Dream Trancendence

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Musical Accompaniment:

Band of Horses - Blue Beard

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It’s when I’ve forgotten that I’ve missed her when she finally appears
And after waking from my dream, I find my face is lined with tears

The Utopian illusion shows me just what could have been
The life we could have had, the one I’m awaiting to begin

Only together have we a chance, of nothing else am I more sure
Without her life is futile and difficult to endure

In the bardo, I’ll rejoice, to finally hold her once more
And the next life will be easier, that’s what these lives are for

I’ve gotten good at traveling, I’ll find her, there’s no doubt 
I know what I’m searching for and I’ll hear her calling out

Enemy

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Musical Accompaniment:

Explosions in the Sky - The Birth and Death of the Day (Jesu Mix)

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Written August twenty-fourth, at a quarter past three

In the rain and the moonlight, for my enemy:

It's been over half a year since we last exchanged words

Mine were respectfully cordial, though apparently for the birds

I listened to your arguments and excepted them as fact

But I no longer believe them after seeing you react

There must be a deeper meaning, for your actions make no sense

Yet to this day, to my dismay, I still struggle with your pretense

Maybe I was to your fancy but not up to your standard

Maybe it just seemed that way since to my lechery you pandered

Maybe you need the drama to make sense of your existence

Though I really don't appreciate you forcing my assistance

And these are all just speculations, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt

If the end of our "friendship" was truly all it brought about

But that's simply not the case, as you know all too well

To put it into your own words: "I'll make your life a living Hell"

Though I have to disappoint you there, you are indeed an irritation

Because now I have an enemy - a source of great frustration

Your pride's too big to swallow, live and let live is your surrender

You should've learned by now, as you are not a first offender

So here I put to paper, now at twenty past three

Yet some more honest words, with which you'll disagree

All this awkwardness and discomfort, it was easy to foresee

For nothing good has ever come from making an enemy

Wendung

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Musical Accompaniment:

The War On Drugs - Eyes to the Wind

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Beinah habe ich die Hoffnung aufgegeben
Dann endlich fand ich was, um meine Laune doch zu heben

Für eine Wendung ist nun Zeit, ich spüre es im Wind
Auch wenn der Sturm vernichtend war, wurd' ich vor Wut nicht blind

Bestärkt bin ich stattdessen, hab' mein Leben in der Hand
Und beherrscht wird es ab jetzt von der Vernunft und dem Verstand

Ich stell' mich gern gegen die Strömung, mit der Brise im Gesicht

Anstatt mich zu verstecken genieße ich das Licht

The Phenomenon

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Musical Accompaniment:

Explosions in the Sky - What Do You Go Home To (Mountains Mix)

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Dozens of broken bottles

Began to wash up on the shore

And even as we went to bed

There just kept coming more

Days later the phenomenon

Had reached its apparent end

So I went out onto the beach

And in my book, these words I penned:

"It is strange to find such beauty

Amidst such catastrophe"

For as the morning sun caught the colored glass

I heard the world call out to me

And I learned things in that moment

As I stood awe-struck in the sand

I learned that hardly anything

Will ever turn out as planned

There doesn't have to be a reason

Things can happen just because

And life doesn't seem to have a purpose

But I learned then that it does

For, rationally, I knew

There must be some absurd explanation

But what this happening meant to me

Was up to my interpretation

And I finally I understood

The sheer simplicity of it all

That life is what you make of it

Triumphs and failures great and small

And in the face of negativity

There is but one thing to be done

You must find beauty in the chaos

Like broken bottles in the sun

Relapse

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Musical Accompaniment:

Noah Gundersen - Ledges

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I threw out my shoulder
Skipping stones across the creek
Another sign I’m getting older
I’ve grown tired and I’m weak

It’s been a year since Whimsical Poverty
And though I did make some progress
I’ve accepted this beard as part of me
And I’ve more or less regressed

Twenty years from now
When I look back on all of this
Will I still be asking how
Or will it seem obvious

