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The phone rang in Red Lodge.  The sun had already faded behind the mountain, and the street outside where the bike was parked was covered in darkness. Only the glow from the quarter moon allowed the bike to be visible from my vantage point inside the Pollard’s Lobby.  The hotel manager told me I had a call coming in and it was from Cooke City.  By the time I got to the phone at the front desk, they had hung up. All that the manager had heard from the caller was that I was needed in Cooke City just before the line had gone dead.  Because of the weather, my cell phone reception was spotty, and the hotel’s phone had no caller I.D.

Cooke City was 69 miles to the West, a little more than an hour’s drive under normal circumstances.  The problem is that you can never apply the word normal to crossing Beartooth Pass even under the best of conditions, and certainly not this early in the season.  I wondered about the call and the caller, and what was summoning me to the other side.  There was 11,000 feet of mountain in between the towns of Red Lodge and Cooke City, and with a low front moving in from the West, all signals from the mountain were to stay put.

Beartooth Pass is the highest and most formidable mountain crossing in the lower 48 States.  It is a series of high switchback turns that crisscross the Montana and Wyoming borders, rising to an elevation of 10,947 ft.  If distance can normally be measured in time, this is one of nature’s timeless events.  This road is its own lord and master. It allows you across only with permission and demands your total respect as you travel its jagged heights either East or West.  Snow and rockslides are just two of the deadly hazards here, with the road itself trumping both of these dangers when traveled at night.

The Beartooth Highway, as gorgeous as it is during most summer days, is particularly treacherous in the dark.  Many times, and without warning, it will be totally covered in fog. Even worse, during the late spring and early fall, there is ice, and often black ice when you rise above 7000 feet. Black ice is hard enough to see during the daytime, but impossible to see at night and especially so when the mountain is covered in fog. At night, this road has gremlins and monsters hiding in its corners and along its periphery, ready to swallow you up with the first mistake or indiscretion that a momentary lack of attention can cause.

The word impossible is part of this mountains DNA.

: Impossible- Like the dreams I had been recently having.

: Impossible- Like all of the things I still had not done.

: Impossible- As the excuses ran like an electric current
                         through all that I hated.

: Impossible- Only in the failure of that yet to be conquered.

: Impossible- For only as long as I kept repeating the word.

Now it was my time to make a call.  I dialed the cell number of my friend Mitch who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Cooke City. Mitch told me what I already knew and feared. There was snow on both sides of the road from Red Lodge to Cooke City, and with the dropping temperatures probably ice, and possibly black ice, at elevations above 7500 feet.

Mitch lived in Red Lodge and had just traveled the road two hours earlier on his way home.  He said there had been sporadic icy conditions on the Red Lodge side of the mountain, causing his Jeep Wagoneer to lose traction and his tires to spin when applying his brakes in the sharpest turns.  The sharpest corners were the most dangerous parts of this road, both going up and even more so when coming down. Mitch warned me against going at night and said: “Be sure to call me back if you decide to leave.”

The Red Lodge side of the mountain would be where I would begin my trip if I decided to go, with no telling how bad the Cooke City descent would be on the Western side.  This is assuming I was even able to make it over the top, before then starting the long downward spiral into Cooke City Montana.

The phone rang again!  This time I was able to get to the front desk before the caller got away.  In just ten seconds I was left with the words ringing in my ears — “Everything is ready, and we implore you to come, please come to Cooke City, and please come tonight.”  

Now, it was my time to choose.  I had to decide between staying where it was safe and dry, or answering the call and making the journey through the dark to where fate was now crying out to me. I put the phone down and walked out the front doors of the Pollard Hotel and into the dim moonlight that was shining through the clouds and onto the street.  The ‘Venture’ sat in its soft glow, parked horizontally to the sidewalk, with its back tire pressed up against the curb and its front tire pointed due North.  The bike was not showing any bias either East or West and was not going to help with this decision.  If I decided to go, this choice would have to be all mine.

The original plan had been to stay in Red Lodge for two more days, awaiting friends who still had not arrived from a trip to Mount Rushmore. Then together we had planned a short stopover in Cody, which was not more than ninety-minutes away. From there we planned to take the ‘Chief Joseph Highway’ to Cooke City, which is both a beautiful and safe way around Beartooth Pass. Safety drifted out of my consciousness like a distant mistress, and I looked North and heard the mountain call out to me again.

As much as I wanted to see my friends, the voice that was calling from inside was getting harder and harder to ignore.  With the second phone call, my time in Red Lodge grew short in its importance, and I knew in the next two minutes I would have to choose.

I also knew that if I stood in the clouded moonlight for more than two more minutes I would never decide.  Never deciding is the hallmark of all cowardly thought, and I hoped on this night that I would not be caught in its web as victim once again.  

                                         My Decision Was To Go

In ten short minutes, I emptied my room at the Pollard, checked out, and had the bike loaded and ready at the curb.  I put my warmest and most reflective riding gear on, all the while knowing that there was probably no one to see me. No one on that lonely road, except for the deer, coyote, or elk, that would undoubtedly question my sanity as they watched me ride by in the cold dark silence.  I stopped at the gas station at the end of town and topped off the tank --- just in case.  Just in case was something I hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with, as the ride would at most take less than a half a tank of gas. It made me feel better though, so I topped off, paid the attendant, and rode slowly out towards U.S. Highway # 212.  

As I headed West toward the pass, I noticed one thing conspicuous in its absence. In fifteen minutes of travel, I had not passed one other vehicle of any kind going in either direction.  I was really alone tonight and not only in my thoughts.  It was going to be a solitary ride as I tried to cross the mountain. I would be alone with only my trusted bike as my companion which in all honesty — I knew in my heart before leaving the hotel.  

Alone, meant there would be no help if I got into trouble and no one to find me until probably morning at the earliest.  Surviving exposed on the mountain for at least twelve hours is a gamble I hoped I wouldn’t have to take.

I kept moving West. As I arrived at the base of the pass I stopped, put the kickstand down and looked up.  What was visible of the mountain in the clouded moonlight was only the bottom third of the Beartooth Highway. The top two thirds disappeared into a clouded mist, not giving up what it might contain or what future it may have hidden inside of itself for me.  With the kickstand back up and my high beam on, I slowly started my ascent up Beartooth Pass.

For the first six or seven miles the road surface was clear with snow lining both sides of the highway.  The mountain above, and the ones off to my right and to the North were almost impossible to see.  What I could make out though, was that they were totally snow covered making this part of southern Montana look more like December or January, instead of early June.  The road had only opened a month ago and it was still closing at least three out of every seven days.  I remembered to myself how in years past this road never really opened permanently until almost the 4th of July.

When the road was closed, it made the trip from Red Lodge to Cooke City a long one for those who had to go around the mountain.  Many people who worked in Cooke City actually lived in Red Lodge.  They would ‘brave’ the pass every night when it was open, but usually only during the summer months. They would do this in trucks with 4-wheel drive and S.U.V.’s but never on a motorcycle with only two wheels.  Trying to cross this pass on a motorcycle with high performance tires, in the fog, and at night, was a horse of an entirely different color.  

At about the seven-mile mark in my ascent I again stopped the bike and looked behind me. I was about to enter the cloud barrier.  The sight below from where I had just come was breathtakingly beautiful.  If this was to be the last thing I would ever see before   entering the cloud, it would be a fitting photograph on my passport into eternity.

I looked East again, and it was as if the lights from Red Lodge were calling me back, saying “Not tonight Kurt, this trip is to be made another time and for a better reason.” I paused, but could think of no better reason, as I heard the voice on the phone say inside my mind, “Please come,” so I retracted the kickstand and entered the approaching fog.

There was nothing inviting as I entered the cloud.  The dampness and the moisture were immediate and all enveloping, as the visibility dropped to less than fifty feet.  It was so thick I could actually see rain droplets as it passed over my headlight.  The road was still clear though and although it was hard to see, its surface was still good.  The animals that would normally concern me at this time of night were a distant memory to me now. The road stayed like this for what seemed to be another two or three miles, while it trapped me in its continuing time warp of what I still had to overcome.

It then turned sharply right, and I heard a loud ‘wail’ from inside the bike’s motor.  My heart immediately started racing as I thought to myself, ‘What a place to have the engine break down.’  It only took a few more seconds though to see that what I thought was engine failure was actually the tachometer revving off the scale on the dash.  The rear tire had lost traction, and in an involuntary and automated response I had given it more throttle to maintain my speed. I now had the engine turning at over 5000 r.p.m.’s in an attempt to get the rear tire to again make contact with the road.  Slowing my speed helped a little, but I was now down to 10 MPH, and it was barely fast enough to allow me to continue my ascent without the rear tire spinning again.

                                  I Could Still Turn Around And Go Back    

I was now at an elevation above 8,000 ft, and it was here that I had to make my last decision.  I could still turn around and go back.

While the road surface was only semi-good, I could turn around and head back in the direction from which I had just come.  I could go back safely, but to what and to whom? I knew my spirit and my heart would not go with me, both choosing to stay on this hill tonight regardless of the cost.  “If I turn around and go back, my fear is that in my lack of commitment, I will lose both of them forever. The mountain will have then claimed what my soul cannot afford to lose.”  I looked away from Red Lodge for the last time, and once again my eyes were pointed toward the mountain’s top.

It was three more miles to the summit based on my best estimation.

From there it would be all down hill.  The fear grew deeper inside of me that the descent would be even more treacherous as I crested the top and pushed on to the mountain town of Cooke City below.  Cooke City and Red Lodge were both in Montana, but the crest of this mountain was in Wyoming, and it looked down on both towns as if to say … ‘All passage comes only through me.’      

This time I did not stop and look over my shoulder. Instead, I said a short prayer to the gods that protect and watch over this place and asked for only one dispensation — and just one pass through the dark.  My back wheel continued to spin but then somehow it would always regain traction, and I continued to pray as I slowly approached the top.  

As I arrived at the summit, the road flattened out, but the cloud cover grew even more dense with visibility now falling to less than ten feet.  I now couldn’t see past my front fender, as the light from my headlamp bounced off the water particles with most of its illumination reflected back onto me and not on the road ahead.

In conditions like this it is very hard to maintain equilibrium and balance. Balance is the most essential component of any two-wheeled form of travel. Without at least two fixed reference points, it’s hard to stay straight upright and vertical.  I’ve only experienced this once before when going through a mountain tunnel whose lights had been turned off. When you can’t see the road beneath you, your inner sense of stability becomes compromised, and it’s easier than you might think to get off track and crash.

This situation has caused many motorcyclists to fall over while seemingly doing nothing wrong. It creates a strange combination of panic and vertigo and is not something you would ever want to experience or deal with on even a dry road at sea level.  On an icy road at this elevation however, it could spell the end of everything!

My cure for this has always been to put both feet down and literally drag them on top of the road surface below. This allows my legs to act as two tripods, warning me of when the bike is leaning either too far to the left or to the right.  It’s also dangerous. If either leg comes in contact with something on the road or gets hung up, it could cause the very thing it’s trying to avoid. I’ve actually run over my own foot with the rear wheel and it’s not something you want to do twice.

                     Often Causing What It’s Trying To Avoid

At the top of the pass, the road is flat for at least a mile and gently twists and turns from left to right.  It is a giant plateau,10,000 feet above sea level. The mountain then starts to descend westward as it delivers its melting snow and rain to the Western States. Through mighty rivers, it carries its drainage to the Pacific Ocean far beyond.  As I got to the end of its level plain, a passing thought entered my consciousness.  With the temperature here at the top having risen a little, and only just below freezing, my Kevlar foul-weather gear would probably allow me to survive the night.  On this mountaintop, there is a lot of open space to get off the road, if I could then only find a place to get out of the wind.  

