CD Cases & Liner Notes

How many times have you found yourself drumming fingers to a beat which hammers on and on--

Found yourself changing CDs in and out of the player, watching as the cases pile up and grow disorganized,

Liner notes strewn across desktop,

And just waited for some random recording to inspire you? 

If your answer to this question is "zero," than I hope you can understand me when I say that sources of true inspiration are often few and far between,

But sometimes, the progeny wrought forth from a conscious effort to seek it out can ourweigh the resources used up in the search with its splendid impressiveness.

And if your answer is some other positive, quantitative response, than I know you can.

But as my eyes cast an awe-filled gaze out over the tops of these piles of cases on a desktop already littered with liner notes and wasted sheets of paper,

And I realize that I'm gonna have to clean all this up,

I can't help but regret all the hours I've wasted for basically no results.

And I can't help but resent the CD player for allowing me to string together so many hours of music and poetry.

And yet, as I recite those last two lines back at myself, my mind indicts me befowled with treachery and betrayal in front of the jury of my heart and soul.

You see, the truth about me is that I wanna change the world in ways

Big and small,

Tall and short,

Vast and narrow,

And any other antonymic phrase here left out which can be derived in actively listening minds.

I wanna inspire people with a myriad of words put together so they dance with an entrancing mood off the tongue,

through airs of stolidness and excitement,

and into ears with a mellifluous ring accompanying them all through the way.

And I don't think I'm there yet.

But while I may not be able to say that I've even made ripples in this ever-growing pool of artistic expression yet,

I can say that I'm still willing to try.

So, as I put some of those CD cases back in their original places on the shelf,

I realize that... in this process of making piles of CDs which have been played and drummed to over and over again and sometimes overlap--

In the hopes of finding inspiration in a pretty likely place--

I'm willing to work my way through that whole shelf and make piles ranging from the slow, intricate rhythms of Corinne Bailey Rae and Pink Floyd...   

To the intrepid verses of JM Huscher and Selah because

I wanna change the world.

And in the future, I wanna be the voice which resonates, syncopates, and dominates on that CD that some young, burgeoning poet stops on as he or she litters a desktop with toppling piles of CD cases, liner notes, and wasted sheets of paper.