Scribble and Strum

It's phone calls and grey walls
I seek some shore somewhere
Actual surf, neutral turf
Sand soft, off-season air

City leaves gone bronze for the concrete sky
Avenue birds sub-rumbles incite to fly
Rain-thick brain, agrog, sips and wonders why

Jawbone lived in a Nashville cemetery
In a gazebo 'neath a tall oak tree
Just a kind, calm hobo who liked to stay alone
He'd never hurt a soul, blowin' on his saxophone

Jawbone was born one night in a funeral home
In graveyard walls, as a boy he'd roam
Through the green, green grass of dead Tennessee
He'd never hurt a soul -- not a soul he'd see

What happened that October gets me shiverin' inside
What was his name before he died?

Jawbone met a man under a cold bone-moon
With blood-dark skin and a big red spoon
He smelled of tin, peppermint, and lies
He wanted some soul -- what a surprise

Jawbone helped him dance, playin' on his horn
He blowed blue brass until the peek of morn
"Hey, you've got soul" said the man who lied
"Shame no one would hear it, once you had died"

What happened that October let him blow forever more
So sad, he lost what he was blowin' for

Manifold old moons have flown o'er the Nashville sky
But on a cold bone-moon you'll hear a tuneful cry
'Neath a tall oak tree in a ring of stones
Plays a hollow hobo, only made of bones

I'm cool. Tepid though
There's a bubble in me.
Ha, a bubble or three.
Warm steam in the pipe
Up by inch, by degree,
And not one can you see --
Agitation. I react and ferment.

If unspent, all this heat,
All this rumble and toil,
Indigestible boil,
Pent-up anger, this raw
Chemicall it "turmoil",
Will burn bitter and spoil,
Foil intent. Now to vent.

Meant, the catalyst breathes,
(Cataclysms subside)
Conjures cold, calcified
Pellet shots; aims to fire,
Cut the wire -- but it lied.
Not so easy with Pride
Calling off the present.

He's the body I break,
He's the coffee I drink,
Here's the feces I think,
Here's the cease in the me,
But I'm cool trepid. "Wink."
Bubbles on the brink
Sink it down, since I've now
Paid the rent.

Had an insomniac night; spent it in and out of sleep. I haven't had a night like that in a while -- it reminded me of more stressful days. Here's a set of lyrics from those days, reflective of where I am now. Sigh. This song still needs to be recorded (they all do), and it may be for the next collection (which is nowhere near completion).

Aquarium

________________
Hmm. That phrase "let me out" recently popped out of me in a more recent (March) song. Here are its lyrics (why not?):

Let Me Out

________________
Hmm hmm. Here "buried" and "slept till summer" are direct references to another older song of mine -- "Sleep Till Summer" from a low, low point. Below are its lyrics. This one I do have a recording for, but...

Sleep Till Summer


________________
Oh, old feelings. Good to get them out. Good morning, good day, good riddance.

Sitting still at a time before night
When even the dimmest glow seems bright
Orange windows, a yellow streetlight
Compete with the glow of a sunset

Each skybus lumbers a dinosaur
Roaring and rolling 'til skyward they soar
Jewel water shifts as a tread made for war
Traced by the air's design

A frigid quilt for a tired sun
Seeps into the layer I have on
The skin is thin, but I'm not done
I gird with another green cloth

Behind me, on rise: springtime silhouettes
Of children's joy and the tinny breaths
Of a tin can train, dwarfed by these jets --
Dragons across the bay

And there sits Boston: cherry tipped-dominoes
Distant and silent, shapes in a puppet show,
A shade of permanence, a place from which to go
Nothing, just darkness and light

Stars emerge as grains of sand slung
Farther than archer has ever flung
Toward an indigo dome, pushed and then hung
Like tacks in a bulletin board

The sun now sleeps as the bay implies,
But life still looms in bold white eyes
Panwater, a roost for steel that flies
With wings, and skin, and fire

Far corner of stone, as hard as a cyst
There, hands held open are curled into fists
Parties still gather to plead to the son
Who carries his father down the mountain
With distance some laugh, but I'm willing to bet
That laugh thins with trouble the closer you get
To no man's land and its cold facades,
Hollow houses and dwindling odds

It's been stalking me for years,
so I've made preparations --
a tower built
so high that
I've lost its foundations.

I've locked a lot of doors,
and sealed tight every window.
To sequester's best,
it protects the rest...
I had to let you in, though.