I let that thought exit my mind as quickly as it entered. The bike was easily handling the flat icy areas, and I knew that the both of us wanted to push on.  I tried to use my cell phone at the top to call Mitch at home.  I was sure that by now he would be sitting by the fire and drinking something warm.  This is something I should have done before I made the final decision to leave.  I didn’t, because I was sure he would have tried to talk me out of it, or worse, have forbidden me to go. This was well within his right and purview as the Superintendent of all who passed over this mountain.

My phone didn’t work!  This was strange because it had worked from the top last spring when I called my family and also sent cell-phone pictures from the great mountain’s summit.  I actually placed three calls from the top that day, two to Pennsylvania and one to suburban Boston.

                                         But Not Tonight!

As I started my descent down the western *****, I knew it would be in first gear only.  In first gear the engine would act as a brake or limiter affecting my speed, hopefully without causing my back tire to lose traction and break loose. With almost zero visibility, and both feet down and dragging in the wet snow and ice, I struggled to stay in the middle of the road.  It had been over an hour since leaving Red Lodge, and I still had seen no other travelers going either East or West. I had seen no animals either, and tonight I was at least thankful for that.

The drop off to my right (North) was several thousand feet straight down to the valley below and usually visible even at night when not covered in such cloud and mist.  To my left was the mountain’s face interspersed with open areas which also dropped several thousands of feet to the southern valley below.  Everything was uncertain as I left the summit, and any clear scenery had disappeared in the clouds. What was certain though was my death if I got too close to the edge and was unable to recover and get back on the road.

There were guardrails along many of the turns and that helped, because it told me that the direction of the road was changing.  In the straight flat areas however it was open on both sides with nothing but a several thousand-foot fall into the oblivion below.

Twice I ran over onto the apron and felt my foot lose contact with the road surface meaning I was at the very edge and within two feet of my doom.  Twice, I was sure that my time on this earth had ended, and that I was headed for a different and hopefully better place. Twice, I counter steered the bike to the left and both feet regained contact with the road as the front tire weaved back and forth with only the back tire digging in and allowing me to stay straight up.

As I continued my descent, I noticed something strange and peculiar.  After a minute or two it felt like I was going faster than you could ever go in first gear.  It took only another instant to realize what was happening.  The traction to the rear tire was gone, and my bike and I were now sliding down the Western ***** of Beartooth pass.  The weight of the bike and myself, combined with the gravity of the mountain’s descent, was causing us to go faster than we could ever go by gearing alone.  Trying to go straight seemed like my only option as the bike felt like it had lost any ability to control where it was going.  This was the next to last thing I could have feared happening on this hill.

The thing I feared most was having to use either the front or rear brakes in a situation like this.  That would only ensure that the bike would go out of control totally, causing the rear wheel to come around broadside and result in the bike falling over on its opposite side. Not good!  Not good at all!

Thoughts of sliding off the side of the mountain and into the canyons below started running through my mind.  Either falling off the mountain or being trapped under the bike while waiting for the next semi-truck to run over me as it crossed the summit in the darkened fog was not something I welcomed. Like I said before, not good, not good at all!

My mind flashed back to when I was a kid and how fast it seemed we were going when sledding down the hill in front of the local hospital.  I also remembered my disappointment when one of the fathers told me that although it seemed fast, we were really only going about ten or fifteen miles an hour.  I wondered to myself how fast the bike was really going now, as it slid down this tallest of all Montana mountains? It seemed very, very fast.  I reminded myself over and over, to keep my feet down and my hand off the brakes.

If I was going to crash, I was going to try and do it in the middle of the road. Wherever that was now though, I couldn’t be sure.  It was finally the time to find out what I had really learned after riding a motorcycle for over forty years.  I hoped and prayed that what I had learned in those many years of riding would tonight be enough.

As we continued down, the road had many more sharp turns, swerving from right to left and then back right again.  Many times, I was right at the edge of my strength. My legs battled to keep the bike upright, as I fought it as it wanted to lean deeper into the turns.  I almost thought I had the knack of all this down, when I instantaneously came out of the cloud.  I couldn’t believe, and more accurately didn’t want to believe, what I was seeing less than a half mile ahead.

The road in front of me was totally covered in black ice.  Black ice look’s almost like cinders at night and can sometimes deceive you into thinking it holds traction when exactly the opposite is true. This trail of black ice led a half mile down the mountain to where it looked like it ended under a guardrail at the end.  What I thought was the end was actually a switchback turn of at least 120 degrees.

It turned sharply to the right before going completely out of my sight into the descending blackness up ahead.

My options now seemed pretty straightforward while bleak.  I could lay the bike down and hope the guard rail would stop us before cascading off the mountain, or I could try to ride it out with the chances of making it slim at best.  I tried digging my feet into the black ice as brakes, as a kid would do on a soapbox car, but it did no good.  The bike kept pummeling toward the guardrail, and I was sure I was now going faster than ever.  As my feet kept bouncing off the ice, it caused the bike to wobble in the middle of its slide. This was now the last thing I needed as I struggled not to fall.

As I got close to the guardrail, and where the road turned sharply to the right, I felt like I was going 100 miles an hour.  I was now out of the cloud and even in the diffused moonlight I could see clearly both sides of the road.  With some visibility I could now try and stay in the middle, as my bike and I headed towards the guardrail not more than 500 feet ahead.  The valley’s below to the North and South were still thousands of feet below me, and I knew when I tried to make the turn that there would be no guardrail to protect me from going off the opposite right, or Northern side.

                   Time Was Running Out, And A Choice Had To Be Made

The choices ran before my eyes one more time — to be trapped under a guardrail or to run off a mountain into a several thousand foot abyss.  But then all at once my soul screamed NO, and that I did have one more choice … I could decide to just make it. I would try by ‘force of will’ to make it around that blind turn.  I became reborn once again in the faith of my new decision not to go down, and I visually saw myself coming out the other side in my mind’s eye.

                                        I Will Make That Turn

I remembered during this moment of epiphany what a great motorcycle racer named **** Mann had said over forty years ago.  

**** said “When you find yourself in trouble, and in situations like this, the bike is normally smarter than you are.  Don’t try and muscle or overpower the motorcycle.  It’s basically a gyroscope and wants to stay upright.  Listen to what the bike is telling you and go with that. It’s your best chance of survival, and in more cases than not, you’ll come out OK.”  With ****’s words fresh and breathing inside of me, I entered the right-hand turn.

As I slowly leaned the bike over to the right, I could feel the rear tire break loose and start to come around.  As it did, I let the handlebars point the front tire in the same direction as the rear tire was coming.  We were now doing what flat track motorcycle racers do in a turn — a controlled slide! With the handlebars totally pressed against the left side of the tank, the bike was fully ‘locked up’ and sliding with no traction to the right.  The only control I had was the angle I would allow the bike to lean over,which was controlled by my upper body and my right leg sliding below me on the road.

Miraculously, the bike slid from the right side of the turn to the left.  It wasn’t until I was on the left apron that the back tire bit into the soft snow and regained enough traction to set me upright. I was not more than three feet from the now open edge leading to a certain drop thousands of feet below.  The traction in the soft snow ****** the bike back upright and had me now pointed in a straight line diagonally back across the road.  Fighting the tendency to grab the brakes, I sat upright again and counter steered to the left. Just before running off the right apron, I was able to get the bike turned and headed once again straight down the mountain.  It was at this time that I took my first deep breath.

In two hundred more yards the ice disappeared, and I could see the lights of Cooke City shining ten miles out in the distance. The road was partially dry when I saw the sign welcoming me to this most unique of all Montana towns.  To commemorate what had just happened, I was compelled to stop and look back just one more time.  I put the kickstand down and got off the bike.  For a long minute I looked back up at the mountain. It was still almost totally hidden in the cloud that I had just come through.  I wondered to myself if any other motorcyclists had done what I had just done tonight — and survived.  I knew the stories of the many that had run off the mountain and were now just statistics in the Forest Service’s logbook, but I still wondered about those others who may had made it and where their stories would rank with mine.

I looked up for the last time and said thank you, knowing that the mountain offered neither forgiveness nor blame, and what I had done tonight was of my own choosing. Luck and whatever riding ability I possessed were what had seen me through. But was it just that, or was it something else? Was it something beyond my power to choose, and something still beyond my power to understand?  If the answer is yes, I hope it stays that way.  Until on a night like tonight, some distant mountain high above some future valley, finally claims me as its own.

                     Was Crossing Tonight Beyond My Power To Choose?

After I parked the bike in front of the Super 8 in Cooke City, I walked into the lobby and the desk clerk greeted me. “Mr Behm,

it’s good to see you again, I’m glad we were able to reach you with that second phone call.  We received a cancellation just before nine, and the only room we had left became available for the night.”

I have heard the calling in many voices and in many forms.  Tonight, it told me that my place was to be in Cooke City and my time in Red Lodge had come to an end.  Some may need more or better reasons to cross their mountain in the dark, but for me, the only thing necessary was for it to call.

                                               …  Until It Calls Again





Gardiner Montana- May, 1996
Donall Dempsey Sep 2021
AN RUD A DÚIRT ÉAN BEAG LIOM
( A Little Bird Told Me)

- for David Cooke -

"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."  - Ecclesiastes 10-20

"Oh!" said the bird
" A human who..."

( and I never saw such
a surprised starling )

"...can understand
our language!"

"You can speak!" I blurted out.
"So, I see can you!" gasped the starling.

"The strange thing is...!"
I framed my words carefully

"...we can understand each other!"
the starling finished my sentence.

"But how..?"
being human I had to ask.

"Forget the hows and whys!"
friend starling replied.

"Just relish the moment
the such and suchness of it all!"

I made up my mind
to do so.

"Everything talks if
you only listen!"

the starling continued
its lesson.

"The mountains talk
to the seas continuously!"

The starling so
informed me.

"But humans never ever
(well hardly ever)listen!"

chirped the starling
playfully.

I see it had been listening
to Gilbert and Sullivan.

"And..." the starling went on
it was us birds who taught them!"

I could tell it was proud of
the whole nation of birds.

"Well, I'ill be...!" I sad.
"Yes..." said the starling "...a poet!"

"Poets know the language
of everything"

The starling stated
as if it were a law.

"What the reed in the rushes
told the lake..."

"Or how the sky sees
and says it all..."

Then its feathers trembled
with the change in the air.

"Well, I must fly!"
chuckled the starling.

"Well, well..." boomed the sky
in perfect Blueness.

"Was that a human
I saw you talking to..."

thundered it vastness
dark clouds looming on its horizon.

"Noooo - not me!"
lied the starling

for whatever
reason.

"Hmmm..!" hmmmm the sky suspiciously
"He looked a bit Irish to me!"

"Níl Gaeilge ar bith agam ar chor ar bith!"
stammered the starling.

And the day continued on
talking to Time incessantly.

*

The éan beag that told me all this against the wishes of the sky...was the drud or druideog...the common starling or as in the W.B. Yeats' poem THE STARE'S NEST.

It liked to quote the lines to me in its own charming voice.

"We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty;"

And here was my little stare friend opening my mind out and turning the key.

When caught by the sky telling tales to humans the little fella tries to get out of it by telling the sky "I don't have any Irish at all!" but in Irish. Of course the sky although knowing everything didn't however know any Irish!

