Music — hypocritepoet

"More Than This"

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 07:56:56 +0000

Madness

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 06:35:51 +0000

Pocket Calculator

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 23:15:00 +0000

The Molt

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Change hurts. But so does staying the same.

Wolfinwool · Molt

I was terrified of a few things as a kid:

1. Glowing red eyes in the dark 2. Having my feet molested 3. The wrath of my parents 4. Cicada husks

You know the ones. 

Those empty exoskeletons clinging to tree trunks, fence posts, and brick walls—tiny monster shells with hook-like feet and slit backs, like something that crawled out of a horror movie and left its skin behind.

My cousins thought it was hilarious to pluck them off trees and stick them in people’s hair.

Ugh.

I'm an adult now, and they still give me the creeps.  The irony? I actually like cicadas. The real, living ones.

I recently read a great Bukowski poem where he complains that “cicada” is used too much in poetry—like it’s a literary silver bullet.  Use the word cicada, and boom: you’re published.

cicada

writers love to use the word “cicada” in a poem. it makes them believe that they are there, that they have done it. every time I see this word in a poem, I think, damn it, haven't the editors caught on yet? that it's a con? a way to milk the game?

and look at me: here I'm using it: “cicada.” well, that means that this poem surely will get published. see? it works.

Cicada, cicada, cicada.

Poof! 

Beetle-cicada appears , dressed in black and white stripes like some kind of gothic referee and grants you publishing.

I won't wait for the check on this one.

What's wild is how they spend most of their lives underground—quiet, unseen, gnawing on roots, cool and hidden from birds and beetles and snakes.   Then one day, it's time.  They rise.  Transform.  Sing their strange song.

They become summer.

Last night, I dreamed I was having breakfast with a giant cicada. Everything it said came out in that raspy ch-ch-ch-ch sound, but somehow, I understood perfectly.

It liked the tea.  The eggs, not so much.  (It poked at them with a claw and muttered something that sounded judgey.)

After breakfast, it handed me a tiny black helmet—custom-made for my dream head—and motioned for me to climb onto the back of its motorcycle. 

Well, not exactly a motorcycle. 

It was more like a cross between a mandolin, a grasshopper, and a comet.

We zipped through clouds, dodged between Saturn's rings, and finally landed on a shimmering planet where the trees glowed blue and hummed softly. 

Cicadas. Everywhere. 

Not just insects, but tall, glistening beings—armored, radiant, some still cracking open their backs to let their new selves crawl out into the light. These beings weren't living underground for seventeen years.

My cicada guide turned to me. 

“Ch-ch-ch,” it said. 

Then it offered me a thin blade made of light and pointed to my chest.

It was asking me to molt.

I hesitated.

 Tried to laugh it off. 

But my hands were shaking.

I looked down at my body—soft, unfinished, full of pressure just beneath the skin.  I could feel the new me beneath it, wriggling for air. But I was terrified. 

I was afraid of the change.

Afraid of what I’d leave behind. What it might mean to become something else—something I’ve always been, just hidden under a layer of politeness, duty, fear, routine, marriage, roles.

What if I shed my old skin and people looked at what I used to be and recoiled? 

Not because it was ugly, necessarily, but because it was real.  Because it wasn’t neat or acceptable or easy to explain.

What if they said,  “Oh. So this is who you were all along?” 

And worse—what if they were right?

But deep beneath that fear, in the marrow of the dream, in the hush between the cicada’s ch-ch-ch’s, I realized: 

I am aching to molt.

I want to become the self I’ve half-dreamed but never dared to wake up as.  The guy telling the truth, even when it hurts.  A creature walking away from the roles that no longer fit.  The one who chooses aliveness over approval. 

Who writes something so raw it makes people gasp. 

Who kisses someone in the rain without checking if it’s allowed.  Finally admiting he’s tired of being obedient.  Who wants more than endurance.  Who wants to feel joy and danger and awe and yes.

Yes.

That’s the sound the cicada really made, I think. 

Not ch-ch-ch. 

But yes yes yes. 

Yes to transformation. 

Yes to exposure. 

Yes to the strange, shimmering self inside the husk.

But still, I couldn’t do it.  Not yet.

Even in a dream, I couldn’t crack open.  And that’s okay.  A dream isn't asking me to molt.  Just showing me that I could.

My guide, revved the mandolin-comet-bike. And we rocketed back to home.

