Bells of.. Lyrics

BELLS OF.. LYRICS | POETRY | STORIES | WORDS

The musings of Lawrence McDonald BELLS OF.. guitarist and vocals. Photo by Chris Videll.

River Styx
The Coward
Turtle
Past Tense
Lord Byron
Captain Cook
Long Days
Duvall Was So Good In Tender Mercies
Peter Pan
More Than Meets the Eye
The Prodigal Son
Wilcoxon
The House of Miss Havisham
The Ghost of Susan Ward
Transient
Contemplation in Newport 1991
Thoughts on a wake
Root Boy Slim
La Pura Verdad
The Terror of Sobriety
One Shot
Twilight of the Idols
Summer Solstice
Thai Man
Blue Heart Burning Black
Big Foot
Mobius
Corn Rows
In the Morning
All My Favorite Friends
Lost
Second Half
Aeneas of Cornrows
Tobacco Education
This is Ridiculous
Chess
The Fall of the Loman Empire
Deceptive Paradise
The Antithesis of Britney Spears
Strong like the Sun was Red Doberman
Gateway to Rumor
Resolve
Ephemeral
Living Lesson
Little Sister
Penelope
Duck and Heron
The End of the Arc
Mare
Doubting Thomas
The Great Depression
Joyce’s Modernist Portrait
The Age of Aquarius
Trivia
Cock and Bull
Race
Daisy
Old Man River
Oblivion
Continua
Symbolism and Hints of Autobiography in The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night
Revolution
Totally Braille
Poem to the Love of my Life
Chasm
Jailbird
Reversing the Polarity
Epiphany
Cereno
Flame
Scott and Zelda
Riddle
Trixie
Avoid Crazy Maker
Life Is Too Short
Gaslighting of the Borderline
The Gorgon of Woodstock
Witch Wend Your Way
The Sinister and the Supernatural in Macbeth
Emerson’s Influence on the Rebel Thoreau
Reflection
Early Morning Thoughts and Ideas
Soulmate
Jedi Mind Trick
Early American
Farmalll
Narcissist
Zarathustra
White Canvas
Someone’s got to say it
Letter To Above Ground America
Looking For The Siren
Electra

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River Styx

See the lion, lying in the desert sun

There are so many second hand liars in this town

That wish they were brand new again

I wish I was done

Well done

Open all night

Raging bottomless sea

Harvest the secrets to a soul

Miss merchant of melancholy

Burning brain

Fueled by desire

Going crazy for a girl like you

Is always the right thing to do

“Go play in traffic”

“Or try your backstroke on the River Styx”

To remember to forget is to remind

The pain not remembered

Is the pain left behind

Good bye

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The Coward

He was a coward

He talked on the phone all day and explained why

He couldn’t quit his job

Tell his boss to take a hike

And just do what he always wanted to do

Besides

His girlfriend already had his whole life planned out for him

Wife, kids, a home with a white picket fence

With next door neighbors that gossiped about one another

This was his dream

What a coward

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Turtle

They called him “Turtle”

Not because he was slow

I think he just felt the need to hide away

Crawl up into his shell

Get his game on alone

He tried not to let the idiots and the wanna be’s hold him down

But sooner or later peer pressure caught up and he conformed

To the alcohol

To the complacency

To the defeatist attitude that had conquered the best

Of the kindergarten firemen and astronauts

One time I caught him drunk

Slouched on a bar stool

Trying to slap girls on the ass while they passed by

Missing every time

He truly had become

The turtle

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Past Tense

He hung around the skateboard park

All day

Drunk if he had enough money to splurge on a fifth

He didn’t skate

Anymore

Fresh out of jail

Continually incarcerated for bringing the rent down

In Ocean City

The kids loved him

Reckless rebel

Someone’s mom didn’t want her son to touch him with a ten-foot pole

Someone you didn’t want to smell closer than two yards away

Offensive odor

He bragged about what a bad ass he had been

In the past

A former drug gopher for the rock stars

He said he had shot up with Kurt Cobain in 91’

The “genius” without enough smarts to pull his hand out of the heroin cookie jar

This was his hero

Someone he aspired to become

When I saw him today

He was still meandering down that slow suicide slide

That took roughly five years of continual self-destruction

He thought he was cool

What an idiot

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Lord Byron

He was crazy

That’s what everybody said

They had abandoned him

A modern day Lord Byron

His old girlfriend kept coming around

To let him know

She was no longer available

He left the house one afternoon in May

Took his bicycle

Leaving the door to his room ajar

I never closed it

As time went by

The things he left behind began to glow

In the middle of the night

I’d wake up

Look across the hall

His whole room on fire

I started to wonder why all those people

Were outside the hotel on Calvert Street last week

When I came home from work

My other roommate said

“Eight stories isn’t high enough to kill you”

Someone eventually helped out with identification two weeks later

At the morgue

Eight stories was high enough

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Captain Cook

Woman you were such a poor decision

You made a poor man out of me

With a queen in white linen

It is easy for a king to learn how to be a fool

Fooling around

Falling down

Like a heart tumbling off of a sleeve

The bitch in the house on the hill has no soul

This old dog in the middle of the road has no home

How did all the days and nights we stole

Run away with the fork and spoon

You would have to commission Captain Cook to look

For the treasure we left behind

And all the memories of you

Buried deep inside my mind

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Long Days

Where have all of my long days gone

I scare the crow away from the setting sun

So he won’t be burned by

You know who I am

I know who you are

How did I ever fall off of your golden wing

Into a broken heart

Where has my white egret gone

I see two birds fly

And look for the stone

That is in my heart

Not in my hand

Fool plays his cards

You are the card shark

Trapped inside the summer submarine

Of my own mind

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Duvall Was So Good In Tender Mercies

Are you really going to let them do this

Exterminate one half of you

Culturally

They know

If you talk too much to us

We will tell you the truth

About me

About your grandmother

And grandfather

About your great grandmother

And great grandfather

But they don’t want you to know

Because it will poison their lies

1111 was published in 1992

It contains a message

Look “into” it

It proves they have a history of doing this sort of thing

They will tell you

We are some dirty puddle of water

To avoid stepping in

On this one

Please let them down

Because they are wrong

To divide us

We are an ocean

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Peter Pan

My father took us to the Peter Pan Restaurant

Peacocks, chickens and other livestock ran around in the parking lot

It was a ways away from the city

I forget where

I was seven years old

It was just my father, the Colonel and me

We sat outside on the patio

The Colonel was a WWII veteran

Someone special who had fought alongside my grandfather

And made the world safe for democracy

He had cancer

I knew he didn’t have much time

In the middle of the dinner

My father pulled a gift from his coat pocket

To give to the Colonel

Of all things

It was a watch

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More Than Meets the Eye

My father had a painting on his living room wall

It was a reproduction

Of two women looking out from a window

They appeared seductive and inviting

The painting had hung there for years

Perhaps decades

I think it was a Murillo

I never questioned it

Or looked into it

Someone came by to visit

And explained to my father

That the painting was a rendition of a prostitute and her Madame

Plying their trade at a brothel

At first my father was quite upset

“That’s absolutely absurd!”

