Walking and saying
Things our wellbeing
The soul needing love possessions
Have absolutely no meaning

Playing and praying
Overstaying and Under-paying
Rising sun and Symphonic searching

" Is this the way it is?" Tis the season

But the tightness no business like
searching business
  She is combined and mixed like a song
fully lined both with keynotes somehow
we declined
The feeling that you cannot breathe
or  trust both of us
 we can  bearly **** it all in
My music playing just click my belt buckle
Will start to begin

The soul is not a crime or just a rhyme
I barely cannot breathe
I am in a chuckle, you see his
smile raising up his dimple

Ms. Thumbelina cobblestone
narrow-minded street your
in the tightrope symphonic beat

But its dark outside your ringlets
Waved him on got excitedly mesmerized
His Goblet of wine she curls up in
his body heat brilliantly dazzled
The sky to your dreams he is
reaching your
soft side skin
whats actually within
our souls

So  hooked into your ride not to slide
better grades and goals
The awesomeness symphonic hatter
Victorian divineness
Her paper cut out hearts as real
as they come
The Eastside Symphonic tip of his
Heavenly Bliss private Quarters
What becomes of the broken hearted
Heads or dimes not landing on her stone
Floor heart
The Duke of all trades of the hat he's smart

Cool running ******
Addictions to the mind so fanatic
What a good soul sometimes
He overexaggerates about
love and fate darkness drives him demonic
What are you kidding me
She doesn't rest her heart on his
soul for the burning desires of food
for thought
She keeps piling his poems like any sport
He's her everything she learns to be taught

Searching lips pricing
Red bloodshot eyes of crying onions
She is so fierce controlling
Musically like a Tiger roaring
He is like a design of graphics tattoo
The earring piecing the sweetest taboo

More soul searching
She's the snake purse
to his snake eyes fancy,
he took a ride
Upper-false teeth
The upper west side
have some prideThe dark side
became her thing
The wildflower not to stand to
bloom and bang like her band

Westside sounds came deep
his pride and joy like a parade
and wickedly dark his charade

It was  sneaking up on her backside
And the other side was just hiding
and smiling
She definitely saw the light lamp post how
the smells came stronger the darkness of desire
she was famished not to have vanished

Feeling like a *** roast love continued
She had a gift for her lover, not the
toast who would brag to boost
Two ****** British what
divine glasses at a cost
The symphonic soul
captured them like the
Dark-Knight of words
Symphonic sounds came
hearing names
soulful hummingbirds buzz-net

And there weren't any more
words there was silence
Eating shepherds pie table was set

Taking over another soul that's a lie
just like magic searching for a love
so long ago became tragic
You need more perseverance
Her true love gave her
an incredible sixth sense
of deliverance
The top seat at the concert
classical wicked taste of music
candescent erotically sonic

She had this certain quality
He was a symphonic love bounty
Her lips moved so fitting fantastically
The flower shops caught her eye
She couldn't sense what was real or a lie
The fast pace of the people all worked up.
What a soulful smell music sounds
she faintly known

To her ear wanted to hear only him shown

Besides the faintly illuminated
shapes evergreens were
heartily trimmed
She stood out bright as the ground
She was turning gray losing reality
not to be found or heard
So soulful her lips speak
she was walking with her head up
in the air fancy dancey
How those men could speak.
You could smell all the ethnic
flavors of foods
She felt the search for something
of a Saint, she was trying to
hard to be good
What a Haydn, his wife
was the mad hair driving

Miss Daisy soul of hers crazy curled
inside her book
She's the lady-like curler
How he played through her hair
Hunchback of Notre Dame who was to blame?
How his eyes wondered playing
and observing
But she was holding his stare

like a womanizer and his eyes flew
what a haunting moon
But Samatha the harp shady tree
He said, my fair lady,
He's stringing something together

What! creepypasta but sometimes her powers were weak
The symphonic love potent every other week

Some Gothic man symphonic music started
Playing Rossini Opera he could stand on his head.
She was pinned to his eyes
Pinterest such interest
she was all bloomed like a fly

By witches, flower came he passed her and he knew exactly who she was as is but wait not his?
The pleading the beg humbug far from her tunes of the ladybug

