Monthly Archives: May 2011

This is Bliss

I don’t know what you know,
I only know what I’ve been told;
I don’t know just when this thing started,
I only know it’s getting old.

I don’t know where we’re going
(barely remember where we’ve been),
but I can tell which way the wind is blowing.
Look to your valuables, my friend.

They say it’s just the times, but I don’t know;
just saying it don’t ever make it so.

I don’t know how you get through it –
probably much the same as me;
and I don’t know, sometimes I just say screw it.
Could be that’s how it ends, maybe.

I don’t know about your sense of humor,
but I know we’re in this together;
I don’t know sometimes to laugh or cry –
what can you do about the weather?

They say the world’s run out of gas;
just wishing it don’t make it come to pass.

I don’t know what you know;
or if I think it’s worth your thinking.
I don’t know if we can get along,
it all depends on what we’re drinking.

I don’t know where we’re headed;
could be salvation, or destruction.
In either case, we both may have to face
a whole new method of instruction.

They say the end is near, my brother;
not much you can do about it, one way or the other.

What is this? This is bliss:
letting go of letting go.
What is this? This is bliss:
both of us admitting we don’t know.

13 MAY 2011

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Song within: a cyrch a chwta

The human voice was made to sing;
and to the dull roar of life, bring
a force that grounds us in all things.
From the soprano, giving wing
to angel’s tones gone traveling,
to basso, low and rumbling:
the song connects us, soul and skin,
to what within us keeps living.

05 MAY 2011

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Sing, Then: a cyhydedd hir

To fill life with song,
sing out all day long
both right notes, and wrong;
do not be shy.

Don’t worry the notes.
Just listen, and quote;
and do keep your throat
from getting dry.

The subject, the text?
The world, more or less;
what small things impress
you, just sing about.

Don’t keep it inside;
set it free to glide
out into the wide
world. Go on, shout!

04 MAY 2011

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The ears have it: a curtal sonnet

From eyesight, there are half a dozen words
that represent a myriad of lies.
The surface, then, is never proof enough;

relying on appearance is absurd.
It puts us in a world of slick disguise,
transmitting second-hand its show and bluff.

There are no such illusions from the ear:
with sound, we gather in, and become wise.
Discerning what is real is never tough;
the undertone is always sharp and clear
enough.

03 MAY 2011

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Anti-Virus: a complaint or lamentation

I wonder how the world would be
if thirty years ago,
instead of playing thankless gigs,
a soundbyte of a show

I’d done when merely seventeen
(and better then, than now)
would have been made, and hit the ‘net
(God knows exactly how),

gone viral, and been seen worldwide.
Would I have been star?
I wonder, would I then have bothered
LEARNING the guitar?

By that, I mean becoming part,
just part, of what it means
to gain through time some mastery,
by living in between

the wanting and the knowing how,
the skill and the desire,
each note both torture and caress,
both kindling and the fire.

True art is more a crucible
where souls are bent and forged,
than an exciting carnival
where egos are engorged.

I wonder now, when looking back,
on things that could have been;
and thank the gods for then and now,
and the time in between.

What good would I be if back then
I’d caught on like a flame?
I would have not learned anything,
and been, today, just lame.

03 MAY 2011

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Look Inward, Angel: common measure

“As any fool could plainly see,
and you can see it plainly,”
were words my father spoke to me
in jest, sometimes, but mainly

to illustrate a simple point:
that often, a solution
is right in front of us, and needs
from us no contribution.

Perhaps he oversimplified,
attempting to be witty;
but nonetheless, some grain of truth
can be found in this ditty.

We know the truth, what’s right and wrong;
there’s no need of a teacher.
To find the essence of this life
requires no saint or preacher.

The wise men all say look within;
and still, we focus outward.
Is it because we’re deaf, or stupid?
Maybe we’re just cowards.

02 MAY 2011

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The flicker flame: a clogyrnach

Who can say what form the end takes?
The path each of us chooses makes
no two lives the same.
The snuff of one flame?
A wind came –
a mistake;

while yet another’s candle’s spark
may grow immense, and light the dark.
No one can say why
one lives and one dies.
We just try
to leave marks.

02 MAY 2011

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