Perry Brown of Alabama band Fire Mountain sings with a voice that's riddled with concern for how everything's going down. There are lucky ones and then there are people more like him. There are those who feel as if they've got it all figured out and then there are those who are more like him, who feel as if they're lacking, as if they've been wrong more than they've been right. They smell burning flesh and don't have to look around to see whose it is. They feel as if they can never be sure about the thickness of the ice they're standing on. They experience many exhausting days, with the fakers, the takers and the liars. Sometimes, this is just the feeling they get when they stay home. They take measured breaths and they sigh big, grand sighs before opening the front door and stepping out. They can find the struggles invigorating and they can find them demoralizing, but they always find them, just past the mailbox, over a block, running beside their cars, like a country dog that's never known its limitations and rarely tires as it charges on, believing the wheels to be savory meals, barking its fucking throat off. It all reminds me of the end of a Bukowski poem I read earlier today, where the old drunk writes:
Now we've all got it right -
sitting around reading the
comic strips
drinking warm wine and
rolling smokes.
at 6 in the evening we charm our blood and
our manner
as we walk our faces through the
spiderwebs.
we've got it right
we've got it right -
the raven and the waves
the tired sunsets and the tired
people -
it takes a lifetime to die and
no time at
all.