Razzamatazz all body of Jazz jitterbug
He winked she-devil
summoned him on
What a binding spell
She wiped the sweat off her face
She was beautiful with pale
porcelain skin
So alluring walking
with her parasol

Snarling Cup of Coffee    




I like to start my day with a hot cup of coffee
I pound down the coffee
First thing I do every day
as the dawning sun
Lights up my lonesome room

Yeah, but not just a simple cup of java Joe, but a ******* snarling sarcastic smarmy cup of coffee

I mean, - we are talking about an alcoholic, all speed ahead, always hot, always fresh, always there when I need it, angry, attitude talk to the hand Ztude, bad, bad assed, beats breaking, beatnik, bluesy, bitter, ******, bombs away, capitalistic, caffeinated up the ***, cinematic, communistic, Colombian grown, Costa Rican inspired, Cowabunga to the max, crazy assed, devilishly angelic, divine, divinely inspired, dyslexic, epic, extreme vetting, evil eye, expensive, ****** vision inducing, Ethiopian coffee house brewed, euphoric, freaky, freazoid, foxy, Frenched kissed, French brewed, funkified, foxy lady, graphic, GOD in my coffee, with Allah, Ganesh, Jesus, Kali, Buddha, Christians, Durga, Hindus, Mohamed, Jesus and Mo and their friend, the cosmic bar maid, Sai Babai, Shiva, Taoists,

Zoroastrians, drinking my god ****** coffee in Hell;

growling, gnarly, happy, hard as ice, Hawaian blessed, high as a kite, hippie, hip, hipster, hip hoppy, hot as hell yet strangely sweet as heaven, jazzy, jealous, Kerouac approved, kick ***, kick my ******* *** to Tuesday, kick down the doors and take no prisoners, grown in the Vietnam highlands by exVietcong, Guatemalan grown, kiss ***, illegal in every state, imported from all over the ******* world,

insane, lovely, loony, lonely, lonesome, malodorous mean old rotten, *******, nasty, narcotic, never whatever, never meh, never cold, not approved by the CIA, not approved by DHS, not approved for human consumption by the FDA, not your daddy’s sissified corporate cup of coffee, NOT DECAFE coffee, not your Denny’s truck driver weak as brown water cup of fake coffee, not your establishment friendly cup of coffee, Not your FBI coffee, Not FAKE Herbal coffee substitute, but a real cup of coffee, not your farmer brothers dinner crap, not made in America for Americans, not safe for work, not your Starbucks average expensive overpriced ****** corporate chain cup of coffee, Not pretentious, Not White House approved, not State Department safe, nuclear, Not Patriotic, operatic, Peets’s coffee approved,

paranoid, pornographic, psychotic, pontific, politically aware, rapping, rhyming, right here, right now in River city, rock and roll up the Yazoo, sad, sadistic, sarcastic, sassy, satanic, schizoid, *******, silly, ****, smarmy, smelly, smooth, snarky, snarling, stupid, stinking, sweet as honey, sweat inducing, symphonic, Trump can’t handle this coffee, vengeful, Wagnerian, wicked, with nutmeg and cinnamon swirls, with a hint of stevia, with a hint of vanilla, with a hint of ***, with a hint of whisky, with a hint of cherry, with a hint of fruit overtones, with a hint of drugs spicing up the coffee, spendific, speeding, splendid, superior accept no substitutes, survived the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, the Afghan war, the first and Second Korean war, World War 11, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on black people, the ****** revolution,

Soulful as a summer’s night in MOTOWN- James Brown approved, TOP approved, Berkeley approved, the coffee that Jimmy Hendrix drank before he died, the coffee that Elvis drank on his last breakfast, the coffee that Barry White crooned as he drank his cup of coffee – and the coffee that made the white boy play stand up and play that funky music, the coffee that made Jonny B Goode play his guitar, and made Jonny bet the devil his soul after he drank his morning cup of righteous coffee and the coffee that make the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll, the coffee your mother warned you against drinking, the coffee that Napoleon drank when he became the Emperor of all Europe, the Coffee that Beethoven drank when he wrote the Ninth symphony, the coffee that Mozart drank as he wrote his last symphony, the coffee that Lincoln drank before he was killed, the Hemingway drank before he killed himself, the coffee that started the 60’s, and ended the 20th century,

