What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

Humility

Poems arrive ready to begin.
     Poets are only the transportation

                                    -Mary Oliver

Oliver, Mary. Felicity. Penguin Press, 2015, p. 13.

Photo by Porfirio Trinidad Matos

Big shout out to Derringer Discoveries for featuring not one, but two songs connected to me on their latest playlist following Episode #99 of the podcast — an episode centered around Bruce Springsteen.

The playlist can be found here: …

Looking forward to attending a Phillies game this weekend with friends and celebrating Father's Day with my dad.

“Wishing you a meaningful Juneteenth”.

Dave

Tonight I’m revisiting Come Up For Air.

This song actually goes back a long way—I originally wrote and recorded it on a 4-track over 30 years ago. Years later, while learning my first DAW, I completely reworked it and…

Journalist: What do you think of Western civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

—is one of the most famous attributed quotes associated with Mahatma Gandhi, but it’s very likely apocryphal or at least heavily paraphrased rather…

The Falling
Jane Hirshfield
You turn towards meteor showers in August,
wishing yourself like that:
bright and burning wholly out.
When feeling finally comes it is
that falling, matter breaking away
from air, the sound
of crickets moving through the…

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them."

SHITSTINCT

(n.) That deep gut feeling that tells you something is absolute bullshit before you even have proof. No screenshots, no evidence, no full story yet, just your body simply whispering, "Babe, this smells wrong." And somehow, your shitstinct is…

Today, a new song clawed its way into existence.

For now, it bears the name
“Knives Out; Feeling My Way.”

We’ll see if the title survives the weathering.
Some songs arrive fully dressed for the world. Others pace the hallway…

Mirascope
Brian Orozco

After the step I assumed
was last was another.
One explains
the sum of color.
Deciduous images
smuggled from sleep.
Now of these
two, pick one, and from
these four, pick three,
says the cuck.
In quicksand—as…

I’ve always had a childlike fascination with Mount Everest—the idea of those early adventurers setting out to summit the world’s highest peak, taking on risks that feel almost unimaginable by today’s standards. Back in the 1940s and 50s, the danger…

“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”

—Kafka

Dungarees on Spotify

This feels close in spirit to a lot of modern working-class poetry — where transcendence is constantly interrupted by cigarettes, schedules, fatigue, and economic reality.

Author: Matthew Rice
Work: plastic: A Poem
Form: a sequence of clock-time fragments following workers…

“Boileau said that Kings, Gods, and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present day kings aren’t very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation, and about the only heroes left…

Welcome,

I have a new song called Dungarees officially releasing end of this week. You can hear it right now. Thank you for supporting my songwriting journey.

The reference track for my upcoming release—“Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to…

I keep all my original songs in a spreadsheet and let a random shuffle decide the pick. Today it landed on “Submarine,” a track released both as a single and later on my album Many Faces. I love this…

It’s love that never spoke its name, understood only when it’s far too late—no sentimentality, just a slow, hard reckoning.

Those Winter Sundays

By Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the…

You know I can 
control the weather
with my moods. 
I just can't control 
my moods is all.

-Nick Cave

Dungarees is now officially set to hit the streaming cosmos on 8 MAY 26.

Here is a lyric snippet

"It’s not that I’m hopeless, but hope needs a break,
And the sun hides his face , he’s just tired today…

Most people don’t notice how much of their day is decided before they even wake up—grooves worn deep by habit, not choice. Every so often, I snap the needle on purpose: take the wrong road, strike the wrong chord first…