Sunday, August 22, 2010

Half Hour, Maybe More

Do you know where she goes
when she kisses you on the cheek
Does she walk out the door
saying she'll be back

Do you know who she knows
passin' love notes under the table
Maybe under a door
You'll wait for a knock

Half hour maybe more goes by
You'll save her, then you'll cry
You'll save her, then you'll cry

Do you know where she goes
when she has nothin' to lose
thru an empty door
maybe she'll come back

She's not w/ you
She's not w/ me
She's not w/ him
She's not w/ her
She's not w/ them
She's not w/ us
She's not w/ you

The Sound of Walls

Friday, August 13, 2010

Cemetery

What one needs at a cemetery:

1. creepiness
2. quiet paranoia
3. headstones w/ psalms etched on crosses
4. epithets which may not have been entirely true
5. gravediggers' shovels
6. religious monuments
7. solid terra firma
8. hallelujahs and amens sung from neighboring church bells
9. a potpourri of pine needles, leaves and debris underfoot
10. a Bresson black 'n' white moon
11. rusty crosses and dates w/ no names

I went into a cemetery, darkly dark and alive, w/ spirits of people I've known and blowing reeds. I was really wanting to find my mother among magnolias & dogwoods. I passed a boy holding flowers. I noted my apology as something old and new. I think it was my brother, a younger version of the man he was, serious and stalwart at times but a charming mischievous cad at others. I was walking faster than him, but it was nice to see he was taking her flowers. In the end I found my mother.

I found my mother
On the day she gave me life
I lost her later.

For Kathryn
9.9.44 - 8.13.93

Friday, July 23, 2010

Hopeless Cause

I'm making excuses
I'm breaking all the rules
But you've got to forgive me
Cuz I'm hopeless
Just your hopeless cause
Just your hopeless cause

I have no explanations
I know no reasons why
But you've got to forgive me
Cuz I'm hopeless
Just your hopeless cause
Just your hopeless cause

You may think I never listen
But I listen I don't learn
Maybe tomorrow I'll try harder
Maybe a new leaf will turn

1000 times I've said I'm sorry
And I'll say it a million more
You've got to forgive me
Cuz I'm hopeless
Just your hopeless cause
Just your hopeless cause

The Sound of Walls

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Dionysus

Under a warm progress of the sun, I went to Paris in search of the Lizard King, of Dionysus, of Mr. Mojo Risin', of James D. Morrison, of the man w/ the sultry stash of sex appeal. I wish I could say that me and my mojo were busking in a Parisian tunnel, but no. Well, truthfully it was dank and dim and smelled of drunks who peed against the slippery walls, when they should've been petitioning in a catacomb for a porcelain God or should've been with their drunken heads in the curves of robust brothel queens.

I almost got pick-pocketed in the Metro, some dude was pushing into me trying to get thru a turnstile and was trying to get in my coat pocket. I turned and pushed him and called him an asshole in French; I probably called him a sweet cabbage instead. And I almost got kicked out of Pere Lachaise cemetery, I was leaning on Jim Morrison's sepia-toned grave. Pardon moi. He wasn't there anyway, because I saw him in a moonlit window, running his hands thru his charismatic mane of hair, prodigiously naked, reading Baudelaire or Rimbaud. He was in a dark jubilee, lamenting baritone, riding storms, hauntingly a statue of Michelangelo's, a garden feature in a Parisian bath-tub. I left an epigram at the door for him, under a mat, next to a peace frog that said, "I'm afraid, at this time, on this vespertine eve, I have to cancel my subscription."

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Everything

Gathering the pieces of night
with our pairs of shoes off
I would change into my eyes
and see everything

We would become twin souls
while passing drops of wine
I would settle for a zephyr
and know everything

The sky would trip over easels
and moil in the colors of fall
I would abandon the stage
and sense everything

Taking the breaths of life
as cellos trace the strings
I would listen to your hands
and feel everything

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Happy Birthday, Andy!

Give me a reason
to jump head over heels
for you for you for you
under lullaby moons
and blacktop suns

Tell me of a season
to write songs on a windmill
for you for you for you
where locusts land on barbed wire
and lovers speak in tongues

Move me from where I
leap off a moving elevator
for you for you for you
where lucky charms spill on sidewalks
and gypsy guitarists spin in magazines

Paint me on a kite too high
beneath parasols on blue hills
for you for you for you
as fisherman's boots wash on shore
underneath lavender skies of rain

Sail me on a trendy moat
with the pretty smiles on surfboards
for you for you for you
where short stories are on the breeze
and harmonicas are hidden in shoes

Friday, June 11, 2010

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Oct 13, 1961 - June 11, 2002

Three distinct memories:

1. how in 1988 you used to break-and-enter into my teenager-angst-riddled room when I wasn't there to borrow cassettes; I loved the cute notes you'd leave, but speaking of things borrowed, I do wonder where my copy of "Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil" went.

2. how in 1997 I rang you when I was in town and said, "Anyone for Tennis?" -- Game on! We went w/ an audience of our sister and Andy. I beat you! Just in case you forgot.

3. how in 2002 you were dying and you kept calling me back into your house. You would say "Lil' Bit" and I kept coming back more flooded than before. You knew who I was when you didn't know anyone else. I never thought that was the case.

Btw, thanks for giving me Elvis & the Beatles! I love you Bubbo!