Monthly Archives: August 2003

This is the soft hoarse whisper of these times

This is the soft hoarse whisper of these times:
its cup full of succulent summer grape
no longer laced with Being’s false treason,
the braces of its skull bone corset bent,
unloosened to the warm, wet wind that seeps
across its throat with a caress of steel.

27 AUG 2003

Share This:

Ballad of the Undertown

Now, Councilman Zeb Davis says
that tourists are the way to save this town.
Never mind the unemployment
and the high school where the scores are going down.
And the factories that close?
That’s an element we just don’t need around,
’cause misfortune is attractive
when you pass her by, but don’t take in the sound.

Now, the Holy Rollin’ Baptist preacher
says the choice is Heaven or to Hell.
Never mind those that ignore the call,
they’re lost and so we’ll bid them fare thee well.
And the north side is place
where all the comfortable Christians care to dwell,
so don’t mind the local greasers
and the factory boys, and focus on the sell

Now, the cemetery’s full of conflict’s heroes
and the town’s claim to its pride.
Never mind that’s it’s still killing
and there’s never proof that God is on your side.
And the trick is not to have to walk
when you can find a bandwagon to ride,
’cause the further you are from the ground
the better off you’ll be when He decides.

Now, the local boys are drinking
and the local girls are plastering their hair.
Never mind the ozone layer
when you’re looking good and everyone will stare.
And the trick is to forget
there’s no one watching who can take you anywhere,
’cause the ride to love is free,
but the return trip’s where they charge you double fare.

Now, the smiling politician
says his mandate is new jobs for everyone.
Never mind that it takes three or four apiece
to take the place of one good one.
And the skills you need to get ahead
are never taught to any farmer’s son,
’cause the city boys have learned
a briefcase works a whole lot cleaner than a gun.

Now, the trains roll by the station
since there’s never anybody coming home.
Never mind the old folks dying
or the brother sitting waiting by the phone.
And the high school sweetheart pining
’cause you promised that she’d never be alone,
’cause the world outside is promising
to show you things you never have been shown.

Now, the board of education
puts its trust in the community of saints.
Never mind the harsh reminders
that the golden dream could use a coat of paint.
And the faded football heroes selling cars
without a murmur of complaint,
’cause there ought to be a better way,
but everyone believes that there just ain’t.

Now, when Councilman Zeb Davis
swears that tourists will revive our village square.
Never mind the unemployment in the ’70’s
that left the cupboards bare.
And the looks from all the local boys
that tell you there’s nobody living there,
’cause this kind of spirit only comes out
with a lot of fasting and some prayer.

1998
A few years back, when I was living out on 89 acres in middle-of-nowhere Ohio, I decided that I needed to write a series of songs that clung together in the same way as Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. As is the case with any venture of that magnitude, some of ’em worked, and some of ’em didn’t. The point was to capture the essence of that population 8,900 small town that was 12 miles down the state route, where 20 years prior I’d gone to elementary and junior high schools, riding the school bus for over an hour each way through endless fields on concrete, then blacktop, then stone-tar, then gravel and finally dirt roads. My cousins still lived there; so did a lot of people I knew. Many had moved away, but much later in their development than I did. Most that moved away never came back, leaving their parents and grandparents (and their way of life, too) to die in that backwoods place (home of the National Coon Dog Field Trials, BTW). Some things had changed, but a lot was very much the same. When we moved from Ohio to California, that part of Ohio was dying. When I moved back, you could still feel that lingering death in the air, and like any long-time sufferer will tell you, there are parts of the daily pain that you just have to put up with, and others you block out entirely. I had traveled many miles before I returned back to the family farm; along the way, maybe I learned a few things. And maybe some of them were worth learning.

BTW, if you’re a Bob Dylan fan, you can sing along to this one, kinda. It has the same verse structure and rhyme pattern as (Just Like) Tom Thumb’s Blues from Highway 61 Revisited.

If you’re lost in the rain in Juarez, and it’s Easter time, too /
And your gravity fails and negativity won’t pull you through /
Don’t put on any airs when you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue /
They got some hungry women there that’ll sure make a mess out of you

There’s also a bit of Tom T. Hall’s The Ballad of Forty Dollars in there, too:

The man who preached the funeral said it really was a simple way to die /
He laid down to rest one afternoon and never opened up his eyes /
They hired me and Fred and Joe to dig the grave and carry up some chairs /
It took us seven hours and I guess we must have drunk a case of beer

Or maybe Willie Nelson’s Me and Paul:

Almost busted in Laredo, but for reasons that I’d rather not disclose /
But if you’re staying in a motel there, and leave, don’t leave nothing in your clothes

Share This:

Why Some Sources Are Better Received: an allegory

We stand together on the shore, you and I, watching the night sky.
We both agree we are land-bound and each pines to know the sea.
In our hands we can hold some sand; to me, yours looks the same as mine –
just tiny fragments of the whole, in numbers greater than ourselves.

You use your sand to draw a line between us. As it trickles from
your hand, I wonder why you mark the boundary there and not out
there at the ocean’s edge, where we both see our path’s limitations.
Instead, you tell me that my grains are false and you cannot use them.

I wonder where your few handfuls, that I saw you scoop next to mine
(made of the same small hard stuff, broken from the same giant whole)
became so different from the rest, when you had time to sort these few
in the short time we both had here, how you learned to separate them
from all others on this great span. They are just grains of sand, my friend;
there are millions of them out here, but alone they are not the whole.

Only if placed here together can they make a way for we two
to trail our toes in the vastness that is the sea, from whence we came.
But you reject my small quartz bits, and claim the beach in your sand’s name.

