Per Your Request
Who am I?
See the picture.
The bell, an old ship's-tool,
Now an oxidized lime,
Legs, rust decorated,
Was used when her boy was small,
To call, home to dinner,
From the beach, a child recall.
Someday soon, used this way again?
It never failed, for the
Ringtones of that time,
Atomic, sonic, and unafraid,
Not PC.
See the old chair in the photo.
I am in it now, post-bed, pre-eat,
In a state of grace, prayer,
Close by, the bay, beach, and the Poet's Nook,
Your place, your adirondack awaiting.
Sunny September morn,
The coffee stays sun warmed while
Practicing my three r's,
Reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.
Reading your hard worked words
Writing appreciation thereof,
Counting my allures (few),
My failures, woo hoo.
I swear to God,
With a hand beneath my thigh,
Taking the Patriarchal Oath,
That I am what I am.
The words I scribe,
My truth, my dust.
There is no hidden story.
All you need is not hinted.
Asked and answered.
In the songs of my lips,
The scripts of my finger.
Need only read them,
From start to finish!
You know where I live.
You know my decades
Upon this Earth.
Every now then, I present my face,
With egg upon it.
Some of you, viewed, actually saw it,
And laughed, as intended,
For when gloomy, I stand before the mirror.
Start laughing.
But you knew that already.
You know of my children,
Theirs too, the kisses incessant I gift them.
My children, I hereby disclose,
One speaks to me not,
The other, somewhat.
This ****, this sadness,
is so rooted,
Like bamboo, it chokes,
And near impossible to uproot.
I have told you how
To dress for my funeral.
I have told you my lover's names,
The women with whom I have slept,
Sleep with yet today, yet again, tonight.
You know that unsightly bulge
In pocket rear, is a packet of
Tissues, past and present.
You know perhaps,
I am not religious,
Yet, not a prob,
Cause He and me,
Got an open line,
Chat regularly.
Saves a lot of time.
Of my woman,
You know too much,
For I have chronicled
Our adventures, mis- and otherwise,
Time and time again.
Told you, a poet in search of his style,
Though now I think simple verse, it be.
That I am a Summer Man.
That my mother died, but two months ago,
She gifted the pleasure of the word to her
Children, and the good hair gene.
My friends, named the few,
King Lear, Humpty Dumpty, Paul Simon
And a few of you, if you will take my hand?
Confessed that with each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.
That I still ride a funeral train
To hold your special words warm and close,
That I have followed you across vast plains,
That I love your names, real and imagined,
Could write poem-pen about each one of you,
For I read your lines, and taste the unseen,
The lines unwritten, the ones in between.
Already been arrested for
Excessive poem writing,
For half my life,
Put me in jail,
Where I had no paper, no love,
When released from a loveless marriage,
The verse explosion was recorded on the moon,
But I ramble, unnecessarily, for as indicated above,
In Para 5, Subsection Jive,
All this is just a summary, a summation,
Of what my body has already served you.
There is on thing I never told anyone.
I have a Nat-ional Anthem,
Which I enclose in the notes.
Like the way Willie Nelson sings it,
At my funeral this will be my dirge.
Reread this scrambled ramble,
This frittata omelette,
Not only the eggs cracked,
Me too, cracking up at this silliness,
Cracking up, his cracks creaking wider,
Because he can't stop,
Writing poems and
Laughing at himself before
The mirror which cannot lie.
Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I’m all right, I’m all right
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home
I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it’s all right, it’s all right
For lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road
We’re traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong
And I dreamed I was dying
And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying
Oh, we come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hour
And sing an American tune
Oh, it’s all right, it’s all right
It’s all right, it’s all right
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all I’m trying to get some rest
© 1973 Words and Music by Paul Simon