Skip to content

Tag: Jim Morrison

No Shaman Left to Heal Our Tribe

Published on October 3, 2005

Come, dig the grave, but not too deep;
the eighties were a shallow time.
We spent a decade just to learn
how to maintain appearance’s sake
and delve with questions, off-the-cuff,
in cocktail conversation bluffs.

Come, dig the grave, the shovel’s mouth
will gouge the earth enough to serve
as depth-gauge for the swollen corpse;
besides, the scavengers we bred
in boredom need not work too hard
to find in us their daily bread.

Come, dig the grave; it’s only death
that by necessity is born
and like a cancer spreads throughout
the tender tissue we have formed
to shield us from the sunlight’s glare
and make believe there’s nothing there.

Come, work the soil and lay the sod;
the garden must be fed anew
lest what fruit has escaped the rod
be left to rot by morning’s dew.
What harvest plenty still remains
is just enough to clog the drains.

Come, dig the grave, but not too deep,
lest toil and sweat destroy our youth.
Let future generations weep
that they’ve no gravestone for the truth.
Besides, it’s almost happy hour —
we should arrive by our own power.

for Jim Morrison

03 OCT 2005

Leave a Comment

Physician, Heal Thyself

Published on July 20, 2004

for Jim Morrison, who I very liberally paraphrase and augment: Why are songs and poems important? Because songs and poems are the basis by which culture is passed from generation to generation. No one sits at their child’s bedside and reads them War and Peace; they teach in rhyme, in meter, in short works. In the building blocks of culture.

There is no spokesperson for your generation;
it is a hoax that you want to believe —
that someone else will speak for you,
explain those crazy thoughts of yours
that keep you awake late in the night
questioning first, your sanity,
then next, the sanity of those who judge sanity.

There is no great role model for your age;
just another media frenzy led by old, tired sharks
who want to find a way to package
some elixir of youth, then age you before your time
and hook you on the stuff, too.

There is no voice crying out from the wild,
no magic bullet or single dosage
no seer sage poet priest politician messiah.

There is just you.

And the dreams you don’t express.
And the others you let speak for you.

Throw away your radio,
your Billboard and Rolling Stone,
your solid gold subscription
to someone else’s Top Ten List.

Speak your own words.
Speak your own mind.
Teach yourself how.

20 JUL 2004

Leave a Comment