oh hey, do you remember the first time you saw me, 

did you think to yourself that you were sorry 
for what would become of you and I


oh I can still remember thinking to myself how much like a mountain you were, stoney faced and weathered and your hands were like stones that fell from the mountain side


but I knew better 
to see under the rubble


a troubled heart 


and scars that run deeper than the ocean 

swaying to the motion of the life you found yourself in.


And you were a workin man


You would dig and dig and dig but six feet is never deep enough to bury your pride 

just to bury you alive and maybe some of the dreams you once had as a boy with smoother hands 


but now you’re a man

whose hands 
tell stories

Chorus 1:

Oh, daddies hands are stretched and worn 

like the old parchment found

in the leather bound 

books I used to read as a boy

under the apple tree in our back yard, those hands are big and rough and hard and scarred 

and dirty from the soil of the land


I could see the stories in my daddies hands

Verse 2:

oh pops you were impossible to read impossible to see no emotion came from thee 

until I was 23 and your brother died and you were

beside yourself with gritted teeth

and pent up grief and the reality of loneliness that creeps in like the cold that touches the leaves

as they shiver in the fall and autumn comes

oh I remember the smell of cigarettes and gasoline and oil from when we took apart the engine block of that big black truck and I felt stuck 

as you made me stick around to help and I had hated that 

but we were closer then and I’d give anything just to go right back to when 

it was just you and I taking rides out to the country side 

to shoot the shit and confide in you a little more than I did 

otherwise

oh daddy, do you remember when you would hold my little hand because

I can 

I could feel the stories in my daddies hands.



Chorus 1:

Oh, daddies hands are stretched and worn 

like the old parchment found

in the leather bound 

books I used to read as a boy

under the apple tree in our back yard, those hands are big and rough and hard and scarred 

and dirty from the soil of the land


I could see the stories in my daddies hands

Chorus 2:

I will bury you beside the old apple tree

that your bare hands kept alive for me so you could watch me climb up to see the stars

Yes, I will bury you beside the old apple tree

that your bare hands kept alive for me so you could watch me climb up to the heavens


Oh that tree has survived so so many storms

And now my hands are just like yours

Verse 3:

Now you’re old and gray and we have parted ways 

and you live your days with worn down hands that gave up hope and still 

dig graves and six feet down 
is never deep enough to bury your pride just to bury you alive and maybe some of the dreams you once had as a boy 

with smoother hands 
but now you’re a man 

whose hands 
tell stories



Chorus 2/Ending:

I will bury you beside the old apple tree

that your bare hands kept alive for me so you could watch me climb up to see the stars

Yes, I will bury you beside the old apple tree

that your bare hands kept alive for me so you could watch me climb up to the heavens


Oh that tree has survived so so many storms

And now my hands are just like yours

and time is rough as desert sands

and now I’ve got my daddies hands.

#love #life #daddy #lyrics #music

I love you; 

unconditionally and without regret, 

openly without fearing others opinions

and without shame, I love you.

deeply, with utmost compassion and

absolute conviction. and I love you like this, every day, 

not just on a day designated to the act and will of it, but always,

in all moments, and so it will remain,

until you will have me no more,

or smooth complexions give way to wrinkles and parchment skin

and we inhale the world and exhale utterances no more.

Verse:

You pulled me in with a smile; your sweet perfume

I was captivated

Drunken by the starlight in your eyes

Oh, I was elevated.

Seduced me with the warmth between your legs

I guess just add me to the guest list

I could tell beneath a fickle smile

that you were really restless

Chorus:

And who was I to say

that you had to stay

I guess I should've known

that you were gonna go

And now you're gone.

Verse:

I met another girl the other night

Oh, my heart was beating

You kept me in the dark; she brought me to the light

Oh, this girl completes me.

Chorus:

And who was I to say

that you had to stay

I guess I should've known

that you were gonna go

and now you're gone.

Interlude/bridge:

And everything's as it should be

And everything's as it should be

And everything's as good as it could be

Yes, everything's as it should be

Chorus:

And I want you to know

I don't regret what we had at all.

I would not have found this love

if I was not pushed to fall.

And now I'm gone.

Some of us forge our chains in gold

and green paper trails.

Others are stuck in the same irons that once branded their flesh;

struck to oppress

forged to suppress.

