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
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
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.
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
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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