Good one by Bukowski, Charles.

your life is your life
don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Found this in the recent New Yorker.
I love poems like these.

Thread

I lack the rigor of a lightning bolt,
the weight of an anchor. I am
frayed where it would be highly useful—
and this I feel perpetually—to make a point.

I think if I can concentrate I might turn sharp.
Only, I don’t know how to concentrate—
I know only the look of someone concentrating,
indistinguishable from nearsightedness.

It is hard for you to be near me,
my silly intensity shuffling
all the insignia of interiority.
Knowing me never made anyone a needle.

Great piece. Mmm. The hidden monologues of unnoticed things.

Great poem, is all.

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Look what you did! You stepped on it!
My moon! My moon! Now what will I do?
Who will guide me? That's not a who!
Now that's a that! Now it's a there,
A place! What's next? What who, which whom
Will you discover, disect, crush flat?
My moon! My moon! You took my moon!
It lived in my pocket. It lived! It smiled!
There was a man in it, in her! She's gone!
I heard she had a rabbit hutch!
My moon! My moon! Now what will I do?
Next you'll make this an egg, just dye and die!

Whatever that means.
Here's a poem of hers I like:

Turtle
Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
She can ill afford the chances she must take
In rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
A packing-case places, and almost any slope
Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way
To something edible. With everything optimal,
She skirts the ditch which would convert
Her shell into a serving dish. She lives
Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
Will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
The sport of truly chastened things.

"So where? Where would you go?" The woman rested her chin on her fingers. How beautiful, Gerry thought. That is a perfect face. He poured some cream into his coffee and gave the question some thought.

"Gee, I don't know. I mean, I never really gave it any thought. There are just so many. Places, I mean. Sometimes, I think 'Why would I ever want to leave New York? This is New York! THE city, you know? Other times, this place gets me so frustrated I think, 'You'd better get me a ticket out of here, pal, or I'm going to burn something down!'" He laughed, gave his coffee a stir, and stared out the diner's window. Beyond his reflection was the familiar street-crew paving on a bright, busy, summer day. They'd been working outside the eatery for two weeks. "You know? You know what I mean?"

The woman nodded and smiled, and Gerry returned his attention. "Well, if you just had to leave," she explained. "Had to. Let's say you were on the lam. For arson! Ha! Where would you escape to?"

"Huh. Well, my family--great-granddad and them--are from England, so I guess I'd go there." Gerry rubbed his neck and looked down into his sandwich, suddenly growing a little uneasy at the admission and attention he was giving this person. They really hadn't known each other for long.

"Ah... So London, then! Big Ben! Buckingham Palace!"

Gerry shook his head and smiled. Sure feels like I've known her for years. "Ha--no, no. Too big, too big. Ha, ha. My family's from one of the littler places like, um... Pickle-shire or something like that."

"Pick--PICKLEshire?!"

The woman laughed loudly and snorted, which drew attention and disapproving
looks from the elderly a few tables away--the diner's only other pair of customers. Damn, that's a gorgeous laugh. Gerry shrugged shyly, chuckled humbly at his gaffe, then lifted his spoon and affected an air of false haughtiness. "Yeah, ha. Pickleshire, England: A most, um, well-preserved village."

"What? Wha--oh! Hahaha..." The woman let out a grand, girlish laugh at this and pounded the table jovially. Silverware jumped and clattered, coffee splashed. The older couple was not amused. The woman excused herself from the table as she dabbed her teary cheeks with a napkin. "Well-preserved...ha, hmm." She smiled, got up and smoothed her dress, then headed toward the restroom, hip-brushing Gerry's shoulder on the way by.

Gerry sipped his coffee and sighed. God-damn, she's attractive. And smart. Seems young. She laughed at that crap joke? I wonder, is there a chance of... No, no. Wait... Do I have a chance here? No... No. NO, Gerry. With a heft of breath he gazed out the window. At the street crew, his sorry job framed oddly in the image of his face--the weathered mask of a single, lonely, fifty-year old man. That's you, Gerry. That's your family. He glanced at his watch: 2:24. "Damn it". Wiped his mouth. Drummed his fingers. Lunch break was nearly over, he realized, and soon he'd have to get back on the jackhammer or help Hutch with the mixer. Mr. Sandler had said he needed all the overtime he could squeeze out of him this week... No time. Never enough time. Gerry looked at the old folks at their corner table, silently chewing their meal and sharing a scowl at some slight he couldn't figure. He measured the man's gnarled, overworked hands as they shakily held down and sliced an omelet, just barely clinging to their purpose. "Damn. Wouldn't want to be that guy."

