New Location

You can now find all of my ramblings and musings at http://zachfarrow.wordpress.com . I needed a fresh start and was pretty of sick of using the email address for this account (as it was only used for this and conflicted with my other google account - very annoying.) So please, I invite you to come to 'The Clearing' where I will hopefully blog much more regularly and with a lot more to say.

Thanks for your continued readership!
-Zach

Forest Tent Caterpillar

It is now officially spring. The swarm of caterpillars has arrived, preparing to defoliate every tree in reach. Get fat, get healthy and live, before the summer rains wash you away.

Outside my door, now: forest tents,
Caterpillars heralding spring.
My shutter is weak; I am lacking,
But wish to remember so much life.

Outside my door, today, tomorrow:
Dicentric, leaving them hungry;
We collect the love and eat it,
Swelling each time our moth-wings flutter.

I went to the gym, on my walk back I noticed the tree exploding and took a few photographs:

There are no wild flowers

A poem written today:

There are no wild flowers, just undiscovered -
Waiting to be tread around by the soft steps
Of adventurers:
Botanists with a lust for the lost ones
And hats to keep the sun from their eyes,
Still allow you to bathe in it.
These are I, your suitors.
And I, I would take you with me if you would not die.

Fragmentary Rambles

Things have been near-surreal lately. I've reentered a part of my life I had grown to miss and, I, once again, am starting to feel like I am merely being swept along by fates and Gods. There is a helplessness to it, but also a great comfort. If all I do is surrender to my fate, not much room is left for me to botch what's given to me.

And what's been given to me? I have the most natural, inspiring, naturally inspiring, and wholly endorphin-inducing thing imaginable. I feel as if I am entering a sort of indefinite creative revival. I have something to say again. Actually, it isn't so much that I have something to say, but that I have somebody to say it to.

I've learned things, and had rare moments of retrospective understanding. I'm being passionate again, and I'm trying not to stop. My head is above water and I'm breathing deep, in this choke-hold of a town. I might even fight it off permanently if I can hang around long enough.

Sort of fragmentary and not my best writing, but it feels good to write at all.

I wrote this over the past few weeks, it is still untitled:

I had my morning cigarette while you were still lying in bed
I shifted through my skin and all the clothes that we shed
I was halfway to my home and halfway to my death
In Carolina
I was halfway on my own and half clutched to your breast
In Carolina

Maybe I just needed to feel the start
Maybe I just needed to feel a start
I got pulled away hard

A different way of feeling things has led me to a sun-burning face
In happiness, like hurricanes: the very heart is the place to stay
I was blown from coast to coast, follow the eye, I am a ghost
In Carolina
I was taught to love the most, follow the eye, they’re speaking prose
In Carolina

Maybe I just needed to feel the start
Maybe I just needed to feel a start
I got pulled away hard

My heart is older than my face will tell
But I will love you well

Yr Break

I'm feeling really inspired lately on account of a few things:

1) Went to a really cool poets' open mic night on Friday (?), I believe.
2) I went to Borders (gasp) and left with Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and Collected Poems 1947-1997 of Allen Ginsberg.

Since these two excursions I've written two songs, finally schedule the end of my tenure at the Omega Studio School and, as of tonight, have written 1.5 poems. I'm finding it really liberating to write in a medium I'm not accustomed to. It forces me to bend my thoughts. Its like artistic exercise - I can feel the benefits kicking in during this period of increased productivity.

I've come to the conclusion that I have no idea how to go about reading a collection of poems - especially a body of work encompassing 50 years...I decided to get out a pencil and just read page by page. I'm marking up the pages and hopefully I'll go back to them to reassess previous musings.

I'm actually quite proud of the poem I just wrote. I feel like a huge amateur (because I am), but from my limited knowledge I would guess it is in free verse form. Its relatively short, but I always valued the concise (haiku, anyone?). I titled it 'Yr Break' in a nod to the beat poetry that inspired it.

'Yr Break'

How different you must have been
In your un-festered youth –
Still reading and writing your way
To a short, if well-deserved, break.
I like to imagine you this way:
Pristine and holy before you were halved
By wholesome fibers and self-expectations.

The park you spent most of those days in
Was a stranger in old clothes.
He spoke to you in quatrains
And lolled ideals hung like curtains [concealing].
Next to this man you smiled lightly,
Seduced by the nature in which he seduced.
‘Let him fuck her’, I think, and strike another Camel.

The Boxer Is Gone

First off, the Green Bay Packers get to play at home against the Giants for the Conference Championship - hell yes! I am so excited about that.

I went out tonight to the FAA show (Dylan Gilbert, The Bronze Episode, Bottle Up and Go, Tereu Tereu) and hung around for most of it. I didn't take anybody along for the ride, which could have been pretty weird, but I guess I'm sort of used to it. I saw some familiar faces and it wasn't so bad hanging out by myself at a show. It would have been way better but I wasn't way into the first two acts. I would have been interested to see Dylan Gilbert with a full band - he had lots of presence and energy - but, The Bronze Episode just wasn't my cup of tea (though the lead vocalist did play the Palo Escrito Tele that I'm going to get next week). Bottle Up and Go were exciting to watch - loud, bluesy, gutsy, and just fun. I don't think I could listen to it at home, but for a live show it was some cool shit. I left during their last song mainly I think because Mark called and I walked out to answer, but also because I felt sort of old and sort of tired.