the coffee that Lenin drank as he plotted revolution, the coffee that ****** and Stalin drank with FDR as they divided up the world after World War 11, the cup that JFK drank before he was blown away, the coffee Jerry drinks while driving in cars with random celebrities and political figures, the coffee that Jon Stewart drinks before he goes on an epic take down of some foolish politico, the cup of Arabic coffee that Sadaam drank the day he was executed, the coffee that GW and Cheney drank when they bombed Baghdad, the Indian cup of coffee that Bid Laden drank before 9-11 and just before the seals blew his *** to hell, the cup of coffee that Tiger Woods drank with his mistresses while playing a 3, 000 dollar round of golf at Sandy Lane golf course in Barbados, the last legal drug that does what drugs should do, the cup of coffee that Obama drank when he became President, Vietnamese, Vienna brew, wacky, whimsical,

Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wild, weird, wonderful, WOW, Yabba dabba doo! Yada Yada yada Zappa’s favorite cup of cosmic coffee, and Zorro’s last cup of coffee, Good to the last drop rolled into one simple cup of hot coffee   
As I pound down that first cup of coffee
And fire up my synaptic nerve endings with endless supplies
Of caffeine induced neuron enhancing chemicals

I face the dawning day with trepidation and mind-numbing fear
I turn on the TV and watch the smarmy newscasters in their perfect hair

Lying through their perfect blazing white teeth
about the great success the government is having
Following the great leader's latest pronouncements

I want to scream
and shoot the TV
and run out side

Shouting
Stop the world!
I want to get
off this ******* crazy planet"

The earth does not care a whit
about my attitude problem

It merely shrugs
and moves around the Sun
In its appointed daily run

the universe whispers
in my ear
time to drink more coffee
for an attitude adjustment

And I sit down
The madness dissipating a bit
And enjoy my second cup
Of heaven and hell
In my morning cup of Joe

Coffee Revolutions



coffee cup
Coffee led to the American Revolution<span
As patriots drank coffee
To rebel against
the aristocratic English tea

Coffee started the London Stock Market
And started the gossip mills running
Every great invention
Was fed by coffee's sweet brew
sweet allure

All the great thinkers
All the great leaders
All were enslaved
to coffee's magic

I sing my praises
Of the great
glorious coffee lady

Long may she continue
To be my sweet companion

Long may coffee continue
To rule my heart
And set my heart
on fire

Ode to Coffee



Mistress of sacred love
Sacred lady of desire

You start my day
Setting my heart on fire
With your dark delicious brew 

And throughout the day
Whenever the mean old blues come by
You chase them away

With your bittersweet ambrosial brew
Every time I inhale your witch's brew

I am filled with power, light and love
And everything is al right Jack
If only for a few fleeting minutes

I love you oh coffee goddess
In all your magical forms

In the dark coffee of the dawning day
In the sizzling coffee in the mid morning break
In the afternoon siesta break
And in the post dinner desert drink

I love you my coffee mistress
You are my refuge
From this horrid world

And you are my secret lover
Never disappoint me, ever
I've never had a bad cup
Of that I can be sure

Even the dismal coffee
Served at Denny's at 3 am
Is still sweet loving coffee

Even the farmer brother's diner coffee
Excites me and gets me going
Asking for another cup of divine delight

Coffee always is there
It is always on and piping hot
With hidden dark secrets
Swirling in its liquid essence

Coffee is my last vice
My only legal vice left

Coffee does not cheat on me
It is always faithful, always true
It does not turn on its friends

And all it asks in return
Is that you come back
Cup after cup after cup

A good cup of coffee
Is a little bit of heaven
In a cup of dark liquid hell

Coffee is like a drug
But a good drug that does what is should
And never complains

It does not get grouchy
It does not hurt you

It does not make you crazy
But allows the muse to come out
And play with it

Coffee led to the American Revolution
As patriots drank coffee
To rebel against the aristocratic English tea

