“Lord have mercy,”
you dolefully sigh,
your song awaiting


my reply.
”Have Mercy on me,”
each chord explains,


your baby is lost
and torn heart pains.
With tired feet


I softly croon
my dark agreement,
a bluesy tune.


I stir my cocoa –
a condoling toast –
and welcome you in


as your lonely host.
Suspended in your
mournful zephyr,


I bear the wounds
you’ll always suffer,
the Atlas burden

that breaks your back,
your scarlet letter
weathered black,


and offer you
my own lament
of how my stormy


Monday went.
Then, like a
wing-footed Gabriel,


he sings his
holy madrigal.
With merciful swiftness

my beloved appears,
and whispers,
”Darling, I am here,”


Then our duet becomes
one person less,
As I am
            undone
                        with
              ­                 happiness.

~

steps beyond his stalwart hedge,
white pickets lined with flowery speech;
’cross a boulevard of words,
the shade of tree-lined poetry;
he’s drawn to her celestial sound,
seeks comfort in her sultry voice.
pandora's lounge, her nightly stage,
in every breathy note she sings.
their presence here he’s prearranged,
respires her palette’s offerings;
each tapestry-a-washed crescendo,
her every soulful whispering,
incites his heart to joyous tears;
his ev'ry sense engulfed, aflame,
her afterglow, like sun's refrain;
to hers, two eyes an opening,
his ears to sounds beyond;
the tongue to taste, a bounty waiting,
her touch too sweet, his blood is racing.
spellbound by her bluesy song,
raptured by her fragrant breath;
to her rhythm his heart beats strong,
he's captured in her blue’s caress.

~

post script.

i make no apologies in the admission that i'm easy prey for a bluesy voice, the feminine variety in particular.  add a British / Euro tone and my soul may just melt.  Norah’s... i’ve a jones for hers!

~

*Come Away With Me
Norah Jones

Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Come away with me on a bus
Come away where they can't tempt us, with their lies
And I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
So won't you try to come
Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountaintop
Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you
And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me

There is a note that lives between thought and slumber,
That’s when I thought of you today
A harmonica lay in my hand, the reeds looking at me silly,
Play, I imagined it say, and imagined it was really there.

In my mind we are still walking a dusty bluesy road, our jeans torn and worn
In this midday dream the blues is red and wore a hat; I let out:
This, is not the blues from which my hippie son was born.
I sigh, at the sight of a synthesizer kissing a harmonica, the synth in your head, the harmonica pregnant with my heart.
Our blues drove us to momentary madness, because Syd Barrett was always jealous
Like fights that happened on Sundays and when we choose to mock, then cruelness.
Come midnight someone awakes and someone is being wakened,
And outside, nothing is lit, But she's not afraid, just letting you know she was waking.

Your bedside was colored, certainly psychedelic, but was almost always red
I lay there, like a pregnant harmonica making love to a trusty guitar, the guitar thrusting, the harmonica trusting.

I confront salvation with a straight face, a cigarette now intruding
No, I yell, the harmonica sounds the same, still on the key of C,
But by a synthesizer you sat, the harmonica lay there, heavy with child, looking at me,
And as I stare back, I've seen: indeed you have chosen the synth.

A note creeps in between the high and dry of low, I insist that kismet needs a little shove
Just a push, a new pair of eyes, another heart and a memory that knows only love,
Spiralling in Syd's Milky Way, me drowning, me begging in exchange for you,
I tried moaning a tune but the blues have discolored and turned simply blue.

I face the devil now, I try to bargain, but he sings, 'the blues trusts no one, no longer.'
The devil makes a face, sings to me then says, 'you've forgotten that I'll always remember.”

A southern blend of jasmine and magonolia waft across the grounds an in it is a mixture of tell
Tale knowing a little smoulder lies in her eyes it causes you to anticapate a well spoken word
First it has a different sound than the rest of the country it has a bluesy age to it like it has come
From the delta it took its on sweet time in doing so it is bold just with enough southen sass to
Keep you alert you can’t take for granted that which is explosive and vibrant you don’t live in
The rise and fall of such rich history and not carry a mystery and confidence that is allureing
Tressels and verandas build the tender mood of gentel beckoning that is adorded as seasoned
Fashion spell binding unabashed qaulity is seen in modest means that streams like blue bells that
Have been turned to liquid by charms power and it lays like a long lasy haze that reaches the
Far horizion with a sigh you stop and deeply meditate this creates strong thoughts that go out
From your inner self like a suden strong wind that list and goes where you no not but
refreshment Is left in its wake like an old winding road it not the arriving but the going that is
awsome it delivers Many sights like the night it holds wonders of compassion as an old man you
see in his eyes That knowing that shows care you feel a welcome embracing toucing you for
Dixie makes a Speacial brew it takes long long southern days and paitennce here is derived like
no other place you get that taste of grace speaking slowly it is a trait of the wise that came by
it not by racing To it but by a slow assurance that only grows when you give it time it gives life
a higher qaulity that Is rare in our modern world why would you take a speed boat when you can
go by paddle wheel and go to a place called Natchez eithier real or imagined gentel thoughts
invade and they are a gloroious parade with all sorts of colors and floats that portray geenteel
sentiments some of it is the feeling of loss that great and real times that held such sway are truly
gone with the wind bedeviled by a women she wears a oversized hat that frames her and in many
ways explains her the showing of a well spring of love to be bathed in her voice it trully is the
finding of that memory and grand glory of a true sothern bell walk softly in this spell created
over many treasured moments in southern rays and moonlight kissed by a protective certiny of
woman hood found in no other place cover me God in sothern primose dreams until I walk again
on the great southern soil

****** that's good poetry!
Consonants strike like hot cooking fat on bare skin
Nouns flowing; a Jimi Hendrix riff
..... Or maybe it was more like Clapton?

Digress

You're welcome.
Glad to know that when blood spills
Some lands on a page. Making...
A *******? Nah,
That's cliche and lazy assed
More like those Japanese ink paintings
Before those cooky Catholics showed up? Ish?
smooth and elegant lines in spiraled mountains and heart monitor tree Scapes

I'm Hercules on your own Queen of gods teet (congrats on the great ****** Milkyway!) spilling that good bluesy verse on the
W.
W.
Dot

I've bled you dry for years, "warrior poet"
You're welcome.

Gianni's hadn't opened yet
But, the bar was going strong
If you listened, in the distance
You heard the working of a song

The regulars were present
The Captain, Soldier and the kid
The bartender was cleaning
'Cause that was what she did

The sun, well, it was shining
It was a great day all around
And in the alley sat The Blues man
Sitting still upon the ground

Nothing, any different
Than most any other day
The street folk passing greetings
While the Blues man chose to play

The bell above the bar door rang
As a stranger came on in
The dust hung in a sunbeam
Falling  from the old bell of tin

In back of old Gianni's
The Blues man played a Dylan tune
He slid right into Guthrie
It was a perfect afternoon

The stranger grabbed the bar's end stool
He ordered up and looked around
Then he said, "excuse me barkeep"
"Just exactly, what's that sound?"

She said it was The Blues man
He's a legend on the street
The man said, "sounds intriguing"
"He is someone I should meet"

The Captain ordered up a shot
The juke box started playing
In the corner sat an old man
Not quite sure if he was staying

The barkeep quizzed the stranger
Said "You're off the normal route"
"Most stranger get directions"
Then he pulled a card out of his suit

He said his name was  Edwards
He wasn't lost, he had a plan
He'd heard about the music
Now he came to meet the man

"It says here you do A & R"
"You can sit here and can listen"
"But, The Blues man isn't gonna talk"
"You have nothing that he's missing"

The music in the bar was rock
Out in back, a bluesy lick
You could listen to the tunes inside
Or go out back, you had your pick

"Can I at least go out and see him?"
"You can but won't get far"
Then she put his card with others
She had collected in a jar

"You see those cards all in there?"
"Thirty three more just like you"
"Have come around here snffing"
"Like he's some creature in a zoo"

"See that girl there in the corner?"
The man nodded that he did
"Talk to her, she'll tell you"
"She runs the book store, she's his kid"

The Blues man played some Chapin
Let loose on Thunder Road
Took a small sip from his hip flask
It was hidden, rarely showed

The man asked for an ashtray
Was told "you cannot smoke in here"
"But, the old man in the corner..."
She said sssshhhh, and poured a beer

"The folks round here have stories"
"Some good, and some are bad"
"He's the only one that I let smoke"
"The old man's story is quite sad"

"Stick around a while, see"
"Just what makes the street click"
"There's a hundred different stories"
"Look around and take your pick"

"But, what about The Blues man?"
"I can give him things he hasn't got"
"You will learn sir, that possessions"
"Make him something he is not"

"He plays music in the alley"
"He does't know if you are there"
"He plays what his soul is feeling"
"He'll play to you, or to the air"

"Your best bet, is to sit here"
"Leave him be, don't light the fuse"
"You may set him on a tangent"
"And he just may lose his muse"

"He's a part of everybody here"
"He's a savior, and a sage"
"He's The Blues man to the street folk"
"But, he's from a different age"

"Have a beer, talk to his daughter"
"Play some darts, the beer's on me"
"My advice, I hope you'll take it"
"Is to let The Blues man be"

"Go back to where you came from"
"Tell the folks who sent you here"
"That The Blues man declined nicely"
"And then you two shared a beer"

He smiled, looked to the corner
Ordered one more, "I concur"
"while you're pouring out my lager"
"pour one more drink for her"

He went off to the corner
Introduced himself and sat
Never mentioned his profession
And that they say is that

The Blues man played some Johnson
The A & R man stayed a while
He looked back toward the barkeep
She looked back, and shared a smile

A southern blend of jasmine and magonolia waft across the grounds an in it is a mixture of tell
Tale knowing a little smoulder lies in her eyes it causes you to anticapate a well spoken word
First it has a different sound than the rest of the country it has a bluesy age to it like it has come
From the delta it took its on sweet time in doing so it is bold just with enough southen sass to
Keep you alert you can’t take for granted that which is explosive and vibrant you don’t live in
The rise and fall of such rich history and not carry a mystery and confidence that is allureing
Tressels and verandas build the tender mood of gentel beckoning that is adorded as seasoned
Fashion spell binding unabashed qaulity is seen in modest means that streams like blue bells that
Have been turned to liquid by charms power and it lays like a long lasy haze that reaches the
Far horizion with a sigh you stop and deeply meditate this creates strong thoughts that go out
From your inner self like a suden strong wind that list and goes where you no not but
refreshment Is left in its wake like an old winding road it not the arriving but the going that is
awsome it delivers Many sights like the night it holds wonders of compassion as an old man you
see in his eyes That knowing that shows care you feel a welcome embracing toucing you for
Dixie makes a Speacial brew it takes long long southern days and paitennce here is derived like
no other place you get that taste of grace speaking slowly it is a trait of the wise that came by
it not by racing To it but by a slow assurance that only grows when you give it time it gives life
a higher qaulity that Is rare in our modern world why would you take a speed boat when you can
go by paddle wheel and go to a place called Natchez eithier real or imagined gentel thoughts
invade and they are a gloroious parade with all sorts of colors and floats that portray geenteel
sentiments some of it is the feeling of loss that great and real times that held such sway are truly
gone with the wind bedeviled by a women she wears a oversized hat that frames her and in many
ways explains her the showing of a well spring of love to be bathed in her voice it trully is the
finding of that memory and grand glory of a true sothern bell walk softly in this spell created
over many treasured moments in southern rays and moonlight kissed by a protective certiny of
woman hood found in no other place cover me God in sothern primose dreams until I walk again
on the great southern soil

What’s new about Hipsters? It’s not that they're the first co-opted counter-culture, far from it. The Beats were co-opted. The Sentimentalists, over 200 years ago, were co-opted before capitalism was so industrious. It’s not even new that calling a ***** a ***** is offensive. “Hippies,” “Beatniks,” “Emos;” all insulting labels for youth that thought they were much more.

There it is, or some of it, perhaps. Does the current so-called counter-culture feel like they’re part of something much more? Even without labels, I don’t think they think of themselves as a counter-culture at all. The worst part about it is the Hipsters and  non-Hipsters are really much the same. Falling for a similar niche, but feeling like they ain’t.

We all like flannel, thick glasses, and good beers. We’re all killing Applebee’s. We’re the waitstaff there who laughs at ourselves, cause we’re just so low-down. Not the last, but toward the bottom rung of a ladder that once meant progress beyond our parents’ lives. We stand for nothing and everything, because a secure tomorrow seems unlikely and unwanted. Beget suburban kids like our parents did? Could I buy them as much as I had? A student loan on top of a mortgage, I think I’m better off paying exorbitant rent. Plus, it just feels more temporary, like everything else.

Late twenties, long passed the age my parents conceived, I’m getting old. Lack of full adult independence, still feel floated in embryonic fluid, trying not to give juvenile hopes up.  Qualified for that secure job, but is it open? Maybe I’ll have to move down South. Just like everyone else.

At least there’s always music. Nearly a century of recorded songs. Indie, Scene, and Emo; the last real counter-cultures associated with rock genres, and most practitioners scoffed at these labels. Why didn’t Punks or Metal Heads care?

More pressing, what is the newest rock genre? Emo faded nearly 10 years ago. Some formation of Americana seems sorta fitting now. Not far from that “Indie” umbrella,  it’s what Hipsters seem to like most, at least in the TV commercials. These more choral, sometimes bluesy bands. Some are good, but it’s nothing new.

Now, the algorithms anticipate evolution years in advance. All tastes like Styrofoam, so we spit it out fast. We keep skipping tracks to futility escape the same persistent hum. All the price for our growing clairvoyance. Telescopically, we are flying fast into a wall that ends originality. Too many citations needed. We enter them into software to manage. Our fear of plagiarism makes one uninfluenced instead of inspired. We just make homages. Turn anything creative into a list of allusions.

We forgot to forget
Suspend St. Anselm
patron of using rationality
to explain away one’s faith
in magic and mystery
God exists because
all we can imagine must exist
Your unicorns are but
a mind’s fusion of
horse and narwhal
and your culture is but
a culmination of has-been trends
So it’s all been done
Why try to change a thing?
Why try to be new?

This is the end. Not reflecting and absorbing past cultures with an eye to the future. But judging and consuming past cultures with with a carnal now. There are some niceties to be gained in solely present preoccupations. Yet, no Buddha abounds in these selfish meditations. We are no longer the bodhisattvas, suspending enlightenment to save all beings. “We’re woke, because we know we’re ******” Then we type a symbol for “laugh out loud,” while our mouths stayed closed. We take a morning slug and drive off to work. The complexity of our controllers v. the simple fleeting pleasures. What can I do? Why should I bat an eye at the way the world works?

he is the father of a child stuck in traffic.  he is my father finding this out in the middle of trying to be successfully beside himself.  he is all muscle.  he is every man kissing a trash bag swollen with stork blood.  do the lifting.  his friends languish in the availability of their art.  who are these people, they are sermons, they are the dogvision greys of a bluesy priest.  I am yellow in my mother.  his mother is his endeavor.  he hits a wall he slaps it.  endeavors to magnetize his mother’s ******.  it pains him.  there is a man who writes to himself.  people say it is ****.  he takes the terrible writing and turns it into a pity none can feel.

eloquently exercise my capacity for speech
shamelessly synchronize, my look, your look, at you, at me
blush to rise up from somewhere deep within
sight to see through the mirrors behind you're hidden
reflect a face, another face, just to hide your own
a sound, a sound you make, from deep inside your soul
it's music rising against a ragged breeze
a bluesy beauty - ragged sound - that brings me to my knees
your soul to mourn its lack of woe?
rejoice instead amidst royalty

from the mud
a bluesy mood
bruisings coloured
in butterflies
fire flight
all but smoke
this choke
short circuited
words from
a hat
withdraw
the shorter straw
her fate
the cave
no translation
available
for the opacity
of that night

Spin me some velvet,
Scuff me over with gravel,
Pick me some bluesy strings;
Tie me a bunch of wildflower quavers,
Let’s hear how your phoney sax sings.

Dip me in treacle,
Needle me with soul,
Groove me some dirt and some bass;
******* your ***** devil’s pipe strong,
Let’s play us some bourbon and lace.

Spin me some velvet,
Scuff me over with gravel,
Lay me down in meadowsong;
Rent me a dime’s worth of old dust and daydreams,
Honey chil’, you cain’t do me no wrong.

I would sit on the back
Of my little red Pontiac
And sing you bluesy love songs
And strum on an old guitar
And ask you to join me in the back of my car.
But never mind.
I'm not musically inclined.
I think if I ever tried
A stunt like that I would die.

A recipe
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was half-baked,
but what is edible will say:
something about instructions,
something about parts making a whole,
something about convection,
something about mixing in a bowl,
something about dough
and something about kneading
something about confections,
something about breathing.

An epitaph
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was rotten,
what wasn't will rise and say:
something about a journey,
something about fate,
something about love and
something about hate,
something about laying on a gurney
and something about decay,
something about destiny,
something about history,
then it might yawn
and lay back in its grave

A pamphlet
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some parts were mute,
others that weren't will speak and say:
something about tolerance,
something about abuse,
something about inhalants
and something about a noose.

A brochure
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was fake,
but what is real will last and say:
something about a lawyer,
something about curruption,
something about justice
and how it serves a function,
something about admittance,
something about plastic surgery
and breast reduction,
and a catholic priest mumbling
something about perjury.

A eulogy
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was dead,
but what was alive will stand and say:
something about a life
and something about living,
something about a wife
and something about a thing worth giving,
something about a family
and something about foes;
something about winning
and something about woes.

A book
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was filth;
but what was clean will shine and say:
something about character,
something about freedom,
something about development
and something about respect
something about supplement,
something about unity,
something about revolution
and how I think the world should be.

A song
I wrote one of those in my head today;
but it was a bird and it flew away,
If all that's left is just one dying wing
it would flap around
on the ground
and try to sing:
something in near-pefect pitch
something bluesy and
about a *****;
then probably something about flight
and finally something about a
bright white light.

A poem
I wrote one of those in my head today;
the lines were seeds
I planted before the cold;
some froze out, some took hold
but what remains grows bold and will say:
something about a heart,
and how you had it from the start;
something about sunlight,
and how you make it seem less bright;
something about the wet wet rain
something about willingness
and something about refrain.

Honkin' on the harp.
Knowing when you're flat,
knowing when you're sharp.
You got it, that's where it's at.

I **** myself every time they cheer,
and I got to get paid, I have to get paid.
They all ask, 'can I buy you a beer',
and the girls say, 'do you want to get laid'?

I listen to other players and I swallow up their licks
So cool to be given this gift, I thank God.
So much fun, it's how I get my kicks
It's like I feel our Father's giving me the nod.

Bluesy blue eyes, looks like he's devouring a cob of corn
***** blue eyes, had one too many tonight.
Still he pulls it off while playing his horn,
The smoky bar, the light chatter, the bright stage lights.

Soulful Mention                                                            



Beautiful white women I’m asking you to stand down this time your well noted in the cool cats book of
Love you electrify and defy all true description as all magic does and native American woman copperas
Skinned you bend and lend yourself to the exotic natural wonders your long black hair moves along the
Prairie grass up over the foot hills into the mountain wilds with a sight that is spellbinding you go so far
And when you can go no higher than the powerful eagle carries you aloft where sight is lost and you
Cause faith to enter because otherwise it’s unbelievable the effect you have on me no this is for the
Ones that their voice was first heard among the lions roar who else could have the power and courage
To endure such injustice and burdens dark like your ebony skin it would take men like Sam Cook and
Otis Redding with raw emotion and deep soul to travel out of Georgia through the dark store fronts and
Neon club lights of Harlem flow through the big Easy take your current at flood stage through
Birmingham Mobile the projects of St Louis on through the gateway to the west Kansas City where you
Pick up speed and the drawl is covered by the sprawl through it all your name is being called slow down
Baby turn and stop within those songs and voices your glory is resounding your life goes unbounded the
Honey drops it causes all males to stop you’re in the presence of true ladies they can be soft as cotton
Candy or have an edge that is smoky bluesy best referred to as a trumpet blast that can also smolder
Drift down city streets the horn is sounding oh how appealing the girl has got her groove on listen your
Being called by the most brilliant voices of our time Zelma heard and for a time lived an immortal dream
The transference of sorrow would extend extol these women into heartfelt heroes you truly can’t
Create such ignorance and grim circumstance without creating the rarest black Rose stone walls laden
Fields plantations was their birth place they are the one point that our race has been raised to
Exemplary Character

Start with a tin box guitar—
plucking tortured notes like
he’s known this kind of agony all his life.
Stretching bluesy licks
that bend and overlap—
braiding every bunch of heart strings.
We listen.
Tune into something that seems to be
cooing fluently in a language
only the involuntary celibate can speak.

No, we’re not getting any.
But at least we get this.

strait crazy

saintly mania raving.

new age jainist phasers
sang they praises
like
'hey mr bojangles,
go mangle up the angle,
shake shake shake the frame
& they'll thank you later.'

...sorry not today.

I'm feeling under the
earthquake weather.
wallowing wonder
following the devil
thru the desert
on great endeavors
to make it rain feathers
that sound like thunder.

famous as ever
nameless as heaven

to say the least
I'm slaying beasts that
came from me
in the first place.
this is lovehate.
lovehate lovehate.
& it's useless.

just lemme set the mood.

it's stupid
brutish beauty
mooing truly bluesy
marks & bruises
infused with martian
harmony incarnate,
caramelized carnage
set to soothing violent music.

broke record store cliché
faded to frustration feeding
a creaturely need for creation
& hellish lust for selfdestruction.

-nothing special-
just an absolute mess who
dilute the stress through allusion
allegory alliteration
hallucination delusion

***** it's a celebration.

tell the rest those losers
that got left I'm doing my best
even though I'm pretty upset
with how it's all panning out.

oh well I guess.

O*ne-thirty in the morning, I'm creeping, ever-so-swiftly, to the entrance to my favorite public sculpture park. I don't like the sculptures, but I like their shadows. There's so much hidden meaning in what you see when you look at a shadow.... Thousands of years ago, the sun was worshiped as a life-giver - the ultimate source of everything man needs to survive: food, water, shelter, companionship.

     Shadows are the only thing that light will never reach.

     I don’t have an MP3 player, but I have music. Tonight, my playlist starts with Yellowcard’s *Lights and Sounds…I sing it lowly to myself as I approach the darkened rebar fence that acts as sentry, guard, arbiter, and jailer to the inanimate zoo they contain. Rebar is always rusty. My hands wrap themselves around two of the bars as I ready myself for the heave overboard.

     I’m over the motor gate, now, and I’m free. The police don’t patrol the park, and there are other cars populating the lot I parked in. Too many people work too late. A girl I know told me that the quality of one’s life is multiplied by two for every three hours of sleep one gets – she told me this at three a.m. after we’d painted the town red. Someone else told me that for every eight hours of sleep one loses in a week subtracts, roughly, a week from one’s life expectancy. If that’s true, and I was supposed to die at seventy, I’ll be dead at sixty. But, honestly? I don’t care how long I live. I’m ready to die now. I mean, I don’t want to die now – it isn’t my preference of events – but, I’m at peace with how I’ve lived my life; so if I do die, I’ll die happy…. What was I talking about? Right, “Too many people…” So, why, if they’re going to die (because even if we distract ourselves, like Mr. Ivan Ilyich, we will die), do they seek these self destructive courses through life? Staying up to finish the quarterly report; dying of hunger to lose some weight; falling asleep at work, and getting assigned more late-night work as punishment; buying things no one will see; dressing up to impress those that don’t matter; dying for that promotion; dying for that car; dying for that girl; dying for that guy….dying.

     I look at my hands as I walk into the shadows of trees and gazebos. Rebar is always rusty…and rust is always red. Now I look as though I’ve killed. My hands are the evidence that I’ve wrung the life out of an innocent metal gate-post. I’d like to plead insanity. I’ll take the ten years in solitary confinement, please.

     I pull a left, then a right, then a left, then a right, then a left, then a right…actually, I’m wandering – no, meandering – through the park, with Hans Zimmer’s Davey Jones Movement roaring in my head; I meander in time with the music. My feet take me to the places I like best. Places where the night looks back at you; where you have to force yourself to set your gaze. Try staring into pitch blackness sometime. It’s not a comfortable feeling. I’ve heard that darkness is where evil resides. I think darkness is misunderstood…like the nature of “evil.” Sit opposite a weird, 20th-century abstract three-dimensional art piece, and stare, hard, into the darkness at its heart. There are stories there. So many unanswered questions can be answered when you ask those things that can’t give you a tangible answer.

     I’ve counseled with the shadows; now for therapy: interpretive dance accompanied by a healthy dose of therapeutic screaming. I sing a lot. You never notice how quietly you have to sing in public until you really need to sing. That’s why there are shadows. They listen very intently, don’t think you’re strange, and soak all pain, pleasure, anger and fear you might sing to release. Something by Vampire Weekend is jamming in my head, and this time, I’m singing along….

     To the shadows.

     Snippets of opera pieces start fluttering through my head. Accompanied by Ugandan chants, and Pawnee ritual songs. And I’m dancing around the shadow of a fire.