So I ask

What have you done to free your neighbors?

What have you done to free yourselves?

True enlightenment is realizing those are one in the same.

Ignorance is bliss.

or

The blissful practice ignorance.

I find accuracy in the second

         and only ignorance in the first. 

A statement of ignorance procured from the blissful ignorant.

Perhaps religious or political in origin?

                 Or is that ignorant of me to say?

I find no bliss in the assumption.

Ain't it always when we see

our reflection staring back at we,

it's cleaner than 'that other guys'

I suppose it comes as no surprise.

I listen to the stereo-types of those

I choose to be

At least I see the choice is mine.

At least the faults are recognized.

Ignorance is just indifference

with little chance to change the view.

A dirty window is still clear glass;

cleaning it is up to you.

A little chance is still a chance.

A little time can equal more.

Choose to strike an iron hinge

to open up the old oak door. 

Kurtis is a running man;

living-on-the-run type man.

Sex, cocaine, and drinking man

are why he's not a better man.

At least that's what the man will say,

excuses for his day-to-day.

Free Will's a bitch that tends to bite

when you abuse it day to day.

I forgive but not forget;

lessons for the life I live.

And carry on, to give and grow

and know, that becoming more than this;

than what was born and was done.

A vow to self and striving goal

to be

'born a broken man, 

but not a broken man'

and heal til' my life mends the whole.

Ever do I fumble

But twice the fumble makes only once the fool.

A rotten bushel is still a bushel full.

Pluck the ripened fruits to eat;

the lesson that life's not all that sweet.

The choice is yours, what fruits you use.

The tastes of life; on what you choose.

Kurtis chose the bitter life

and never changed by lessons learned

The son did so and will always grow

And both will live the life they've earned.

I speak to her with my eyes

but her ears hear only silence

And her pounding heart matches

the pace with which she walks away

My ears hear only footsteps.

My eyes see only the empty space she left behind.

The pavement leaves no trace of you.

Did I imagine you the whole time?

How vivid my imagination to break my own heart.

How do I feel what you cannot? Feeding off the energy that bleeds from everyone around me; in large crowds it is nigh an unbearable allowance; that of a tormentous tumult of raging emotion that causes a consistent and ever-persevering feeling of self depreciation.

How can I feel what you cannot?

I feed off the energy that rises from the pores of your blemished skin. Its' grip is as sweat to the forehead during a 97 degree day on the Carolinian coasts,

where the heat is unforgiving and the salty water-laden air clings to everything it touches,

permeating to permanence;

it has become an integral part of the world with which it has affected.

I feel the tears before I see the faces, 

before my eyes can trace the waterways of salty tributaries that mark the skin as they

fall down from the cloudy eyes of their stormy masters. 

Why do I feel the sorrowful more than the uplifted? 

you are that of a bright neon sign, flashing it's message in jarring and gaudy lit words.  

"I am the downtrodden"

the blind are more in number than that of the physicality of the observational;

an observance only made by the wide-eyes of the experienced

How can I see, feel, and understand what you cannot?

perhaps by the allowance of myself to observe the refusal of your potential perception.

To see you falsify the world around you; a conformity of the comfortably blind

the ignorance of self dehumanization

to allow myself to bear witness to your self destruction

is an unbearable allowance. 

I wonder how much longer I can allow myself to bear it.

*I take my last sip of my grande Starbucks coffee, throw away my cup, and leave the room behind me; entering the world outside of which I observed from behind the glass windows that faced 57th street. My hands are shaking; I wonder if this is it from the coffee or...

For once in my life

I have nothing to write

but now, nothing is something that

always feels right, as 

writing that nothing

of something so light

and writing that something

that some think is nothing

but nothing is something

Isn't that right?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

and, oh! How beautiful thee 

must glisten in the eyes of all!

and of mine own,

this troubled mind finds utmost tranquility.

a glistering ray of sun

a soft whisper of natures' pure and radiant voice

has naught the least bit comparison,

for comparison is needed, not. 

Shakespearean words read not thy kind demeanor.

Nor loon or lark have such a beauteous voice.

Melody and harmony; both dissonance in

the presence of one so fair,

yea, indeed one so fair

as there is no compare!

and so radiant is thy body

thy mind

thy soul

such flamboyant flair,

that none but God above

can thee compare.