I was uncertain of the lines about uncertainty in the Yeats and was trying to remember the Callimachus about people not listening...how a mountain never listens to a sea. And David Cooke when he was staying with us was delighted to find some Greek that he both loved and could indeed read and I thought I betcha David could tell me. But of course not having a David Cooke at hand I stumbled along in these lines and offered up the poem to him.
the allan family story, HAPPY NEW YEAR



brian allan was getting bored with what his family was doing on nye

so he went to his room and played a nye show and each song was cool

the first song was poison’s nothing but a good Now Listen
Not a dime, I can't pay my rent
I can barely make it through the week
Saturday night I'd like to make my girl
But right now I can't make ends meet

I'm always workin' slavin' every day
Gotta get a break from that same old same old
I need a chance just to get away
If you could hear me think this is what I'd say

[Chorus]
Don't need nothin' but a good time
How can I resist
Ain't lookin' for nothin' but a good time
And it don't get better than this

They say I spend my money on women and wine
But I couldn't tell you where I spent last night
I'm really sorry about the shape I'm in
I just like my fun every now and then

I'm always workin' slavin' every day
Gotta get a break from that same old same old
I need a chance just to get away
If you could hear me think this is what I'd say

[Chorus]

You see I raise a toast to all of us
Who are breakin' our backs every day
If wantin' the good life is such a crime
Lord, then put me away
Here's to ya

[Chorus: x3]

and brian allan who was being told by his dad and mum to quieten down decided to play

a kylie minogue song, got to be certain
"Got To Be Certain"

[1a:]
You keep on asking me
Why can't we be together
I keep saying won't you wait a while
What's all the hurry
I thought we had forever
I just need time 'til I can make up my mind

[1b:]
I'm not asking for
A love to last forever
I don't expect to get a guarantee
It's just that I believe
Lovers should stick together
I'm only saying
Won't you wait for me

[CHORUS:]
I've got to be
Got to be certain
I've got to be so sure
I've had my share of hearts broken
And I don't wanna take that any more

[2a:]
I've got some friends who say
Boys are all the same
They're only looking out for just one thing
I'm only hoping that
You won't turn out like that
I need some time 'til I can make up my mind

[2b:]
Been hurt in love before
But I still come back for more
I was such a fool
I couldn't stop myself
If you believe in me
If you want our love to be
I know you'll wait for me, oh, oh, oh, oh

[CHORUS:]

[BRIDGE:]
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh

[1b:]

[CHORUS:]
[repeat & fade]

you see brian allan was really having a ball but still he couldn’t control his loud voice

but brian allan said, he really wants to celebrate nye this day so he went to the allan’s fridge

and got a can of coke and sang this song


Another Saturday night
By: Jimmy Buffett

Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I've got some money cause I just got paid
How I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way

I got in town a month ago
I've seen a lot of girls since then
If I could meet 'em I could get 'em
But as yet I haven't met 'em
That's why I'm in the shape I'm in

Oh, another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I've got some money cause I just got paid
How I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way

Now another fella told me
He had a sister who looked just fine
Instead of being my deliverance
She had a strange resemblance
To a cat name Frankenstein

Oh, another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I've got some money cause I just got paid
How I wish I had some chick to talk to
I'm in an awful way

Yeah, another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I've got some money cause I just got paid
How I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way

It's ******* a fella
When he don't know his way around
If I don't find me a honey
To help me spend this money
I'm headin' back to key west town

Oh, another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I've got some money cause I just got paid
How I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way

Just another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
I've got some money cause I just got paid
How I wish I had some chick to talk to
I'm in an awful way

It's awful, all dressed up and no place to go, no one to help me spend
My flow, another Saturday night, get me the pizza man.
Songwriters: COOKE, SAM
Another Saturday Night lyrics © Abkco Music, Inc.




and then brian allan said, i want to be convicted of love in the first degree and i will open this can of coke and party all over his bedroom and make
mr and mrs allan say stop playing this loud music brian

"Love In The First Degree"

Last night I was dreaming
I was locked in a prison cell
When I woke up I was screaming
Calling out your name (whoa)

And the judge and the jury
They all put the blame on me (the blame on me)
They wanna tell from my story
They want to hear my plea

Only you can set me free
'Cause I'm guilty (guilty)
Guilty as a girl can be
Come on baby, can't you see
I stand accused
Of love in the first degree

(Guilty) Of love in the first degree

Someday I'm believing
You will come to my rescue
Unchain my heart, you'll keep him
Let me start a new (you)

The hours passed so slowly
Since they've thrown away the key (away the key)
Can't you see that I'm lonely
Won't you help me please

Only you can set me free
'Cause I'm guilty (guilty)
Guilty as a girl can be
Come on baby, can't you see
I stand accused
Of love in the first degree

(Guilty) Of Love in the first degree

(Guilty)
Of Love

(Guilty)
Of Love in

(Guilty) Of Love

(Guilty) Of Love in

(Guilty)
Of love in the first degree

And the judge and the jury
They all put the blame on me
They wanna tell from my story
They wanna hear my plea

Only you can set me free
'Cause I'm guilty (Guilty)
As a girl can be
Come on baby, can't you see
I stand accused
Of love in the first degree


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and then brian allan looked at his clock radio and saw the time was 11:45 and brian

allan played the air guitar really loudly to run to paradise



Baby, you were always gonna be the one
You only ever did it just for fun
But you run to paradise
Jenny, I'll meet you at the grocery store
You don't need a friend when you can score
You run to paradise

Johnny, we were always best of friends
Stick together and defend
But you run to paradise
And mamma, now don't you worry 'bout me anymore
And I see you crying at the door
When I run to paradise

That's right, they had it all worked out
You were young and blonde
And you could never do wrong
That's right, they were so surprised
You opened their eyes up
(Opened their eyes up)
Opened their eyes up

[Chorus]
You don't want anyone
(You don't, you don't, open your eyes up)
You don't want anyone
(You don't, you're no fool)
Don't tell me, this is paradise
(Open your eyes up)
You don't want anyone
(You don't, open your eyes up)
You don't want anyone
(You don't, you're no fool)
Don't tell me, this is paradise

Good times, why'd I let 'em slip away
Why'd I let them slip away
'Cause I lived in paradise
Run to paradise
Run to paradise
Run to paradise

Jesus says it's gonna be alright
He's gonna pat my back
So I can walk in the light (that's right)
You don't mind if I abuse myself
So I can hold my head up
(Hold my head up)
Hold my head up

[Chorus]

You don't want anyone
(You don't, hold my head up)
You don't want anyone
(You don't, you're no fool)
Don't tell me, this is paradise
(Open your eyes up)
You don't need anyone
(Open your eyes up)
You don't need anyone
You'll tell me, this is paradise

[Chorus x2]
brian allan then was counting down to midnight and sang auld lent zine and his parents came in and opened the door and
said HAPPY NEW YEAR
jeffrey conyers Feb 2013
Etta James, oh the lady could sing.
Sarah Vaughn,when I hear Anita Baker in away it's Sarah.
If you never knew one of the two.
You would swear they was one.

Billy Eckstein, during his time.
Mister B, was smoother then Billy Dee Williams.
And he had away of mastering a song.

Which we saw when David Ruffin came along.
Who was a rival to Sam Cooke?
A master of the coolest romantic hooks.

He might have been a little different.
Except Chuck Berry can't be deny his dues.
Johnny B Goode, is nationally known.

The color country boy in his song could play.
Yes, he had to change the word to suit the segregation days.
But Johnny B was African American in everyway.

Who doesn't believe that when you see Morris Day?
That he owe his style to Cab Calloway.

The role of an African American diva could be trace to Lena Horne.
Or maybe actress Freddi Washington.
Or opera star Marion Anderson.
Who sometimes don't get recognition like they should.
Almost like Dorothy Dandridge doesn't.

Still they played on like Josephine Baker.
Who like George Washington Carver faces hostility and problems?

We still trying to educate people about Charles Drew.
Who fame is traced to the blood floating within you?

Against the greatest of odds.
They adapted and blazed a trail.
Through the roughest of times.
They was determine to be.

Who doesn't know Little Richard?
Who borrowed heavily off of gospel singer Billy Wright?
And soon was creating truth within his lyrics.
Until others came along and water them down.

We know truth still is avoided by them.
Except for the man that sung about a hound.
Which wasn't at all about a dog.
But about a cheating man.
Sung beautifully by Big Mama Thorton.

But then no man plays the guitar better.
Then Marva Collins or Rosetta Throphe.
Yes, these women could play.

Some people will never understand Malcolm X contribution.
Except, he left many that's seen today.
Just notice the way he never revisted the prison in any negative way.

We marched.
We protested.
And some of the best controversial stars comes from the musical side.

For no other side of music can touch the blues with truth.
Well, I guess country do.
But the blues takes many forms.

Could be about leaving.
Could be about loving.
Or that stuff you do in the dark with your love.

It could be the howlin'.
It might be the scoffin'.
It could be the chasin'.
But like many styles of music.
Some knows they was creating babies.

Which leads us to Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass.
Where the Love TKO and Let's Get It On still is the songs.

It's an African American tradition of the past.
That affects the future too.
For stars of yesterdays.
Are seen in stars of today.

A Legacy.
And we know legacies doesn't fade.
John F McCullagh Jan 2012
The Lady loves me-
I’m certain of it.
It’s not just my read
of a look or glance.
She confessed her love
in a verse redolent
of forbidden
passion and romance.

Elizabeth is of the old faith,.
a highborn lady of eighteen..
She is young like my own daughters,
How inappropriate would our love seem?

I was tutor to the Prince but
Edward’s reign too soon is done
Catholic Mary will be our Queen
I must  to the continent be  gone.
This is about the unconsummated love of Elizabeth D'acre, an English Catholic noblewoman, for Sir Anthony Cooke, her much older Protestant tutor and tutor to Edward Tudor. the Lady's affection may well have been requited, but the Ascension of Mary Tudor to the throne of England made Sir Antony's continued presence in England hazardous to his health
Donall Dempsey Sep 2020
AN RUD A DÚRIT ÉAN BEAG LIOM
( A Little Bird Told Me)

- for David Cooke -

"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."  - Ecclesiastes 10-20


"Oh!" said the bird
" A human who..."

( and I never saw such
a surprised starling )

"...can understand
our language!"

"You can speak!" I blurted out.
"So, I see can you!" gasped the starling.

"The strange thing is...!"
I framed my words carefully

"...we can understand each other!"
the starling finished my sentence.

"But how..?"
being human I had to ask.

"Forget the hows and whys!"
friend starling replied.

"Just relish the moment
the such and suchness of it all!"

I made up my mind
to do so.

"Everything talks if
you only listen!"

the starling continued
its lesson.

"The mountains talk
to the seas continuously!"

The starling so
informed me.

"But humans never ever
(well hardly ever)listen!"

chirped the starling
playfully.

I see it had been listening
to Gilbert and Sullivan.

"And..." the starling went on
it was us birds who taught them!"

I could tell it was proud of
the whole nation of birds.

"Well, I'ill be...!" I sad.
"Yes..." said the starling "...a poet!"

"Poets know the language
of everything"

The starling stated
as if it were a law.

"What the reed in the rushes
told the lake..."

"Or how the sky sees
and says it all..."

Then its feathers trembled
with the change in the air.

"Well, I must fly!"
chuckled the starling.

"Well, well..." boomed the sky
in perfect Blueness.

"Was that a human
I saw you talking to..."

thundered it vastness
dark clouds looming on its horizon.

"Noooo - not me!"
lied the starling

for whatever
reason.

"Hmmm..!" hmmmmthe sky suspiciously
"He looked a bit Irish to me!"

"Níl Gaeilge ar bith agam ar chor ar bith!"
stammered the starling.

And the day continued on
talking to Time incessantly.
The éan beag that told me all this against the wishes of the sky...was the drud or druideog...the common starling or as in the W.B. Yeats' poem THE STARE'S NEST. It liked to quote the lines to me in its own charming voice.

"We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty;"

And here was my little stare friend opening my mind out and turning the key.

When caught by the sky telling tales to humans the little fella tries to get out of it by telling the sky "I don't have any Irish at all!" but in Irish. Of course the sky although knowing everything didn't however know any Irish!


