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David Ehrgott Nov 2015
Deadhead Barbie's hypin' the tour
Telling all her friends about the tickets she scored
Hey six-up yo' gather near the doors
We're going to wear the tie-die t-shirts one more time
  
Dee Dra's grandpa's cooking up some homemade wine
It's really going to kick it in us one more time
The lights, the music, ambience together entwined
And Deadhead Barbie twirling 'round as if she's blind but, she's not blind
  
Electric skull head, steal your face, I like your smile
Nothin' left to do here; listen once in a while
I can't believe that all these years they're still in style
All that dancing, good for lovin'n, sweating miles
  
And Deadhead Barbie's blood is flowing fast
She grabbed a piece of something that was built to last  
Maybe not forever, but one of life's best blasts
A bigger bang might break the earth into two halves
  
And Deadhead Barbie's drinking Dee Dra's wine
There's a party in the parking lot.  Yeah,  Dee Dra's fine.
Dancing girls with dancing bears a one FINE time
Deadhead Barbie's had her pants pulled in again
phil roberts May 2017
I have eyes
But I don't see what I don't like
I have ears
But I won't hear what I don't want to hear
I have a memory
But only remember what's convenient
I have thoughts
But I keep them in safe cages
I have a mind
But I refuse to change it

And so, you see

Let rhetoric over-rule logic
Let fake news obscure truth
Let corruption replace propriety
Let bluster confound reason
Let nepotism overcome merit
Let democracy be obliterated
As long as I don't have to admit I was wrong

                                              By Phil Roberts
Bows N' Arrows  Feb 2016
Deadhead
Bows N' Arrows Feb 2016
VW buses headed to Haight
and Ashbury
In San Francisco to
meet a man
We brought the acid to
expand our consciousness
that's what Tim Leary suggested
And you need to feed your head
like Jefferson Airplane said
Just go ask Alice
Yes we brought the psychedelics
and our bus is painted
in pastel peace signs and
purple Shiva's
We wove flowers in our braid
we ran barefoot
and climbed the trees
They said that the hippies are dead
but The Grateful has yet to
perform their last gig
love love love, man
it's our religion
R.I.P John Lennon
***** Warhol's banana and
Campbell's soup
But we miss Lou Reed and Nico too
Yes the summer of love was in 67'
and Woodstock was a muddy heaven
We watched every episode of Laugh-In
but it wasn't always sunshine and dandelions
like when a runaway overdoses
from ******
It was a wave no one remembers
but to everything there is a season
Freaks with beards at the drive-in
R.I.P Janis Joplin
We were all California Dreamin'
Jack Kerouac the dharma ***
was friends with Neal Cassady
the other-worldly monad
A time of innocence
a time of confidences
And so we are here bumming
cigarettes and joints
with talk about the Manson Family
and Sharon Tate
We are all here so come along
but in the meantime
I'd love to turn you on.
Bo Tansky  Oct 2018
Shot Caller
Bo Tansky Oct 2018
Hotshot
Potshot
Fool shot
Cool shot
No shot
Yo shot
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Hey hotshot
Can you tell me who’s the shot caller
You’re lookin pretty dreamy
Didn’t mean to be a meany
Some things come so naturally
Shots are ringing from your balcony
So come on Romeo
Take a *** shot
Hotshot
And
Please tell me if I have a
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Hotshot
You’re such a cool shot
Badass
You can call the shots
You can shoot the shots
You got the elevated status
But, you ain’t got no action
You always know what's going down
You nowhere to be found
Because you're the shot caller
And I don’t have a shot
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Do i
Do I
Do I
Hey, hotshot
Can you see
I’m down on my knees
Beggin you please
For a
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Hotshot
You know I’m such a cool shot
And this is so out of character for me
Can’t you see
I can see
You’re laughing at me
For being a fool shot
Please tell me if I have a
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Hotshot
Will I ever see you at my door
Is this it
Nothing more
Looking pretty dreamy
This time, promise
Not to be a meany
Please tell me if I have a
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Dale had a friend
His name was shot
Because he was
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Who lives and who dies
Doesn’t matter when you’re a lifer
You run the prison
Make the decision
That’s not, not, not, not what I mean
Didn’t mean to be mean
So please
Won’t you tell me if I have a
Shot, shot, shot, shot
I’m down on my knees
Beggin you please
For a
Shot, shot, shot, shot
What I really mean is
Who’s the shot caller
What I really mean is
Well I know I’m unrehearsed
But quite well versed
I think you’ll agree
Always with me
I’m never home alone
Don’t pathologize
Just Apologize
For being such a ****, ****, ****
I know I don’t know how
But I’ll hold your hand
And you can show me how
Then I’ll quickly get off stage
Before it goes to my head
And all I want to do
Is be a deadhead
I mean it quite literally
Always looking for meaning
And that’s what I’m trying to say
My reflection seems to inspire perfection
And that’s not what I mean
Seems I’m always ******* off everyone  
With my off the cuff remarks
That set off sparks
And I think it’s quite a lark
But, I’m the only one laughing
So please tell me if I have a
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Before I’m
Dead, dead, dead, dead
Yo shot
JAM Feb 2016
RECORD: INSOMNIAC OLYMPICS
FROGMAN: BLOCHEAD