     If you never felt pain, how would you know what pleasure felt like? So I celebrate it; by exhaling it in a chorus meant only for the stars, and shadows, and ghosts. I celebrate, dancing in the darkness, waving my arms at the veil of clouds and the stars behind them; I hop to one foot, and wobble in step with the music in my head, and the words on my lips. I hop to the other, and jump at the crescendo of sounds in my mind, those sounds flushing me clean of the hurt, and pain, and grief that plague every creature that may consider why he’s been hurt. In mid flight, I feel the brief weightlessness of flight, hovering in the heavens. Caught between the clouds and the shadows, I close my eyes, and leave my time of arrival a mystery to myself; the last of my cares escapes me, and as I touch the soft, dewed earth, I am delivered.

     Now I can commune, freely, with these dark places. Don’t Let Me Down, by the Stereophonics comes to mind. Have you ever been let down? Of course you have. You are every day. Every hour. I am. Every day, every hour. It’s life. I think we expect too much of ourselves…of others. That animal desire to improve ourselves and our conditions drives us to expect the impossible. And the animal desire to improve our chances of success in life tell us we’ve failed when we, well…fail. The pits of our souls know better, though. They see the whole instead of those precious few real failures. They’re as dark as night, herself. She’s listened to our hearts tear themselves apart. The weight of failure is overwhelming, but the shadows lend shoulders to bear the weight with us…to lighten the load. I’ve told them how it feels to be human, now they show me how it feels to not care.

      “Don’t Let Me Down”, they plead. The bluesy, wailing lyrics fit the moment: all of the emotion of celebration and sorrow wrapped into one tangled poem. My arms climb above my head, wrapping around themselves, snaking through the air, as I dance with the absence of light…as I embrace the objectivity that knows how to evade the sun.

      Wisdom, is wisdom, is wisdom; truth on the lips of the devil is still truth. And I’ve listened.

     Now those great, and wise shadows bear my weight effortlessly, and I can relax. I find myself exhausted, and legs give way to putty; I find myself flat on my back. Now I lie upon the grass, touched by the places where light never will.

      The color black is said to be so because it absorbs all the colors of the spectrum. That it takes, and never gives. Like Salt Lake. It’s said that anything that never gives, dies. Like Salt Lake. But can death die twice? How much more can shadows absorb than colors? What else can shadows absorb? I think black is a wonderful color. Like shadows. And they both give. To give by taking; what a wonderful idea…. They’ve filled a very hard niche to fill in this world.

      My legs and lungs compete in me, burning, exhausted, and happy. I let the veil slip from my face, and the shadows watch me smile; my big, goofy, elated grin thanking them for listening. There’s no fear in my gut, no depression crushing my chest. The doubt and loneliness and helplessness cannot touch me.

     I am the shadow of pain. The shadow of fear. The shadow of the pull and push of life.

     They will never reach me.

     The world would be a better place if we sung to the shadows instead of running from them. You can’t touch one, like you can people; but they can’t hurt you, either – like people can. Someone told me that you can’t depend on people, because they will always let you down. I think I’ll keep trusting, and sing when they do.

The cool evening air hit me,
as I made my way to her door.
Her email had lingered all day,
each ***** word burning in my mind.

She knew exactly what to say,
how to get under my skin,
make me crave her mouth,
her body,
driving me wild.
taking her time,
playing with my body.
through my mind.

Then I arrived,
The door cracked open,
I slipped in,
the room dimly lit,
candles flickered, shadows danced on the walls.
Bluesy tunes played softly, sultry,
the air heavy with vanilla and ****.
She always set the perfect scene.

There she was, lounging on the couch,
a tight dress hugging every curve.
Her messy hair, her teasing smile,
half naked, her eyes telling me
every thing I need to know to please her...
obey as I must, as I concur!

Going left a smile
green* bluesy* drift
Getting out of debt
The heartedly so flowery
rosy ring around
Gifted box
*Valentine Rosy*

I box heads over
puppy tails
cozy firey
Love diary doing the
Cutesy
Bow Wow parade
Those red hot lips
cascades
she's... the... lie...
The hue (Anchor- Blue)
Gotcha  "Eyes Baby blue
Clue"

To cross my red heart
And hope not to die
The Lady's
finger (Godiva)
  I-spy finger*
Heartless Diva
The fork of the road

Lies of the
dead ringer
He points his finger
Face to two face
facelift?
Boom-Boom
a car crash just a dash

Her beats and hearts

What a crush to her
    left
Tell me sweet lies
         I box gift
Oh! Yes you're right
Like the scoundrel
The damsel in distress
sweet morsel

I sir box like spots spread
Like the (Chickenpox)
Hearing lies tons of
squirrels
Like Botox Plastic
Rascals
I-box ties
Hallmark, I love you lies
Superman Clark
Outfoxed the ballpark

Little lies blue
big shark
Smartphone I Sir bark
Red Valentine love walk
People are the luckiest
      I- wish
Close your eyes sweet lies

Sweet I-Box in Trio

CEO Watching "TV FIO"  
Podcast little lies turn
into big lies
Ballot Political list

Romantic cutout card lies
Tell me, Little Lies he trips
Electric lips music chair
Open eyes full shut lips

Like water, like flowing rivulets,
notes fly from fingers fast on frets.
Slippery sinuous shimmering tones
(complemented by brash bluesy Bones).
Like storm’s thunder and lightning a chord
brings the sky to us on earth—
or is it that we fly , then die until the rebirth
in gentle reverb of a note two octaves higher?
Strange how rain coexists with fire.
Drench us in the cascade born from your desire.

A southern blend of jasmine and magonolia waft across the grounds an in it is a mixture of tell
Tale knowing a little smoulder lies in her eyes it causes you to anticapate a well spoken word
First it has a different sound than the rest of the country it has a bluesy age to it like it has come
From the delta it took its on sweet time in doing so it is bold just with enough southen sass to
Keep you alert you can’t take for granted that which is explosive and vibrant you don’t live in
The rise and fall of such rich history and not carry a mystery and confidence that is allureing
Tressels and verandas build the tender mood of gentel beckoning that is adorded as seasoned
Fashion spell binding unabashed qaulity is seen in modest means that streams like blue bells that
Have been turned to liquid by charms power and it lays like a long lasy haze that reaches the
Far horizion with a sigh you stop and deeply meditate this creates strong thoughts that go out
From your inner self like a suden strong wind that list and goes where you no not but
refreshment Is left in its wake like an old winding road it not the arriving but the going that is
awsome it delivers Many sights like the night it holds wonders of compassion as an old man you
see in his eyes That knowing that shows care you feel a welcome embracing toucing you for
Dixie makes a Speacial brew it takes long long southern days and paitennce here is derived like
no other place you get that taste of grace speaking slowly it is a trait of the wise that came by
it not by racing To it but by a slow assurance that only grows when you give it time it gives life
a higher qaulity that Is rare in our modern world why would you take a speed boat when you can
go by paddle wheel and go to a place called Natchez eithier real or imagined gentel thoughts
invade and they are a gloroious parade with all sorts of colors and floats that portray geenteel
sentiments some of it is the feeling of loss that great and real times that held such sway are truly
gone with the wind bedeviled by a women she wears a oversized hat that frames her and in many
ways explains her the showing of a well spring of love to be bathed in her voice it trully is the
finding of that memory and grand glory of a true sothern bell walk softly in this spell created
over many treasured moments in southern rays and moonlight kissed by a protective certiny of
woman hood found in no other place cover me God in sothern primose dreams until I walk again
on the great southern soil

everyone has gone back to suburbia,
city streets are dangerous, if you look
at someone cross eyed, it earns you death.

don’t celebrate this madness,
mourn it in black, it has a taken
a pandemic to school me again.

this a broadcast, shout out, email me
if you know how I’m feeling and can
share what other mutualities crisscross.

Do you like Jazz? Me neither.
Flouncy bouncy dresses? Nah!
Sweats? Unnecessary, I can sweat
just by concentrating.

You like me, own soulful bluesy singers,
femme fatales, who coax and croon,
wet the spun threads of subtle emotive,
who live by light of candles votive,
I live in black, day and nighttime,
write in midnight blue, a woman who!
takes no b.s. and doesn’t ever take no
for an answer...

Wailin on the Blues

Well my guitar is wailin, solid bluesy growl,
I look up at the moon, and all I can do is howl,  
bend those notes bittersweet, if blues is what you like,
my soul is deep in pain tonite, stand up closer to the mike,
pour my heart to anyone, who is listening and understands,
wish I had my friends here with me, hammerin their baby grands,
cause when you're feeling all alone, music can help you grieve,
got nothing in my pockets, got nothing up my sleeve,
but I do have this friend of mine, he's always here with me,
he helps when the times are bad, takes real good care of me,
I call my friend Lester, yes he's built by Mr. Paul,    
six hot electric burning wires, just waiting for the call,
BB and all his friends, would be very very proud,
and when I hit that echo box, I'll drive right through the crowd,
don't know if things will turn out good, not sure what that means,
I could be left just standing here, me and my machines,
I'm wishing that the Oak City lady, sleeps real well tonight,
don't know if I'll still be here, when comes the first daylight,
Got a huge amount of wailing, pulling me down to the ground,
crank me up just one more notch, could be lifeless when I'm found

Gomer LePoet...

This large square ceiling hanging above my body
is a blank canvass that needs to be painted
with bold strokes and bright colors,
with smooth orange and ocean blue,
rapid pummeling rhythms dictating tone and mood.

I have a pen in my hand that squirts out black bird ink,
but to me it’s a stone sculpting tool that carves deep inside my imagination,
and scoops up newborn thoughts before they disintegrate
when I wake up from my daydream.

So I climb on top of a cocktail chair with malleable
aluminum legs and I attempt to shape the dry whiteness
into something colorful and beautiful.

I want to create beauty because I don’t enjoy surfing the channels of Comcast digital entertainment
having to paddle through the brainwashing
and the ******* and seaweed that washes up
on my hometown shore.

The waves are all the same across the television screen, I am desensitized and numb to the upper class Anglo-Saxons,
who mind-****** my favorite poets and Hip Hop musicians in the mouth, so that they cannot speak with

honesty
and
compassion.