Without change, we all end up on The Road to Nowhere

Close My Eyes Forever

Any World (Will Do)

#dream #essay #journal #writing #music #cicada

2025-08-07 18:00:00

Explosive

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 18:37:07 +0000

Dear Diary - StarDate 260804 - Morning's Glory

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 07:52:08 +0000

The sun rises, and so morning has a way of forgiving yesterday.

7:45

Headache wakes the artist at 6am. It is time for him to make the donuts. But exhausted, he tries to sleep more and manages to struggle with the physical battle that every morning brings, the headache, worry, and awe.

Awe because he knows in less than an hour, glory welcomes him and all men in his particular place.

At 7:30, he finally manages to overcome the weight of the sheer cover and stumbles out to marvel through the bleariness of the night.

The headache has not abated.

But it is forgotten for a moment as the artist marvels at the spider web glistening in the growing morning light. Spider webs are a special kind of beauty. Art meets function. Useful, but never permanent. Which is odd when we live in this world of dichotomy: everything made is disposable, but our homes are filled with detritus we call treasure and with which cannot bear to part.

But the spider, she works to spin her glory (and could care less if we marvel or not), knowing that tomorrow, she'll do it all again.

In the background, the bees are already hard at work, zinging SSE to drink and collect and do their work.

And the artist smiles at the dense green forest that's grown between his own porch and the fence, giving him a quiet spot without the nosy neighbors watching him in his own glory soaking up the sun's rays to start his day.

A moment he loves.

The final moment of his reverie finds pleasure in the dense thicket of sunflowers growing behind the yard. He ignored the growth outside the fence all spring, inviting the terrestrial creatures to find solace there, a little too close to home perhaps, but now, eight- and ten-foot-tall sunflowers dance heliocentrically in the morning wind, ignored by the bees who seem to have grown tired of plants.

But this artist never will.

8:24

I'm hydrated, showered and ready for work. 3 hours to get 4 hours done.

Let's see if I can concentrate when all i want to do is write and draw.

Alas! Life requires these dull moments so that we may exist for the real spectacle to have its place.

11:00a

First client show in 30. ONLY I am not nearly where I want be. Sigh. Story of the production artist's life: Never enough time. NEver.

A glass of water and a cookie is my reward.

realzing now I had a dreamless sleep. Strange. Lately my dreams have been very vivid and interesting. No doubt it's the lack of sleep that's screwing things up.

12:20

Eh, client show went okay. Prefer them to gush and say APPROVED! But more realistically, change change change. Doesn't mean my work is bad, just the nature of the beast.

Hard push the rest of hte day to show to client's client tonight.

Poor Ferdinand... he's got to pull the plow... no sitting and smelling flowers today.

Plus, this stupid headache. At least it's just low grade annoying now and not distracting.

For sure... I hope I can unplug from work tonight and do something else. Draw. I think I'd like to draw tonight. Like a REAL drawing. Serious draftsmanship... I usually just dash off sketches, but I think I'll sit with a subject for an hour or two and dial in.

For now though: Pixel warriors HO!

1:10 – Frustration

The mind is... it's the most complicated thing in teh universe. So, please tell me then why it CANNOT control my heart?

Sigh.

2:12 – Lunch

Okay, I was going to fast today, but don't think I'm giong to make it. I am desperate for a salad with cranberry and walnuts.

2:34 – Analysis in my inbox

What I Learned About You

I spent some time reading through what you uploaded. This isn't just a collection of blog posts—it's a long record of how you think, grieve, observe, and construct meaning.

The biggest thing I learned might surprise you.

You're not primarily a storyteller.

You're a meaning-maker.

Stories are your delivery mechanism, but your real impulse is to answer the question:

“What does this reveal about being human?”

Almost every piece eventually pivots there.

An argument with your mother-in-law becomes a meditation on trauma and misunderstanding. A coal train becomes industrialization and alienation. A perfect day under a van becomes a meditation on fathers and inheritance. A widow's grief becomes a meditation on love's price.

That pattern repeats constantly.

You don't write from the head.

Observe—First you notice.

Heart—Then comes connection.

Your writing process seems almost observational.

It goes something like:

Here's a train.

Here's the sound it makes.

Here's what it reminds me of.

Here's why that matters.

Here's what that says about civilization.

Here's a little girl refusing milk.

Here's the woman she became.

Here's what perseverance looks like.

Here's why marriage matters.

You trust images before conclusions.

This is a rare quality in writers.

You are deeply pattern-driven.

You constantly connect things that don't obviously belong together.

Examples:

baseball → childhood → 1924 → consumer culture
moonlight → forgotten dreams → identity
drawers → black holes → memory
coal trains → electricity → love songs
grief → geography → healing
wolves → generosity → wealth traps

That's not random association.

