Wednesday, June 10, 2020

MUSING ON THE MUSIC



Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth 

fresh showered air
his shirt over bare 
breasts – drifting -
the future as smoke –
sitting on my knees 
framing the world on
his bed – 
college 
nights

~

Pink - What About Us 

tear stained blood
hips sway in heat
beckoning beckoning
forward pulse pounding
wayward fairytales -
mocking happy endings
the surge sudden pounding
as surf in tsuami of found
power – discovered 

~

Get Up Stand Up – Bob Marley

Soft summer sand dancing 
night frangipangi air –iced
anisette in salt-sandy hands 
hair tossed – slapping hips 
pulled, pulled close – at sea
edge together hips bang – 
feet moving together – 
licorice on lips –tomorrow 
a given born in the swaying 
night 

 ~


 Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit 

fruit long past rot on 
ancient gnarled trees 
click clacking bones  
flesh rip-plucked long 
ago –fetid malevolence 
floats steamy –echoes 
of breath choked in 
magnolia – swaying
drifting –drifting from
poplar tree to city street – 
strange fruit – no longer 
strange


 ~

John Lenon - Give Peace A Chance

bare feet stomping 
turquoise anklets jingling 
below breasts high and
free, naked under sheer
cotton soft as baby breath
tambourine keeping time in 
heartbeats – together hand 
claps – clarion voices joyous
flush with youth and power
sing as we pass the wine- hand
to hand- bare feet stomping
the pace of the certain future
A long stomp – the beat goes on
in marching memories of feet 
flying backward and forward 
as the tambourine continues 
to play – the young guys 
dead or almost –wanted 
it right then –will take
it now –torn hearts 
beat in unison – 
for a simple chance - 
lottery tickets still 
available. 

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Tonight

Hi all ... I've heard from many that today was a particularly difficult day - too many are unable to conceptualize unfathomable numbers and the surreality of the current pandemic is raising all sorts of anxieties, fears, and understandable concerns. I'm not going to sugar coat or give a silver lining - however there will be many positive changes that come along as we go through this time. The world itself which had been changing to a more virtual template - has had that time-table escalated - people confined to their homes are discovering new methods of word, interaction and entertainment - more to be said about such things at another time. What we, all do have in abundance is what we have always had, an indeterminate time on this spinning blue marble, and the ability to structure our inner world as we see fit. To that end .. I wrote a quick piece about that malicious fellow who seems to be tapping on our windows and encourage you ... as follows:



Tonight, as all grows quiet and the house is clean and perfumed with disinfectant, denial, and determination
Tonight, as thoughts are corralled away from numbers and predictions, misinformation and unpalatable truths -
Tonight, the ever present fellow waiting at the end of the carousel ride grins and taps on the window and it is up to
each one of us to recognize the face and draw the curtains, lower the shade, or give him but a passing glance as we continue ... the only difference tonight is drawn in our collective shiver...and inhaled in our united deep breath ... as we continue dancing our individual dances, turning from that fellow lightly tapping on the window pane. He has always been out there - Give him no mind when he simply announces his presence - Continue to ride your ride, dance your dance, sing your song...the end for any and all is, as always has been, indeterminate. We are all in this, and always have been, in it together.

Brave New World



Brave New World
I sit in solitude with
the love chosen long
ago – when the world
was an endless horizon
and we young of limb
and longing ready to
leap frog across lily
pads to find our path
I sit in solitude with
the love chosen –
selected now again in
sacrosanct synchronicity
of spirit soaring, cast
as a shimmered fish
line back across the
lake of traversed time
to a simpler time
tasking together
hearing the insistent
and ignoring the
tapping of that
macabre fellow
tapping at the
window – as we
pull our shades
of self sufficiency
sing a song of
what will be
toss aside the
outside, embrace
the within, together
secluded, safe,
basically brave
new once again
locked in
love

