M4NVF4CTVR3D S0L1TVD3...

manufactured solitude 
ain’t nearly as nice as when 
you find it amidst ruins 

T3ND3D T0W4RDS R3TR34T1NG...

 

tended towards retreating 
to creative solitude 
as defense mechanism 

S0M3 F0LKS 4TT3MPT T0 C0V3R...

some folks attempt to cover 
up their past, denying the 
layers that compose their whole 

1'V3 B33N BL3SS3D T0 B3 B4CK R04DS...

I’ve been blessed to be back roads 
since birth; born Raven, cursed with 
that self-trickster wanderlust 

W4ND3R3D 4L0NGS1D3 TH3 S4M3...

wandered alongside the same 
river for three decades now, 
scattering thoughts like crow caws 

S33K1NG MY S0L1TVD3 1N...

 

seeking my solitude in 
three hour doses, wandering 
railroad tracks mostly idle 

F1ND MYS3LF F33L1NG TH3 M0ST...

 

find myself feeling the most 
solitude when seemingly 
lost amidst the detritus 

SONG OF THE DAY: Grow Old

This past Sunday, I got hung up on the idea of MORE MORE MORE and colonial conquest, so drove a couple hours, fucking around, looking at another dying southside Virginia town’s major factory get turned into rubble, piles of rebar and concrete to be sorted, while the poor get poorer and the rich keep living off the fat of their grandfather’s land, hoping to keep one old mill downtown in place to renovate as a microbrewery, named after whatever the factory that got demolished used to do most likely. The dwindling returns of the dying empire. I ended up at the edge of Danville yard, put a single Dirtgod on an old faded red caboose, saw a Colossus of Roads, then the airbrakes fired up, and I heard the walkie talkie and gravel crunch of footsteps that may or may not still give a fuck. A quick jump into the bushes, trying not to get pokeberry stains on my cargo shorts, found a really dope illegal dump where a giant pile of once pink carpet had faded into mold mildew and resilient garish pink fibers still sticking up like middle fingers against the entire world.
The next day, still having that itch to walk the tracks, to see the solitude where the tracks go but few feet do, I went not even five miles from my house, where I moved recently. The exciting direction would’ve been south, across a bridge, where the kudzu was overtaking an old post office that may or may not still be functional. Hard to tell sometimes, in places where things move as slow as the kudzu itself. But something told me to walk north instead, some unexplainable sense of best direction, more connected to heart than brain. Shit, in those types of environments, too much brain is a liability. So I headed north.
Kudzu crawling everywhere, beautiful little pieces of detritus begging me to fill a bucket and make them into American industrial nkondi, which I likely will in the coming years. Around a curve, and I could see far ahead a rock outcropping, where back in the day they had to blast their way through, to maintain that Church of Level Track. Bright flashes were clear to me, even with my dilapidated prescription and scratched glasses. Sure enough, even way the fuck out here, near nothing, surrounded by nothing, embracing the nothingness, there were scribbles and etchings. Graffiti from 1986, and then a carving from 1972. And then initials and a 1911 etched into the stone. Beautiful. I didn’t even put a dirtgod moniker up, because I didn’t carry no paint sticks with me, but also it wouldn’t have been right. I mean, it will be one day. But forcing that first time would’ve been like consuming another place, practicing conquest, pissing on everything I pass. I’m sure I’ll go back to this spot time and time again, and vibe like the misfits before me have, and the outcasts long after me will too. And one day it’ll feel just right, and that unexplainable sense of what’s right and left and right and wrong will say, “yeah, go ahead.” And I’ll scribble it then.
But not this day, the other day. Then I heard that air horn in the distance, far away, then at the crossing by the post office getting reclaimed by the Earth, because there’s no crossing gate there, just a road through the nether regions of the Blue Ridge humping over ancient tracks. The birds and bugs started making their sounds of alarm, at all the ruckus coming through again. I tucked myself back along the rock outcropping, made a little bench of a piece of stone, and watched the empty coal train crawl past through the elevated curve, waved at the driver, and he honked back that jarring diesel air horn, and fuck man, life was perfect in that moment.
But then the train was gone, and the sun was setting, and the cold air was coming in. So I walked back, tracing my path on the cross ties through the kudzu, back to my car, and civilization, and the false promises of comfort. My brain assured my body, trying to get comfortable and get some sleep in this big house by a quarry in a small town in a dying empire, but my heart was like, “you lying motherfucker!” to my brain. “You always be lying about how shit’s gonna be.”

SONG OF THE DAY: Knocking On Your Screen Door

I've got a screen door that slams real good at my new place, the tension spring pulling that bama hard on a screened in porch where I got a weight bench and old rug for wiping feet and taking off shoes before coming in the house. The other day my mail lady dropped off a package and I knew she did because the screen door slammed and by the time I got from the other side of the house to where she'd left the package of B.B. King 45s on the foot wiping rug, she was in her car already, so I yelled "THANKS!" and she bip-bipped the horn in friendly acknowledgement as she backed out the driveway, and the soothing slam of screen doors in an old country house which ain't perfect but neither am I, it all feels just about right.