I came by to visit

Not so long ago

There was a new starving artist painting

On the wall

And I wondered what had happened to my favorite working girls

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The Prodigal Son

In the Rose Garden

Of the Washington Cathedral

My father showed me a statue of “The Prodigal Son”

The stone carving depicted a scene from the story

A father holding his pathetic son in his arms

“See what happens when you don’t do your homework”

My father said as I thought of all my failed second grade assignments

“See what happens when you don’t clean your room”

I thought of all my dirty underwear strewn across my bedroom floor

“Don’t you see!”

My guilt ridden face started to swell up with tears

I ask what the pathetic figure carved in stone had done

And so my father told me

“His Dad gave him a lot of money and he wasted it all”

I asked what he spent it on

“Oh things like Hostess Ho Hos and Twinkies and that sort of junk”

My father had had serious problems with his teeth and tooth decay growing up

The dentures still plagued him

He was being so candid

We sat there in silence

It was at this point in my life that I realized

There were other serious pitfalls to avoid besides

Sex, drugs and rock & roll

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Wilcoxon

Oh good god what have I done

I’ve left you alone

Once too long

So sorry

Old friend

I’ll see you

When the wild horses

Finally cross

That river bend

Down by the farm

Of Ol’ Wilcoxon

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The House of Miss Havisham

In a mansion on Embassy Row

Lived a friend of my grandmother

Miss Mooney

She lived alone and was divorced or widowed

Or something like that

One day she asked my mother if I would pick up sticks in her yard

Ten cents a stick

The following morning

I was in her backyard with hundreds of twigs

Piled together

As an enterprising eight year old

I was even breaking the dead branches off of her dogwood trees

She yelled out from her patio

“Would you like some hot chocolate?”

I came in from the cold

All the living room furniture was covered in white sheets

I tried to sit down in one of the chairs

“Don’t sit there!”

I jumped up like my ass had been burned by a hot waffle iron

While I drank hot chocolate

She told me about the stray cat in her garage

How she felt bad it had no home

After I left I did not see her again until Christmas Eve

My grandmother had invited her over for dinner

I asked about the cat

“The cat?”

“Oh he froze out in the garage”

I always wanted to ask her

Why she didn’t just give the poor thing one of her white sheets

To stay warm

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The Ghost of Susan Ward

Susan we have been looking for you

Oh so hard

Out in the marshlands

Of my own backyard

It is getting late now

Watch the sun

Move along

Past the horizon

I have come too far to twist my eyes away

Too close to Cleopatra in the pawn

In the palm

Of my own hand

Every time I get up

And feel the need to sit back down

Remind me of the golden gold

That is in the soul of a man

Who never bows

But instead wears the mark of his own crown

Susan

You are more to me

Than a broken beer bottle

Strewn around

Some drunken deer hunter’s

Playground

Windy loblolly

Whisper to me now

Softly

All they say to me is

No deposit

No return

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Transient

As a messenger in Washington DC

One of the things that provoked the most pain as well as soul searching

Was the changing geography of the job

In particular I recall deliveries to various academic institutions

One fall morning between runs

I was sitting on a bench in a Georgetown University courtyard

Watching a flood of students pour out of a building between classes

One young man with sunglasses and a baseball cap passed by

He said to another

“Someday I’m going to rule the world”

I sat back and sighed

On the bench

With my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in hand

Age twenty-seven

I had an epiphany

And muttered words to myself

“How much longer are you willing to be the errand boy for the fathers of these gold plated brats?”

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Contemplation in Newport 1991

Lay around with nothing to think about concentrating on the good times and the bad

Isn’t this marvelous asking myself “Wednesday will you go back to work?”… NO no no

At the party in the midnight hour I was thinking out loud in a crowded room

One million miles away lady don’t swat a seal but wrap me up in your own fur

I ran around crying for years waiting for the sun to dry out my tears

Following the summer solstice watching the sideshow circus on the outskirts of town

Met the crazy man by the Ferris wheel who told me he was King Henry the VIII’s son

What is waking me up in the morning and setting me down in the evening See the vagrants do the midnight stroll Playboys letting it all roll

Sometimes I feel so alone trying to find a method to the meaninglessness of my life

Seems I always find someone new to talk about self destructive behavior with

I wish I knew why… I wish she would move back in like the warm wind in springtime At the bar I overheard the conversation…

“He was so good to her but you can see she broke his heart like hard candy”

See how he talks to himself in the corner of the room repeating the words

“Is there still a chance we could make it?”

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Thoughts on a wake

Rainy day, you took the smiles away

Left with a frown on my face I think of what he would say…

I love new taste

Another new face

I’m even attracted to the wicked witch

Whore and bitch

However everyone is a hypocrite

Hiding behind blue eyes like Eve’s

With the ugly troll under the bridge

Sunshine lost in a maze

Listen to the organ player play

Playing to a black box

Moving toward a lonely grave

Rainy day, are you only the tears of his loose lover maid

Are you only the tears that his loose lover has made

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Root Boy Slim

Slim was fat

Obese is more accurate

He said he was a mean lean machine

When he played football for Yale

Twenty-five years ago

Aging gracefully

Did not apply to Slim

People who came by the house to visit

Commented on his condition

“You should drink a quart of orange juice every morning”

“Like my wife and me”

One Root Boy fan remarked

Slim stared at him with disgust

Dare to be fat

Was his mantra

Coffee and donuts

In the morning

Pizza around noon

Power nap afterward

Chinese food

Delivered to our doorstep in the early evening

Foster McKenzie drank Black Label and smoked Reds

All day long

He lived fast

And died in his sleep

A heart attack

At forty-six

The music magazines called him a hero in eulogy

The “Godfather of Puke”

I just thought he was lazy

And fat

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La Pura Verdad

When they finally let me back into your life

I felt like an old man

They needed work done on their houses

Or apartments

In exchange

“Would you make..”

“Could you paint..”

Sure I would say

I will do anything

To see you

I remember the drive through the woods to get to your condominium

Beech Drive

I thought of all my mountain bike rides

On the Rock Creek trails

Legs burning up

Brain on fire

With you constantly on my mind

When I arrived at your place

I got right to work

Smooth sailing

One time you greeted me at the door

“Hello Mister Fix Up Man”

They still had not told you

The simple truth

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The Terror of Sobriety

Kissy was always drunk by ten

10am

He would have been drunk by nine

But the county liquor dispensary

Would not change their hours of operation

To accommodate all of his bitching

He bragged that he got more done by 9am

Than most men did all day

His wife usually chased him out of the house by noon

Told him to hit the road

One afternoon he came down my way

“My wife tells me I’m too mean to die”

“She’s right” he said and boasted some more

“I can out fuck out fight out drink any sonofabitch”

“Whatta bout you”

“Wanna sip”

He pulled a fifth of Canadian Mist from underneath the driver seat

And drank just about the whole bottle

Boy o boy

That guy sure could hold his own

I remember sitting in a bar a few months later telling some farm worker

How much of a bad-ass Kissy was

The farm worker

Finally realized who I was talking about

“Ju mean tu tell me ju didn ear”

He said

They found him in his car by one of the docks

Taking in a sunset

The means to an end

In his hand

Brains all over the dashboard

Kissy was 69

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One Shot

Shoot for the heart

Nothing else really makes much sense

Pour a cold shot

For the man on the moon

Can’t you hear me scream

Screaming at you

A little of the old man’s advice

To illuminate the night

Once when I was young

I used to

Think I knew

Everything there was to know

About walking on swiss cheese

With a heart made of stone

Cheer up mister man dans la lune

I’ve got a riddle for you:

Anyone who turned their back on love

Wouldn’t shed his light on me

He would cower away from life

And sit sulking in a dimly lit room

Somewhere on the dark side of the moon

And that’s not you

or me

Goodbye Dorothy

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Twilight of the Idols

They nicknamed him “Crispy”

Like the sound and feel of newly issued hundred dollar bills

Those rascals at the surf shop would never shut up

About how disenfranchised their lives had been

In comparison to others

But it was Crispy

Who first showed me a skateboard

And turned me onto punk rock

When I was ten years old

I thought he was the coolest dude ever

But those rascals at the surf shop would not let it alone

About how Crispy lived in the gentrified part of Maryland

And not the quasi ghetto of Beecher Street with them and the rest of

Georgetown University’s alumni

I don’t think they had any idea

That Crispy came from a family of nine children

Perennially on Saturday morning

His mother and mine

Scoured every church bazaar and yard sale they could find

To put decent clothes on our backs

Crispy never wanted anyone to know his clothes were second hand

His astute dress and manner reflected this

Those two poorly attired rascals that teased him

Went on to become rock stars

Who bragged about all the skateboarding they did in junior high

They called other people posers

Who didn’t have their same

Coolness factor

Decades later

I can’t help but think that

Those rascals were the posers

Crispy was the real deal

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Summer Solstice

So there I was

Sitting on your grandmother’s

Wicker couch

In the living room

Feeling like an uninvited guest (perhaps I was)

At your third birthday party

It was the first time I had seen you in years

Not by choice

Twelve years later

I found a photograph your mother had snapped

Of me

Sitting there

Somehow feeling out of place

Watching you run around the living room

I felt invisible

A black hole

Ignored by all in attendance

Save for yourself

Too young to understand

Why they wanted it this way

It is hard to describe the way I felt

Roman Polanski did a great job

In his film

Rosemary’s Baby

“This is no dream

This is really happening”

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Thai Man

And when he died

I didn’t feel as bad

As I had thought I might

Not immediately anyway

Not after trying everything

I could

To get him to face the music

Of life

I was driving home when someone told me the news that

He finally left town

For good

That’s what hurts now

No more waiting period

Or interval in between crossing his

Black cat path

Just gone

No sighting in

Oregon

Colorado

Or Amsterdam

Then

A rumor surfaced

That he was holed up with six vestal virgins

Somewhere on the island of Ko Chang

Just off the coast of Thailand

Binge drinking his way into paradise

Well

I’ll be a monkey’s uncle

He always did know how to party

Goodbye friend

Keep your toes in the sand and

Save a shot or scotch on the rocks for me

See you when

I retire

Give my regards to

Danny Gatton

Roy Buchanan

I never thought you would be my

Arthur Hallam

In Memoriam

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Blue Heart Burning Black

We gazed at the art object

A heart tumbling through space

On fire

Battered and blue

Turning black

“What does it mean?” she asked

I explained that the black heart was not a bad thing

Not the harbinger of evil

Ridiculed in

Old wives tales

However

It was a symbol of temper

A process of hardening or toughening

The same way iron is smelted into steel

A trial by fire

Perhaps it was

The loss of love

Or a loved one

Burned in the inferno

A tacit understanding appeared in her eye

“How do you know the story of Blue Heart Burning Black?“

For a fleeting moment

Arose the bud

Of a memory

Long since forgotten

I held my tongue

Knowing that pain

Not remembered

Is pain

Left behind

In the spent ashes of a tempered soul

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Big Foot

After his life saving operation

They had him laid out

On a hospital bed

All six foot five of him

The Sasquatch of Skateboarding

All jacked up

On morphine

“Is that you Monica?”

It wasn’t

It was Vivian

He was getting everyone mixed up

Several of his girlfriends had arrived

At the same time

Each thought she was the only one

His comments were delirious

“I jus luv you Monica”

I knew he was in deep trouble

Smiles were turning to frowns

I felt a catfight coming on

Just then the nurse came in

A sort of referee

“Visiting hours are over”

I walked around his feet

Sticking out from the edge of the bed

He had those silly hospital moccasins on

The girls were beginning to argue

About things jealous girls argue about

I guess he filled some pretty big shoes

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Mobius

Grow your garden well

Shake the seeds off of the trees

Who have stories to tell

If you are smart you will let them fall

I let them all fall

Because I know they will be reborn

Under the same sunny skies

We are all just kings and queens in our own time

If you are not a face card in their hand

You can be a face card in mine

Thrown in the jungle our seeds are sown

Like my forefathers I grow

Grow and grow

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Corn Rows

We are born into cornrows

Strewn all over this green cornfield

Looking out toward the side of the road

I wonder where that road could possibly go

We will build a scarecrow

Set him down by the side of the road

Build him out of soft ribbons and bows

Someday he will walk out into this world

Hello I am this cornfield’s scarecrow

The unromantic character or so I am told

Won’t you run your fingers down my soft ribbons and bows

I would love to run away with you but it is here I set my soul

Wandering from town to town on my own two feet

Dreams lying naked between sheets

This time I was the scarecrow

Inside of a cornfield

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In the Morning

In the morning when the dream is leaving

Remember yesterday in the late afternoon

You walked down the street toward the evening

With your shadow rising to greet you

And the old women say life is so short

The key was to move fast and with precision

All the while you know there comes a time at the end of our lives

When we will have to leave

The traveler says “Don’t sell your time to the man, man”

Wake up with the rooster

Get out on the open road

Run road runner run

Watch through the eye of the storm

See the dragon fly

Breathe volcano breathe

Watch the Sun God set

Rise full moon rise

I will dance under your moonlight sky

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All My Favorite Friends

Today I almost ran away

Of all people my stuffed animals convinced me to stay

Living inside the strangers town

Everybody wears the frown

Cats chase the dogs

I saw a horse fly eat a bullfrog

Mister No One is the real thing

All my favorite friends have plastic eyes and velvet skin

Tell all my frowning faces in the stranger’s town to go away

They leave me feeling down like I was Blue Monday

Did I tell you I finally met someone

Following the summer sun

Going out bronze, lazy and insane

She said come sleep with me boy in the heart of a town where No One knows your name

