Smoke City

Hello to my brothers!
As many have heard I now write from Pittsburgh- Smoke City is a grand place and I believe more and more each passing day that we live in the best of her neighborhoods- An small area known simply as friendship… It’s nicely nestled in between a smattering of other places that I wouldn’t necessarily want to live but are nice to be able to access… a few blocks to the east lies the ephemeral Ellsworth neighborhood of cafes, galleries, hairdressers and homosexuals - to the south is the trendy, swank Walnut neighborhood with the hippest chain stores aside expensive pubs and eateries - to the west begins Pittsburgh’s little Italy, actually an amalgamation of Thai cuisine, Polish restaurants and beer gardens with Italian restaurants and grocerias - Ah and to the north beyond a goodly ghetto lies an easy escape across the Alleghany River to the Mountains of Southwestern Pennsylvania...as our wacky in house neighbor says – we live in the perfect location, you go out the front door and take a left for the drug of your choice and a right for pasta.

As for the day-to-day, I am working again, this time editing for a fantastic new publishing company whose proprietor just moved here from D-town having decided to open up shop in Smoke City so as to be near his lady. He hates Pennsylvania and says it’s all hills and bull shit bureaucracy but we get on well and I often vulture his mind for lessons in the trivial and truly strange. I will go into more depth later on but for now let me just say that I actually enjoy my job- I get to learn the oddest of things... things that I never knew I wanted to know...

Chivo

And now I include some lyrics that I wrote one day while manning a cash register at a wood-working products convention in Buffalo...

Move On

A Beeswax candle’s glimmer of hope

As uncertain mourners try to cope

Feeling the silence down to my shoes

Only I can hear my soul singin’ the blues

It hates to miss a swindling liar

But rasps a song of longing and ire

Aged and dying he swallowed his sins

Now I’m left wonderin’ when the healin’ begins

It’s to late for talk when—

Someone’s long gone and—

Now all you can do is move on

No need to answer that telephone

She tossed ‘way that ring like a worthless stone

I stole her heart and acted like a thief

Did her wrong and she saw fit to leave

If I had it to do over again

Know I’d treat her like a priceless gem

Well, had a shot at love but I missed

Now I long for them days when we kissed

It’s to late for talk when—

Someone’s long gone and—

Now all you can do is move on

Ah— happy memories from my earlier years

Out with good friends for cocktails and beers

Those paupers, pranksters, pirates and cads

I had so much damn love for them lads

But we each went and started busy lives

Then we found ourselves with kids and wives

Saw my bests buds lost to the daily grind

Tough to move forw’d when you’re lookin’ behind

It’s to late for talk when—

Someone’s long gone and—

Now all you can do is move on

Well, been plain wrong and just misunderstood

My soul rasped them songs but I did what I could

Lost all that was me in a tunnel called time

Fought off them bad spirits with spirits and wine

But hated myself for stayin’ after last call

Forgot what I needed—cause I wanted it all

Though livin’ life can give cause for remorse

Ya float down river away from the source

It’s to late for talk when—

Someone’s long gone and—

Now all you can do is move on

It’s to late for talk when—

Someone’s long gone and—

Now all you can do is move on