Wait. Gerry looked at his hands. AM I that guy? Gerry sat rapt for another minute, turning his palms over again slowly. He then quickly brushed their callouses over the legs of his jeans and snapped out of reverie.

Gerry smiled.

"No. There is time."

Soon, there was the comforting click of heels. Gerry erected a grin and looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the young, mysterious woman who'd chosen, out of the blue, to eat her lunch with him. Instead was their soggy waitress Harriet, who smiled, jabbed a slip of paper into his chest, then nudged her head toward the exit.

"Here's your bill, sugar." She chuckled with a forced spunk, habitual and dry. Harriet wasn't fooling anyone and she knew it. Didn't care. Couldn't, not anymore. "Lady had a rush in her, huh? Haha... She ran outta here pretty quick! Hoo, you musta said somethin' to get to her, right?" She nodded. "Mmm-hmm. For sure. Somethin' real baaad. That musta been some dirty joke, Gerry! Hahaha!" Her joints cracked.

"Dirty joke? Wait, what? She's gone?"

"Who's there? Just come out!"

Brenda paced by the parlor window, rubbed her hand on her forehead, stifled a fit of sobs. She had dimmed every light in the house in the hopes of creating the illusion of an empty home, without having to commit to the potential terrors of a more complete darkness. It was one of those terrible nights in which unexplainable fear would lace her every thought. These nights, she could be doing something as innocuous as chopping a pepper or painting her nails, when the thunder of a large truck would scare her out of the potential a full night's sleep.

Her husband was home upstairs in bed. That should have been a comfort, but he scared her as much as anything else. He wasn't a frightening man. Harold McCarthy was calm, often calming, and as caring as the best of people. She listened to a set of his muffled snores through the ceiling--it was terrifying. Everything was terrifying. She almost wished Harold was an evil man; then she could interpret his night's breath as an indication of her safety. Her tiptoeing would then feel useful, and she would have something to protect herself from--a real monster. But the evil wasn't Harold, he was incapable of malice. The evil was everything around her and her caution for an unjustified idea. Fear, she thought, just fear.

That should do it, right?, she thought to herself. You tell yourself that fear is fear is fear is fear, and oh, God--it's supposed to go away! It's nothing, and I know it's nothing! There's nothing here! It's supposed to go away!  Go! Away!

This happened often. What Brenda didn't know was: tonight's fear would save her life.

1

Why, captain?
You'd sailed us
Northly,
Swiftly,
No doubt
Ingenuously,
On innocent notions
Of birth and buildings, when

That wind whipped
Wildly upon us,
Walloped
We willows as
Witches would,
Wherewithal an
Explosive zephyr--
Abortion and collapse.

2

It's silly, what I saw.
That jacket Willy wore
Was thicker than he'd told.
Wicked thick; it's wicked cold!
The wind will whip around,
Blow through you in this town.
Remind me, what's the thrill
Of living with this chill?

I promise, I promise
On dirty knee, beneath
Your window

My guitar undressed
In icy hands, beneath
Your window

I will never, never
Look on you again
With eyes clouded,
Inside-out

I know this, I know this
You are the art
I thought unseen

By sturdy eyes
As blue as days
And clear as infinity

I will never, never
Look on you again
With mind clouded,
Inside-out

I've heard the words
On browning tongue,
The song you'd sung,
Silent and young

I want this, I need this
Give back your heart,
Your burgeoning dream

Your guitar undressed
Meet me here, beneath
Your window

I heard the words,
Your honest song
In me, for long
It shall stand strong

Shards of spider glass
All over the sidewalk
Hint at the chaos
Of the night before

The victory game
A joy for the children
Turns boys into villains
Who shatter a store door

Tell me, what was the game for?

Ill, esoteric slumps,
Tumors, ill eclipses,
Limp-loss cruelties.

Molecules slip, stir.
Spells ice turmoils...

Lo--priceless litmus!
Lotus mercies! Pills!
Pills omit recluses;
Merciless pill, to us!

I've got a suspicion those are lines from a book or something similar. If not, then wow--
those monkeys-on-typewriters are well on their way to writing that great novel.
Do you think anyone actually writes these things?

--J. Harrod