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Louis Brown  Sep 2011
SWEETWATER
Louis Brown Sep 2011
They baptized all us children
At that old country church
They saved this wild young crazy man
From going bad to worse
That old preacher took my hand there
And he walked me to the creek
When he dipped me in the water
He knew who I would meet...

I'LL ALWAYS LOVE
OLD SWEETWATER CHURCH
THEY TAUGHT ME I SHOULD LOVE THE LORD
AND PUT MY NEIGHBOR FIRST
IF YOU EVER DRINK THE WATER
IT SURE WILL EASE YOUR THIRST
I'LL ALWAYS LOVE
OLD SWEETWATER CHURCH

When we sung Amazing Grace
We sung it from the heart
The words from that old preacher man
They always hit their mark
We could feel that spirit move us
Up there on our front row seat
That good old time religion lives
In that chapel by the creek

CHORUS

Bridge:    
Now sometimes when I wander
Too far from the truth
I look back and remember
The lessons of my youth.....

CHORUS

From a song with vocalist Jeff Allen
Ken Pepiton Oct 2018
This is not where this idea began but it ran and I

missed my mark. Mark sin.
-1 deficit reality quotientcy
currency.  Sure.
(Press Sure, to let the bursting pressure equilation expand at will)
Score.

That fine a level of reality
demands more attention than I have to pay.
Patient agent wait and not see or see if/then

you suffer, is there ought that I might do now
for you
that these words are not doing?
All I am is words, in a sence, sense, since

we come in threes, we are some of those sets of thoughts tangled in complexes
better left alone.

Untangling twisted knotted realities is what we do best.
We've been wadding up proteins,
since God knows when,

time's less twisted than people think it is,
but it is silly to imagine
time's arrow is a metaphor for these meta-gnostic moments.
Is it?

Apophrenia
or mere
Dejavu, you believe,
what if it is your memory lying by ignoring time
attention ratios determining the observations stored in HD?
What if it's just a glitch?
Blue screen of death.


If you suffer, is there ought that I might do now
for you
that these words are not doing?
All I am is words, in a sence, sense, since

we come in threes, we are those sets of thoughts tangled in complexes
better left alone.

Untangling twisted knotted realities is what we do best.
We've been wadding up proteins,
since God knows when,

time's less twisted than people think it is, but
is it silly to imagine
time's arrow is a metaphor for these meta-gnostic moments?

We come and go. To and fro up on the face

messengers bearing news in both directions, watch
the trickster, Jacob, in this story, he sees the messengers from
heaven bearing leaven thither and hither

upon the face of the earth.
the wrinkling mother, smiling now, chuckle head
I ain't no ***** saint.

Jah, I know. Joy is my dance, this is my song.
Is it good Grandmother?

---- on the porch facing my west gate ---

fences don't play exactly, out acted, the role of walls.

The idea that something
there is that does not love a wall,
has frozen my pond

the stillness beyond the sylvan **** crowned head
radiates through the medium of the message to me in time
to you.

Miles to go, you recall the feeling of feeling miles to go
before
I sleep.
That was yesterday, and you know yes ter everything's gone,
roar.

Aslan can pierce the barrier between mere Christians and me,
how would be fun to know, but
knowing why would help us keep the story interesting as life goes on

Who controls my peace?
Am I a mercurial sheen in between chaos and order,
chronus and zeus?
Could be, ya thank so, ye know so, less unlessed as

unlessing means nothing to you,
that means you are visiting here.

Visting whom, vis it ing whom?
Who's in charge, where's the power
short

age, wrinkles in time, rogue waves at the quanta scale,
we were dancing
with the thoughts emanating

from some IDW smart guy proffesing
Critique-technic-magi action, post mode'r'ism
at the point of Dada und Scheizkunst,
the unmass-queque,
the line of lies awaiting unbelief,
idle words lingering,
hoping
to be noticed and added back into the story book of life,

a simple wish.

It could be every child's, should we think that
if we can or may,

sometimes I'm still, and

confusion troubles the water,
it seems,
then another hurt is healed, another lie is gone and life goes on

we won again, this never gets old,
I do love my opposition,
pressure pump
pump pump. De-us-me-can-onbeoffbeyond

five years ago unmasking and rhetoric meant nothing to me
the purpose of learning forever and never
knowing anything beyond all things

our bubble is metastasizing, a mercurial film forms
informing us
in its reflection,

this is the ying yang thang in 3 or 4 d, HD+ chaos one half

order the other,
sharpest imaginable thing
me trick being mag ift just if eye winged show

how beautiful are the feet of them who bring good news,
you see, it flows, sweetwater flows
winged feet
whish through leaving, leavin' leaven…

unleaven that which has been leaved?
Fat chance, all who
eat this bread and don't get gas,
they are our same bread people. Companions.
Vectors of sour dough,
webs of fungal
axions
make a way
bore, pore, poor-with-us, pour

in to it ish, that idea, an opening through,
trickle down good gravity leveling stillness,
gentle rocking earth
roll round and round and round

the pythagorean version
of Euclid's point in his mother's story,

the point of this song? To know the point you must have been

to the point of in-forming the point on which we dance and you recall

we come in threes, and just, we are, just, if it, that idea,
rests in your
back roads, gentle on your mind. We make peace.