Suzy's: Then it heard The Word:

You are not special.
You're not a beautiful and unique saltflake.
You're the same decaying mental laughter as everything else.
We're all part of the same info heap.

We're all singing,
all dancing
data of the word.
-- Tyler Durden, Tacky Frogman

I mean just try to

Imagine a Johnny waking up one moment and thinking,

"This is an interesting thought I find myself in —
an interesting wHole I find myself in —
guides me rather neatly, doesn't it?
In fact it guides me staggeringly well,
must have been made to have me in it!"

This is such a powerful throught that as the sun rises in the mind
and the clouds heat up
and as, gradually, the throught gets
smaller
and
smaller,

she's still frantically stinging on the notion that everything's going to be aulgburight,
because The Word was meant to have him in it,
was written to have her in it;
so the moment that reappears, caches them rather in reprise.

I think this may be something we need to be on the waytch-out for.
We all know that at some point in the future the throughts will come to an end
and at some other point,
considerably in advance from that but still not instinctually re-pleasing,
the Sun will rexploade.

We think there's plenty of throught to tarry on about that,
but on the other Read DeadHead
throught ’s a very anger-ous ink to lay.
-- Douglas Adams, Frogman

Johnny's: So,

We just ought To Be.
-- You and Me and Everyone We See

Suzy's: And it would be nice if

A Brad and Janet could change their mind,
plan a din-stinction,
butcher a clog,
conn-a-fusion,
design a dream,
write a union,
balance brains,
build a wall,
set a tone,
belay the lying,
make orders,
live orders,
cooperate,
act alone,
solve self equations,
analyze a new corruption,
throw info lure,
program a harmed-brain-puter,
hook a hasty mind,
fight self efficiently,
receive truth carefully.
But all-selfse destruction is their mode.
-- Robert A. Heinlein, Frogman

Johnny's: In other words,

Show me one Brad or one Janet alone and I'll show you a saint.
Give me two and they'll fall in love.
Give me three and they'll reinvent the char-ming thing we call 'Propriety'.

Give me four and they'll build a panic.
Give me five and they'll make one a Number.
Give me six and they'll reinvent Master's affair.
Give me nine and in nine moments they'll reinvent ludechrist.

WhoMans may have been made in the image of nature,
but Brads and Janets were made in the tincture of their opposite Number,
and they're always trying to get back to The Hearth.
-- Glen Bateman, Frogman

Suzy's: Picking up the Data Crumbs as they go, like High Speech. And yet

Brads and Janets do not seem certain of how they gained the ability to speak.
It is theorized that they began dinning objects with iniornticulacy,
until eventually the din became more organized—

still tumultuous clamour,
just a bit more meat in the current day.