I was uncertain of the lines about uncertainty in the Yeats and was trying to remember the Callimachus about people not listening...how a mountain never listens to a sea. And David Cooke when he was staying with us was delighted to find some Greek that he both loved and could indeed read and I thought I bectcha David could tell me. But of course not having a David Cooke at hand I stumbled along in these lines and offered up the poem to him.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
"His mind would never romp again like the mind of God."
The Great Gatsby**


Does he fret,
Does he sweat,
Does he pay his bills
On Time,
Even tho his personal stash
Of anything,
Inexhaustible and
He bills himself?

Is he lonely,
So when he romps,
His greatest pleasure is
Inventing new kinds of pain?

Does he like to watch butter
Snowmelt,
Does he turn the honey jar
Upside down
Because viscosity is
A turn on?

Is he lonely?
Of course he is,
Is that why he endlessly
Tinkers with creative destruction?

Does he put strawberry jam
On his watermelon?
Salt on his wounds,
Caramelized onions in his
Cologne and parfumes?

Does he watch reruns?
The bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima?
The shaving of the heads of the French women?
What's his fav. late night host,
When he can't sleep
And. his damaged dreams
Become our unfortunate realities?

Acting childish, a métier,
So he can scold himself?
Does he keep score,
Ever say no more,
Contemplate suicide,
Or just murdering his sons?

Did he kiss Shakespeare's lips,
Or just his fingertips?
Does he sing a Capella
With Holly and Cooke,
Let Beethoven play rock n' roll?

What is he best excuse
For playing with
Tormented souls,
Making so many wonderful things
Forbidden fruit?

Does he worship regularly at the altar?
Irony his faith and skin his vestments?
Are his twisted straight,
His late, early?
His order disordered and when bored,
Does he just close his eyes and
Let us live in peace?
After seeing Gatsby.  Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke.
Luna Lynn Jun 2014
Blink your eyes once.

An innocent child
killed just like that.

Blink your eyes twice.

While walking through the wrong neighborhood

being black.

How far has the doctrine of Dr. King
come for that?

Mr. Cooke sang to us a change
was gon come..
and he ain't even here to write the lyrics to finish the song unsung!

I wonder if he is watching from the sky,
and knows we are all afraid to die.

It's been a long time coming,
he said.

And here we still wait
to be dead.

And in the midst of our waiting,
we've decided to
**** each other instead.



I know change is a long time coming
Listening to "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke and reading some history. The Trayvon Martin case came to mind and it still makes me emotional to this day.

(C) Maxwell 2014
Tony Luxton Aug 2017
We trusted him, that voice on the wireless,
cricketer by conviction after all.
There were no other views that could
compete, but now we've grown more
critical or so we claim.

And yet we still have affectations,
our urban myths, two-faced politics.

There's strong pressure to conform with
the latest craze wherever born
We share the Ooh's and Aah's across the world
and must hooray the loudest common cause.
Over many years Britistish listeners tuned in to Alistair Cook's Letter From America.
Since the refinement of this polish’d age
Has swept immoral raillery from the stage;
Since taste has now expung’d licentious wit,
Which stamp’d disgrace on all an author writ;
Since, now, to please with purer scenes we seek,
Nor dare to call the blush from Beauty’s cheek;
Oh! let the modest Muse some pity claim,
And meet indulgence—though she find not fame.
Still, not for her alone, we wish respect,
Others appear more conscious of defect:
To-night no vet’ran Roscii you behold,
In all the arts of scenic action old;
No COOKE, no KEMBLE, can salute you here,
No SIDDONS draw the sympathetic tear;
To-night you throng to witness the début
Of embryo Actors, to the Drama new:
Here, then, our almost unfledg’d wings we try;
Clip not our pinions, ere the birds can fly:
Failing in this our first attempt to soar,
Drooping, alas! we fall to rise no more.
Not one poor trembler, only, fear betrays,
Who hopes, yet almost dreads to meet your praise;
But all our Dramatis Personæ wait,
In fond suspense this crisis of their fate.
No venal views our progress can ******,
Your generous plaudits are our sole reward;
For these, each Hero all his power displays,
Each timid Heroine shrinks before your gaze:
Surely the last will some protection find?
None, to the softer ***, can prove unkind:
While Youth and Beauty form the female shield,
The sternest Censor to the fair must yield.
Yet, should our feeble efforts nought avail,
Should, after all, our best endeavours fail;
Still, let some mercy in your bosoms live,
And, if you can’t applaud, at least forgive.
Milo Clover Aug 2015
In December of '64,
40 years ago,
I was sitting in the Hacienda bar
on the South Side
of things
and here comes this cocker
spaniel looking
******* named
Roosevelt.

This man-man slides
in, slaps Sam Cooke on the juker,
then claps my clock with
a ******* billiards ball.
On the floor ****
tasting tooth..

It was my 33rd birthday,
but as God had-had it,
it was also Roosevelt's.
And that *******-man
had been drinking
bumpy face
and smoking jazz cigarettes
since 10 o'clock
in the morning.

Let's pause. Now. Now.
Now.
Now-you may be asking
yourself what a man like me
did to deserve this disrespect-

(Grins. Sips his drink.)
b for short Apr 2016
I never was the type to appreciate the sanctity of a funeral parlor. Their somber stink of lilies always turned my stomach. No— I need to be among the trees. Plan to take me to a wide open space in the middle of nowhere. We’ll make it a somewhere as soon as we arrive. No newspaper announcement with starched wording and unpolished details. The invitation should be in the form of a mix CD, and the details of time and place will be hidden clues derived from the song titles. Invite everyone I’ve ever made laugh and thank them for me, for returning the favor. If they question you on that, have them count it in the papery crinkles about my eyes. The truth will be waiting there. Set a smile on my face—one that proves how much joy prevailed. Dress me how you’ll remember me—comfortably, colorfully, and untamed. No make-up or hairspray. I want to exit this world just as pleasantly disheveled as a I entered it.

When the day comes to say goodbye, lift me up on a giant patchwork pillow made from the hundreds of novelty t-shirts I wore threadbare in my twenties. Stuff the space between the seams with the pages of my countless journals I always felt the need to hide, even though I lived alone for most of my life. You’ll have more than enough stuffing, I promise. Feel free to keep whatever is left over for a good laugh when you need it. Sew the seams with bright gold thread and cover it with all of the coat buttons I managed to lose over the years. I’ll lead my gracious hoard of respect-payers as we travel to nowhere. Have the children ride on elephants that have been painted the reds, oranges, and purples to match the sunset. Paint their little faces to match if they’d like. There must be dancing bears and majestic tigers in tow too. A parade fit for a lover of life, complete with a marching band that plays nothing but horn-heavy soul to keep the journey a happening one.

Prop me up against a willow tree when you’ve reached the spot. Lay out blankets for everyone to sit on, and hold the service well into the deep blues and purples of the evening. As the sun sets, and the lightning bugs take flight, man the masses with sparklers that will stay lit for hours. Have everyone spell out their favorite memories of me and stand in awe of the ardent glow in every direction.  Allow the children to feed the elephants all the peanuts they can handle. Enjoy the tigers’ purr and the bears’ tight hugs. Pretend they’re my very own that I didn’t get a chance to give. Set up an old jukebox nearby so that couples and friends can slow dance to Sam Cooke 45s as the sun disappears into the watery horizon. Pour the finest beers and wines for everyone willing, and tap into that West Virginia moonshine that I’ve always been too afraid to try. Clink your glasses and laugh from the belly as you drink to all of our missed friends and equally missed opportunities. Drink another for me and another for good luck.

As the alcohol curbs the night’s chill, set me atop my pillow at the water’s edge. Line my body with candles, warmly lit and housed in all of the tiny temples of colored glass you could manage to find at the local thrift stores. Before you give me a push, take a minute to appreciate how all of their dancing shades create an unspoken magic against the dark sky. As I drift off into the sea, send a paper lantern up and away—one for every time you’ve seen me smile and two for every time you watched me cry. I know I was more alive in those tears than I could ever be in the curves of my grins. The time will be right, at some point—and when it is, have the limber young bodies climb the tallest trees and shoot hundreds of roman candles in my direction. I want to light up the night sky and go out with a bang more awe-inspiring than the Fourth of July. When I’m less than a bright speck on the horizon, find your way back to where we started. One less than before.

When it’s all over, you’ll find me in the comfort of the warm light in every birthday candle and in the corners of your smile when you find happiness in a moment that you couldn’t buy. In every nowhere you find that turns into somewhere, I’ll be there, missing you too.
© Bitsy Sanders, April 2016

Curtis Smith, a local PA writer had previously written a piece entitled, "My Totally Awesome Funeral." It definitely inspired this piece.
jeffrey conyers Feb 2013
Bryant, Williams, Ruffin, Kendricks, Mcgilberry, Davis and Harris.
All are apart of the legacy of Temptation's forever.
And now they are rockin' in heaven.

One with a spin.
One with a grin.
One with a smile surrounded by a heavenly choir.

The sun got brighter.
As the cloudy day faded away.
With the Saints of the Sanctuary marching to the gates.

One with spec.
One  with a double breasted suit to the microphone.
With the choir of harmonizers singing along.

And they get inducted into the halls of Rock and Roll heaven.

The audience is supplied with starts.
We see Curtis Mayfield's will his guitar.
And Elvis ready to join in.

In Rock and Roll heaven, they all are musical friends.

Even Johnny Taylor and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding is ready to sing.

And Bobby Hatfield's ready to go upon a solo.

Oh, they must be rockin' behind close doors.
Ready to greet a Staple's singer through the holy doors.

God welcome only a select few.
While we upon earth debate about who?
In truth, only He knows, who He will bring?

And they all don't have to see.

If you've been touched by a song they sung.
Then you're aware of the bells that's been rung.
God, has placed his heart upon everyone.
Especially, his selected choir.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2018
what a shy event,
considering it,
to be supposed
to encompass, "life"..
a few fractures,
and an antithesis
of the river of Heraclitus...
the stillness of
the lake...
whereby Narcissus
was born...
           from the philosopher
of the river,
to the demigod of the lake...
to the god of the sea...
grandfather god Poseidon
begot
   the father demigod
of Narcissus...
who begot the son
                         Heraclitus...
what the sea is,
is what the river encapsulates,
which is what
the lake will never be...
the paradigm,
the writing of Heidegger...
spurned me to think,
to think, rather than "to be"...
how much of
cogito ergo sum
is ontologically, "satisfying"?
probably the nil of it...
counter Latin: in german:
denken werden sein?
oh, the ****-list goes on and on...
denken als sein?
   reiterate that for me...
in Latin...
               thought as the becoming
of being...
in German, first...
    denken als die werden von sein...
now in Latin:
   cogitatio quod dacens ex esse...
you know that almost all of
my childhood friends ended up
in prison?!
i'm just an oddity...
    i infiltrated the theater of
intellectualism...
   and i said: bogus, *******
and the supposed lost brimstone!
scent of cooked sulfur that stank
to the high  heavens!
free speech, blah blah,
"free" & "thought"...
whatever the **** that means...
an antithesis of a claustrophobia?!
thought?
thought is the equivalent
contraceptive in terms of being...
thought liberates, but also
provides constraints...
   thought is a being
that has non-being in its focus...
thought is a "being" that has
non-being as its focal point...
ontologically:
thought is a form of being,
that doesn't necessarily relate to
the existential "arithmetic"
of thought: thus done...
    thinking is important,
but it's completely unrelated to being...
the thing itself,
and then... the thing in itself...
and subsequently: the thing for itself...
phenomenon, noumenon,
phenomenon...
            since how much of
"thinking" is translated into
"being"?
             i guess... not much of it
is ever translated within the confines
of the imagery of a cascade /
a waterfall...
                      zilch...
  not a lot of thought crafts
the impetus to be...
as...
not a lot of being crafts
the impetus to think...
         coincidentally a lot of:
out of every instance / insistence:
i.e. existence, happens,
simultaneously to said expression.