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Lost

Write another song for me

When I’m gone

Rolling down the road

To no one ever knows

Jesus was just another lost soul

You met on your way

Somehow miscast in the play

Running away

Kicking around

Another loose stone on the ground

Girl we’re never going to make it

If we don’t try

Look into blue eyes

See Adam

See Eve

So much hardship and misery

You and me

And adversity

Our own personal trinity

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Second Half

The afternoon of life

Creeping into the daylight

The crush of things left undone

Descending to the West

From above

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Aeneas of Cornrows

Wandering from town to town

On two feet

Dreams

Lying naked between sheets

Stranger no one knows

Scarecrow sleeper in a cornrow

My world

Just another cold place

Love

She’s a long drawn out face

Lady of my lake

Fallen petals from a daisy

Tea leaves

Please don’t say

We’re condemned to waste away

And never make it home

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Tobacco Education

The farm was way out

In the boonies

On the prime tobacco growing soils

Of Maryland

Known in centuries past for its good

Burning qualities

A small, independent farm that had somehow escaped

For generations

The clutches of usurping agribusiness companies

My father was working on his dissertation

Slavery In Maryland

We drove down the dirt lane

To where the farm house stood

A shack really

Built ages ago on the highest point of elevation

A man emerged

Black as the southern Maryland soil

My father talked to him for some time

As I sat in the car

The mid day sun was hot

I began to get thirsty

The farmer took us to his well

No electric pump

Only a bucket and ladle

I stood head level with the top of the cistern

He poured water into a glass

And handed it to me

Cold as ice

Before we left he gave my father a few green tobacco leaves to dry

My father was not much of a smoker

But was more interested in the tobacco drying process

From field to fire

A year or so later we returned to the tobacco farm

My father wanted to give the farmer a gift

This time the man invited us into his house

With the rest of his family

The wooden interior had a special warmth to it

We sat at the dining room table

In the center of the tiny room

As a sort of thank you for sharing his time

My father pulled a book from his pants pocket

And handed it to the farmer

The farmer stared in bewilderment at the cover of the paperback

Politely thanked my father

Then slowly set the book down on the table

My father looked somewhat faint

Color ran out of his pale face

As if he had abruptly come to some stark realization

Or barrier

Of written word

I felt a furrow opening up

Wide

Like a canyon

We said our goodbyes

On the way home I asked my father what the title of the book was

He muttered

History of Black Americans

Driving North

We fell silent

I could not yet read but still wondered why

My father gave him

A book of complicated words

Neither the farmer

Nor my father

Could ever understand

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This is Ridiculous

An antiquated boat

Is en route

To intercept

A Japanese whaling fleet

Bent on harvesting the remainder of the seven seas

An antiquated boat

With a rusting hull

Is sailing toward the Antarctic Ocean

With the intention of saving what

Is left of the natural world

Regarding the rusted boat

That now drifts menacingly between his ship’s harpoons

And the whales

The Japanese whaling fleet captain remarks to his navigator

“This is ridiculous!”

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Chess

Before the taxi ride is through

I’m going to make my move

Sitting so close to you

My heart is a flood

About to let loose

Red light

Back seat

Touching your soft face

Finally coming closer

To mine

Running your river all night

Pouring into deep blue eyes

The endless ocean

So raging and mysterious

I finally find

Between us

No talk

Serious

Our words are in the lips

Sewn together in a kiss

Elation so elusive

Found

Hear the parrots in the cab

Squawking about

Two love birds in the back seat

Throw it all to the wind

Life is made of beauty and sin

Please don’t stop the ride

Tonight

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

The Fall of the Loman Empire

Bob’s face had become

Synonymous with the Georgetown Theater

The lines on his forehead

Engraved by decades of disingenuously using the words

“Thank you”

He worked the ticket booth

I was his apprentice

The ticket ripper

He tried

In earnest

To teach me the finer points of being a theater usher

The correct method of holding the door open

For patrons

And so forth

In 1961 he held the door open

For President Kennedy (“And his date–shhh!” Bob said this was confidential)

On Jack’s way in to see a live performance of the play

Death of a Salesman

This was the high point of his career

Five shows a day of the x-rated Roman epic

Caligula

Was the current fare

Even so

This was not enough to save the antiquated movie house

According to Bob

The theater

Had come a long way from its former glory

One winter day

Between shows

He told me the dreadful news

“Gus says they finally found a buyer.”

“They’re gonna gut this place like a fish”

“And turn it into a jewelry outlet”

“Imagine that”

“The end of an empire”

Bob was getting pretty worked up

I detected a tear in his eye

“You don’t even seem to care!”

I just sat there

On the heater

Dressed up in the usher’s red monkey suit

Looking through the large glass door

At cars passing by on Wisconsin Avenue

Wishing I was somewhere else

For once

Bob was right

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Deceptive Paradise

There is a siren

Sitting down by the lake

Just outside the garden

A secret I’ve been keeping from Eve

I’m going to pretend

I don’t see the ruse

Then again

I know what I’ve got to do

Sometimes I feel I should just let it all go

Then again

I know

It’s nothing six thousand years of men

Haven’t had to face before

I’m going to stay strong

When I feel the fall

I’m going to hang on

There is a siren

Sitting on the other side of the lake

Singing her irresistible song

Wickedly tempting and inviting mistakes

Dripping wet outstretched arms

Tempestuously

Offering me seductive fruit

Then again

I know what I’ve got to do

The grass looks green on the other side

Then again

I know

It’s all in my mind

Coming to realize

Peripeteia

Paradise is found deceptively concealed

Quietly masquerading

As an ordinary thing

I stumble upon

At a seemingly uneventful

Time in my life

Goodbye dagger hiding behind an insidious smile

I have fortunately broken away

From your gaze

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

The Antithesis of Britney Spears

The ingenuous song is sung

Because it is compelled

To lift the burden

Off of a soul

Bellowing out an autobiographical tale

Desperately struggling to refute

The writing on the wall:

Life is a nursery rhyme told by a fool

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Strong like the Sun was Red Doberman

Red dog shine my way

Turn your bright life light on

Strong

How can you miss me coming your way

In your mystic morning dawn

Every time you wake up

I want to be the first

To let you know

You are the first

To never let me down

Finally as the twilight

Of our day

Fades

I am sorry that we’re through

Still I know you’ve gone on to someplace new

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Gateway to Rumor

I had only just met her

And within ten minutes

She dropped more names on me

Than a county telephone book

“…and he’s the one who stole my former best friend’s wife”

I stood there

Silent

Nodding every so often

Taking it all in

Trying not to look bored

I knew everyone she spoke of

Anyway

But didn’t let on

Besides

She was really getting into it

Her face was red and puffy

All worked up

The saga went on

And on

“…I think they’re getting married once the divorce is final”

And on

But here’s (in my opinion) where her thesis got complicated:

“…and she says he has to put that silly skateboard back in the closet”

“And spend more quality time with her, that’ll learn him. I couldn’t agree more!”

Boy oh boy

Even unlettered men

Can tell so much about someone

By the people they seem to know

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Resolve

Lone eagle soaring high

Another year has flown away

Still looking for your mate

I’m going to write a great big book someday

Filled with all the things

I still struggle to say

I’m going to fix my broken wing someway

And fly high

Above this one horse town

Beside you

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Ephemeral

Who knows

How long the road

The destination to

Remain unsold

How pure the toll

Who are you

Another June leaf blowing in the breeze

Another kid in the fold

Of thieves

Stealing some time

Out of a slumber

Rise phoenix but questions arise:

How many more times

Do I greet you

Sunrise

Who knows

Where all the winter geese

Sitting on top

Of the frozen lake

Go

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Living Lesson

Wasted

Blown away

By the trials of life

Drugs

Alcohol

Divorce

More drugs

Things he wished he could

Forget

It had been over twenty years

Since I last saw him

A sadness

Or sense of loss

Filled his eyes

I talked about old times

And the days of yore

Wasted

In our misspent youth

“Remember when…”

I went on at length

About

All the beautiful

Girls in our high school class

Fist Fights

In the locker room

And the general mayhem

Associated with our adolescence

“Remember!”