If this is true,
it means that to attain bsproken thought the Brad and Janet brain created a specific system for language and a way to code it—working largely off the constantly developing faculty for memory. It is an idea revealed by bit com-partitian-alization of throught data threw the structure of language; re-veiled in the way that Brads and Janets peak or wrighte using their memorized vocabularies and concepts.

This mind fore Toe-ing mortgaged itself to the e-x-ternal word,
and Brads and Janets found power in pontification of life.

Then dawned Ninetbeen.

If the systems of Ninetbeen were enhanced then a more dominant Reality presentce resulted. The most refissiont equation became the most dominant, but
the most efficient equation is not the best.

There are many sacrifices made for effishinsea.

For the most dominant Brads and Janets it became an obsession
to control every aspect of the nature from which they Rose,
sacrificing natural progression

(Of course, it does seem like this is the natural progression,
Brad's and Janet's predetermined path—
a relief that is a symptom of the most engineered systems of code).

Unfortunately,
these systems are destroying Brads and Janets,
and raw rEffissionsea,
Pure confusions,
will not save them.
-- Thrusher Swainson, Bear M.B.

STOP: TURN THOUGHT
The Letter-Ing: word
tenth or last
in a series of poems made of quotes
one part to a whole
its sum has yet to be totaled
may be more than its parts
subject to change
e  Dec 2014
Heartbeat.
e Dec 2014
Soul Beat
Sometimes, after a lull
my mind feels the need to remind me of you
and I take a shovel to the dirt
digging up buried images of you and I
and I awake
from a frenzied dream
breathless
and in the seconds I float between sleep and full consciousness
I taste your scent in the air
your fingers everywhere
the warmth of your skin lingers on mine
sweat soaked
my pulse races
pounding like a hammer through my chest
if only I could take a pair of secateurs
and deadhead the hurt and memories you left trailing
like vines around my heart
suffocating me
leaving me empty
gasping for release.
JAM Feb 2016
RECORD: [FURTHER] DOWN THE ROAD! [WE GO!]
FROGMAN: Cea2Cea

Read the directions,
even if you dare not follow them.

Do not read cr-e-a-utiful societal throughts.
They will only make you feel crippled.

GET TO KNOW YOUR OTHER AND FALLTHER.
You never know when they'll be data for good.

BE NICE TO YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
They're your best link to your past
and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that fiends come and go,
but with The Ones that are you,
you should hold on.

Work hard to re-bridge the grasps in body and mind,
because the older you get,
the more you get stung
by the fiends you knew when you were young.

Love in Chaos once,
but lever before it makes your Blue Tail Concrete.

Love in Calm once,
but lever 'fore it makes your Read DeadHead Abstract.

PONDER.

Accept certain un-ion-tame-able truths:

Hatred suns will rise.
Brads and Janets will philander.
You, too, will get told. And when you do,
you'll hypnotize that when you were young,
Hatred suns were reasonable,
Brads and Janets were noble
and Wild Stings respected their leaders.

disRespect your leaders.

Don't expect anyone else to re-inform you.
Maybe you have a true fiend.
Maybe you'll have a tHrealthy Fiend.
But you never know when either one might frump out.

Do mess too much with your mind
so by the time you're Flirty-2
it will look Kinedy-1.

Be careful whose data you buy,
but be patient with those who supply it.
Data is a form of command.
Dispensing it is a way of alifreyinWaISHing the truths from the past,
wiping them off,
painting over the ugly Lies
and RE-CYCLING them for what it's WORTH.

But trust me on the Introflection.
-- Mary Schmich, Frogman

STOP: RECALL'me'SELF
The Letter-Ing: wish upon a memory
thirtieth or last
in a series of poems made of quotes
one part to a whole joke
its sum has yet to be totaled
may be more than its parts
subject to change
Taylor  Nov 2018
deadheading
Taylor Nov 2018
I.