sam cooke:

don't know much about history,
don't know much (about) biology,
don't know much about a science book,
don't know much about the french i took,
but i do know that i love you,
and i know that if you love me too,
what a wonderful world this would be...

i could write this candy floss *******,
point blank statement with
adverse feelings...
                 i have a pact of uninhibited
lying...
              i could lie... but then lying
requires a prior experience in lies...
and...
   i hate the economics of lies...
however much i might cherish
thinking, i seem to have picked
up a pattern whereby:
thinking doesn't translate into being...
so i guess...
      as much of thought goes
into being, as it goes into non-being...

and that being said:
what is post-existentialism?
                        ontology.
preservationman Aug 2015
It was famous celebrities I met
It was all in a normal set
I met David Rockefeller, former Chase Chairmen
He had a top position being the number one rank
We bumped into each other and talked for 5 minutes in Rockefeller Center
Later it was Cardinal Terrance Cooke of St. Patrick’s Cathedral
We shook hands on the steps of the Cathedral on 5th Avenue at a time when the church was celebrating their 100th Centennial
Who could forget Arnold Schwarzzenger long before he became Governor of California
It was a vintage when he competed in bodybuilding competition with the top Bodybuilding
Title being Mr. Olympia
We met at the Mid-City Gym, a ******* gym back in the day with many famous Soap Actors and Wrestlers who trained there
Speaking of Wrestlers, I met Superstar Billy Graham and Irvin, the Polish Power
Who could forget Ralph Nader, Politician advocate
It was at CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia where met the Media Chief, Ted Turner
It was an acquaintance as he came flying through the stair doors where we were standing with our Tour guide
It wasn’t part of the tour, but was a lucky stride
So I was my own Walter Cronkite in seeing celebrities with my own eyes
My own Media event with captured moments in how my time was spent.
Day #4: Cody To Saint Mary’s

After breakfast in the Irma’s great dining hall, I left Cody in the quiet stillness of a Saturday morning. The dream I had last night about Indian summer camps now pointed the way toward things that I could once again understand. If there was another road to rival, or better, the Beartooth Highway, it would be the one that I would ride this morning.

It was 8:45 a.m., and I was headed northwest out of Cody to The Chief Joseph Highway. It is almost impossible to describe this road without having ridden or driven over it at least once. I was the first motorcyclist to ever ride its elevated curves and valleys on its inauguration over ten years ago. It opened that day, also a Saturday, at eight, and I got there two hours early to make sure the flagman would position me at the front of the line. I wanted to be the first to go through while paying homage to the great Nez Perce Chief. I will forever remember the honor of being the first motorist of any kind to have gone up and over this incredible road.

The ascent, over Dead Indian Pass at the summit, reminded me once again that the past is never truly dead if the present is to be alive. The illusion of what was, is, and will be, is captured only in the moment of their present affirmation. The magic is in living within the confirmation of what is.

The Chief Joseph Highway was, and is, the greatest road that I have ever ridden. I have always considered it a great personal gift to me — being the first one to have experienced what cannot fully be described. Ending in either Cooke City or Cody, the choice of direction was yours. The towns were not as different from each other as you would be from your previous self when you arrived at either location at the end of your ride.

It turned severely in both directions, as it rose or descended in elevation, letting you see both ends from almost anywhere you began. It was a road for sure but of all the roads in my history, both present and before, this one was a metaphor to neither the life I had led, nor the life I seek. This road was a metaphor to the life I lead.

A metaphor to the life I lead

It teased you with its false endings, always hiding just one more hairpin as you corrected and violently pulled the bike back to center while leaning as hard as you could to the other side. While footpegs were dragging on both sides of the bike your spirit and vision of yourself had never been so clear. You now realized you were going more than seventy in a turn designed for maximum speeds of forty and below.

To die on this road would make a mockery of life almost anywhere else. To live on this roadcreated a new standard where risk would be essential, and, if you dared, you gambled away all security and previous limits for what it taught.

It was noon as I entered Cooke City again wondering if that same buffalo would be standing at Tower Junction to make sure that I turned right this time, as I headed north toward Glacier National Park. Turning right at Tower Junction would take me past Druid Peak and through the north entrance of Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs and the town of Gardiner Montana. Wyoming and Montana kept trading places as the road would wind and unfold. Neither state wanted to give up to the other the soul of the returning prodigal which in the end neither could win … and neither could ever lose!

From Gardiner, Rt #89 curved and wound its way through the Paradise Valley to Livingston and the great open expanse of Montana beyond. The road, through the lush farmlands of the valley, quieted and settled my spirit, as it allowed me the time to reorient and revalue all the things I had just seen.

I thought about the number of times it almost ended along this road when a deer or elk had crossed my path in either the early morning or evening hours. I continued on both thankful and secure knowing in my heart that when the end finally came, it would not be while riding on two-wheels. It was something that was made known to me in a vision that I had years ago, and an assurance that I took not for granted, as I rode grateful and alone through these magnificent hills.

The ride to Livingston along Montana Rt.# 89 was dotted with rich working farms on both sides of the road. The sun was at its highest as I entered town, and I stopped quickly for gas and some food at the first station I found. There were seven good hours of daylight left, and I still had at least three hundred miles to go.

I was now more than an hour north of Livingston, and the sign that announced White Sulphur Springs brought back memories and a old warning. It flashed my memory back to the doe elk that came up from the creek-bed almost twenty years ago, brushing the rear of the bike and almost causing us to crash. I can still hear my daughter screaming “DAAAD,”as she saw the elk before I did.

I dropped the bike down a gear as I took a long circular look around. As I passed the spot of our near impact on the south side of town, I said a prayer for forgiveness. I asked to be judged kindly by the animals that I loved and to become even more visible to the things I couldn’t see.

The ride through the Lewis and Clark National Forest was beautiful and serene, as two hawks and a lone coyote bade me farewell, and I exited the park through Monarch at its northern end. There were now less than five hours of daylight left, and the East entrance to Glacier National Park at St. Mary’s was still two hundred miles away. An easy ride under most circumstances, but the Northern Rockies were never normal, and their unpredictability was another of the many reasons as to why I loved them so. Cody, and my conflicted feelings while there, seemed only a distant memory. Distant, but connected, like the friends and loved ones I had forgotten to call.

At Dupoyer Montana, I was compelled to stop. Not enticed or persuaded, not called out to or invited — but compelled! A Bar that had existed on the east side of this road, heading north, for as long as anyone could remember, Ranger Jacks, was now closed. I sat for the longest time staring at the weathered and dilapidated board siding and the real estate sign on the old front swinging door that said Commercial Opportunity. My mind harkened back to the first time I stopped into ‘Jacks,’ while heading south from Calgary and Lake Louise. My best friend, Dave Hill, had been with me, and we both sidled up to the bar, which ran down the entire left side of the interior and ordered a beer. Jack just looked at the two of us for the longest time.

It Wasn’t A Look It Was A Stare

Bearded and toothless, he had a stare that encompassed all the hate and vile within it that he held for his customers. His patrons were the locals and also those traveling to and from places unknown to him but never safe from his disgust. He neither liked the place that he was in nor any of those his customers had told him about.

Jack Was An Equal-Opportunity Hater!

He reminded both Dave and I of why we traveled to locations that took us outside and beyond what we already knew. We promised each other, as we walked back to the bike, that no matter how bad life ever got we would never turn out to be like him. Jack was both a repudiation of the past and a denial of the future with the way he constantly refused to live in the moment. He was physically and spiritually everything we were trying to escape. He did however continue to die in the moment, and it was a death he performed in front of his customers … over, and over, and over again.

As I sat on the bike, staring at the closed bar, a woman and her daughter got out of a car with Texas license plates. The mother smiled as she watched me taking one last look and said: “Are you going to buy it, it’s for sale you know?” I said “no, but I had been in it many times when it was still open.” She said: “That must have been a real experience” as she walked back to her car. It was a real experience back then for sure, and one that she, or any other accidental tourist headed north or south on Rt. #89, will never know. I will probably never regret going in there again, but I feel fortunate that I had the chance to do it those many times before.

Who Am I Kidding, I’d Do It Again In A Heartbeat

I would never pass through Dupoyer Montana, the town where Lewis and Clark had their only hostile encounter (Two Medicine Fight) with Indians, without stopping at Ranger Jacksfor a beer. It was one of those windows into the beyond that are found in the most unlikely of places, and I was profoundly changed every time that I walked in, and then out of, his crumbling front door. Jack never said hello or bid you goodbye. He just stared at you as something that offended him, and when you looked back at his dead and bloodshot eyes, and for reasons still unexplained, you felt instantly free.

In The Strangest And Clearest Of Ways … I’ll Miss Him

It was a short ride from Dupoyer to East Glacier, as the sun settled behind the Lewis Rangeshowing everything in its half-light as only twilight can. I once again thought of the Blackfeet and how defiant they remained until the very end. Being this far North, they had the least contact with white men, and were dominant against the other tribes because of their access to Canadian guns. When they learned that the U.S. Government proposed to arm their mortal enemies, the Shoshones and the Nez Perce, their animosity for all white invaders only heightened and strengthened their resolve to fight. I felt the distant heat of their blood as I crossed over Rt. #2 in Browning and said a quick prayer to all that they had seen and to a fury deep within their culture that time could not ****.

It was almost dark, as I rode the extreme curves of Glacier Park Road toward the east entrance from Browning. As I arrived in St Mary’s, I turned left into the Park and found that the gatehouse was still manned. Although being almost 9:00 p.m., the guard was still willing to let me through. She said that the road would remain open all night for its entire fifty-three-mile length, but that there was construction and mud at the very top near Logan Pass.

Construction, no guardrails, the mud and the dark, and over 6600 feet of altitude evoked the Sour Spirit Deity of the Blackfeet to come out of the lake and whisper to me in a voice that the Park guard could not hear “Not tonight Wana Hin Gle. Tonight you must remain with the lesser among us across the lake with the spirit killers — and then tomorrow you may cross.”

Dutifully I listened, because again from inside, I could feel its truth. Wana Hin Gle was the name the Oglala Sioux had given me years before, It means — He Who Happens Now.

In my many years of mountain travel I have crossed both Galena and Beartooth Passes in the dark. Both times, I was lucky to make it through unharmed. I thanked this great and lonesome Spirit who had chosen to protect me tonight and then circled back through the gatehouse and along the east side of the lake to the lodge.

The Desk Clerk Said, NO ROOMS!

As I pulled up in front of the St Mary’s Lodge & Resort, I noticed the parking lot was full. It was not a good sign for one with no reservation and for one who had not planned on staying on this side of the park for the night. The Chinese- American girl behind the desk confirmed what I was fearing most with her words … “Sorry Sir, We’re Full.”

When I asked if she expected any cancellations she emphatically said: “No chance,” and that there were three campers in the parking lot who had inquired before me, all hoping for the same thing. I was now 4th on the priority list for a potential room that might become available. Not likely on this warm summer weekend, and not surprising either, as all around me the tourists scurried in their pursuit of leisure, as tourists normally did.

I looked at the huge lobby with its two TV monitors and oversized leather sofas and chairs. I asked the clerk at the desk if I could spend the night sitting there, reading, and waiting for the sun to come back up. I reminded her that I was on a motorcycle and that it was too dangerous for me to cross Logan Pass in the dark. She said “sure,” and the restaurant stayed open until ten if I had not yet had dinner. “Try the grilled lake trout,” she said, “it’s my favorite for sure. They get them right out of St. Mary’s Lake daily, and you can watch the fishermen pull in their catch from most of our rooms that face the lake.”

I felt obligated to give the hotel some business for allowing me to freeload in their lobby, so off to the restaurant I went. There was a direct access door to the restaurant from the far corner of the main lobby where my gear was, and my waiter (from Detroit) was both terrific and fast. He told me about his depressed flooring business back in Michigan and how, with the economy so weak, he had decided a steady job for the summer was the way to go.

We talked at length about his first impressions of the Northern Rockies and about how much his life had changed since he arrived last month. He had been over the mountain at least seven times and had crossed it in both directions as recently as last night. I asked him, with the road construction, what a night-crossing was currently like? and he responded: “Pretty scary, even in a Jeep.” He then said, “I can’t even imagine crossing over on a motorcycle, in the dark, with no guardrails, and having to navigate through the construction zone for those eight miles just before the top.” I sat for another hour drinking coffee and wondered about what life on top of the Going To The Sun Road must be like at this late hour.

The Lake Trout Had Been More Than Good

After I finished dinner, I walked back into the lobby and found a large comfortable leather chair with a long rustic coffee table in front. Knowing now that I had made the right decision to stay, I pulled the coffee table up close to the chair and stretched my legs out in front. It was now almost midnight, and the only noise that could be heard in the entire hotel was the kitchen staff going home for the night. Within fifteen minutes, I was off to sleep. It had been a long ride from Cody, and I think I was more tired than I wanted to admit. I started these rides in my early twenties. And now forty years later, my memory still tried to accomplish what my body long ago abandoned.

At 2:00 a.m., a security guard came over and nudged my left shoulder. “Mr Behm, we’ve just had a room open up and we could check you in if you’re still interested.” The thought of unpacking the bike in the dark, and for just four hours of sleep in a bed, was of no interest to me at this late hour. I thanked him for his consideration but told him I was fine just where I was. He then said: “Whatever’s best for you sir,” and went on with his rounds.

My dreams that night, were strange, with that almost real quality that happens when the lines between where you have come from and where you are going become blurred. I had visions of Blackfeet women fishing in the lake out back and of their warrior husbands returning with fresh ponies from a raid upon the Nez Perce. The sounds of the conquering braves were so real that they woke me, or was it the early morning kitchen staff beginning their breakfast shift? It was 5:15 a.m., and I knew I would never know for sure — but the difference didn’t matter when the imagery remained the same.

Differences never mattered when the images were the same



Day #5 (A.M.): Glacier To Columbia Falls

As I opened my eyes and looked out from the dark corner of the lobby, I saw CNN on the monitor across the room. The sound had been muted all night, but in the copy running across the bottom of the screen it said: “Less than twenty-four hours until the U.S. defaults.”  For weeks, Congress had been debating on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and even as remote as it was here in northwestern Montana, I still could not escape the reality of what it meant. I had a quick breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and gravy, before I headed back to the mountain. The guard station at the entrance was unattended, so I vowed to make a twenty-dollar donation to the first charity I came across — I hoped it would be Native American.

I headed west on The Going To The Sun Road and crossed Glacier at dawn. It created a memory on that Sunday morning that will live inside me forever. It was a road that embodied the qualities of all lesser roads, while it stood proudly alone because of where it could take you and the way going there would make you feel. Its standards, in addition to its altitude, were higher than most comfort zones allowed. It wasn’t so much the road itself but where it was. Human belief and ingenuity had built a road over something that before was almost impossible to even walk across. Many times, as you rounded a blind turn on Logan Pass, you experienced the sensation of flying, and you had to look beneath you to make sure that your wheels were still on the ground.

The road climbed into the clouds as I rounded the West side of the lake. It felt more like flying, or being in a jet liner, when combined with the tactile adventure of knowing I was on two-wheels. Being on two-wheels was always my first choice and had been my consummate and life affirming mode of travel since the age of sixteen.

Today would be another one of those ‘it wasn’t possible to happen’ days. But it did, and it happened in a way that even after so many blessed trips like this, I was not ready for. I felt in my soul I would never see a morning like this again, but then I also knew beyond the borders of self-limitation, and from what past experience had taught me, that I absolutely would.

So Many ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Moments Have Been Joyous Repetition

My life has been blessed because I have been given so many of these moments. Unlike anything else that has happened, these life-altering events have spoken to me directly cutting through all learned experience that has tried in vain to keep them out. The beauty of what they have shown is beyond my ability to describe, and the tears running down my face were from knowing that at least during these moments, my vision had been clear.

I knew that times like these were in a very real way a preparation to die. Life’s highest moments often exposed a new awareness for how short life was. Only by looking through these windows, into a world beyond, would we no longer fear death’s approach.

I leaned forward to pat the motorcycle’s tank as we began our ascent. In a strange but no less real way, it was only the bike that truly understood what was about to happen. It had been developed for just this purpose and now would get to perform at its highest level. The fuel Injection, and linked disk brakes, were a real comfort this close to the edge, and I couldn’t have been riding anything better for what I was about to do.

I also couldn’t have been in a better place at this stage of my life in the summer of 2011. Things had been changing very fast during this past year, and I decided to bend to that will rather than to fight what came unwanted and in many ways unknown. I knew that today would provide more answers, highlighting the new questions that I searched for, and the ones on this mountaintop seemed only a promise away.

Glaciers promise!

I thought about the many bear encounters, and attacks, that had happened in both Glacier and Yellowstone during this past summer. As I passed the entry point to Granite Park Chalet, I couldn’t help but think about the tragic deaths of Julie Helgeson and Michelle Koons on that hot August night back in 1967. They both fell prey to the fatality that nature could bring. The vagaries of chance, and a bad camping choice, led to their both being mauled and then killed by the same rogue Grizzly in different sections of the park.

They were warned against camping where they did, but bear attacks had been almost unheard of — so they went ahead. How many times had I decided to risk something, like crossing Beartooth or Galena Pass at night, when I had been warned against it, but still went ahead? How many times had coming so close to the edge brought everything else in my life into clear focus?

1967 Was The Year I Started My Exploration Of The West

The ride down the western side of The Going To the Sun Road was a mystery wrapped inside the eternal magic of this mountain highway in the sky. Even the long line of construction traffic couldn’t dampen my excitement, as I looked off to the South into the great expanse that only the Grand Canyon could rival for sheer majesty. Snow was on the upper half of Mount’s Stimson (10,142 ft.), James (9,575 ft.) and Jackson (10,052), and all progress was slow (20 mph). Out of nowhere, a bicyclist passed me on the extreme outside and exposed edge of the road. I prayed for his safety, as he skirted to within three feet of where the roadended and that other world, that the Blackfeet sing about, began. Its exposed border held no promises and separated all that we knew from what we oftentimes feared the most.

I am sure he understood what crossing Logan Pass meant, no matter the vehicle, and from the look in his eyes I could tell he was in a place that no story of mine would ever tell. He waved quickly as he passed on my left side. I waved back with the universal thumbs-upsign, and in a way that is only understood by those who cross mountains … we were brothers on that day.



Day # 5: (P.M.) Columbia Falls to Salmon Idaho

The turnaround point of the road was always hard. What was all forward and in front of me yesterday was consumed by the thought of returning today. The ride back could take you down the same path, or down a different road, but when your destination was the same place that you started from, your arrival was greeted in some ways with the anti-****** of having been there, and done that, before.

I tried everything I knew to fool my psyche into a renewed phase of discovery. All the while though, there was this knowing that surrounded my thoughts. It contained a reality that was totally hidden within the fantasy of the trip out. It was more honest I reminded myself, and once I made peace with it, the return trip would become even more intriguing than the ride up until now. When you knew you were down to just a few days and counting, each day took on a special reverence that the trip out always seemed to lack.

In truth, the route you planned for your return had more significance than the one before. Where before it was direct and one-dimensional, the return had to cover two destinations — the trip out only had to cover one. The route back also had to match the geography with the timing of what you asked for inside of yourself. The trip out only had to inspire and amuse.

The trip south on Rt.#35 along the east side of Flathead Lake was short but couldn’t be measured by its distance. It was an exquisitely gorgeous stretch of road that took less than an hour to travel but would take more than a lifetime to remember. The ripples that blew eastward across the lake in my direction created the very smallest of whitecaps, as the two cranes that sat in the middle of the lake took off for a destination unknown. I had never seen Flathead Lake from this side before and had always chosen Rt.#93 on the western side for all previous trips South. That trip took you through Elmo and was a ride I thought to be unmatched until I entered Rt.#35 this morning. This truly was the more beautiful ride, and I was thankful for its visual newness. It triggered inside of me my oldest feelings of being so connected, while at the same time, being so alone.

As I connected again with my old friend Rt.# 93, the National Bison Range sat off to my west. The most noble of wild creatures, they were now forced to live in contained wander where before they had covered, by the millions, both our country and our imagination. I thought again about their intrinsic connection to Native America and the perfection that existed within that union.

The path of the Great Bison was also the Indian’s path. The direction they chose was one and the same. It had purpose and reason — as well as the majesty of its promise. It was often unspoken except in the songs before the night of the hunt and in the stories that were told around the fire on the night after. It needed no further explanation. The beauty within its harmony was something that just worked, and words were a poor substitute for a story that only their true connection would tell.

This ‘Road’ Still Contained That Eternal Connection In Now Paved Over Hoofprints Of Dignity Lost

The Bitteroot Range called out to me in my right ear, but there would be no answer today. Today, I would head South through the college town of Missoula toward the Beaverhead Mountains and then Rt.#28 through the Targhee National Forest. I arrived in Missoula in the brightest of sunshine. The temperature was over ninety-degrees as I parked the bike in front of the Missoula Club. A fixture in this college town for many years, the Missoula Club was both a college bar and city landmark. It needed no historic certification to underline its importance. Ask any resident or traveler, past or present, have you been to the Missoula Club? and you’ll viscerally feel their answer. It’s not beloved by everyone … just by those who have always understood that places like this have fallen into the back drawer of America’s history. Often, their memory being all that’s left.

The hamburger was just like I expected, and as I ate at the bar, I limited myself to just one mug of local brew. One beer is all that I allowed myself when riding. I knew that I still had 150 more miles to go, and I was approaching that time of day when the animals came out and crossed the road to drink. In most cases, the roads had been built to follow the rivers, streams, and later railroads, and they acted as an unnatural barrier between the safety of the forest and the water that the animals living there so desperately needed. Their crossing was a nightly ritual and was as certain as the rising of the sun and then the moon. I respected its importance, and I tried to schedule my rides around the danger it often presented — but not today.

After paying the bartender, I took a slow and circuitous ride around town. Missoula was one of those western towns that I could happily live in, and I secretly hoped that before my time ran out that I would. The University of Montana was entrenched solidly and peacefully against the mountain this afternoon as I extended my greeting. It would be on my very short list of schools to teach at if I were ever lucky enough to make choices like that again.

Dying In The Classroom, After Having Lived So Strongly, Had An Appeal Of Transference That I Find Hard To Explain

The historic Wilma Theatre, by the bridge, said adieu as I re-pointed the bike South toward the Idaho border. I thought about the great traveling shows, like Hope and Crosby, that had played here before the Second World War. Embedded in the burgundy fabric of its giant curtain were stories that today few other places could tell. It sat proudly along the banks of the Clark Fork River, its past a time capsule that only the river could tell. Historic theatres have always been a favorite of mine, and like the Missoula Club, the Wilma was another example of past glory that was being replaced by banks, nail salons, and fast-food restaurants almost wherever you looked.

Thankfully, Not In Missoula

Both my spirit and stomach were now full, as I passed through the towns of Hamilton and Darby on my way to Sula at the state line. I was forced to stop at the train crossing in Sulajust past the old and closed Sula High School on the North edge of town. The train was still half a mile away to my East, as I put the kickstand down on the bike and got off for a closer look. The bones of the old school contained stories that had never been told. Over the clanging of the oncoming train, I thought I heard the laughter of teenagers as they rushed through the locked and now darkened halls. Shadowy figures passed by the window over the front door on the second floor, and in the glare of the mid-afternoon sun it appeared that they were waving at me. Was I again the victim of too much anticipation and fresh air or was I just dreaming to myself in broad daylight again?

