Shade 17: Another Leaf Falls

A year has come
A year has gone
A year is left behind
Now it’s but a ripple
In the ocean
Of your mind

Shade 16: The Academic Tomb of Walter Winston

The smartest most intelligent of all the men I’ve ever met /
Was one called Walter Winston whom I never shall forget /
He had the biggest library of any that you’d ever see /
The wooden shelves of leather books were an academic repository /
There were books and books of different times and long recorded history /
Science text of every field from physics to biology /
Books on math and literature and stories left from long ago /
Like Gilgamesh and Beowulf, the Iliad and epic poems /
A shelf itself devoted there to scrolls of great philosophies /
The collected works of Nietzsche and Plato’s Dialogs of Socrates /
And Winston studied days away to fill his mind with many things /
Of presidential candidates and long usurped Tudor kings /
And all these things he taught himself page by page in quiet repose /
To fill his brain with all the things that no one else would ever know /
He attended never parties, nor gatherings, nor came to call /
He declined my dinner invitations, and would send post to none at all /
And he lived until a ripe old age in the comfort of his literary womb /
Where wooden shelves of leather books would be both his cradle and his tomb /
Weeks had passed before we found his body lying pale and cold on the floor /
Which only begs the question: with all that worldly wisdom what good was it ever for /

Shade 15: How Noble In Reason

We know we don’t know why we’re here
What we’re doing
Or where we go
We know we don’t know what’s the point
And can’t learn all there is to know
We know we don’t know where we’re from
Or how we began
Or what’s out there
We know we don’t know if there’s God
Or what God is
Or if God cares
We know we don’t know all that much
So we focus on problems
Created by man
Because it’s easier to close your mind
And never truly understand

Shade 14: Images of Mary

She points you t’wards the stars and says ‘gaze deep and wander free’
She opens every door and says ‘your growth inspires me’
She sees all of your flaws but says ‘you amaze me so’
You ask how you can thank her she says ‘never let me go’

Shade 13: A Flash in the Dark

Stay alert and on your guard my son
Your betrayer knows you well
And though his eye is always out for you
Who he is you can never truly tell
So be wary when others build you up
For know there will be a fall
And there through the smoke of your ruin will stand
Your betrayer now two times as tall
And if you wish success my son
You must hit a mark that no other can see
And rise above every shadow of doubt or distrust
On the pedestal of ability

Shade 12: All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here

There’s nothing out the window… I’ve been looking
There’s nothing on the internet… I’ve checked
There’s no one on my phone that I can think to call again
I’ve been diverted and distracted since I first got in at ten

But it’s Friday God, sweet Friday
And I can not work today
Because my job is so monotonous
I need to get away
My brain has gone to mush and now is leaking out my ears
The minutes last for hours and the hours last for years
So hurry up you tyrant clock and get me out of here

There’s nothing on the radio… it’s broken
There’s no one here to talk to… I have tried
There’s nothing that can make me wish my boss was not alive
But here I sit in Dante’s Hell until that clock strikes five

Shade 11: Gatekeeper

Look there is a lizard
Yes a lizard on a hill
Sitting stately and serenely
Like a statue oh so still
He is glaring on the grass
A giant guardian of green
At the forefront of a forest
That no man has ever seen

What wonders would appear
If one could clear the forest’s edge
Through the thick and mystic mangroves
Past the purple flowered hedge
It’s seeped in speculation
None can truly understand
‘Cause you can’t confront the Lizard
He is keeper of this land

Shade 10: An Inter-Universal Hangover

The Universe is full of Galaxies
They spiral and spin and they live on and on
The Galaxies are full of Planets
One orbits a sun that rises at dawn
The Planets are full of Countries
With mountains and trees with valleys and lakes
The Countries are full of People
They grow and they work, they love and they take
The People are full of Cells
Producing enzymes and proteins and acids to spare
The Cells are full of Matter
The building blocks of all things, though we’re unaware
The Matter is full of Atoms
With Protons and Neutrons and with Electrons
The Atoms are full of Quarks
They spiral and spin and they live on and on

Shade 9: Battle of Anxiety and Logic

And one and two and three
Stay calm
Just shut your eyes and breathe
Stay calm
You’ll get your shopping done
It’s fine
And Christmas will be fun
It’s fine
So let your ulcer shrink
Stay calm
And don’t forget to blink
Stay calm
Your desk is clean enough
Relax
You’ll finish all that stuff
Relax
Don’t worry you won’t drown
Stay calm
Just put your pencil down
Stay calm
And don’t forget to breathe
Stay calm
Stay calm stay calm stay calm

Shade 8: King for a Day

There is a mighty battle field
Where all men like to meet
Where color fades to black and white
And champions compete
Where the noble and the nimble
Both can rally side by side
Where mounted knights will rise to fight
The bishop’s slanted stride
For here you’re king, a splendid thing
So squarely, toe to toe,
Through ingenious stratagem
Find the folly of your foe

Shade 7: Beside the Tree

A mushroom grows beside a tree
I’ll pick it, peel it, and make it tea
You may sit and drink with me
Here beside the tree

And we can stay through fading day
As the color dims away
Into the twilight’s silver gray
Here beside the tree

We’ll talk of things that never were
Of rhymes or times you dreamt of her
The sands of time and motion blur
Here beside the tree

And while we talk there is no fear
No pain, disdain, or sorrow here
There’s confidence and conscience clear
Here beside the tree

So sit my friend and have some tea
Made from this mushroom growing free
And revel in simplicity
Here beside the tree

Shade 6: A Neverwinter’s Toast

Come my friends and join the song
Of mem’ries we once knew
By the hearth we’ll sing along
To pass an hour or two

Outside it’s dark and cold this ‘eve
We’re in good company
So raise a glass, your cares relieve
And let your spirit free

To brotherhood, to fellowship
To times past long ago
To kinship and camaraderie
To midnights moonlight glow

Shade 5: When the Footprints Wash Away

Where will you be in five-hundred years
Or will you exist at all
Will you be remembered by family or friends
Or by words you have writ on the wall
Will your vict’ry be silent ‘cause your name doth live on
Or will your ideals still echo with sound
Will any remember the great things you thought
Or will you just decompose in the ground

Shade 4: Small Office Sedative

There’s comfort in monotony so soothing
There’s contentment in the tedium of day
And marching time will weave a web that keeps you stuck and paralyzed
Each tick it’s harder still to break away

Shade 3: Canticle of Winter

The Winter’s dry and barren skies
Howl and cry and shake my bones
The world now wears her slate-gray shawl
For ‘tis the time to feel alone
But through the bleak cold there is a light
That warms the center of my soul
Her face is etched upon my brain
And melts the ice like fire coal

Shade 2: The Golden Clouds

A resolution is only as strong as he who makes it
And mine was made with strength enough to last
I stand on the precipice looking t’wards tomorrow’s horizon
And will walk and walk until the night has past

Shade 1: Reflection from Afar

The cards alone are all that know my sin
A mem’ry vague which haunts from long ago
I leave its cowering carcass in my wake
And cast away forever the gloom of woe

Creativity vs. Over-population

Over-population is making the artist’s job harder. It's true, and probably something you haven't been thinking about. When I was in school I learned of writers like Oliver Goldsmith (author of such plays as "She Stoops to Conquer"). He was a playwright 200 years ago who wrote plays which are still performed today.

Many know the name Oliver Goldsmith, the famous Irish playwright... few recognize, however, that he only ever wrote three plays. That’s right. Three. That is the entire canon of Goldsmith. Don't get me wrong. His plays are very funny, I've seen them all, even performed one once... But they are no funnier than the farces that are authored today, their characters are no richer, their plots no more clever. But when Goldsmith was writing (1770ish) there wasn't exactly a surplus of playwrights cracking out the hits.

The earth's population around then was 800 million. That sounds like a lot. But today our population is around 7 billion. Considerably higher, no? So it was much less daunting a task spreading his name across the populace. And after he had any kind of name, history became his publicist and now, the name is in every theatrical text book you can find. And originality wasn't an issue, because chances were good that if you came up with an idea for something you could act on it without being concerned that somewhere in the world someone else has the same idea at the same moment; cause the world was smaller.

BUT... What about now? When writers write or painters paint or whoever does what, there are 7 billion other people, which means at any given moment, there are a few people sitting at desks somewhere with the exact same idea and the exact same impetus to get it done. It's become an all-out rat-race to get your ideas in the public haunt quickest. And the ideas we get out there are under so much more scrutiny because chances are someone throughout our long history has had at least a similar idea.

What does this mean? Do we have to push the creative boundary? And strive for ideas that are so original that they seem foreign and implausible to the human tribe? Do we have to say enough is enough and just burn every piece of art created before 1850 so that we can take a fair crack at creating something that won't be held to history's standards.

Let's face it... through all the inventions and discoveries we've made: being a human is still the same now as it was in 400 B.C. when the Greeks were doing it. We still love the same way, we still fight the same way, we still hate those who have what we want the same way, we still want victory over our oppressors the same way... So we still produce art depicting the same humanity it did thousands of years ago... only the interface has changed.

In 159 B.C. Terence said

“There is nothing said that hasn’t already been said.”

In 1993 Tony Kushner said basically the same thing in his play Angels in America

“…it’s all been done before!”

(And won the Tony, Drama Desk, and a Pulitzer for it)

How many times between the two do you think that has been restated?