Mike Power

I should say at the outset that I am not dying. At least, no more than we all are. I am also not suicidal and have no desire to die. I enjoy life. Which is why I think I will enjoy death.

I do not believe that death is the end. I do not believe there is a being who created the universe and sits in judgement. I do not believe that bad people will be punished and good people rewarded after death. Being a bad person is its own punishment and being good is its own reward.

When I say I will enjoy death it is because I don’t believe I will die. Only my body will. If my life goes like my parents’ did, my body will be a burden by the time death comes to free me from its cage. What comes after that will be so different from any experience I have perceived with my five little senses, that I don’t think my animal brain is capable of comprehending it. But the other part of me – soul or spirit – will recognize it as a homecoming.

Like the song says: When death comes, it’s like the sun rising to end the night.

Now I know why nobody dies

In the arms of heaven

We’re just here as long as we’re

Supposed to be

When my time comes then I’m

Looking for the arms of heaven

To open wide and take me inside

Forever

When death comes it’s like the sun’s

Rising to end the night

And it shines till it blinds us

With its light

When death comes you’ll hear the drums

You’ll hear everything in harmony

Or you’ll find a way to pass the days

So the days don’t pass you by

All that you were that’s just a blur

When you’re in the arms of heaven

You can feel what you thought was real

Baby, that was just a dream

But now you’re awake so they can take you

Into the arms of heaven

They’ll open wide and take us inside

Forever

When death comes it’s like the sun’s

Rising to end the night

And it shines till it blinds us

With its light

When death comes you’ll hear the drums

You’ll hear everything in harmony

Or you’ll find a way to pass the days

So the days don’t pass you by

You’ll find a way to pass the days

So the days don’t pass you by

You’ll find a way to pass the days

So the days don’t pass you by

The harshness of the world is there;
It bends our minds towards despair.
Yet since we cannot make things well,
Should we on all this cruelty dwell?

To ponder distant hardship's yoke,
Was not the way of ancient folk.
They knew naught of what lay beyond
Hearth and home and village pond.

To think too much on evil's banes,
Our brain's resources slowly drains.
To contemplate the tyrants' ways,
The groundwork for deep sadness lays.

In simple ways to take our shelter,
Protects us from the Devil's smelter;
Or else we might succumb to rage,
In fury we might quickly age.

So grant us peaceful meditation,
In Christian style or else in Asian;
Let joy infuse our total being,
A quiet refuge from sorrow seeing.

Stephen Wylie

Amazing what a little water, sunshine, and time can do.

You have to know how much I love you Or all of this is just a show You have to know

In April, I went into the studio to record my new album, The Changing of the Garden. A month later I got an email from a producer in the UK named Adam James who had heard some of my music and thought we could both benefit from a collaboration. I am so glad he did because now I can share with you the album’s first song, You Have To Know.

Listen to You Have To Know on all streaming platforms here

The video for the song is my own concoction of original images and drawings and I hope you enjoy that as well as the song.

If you know anyone interested in indie music, or anyone indie-curious, please pass this song their way. And thank you for coming along on this ride.

You have to know how much I love you

Or all of this is just a show

You have to know

In April, I went into the studio to record my new album, The Changing of the Garden. A month later I got an email from a producer in the UK named Adam James who had heard some of my music and thought we could both benefit from a collaboration. I am so glad he did because now I can share with you the album’s first song, You Have To Know.

The video for the song is my own concoction of original images and drawings and I hope you enjoy that as well as the song.

If you know anyone interested in indie music, or anyone indie-curious, please pass this song their way. And thank you for coming along on this ride.

New York City is often referred to as “the greatest city in the world.” The Schuyler Sisters even sing that line in Hamilton. The Oxford Economics Global Cities Index ranks the 1,000 largest urban economies on five measures and puts NYC at #1.

But it’s not for everyone. There are many people for whom our city is hell on Earth. It is crowded and loud. It is proudly liberal and multi-cultural. It never sleeps. For many of us who live here, for these and many other reasons, it is heaven on Earth. When I read about laws in Kansas and Texas that target trans people or women who want to control their bodies my first thought is: come to New York City. Because here people are generally accepted for who they are and who they wish to become.

Last Tuesday, I was meeting up with my old bandmates for a few drinks and got into town a little early so I could go to Bryant Park and do some sketching. The park is one of my favorite places and a spot that always sparks inspiration for me. The first sketch is a view of the American Radiator Building and the Empire State Building towering over the park’s London Plane trees.

The second is a quick sketch of the merry-go-round in the park. It was moving and I had to get moving as well to meet my mates, so it is unfinished.

The third is obviously not realistic but it has some of the flavor of a New York City skyline as seen through my melting mind. I also wanted to try out some new colorful oil pastels.

The song in the video includes a couple of those old bandmates and, appropriately enough, it is titled New York City.

New York City is often referred to as “the greatest city in the world.” The Schuyler Sisters even sing that line in Hamilton. The Oxford Economics Global Cities Index ranks the 1,000 largest urban economies on five measures and puts NYC at #1. 

But it’s not for everyone. There are many people for whom our city is hell on Earth. It is crowded and loud. It is proudly liberal and multi-cultural. It never sleeps. For many of us who live here, for these and many other reasons, it is heaven on Earth. When I read about laws in Kansas and Texas that target trans people or women who want to control their bodies my first thought is: come to New York City. Because here people are generally accepted for who they are and who they wish to become.

Last Tuesday, I was meeting up with my old bandmates for a few drinks and got into town a little early so I could go to Bryant Park and do some sketching. The park is one of my favorite places and a spot that always sparks inspiration for me. The first sketch is a view of the American Radiator Building and the Empire State Building towering over the park’s London Plane trees.

The second is a quick sketch of the merry-go-round in the park. It was moving and I had to get moving as well to meet my mates, so it is unfinished.

The third is obviously not realistic but it has some of the flavor of a New York City skyline as seen through my melting mind. I also wanted to try out some new colorful oil pastels.

The song in the video includes a couple of those old bandmates and, appropriately enough, it is titled New York City.  

2BNRtist is to know that everything is happening the way it is supposed to happen. What is going to come is coming. Inevitable as Spring. What looks planned in retrospect was random at the moment of inspiration. There is no way to stop the sun from setting. In the morning it will rise. Tomorrow is already touching every moment of today.

2BNRtist you have to believe that what you create has value, even if nobody is willing to pay you to work on it. They will be happy to pay you to wait their tables and clean up their messes, they will even pay you to raise their children or watch their mother die. They will pay you to shoot people, cage people, and to drop bombs on people, but not to love people. Nobody can pay for love. They would rather pay you to destroy than to create. Fuck them all. Make art.

2BNRtist is to know divine dissatisfaction. It is a deep inescapable feeling that all the beauty and wonder in the world is not enough. That there needs to be something more. Something new. And something that you are the only one able to create.