He stared with tired eyes

Looking right through me

Because he couldn’t recall

Twenty more years of

Backsliding down the road

Had not been kind

To his memory

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Little Sister

Goodbye summertime

So long warm breeze

Whistling through my hair

Here comes the winter’s

Killing freeze

Green fields are a frozen memory

Sleeping under a blanket of snow

Is it conceivable to die

I guess

Only the dead really know

Does it really matter anyway

If I ever knew you or you ever knew me

Only time will tell

A little piece

Of the puzzle in me

Written into you

Puts a little peace and wonder

Back into my heart

Will I ever see you again

Remember when you were

Running like a kite in the wind

I struggled to hold on and then

Something happened I still can’t understand

You slipped right through my hands

Sweet snowflake

Whispering in my ear

Gently calling out from your falling star

Little Sister

Little Sister

All the while

The North wind blows

Goodbye summertime

Put a tear back in my eye

It’s time to pick up sticks

And face the cold

Alone

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Penelope

In trying to get back in touch with you

I felt so far

From Lovers Lane

The old familiar road

Of years ago

Is now a lost odyssey

A ragged joke with no more play

Knock Knock

“Just go away”

To say people change is clich’

Would you even recognize

Me

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Duck and Heron

Duck and Heron

The nursery rhyme

And adult fairy tale

Sitting by the edge of the water

I am reminded of the

Meaningless stuff of

The old hermit in the woods

That lonely loveless man

Lacking in connection

Dashing knight of Sir Thomas Malory

Unable to see

The forest through the trees

Do you see the pretty girl

Caught in the snare of the city

Another lost snowy white egret

Pasted into the cold and dark landscape

Of relentless concrete

Duck and Heron

Together again

Sleeping on the edge of the bay

Beautiful white egret

Yearning to spread your wings

Dreaming of escape

If you are alone

Fly back toward me

Slip away

I am singing your song

Listen…

Can you hear me call

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

The End of the Arc

She was going a little berserk

Like most women do

In the morning

At the end of the month

So I walked out

Away from the turmoil

Into the cold city air

“Here’s what you get!”

The spiteful message she sent

Specified that

Only a friendship could be salvaged

From the wreckage

Of our relationship

The love affair

So full of passion and life

Was now extinct

A fragile flower that had bloomed too soon

Met with a late spring freeze

And died

When I finally saw her again

I told her I already

Had enough friends

Shook her hand

And walked away

Back toward Lovers Lane

To spin the roulette wheel

One more time

Again

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Mare

Wild horse

Where are you going with my heart

I’ll never tell you again

How much I love you

And the crazy way you move

Because I know

It is all I need to say

To make you run away

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Doubting Thomas

He felt like he had gotten old

After tripping

Running for the ferryboat

Only to miss

Helplessly watching it roll on down

The river without him

An overwelming feeling

That somehow life had passed him

By

Came over him

Where was Saint Nick now

To tell him to quit whinning

And enjoy life

All his heroes had disappeared

While watching the river flow

The fat old man with the long grey

Beard

Sitting next to him on the pier

Sat back

Basking in the summer sun

Laughing

While the young man cried

The stout old man asked him

“Where do you think Santa Claus goes in the summer time?”

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

The Great Depression

What the stressed out

Cosmopolitan urban girl gave me

Would have killed another man

Her disease

Passed down

From a previous romantic

Catastrophe

Plagued her life with a dark

Sadness

I tried to help her

With laughter

Companionship

And a sympathetic ear

To listen to her rant

About her crummy

Office job

And the dodgy politics

Associated with it

About her millionaire ex-husband

Jilting her

And their messy divorce

About how she didn’t know

What to do

With the rest of her

Insatiable life

Soon I was too close

To escape contracting

Her great depression

Of lonliness

Despair

And a fear of things to come

She passed it on

To me

Like a hot potato

I consumed it

And after our affair was over

What she gave me

Began to burn

And simmer

Inside

I had been had

Sold a clunker

At first the disease was

Manageable

Not a big deal

By the end I was bed ridden

And unable to sleep

Losing interest in things

Alone

With the neverending thought

That there was only darkness at

The end

Of the tunnel

My salvation came

At the hands of a small town

Country girl

Who offered the future

Of a simple life

Uncomplicated by the turmoil

Nonsense

And sickness

Of my past

Wise beyond her years

She wanted nothing in return

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Joyce’s Modernist Portrait

James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus and Charles Bukowski’s Factotum all share autobiographical protagonists. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce’s protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, searches for an escape from the confines of family, religion, Irish nationalism and poverty. Thomas Carlyle’s hero Diogenes Teufelsdrockh goes through cycles of despair eventually finding enlightenment. Charles Bukowski’s hero in his novel Factotum, Henry Chinaski, struggles with alcoholism, poverty and alienation from society. Carlyle’s novel was written during the Victorian era and Bukowski’s Factotum is centered in Los Angeles during the 1940’s. Joyce’s novel takes place around Dublin in the early 20th century. The characters of both Diogenes Teufelsdrockh and Henry Chinaski share many uncanny similarities with Joyce’s Modernist alter-ego, Stephen Dedalus. One of the biggest similarities these three characters share is their unconscious drive toward isolation and alienation from society in pursuit of artistry.

Read the full essay Read the full essay here.

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The Age of Aquarius

The hippie girl was right

Armageddon is here

She spoke with a cigarette

Dangling from her mouth

And a bandanna holding back

Her long jujubead hair-do

“It’s totally here man..”

But she was right

Teams had been divided

Like a pick up soccer game

On a Sunday afternoon

Today you are either on the side of

Life, liberty

And the pursuit of happiness

Or at one with the kling-ons

Bent on destruction

Greed and

Self aggrandizement

Organic Food vs. Plastic Surgery

The hippie girl was right

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Trivia

Holding the pen he wrote:

The best don’t write

About doing

When they have not done

About knowing

What they have not known

They write about

Isolation and

Alienation

From father

From brother

From daughter

They write about

Thoughts of suicide

And picking up pieces

Only to move on

They write about loving

When they have lost

He sighed

Then he sat back in his chair thinking:

Fuck it – the best don’t write

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Cock and Bull

He was so in love

But she was a stripper

He gave her everything

Cars

Money

His valuable spare time

And he followed her everywhere from

Washington to

California

While she pulled his short chain

All over the place

He even distanced himself

From his old friends

Because she told him they were fools

Very pussy-whipped (I know)

But she was just a stripper at heart

And when she dumped him

For another patron

He was so upset

Some time later

He found some photos

Of her online

Sobbing with his head in his hands he

Steadied himself in the folding chair

“I treated her so good!”

“Now her ass belongs to everyone”

“Look!”

He pointed at the computer monitor

And there she was

Scantly dressed

In a catholic school girl outfit

She was posing

With a big grin on her face

In a very compromising position

This was someone he had described

In the past as being

“Highly sophisticated”

I asked him if there was anything

To be gleaned from this

Horrific experience

He looked at me with tears streaming

Down his face

“Do you know what the worst thing About all this is?”