Auntie’s fingertips were always stained
with the blood of scarlet petunias
in summer, a pile of
wilted blooms in a Pyrex bowl.
This is how they grow so beautiful, she told me,
so when Uncle’s knuckles grew red with her blood
and since she always stayed at his side
i thought it must be the same for people.

II.

Truckin’—got my chips cashed in…
Uncle’s favorite song crackled over the speakers
as I rode in his cab across the state line,
army men in my lap.
A three-fingered hand chucked a lieutenant out the window
into the golden wheat.
I knew he lost those fingers
in some faraway place called Vietnam.

Later that night,
I sat in the empty back of the truck,
nothing to play with,
imagining my lieutenant marching through wheat,
dodging gunfire,
listening to the bang bang bang
as Uncle and the lady he met in the lot
cleaned out the cab.

III.

I came home from Iraq
after losing ******* to an IED
and drove straight to Auntie’s.

We pruned petunias in silence.
She grew purple and black alongside the red now,
velvet flowers the color of her left eye,
of the blossom on her shoulder.

I heard my drill sergeant.
Blood! Blood! Blood makes the grass grow!
Turn this ******* desert into an oasis!—
and I knew why Vietnam was a jungle.

Uncle got home. “Hey, Uncle,” I said,
“how about we go for a drive like old times?”

IV.

I killed the engine next to a wheat field.

“Blood on your hands,” Uncle said.

“I’ve been pruning the petunias with Auntie,” I told him.
“You gotta get rid of the wilted ones
so the plant can grow. Flourish.”

“Naw, I mean, from Iraq,” he said. “Blood. You killed
any men?”

“Not yet,” I said.

V.

Auntie and my boy and I sing along to Bryan Adams
in the cab—
Out on the road today,
I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac;
a voice inside my head says don’t look back,
you can never look back…

He’s got a lap full of Army men.

Across from a field of wheat,
a little patch of grass
blazes emerald in the midday sun.
JAM  Apr 2023
Nos Dii Adorant
JAM Apr 2023
gudarna avgudar oss.

"Eight Geats and twenty-two Norwegians
on an exploration journey from Vinland to the west.
We had camp by two skerries
one day's journey north from this stone.

[We] have ten men by the sea to look after our ships,
fourteen days' travel from this island.  
We were [out] to fish one day.
After we came home [we] found ten men red of blood and dead.“

“save [us] from evil."

A record of the delightful piece
They're going to play this evening

Ladies and gentlemen
Your attention please
And now, the moment we've been waiting for is here
I- I have something to tell you

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be
(Remember) Will be

The birth was like a fat black tongue
Dripping tar and dung and dye
Slowly into my shivering eyes

I might walk upright
But then again
I might still try to die

Never prayed, never paid any attention
Never felt any inflection
Never a lot of thought to life

"Che gelida manina,
se la lasci riscaldar.
Cercar che giova?

Al buio non si trova."

And yet From listening to records
i just knew what to do
I mainly taught myself
And, you know, i did pretty well
Except there were a few mistakes
But um, that i made, uh
That i've just recently cleared up
And i'd like to just continue to be able to express myself
As best as i can with this instrument
And i feel like i have a lot of work to do
Still, i'm a student - of the voice
And i'm also a teacher of the voice too

I believe in the future
I don't believe in miracles

Can it be true?!
It must be true, no doubt!

Life is going on as normally as ever
But suddenly something seems to have happened
Everybody seems to be staring in one direction
People seem to be frightened, even terrified

Some nights it just gets worse than others
Some nights, it just
Gets worse
I feel terrible
But what can we do?
I don't know
It's just, a feeling I've got
Like, something's about to happen
But I don't know what

I want everybody to understand this

"I don't understand"
echoes
"I don't understand"

There're a lot of things we don't understand either

Where do we come from, who are we
And where are we going
Eternal questions never answered

"We need answers from you
What- What did you expect to find?
What is going to be our future?
It- It's your responsibility to do something about it!"

Well, I, uh...
I have the key in my hand
All I have to find is the lock
Now listen to me, all of you!