My liver’s taken a beating
From every cent I’ve earned this year
History once again repeating
And the beginning’s drawing near

So we begin another trip
Around our lonely sun
Though we’re sailing on a broken ship
Staring down the barrel of a gun

So I slip into a reverie
To escape the situation
I give myself up to a memory
And lose all sense of concentration

If I’m lucky I’ll maintain this state
And I’ll never see it coming
Because while sober I can see my fate
And there’s nothing that’s more numbing

The Autumn Effect

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Musical Accompaniment:

10 Years - The Autumn Effect

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We are of three pieces: body, mind and soul

If one were to die, we no longer would be whole

Some people are just rabbits but a few of us are the fox

And we find out who is who at the autumnal equinox

When the world coldly turns away from prospect and sunshine

Then the simplicity of life begins slowly to decline

The scent of death is in the air as the winds begin to pick of speed

And even the mightiest of oaks eventually will concede

The storms wrack the coastline and put a chill into our bones

And the rabbits among the sailors are given to Davy Jones

Silence and beauty flee, replaced by withering decay

Hardship, fear and hunger will form this night's soiree

To make it through the autumn is never a guarantee

It is indeed a test of our inner trinity

Of body, mind and soul, each of them must survive

For a person's not a person if even one of them is deprived

Yet Nature will do her best to rob you of all three

This is the way of life; it's easy to foresee

Each year it is the same as we prepare for the long haul

And yet countless is the number of those that take the Fall

They've lost one of their pieces and are now considered doomed

That's why there's so many rabbits: to make up for those consumed

For when the night sets in, it's the foxes that prevail

And they are not obliged to help the ones that fail

The Pursuit

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Musical Accompaniment:

Noah Gundersen - Honest Songs

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Sometimes it seems a mystery how people get along

If we are single music notes, how'd we ever make a song

For we are all so different, we're all going different ways

And no one can agree upon how best to solve the maze

So we make the same mistakes all over when we should've learned from them

We're quick to quick to take offense but even quicker to offend

And the song we sing is more than multilingual

It's the meaning of life and it's actually quite simple

We've become champions of survival and so possess more time for the pursuit

But the way out of this maze called life we constantly dispute

The answers to our questions have grown too hard to ascertain

Everything that's fed to us is laced with vanity and cocaine

Our lives are over-salted and we've forgotten the real taste

The way we deal with loss is to have our things replaced

But emotional investment makes no two things ever the same

With each loss, a tiny piece of us is given to the flames

And our physical possessions, our connections great and small

They will be the reasons for our eventual downfall

The words of all our prophets are constantly ignored

Or even worse: misunderstood and accredited to a lord

Thousands of years it's been like this, we don't know any other way

We worship our false idols though they're leading us astray

And yet the problem isn't difficult, we just have to take the time to think

We're so close to the solution but we must replace our vices with instinct

Entlieben (II)

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Musical Accompaniment:

Josh Groban - Now or Never

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Desperately searching for something I haven’t already said
There are much better things one could do on a bed

We’re still lying awake at 3AM
All of my arguments, you still condemn

I know in the morning this will start up once more
Our passive-aggressiveness has become a cold war

So I throw in the towel and go to bed bitter
Wishing that I could call in a pinch hitter

I don’t see how either of us can be considered mature
It’s at times like these I don’t see the allure

A family and kids, a house with a garden…
This might sound awful but if I may beg pardon

Love is a socially-accepted form of insanity
It’s a plague inflicting all of humanity

I kicked the habit, I think it was long overdue
It was a battle but I eventually pulled through

Falling out of love was an alleviation
Indeed the highest form of emancipation

My heart and my mind belong solely to me
You can't own them any more than the shade of a tree

Though I may still loan them if I feel inclined
They remain with me when you leave me behind

I’m happy like this, honest I am
And if you don’t believe me, I don’t give a damn

Because love is a drug and it’s so hard to quit
I learned a lot about love when I fell out of it