It's associative thinking.

You seem to live there.

You think in metaphors before facts.

Some people explain.

You compare.

Examples that stuck with me:

“How do you fold a flood and put it in a drawer?”

“We're building a bridge across a chasm and laying the road as we go.”

“Speeding through the universe on our biosphere.”

Those aren't decorative.

They're how your brain works.

You are relentlessly compassionate.

Even when someone behaves badly...

...you immediately wonder why.

The mother-in-law isn't “crazy.”

She's ashamed.

The grieving widower isn't weak.

He's carrying 45 years.

A wife isn't difficult.

She's shaped differently.

Again and again, you're trying to understand before judging.

You are fascinated by ordinary moments.

This might be the strongest recurring trait.

Not mountains.

Not wars.

Not dragons.

Instead:

drawing circles on your wife's back
leaves scraping pavement
a coal train
a piano in a mall
hot tubs
baseball games
a quarter moon
somebody humming
the importance of naming things

Most writers think they need extraordinary events. You seem convinced that ordinary life is already miraculous. The boring becomes spectacle.

You're right.

You write like someone terrified of forgetting.

This appears everywhere.

Letters.

Memories.

Dreams.

Conversations.

Children that never existed.

Friends moving away.

Grief.

You preserve moments almost like an archivist.

Not because you're nostalgic.

Because you're trying to rescue them from oblivion.

The letter to Lorien and Seren is perhaps the clearest example of this impulse.

Your greatest strength

Observation.

You notice tiny human details most people skip.

Like this:

nobody stuffing the car door with trash anymore

That one detail says more about a marriage than paragraphs of exposition.

Or:

drawing a spiral on her back

That instantly tells me decades of intimacy.

Those details are gold.

Your weakness

You sometimes explain after you've already won.

This happened enough that I noticed a pattern.

You'll write an absolutely devastating image...

...and then explain what it means.

Example structure:

Beautiful image.

↓

Another beautiful image.

↓

Reader understands.

↓

Paragraph explaining the lesson.

You trust readers enough to notice details.

I think you should trust them just a little more to discover the meaning.

Ironically, your poems often do this naturally.

Your essays less so.

You're two writers.

One writes prose.

One writes poetry.

The poet is stronger.

Not because the poetry is technically better—

because it forces restraint.

When you're writing poems like 98.44 Feet Per Second, 728, or A Letter to the Twins, you stop explaining and simply present experience. Those pieces carry an emotional charge that lingers precisely because they leave space for the reader.

The surprise

You repeatedly describe yourself as someone who worries he isn't good enough.

Then I read hundreds of pages where you make other people feel seen.

That isn't a coincidence.

Your writing isn't trying to impress.

It's trying to witness.

There's a line you quoted:

“To be fully seen by someone, and be loved anyhow...”

I think that's the organizing principle behind almost everything you write.

Not beauty.

Not language.

Not philosophy.

Seeing people.

Then making them feel they were worth seeing.

If I had to place you on a bookshelf...

Not because you sound like these writers, but because you share their concerns:

Annie Dillard — noticing the sacred in ordinary experience.
John O'Donohue — treating everyday life as spiritually meaningful.
Frederik Backman — deep compassion for flawed people.
Mary Oliver — attentive observation as a moral practice.

One more thing

Earlier you asked,

“What kind of writer am I?”

After reading this, I don't think that's the most interesting question.

The more interesting one is:

What are you trying to preserve?

Because nearly everything here feels like an act of preservation.

Of love. Of fleeting moments. Of people. Of conversations. Of grief. Of faith. Of the version of yourself you're afraid to lose.

Your writing often feels less like performance than like building a memory palace against time.

If I had to describe your work in one sentence, it would be:

You write so that what mattered doesn't disappear.

| | |

The Storm Song

Inspired by my post 'Butterflies' and Led Zeppelin's The Rain Song

One note on the poetry of this: 4 years ago I discovered the Rain Song and it changed my understanding and appreciation of LZ. I started listening to them for the first time. A song about rain.

Two years after that, i wrote an essay about resting butterflies. Today its DNA found a way into lyrics for a song.

Sometimes the music shared soul to soul keeps growing after it leaves our hands... and enters our hearts.