I sat and listened in bewilderment

“I’m never going to get another free lap dance again!”

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Race

Doing all that doing

For the silly reason

Of getting ahead of the next man

Racing the race

Falling into line

With nothing left

To rebel against

We are grains of sand

Running around in the wind

Falling down

Then blowing back up again

Does it mean anything at all

Am I closer to the truth

If I know nothing at all

In a dream I saw you

At an Inaugural celebration

In Washington DC

The crowd pushed us toward

Each other

Until finally it was obvious

Who you were

You smiled and waved your hand

But connected with someone else

Behind me

It had been too long

And you did not remember

They had kept us apart for too long

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Daisy

I miss the mystic night

And shining green glow

Of your love light

From so long ago

A fond memory

And vestige

Of endless passion

And eternal hope

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Old Man River

Keep on rolling down river

Nothing is going to change today

Keep on rolling Old Man River

She’s going to do what she does anyway

Creep on Casanova

You keep on pushing my love away

Keep on creeping down a long highway

Sometimes it’s okay to run away

Laugh on all you lonely people

That will keep you from crying all day

Dead men are doornails forever

Lovers only live for today

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Oblivion

Blue Sky

Please don’t fade out on me

Thin line

Marking your way in life

Weave on through

The endless sea

Salt of the earth

Doing what you do

Stray Dog

Barking at the moon

Old man look back

At things lost in the fray

Maybe she will change her mind

Someday

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Continua

We eke our way along

Just as the others did before

Crawling on our hands and knees

Until we eventually reach our feet

Out of this great stuggle

A thousand years from now

Something miraculous happens

Laughing

Crying

Evolving

Moving hand in hand

We finally discover

The sacred and timeless river

That runs through us together

Across eternity

Humankind is such an impressive

House of cards

How could we just

Blow it all away

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Symbolism and Hints of Autobiography in The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night share protagonists whose love affairs end in catastrophe. Jay Gatsby’s romance with Daisy Buchanan shatters when Gatsby’s platonic ideal of love collides with reality. Similarly, Dick Diver’s romantic tryst, outside of marriage, hastens his downfall and descent into alcoholism. Fitzgerald’s ideas about American decay in the aftermath of World War I are played through Jay Gatsby, and Dick Diver. Gatsby’s endless desire for Daisy and his ideas about reliving a past that cannot be retrieved mirror the disillusionment of post-war America. Diver’s desires for the young Rosemary Hoyt are benign so long as they are not acted upon. Fitzgerald’s juxtaposition of the platonic ideals of love and the problems of actualizing love become enacted in the characters of Gatsby and Diver, especially in their yearnings to materialize what is outside space and time.

Read the full essay here.

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Revolution

I finally turned off my TV

Pulled the plug for good

The local news channel

With the plastic anchor

And sexy advertisements

Was all snow

And Greek to me

Anyway

No antenna

No cable

No more digital revolution

All that yapping

About “important” stuff

Happening one too many miles

Down the road

Just made me feel

Left out of a world I didn’t belong to

Anyway

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Totally Braille

We conversed about how

Our dear friend and his wife

Had lost the plot

In life’s storyline

The quest for them

Was no longer valid

“He says he doesn’t have a choice”

I listened intently

“His wife is going to withhold sex

Until he takes that job

As a computer sales-exec

She wears the pants you know..”

He went on

“Besides..

Management made him an offer

His wife couldn’t refuse

As ’employee in charge’ of their

Equipment stocking warehouse

So now he has to quit slumming it

As a starving artist”

“Wow” I said scratching my head

Astonished at the monumental

Paradigm shift that

Had occurred in our friend’s life

The discussion continued

“It’s quite a trade off you know..

Everything was going along ok

Before they got married

But now she wants to buy into

The American dream

And become a Unitarian”

Still puzzled I said

“You mean utilitarian..

As in robot.. right?”

He nodded in acknowledgement

“Yeah whatever..I’m just letting you

Know that we’ve lost one of our own

To that faceless industrial wasteland

Again!”

In shock and horror I finally confessed:

“So much for pursuing the

Artistc Holy Grail”

He looked at me with understanding eyes

“Yeah–I guess love is blind but..

She must give some pretty

Amazing head too”

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Poem to the Love of my Life

You are the love

Of my life

I think about this

Time and time

Again

When life seems to careen

Out of control

I am brought back

Toward the center

By a longing for the touch

That bonds

Between us

Once more

Again

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Chasm

Across this great divide

We wander into

Each others arms

Not knowing what the future holds

To each their own

We share in this oblivion

A welcome promise

In the seach for eternity

Falling through a hole in time

Burning up

A flame of desire

In the endless space of our hearts

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Jailbird

We are all just doing time

I don’t know

I wish I did

What do you think

About the prison of the mind

And doing something to help

The cause

Of helping somebody else

This is salvation

And Jesus was just a person

Only one of us

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Reversing the Polarity

Energy coming toward you

Because of energy

Flowing out of me

People telling the story

Of their lives

Feeling just fine

In the present

The gift of living in the moment

Working on yourself

Is working on the house

Home is where the heart is

Unstable little girl

Crazy as the raging sea

I once loved you

Magnet

Please continue to

Push hurtful things

Away from me

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Epiphany

Run run river run

What in the world are you

Running from

Great big blue sky

You’re so strong

Nothing is ever wrong

Roam on girl your falcon has flown

Every fairytale has an end

Lovers not friends

Where o where do all

The tiny grains of sand go

When the cool ocean breeze blows

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Cereno

The Encantadas, Herman Melville’s collection of ten sketches contains various stories of human interaction with the Galapagos Islands. The relationship the whalers, merchants and buccaneers have with the inhospitable landscape and sparsely populated wildlife of this “Enchanted Ground” soon develops into the beginnings of human colonization. Melville’s novella, Benito Cerano, also tells the story of colonization and the trafficking of slaves. While Melville’s The Encantadas relates stories of exploration on the newfound territory of the Galapagos Islands, Benito Cerano takes place on board ships which have yet to reach their destinations. By juxtaposing the actions of Melville’s early settlers on land in The Encantadas with the ideologies contained on board the American and Spanish sailing vessels in Melville’s Benito Cereno, it becomes evident that the colonization of new lands is only an extension of the ideologies and laws of domination contained on board the ships that encounter them. This natural tendency to colonize leads to the use and exploitation of resources as well as the domination and enslavement of other human beings regardless of ethnicity.

read full doc here

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Flame

“I’m not in love with you”

Said the flame to the fuse

Leaving port

Alone on the midnight town

Doing the dance

Dreaming inside your onyx eyes

Carousel ride

Sunlight pouring through

The window in your room

Would seem to be telling news

But I’m not in love

Gaining speed

Crashing into your heart

Falling farther away

From some catastrophe

Of where I paid my dues

Closer up into my arms

One more French kiss away and

I’m so in love with you

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Scott and Zelda

Eureka

I found it!