I don’t wonder anymore why some prominent media-figures choke on the microphone; it’s because they have been force-fed
chicken-****
and injected with
snake venom.

That’s why I don’t take all my time of leisure resting back on a tan cushioned boogie-board, riding a cable channel that will not take me anywhere except for an escape from the loneliness of living alone, away from close family and good friends.

That’s why I prefer to sit below a yellow and red pinwheel umbrella and stretch my toes in the wet sand, I don’t even need a beach towel to lie on, and sometimes I just want to sink into the grainy sand
and
forget about time,
forget about love,
and
forget about my reason for being here.

But back to molding a new form of living; that top white wall takes up the majority of my apartment and I think it deserves to be drawn on, painted on, spread with posters of voluptuous artists and cool brooding actors.

A canvass needs to have flesh, just as a skeleton needs meat and skin. I stack my sandy tan sofa cushions one after the other on top of the cocktail chair and I reach up to brush long and wide strokes of bravery and euphoria.

The bristle-tips flicked up specks of green apple paint and sunk deep blotches of red heart into the ceiling.

I danced on top of the spongy sofa seats while they swayed to and fro, but I didn’t think of falling down, what is the point of thinking about

failure?

That will only impede progress and I’m not merely trying to fabricate an illusion to drape myself with a safety cloak. I wish I could have pranced and jumped on the wavering cushion tower,
but instead I begun to grow a look of seriousness and submerged myself into a pool of
focus
and
concentration.

Nonsensical imagery floated adrift from my mind and the energy pounced onto my fingertips and I started to write and draw, and draw and write. I popped a small remote from my pocket and made the stereo sing opera, followed by jazz, followed by something bluesy.

Those songs carried me into this calming state where nothing mattered except for the now kaleidoscopic landscapes and the spacemen with hypnotic eyes. I wasn’t jacked up on Columbian coffee beans, diet coca-cola caffeine, nor psychedelic highs and lows, I was just going with the current baby.

When the canoe is in in the river and you’re rowing with a chipped paddle and without a life-vest, don’t even try to make an adjustment when the water gets rocky and the water pushes you around like an elementary-school ***** bully.

You keep paddling and you don’t throw a rope onto a branch and feel the scene; go with the flow and travel down-stream,
because where you came from is long gone and there’s no point in wallowing and pleasuring yourself late at

night just

to feel better about your ****** life.

But, I don’t even want to think when I’m in an artsy mood, I just want peace, and if peace won’t come to my doorstep and will not call me back when I left five messages, then **** peace,
I’ll settle for a shot of cheap ***** and a scrunched-up cig.
I stop drawing and painting and writing
for a while and take a nice long gaze
at my chaotic collage and smile until the jester frowns.

In huge messy cursive were the words, “LOVE YOURSELF, DO NOT SHOW YOUR EMOTIONS AT A WHIM.”

I was now beginning to struggle to smile. This wasn’t easy to be so straight with yourself, I’m used to bending my back in the wrong way

                 and not accomplishing anything in the process.

Mourning dove chorus
Light soaks through petals
Revealing mazing veins

Softened riverbed
Replenished and fermented
Or so was whispered then

Bluesy morning drizzle
Opens mouths for dewdrops
The basin overflows

Mirror bears second moon
First tide does not abide
Both sink in metallic sand

Bellow thunder! Shudder ground!
Percussion ends discussion.

Lightning gaze penetrates and what was green is browned.

Sails sink for ascending sun.
Flesh breathes, "Shelter, please,"
But the earth bleeds barren dust.

Seeds surge through soil now and then.
Ebb and flow of rocks and roots.
Fruit snaps from wilted stem.

And for your love
and the romance
of our lives
I've decided to
attempt dancing
and all the glories
that come along.
For, this romance isn't
the aroma of accordion music
filling the Paris streets at nighttime,
while a couple dances
under the streetlights,
as rain begins to fall.
It's a romance about humanity
and desire and its heartache
that tries to tango in the suburbs
and tap in the slums,
whose clumsy movements cause
embarrassment for any party involved.
This love has a rhythm unlike
a big band hit or a bluegrass hand-clapper.
It has a rhythm all of its own.
Closest to, maybe, jazz.
The real jazz. The Harlem jazz.
Sparatic and unpredictable.
Upbeat, swinging cymbals and trumpets.
Then a slow sax,
with bluesy vocals crying out in pain.
Because you can't two step
or foxtrot
or tango
to that.
You must step carefully.
For this romance is fragile.
You cannot choreograph in advance
or synchronize moves
with your lovers'.
You simply must listen, feel, and move.
This dance of love
must cause you to cry
and smile
and melt
and ache
and desire to make love
all in the same motion.
Or it's not love.
It's an imitation
aimed at the beautiful and elegant.
And we aren't that.
We're humans with souls and flaws
who desire these false
motions and harmonies
of love,
but who need to still understand
love's true tender
and heartbreaking steps
that have no
recognizable rhythm,
but that promise
a lifetime of love.
So, I will not learn
love's romantic moves
for they are unteachable,
but I will attempt,
for your love
and romance,
my dear,
to sway to the music
and stay beside you
and follow your lead
as we wait for the
drums and the horns-
and the music to begin.