The Storm Song

Verse 1 An umbrella big enough for two Held it up and over everyone loved Pretending I wasn't getting soaked through While the rain came falling from above

Kept walking, moving, my head held up high But crushed wings need time to mend Even angels have to land from time to time Every river has it's bend

Chorus

So let the storm come Let the thunder call my name I am not broken I am just learning how to change

Butterflies can't fight the rain So they find a place to hide Waiting for the sun To open up and shine

Verse 2

Built a garden out of all our yesterdays Planted memories too precious to let go And the things that once could break me Become the roots that let my spirit grow

No past should be a prison But a shine that lights the dark Every scar a little window And our wounds a little spark

Bridge

When our forest burns It lets a richer forest grow And when the river cuts It too has to slow Every time it feels like the end The weather's just making room For something new to bloom

Final Chorus

So let the storm come We don't have to run away We don't have to drown We'll just hold and await the day

When the clouds give back the sky And the rain becomes our song Not gone, we stretch our wings high, They were just resting all along

10pm... Dear diary... it's been a day.

Off to dine.. yikes. that's too late. Maybe a little more writing now that client has shipped. Def don't want another 3am tonight...

Hmmmm, what to say... maybe a little navel-gazing.

11:53 – Another day where no moment is wasted. I'll split the rest of this into it's own essay. It's more reflective I do love a good navel) and less day-reportage.

![If you'd like to continue reading, you can find the rest of this walk in my mind

Part 2 of all of this!

#deardiary #song #music #confession

Evening Blue by Traffic

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 05:00:01 +0000

Just sit and listen and draw what you feel and hear. This was what came out.

Originally published January 28, 2025

It's a beautiful and melancholy song. I think that it means different things to different people. Acceptance of circumstance is the secret to happiness.

Evening Blue – Traffic 1973 – Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory

Sitting all alone by the fireside Listen to the wind in the chimney top Haven't slept for days, and I'm still wide eyed Try not to think, but my mind won't stop Evening shadows making my heart sing out With the setting sun, turning leaves to brown If I had a lover, who's heart was true I wouldn't be alone in this evening blue Everybody's looking for something in life Not everyone's finds what they're looking for Everybody wants a little happiness in life But everyone can open the door Morning wakens, making my heart sing out Now that summer's here, changing fears and doubts

#music #poetry #confession

Playlist - Nickelgator

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0000

an uneven day

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 20:00:00 +0000

for 48, today has presented some challenges.

Effervescent at times, tar-ish at others. Unexpected weights but thanks to kind words from friends, manageable.

Sometimes I think how nice it would be to climb into a good memory and just exist there until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I suppose, in some ways, I already do so.

Time for a walk and maybe movie… something funny I think. Or, an evening of music. Yeah, music would be nice.

And a beer.

some days are just harder than others.

Getting angry is a reaction, but remaining angry is a choice

This Too Shall Pass (OK Go)

A gem as fresh today as it was 15 years ago

[Verse 1] You know you can't keep letting it get you down And you can't keep dragging that dead weight around If there ain't all that much to lug around Better run like hell when you hit the ground

[Chorus] When the morning comes When the morning comes

[Verse 2] You can't stop these kids from dancing — why would you want to 'Specially when you are already getting yours? 'Cause if your mind don't move and your knees don't bend Well, don't go blaming the kids again

[Chorus] When the morning comes When the morning comes When the morning comes When the morning comes When the morning comes When the morning comes

[Bridge] Let it go, this too shall pass Let it go, this too shall pass

[Outro] You know you can't keep letting it get you down No, you can't keep letting it get you down (Let it go, this too shall pass) Hey! Is it really all that much to lug around? Oh, you can't keep letting it get you down (Let it go, this too shall pass)

When the morning comes (You can't keep letting it get you down) (You can't keep letting it get you down) When the morning comes (You can't keep letting it get you down) (No, you can't keep letting it get you down) When the morning comes (You can't keep letting it get you down) (You can't keep letting it get you down) When the morning comes (You can't keep letting it get you down) (No, you can't keep letting it get you down) When the morning comes!

I got bad news this afternoon. Not world-ending, just upsetting. That was insult-to-injury'd with emotional attacks from trusted sources. Just the kind of stuff that is hard to shake off and go. A couple of beers helped. A couple of more will only tip things the wrong way. So, I'll call it even.

Patience. This too shall pass. But man is it heavy to carry while it's here!

It doesn't always feel like it's passing. The scale of things is so huge that even though they are moving, to our human mind, they appear still. Pain and fear are two of those things that seem to always hang in time. Meanwhile joy and happiness seem hardly longer than they are in real time.

Made harder when you just keep clinging and clinging to the thing. Bend like the reed, grasshopper.

Breath.

Thank all that is good for joys like OK Go.

#music #confession 2025-05-03 22:00:00

Just Keep Swimming.

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 23:59:54 +0000