Fool on the hill





Fool on the hill

sitting atop the mountain of my own
making lemonade from lemons -
blowing soap bubbles in the air -
sitting atop the mountain of my own
making mouth music humming off
into a forever peace to come ... this
fool on the hill .... resting on velvet
grass - inhaling deep sweet - breaths-
loose limbed, relaxed, and wise
as any fool on a hill
can ever be

Sunday, February 23, 2020

They sang




They Sang 

They sang and shouted danced in the 
streets and in pastures of mud - tore their 
clothes and slung placards, marched barefoot 
flowers in their hair - large guns low on their hips
planted farms, blew buildings to dust, bore babes 
They sang and shouted, sat in, stood up for change 
...and it came ...never fast or furious enough to calm 
the fever dream, never fast enough to comfort the hearts,souls and standard bearers of those who danced and marched and believed with shining eyes, strong bodies, clear vision that the future was theirs... The future is now - ... Now, the singers voices rasp, 
the shouts muted, the dancers tempo misses a step here and there, clothes cover bodies that chill, the ground too sharp or slick for tender aching soles , their flowers are now in gardens, tended with care, the babes born, now grown and flown, the shame 
and passion of violence a misted dream of wonder... They sang and danced and believed with no reason to think other , that the rolling future was theirs ...
The future is now ...and as is the way of all time not
waiting with soft gentle arms to embrace their struggle or cheer their dance  .... 
The future was never theirs, and as they watch others dance and shout and raise their young throats in joyous expectation ...they know, these discarded, silvered sagging soldiers of fortune that the future is always alive, consigned, grabbed and held fast in the now of yesterday, today and tomorrow ...for the future of the present  is the fickle fantasy of believers. The future does not wait. Soon the dancers of the past will nurture the soil - the dancers of the present will miss a 
step or two and still others will take their place ...This is 
the way of the dance, the delusion, the dedication, the 
decision to do ..all one can do whilst one can, to act 
whilst blind to the curtain ever ready to fall in graceful 
folds upon the performance as new actors stretch their legs,  in the wings of time.  Ready to leap into a future they truly believe, in passionate innocence,  will belong to them. Dance, march, fall together in fervent passion ...the changes will come and others will dismiss them as lacking..but that is for later, for now, they all dance, the former sidelined in disillusion, or satisfaction,  abandoned  artifacts revered, reviled or ignored, the current crop gathered  in coalesced linked arm embrace ...the not yet born kicking their heels in their mother’s wombs ...ready to be born to a world they will create and a future they will never own . 

Sunday, January 12, 2020

and the show must go on...



and the show must go on...

Change the channel ...
that low buzz, buzz, 
that bell that buzzes
burrowing beneath bone
that slow burn beneath 
the skull as they file in, bow
heads, sign to each other,
murmur sugar smiles -
this sea of black cloth over
shifting bodies, seated in
style of the living come to 
buzz as the ground bursts 
into the void - they lowering
the plain pine box - as she 
stares - a small fly in the vast 
Universe wrapped in a seemly 
daughter disguise - staring, 
beseeching in silent scream - 
Change the channel ....
Change the damn channel ...
please. 

Sunday, January 5, 2020

To my fellow worders at at the new Poets and Storytellers United

Hi all - Just wrote a congratulations and happy happy - hmm something is going awry and my comments are not posting.  Nevertheless I am thrilled to have found you and I'm sure this lost soul will be found by you as well. My original glad tidings were a bit more eloquent perhaps but I hit send  and whoosh off they went... Since I see my link up there and I'll try posting my comments here:
Helllooooo ... here I am again... Welcome to the birth of Poets and Story Tellers United - delighted to have found you and the new site. First of all Happy Healthy New Year and looking forward to the whirl of words and wordsmiths and most of all the wonderful camaraderie of sharing, and caring for and about one another our impressions and expressions on and about this wonderful spinning blue marble we all share.  Cheers m'dears.