Coffee started the London Stock market
And started the gossips mills running

Every great invention
Was fed by coffee's sweet brew
sweet allure

All the great thinkers
All the great leaders
All were enslaved to coffee's magic

Yeah
I sing my praises
Of the great glorious coffee lady

Long may she continue
To be my sweat companion

Long may coffee continue
To rule my heart
And set my heart on fire

I love thee
Mistress coffee
And sometimes I think
You love me too

No More Coffee Blues








I love coffee
Always have

And coffee has loved me back
But lately I have soured on her
Soured on the whole coffee scene

On the harshness
of the morning brew
And the promises it makes

As I sip of its nectar
Drawn into its lair

Drinking drop by drop
As the caffeine takes over

Rewriting my every nerve
Turning me into a slave
For its perverted pleasure

Yes I love coffee
But I am afraid

Coffee is a harsh mistress
Demanding so much of me

Promising the sun
And delivering the moon

As I drink her swill
Deepening under her influence

I have the coffee blues
Can’t live without her
Can’t live with her

I try
But tea does not cut it
Not really

***** does not do it
At least not in the morning

Yoga is not enough of a buzz
Nor is the runner’s high

And I am afraid deadly afraid of *******
And speed and drugs and energy drinks

And so I remain a slave to coffee
My only legal drug

As I sip another
and fall under
her seductive spread

Once more failing my resolve
To skip coffee for that day
That morning that moment

I shall never be free of her spell
Ever and she knows it
As she beckons me
Every morning with her intoxicating smell

And I come to her
and drink her brew

And become her slave
again and again

Coffee Ya Du





must drink coffee
have every day
the morning dawns
drinking my coffee as I yawn

Morning cup of coffee 



every morning
I drink my coffee
as I contemplate 
the dawning day

watching the news anchors
blather on and on
drinking my coffee
thinking of life

and my coffee
consumes me
overwhelms me
and at time controls me

after all coffee is a drug
and I am her slave
from time to time

Drinking Coffee in the Morning



in the morning
dangerous mood
felling deranged
watching the news

trigger warning
you are ******* dude
end of the world
the end times come

I drink coffee
in the morning



Coffee *** Killed





His wife has banned my use
by my owner
says he makes too much
of a mess when he uses me

it is not his fault
I want to say
but being a coffee ***
can not speak

and so I am abandoned
thrown out into the trash

and feel very sad
for my owner

who was my friend
he liked me

he keep me going
and I did my job

providing him
with fresh coffee

doing my coffee *** duty
and now it is over

Drinking My Coffee


drinking coffee

drinking my coffee
early in the cool morning
thinking life is fine

everything will be okay
after I drink my coffee

morning coffee



morning coffee

dawning sun 











coffee MGur Poem


coffee

I pray to the coffee gods
every cup of coffee
is like a sacrament to me

I pray as I drink my coffee
that it will fill me
with wisdom

and find peace
with my coffee

as I drink
my devotion

Hot coffee


cup of coffee


take coffee with you
Hot hot coffee, makes my day -

Must drink My daily coffee, as the morning dawns - 

With out my morning coffee

in me,  I feel nothing at all -

Electrified Hot Coffee



coffee is the drug of choice
nothing else will do it
as I drink coffee
Electrified
Hot Coffee

Hot Coffee and Cake


coffee
coffee is the drug of choice
electrified circuits
as I drink coffee
coffee and cake



Coffee Patina



coffee
hot coffee
hot Hellish Heaven
Essence of coffee

on moonstone slab Manmata flames again
from out of ashes rises, gloating unfinality of Shiva's dance
reincarnate offering of endless Self
in Lakshmi's avatar
a fateful prince's heart to lance

and lanced his heart her visage did,
                                                     though with vaster pinions fully pierced was she, in depths
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                 without rivalry~

his lust was sharp to invite solitude,
but easy to conceal,
he imagined cupping her against him,
scoured memory of upward glimpse,
inch  by  inch
with added imagery, invention moulding her
beneath his grasp
from forehead curls along
glowing skin and eyes
to curving, palatially appareled ******* . . .
her open lips . . .  her hips
--but after, merely to dismiss
and even sleep a bit
and quip inside at irony
to be at mercy
of a girl in flowers
when he with arrows demons lay to rest
(though she would, within the selfsame hours lose her wits ;)