The key to the sadness

Ominously controlling her life

The two of us

Abandoned by each other

Were left in separate worlds

On opposite sides

Along the

Borderline

Of

Personality

And

Disorder

When I finally contacted her again

She was grief stricken

There was no one left to

Blame

With new found understanding

And empathy I

Gently remarked

“I’m sorry” (it was truly the last time)

Sadly now she must take

Responsibility

For draining the source

Of all her power

Empty

There was nothing left to

Control

I am but one of

Many

She will find another

Willing participant

Complicit in her drama

I thought…

“All you need is love”

But beware caregiver

There’s no one you can save

That can’t be saved

It is hard to see

The forest through the trees

Things have become so clear now

With distance…

In remembering those fleeting

Cherished moments

Of intense passion

And hope

I still must remind myself

That

Long before our relationship began

She was on an arduous journey

Up the River Styx insatiably

Questing to change

A scarred past that was

Irretrievable

Yet ongoing

The most magnificent

Gift I could give

To her and myself

Was

To walk away

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Riddle

Nonchalant ocean bird

Soaring above the chaotic sea

Nothing holds you down

Easy calm beholden to the gift

Authenticity

Strong secret in the wind

The riddle blowing through

Endless blue sky our home

I know no story like this one

Together we build our own

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Trixie

I spoke frankly to

The Old Little Girl

And told her that my life was not

A Hollywood movie

That the rewards were found in

Blood sweat and tears

Not handed to me

At first she appeared to lend

A sympathetic ear

Smiling and holding eye contact

Then she climbed back into

Her father’s sports car

Laughing at what I had just said

Racing off

Out of my life

Back into her expensive storybook

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Avoid Crazy Maker

Alpha don’t look back

You were born to roam

The world is your home

Beauty don’t let sway

If she say

“Stay”

Rip yourself away

Alpha don’t look back

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Life Is Too Short

God please help me to

Get those people out of my life

Who are sad

And can’t be made happy

Who are mad

At everyone

But themselves

Who need

Someone to fulfill

Their own responsibilities

Who lie to avoid

Confronting the truth

Who are glad

Only when they have

Found a pharmaceutical drug

To temporarily satiate

The natural struggle

Associated with any

Human life

God please…

In the future

When they knock on my door

Please tell them

I’m digging for clams

On the moon

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Gaslighting of the Borderline

These people are appealing

Because of their vulnerabilities

And sadness

They come across as if they can be

Emotionally rescued

But they can’t…

They present themselves

As damsels in distress

Or the perennial

Victims

Of every previous lover

They have encountered

Beware

Shining knight

The Siren is singing you to

Shipwreck

Turn your white horse around–

Just go home

The carnival prize you seek

Is only an illusion

Fabricated by witchcraft

It is not worth the price

Of admission

Or the pain and misery

Of her gaslighting

This process of idealization

Is nothing but a delusion

Of endless “what if’s”

This Siren will do anything

And “be” with anyone

To escape being alone

Avoiding abandonment

At all cost

Relying on her fading beauty

To jump

From person to person

Across life’s river

The waves getting rougher as

Her seductive flower fades

She leaves a path of destruction

And sorrow

In her wake

Endlessly searching for her next

Victim to

Play “victim” to

Desperately

Seeking to be saved

She comes to you with (perhaps) a

Guru complex

Or dime store wisdom

But she is as unhealthy

As toxic gets…

She is ill

In hindsight

This all still has me so

Puzzled…

Chalk it up to a

Learning experience–

The next time I want to become

So totally lost and

Completely confused

I think I’ll just

Buy a Rubik’s Cube

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

The Gorgon of Woodstock

See Medusa

Literally filling an

Empty hole

Replacing the endless void

Inside of herself

With

Anyone

Wearing

Tear Away Pants

She’s alone

But she cannot be

Left alone

Desperately trying to

Fill this

Emptiness inside

From person to person

Dancing

Round and round

She rides

DJ “Turntable” spins

Her tune–

Spun…

Silly boy

She will only wreck your home

And turn you into a trophy

Made out of stone

I’ve known about it

All along

(She thinks she’s fooling everyone)

Realize how and why she

Has pursued

Us

Be the first

To become

Her

Perseus

I feel so lucky to be far and away from

Harm

Back inside the warm and loving

Embrace of an

Athena’s arms

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Witch Wend Your Way

If she says

She cannot trust you

This means that

You cannot trust her

If she says you are a cheater

This means she has been unfaithful

She uses this tactic of “projection”

To cover up her lies

And delude you into believing that

You are the catalyst for

Her dysphoria

Projection is also a sub-conscious

Morse code

Of sorts that telegraphs her own

Failings of character…

Hating others

With the ability to unmask

Her deceit and manipulation

She will paint you black

As the villain

In an effort to cover up her Hyde

Dump her dude

She will always lie to you

It’s her way to end boredom

And stir up drama

In a witch’s cauldron

With her bent silver spoon

By controlling you

She feels secure

In her own

Disordered life

Men who are doormats

Beget adulteress wives

Anyway–do you really want

A quasi “Cosmopolitan” woman

Wrecking your home

Who complains about the food

You cook for her

And disdains the castle you’ve won

Yet does not have the commonsense

To put together a

Peanut butter and jelly

Sandwich

Or mend the path

Of hardship

And misery that

All of her crazy-making

Love affairs

Wend

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The Sinister and the Supernatural in Macbeth

William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth contains elements of the supernatural and witchcraft in its portrayal of a Scottish war hero’s lust for power. By incorporating elements of magic, Shakespeare’s classic tragedy has become, perhaps, his most controversial play. Shakespeare uses the darker themes of Paganism and the occult to show how Macbeth is corrupted from a revered general in the service of King Duncan into a power-hungry murderer and tyrant. The play contrasts Macbeth’s faith in the supernatural with Christian themes, to explain how Macbeth has gone so radically astray from his initial honorable qualities as a warrior in the service of King Duncan.

Full essay here.

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Emerson’s Influence on the Rebel Thoreau

The writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson celebrate the importance of original thought and were the foundation of the early-American Transcendentalist movement. Emerson’s theories also had a profound influence on Henry David Thoreau and Thoreau’s creation of Walden. In “The Transcendentalist” Emerson divides the “thinkers” of the world into two sects, Materialists and Idealists. Emerson observes that materialists are of a less refined sect than idealists who contend that their way of thinking is higher in nature. This concept–that ideas belong to a more perfect order than things–is central to Emerson’s philosophy. He also notes that to achieve this sort of thought process the idealist is better suited in a communion with nature than with society. Although Emerson’s ideas about Transcendentalism were well grounded in theory they had yet to be tested in the real world. Henry David Thoreau’s writings about his experiences of solitude (in a cabin situated on acreage Emerson owned) and his quest for inner peace culminated in Walden. Emerson’s ideas about isolation, brought on by a rejection from the utilitarian world, forcing the idealist into a contemplative, more perfect state of mind, unencumbered by the clutter and chatter of the materialist life he has left behind, were put into motion by Thoreau and his desire to live amongst nature. It was through this tempering process, of rejection and isolation from society, that the Idealist in Thoreau finally emerged, committed to the perfection of these ideas. Thoreau’s decision to reintegrate himself back into society and to share the thoughts of his new found idealism after his completion of Walden show Thoreau’s transition from misunderstood rebel to a spokesman for Individualism. By sharing his experiences in Walden, Thoreau takes on Emerson’s challenge that the contemporary Transcendentalist must go forth into the same world which at first shunned him to share his new found spiritualism completing a cycle beginning with Thoreau being a shunned outcast and culminating in his writing of Walden.