As I Dreamed In Broad Daylight, I Spat Into The Wind Of Another Time

I waited for twenty-minutes, counting the cars of the mighty Santa Fe Line, as it headed West into the Pacific time zone and the lands where the great Chief Joseph and Nez Perce roamed. The brakeman waved as his car slowly crossed in front of my stopped motorcycle — each of us envying the other for something neither of us truly understood.

The train now gone … a bell signaled it was safe to cross the tracks. I looked to my right one more time and saw the caboose only two hundred yards down the line. Wondering if it was occupied, and if they were looking back at me, I waved one more time. I then flipped my visor down and headed on my way happy for what the train had brought me but sad in what its short presence had taken away.

As I entered the Salmon & Challis National Forest, I was already thinking about Italian food and the great little restaurant within walking distance of my motel. I always spent my nights in Salmon at the Stagecoach Inn. It was on the left side of Rt. #93, just before the bridge, where you made a hard left turn before you entered town. The motel’s main attraction was that it was built right against the Western bank of the Salmon River. I got a room in the back on the ground floor and could see the ducks and ducklings as they walked along the bank. It was only a short walk into town from the front of the motel and less than a half a block going in the other direction for great Italian food.

The motel parking lot was full, with motorcycles, as I arrived, because this was Sturgis Week in South Dakota. As I watched the many groups of clustered riders congregate outside as they cleaned their bikes, I was reminded again of why I rode. I rode to be alone with myself and with the West that had dominated my thoughts and dreams for so many years. I wondered what they saw in their group pilgrimage toward acceptance? I wondered if they ever experienced the feeling of leaving in the morning and truly not knowing where they would end up that night. The Sturgis Rally would attract more than a million riders many of whom hauled their motorcycles thousands of miles behind pickups or in trailers. Most would never experience, because of sheer masquerade and fantasy, what they had originally set out on two-wheels to find.

I Feel Bad For Them As They Wave At Me Through Their Shared Reluctance

They seemed to feel, but not understand, what this one rider alone, and in no hurry to clean his ***** motorcycle, represented. I had always liked the way a touring bike looked when covered with road-dirt. It wore the recognition of its miles like a badge of honor. As it sat faithfully alone in some distant motel parking lot, night after night, it waited in proud silence for its rider to return. I cleaned only the windshield, lights, and turn signals, as I bedded the Goldwing down before I started out for dinner. As I left, I promised her that tomorrow would be even better than today. It was something that I always said to her at night. As she sat there in her glorified patina and watched me walk away, she already knew what tomorrow would bring.

The Veal Marsala was excellent at the tiny restaurant by the motel. It was still not quite seven o’clock, and I decided to take a slow walk through the town. It was summer and the river was quiet, its power deceptive in its passing. I watched three kayakers pass below me as I crossed the bridge and headed East into Salmon. Most everything was closed for the evening except for the few bars and restaurants that lit up the main street of this old river town. It took less than fifteen minutes to complete my visitation, and I found myself re-crossing the bridge and headed back to the motel.

There were now even more motorcycles in the parking lot than before, and I told myself that it had been a stroke of good fortune that I had arrived early. If I had been shut out for a room in Salmon, the chances of getting one in Challis, sixty miles further south, would have been much worse. As small as Salmon was, Challis was much smaller, and in all the years of trying, I had never had much luck there in securing a room.

I knew I would sleep soundly that night, as I listened to the gentle sounds of a now peaceful river running past my open sliding doors. Less than twenty-yards away, I was not at all misled by its tranquility. It cut through the darkness of a Western Idaho Sunday night like Teddy Roosevelt patrolled the great Halls of Congress.

Running Softly, But Carrying Within It A Sleeping Defiance

I had seen its fury in late Spring, as it carried the great waters from on high to the oceans below. I have rafted its white currents in late May and watched a doctor from Kalispell lose his life in its turbulence. In remembrance, I said a short prayer to his departed spirit before drifting off to sleep.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2016
when i see postmen delivering letters,
                                   i think they feel ashamed
of having a poet among them rise
to such global prominence,
i could end right now and have reached
an Urban II pulpit, just as he
was getting started...
  i used to admire Mr. Know-how for a time
out of sympathy... but then that slowly died,
only because i found people who
had some respect for learning to tie
their shoelaces, and spell words...
      it turned out to be the most abhorring
form of rebellion,
       i could have written all possible
synonyms of red in acronym, just to
make the use of the thesaurus made for
better use... or said ultra-acronym
variations or red, like: crying-mason...
and you would have hopefully said crimson...
  but let me be clear... he got my attention
in Glasgow... but after a while...
    even if i had a cradle of appeal
i might come off as lousy...
               but still, when i read him write
like this needed to be a dyslexic statement,
i thought he might write something illuminating
in hieroglyphics...
           i wish i had a respect for not spelling
words correctly... grammar **** or not...
                    there's no point playing with genes
if you're not creating a plateau on
the internal organs of fathomability...
  genese don't necessarily translate into memes...
     people with a perfect good set of genes
will only still be football players...
        just gagging for a concussion to show-off
their Achilles bravery... i have heroic
   drinking battles, no one bothers to celebrate
new year's day with me... i found out
the hard way: even the brothels aren't open
on new year's day these day, as Auden might
have predicted, all the lonely hearts go to...
oh right... perhaps it was the male-on-male
orientated brothels that worked throughout the year...
  after a while it's not that you despise the body
for all its necessarily purposes,
      but after a while, the body does so little
that the niqab does so much more,
    after a while the head wearing a kippah
does so little aisatsu, that you start to ridicule
the practice as an excuse to headbang at a rock
concert in a maggot pit...
after a while the hair does so little that the hijab does
so much more...
                  can you imagine a Mongol inventing
a hijab? horse-skin ****** wrapped around your
head... thank god for the silk road and the silkworm
produce from china, or wool from the shepherding
states...
             otherwise? a ******* tragedy...
    it's also true in reverse... buddha curled his
******* using the thumb... but he bluffed
the sign-language and necessarily pokered that one
into sign-language saying: down the middle!
           we had sundials and clepsydras for a reason,
as we also had libras, for a reason.
            should i fear a man with only one book?
or should i fear a beast with only one "word"?
  well, these days the former is true,
    but when lions said more than men in terms
of authority... could could complain it wasn't so?
  let's just imagine, that whatever we write today
will not reach a heritage status of the paintings
in the Lascaux caves.. well-brokered that statement...
since an african mask carved into an Baobab
by a shaman will fetch much more worth
at a tribal convention, than a african mask
enshrined into confusing a baobab with an Acacia
fetch at a gordon gekko's winning prize
for the most caviar rather than sushi being ate.
the point is... i was just thinking of writing a short
introduction to an actual poem i intended...
                   you never expect such things to happen,
esp. given you just escaped building the pyramids
safely rooted in masonry, and having to
     wield some Atlantean imagination
for the hanging gardens of Babylon...
to be later told: oh don't worry, we have people
to build as a colliseum, you stick you
to intellectualism of the four letters...
   and then jesus comes along and about a billion
people are rounded-up talking about salvation
by reading only one book, saved by complicating
only reading this one book, by stating
how many times certain words are used in them,
to ensure everyone after Moses can plagiarise
ancient Egyptian into contemporary Hebrew
(only when Charles II can speak Bulgarian or
Romanian)...            horrid numerology...
oh! oh! there are 20 references to the word pray
in the bible! it must mean something!
   how about? bla blah bla blah....
well... d'uh! blay and blaw: Otis Redding (doughnut /
       ice-cream man)
                               and        Sam Cooke
(don't know much about hissing tories)
    so true too, turns out Abel (blay) was also known
as clay.... even though Cain was the vegetarian...
   so that makes Cain (blaw) the god-wind when
Cain slaughtered Abel and the earth unearth
      a curse that made Cain into a nomad and less and less
into a vegetarian... ah, the Scoots buckled and backed me
up on whether blaw came with the lyrics
      son of a preacherman, and whether my
    rubric arithmetics of sentences could ever chirps
up that smokey blonde Dusty.
   hey man... sit up for 48 hours, write about
writing on napkins, and then have a whiskey,
and watch 2 gloomy days turn into clear-skies
  and a visible sun, setting.
Liz Feb 2014
Who was my mother before
she met my father and learned to scream?

Did she wear her hair long and loose,
the thick sheets of burnt oak wheat curled
habitually between her young piano fingers?
Did she stop singing Sam Cooke when people
came in the room? Did cigarets find their home
between her smiles, were curses running  
like bitter saliva through her teeth?

Most importantly: Did she come home one day
--to Pa folded in his armchair, hands tucked tight
against his sides, whiskey to his right, Ma fixing  
dinner with an eye on her dead sons's picture,
Franny working the late shift down at the tracks,--
and know that every night would be shorter than the next
until she was the ghost walking the bright foreign halls
of married life.
VaR
the panel of experts
spoke in learned lexicons

eager to evenly distribute
Gaussian gesticulations

I once struggled to
understand

I would crane my neck
strain my brain

to discern meaning
from these learned men

what was I seeking
to understand

from these crazy
white people?

The main point is
uncertainty

impossibility
of correct
correlation to
improbability

the rising risk
of being sure

VaR is trapped
by history

backward looking
exploring efficient frontiers

"misuse of VaR
is the misuse
of it"

huh
???
***!!!

its my
mistaken
belief
that it is
a useful
indicator
placing

its value
at risk

such tautological inanity
comforts and soothes


Song Selection
Sam Cooke
What a Wonderful World

NYC
10/10/10
jbm
Ma Cherie Sep 2016
Like the changing seasons
    when you leave I fall
into the beautiful
Melancholy
of yesterday's rain
  as Red Cap
   by Louie Armstrong plays
in a dark mellow, yellow
smooth...or
rough sounding,
  yet lovely fanfareish finish
  sounds of a Witchita
lineman still
on the line
hanging on
lingering
 heavy on my mind
  reminded of
    smells down sweetened
         cigar smelling tracks
          tastes of honey & Whiskey
           forget a word said wrong
            a note not hit or played
             disregard word unsaid
            forgive a thoughtless word
            my imperfect mind
          I overheard myself
         or you saying
        as we're laying,
       playing
        in the sun
       Jazz....pizzazz
       Oh, ah...yeah,
        working
         on the chain...
          ohhh ahhhh....
         ewwwww ...waaaa...
      help me sing it
   bring it
   waaa..oooOo
  Oh yeah,
   one more time
  everybody
let me here you
better go now
you can
show me
how
  hey
    Yeah....
    Sam Cooke
      singing
        Gospel
        sayin'
       thank you
        for
          the
         beautiful
           and the
              bitter
                sweetness
                 of the
                 time we
                  shared
                  is leaving.
                




      Cherie Nolan © 2016
Random, this is supposed to be a big thank you to everyone at HP I don't know where my notes went!!! No idea where this came from truly inspired thank you to everyone hope you're having a beautiful day with love from the hills of my Vermont!
A L Davies Apr 2013
FEB 8 2013 -- i swear there is a good 6 feet
                        fresh powder outside.

mountain of blankets in my bed & i don't know why i even got out of them. one more
bad decision.
half-*** coffee and club songs to try and get into some kind of (productive) zone but
feel like any semblance of true rhythm is practically impossible,
given current situation (i.e. general vida) , won't really get into it.

feeling also great need to desist with all this
introspective poetry
and move into non-diaristic phase. successful phase. difficult when so preoccupied
with issues (doubts, too, i suppose. though these could easily be done away with, if i could get
a steady pattern going once more. regular output.
creativity buried by oppressive, continuous snowfalls.     //     excuses.

