Choo Choo Charlie
And raggedy Andy
Travelled through time
Through strange vortexes to meet us at the apocalypse
Choo Choo Charlie
Was my first doll
Somehow it survived
On a shelf in Akron Ohio
All these years
All these stations
The train
You could here from the bedroom where I grew up
The whistle blowing a poem into motion
A dream of America
Back then the only threat was the idea
Russia was gonna nuke us
And to think now being that your mom is Russian
I guess that means I’m sleeping with the enemy
Back then we played football on the street
Two hand touch
I was a quarterback with an ace arm
Someone would always go long and I would send
The ball through the sky
Like it’s own kind of bomb
Once dusk came around
We’d switch the game to ghost in the graveyard
Kids running through twilight
Hiding in pine trees
Seeking safety on a front porch
Where the ghosts couldn’t find you
And graveyards were way off
The dead belonging to a universe we couldn’t yet fathom.
And there’d be seasons when basketball
Would dominate
And then tennis
We’d take our rackets to the public courts
None of us had connections to the country club
Those were different kids
Who lived in the slightly nicer neighborhoods
But we didn’t want for much
We didn’t really want for anything at all
We had skateboards and bikes
And most of all we had each other
Ghost riding broken bikes
And getting into wars and fights
Freedom never going anywhere
We were framed in an America where you didn’t need much to live the dream
The house I grew up in cost my folks 17 grand
When they originally bought it.
It’s nice too
It was a dump when they bought it
But my dad your gramps is great at rebuilding
Great at making things nice
Great at cleaning
And seeing a task through to a spotless perfection
Your grandma my mom
Is also incredible at keeping things meticulously clean
Everything was always spotless
In our America
The kids would come over
We’d have slumber parties
Sleeping together in a room with sleeping bags scattered across the floor
A flashlight pointed up
And my hand coming down over it
Projecting a giant hand on the ceiling
That we could make look like
Was coming down over us and picking us up
King Kong
Or some other monster
The shadow world is full of giants
But often they are no more than a projection of something tiny
Getting big
Through the benefit of space
Our paths were laid out in such a way
That opportunity was possible
It was within our grasp to achieve what our parents had
And possibly much more
The way forward was to do well in school
And aim in the direction of college
Do well there and get a good job
Sometime after
I wasn’t great at school
So my parents told me I should sell insurance
That’s what my mom did
But when I was fifteen I started composing music
And something told me
I was gonna be a great songwriter
I told my parents that
And that was a rather foreign concept for them to understand
They weren’t artists and so for them
Any pursuit in that direction
Just seemed like total chance
Especially considering where we were
Akron Ohio
A factory town
Rubber city
Downtown was a ghost town
The industry moved out
And left a depressed nation
Tin garbage cans burning in empty warehouses
Joy division soundtrack
The whole time i was a kid
Going downtown in our city
Meant going to a ghost town
I hated school
I hated anything associated with rules
And regulations
I didn’t like following orders
Or standing in line
I was out of line most of the time
And I suppose not much has changed.
If you don’t diminish yourself
If you don’t silence yourself
The core of who you are will survive
This mean old world
You’ll be like Choo Choo Charlie
You’ll inexplicably land
In new dimensions across wide expanses of time
And ask yourself
How did I get here
The nature of the universe
Or God
On some level is a show off
God will want you to see the poetry of your life through the ages
So he will help you survive
If you allow him too
My rebelliousness has certainly provoked trouble
But it’s more often guided me into rich gardens of expression
The voice I have here with you now
Is an example of that
If I had followed the status quo now
In this time
What account would I be writing you?
How rich could it be?
My silence
Would silence these poems
These entries to you
The calling to document this time for you
Wouldn’t exist if the lead blanket of my silence
Was hanging over me
As difficult as this time is
I can’t help but be proud
To be calling it like I see it
Through the tremors and clouds of fear
Through you being born
In a very different America than the one
I came into
My rebel spirit
Led me to music
To becoming the best bass player around
A slap and pop sensation
A Jimi Hendrix worshipper
(Side note people trump up racism but even in those days I had giant pictures of Jimi all over the place. I worshipped him like a God. Still do. If I was racist at all it was in the direction against whites. Cause it seemed to me black peoples were better at things I loved)
The Four Tops
They were from an earlier generation
But their songs were always playing off my parents high Fi
And I was astounded and dumbfounded
By the emotional impact of those voices and songs
I think through them was when I genuinely fell in love with music
Something in me
Wanted to translate
Those feelings it gave me to others
To celebrate those emotions
I think through the power of music
You access the power of God
You see him standing there naked
Asking you to come to his heart
And be the full expression of who you were born to be
When a kid is presented with that on one side
And the prospect of selling insurance
Standing in line
Fitting into a box
On the otherside
The choice is really no choice at all
I dove in to the study of music
With a kind of dedication that had previously only been there for football and basketball
My dreams drifted from touch downs
To concert halls
I inflated myself to something like the Goodyear blimp that would occasionally float over our neighborhood
If you find something you love
If you find something that wakes up your heart and sets your mind ablaze with dreams
Follow that path my dear
And never let anyone talk you out of it
This world is envious of sparks like those
Those sparks
Are the pot of gold
You’ll think they are taking you there
(To said pot)
But you’ll have already arrived
A dream is a valuable thing
In a land of zombies
Having a dream
Is like an engine of survival
Beyond the body
Beyond the mind
But in the spirit
It’s a train
Run by Choo Choo Charlie
And raggedy Andy
It’s a train of dreams
That will follow you and take you to dimensions
All over the world
Across wide expanses of time
And land you in your nature
Surviving every side street of suffocation
Your dream is your safety raft
In a world bent on sinking
Never let it go
For anyone or anything.