Art

But what if I told you
you can create
You can create whatever you want
I know you’ve heard
“You can be anything but not everything”
But you can
You can be everything
If you create it
You don’t have to settle into anything
This is your vision
Your creativity
Create
Have fun with it
Who said ?
Who told you?
Who made the rules?
Who ??
Go
Create
Entire worlds
Made of hurricanes
Rainbow beams
Darker imaginings
Diamond rings
Jelly beans
Pasta
Tacos
Pie
And
Cookie dough
Romance
Riches
Poverty and stitches
Skate parks
Playing cards
Cigarettes
And
Cocktails
Automobiles
And vacation homes
Sunday naps
And
And
And
You don’t have to BE one thing
You can be everything
You don’t have to settle anywhere
You can keep building
Keep climbing
Keep growing
And it changes everything
When you free yourself to create
Suddenly
You are aware
Not awake or woke
But tuned in
Like a radio
And you walk through life differently
You see
Really see

You can
Hold your love like you’ve just met them
Kiss them like you’ll never see them again
Look at them from across the room
Really see them
Understand what you’re seeing
Really take it in
Really feel it
Not just their appearance
But their energy
Their small ticks and habits
Who they are

Most people are so desperate
And have already made up their mind about things
Before they even begin
They miss the best parts of people
It’s the small things
But
When you see things with new eyes
Everything else changes
Suddenly
You’re looking at a different world than anyone else
You see the opportunities
Most people miss
Reserve
The right
To write
To create
To manifest
Whatever you want
This is yours
This is yours
Be who you want
Create what you want
You’re top shelf
No one else is like you
Stop trying to be or impress someone else
(Living or dead )
Go after – you
The future – you
And keep building on that
That’s your goal
Create it
Create the art you want to see
Create the words you want to hear
Create the life you want to live
Create
Create it
This is yours
It always has been
What else is there?

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Night is down

Full dark
No stars
The mind is lost
When
Love is blind
The night is down
She took me to Venus
With tea in her room
I’ve tried to get to you
You tried to figure me out
She said she’s got to get out
a new scene
A new town
Everything changes
When everyone stays the same
——
Full dark
No stars
The night is down
New streets
New names
But you’re still you
Is it really better now
——
I’ve got to get to you
I’ve got to get to you
The mind is lost
When love is blind
Is it really better now
Is it really better now

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

These mountains (oh children)

I was young

So much younger

Younger back then

A four minute sermon

In that church in the valley

Struggling to keep the words from running away

Like my soul

So often will

——

See that young man

In my mind

I am still him

Selling things on the highway,

as a child,

See

The couple, they are fighting…

And she hands me a notepad

Asking for me to write words

That I can not find …

Love is a garden, and you can’t harvest what you won’t grow…

—-

See the man

Trying to drown

All the pain in his eyes

My son

My daughter

My children

——

We were young

In that country

the storm’s rolling over

Putting words in these hands

The notebooks

And a broke piano

To keep them hemmed

—-

Now the world keeps on changing

Emotions,they are re-arranging

And the high doesn’t last

She’s intrigued

And curious

She’s never met an artist

With a southern sound

the ability

To outlast her California high

But I’m afraid

That I can’t stay

For my mountains they call me back

It’s in the highways

And the valleys

It’s a grit from my families old stills

And I’m afraid

She doesn’t understand

Some things

You can’t grow out here…

my sons

My sons

Don’t give yourself away

Keep your grit

Keep your faith

Keep your eyes

On these mountains

Even while you are away

Let me see

Let me stand

Let me find

My heart in my homeland

The old moonshine country

Where we live what we feel

Where we outlast

What would kill

Oh my son

My daughter

My foolish youth

I wish I could shield you

From

How a heart

Caves in like the coal mines

Standing in your empty house

Where your dreams

Your ideals

Your heart beat

And your breath

Held its last

And you swore you would not become a tombstone

As you pack all the boxes

With fractured breath

It’s just memories

Of a love that slowly died

Go to stand

In the silence

Of your cemetery

And

All that feels empty

An ideal

This house once was a home

Like the distilleries from the past ….

Oh my son

Keep your eyes

Fixed

Where a heart

Cannot drown

God bless the hands that built

All of those mines

Those stills

the homes

And these mountains

From the sand

Keep your grit

Keep your faith

Keep your eyes

Set

On all

That still stands

Now

Go

Go

When life tears you down

rebuild

See that you stand

Like these mountains

With skies in your eyes

Go

Go

And

Rebuild

With a future and a life

And carry this grit with you

It will burn warm in the night

-E

Regardingsamuel.com

Beagle in the City #300

Ethan: Well, we made it buddy.

Simon: We did?

Francis: Frashasha! (Plays drums)

Ethan: This is our 300th!

Simon: Oh boy! What’s a 300?

Ethan: We’ve been through a lot together…

Simon: Here’s a sniff back…I was saving that one…

Ethan: it was funny.

Francis: I’m buying you both a jokes book…

Beagle in the City #298

Francis: Heya wassup.
Ethan: man, I don’t know what was in the air today, but it was busy…
Simon: (sniffs air) some pizza, some bacon, some eggos,
Ethan: that’s what’s in the fridge…
Simon: Oh…
Francis: Sit down, fluff up, drink a beers…
Ethan: wait, what did y’all DO while I was gone???
Simon: …..
Francis: we napped, and we watched doctor who’s and simons threw up in the bed…and we played with the tennis ball…
Ethan: wait! Ahhh man…you want a popsicle?
Francis: I want purple!
Ethan: Not you,you’re fine…
Francis: (cough cough) oh no’s no’s no’s no’s..I gots the sick.
Simon: I don’t believe he’s ever been sick.
Ethan: Well, he’s never ate from the trash.