I fly to the strangest lands

And i would like to able to continue
To let what is inside of me
Which is, which comes from all the music that i hear
I would like for that to come out
And it's like, it's not really me that's coming
The music's coming through me

The music's coming through me

It caught me so that I may never
rest from pwondarement;
I will drink life from the bees.
All tore-ments I have enjoy'd greatly,
have suffer'd greatly,
both with throwse that loved me,
and alone; on tear,
and when thro' thudding rents the cravy Haeades
Vent-teh-din-see. I am become a thought;
For all-ways growming with a hungry deadhead
Much have I heard and throwned—
poprieities of Brads and Janets
And spanners,
prime-hates, clowncils, reed-covernments,
Myself too.
threast, i am tonor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of rattle with my tyears,
Far on the stinging pains of dramatic irony.
I am a partition of all that I have kept;
Yet all expeerientse is an ark
wherethro' gleams that unpondere'd mind whose margin craves
metaforever
and 'fore ever
when
eyes
groove

To see the wizard!

Wake up, the roughest
In the name of, birds fly
(the light, march)
Reach the wizard
Follow, follow, follow
-by league, birds fly

They move on tracks of never-ending light
Like neon beams
stardust

I see it when I look up at the night sky and I know
that yes we are part of this universe
we are in this universe but perhaps
more importantly than both of those things
is that the universe
is in us

And since we cannot escape mother nature
We attempt to placate it
Modern civilization stems from the simple act
Of placing seeds and plants into the ground
When the plants are ready for harvest
We invest so much time and energy in tending our plants
We must stay around to enjoy the fruits of our labor

we can hear her voice whimper,
as wind through leaves,
while we speak:

Cara bella, cara mia bella!
Mia bambina, o Chell!
Ché la stimo...
Ché la stimo.

O cara mia, addio!
La mia bambina cara,
Perché non passi lontana?
Sì, lontana da natura,
Cara, cara mia bambina?
Ah, mia bella!
Ah, mia cara!
Ah, mia cara!
Ah, mia bambina!
O cara, cara mia...

Mia cara!
Ah, mia cara!
Ah, mia bambina!
O cara, cara mia...

Orville and Wilbur
Cold cut the anchor's from their ankle
Carving propellers from whale fins
In the back of a bicycle shop...
And thus begins the tale
Of the thumb trigger cloud ****
At last the Wright's reinvented the horse with wings
Another invention only fit for a mannequin

And One by one the angels fell
Ode had sent a horrible plague of deaths
Why do you think that Ode would do a thing like that?

Well, You put a veil up when you
Took all your things underground
You covered your own footprints
So no one saw you hide
You heard Ode treading in the
Shadows of the sycamore
You turned to Ode and you said
"I will learn nothing from you"

And so it was that Memories burn
On the black and white horizon
Of your knowledge of
What was never said
you've had enough of the road
That was laid along beside you
Like a lover meant
For another bed
And so you left in the morning
And all that's left behind you
Are the fading frames
That you've got instead

And I tried to keep my distance as
Ode changed The Face again
Ode fakes direction so
I don't see where Ode could go
And in the panic I saw that
They had dropped a “note to self”
I picked it up and it read
"I can't learn anything new"

When you've had too much
And the weight of the expected
Has got you feeling introspective
Can I give you the perspective that you need?

Remember that language is power.

"I will, I will. I'll remember that"

Thank you, I'll say goodbye soon
Though its the end of the word
Don't blame yourself now
And if its true
I will surround you and give life to a word
That's our own

Order of the day to come
Thus the end, the ends
Darkest hour, obsidian
Cast of stone, the Night
With a slight of who not harmed
Hit or touched
What will be, the end
How come the rising sun
Matches still
In to gold, it holds
Comes the dawn, golden dawn
Darkness turn to day

I'll take you to the place where you
Come down and just react
To what you're about to see