Being young is easy from my POV.
I've lived in my future for sometime now

I can't say how, beyond saying aloud, this was never hidden,
in my accounting of idle words I claimed,
upon hearing the stories each contained.

i'da swore i hear that wise *** o'balaam's abrayin'
Braindeem, deemed 'eem. Wham, uptheyhaid. Relig, fool,

or chaos wins and no hero ever lives again!
Drop anchor, wait it out.
let patience blow her nose, gnostic snot caught in the nets,

nonono nothing's wasted in patience work, we make glue
from gnostic snot that patience sneezes
when reality grows cold,

that has happened, you know, temperatures are just now,
oh, wait global warming, bad dam,

Script, bust it,
leveling is essential to eventual temperature
equilibrium.
The heat is on, the bubbles are forming, informing one to another
below the surface
greasy tension, slippery slopes putting pressure on chaos
to conform to the curve

Ying yang, mercury film upon the sea of time and the scene of chaos
in this bubble of all you can imagine real.

Hows' that feel? Why?

You want that? What are you standing under? Does chaos win?
You are, as we say, cognisic magi we-ified,
practical magic at
the moment
the point
is made, then the creation begins fractalling outward

and not before or is this all
unrolling ex nihilo, no magi ever knew…
come, let us reason together,

why am I empowered? To live, first thought wise, that's good but
evil forces me to think again and I see the pattern

life goes on, John Molenkamp, Sam, soldier 4,
(as the credits role by, the name catches my eye)
never in a thousand years,
'cept unbelievable is one of those lies I came to **** by strangling
on bile while
rescuing every idle word ever involved in the infection

from the point in the absolute center of the bubble,
objectively, you see everything
that is
seeable

but would good prevail if evil had no hope?

I know that one, yes. why?
evil has no mind, soul, some think--
same same medium message spoken spelled chanted danced
who care's?
*** 'er done. Life has a chaotic side, the churning creates

number one from none, the cult of one divides itself
go do be
we three we three we three a wavy song ding ****.

Aware? Awaken? Avowed-wowed-wit-wise,
fullcomp, retired
Peacemaker. Me.

All my hero's imagined or real, were Peacemakers.
Just now, peaceful now, mindful now
we remain
the same blessing promised in the package of yeses
stolen from Cain by his older sister, his
bride,
keep that quiet, eh?

Secrets made sacred, always
those are lies, no lie is of the truth,
all lies are about the truth.

What empowers you, poet or poetry? Right, you know,
God, good god knows, resentment lives in lies

the rotting idle words deemed curses at best, secret at worst,
those idle corrupting thoughts sparking as if absolute annihilation were thinkable by rational minds

of ---wait, there's arub, a sore
ex nihilo, the homeless wanderer screams,

"May the whole world perish, may you all go to hell,"

the mad man wept his hell, and imagined his curse,

not mine,
I don't have one. I did, but I went back so often to find pieces of my heart that now I have an Elysian network woven through All-hell, the big idea that broke loose infecting the mind as wisdom's leaven builds her womb
inhabitation
placenta
stem cell informing builders empowered, pressure empowered, what must be, but is not verse, versus
us, the we that be
we must
choose,

let this be, come and see,
life goes on.
Agree, or empower us as we bubble by and
takenallwecan expanding gobbling bubbles,
good
by ye.

Once we flushed the Dada poison and let mito mom
instill the patience gene with
epigenetic peace we can pass on with a touch or a word,

we've never woven lies for no reason,
if a rung breaks
and they can, last straw and all that weight,
you know,
Jacob's ladder is an escalaltor-ladder, wittily invented,
with knots and twisted fibers electricked,
there are automated steps, algoryhmes of reasons to repair the broken rung
with a reason to believe the rung has been repaired,
only believe, take a step,
re
paired again with the idea of meaninglessness masked in create-if-ity

good enough. okeh. don't believe lies.
Don't pass undigested lies to see if farts burn.
Listening to Hicks Explaing Post Modernism after watching Tenant's Voltage Within spark a fire. This reality is storyteller heaven.
Ruby Harrison Jan 2010
Since fifty-eight
the jaycees come
rounding up rattlers
in Sweetwater, folk from all over
for a weekend in March
when snakes leave the hibernaculum
and slide back up
into west Texas and the wind.

