Food for them that's got an appetite to feel incredulous.

It comes down to bein' real, and it's so simple.

If what you've got to give is true to you--
even if it ain't ever barely clear to you,
follow it relentlessly and pour and force it forth.

What do I crave to be?

A multi-instrumentalist performer composer
who's a constant student,
who is diabolically prudent
and consistently shrewd.

A rabid writer who fills multiple forms full
with congruent dynamism.

A jazz scat freestyle rapper who can cut deep,
a playwright unveiling legions of new archetypes,
each of whom remains both real and true
both awake and asleep.

A rabid conversationalist
fluent with technology.

Who refines his crafts n skills every day
whose songs, when heard, lift from you
your need to pray.

A teacher who spurs students to forge their own way,
and hone their pursuits by the day.

A melody creator with the wry elegance of Duke,
the funk of Superstition,
vulnerability pure as Lennon's,
swagger sheer as Satchmo's,
truth raw as Joni Mitchell blue,
mystic eyed as Dylan
expansive as Whitman
concise as Emily

innovative in observation as the Bard.

Is that so much to ask?

It has never been the case
that the crown is obsequiously requested.
You take it.

I do not shudder in the slightest under the absurd
reach of my ambition. I patiently believe--
this person is already in me,
some of the one I am now is not me.

Let these spirits all pour through to infuse me utterly,
Let me become annihilated in sublimation to the forces
swirling true as the unseen world still whirls.

Embrace abandon, face the music
Carve new acres of oceans, plains and groves.
Groove.

JPS 7.16.09
written in Mt. St. Helens' shadow.