Monthly Archives: September 2003

Lady Sorrow

for Starlight Dances

When the laughter in your eyes can’t hide the pain inside your heart
And the world around you will not stop to listen
When you wake up in the morning with a space inside your soul
And no one will answer when you ask what’s missing

When the doctors and philosophers can’t cure the hurt you feel
And the medicines they offer promise nothing
When the day is spent in sorrow with no ending clear in the sight
And your anger turns to sadness at their bluffing

Will you rest a while and let me dry the teardrops on your cheek
Will you let the one who loves you well take care of you
Will you take my hand and give me time to hold you in my arms
Will you listen to the words I speak to comfort you

Lady sorrow, I will be your willow tree
’til tomorrow, when the sadness sets you free
You can borrow any strength you need from me;
I am here with you and that is where I want to be.

When the trying just to smile can be too much for you to bear
And the thought of things unfinished is so haunting
When you stare out of the window with a longing in your mind
And no one will realize how you’ve been wanting

When the advisors and consultants can not give you sound advice
And they ramble on and don’t offer solutions
When you’ve grown so tired of speaking with no hope that you’ll heard
And your voice is weary with grim resolution

Will you stay and while and let me wipe the teardrops from your eyes
Will you let the one who loves you share your weeping
Will you give to me your hand and let me hold you in my arms
Will you trust me to watch over while you’re sleeping

Lady sorrow, I will be your willow tree
’til tomorrow, when the sadness sets you free
You can borrow any strength you need from me;
I am here with you throughout all of eternity.

You can cry – I will understand; you can scream and I will never turn away
I will try – to help you where I can; in my love for you there lies a better day

Lady sorrow, I will be your willow tree
’til tomorrow, when the sadness sets you free
You can borrow any strength you need from me
I am here with you and that is where I’ll always be.

25 MAY 2000

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Discord and Strife

Who planted these hurtful seeds of discord,
Mixing them among the bits of wheat grain,
Laying a hex on land that can afford
No such burden, for it has never lain

Fallow, having imposed upon it no
Seventh year stretch, no time for idle rest?
Whose hand left the sack, and tossed to and fro
The rough, cruel tares among the gentle best?

It was my own hand that planted this field,
That heedless, from the store there at my hip
Sowed such strife between the narrow furrows.
But others must take their crop from this yield;

They too will pay at harvest for my slip —
How deep the roots of regret and blame grow.

23 SEP 2003

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Memorial Day 1994

Once upon a time (which so many of us assume is in the past, but could very well be the future) in a coffee shop far, far away (so far, in fact, it might be considered to be in Memphis, Tennessee) on a Sunday that was confused about its own self-image, seeing how it had become devalued by being sandwiched in the middle, between the bookends, so to speak, of a three-day weekend commemorating the inconsistent foreign policy of a barely toilet-trained democracy, a young man named Gravity Pushman, who was an anarchist comedian who moonlighted as a itinerant philosopher/busboy/ panhandler/candidate for the U. S. Senate, sat with a girl who met a Crown Victoria coming out of a Circle K parking lot who dreamt of being a mental case and thereby receiving special treatment from people who assume that they are not (crazy, that is). Like most men of mice and plan, it (the situation, that is) was better laid than executed, which might be considered a moral judgment regarding the penal (or penile) system of the above-stated Greek resurrected Frankenstein monster, but since there are no givens in the above equation, one can never tell. We were speaking of executions and putting our words into action by killing time, which Aleister Crowley affirms is the only real measure of our lifespans that we are aware of, and therefore, if you love life you mustn’t waste it.

“You know what your problem is,” he said, running an Ohio Blue Tip against the floor of the porch and putting the flame to the cigarette at his lips, “your problem is that you just cannot hang; whereas I can hang, do hang, am hanging, and probably will hang at some time in the future, for a crime I could not or shall not have committed, having been sentenced to meet the hangman’s daughter by a jury of my peers in accordance with the laws of the state and the dictates of moral society and quite possibly by the whim of several species of television-weaned autosuggestible mass consumers of misinformation on the basis of circumstantial evidence, or through the influence of outward pressures upon the existent legal system, or perhaps even through the whim of that particular doctor of jurisprudence who in his closing remarks to said jury will imply that although the proof is more in the pudding, there is no pudding like a Jello pudding pop, and ergo, primae facie, habeas corpus, pop goes the weasel.”

“You know I’m not as smart as you,” she said, “I can’t keep up with you.”

“That’s why the humans are a race,” he responded, “and all other things are species or breeds or varieties. They seem to think it’s something to be won, either by being the most fleet of foot or by answering the right question at the right time with the right intention in the right tone of voice under the right conditions to receive the right response.”

“What if,” she broke in, “what if the right wing was really the left wing, and the left wing was really the right?”

He paused for a minute to think, flicking the ash from the end of his cigarette. “You’d still have to cut the breast three ways,” he answered, “the only difference would be that the wishbone would be the funny bone.”