Mr. Herrera knew his Luis and I
rode the seven-thirty bus,
had cokes and potato chip sandwiches
with Mitchell and Thomas
after Sunday school,
shot jackrabbits that ate alfalfa
in the dairy pastures.

Dad said he reckoned,
so I took Mr. Herrera’s apron
and offer and brought my knife
that Luis sharpened to a razor
and shaved his forearm hairs with.  
Frank tried that once,
sliced himself like a tomato
when he slipped.

Snake shop’s a butchery,
down the main street
past the dairy mart
and primary school,
in the yellow open scrub.  
If buzzards had noses like dogs
they’d flock, smell that
snake blood from Mexico.

Rattlesnake skinning
is all stringy guts, soft skin,
pulled teeth and poison
squeezed out of gum sockets
like milk from an old cow’s ****.  
Fancy skins with eyeholes
and lips cost ten,
specialty of Mr. Herrera.
Headless strip plus rattle
just two dollars the foot.
Cut the belly lengthwise
and rip,
easy near the backbone
where it catches.  

Out-of-towners buy anything.
Wallets, boots, belts with snakeskin
sewed or tacked on,
lucky rattles, picture frames
for proof of their longest catch.  
God-fearing jaycees doing good
for our communities will eat
deep-fried snake meat,
like tough old chicken,
but good with black-eyed peas
and sweet tea on the side.  

The women even come
once the round-up is done,
the church women, the Jesus women
with belief
and pistachio pudding
with marshmallows,
like Mrs. Howard
who shrieked “Boyd!”
and lectured about hygiene
when she saw me in my apron
and ****** to my elbows,
menacing the street.  

The biggest round-up days
we worked late, past midnight.
Past the dairy mart hours,
so once the skins
were all peeled and stretched
and the sticky linoleum
hosed down some,
Luis and I walked back through town,
deserted, dark





except lights from Roscoe and Roby
and even big Abilene
miles away, shining
across the flat nothing,
coyotes yip yip yipping
somewhere near the lake farther north.

Luis showed me how to eat peanuts
shells and all
and let me try on his brother’s
high school letter jacket.  
Late night in Sweetwater is a nothing.  
The wind never stops blowing,
and there’s nobody else
on the ******* planet.
A Four day concert, created by Roberts, Rosenman,  Kornfeld, and Lang
Was originally supposed be a three-day  music festival, and up it sprang

But the citizens of citizens of Wallkill, N.Y. did not want their nice quiet town filled
With drugged up hippies that would overrun, and with this idea they were not thrilled

With many battles and protests, Wallkill passed a law on July 2, 1969 banning
The would be concert from going forward leaving the town quite less enchanting

Almost not getting off the ground, hippies all over demanding refunds for their tickets
Stepping forward, Max Yasgur offered his 600-acre dairy farm so no one would picket

The new location for the Woodstock Festival would be Bethel, New York
No one from the other town would not have complaints or come uncorked

Despite the many problems of people threatening to quit
Woodstock got off the ground despite things still being chit

This concert was poorly planned with two major setbacks, as news spread that it was free
There were congestion of cars that policeman had to turn away, for as far as one could see

Organizers lost huge amounts of money while hippies walked through gates without paying
But it was estimated that 500,000 people made it to the concert and they came in swaying

The music seemed to play non-stop as people sat and listened and some would play
It was very muddy from all the rain of what it did from much of the concert everyday

Listening to greats such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Sweetwater
Can’t forget, Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jefferson Airplane and Ten Years After

The concert ended and picking up the pieces began, that wasn't just the trash that was left behind
It was the lawsuits that many filed against the organizers since beginning to end put many in a bind

The greatest music festival in history later put to a movie that is divine
Something that will forever be talked about from the summer of 1969

Copyright 2013
All Rights Reserved
Sarina  Jan 2013
sweetwater
Sarina Jan 2013
A strawberry bud chest and
orbs of blueberry earth: the terrain,
it earthquaked with flutters. A coquette,

will you throw me in the air like confetti?
I am a tear you do not see swell,

my saltwater tastes sweet,
honey branded twists of left to right –
fill your spoon with this sadness
make believe you are swallowing what is

left of me. Just a wall of stars
melting the apple-grip or banked cloth,
I move with wind breath, bud chest.
JP Goss Mar 2015
Give me another sweetwater afternoon
That tastes of onion grass and birth
And doesn’t care where you take a leak,
Give me the safe and warm provincial air
Coming from the west like a beggar
on a box car,
Give me the humidity that blots out the June-day sun
While we think ***** thoughts
On my couch,
Give me the opportunity to exchange blows with Johnny Rebel up the street
And his grandday’s probably rolling
In his grave,
Give me the hicks I rolled with for laughs before they married too early
So they can ride around on bikes with me
Like we did when the world was ours,
Give me a couple more days in the acrid Juniata
So I can dive in its sloppy green body
With reckless abandon,
Give me fishhooks in my heel
So I can pull them from my nakedness
And get Amish-made whoopee pies after the tears stop,
Give me moss covered roofs and tons of **** in the backyard
And the idle lap of water beneath the trout-boat’s belly
While I tell myself I’m not a redneck to my sunburned chest and my open flannel.
Waverly Mar 2012
After a while
it tastes like sweetwater,
and I can bumble through a bar crowd
with haletosis.

