

ⓒ 2010 Shawn Michael Quinn