Thinking, hoping, and perhaps even praying that someday she might be clever, she responded in the interrogative (which she could comprehend on certain levels on certain days in certain company during certain conversations, but would be hard pressed to spell, whereas since his experience as a runner-up in the Hardin County, Ohio spelling bee at the age of eight gave him an incredible grasp of useless things such as spelling, he would have been glad to say ‘interrogative’ i-n-t-e-r-r (or maybe ‘double r’) o-g-a-t-i-v-e ‘interrogative’), saying, “Funny ha-ha, funny weirdstrange, funny intelligent, funny odd, or funny indigenous poor people exchanged for funny trees made into funny pulp print in funny papers read by funny exploitationalists passing funny money in a funny farm nursing home for the insane society?”

“You know those times when you think you’re funny,” he retorted, “when you think you’re funny, but you’re not?”

I know,” she interrupted, “this is one of them.”

“If there is hope,” he continued, “its candle might just be burning for you. Don’t get too excited, however, or the exhaust from your deep breathing, soul-searching, self-help administrating, inner-child spoiling exercises just might be enough to put us all in total darkness, which was, of course, where Moses was when the lights went out.”

“Your mother,” she responded, “must be a saint. I just can’t see how any one could put up with you.”

“All I can say to that,” he laughed, “is this: too bad it wasn’t Eddie Vedder.”

MAY 1994

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Release

Sometimes you smell trouble coming
Hinted on the breeze
The final fragile feather
That can bring you to your knees

Sometimes you can sense it coming
When the pressure builds, your ears start drumming
Sometimes you can tell the future
Read it in the signs

The simple subtle signals
That are there between the lines
Sometimes you can feel it growing
Where the wheel will stop, there’s just no knowing

Things can get crazy, the lines become hazy
And there is no sure way to go
Going through changes, your world rearranges
When it sweeps you up in the flow
Just let go …

Sometimes you sense change occurring
A shift in the air
The muffled moving Music
That transports from here to there

Sometimes you can hear the whirring
When the wheels and engines start purring
Sometimes you may feel the power
Taste it in your bones

The crackling coursing current
That bleeds through the danger zones
Sometimes it grows like a flower
When the muse will sing, who knows the hour?

Things can get crazy, the lines become hazy
And there is no sure way to go
Going through changes, your world rearranges
When it sweeps you up in the flow
Just let go …

19 SEP 2003

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On Driving

Perhaps it is because I just finished reading David Crosby’s autobiography Long Time Gone, but yesterday when I was driving home from the store I realized something about myself that is strange: I drive like I’m holding, and when I say holding I mean carrying or otherwise transporting illegal substances. Not that I do that anymore, but I suppose it’s a habit that dies hard. Taking less populated streets, turning off when there are rollers (i.e., police cars) within a mile sight ahead and particularly behind. Being very careful to observe speed limits, stop signs, and so on. Maybe I’m just an old hippie at heart … LOL. But it doesn’t matter what vehicle I’m driving, how far the distance, how well I know the neighborhood, what my frame of mind is … I drive like I’m worried about getting busted. Quite odd, I suppose.

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Coming Down

Winding down the dreary days that led me to this place
Powers of suggestion leaving echoes on my face
Lost in the sound of howling engines revved up for the race
Standing on some lonesome corner trying to plead my case

So many circles of color and sound
Between the sky and this place on the ground
So little time to spend looking around
Catching the moments I’ve found
Coming down

Tripping through the troubled times that make up this charade
Hours of reflection spent on mirrors now unmade
Lost in the flash of fickle freedom hidden in the shade
Standing on some lonesome corner watching the parade

So many circles that echo with sound
Trying to fly with my feet on the ground
On the horizon and looking around
Catching the insights I’ve found
Coming down

Stumbling over silent stones that lay there on my path
Symbols of some separation between what has passed
Lost in time’s tumult and triumph, things not built to last
Standing on some lonesome corner I just have to laugh

So many circles resplendent with sound
Filling the space between me and the ground
So many moments spent looking around
For all the good things I’ve found
Coming down

16 SEP 2003

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Biography in Song, continued

OK, here’s where it’s going to get tricky. After high school, with full time employment, my album purchasing power increased dramatically. A lot of energy was spent building a record collection. I’d go out and buy complete catalogs (yea, a fool and his money are so soon parted). The years 1983 to 1985 consisted of the following milestones:

David Bowie, Every album from “Hunky Dory” through “Scary Monsters”
Bob Dylan, Every album from “Bob Dylan” through “Empire Burlesque”
Otis Rush, Right Place, Wrong Time
Electric Flag, Long Time Coming
Buffalo Springfield, Retrospective
Spyro Gyra, Morning Dance
AC/DC, Highway to Hell
Black Sabbath, Every album from “Black Sabbath” through “Heaven and Hell”
Led Zeppelin, Every album from “Led Zeppelin” through “Presence”
Doc Watson, The Essential Doc Watson
John Hammond, The Best of John Hammond
The Beatles, Complete Half-Speed Masters, “Please Please Me” through “Abbey Road”

Details to follow …

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