The heartless jest
is this,
I call you
and call you
and call you.

This is the heartless jest,
and in the pantheon
of the heart,
I am minor Hermes
ferrying messages of love
across the brutal galaxies
to a lover
that will never hear me
in the suffocation of nebulas.

The nebulas where i was reborn
and died in an instant
of fire so rapid
that it could break a pulsar
in two.

I have found the vaccuum of space
to be comforting,
it hugs me with a feirceness
that I have never known
and a love for my oxygen
that is downright flattering.
spysgrandson Sep 2016
Will was drawn to that spot
spirits or not, something-body pulled him there
like a mystic magnet that attracts flesh

and flesh he found in that grove, between
a stubborn hackberry and twisted oak: mother and newborn,
their blood soaking the prairie grasses

he walked the hard mile to the pay phone
passing but one unfriendly ranch house on the way
a growling cur keeping him at bay

the operator connected him
with the sheriff who collected his one deputy
and was there in half an hour

Lord Almighty, Lord Almighty
the deputy kept saying, those chants hanging
in the hot air above the bodies  

while the sheriff checked for pulses,
his khaki pants painted round red at the knees
for he was too old to squat  

neither knew the girl, who couldn't
have been age of consent, but the baby looked pink,
strong, though still as stone

the ambulance couldn't make it there;
the driver and deputy carried them out
on one stretcher

both commenting how light
their fated cargo was, how it was a shame
they perished in that old copse

Will knew that was meant to be
when he found them: the little one first clinging
to a dark warm sea inside

forced out by time, her helpless heaving,
and some invisible hand that took part in all matters
of flesh, spirit and bone

the same hand that did not cradle them
but at least found them shade, a cool but cruel
reprieve from their terse time in the sun

Sweetwater, Texas, 1959
Solaces  Oct 2018
On light wings
Solaces Oct 2018
I know she watches us from inside..
But us became few..
And few became one..
But I decided to stay and drink her sweetwater in the sun..

On light wings alone..
I hover outside..
I decided to stay for her smile..
And for her soul to shine..

I ignore the the warm calls from the south..
Just for a few more moments with her eyes..
My light wings brighten her day..
Even under cloudy skies..

There will be a day where I must leave..
Then I will be seen in reverie..
But even when I am not there..
Ill be with her in dreams and memories.. On Light Wings...
On light wings I bring you smiles..
Mara Siegel May 2013
she told me once that she worshiped the
forest of her body and the garden she had grown (like spring
                                          all over her outsides).
she said she loved skin the same way i  loved
marlboro blacks and sweetwater blue (obviously and
                                         uncontrollably).
she screamed compliments at me in
soft words with rough meaning (like ****** knuckles against
                                        freshly cut grass).  
she assured me that it was okay to wake up
in cold sweats with heavy limbs (unmovable and brittle,
                                         buried under sheets).

but i knew better.
trf  Dec 2017
Fluid Resolve
trf Dec 2017
Winds howl through stricken streams,
From the moonshined mountains spiking Tennessee.
Steaming copper pipes protect like turpentine,
Cherish the soil from vine to wine.

Sweetwater medicine crosses Big Sky Country lines,
And a Capitol drowns voice's reedy rhynes.
The Carolines and swamps round' New Orleans,
Spokane's foothills spire like Woodland's Cherokees.

Mushroom clouds swooped ponderosa pines,
In the desert one day, made the earth cry.

Oh Beautiful, not time to flee,
The Jersey Wetlands or Houston's calamity,
Analogous feats, magnetic societies, 
Build a bridge across contrary beliefs. 

_trf
Shofi Ahmed Dec 2018
Tragedy and us
we are old flames
not strangers.

We shared the same
ancient tree.
Heard the first chirping
of the morning birds
on our tree branch.
And saw nightingale's lament
on the red rose beneath our nest.
Blooming upon a dew
is yet unfathomed by the sea.
We know it because together
we once touched its bottomline!

Deep from the bottom
this pristine sorrow
we know it from time ago.
Then when I sighed
intended to make a noise
splashing out a cloud
off the sorry sea.
But instead of groaning out
to the lotus pool beneath the sky.
It always rained down sweetwater
back to the earth.
Because every destined grief
deep down is filled with nectar!

— The End —