You come at night and wreck castles built of other grains, and on the spot
construct some great monstrosity (that uses some of my sand, too).
By day and night you guard it well, thinking it achieves all that sand
was ever meant to do or be. You cry that your castle weakens,
that when you look, evil sweeps down to brush away your great design.

Sometimes you sound insane, when you insist yours is in fact the only sand
there is, even as the rest of the beach clings to your feet and hands;
Sometimes, when the wind blows strongly, and the air fills with the surf mist,
I see you try to rub the salt from your eyes, cursing the ocean.

Not evil, but the sea itself fights you. For your sand grains are stained
with blood, and the walls of your shrine are tamped with hatred and deceit.
That must be why your sand differs from the rest, and why so many
others, when you offer to share, choose from grains that you have not saved.

26 AUG 2003

An Allegorical Response to Christian Exhortations and Concerns

Share This:

A Vignette

So, there I was … taking my 2:00 p.m. lunch break (I work from New Orleans on Pacific Coast Time). Here is the scenario:

I am sitting at a table under the carport that is covered with books, catalogs, flyers, etc. Bearing in mind that it IS 2:00 p.m., regardless there is a candle lit, and to that I add some Quan Yin incense. I am in my usual work uniform – jeans, t-shirt, birkenstocks. In my mouth is a cigarette. In one hand, a small green apple upon which I lunch. In the other hand, Jorge Luis Borges’ Collected Fictions. It is almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the humidity is about 97%. The sun is bright and there is no breeze. Above my head in the fluorescent shop light fixture, a family of wasps are coming and going, feeding I assume their young. Not a damn thing other than that is moving on the street or in the air. The house is also quiet – Starlight Dances is taking a short nap, and the Troll Queen (TQ) is off at school for at least another hour.

Just another few beautiful moments spent in what the TQ calls our “All Night Buddhist Pub”.
Ford’s in His Flivver, and all’s right with the world.

Share This:

Optimistic anapestics

When the world
is so full
that it fails
to react
to the tears
of a child,
it has lost
any hope;

and when cries in the night
go unheard and are lost
in the noise of the street,
we have shut out the light.

There is much that we don’t understand,
yet we claim that we know truth from lies.
With our words, we explain many things,
but the truth is that we are not wise.

If you look out your door seeing just friend or foe,
you will find battle lines in each new place you go;
and you’ll fight, wrong or right, without end ’til you die
without knowing real peace or true friendship at all.

Yet a smile will repair many wounds, and may bring back the lost
from the dark, foul abyss where they wander and suffer in pain;
and they may find their sense, and return to their lives once again.
If a small thing like that can restore humankind, do it now.

25 AUG 2003

Continuing the discussion regarding rhythm, here’s my latest exercise result – taking an increasing number of feet with the anapest foot (da da DUM) in progressive stanzas.

Share This:

Confession of Faith

This is my confession of faith:

That which is real is wholly real
and fills even the gaps between
what I think seems to be real
and what I am incapable of
imagining it might be.

To divide one thing from the next
based on my limited viewpoint
denies that there is something else
capable of containing both.

What I think is the possible
limits what I can understand.

Energy does not fade away;
It changes form, perhaps, and fills
some things now, and others later.
The filling up is called living.
The emptying for another
purpose is called dying.

When I am thirsty for the truth,
a mirage does not satisfy;
but truth’s lake has different sides,
and the water from one shoreline
(though called by a different name)
is the same as from another.
It is one lake, although I can
only see the spot where I now stand.

Awareness of ability
comes with responsibility.

If I can understand this fact
but refuse to heed its lesson
I have no advantage over
those more ignorant and unable.

Without direct experience,
it is not possible to know
whether the things I have been taught
are useful or are even true.
Real meaningful experience
is rare, and always personal.

Hypocrisy means living life
as if what I believe does not
apply to me – by my actions
proving that it is not the truth.

The only sin is thinking that
I see the truth of everything.

My eyes are not that wide.
My mind is not that wise.
My heart is not that big.
I am smaller than I think.

I am less important than I would like to appear to be.
I am not in charge of everything.
I am not placed above anything.
I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

I am only made of fuel.
Something else will need that fuel when I am finished with it,
and I will give it away gladly,
having no further use for it.

This world is not a proving ground for somewhere else.
This world is not a possession to be dominated or stewarded.
This world is part of the sacred whole.

So am I. So are you.

There is no Other.

25 AUG 2003

Share This:

August in New Orleans

There was a strange quiet to the morning air
before the streetlights blinked their last, and the
pale moon still shone from its place in the sky.

It was already warm and wet, the dew
rising from the ground only a short way
and then sagging back to earth as the weight
of the motionless dawn lay like molten
lead on its shoulders. The birds had not yet
left their nests to forage in the first light,
and only a single car, its windows fogged
with the settled damp, pierced the slow ether
of the muted world as its driver gunned
its engine passing over the dark levee.

The night had done little to cool the hot
earth, and it lay bathed in its sauna steam
that clung like a low-lying, feral fog
to the drooping branches of the live oak,
elm and magnolia trees. Then, as the dark
of evening lost its hold to the coming
sun, and the dirty yellow glow of the
streetlamps seemed to be swallowed, extinguished
by the soft, hazy grip of the greasy
light, I lit a cigarette, its rough skin
like mine already made limp and sweaty
by the humid and cloying atmosphere,
and watched as my exhaled smoke gently hung
there, and then disappeared, as if absorbed.

25 AUG 2003

I guess there are SOME advantages to having to get up at 5:30 to take your daughter to swim team practice. Offhand, however, only being able to see clearly (due to both the fog in the air and the fog in my brain) during the return trip certainly puts those advantages in doubt.

Share This: