Tag Archives: fear

Not Those Kind of Blues: blues sonnet

There is no need to holler or to shout,
no need to raise a holler shouting out;
those ain’t the kind of blues I’m talking ‘bout.

The world is in a worry, sure enough,
the world is full of worry, sure enough;
if you don’t like it, man, that there’s just tough.

Ain’t nothing much to say, and less to do,
not all that much to say, nothing to do,
won’t make a difference down at me and you.

Don’t make commotion, sure don’t raise your head,
make no commotion, better bow your head;
might raise it up and find it lopped off, dead.

When darkness lies so heavy near the ground,
sure ain’t the time to think you’ll stick around.

19 JAN 2017

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Baby Elephant, Walk!

When we are young, they begin to fit and clothe us in raiments for battle: the helmet of self-esteem; the breastplate of self-confidence; the shield of self-assurance; the sword of self-righteousness – before we understand the “self”, when what self we possess, if any at all, is like a baby elephant whose trainers fit its infant leg with a band of iron fixed to a chain and slender stake too strong for a young beast to pull from the ground.

As we grow old and that first armor rusts they clothe us in uniforms for endless toil: the cap of self-doubt; the coat of self-interest; the boots of self-loathing; the jewels of self-pity – and although our self has outgrown its plate and mail cage, like the elephant, tethered from childhood by that same narrow band and slender stake, who at their full grown prime could with a simple, small gesture easily pull their leg free from any bond, we quietly wait, and do the master’s bidding, not believing, not imagining, not even trying to escape.

09 JAN 2017

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No End of Days

The world has not yet made its final twirl
around a sun still managing to burn;
the seasons, although changed somewhat of late,
continue with their ceaseless promenade.

Both wise and foolish prattle on no end,
with new results no different from before;
the civilized maintain the status quo
their barbarous ancestors stumbled on.

The end of days is always almost here;
soothsayers find new suckers without fail.
The young, in spite of things, still become old
and stop all their pretending at some point.

So put away those funeral shrouds for now.
There will be no apocalypse this week.

16 MAY 2016

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Let go, let go, let go

Cast away your doubts and fears;
let go, let go, let go.
Leave behind all that you know;
let go, let go, let go.

Nothing left to tie you down,
nothing blocking out your sound,
nothing keeping you around;
let go, let go, let go.

Toss aside those clouds and gray;
let go, let go, let go.
Ask the universe to play;
let go, let go, let go.

There is something left to find,
something of another kind,
could be something on your mind:
let go, let go, let go.

Leave behind your cares and woe;
let go, let go, let go.
All you’ve learned and all you know;
let go, let go, let go.

Anything can be achieved,
anything you can believe
can be used to make you grieve:
let go, let go, let go.

Let your worries slip away;
let go, let go, let go.
Start again, just start today;
let go, let go, let go.

No one blocking out your view,
no one left except for you
to complete the passage through:
let go, let go, let go.

19 APR 2013

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Winding Down: diminishing verse

Oh, that brave actions would outstrip
my idle thoughts on this strange trip
and rend this silence, letting rip

against those fears none understand;
and on that battleground, I’d stand
secure in my convictions and

well-knowing that I could suspend
reality and time to spend
a moment in peace at the end.

Oh, to feel that glad release,
when this worn flesh negates its lease
and finds at long last, a true ease.

14 DEC 2012

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This Place

Everything about this place just tends to bring me down;
I look into the mirror and see one more hopeless clown.
The people on the street have a sad tendency to frown
and no one wants to be the only soul left hanging ’round
this little bit of nowhere that some joker named a town,
who’s happier to be long gone and six feet under ground.

Everything about this place was meant to be just so:
straight white picket fences and fake shutters in a row,
with people shut up inside watching television shows.
Nobody wants to be outside and watch the flowers grow
along the winding street that follows where the river flows
but still seems to get nowhere, and why, no one really knows.

Everything about this place is waiting to expire;
folks waiting for apocalypse or when they can retire.
The people on the street seem unimpressed and uninspired;
nobody wants to tell the truth or cross beyond the wire.
It doesn’t seem to matter much who’s honest or a liar —
either way you’re wasting air trying to light a fire.

Everything about this place is tied up in the past,
secured in little boxes tied with string and stitched up fast,
going through the motions like bad actors in the cast
of a show still in re-runs, like a flag flown at half mast
in praise of some great compromise that ends the war at last
with an uneasy silence interrupting the broadcast.

Everything about this place falls down around my ears
in echoes of an irony that will not disappear:
sad people on the street seem to accept heartache and fear;
nobody wants to be the only one left when it clears
and leaves each of us naked with our ledgers in arrears
as the sad charade is ending and the day of judgment nears.

Everything about this place just makes me more depressed.
I look into the mirror and admit I’m not impressed:
can’t stand my sad expression and can’t stand the way I’m dressed,
but thinking about changing only gives me added stress;
and anyway, it really doesn’t matter, I confess,
’cause everywhere is nowhere in it’s own way, more or less.

06 NOV 2007

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The Catacombs of Night

Lo! I have wrestled angels in the catacombs of night
and risen, as if from the dead, bone-weary, at daylight,
my sheets soaked through with fevered sweat and every muscle sore,
and tufts of mutilated feathers scattered on the floor,

to find the world transformed in just a single evening’s span
from one of warmth and sunlight to a shadow, pale and wan,
bedraped with funereal shrouds, their edges dipped in mist,
that turn to bitter gray and cold cheeks summer once had kissed.

And from that sleep like unto death, where angels and I tossed,
I woke not knowing why we fought, nor if I won or lost,
nor why the air that morning no more smelt of life’s perfume,
but seemed to hang like sullen, leaden clouds there in my room.

From my opponents, not a word, no revelation come;
as if they were but ancient ghosts, their voices long since dumb,
or worse, bereaved of speech and reason, just their body’s shells,
imprisoned in my dreams between their heaven and my hell.

I felt a sense of deep foreboding creep into my mind,
as if there should have been some message they had left behind,
some alchemic instruction, some archaic mystic key;
but I found nothing in the room, except what seemed like me.

I wondered then, if they were truly angels, or disguised
as such, mere demons I had conjured up to fantasize
some victory against the darkness of my thoughts of late;
some active principle to best my wont to hesitate

borne deep of my subconscious mind, where inhibitions fail
and dreams are formed of both apocalypse, and holy grail,
or if it was a memory brought out by some distress.
I wonder, what if William Blake had been taught to repress?

06 DEC 2006

for William Blake

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