SONG OF THE DAY: H8

I climbed the highest mountain within seven crow flights, seeking answers to questions that hadn’t even yet formed coherently in my soul, trudging to the top through blackberry bush thickets as wide as a European football field, carefully treading across slick granite stones larger than my family’s entire existence, having to remove my worn boots at times to utilize the extra precise grip of bare foot against raw stone, finally getting to the top, where the old wizened figure sat in pentagram position, in rhinestone overalls and large flowing grey beard wisping off like smoke into the clouds. I contemplated upon my timid approach how to frame my question which had been fermenting in my heart since birth, though the words have never been clear, a basic innate searching or yearning that has existed inside me perhaps even pre-dating English words, I don’t know, maybe that’s why I can’t figure out how to ask it. I made my final approach, and the old person – I guessed a man because of the beard but they were entirely effeminate as well, so I can’t say for certain about any gender specifics, as there seemed to be some pretty dope breasts trying to peek out from around those glittering overalls – the old person said, “There is a question eating at you, but my statement will only poke that question with deeper questions that will be easier for you to answer.” I said, “cool” like a fucking dumbass because I was simultaneously in spiritual awe but also wondering what the old figure’s nipples were like, and whether they had cursive tattoos on their chest. The old sage, still smooth in the face as if river waters had rippled over it for centuries, said, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” This confused me. I was trying to escape the manufactured discourse, the engineered divisions which push us all to the brink of violence against each other on a daily basis. This is not what I expected.

“Does that mean… should I get some guns then?” Was it time to prepare for the darkest futures, the delusions the most evil amongst us have been wishing for decades? Uncivil wars among each other, for the scraps of the American empire’s diminishing returns?

The old sage opened their eyes, and looked at me. Their eyes were the color of rose quartz, with a comforting gaze, like staring into your father’s mother’s eyes and your mother’s father’s eyes at the same time, as a baby, adrift into this Earthen existence but with the protective gaze of elders who knew more about the maelstrom you’d been launched into than your own folks did. “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Think about it.”

I thought about it, but I hadn’t expected a pop quiz, and was struggling with the anxiety of being impressive to weirdly sensual old spiritual figures at the top of unrealistic mountain ranges. “I don’t get it. Why guns? Should I start having guns again? Because my uncle killed himself a long time back, and it’s always kinda made me not want to have guns because of my own depressive episodes. Plus, my kids…”

“Settle down,” said the old spirit. “This has nothing to do with guns. People kill people, so beware people. People with guns kill people more efficiently than ungunned people. They have combined the mad philosophies of human beings with the mechanical actions of industry. Get the fuck away from those people. Wherever there’s a bunch of them, get the fuck away. Even if you have to jump over fences, both physical and unseen, some even mandated by constitutions. Get the fuck away.”

So I’ve been trying ever since. But it’s only been a few minutes. I think.

SONG OF THE DAY: Run For Your Life

They've been building walls all along, the whole time, and they keep building them closed in just a little bit more as they split us apart and find space enough to put up another wall. We are all in a simulated solitary confinement already, and I know a lot of people are saying you should buy guns and learn how to use them, but I really just wanna remind everybody how great and effective arson is.

TH3 P4TH T0 B31NG D1RTG0D'S...

the path to being dirtgod's

full of solitude, self-doubt,

and long dark nights of the soul

T3CHN0L0GY C0NN3CTS M3...

technology connects me

to the rest of the world; still

feel solitary as fuck

H3RM1T'S C4V3 1N BVCK1NGH4M...

hermit's cave in Buckingham,

underneath highway fifteen

bridge over the James River

TH3 M3D1T4T1V3 R3L34S3...

the meditative release

of long meandering walks

which occupy entire days

SONG OF THE DAY: Put Your Love In Me

I am regressing momentarily, to recharge. Or maybe forever. JUST GONNA KEEP PUSHING THIS ROCK UP THE HILL I'M SURE IT'LL REMAIN IN PLACE ONCE WE GET TO THE TOP!

MY R4V3N ST3NC1L W4S L0ST...

my raven stencil was lost

on the compound at some point -

universal correction

M3M0R13S 0F S0L1TVD3...

memories of solitude

of walking through winter storm

as city quieted down

4 S0M3T1M3S S0L1T4RY...

a sometimes solitary

path, forced by compulsion

to follow artistic urges

SONG OF THE DAY: Dead Bent

Bought this 12-inch way back in the day when I tended to buy a lot of 12-inch singles without thinking. Didn't know who MF Doom was at that time, because I mean this was when the shit originally came out, first week in the store, Willie's on Southside, and I was like "lol okay MF Doom sounds like an ill name" and it didn't have a cover, just white slip sleeve cheap ass label on the vinyl, so you knew it had to be solid. Independent as fuck, maybe even local. I got back to where I was living (who knows where that was at that time… maybe the trailer park on the tobacco farm, maybe an assortment of squat-ish flops I was running through) and put it on and oh shit. That oh shit feeling has never gone away from that first round of MF Doom. Dude is one of a kind. (Still have this single, by the way.)