in cityscape descried the triad:
gold dome gifts for sky
in shining generosity
Mithila's people overflow with joy
exuding free abundance carelessly--
jewelry loosed on playful street
from overkeen embrace, is left to lie;
loss in ever-present wealth nigh obsolete

musth of elephant, froth of steed,
floral garlands tangle, line and mix
for clouds of honey-bees to lick their feast.
a bustling of virile acrobatic populace--
symphonic mux of chaos tressed,
metropolis of idylls coalesced;
drums, races, grinning faces flinging courtship,
smirking merchants under wigs
bathers splash exotic fish to flit and weave
while ballads sift for higher pitch of love

from elevated terrace ladies prance
and watching from an inner spire
the princess spies her prince--
emerald shoulders, lotus-petal eyes
Vaikunta hidden from their mortal sight
but straining recognition there,
a union ageless as the stars
inspired suddenly another first:
Rama's transfixed stare she feels and meets,
strangers locked entwining glances
--fated simultaneous-- electric heat   like
from a planet sparking for the taste of outer space --
the lightning burns its mark ensouled
in blooms beyond her ripe, anthophilous form,
verdant visions planted in the rays of light
between two instant loves
to slip inside the eyelid entrance
and evermore impregnate with a glory ill,
as separation wills,
to colonize throughout with other Being there
phantasmal yearnings of entrancing elegance
--from dawn of time instilled, akashic script
of binding hurt with joy in love's embrace
condemn desire to a writhing term
when not imbibing such togetherness
a worldless crypt preferred

and so as swift as gymnast flip to fall
the heart is gushing toxic lack,
epic ventricles the viscose tug
in fluid inspiration wrote of Sita's
sudden addict gnashing inner plight
while slips the sight interred within the crowd,
as if a sorcerer the cosmic sea to play her destiny:
the waves inside enraged to overwhelm
the sudden coral crust beneath the swell
an unmarked seaside's lavish drown unto the land
and reeling send this fragile ******
into wilting, her floral haze to drooping fell...
        in revelatory crash of passion's oceanic weight...
attendants pamper uselessly
--from swoon to mood irate
to wait until the next appearance of her mortal god
the only one to sate the shameless need
entwining up within a clenching wrack of milky fits
from bed to sweaty bed they take the burning maiden~
the outer sea inflow in calming dusk meant nothing to the agony of new romance
                       sequestered in hymenic fire, dawning brilliant
                                                       ­                                omni chakral pierce in rays,
                                                                ­                                                              tot­ality relentlessness
and therein descry a wholeness
  yet unregained
a hopeless birdsong careless as the wind
in caring strokes of pollen redolence
for forest ears an endless vibrate mate
of elemental ease the simmer float
upon the dukkha broil paths embroidery of karmic
cookery the godly recipe invoked,
gibed her without cease,
****** flare eternal guna coals to stoke
and spite her with their peace,
for her attainment only next to he
the moon communes the message blinding clear
amid the ghee her girls would light in care
to soften her despair -- but only aggravate her state --
and so by dim refracted moondrops set,
in only gemlight, Sita basks in pain
her gaze entrained by night obsessively
while overhead the crescent hook beams
freely in to fertilize her all-too-chastely girdle there,
petals wilting under body pressed to slab of stone
as mounting groan on groan intones her writhing questioning
of whomever he could be to cast her moaning so
a deity in maidenhead unwitting of such otherlife
left by endless, anthrocosmos' whim to ache, and alone
in wonder scream abandonment from aether poise
confusion reigning noisome nescient choice


















.

Across Symphonic Seas

Echoed surf a’ whispered shores
Melodic rhythm ~ twilight’s dance
Alone my love does play for you
On mystic strings in winged romance

Neath heartbeat sails of velvet skies
Darkened shadow’s purple haze
Transparent flows a’ shimmered light
To harmonize with lonely days

For hear my love, eurhythmic dreams
Hypnotically our song takes flight
Lyrically of purest sound
Across symphonic seas this night

My love, you see makes my heart sing
With musical notes it composes
Cause you do play on my hearts strings
My masterpiece laid before you
upon a bed of roses

I won't waste my precious time
& dance around the truth
For a symphony plays its song in me
And your beauty is my fountain of youth
My wife, you see - I hope you to be
My wife, you see - how lovely