I talked to Phelan (Bassist, Rocky's Revival) and we'll probably be getting started with recordings in a few weeks. I'm really excited. These guys are an extremely gifted band...and SO YOUNG! I think Phelan said he was the oldest and a junior in high school(?!). Insane! It should be a lot of fun to work with them, plus I could use a little extra butter.

In other news, I wrote a song a couple days ago to solidify the fact that I am over my writer's block (knock on wood). I went old school with it and went down to Hyperion with a pack of cigarettes (gasp!) and a notebook and wrote all the lyrics. I came back and it just shot out. Mark really liked it and I'll probably get down to recording it this week, along with 'Brilliant Moon'. I really need to get some work done. It's called 'The Boxer is Gone'.

I'll post the lyrics:

I feel like the fog
Rolling over everything
I feel like the fog
Rolling over everything
Never changing anything

I don’t know what’s wrong with me
Watching cars on William Street
Nobody wants my company

In this town, in this shape, out of tune
I’m waiting for my noon
I’m waiting for high noon

Got marks on my hands
I’m the hole in my plans
I’m cut at the lip
Cos I froze in the snow
The boxer is gone, I know

I don’t know how to take this light
Everything gets washed to white
The exposure’s never right

In this town, in this shape, out of tune
I’m waiting for my noon
I’m waiting for high noon
I’m a shout in a wave crashing soon
I’m waiting for my noon
I’m waiting for high noon

Quick Update

I just wanted to post real quick and let everybody know that, until they aren't, all of my songs on myspace will be available for free download. Isn't that a teaser!?! I also updated them to show the lyrics if you're about that.

So go download the fab four and plaster them everywhere and in every form of digital media you can muster!

A Lover's Lie

I finished mixing 'A Lover's Lie' last night and posted it on myspace/facebook. I think its sort of a big step for me production-wise; it constantly changes, yet still retains some continuity. When songs turn out like this it makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile.

I hope it's received well by my more critical friends, but I'm going to try and remember not to think about the expectations. I want to keep my music pure and innocent. I still can't believe it when people tell me that they still love and listen to 'In Retrospect' (my first ever recording project). It came up the other day with some friends and they explained it really well. They told me that the thing that made the album great was the fact that it was so naive and innocent. It was dark lyrically, but somehow retained this light, youthful feeling that made it very representative of our demographic. Someone mentioned that I need to be careful not to overthink things now that I've been doing this awhile, and they're probably right. If I let my music become too high-strung or mechanical I'll lose what made it good to begin with.

I know I can't write those light and youthful songs anymore, because I don't feel light or youthful. I feel tired and somewhat stricken by the things that I do to myself. I feel like if I left myself alone for too long I would destroy what was left of me - not in a suicidal sense, but like I'm constantly tearing at the fiber that holds me together. I think the only reason I'm not unstable and fraying is because I refuse to believe its so. I'm older than I am but I've yet to do anything. I hope after I get away from the stagnancy of Fredericksburg I might recapture my spirit - I think that's really the only hope I have.

The song is here:

"The last time I saw you you were on a missing sign..."

I saw someone I haven't seen in 4, maybe 5 years and it doesn't cease to amaze me or weird me out. You know how whenever you see a long lost friend-type, one of the people never remembers the other? I'm always that guy. I always remember somewhere between halfway between the chance encounter and 5 minutes after its over. Today, fortunately (maybe?), I remembered at about the halfway point. I think we'll be in touch, but I don't really know what for. It feels like one of those fated encounters that are the result of a string of seemingly coincidental events and lead to anything from a life-long relationship to another seemingly coincidental event. At this point in my life I’m sort of hoping for the latter. I feel like that’s kind of a sad thing to hope for, but I guess its okay to desire solitude. Sam goes back in a few days; I’ll record, I’ll write - it’ll be good to get back to work after this sort of social holiday I’ve been taking.

In other news, I finished the song based on the below-mentioned haiku by Issa. Its called ‘Brilliant Moon’. I suppose I’ll post the lyrics.

She sat in her room with all of the others
I sat in my room
We’re acting like love for all of our lovers
We’re acting like love
It’s growing like her cancer
Locked away but loose again, buying time

Brilliant moon, tell me it’s not true
That, you too, must pass in a hurry

I packed all my things and headed for the depot
I packed all my things
I left them behind, but now they overtake me
I left them behind
I fought it like a cancer
But I can’t seem to pass it like the time, she's on my mind

Brilliant moon, tell me it’s not true
That, you too, must pass in a hurry
Brilliant moon, the hand that keeps me down
Is the hand that keeps you coming round