Early time machine's
Will have tended to leave you
Left screaming
On a dinosaur's dish
In da Vinci's "Bike Accident'
An outerspace whodunit?
Monkeys play Magellan
As the next ex-Edison
Standing out in the crowd with a unicycle

Physics of a unicycle...
Twice the remarkable
Um, did a little little, um, did a lot
Someone's splitting atoms under flag barbed wire
Up in the sky where the war planes fly
Dead in the clouds, hear the God's cold lie
Um, did a little little, um, did a lot

You've had enough
Too much
And all you have collected
Is heavy with the taste
Of ambition misdirected
Bitter 'bout the pace that you keep

Well Good Ode almighty, all that other *******
Is here today and going tomorrow

'Tis better to have loved and lost,
than never to have loved at all!
Come cheer up, my lad

'el Da'
Qb'a'
Oh-kie
YIjah, Qey' 'oH
YIjah, Qey' 'oH

And When I have plucked the rose above
Whatever will be,
will be below
Carefully, I deadhead the pink Kalanchoe
in the flamboyant red and yellow
Mexican ***
and move it to a spot where it can get
more sun

gratefully the shrubby cultivar
gazes skyward

Beloved
prune the dead zones
in my heart too
transport me to a sacred place
on the patio of Your magnificent Love

A rainbow arching towards Your dazzling light
JAM Feb 2016
RECORD: ****** KILLER
FROGMAN: TALKING HEArDS

. . . He went down the steps and walked backwards into the desert;
three-tree places, two-tree.
The back door of The Lab Tor open and they foiled out.
He cried out.
They fell in squacks,
they fell crackwards,
they tumblrd over The Word into the data.

The instruments were empty and they chortled at him,
trains-frogrified into a thought and a mind,
and he stood . . .
his body far away and absent,
letting his words do their re-inking tic.

Could he hold up a hand,
and tell them he had spent ninetbeen thousand years learning this tic
and others,
tell them of the instruments
and the words that had tested them?
Not with his mouth.
But his read
deadhead could tell
its own blue taile .

[. . You do not thrill with your mouth.
One who thrills with their mouth has forgotten the cage of their selfse.
You thrill with your throughts. .]
-- Stephen King, Frogman

. . I realized I was Laughing. I had been crying all along . }
-- Roland Deschain, Tacky Frogman's Frogman

Magenta: You thrilled them?
                But I thought you shneeded them.
                They shneeded you.

Riff Raff: THEY DIDN'T SHNEED ME!
               THEY NEVER SHNEEDED ME!

STOP: TURN THOUGHT
The Letter-Ing: thrill'em with laughter
twenty-first or last
in a series of poems made of quotes
one part to a whole joke
its sum has yet to be totaled
may be more than its parts
subject to change
Josh Anderson Aug 2015
Summertime blues
feeling
down n’ out
gut out
passed out
on the street corner
where I hear
a familiar song
Deadhead born a generation late
never suited me anyway
just trying to be cool
but it’s too hot
I’m melting
I’ll become something
completely new
original
leaving behind what I was
I’m changing
for better
or maybe for worse
I know I’m not perfect
growing up *****
when you first see the mold
and it starts to fit
stick to you
like sweat on a
hot summer day
when you just want to
liquify
seep through the cracks
and drain where they aren’t
watching
judging
expecting
you to sublime
into something
be someone
go somewhere
even if
you drain into the gutter
out to sea
or if you just take a bus
to California
where the beaches
are cool
where the people
are cool
where you can just feel
your problems melt away
your lover is there
waiting on the beach
waiting for you
lover boy
just go for it
what’s to lose?
just go for it
strike a match
let it burn
catch fire
and let your heart explode
lock lips
and set her heart ablaze
shoot off
like a rocket
take a look at yourself
where did you land?
or did you just burn up
on re-entry?
did you see it coming?
did you see her coming?
did you see you coming?
‘cause you were really
cool
when you were
burning bright
you did it
tiger
you shot for the red-hot stars
you wanted to shoot for
and you made it
Part of a seasonal cycle, but far and away my favorite.

— The End —