Full essay here.

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Reflection

Oh… the many thoughts

That traverse across the

Landscape..

On a long walk

I found a river of you and I

Filled with curiosities

And things I failed to understand..

Abandonment fears

Of

Childhood dreams

Which we both shared

And the stark nightmare

Of rejection

By loved ones

And those we held dear

I remember the wonderful

Strung out days

High on

Idealization

The beginning…

In places together

I felt akin to you

An endless belief

In things to come

Stolen by the intangible

Doubts and fears

We superimposed

Upon each other..

These were our greatest fears–

Realized

But still

Only perceived…

Those thoughts of unease

Never existed…

Really

In reality

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Early Morning Thoughts and Ideas

Live As You Please

What an incredible notion

Nothing to hold you

Down

I knew from the start

That deep inside my heart

Somehow I would eventually find

A way to peace of mind

Walk on all this way

And finally find a place to stay

Down inside my heart

Write it

In stone

Having tried to walk away

For so long

I’ve walked far

But it seems that

I’ve been here before

Round and round again

Any sort of separation begins to end

Something forefathers put

Out on loan

These things are carved in stone

Like in Movies

I look out the window

Out into the street

Another exit into

A different ground under my feet

I’d like to reach out

To you my long lost friend

But I’m so afraid to begin again

Within Time

Sometimes I wish I could go back

In time

The attraction

And idealization of a memory

Is so perfect

Uncorrupted and disabused

On the interior of a mind

When I’ve done as much as I can

Will I have only these memories

Washed away

After Rain

We try as hard as we can

And still sometimes the scales

Do not tip our way

Feeling washed away

Over promises I broke

To others and to myself

Lover–please don’t paint me black

For the rest of our lives

Sometimes it’s better to walk away

And leave what is left

Off White

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Soulmate

There is no One

There are lots of Them

Don’t fall for the myth

She tries to snake charm you with

Be not afraid

To lose

There are lots of only

1’s

Cruising down the road

Aren’t we both listening to

The same song on the radio

Softly playing in

The back of my mind

Some old

Slow

Psychedelic

Never played before

Tune…

My dream band of

Jimi, Jaco and Keith Moon

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Jedi Mind Trick

Simple is

Plain

Easy

Effortless

That is what

Makes simple

Deceivingly

Difficult to achieve

If the splitting of an atom

Is complicated

Why is simply saving what is left

Of the decaying world

So impossible

Some enterprising entrepreneur

Figures out

How to grow pineapples on

Mars

Back here on

Earth

We have only

Succeeded in

Fooling

Ourselves

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Early American

I am an Early American

I wake up early

Chalk one up on the sun

Farmer John ain’t got

Nothing on me

It just makes sense

None of the zombies

Are early risers

Walking the pavement

Of the shopping mall parking lot

Before dawn

Not a soul around

Sleeping–all of them

Zombies

Lifeless people

Who are guided by tv

And gossip columns

Structured by the machine

Back on the farm

I walk the perimeter

Thinking out loud:

There is probably an answer

In there

In the forest

Somewhere

Wind in the leaves

Ripples on the water

On the edge of the bay

What else is out there

That has not been destroyed

Who else lives a real life

By escaping their corruption…

You can have the night

Just leave me the morning

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Farmalll

Little houses

Sprinkled across the landscape

Lots of space

In between

Dirty trousers

Littered with mud

And the grit

Of old blue jean

Whatever happened

To all those

Broken down dreams

Spawned and then laid to rest

Under the spreading chestnut tree

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Narcissist

Does it really matter which

One it is

No–

You lead the show

You are the circus

However..

If she wears those

High heel shoes

That click just a little too loud

On top of the granite

While walking around

Like she owns the place

Stay away

She only wants to

Tell you what to do

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Zarathustra

Just a hermit

Inside a cave

That’s what you’re supposed to do

Mister Natural

Don’t behave like they expect you to

Stay away from their virus

If you get to close you can catch it

Freak

Loner

Maverick

Rebel

Those are words used to describe

People who don’t run with

Their herd mentality

It’s been going on

For quite some time

Even before they

Invented

TV

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White Canvas

Tide is out

Sundown

Moon on the run

The answer

In the white whale

No one knows

Where he goes

Or what he does

Death and the end of a tale

What is below

The surface of an ocean

Outside the box

Of imagination

Standing not within reason

The memory of a

Perfect lover

Never wilting flower

Things that do not exist

In our space and time

Only outside

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Someone’s got to say it

Farmhouse

At the end of the road

No one knows you

Anymore

I’m upset by their

Complacency

All those

Degenerative aristocrats

Too lazy to repair things

And get it right

It’s so fragile

Got to

Let it go

Let go of the frustration

With life’s

Losers

Full of

Hot air

Neck tattoos

And a bad attitude

Endlessly tearing it all apart

Why hold onto that

Kind of weight

When

Every day

Is one more chance

To get it right

Leaving them all behind

To watch American football

At The Big Pig trailer park

Sometimes at the end of the day

I sit down with a drink

And reminisce

About you and the past..

Then I tell myself

It’s ok to shut the bad

Memories down–

Tell them all to go away

They just serve to hurt

And slow a fella down

Anyway

Well that’s the most fun

When you are asleep

Dreaming

And pissing

Thinking

I can get away with

Anything

Reaching for the alarm

Awake

Now soggy

With no recourse

But you’d do it all

Again

Shuffling through

Another memory

On my video screen

All that nostalgia from years ago

Caught in my eye

Wind whistling through the

Window pane

Cool fall day

No leaves on the trees

Alone

Something inside me

Wants to scream

Or break down and cry

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Letter To Above Ground America

All these people around me

I’m alone

Fading into the surrounding

I’m blown

Another

Snowflake melting

On the tongue

Of the

December

Wind

Invisible

Ghost of

Someone who has lived before

That died

In the New American Civil War

Defending a soliloquy

And whatever else it means

To be

Or not

To be

Living under a rock

Some sort of

Clairvoyant

Transient

Feeding ducks

In Central Park

I don’t even want to

Engage

Please

Just go away

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Looking For The Siren

Looking for the Siren

In my life

Attracted to all the danger

And the Mystery

Like a Cleopatra to Ceaser

Or Mark Antony

You may need that later on

Way down the line

Like Bobby Fisher

One of the smartest people

On the planet

But he ended up

Living as a transient

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Electra

Reflecting now..

I feel it

Buzzing around

Inside of me

A tiny bumble bee

With a mild case of the butterflies

And slight nervous unease

Transient woman

Lady of the knight

Masking your moves

On the corner—singing in the street

Speaking in tongues

Bright One

Tell me the secrets of

Your song

“Trauma Bond”

I know (I know)

It’s all about connections

If you don’t know what to look for

You won’t find anything at all

Lover—you are someone’s

Daughter

Trapped by a snare

I helped you undo

I—a father

Of an estranged girl

I never really knew

Can you feel it

Flowing into our veins

Together smashing through

The relatively

Easy unhappiness

Of being alone

No space in between

The strong electricity

Of thunder

And lightning

But no storm on the horizon

For the moment

Only skies

So

Blue

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