My song, you see? Will never cease
It'll play throughout eternity
For the instruments that lay inside
Will never stop, nor ever die
For the beauty I see, instills in me
An everlasting energy
So hearken unto me, my sweet baby
Cause I'll never leave nor say goodbye

My song, you see? Makes my heart ring
Adoration does your heart bring
My masterpiece that will never cease
Is finally composed
I hope, my dear, that our union is near
& I'll become your king
My wife, you see? I hope you to be
Say yes to me, when I final-ly propose

Now we're here right at the end, my dear
A musical crescendo
As it plays, I do hope you say
That you truly love me and that you'll always stay
This song I feel, is very real
And its not an innuendo
Now on my knee, as you can see
Will you marry me? I plead and pray

Marry me, my wife to be, and let our duet play
Forever and ever entwined together
Mr. and Mrs. Gray

Sunday, I am eating a
grapefruit, church is over at the Russian
Orthadox to the
west.

she is dark
of Eastern descent,
large brown eyes look up from the Bible
then down. a small red and black
Bible, and as she reads
her legs keep moving, moving,
she is doing a slow rythmic dance
reading the Bible. . .

long gold earrings;
2 gold bracelets on each arm,
and it's a mini-suit, I suppose,
the cloth hugs her body,
the lightest of tans is that cloth,
she twists this way and that,
long yellow legs warm in the sun. . .

there is no escaping her being
there is no desire to. . .

my radio is playing symphonic music
that she cannot hear
but her movements coincide exactly
to the rythms of the
symphony. . .

she is dark, she is dark
she is reading about God.
I am God.

Nov 2016 - The Fall Line


~

all the lines of man-made yellows,
so tempting threatening...inviting,
the subway platform, the street curb,
the highway divide
the double parallel equal sign that has no solution,
remaining hopelessly empty,
defining the watery soluble
inequality of null

~~

The Fall Line

first heard the phrase months ago in Argentina,
standing before the c-shaped Iguazu Falls

the fall line
where the crystalline basement rock
erodes away the oncoming soft sedimentary,
there, where,
a waterfall is nature-gifted

so intuitive, so obvious,
what else to call the water's owned edge,
line of demarcation,
where we grow captivated,
mesmerized, knee weak,
traumatized and tantalized

knew that instant when spoken,
The Fall Line,
saw inarguable symmetry to so many lives,
would be a someday poem

selective service phrases stored and
someday up recalled,
a thousand, maybe more,
waiting for the confluence of
time and place,
to be a mother

letting my fluid sac burst,
giving birth to a concoction symphonic,
the emotions waterfalling, cascading,
the precision, vision seconds,
when words