                                                       ­                                          think often on verses written
                                                         ­                                        in Spain.

-- verses written on THE BALCONY or THE OPEN WINDOW COUCH,
(surrounded by a beauty complex in its simplicity. by beer and cigarettes and
people who truly know what it is to be unsure in almost all things,
yet are satisfied and grateful.)
-- verses now sitting on a shelf unread by anyone.
my "best work", to-date.

i wonder sometimes if i am losing my party face ..
simultaneously want to hang out with Crystal Castles or Justice but
drink bourbonne (hah) or OE and listen to Ray Price.
putting on something like the Steve Miller Band or Sam Cooke often helps. lifts.
just need to stop moping round like a sad old dog. in all honesty i have probably been
mildly depressed on & off for about two years. months in Spain excepted.
having said that i can't really think of anything else worth saying at the moment.

anyway, i wrote something today, i guess.
couple month old, occasionally depressive poetry, period of deep winter blues. revisited and exorcised now with the coming of spring and better writing; burden feels lifted.
jeffrey conyers Jun 2013
We all have our taste.
We all are judgments.
And in music there's no different.
Except, people personal opinions.

Benny Goodman.
Duke Ellington.
Glenn Miller.
Doing their time, they were the music of soul to many.
When people probably dance a little different.

Frank Sinatra.
Vic Damone.
Nat King Cole.

Doing their era music had changed.
More was borrowed from the previous decade.

Elvis.
Little Richard.
Buddy Holly.
Fats Domino.
Gene Vincent.
Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke.
And yes, Pat Boone too.
The music of the soul were beaingt to a different tone.

Then came the sixties.
And a various style came before us.

The Rascals.
The Beatles.
Donovan.
The Beach Boys.
The Temptations and the Supremes and the Miracles.
Was totally changed from Neal Sedaka early days.

James Taylor, Carole King, Elton John and the Eagles.
Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendegrass and the O'jays.
Was the masters of the seventies decades

The the eighties came.
And again the music changed.
Rick James, Prince and Madonna too.

Don't we see all the above artists in the music of today.
Especially, in rap.
Where they take an old song and tries to create a new tune.
And questions, why they getting sued?
Liz Feb 2013
Before I met him and learned to scream,
my hair hung thick, sheets of burnt oak wheat.
Rebel strands clung to my arms, trailing
my sides. Somewhere, I still hum Sam Cooke
(a change is gonna come, oh yes it will) and
Ma's back is turned in the kitchen, making pie.
apple slices in the blue bowl,
thousands of unknown thoughts
shifting under her small hands.
Pa folds into his armchair neatly,
hands tucked tight against his sides, quietly rubbing
holes in the soft wool, watching Streets of San Francisco.

The garbage can rattles, the street smells of pine.
I back out of the drive, on my way to the last first date
I will ever go on. I pop an orange tic-tac,
just in case. I don’t want him to taste
the sour ghost of an apple still sitting
on my tongue.
jeffrey conyers Dec 2012
Tell me, what style of a song you would love to hear?
And I splendidly sing it sweetly to you.
Just look you in the eyes.
And hold your hand gentlely.
Soon, you would think I was Smokey.
Even maybe Al Green.

The mood will be candid.
Just the way I've planned it.
And soon you would think I'm Rod Stewart.
Or maybe even Sam Cooke singing Sentimental Reasons.
So, can I sing you a love song?

With the mood of Teddy Pendergrass.
Or like Ron Banks , of the Dramatics with his sweet voice.
If push comes to shove.
I go the way of Dean Martin, if it keeps me in your arms.
So, can I sing to you a love song?

I could be William Hart.
I could be Eddie Levert.
I could be James Taylor.
I could be Curtis Mayfield.
And all you got to do, is close your eyes and imagine.
Then, I might do John Lennon, as a Beatle.
jeffrey conyers Jan 2013
My world of music centers around you.
It might in the message of Sam Cooke singing You Send Me.
Or, in Jackie Wilson's singing Lonely Teardrop.

I just wants you know I'm thinking of you.

It could be when I'm alone listening to the disc.
With each spin of a tune you not aware that you are been thinking of.

It might be, the Delfonics singing For The LoveThat I Give To You.
Or, the Dramatics warming up on Fell For You.
I just know with all the tunes I'm so much in love with you.

You.
The person I given my heart too.
You.
The person I tell my problems too.
You.
The person that motivates me.

I get lost upon any classic Temptations' tune.
Or , the Escorts singing Look Over Your Shoulders.
And the line "There I'll Be".

In heart.
In your soul.
You know you can count on me.
You're my heart.
You're my dream.

And the little known Miracles tune called Just Losin' You.
With every lyrical line sung with truth.

You're apart of me.
You're the substance this man need.
Without you I would be completely lonely.

The Ojays' sung it well when they sung Just To Keep You Satify.
Which leads the hearts of many guys.
I feel fat when I am with you
Not some pasty morbidity!
No, I'm talking like Rubens
Or that bloke Botero
with a touch of Beryl Cooke
Harty, plump, ripe and ruddy
fertile and abundant
voluptuous, juicy even
Without you I am like skimmed milk
Without you I am thin
****** chic thats out of fashion
On an emotional diet
X-ray thin, bloke-lite
Catabolism of my heart and soul
Having fed so well, to now starve
Cravings in the night...
should that be phat!  Oh the relative contentment of a nice codependant relationship!
SC May 2015
My father, his troop
left in the jungle - WWII
to build the Burma Trail.
I have vivid memories
of him waking from a dead sleep
startled, in a cold sweat
memories of the 5 years
in that jungle
tormenting his dreams
years later.
My eldest,
18 months, Camp Cooke, Iraq.
Riding shot-gun on convoys....
My hair turned white.
His response -
      "I was safer in Baghdad,
           than in Compton...."
Second son
       -5 years in the Navy.
All sacrificed for the safety
     of others.
None lived a life
free of discrimination
    ... hatred
     ....unfair and unjust
          ... identified as hyphenated....
laws designed to imprison...
Never accepted as
human or even
just plain
American.
Jamison Bell Jan 2023
I got grass all over my lil white rug. So I rolled it up like you would a body. Then I set it on fire and took a deep breath.
I lifted the eyelids of my house to see if the world had changed. I saw the coyote that killed my friend and not much else.
Another Saturday Night.
Two flames aloft in the darkness dance to a song I used to love and I need more ice if I'm to ever see through this amber haze.
I've been cold for so long you'd think I'd be laughing by now.
It's a solidifying existence here.
I made us each a plate. One has cyanide, the other morphine. It's a win win.
Deanna Dellia Oct 2019
It must be a crush
yet I feel crushed by you
by this tidal wave of infatuation
crippled by the thought of your lips
You crush me
when you don’t look my way
metaphysically I suppose
I barely know you
I’ve mostly invented you
in my head
like a character in a fable
creating expectations
that you could never live up to
because everything is better
inside my mind

I stay up at night
wondering if you’re as lonely as me
You must be
We’re alone in our acumen
No one gets me like you
the way I see art
the way you drink to escape the hell in your head
I wonder what you’re trying to forget
With every sip
every intellectual prose
Our minds slow dance
to Sam Cooke in the moonlight

The truth is
you could be anyone
I just need someone
to think about
to obsess over
to distract me from myself
so that I don’t realize who I am
and fall back into the abyss

In my head you like
néo-noirs
Dorothy Parker
and ***** martinis
like me
We talk and talk
about decades we never lived through
romanticizing the music and fashion
neglecting the oppression
You help people all day
and slay dragons at night

Something about that cocky smirk
reminds me of him
It makes me nostalgic
of all the words left unsaid
that I can whisper to you instead

You lull me to sleep every night
with mellifluous nothings
and I sink into a slumber
and dream of your ocean blue eyes
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

Then I wake up
and you’re not there
you never were
you’re not real
just my own imagination
playing cruel tricks on me

We would never work
I’m too grounded in my hopes for the future
to fly to the moon with you
Your glasses are too tinted with rose
to see me in the light
And I’m too cold of a person
to start a fire with you

Your face changes
from time to time
but you’re always here
radiating in perfection and fabrication
I wonder what you will look like
next time
I don’t know who you will be
but I know that you will
crush me
all over again
I think I made you up inside my head

- A Mad Girl’s Love Song
preservationman Aug 2017
I had famous legacies from education and experience which some these achievers can be found in history books
But let’s take a closer look
For starters, it was my time attending CUNY MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE, my library Supervisor was Leola Maddox, Wife of Alton Maddox, the famous Lawyer in the Tawana Brawley Case in 1987
Also at CUNY MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE, I had the honor and pleasure to have Professor Dr. Betty Shabazz, Widow of Malcolm X and she taught a Health and Wellness class
But I had Dr. Shabazz in the fall term that went fast
Now at the Greyhound Corporation, I had 3 Mentors, but one that was significant and his name was Joe Black, Vice President, but who also was the pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers and who played with Jackie Robinson
I still have the books that Mr. Black gave me in Achieving Worth Receiving
Now back to CUNY MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE, June 8, 2017 of the 46th COMMENCEMENT, I had the opportunity to see Medgar Evers Widow, Dr. Myrlie Evers, Daughter and Grandson. I witnessed former Secretary Of State, Hillary Clinton being the keynote speaker
Ken Webb, Formerly of KISS-FM Radio Host lectured at CUNY MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE as a Professor along with my Professor Dr. Mary Umolu in Radio Station Operations Production Programming
We move from the College to the Old New York Coliseum that was in Columbus Circle in New York City, and it was the New York Auto Show and this is where I met Jesse Owens, won numerous gold medals in the 1936 Summer Olympics. We talked briefly one on one
At Rockefeller Center, I bumped into Mr. David Rockefeller and we talked for 10 minutes one on one
I also met Ted Turner at CNN CENTER, Atlanta, and he gave us a talk in my tour group
I also shook hands with Cardinal Terrence Cooke on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral as they were celebrating the Church’s Centennial
Met Movie Star David Hasselhoff of the Knight-Rider TV Series Fame as we talked directly at Universal Studios, Hollywood, California and also had conversation with KIT, the knight-Rider Car
Miracle on 34th Street I actually lived during the R.H. Macy & Co., Inc. and Gimbels era, but also extends into the TITANIC
I spoke to Arnold Schwarzzenger during his Bodybuilding Competing Days and Superstar Billy Graham of Wrestling
Dr. Hazel Duke of the NAACP New York Chapter preached at my Church
Eubie Blake, Famous Jazz Pianist/Composer is my Great Uncle and who is also in the Smithsonian ***** Museum in Washington, DC
There are a host more, but I leave it right there
Each star personality with qualities beyond compare
Reflection fitting any occasion
History being part of me
I shared because I wanted all to see.
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2019
My heart stays in Wyoming,
as Montana calls my name

My spurs and bits ‘a jingling’
my soul goes north again

Cody up through Beartooth Pass,
Cooke City just below

The Great Divide off to my left,
the glaciers ringed with snow

I stop to mourn the western tribes,
as dark clouds form above

The war call of Tasunka-Witko,
crying out with love

My spirit loose to roam the land,
the great Oglala’s words I hear

Two kindred souls in one last dance
—as Wakan Tanka draws us near

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2017
My heart stays in Wyoming,
  as Montana calls my name

My spurs and bits ‘a jingling’
  my soul goes north again

Cody up through Beartooth Pass,
  Cooke City just below

The Great Divide off to my left,
  the glaciers ringed with snow

I stop to mourn the western tribes,
  as dark clouds form above

The war cry of Tasunka-Witko,
  crying out with love

My spirit loose to roam the land,
  the great Oglala’s words I hear

Two kindred souls in one last dance,
—as Wakan Tanka draws us near

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

— The End —