The moon and night

Her kiss
Stays in the lungs
Her touch becomes your shadow
This weather sticks
To your clothes
Earth to your shoes and the rain
Drives a drumbeat
Into this town
——
The wolves are circling
the blind, blind and innocent
Ready to feed
Ready to be
Believing as they see
Every self help receipt
As a homecoming
—-
Are you
Ready
Ready my child
To be free
Self work
Is a hunt
The hunt
Isn’t cheap
——
Sun and Moon in my sky
The women in my life
They’ve touched deep
Keeping to the woods
Shaded by the potions they keep
—-
Ohh my love
My love
My lovers
Can’t you see
The way
nature moves
Keeping with the night
A language
That must be taught
And yet discovered
My poetry
Runs deep
Like the water over this earth
Her potion
She keeps
Like hell and earth
A matter of means
—-/
But oh my my
The wolves are circling
Every thing is not
as it seems
There is the hunt
And the hunted
Keep the fires burning
Or let it die
But move my soul
Move move move my soul
Learn to call into the night
The language
Of the earth
And the body
These bones
——
Oh my lover,
She is not yours to own
She is not a trophy
To keep
But she has the night
And she will be
She will be free

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Lover

How selfish I am
How selfish I was
How selfish I will be

How I will hurt you, hurt me
How we will build
How we will break

How many more chances
More chances
Are we going to be strong enough to take?

Wake up to the morning Gray
Don’t you
Oh love
Don’t you
Don’t you know me better?

Don’t we all need
Don’t we all need a ballad just to –
Paint some kind of peace
Soundtrack to the rhythm and the beat
Of this weather ….
All of this weather …
We’ve got to
Be together

Oh!
Oh!
My broken Lover

Steady the hands that hold this grace

Paint me some kind of colour
Show me how we hurt
One another

Help me understand
How we can come together

How are we
How are we gonna come together

Shouldn’t I
Shouldn’t I
Know you better

How selfish I am
How selfish I was
How selfish I will be

Shouldn’t we
Shouldn’t we all know better….

Oh!
Oh!
My broke and broken lover…
Steady the hands that hold such grace

How
Many
Many
Many more chances are we gonna….

Are we gonna come together…

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Endings

The space for you…
The rituals
The beginnings
The books, the prayers, the happiness,
There are so many celebrations
For beginnings…
Prom
College
Marriage
Children
Careers
Home
——
And yet
—-
Endings
——-
We stumble through
It can go on for years
Love letters
And cakes
Easter egg hunts on sundays
Turn to words
That shadow our thoughts
Like the echo of sirens in the city
There is hurt here…
That we all have felt
Familiar
Ache and
Loneliness
But we are not alone
You are still you
You are still whole
You deserve a ritual for this ending
You are my relationship
This community share
——
She said she wanted to be happy and loved and not sad
She wanted all the things …
She had tried prayer
She had tried meditations
She had tried it all
—-
Maybe, she said, maybe, sadness, is just as big in us, as happiness, maybe endings, are just as big as beginnings, knowing when to let go, when to be gentle, when to leave,
When to just sit with it…
Get to know it
And us
Like Jimmy Stewart and Harvey
——
Maybe we try to hide these parts
of ourselves, because …
It says there is hurt here
There is ache here
When, by all appearances
Things should be well…
Whatever that means…
She said
She did all the right things
And she still feels alone ….
We have children, telling us what true love is…
Religion telling us to wait
The physical act,
Something so powerful and so insignificant …
It keeps us from knowing such a deep part of ourselves…
And our daughters our children
Are loved badly
In the beds of lovers who don’t even know…

I thought about how l have surely hurt
Trying not to hurt …
How I’ve held to words that hurt me …
And tried to be colder
Because it is all so legal
The ending…
Cut down to a signature
And a transaction …
And in other ways so religious
But none of it human
None of it
Just says
Here, I feel you,
I’m here with you,
And when you mess up trying to navigate this, I will still be here…
——
I wanted a love that was giving the last warmth …
The last ember…
on the coldest night …
After a lifetime of knowing me…
Of knowing there is nothing left for me to give…
There is no surprises hidden…
No potential…
No lessons left for you to teach me
How to “be.”
“Oh you’re interesting.
Oh I’ll show you all about this.”
I wanted to be a safe space
Where you can rest…
Where you can end
Where you can begin again…
—-
Because
You are whole
You are still you
It may feel selfish
To cry
To say goodbye
But how grand it is
To know,
That you have danced
That you have given space
For someone else’s dance
For someone else’s prayer
And breakfast
For someone to rest
And see their god
From your porch
For someone
To be able to say goodbye
So they can begin again.

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Live what you believe

It’s national poetry month,
I’m thankful,
For so much,
I think the older I get,
The more I understand the need for quiet peace
For solitude
I’m thankful for writing
For art
I’m thankful for friends
I’m thankful for a career
That enables me to pursue my art
And supplies associates like me, with the tools we need to level up.
Not only with benifits but with off time, Vacation time,
Vaccines, healthcare, raises, retirement, training and goal setting,
I got vaccinated today,
I work in a major city,
I’ve seen everyone so burned out
I just hope
I hope
I hope you level up
I hope you reach your goals
I hope you dream in art
I hope you make the art you dream of
I hope you continue
I hope you continue
Calmly
Quietly
Succeeding
And winning
But mostly
Living
Living and loving
I hope
You win
I hope we all do
And why shouldn’t we?
What else is there?
-E
Regardingsamuel.com