pour, gush, surge, spill,
stream, flow, issue, spurt

~~~

silently crafted in the weeks and months prior,
the unconscious drowning in ache and pain
of suffocating drudge sludge of everyday living

all the lines of man made yellows,
so tempting threatening...inviting
the subway platform, the street curb,
the highway divide
the double parallel equal sign that has no solution remaining empty, defining the inequality of null

the vision infection of the majestic fall line,
so accessible in an instance of overwhelm,
cornea implanted, the sounding call of sweet blissful
whatever

one more additional addiction unshakeable,
jumping from fall line to fall line,
it's the game I am played,
but the controller
is not in my possess

for the joy stick that drives my actions,
toys with me,
the human fool jumping
from fall line to fall line,
unsure of what he desires,

salvation or saving
11/26/16

~

verse 1
in the town of Chateau Thierry,
along the banks of the Marne,
just up the road from Paris,
a’ fore it meets the Seine;
’twas here our soldiers fought
in nineteen-seventeen;
'twas here they took the Kaiser,
in the trenches, rain and mud.
the Great War, then they called it,
here the river ran with blood;
with bayonet and shovel,
here an Allied victory made;
to halt the enemy’s advancement,
here too many made their grave.

instrument of bow and strings,
in composition history sings.
if, one-day strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin!
stories told will ne’er grow old,
tales of courage that build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows despite the dark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power to strike the heart.

verse 2
near the town of Chateau Thierry
in a convent, St Joseph by name
a violin by Francois Barzoni,
a resident luthier by trade.
prized possession of the Sisters,
they tuned well it's strings.
their convent walls withstood the bombs,
though leaving here their mark;
defaced but not destroyed,
and so with grateful hearts,
the Sisters of St Joseph,
for brick and mortar trade,
gathered up their treasures
their convent to remake.

instrument of bow and strings,
with composure history sings.
if, only strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin;
stories told will ne’er grow old,
tales of hope that build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows to light the dark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power; rebuild the heart.

verse 3
from the town of Chateau Thierry,
they advertised their local gem,
“wanted: no strings attached;
no saint expected, no requiem.
just two hands to cherish,
and a patron of our instrument.”
this their prayer, “oh Lord, one wish,
may our search meet no resistance.
may we find a young apprentice,
please reward our long persistence.”
and so they found their debutant;
prayer answered in Saint Louis.
a boy who understood its voice,
with their strings again make music.

instrument of bow and strings,
of your journey history sings.
if, only strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin;
stories told will ne’er grow old,
tales of old they build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows and find your mark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power to soothe the heart.

verse 4
near the town of Chateau Thierry,
along the banks of the Marne;
ply this channel of the masters,
play us a river, Lowell Meyer;
once a boy, become grand-father,
then a treasure to receive;
heirloom placed within your trust,
your prize possession to bequeath
to yet another debutant,
its strings to pluck and bow to draw.
he a master of persistence,
who with practice met resistance;
yesterday’s grandson, beloved progeny;
tomorrow’s hope, an admired prodigy.

instrument of bow and strings,
with clarity your voice still sings.
if, only strings could talk like men,
if, we could sing like violin;
stories told will ne’er grow old,
for these are tales that build the soul,
of standing tall and shouldering on,
to play an orchestrated song.
all you archers raise your strings,
draw your bows and make your mark,
soldiers of a genteel king,
wield your power to touch the heart.

~

post script.

A violin…  an instrument of hollowed wooded frame, strung with five strings made of gut, played by the drawing of a bow of hair crosswise over strings tuned in perfect fifths; an instrument of song with uniquely, beautiful voice.  Whether played as a violin with symphonic overture in a seventy-piece orchestra in Carnegie Hall, or as a fiddle in a four-piece southern country band at a barn dance down in a Kentucky hollow, in the hands of a violinist… a master… a virtuoso… a fiddler, it becomes an hallowed instrument… of diplomacy… of peace.

When I heard the faint whisperings of story about a nephew’s instrument I pledged to learn the details of its journey.  Charlie obliged, allowing me to interview him one evening early this month.

The instrument came complete with an old typed letter from Lowell Meyer, Charlie’s maternal grandfather, whose family purchased the instrument on his behalf, from the Sisters of St. Joseph when he was yet in middle school in 1923.  An instrument in its own rite, the letter also acts as a legal document, sharing not only the violin’s European heritage and how it came to arrive in these United States, but also dictating its future journey, naming only three possibilities of conveyance.  First, while in the possession of his family, the violin is to be owned by all of Mr. Meyer’s children and their heirs rather than by any one single heir.  Second, it allows a method for its sale should an urgent financial need arise.  And third, it dictates the intent of Mr. Meyers for the violin’s return to its original owner into perpetuity, the Sisters of St. Joseph near Chateau Thierry.  Charlie scanned the letter and emailed it to me, giving me a greater sense of its history and helping to establish its authenticity.   Its making by well known French luthier Francois Barzoni, who unlike the Stradivari family made his hand-crafted instruments for the masses, its survival within the convent walls during the bombardment of the Battle of the Marne and its subsequent journey from Chateau Thierry, to Saint Louis, each detail carrying great significance. As an example of one detail among many, it did not escape the attention of this story lover, the significance of a journey from its setting on one river to a similar setting on another, from along  the banks of the Marne before it spills into the Seine, winding through the fertile rolling hills north of Paris, to the fertile banks of the Missouri at its confluence with the Mississippi in St Louis, two famous rivers, a half a world apart, each with their own folklore of simple people living a simple life, of battles fought by simple people with uncommon valor.

*This simple story of “the violin” is a story worth telling; just one facet of Charlie’s interesting heritage; one which has its own voice, and is a tale that begged to be written.