Henderson Blue with a voice to sing
It was his pitch in being the thing
He is not well known
But has talent and it shall be shown
But there is more to Henderson Blue
He knows how to act
Being able to project Henderson Blue doesn’t lack
It’s his words that transcend into an enterprise
But it is his dramatics that surprise
Henderson Blue makes the audience feel that they are wise
When Henderson Blue hits a note
You automatically know that he is no joke
Henderson sings because he wants to inspire
He states, “He wants individuals to have a desire”
Henderson’s parents were his role model
He stands on dignity and pride
A gift to sing
The elegance and harmony being a bling
Henderson sings in the glory of the optive
Continue to sing with the performance to give
Henderson Blue, you are you own marquee
It won’t be long for the world to see
Into our hearts as we.

The first settlers to the area called the Lumber River Drowning Creek. The river got its name for its dark, swift-moving waters. In 1809, the North Carolina state legislature changed the name of Drowning Creek to the Lumber River. The headwaters are still referred to as Drowning Creek.

Three p.m. on a Sunday.
Anxiously hungry, I stay dry, out of the pool’s cold water,
taking the light, dripping into my pages.
A city with a white face blank as a bust
peers over my shoulder.
Wildflowers on the roads. Planes circle from west,
come down steeply and out of sight.
A pinkness rises in my breast and arms:
wet as the drowned, my eyes sting with sweat.
Over the useless chimneys a bank of cloud piles up.
There is something terrible in the sky, but it keeps breaking.
Another is dead. Fentanyl. Sister of a friend, rarely seen.
A hand reaches everywhere to pass over eyes and mouths.
A glowing wound opens in heaven.
A mirror out of doors draws a gyre of oak seeds no one watches,
in the clear pool now sunless and black.

Bitter water freezes the muscles and I am far from shore.
I paddle in the shallows, near the wooden jail.
The water reflects a taut rope,
feet hanging in the breeze singing mercy
at the site of the last public hanging in the state.
A part-white fugitive with an extorted confession,
loved by the poor, dumb enough to get himself captured,
lonely on this side of authority: a world he has never lived in
foisting itself on the world he has -
only now, to steal his drunken life, then gone again.

1871 - Henderson Oxendine, one of the notorious gang of outlaws who for some time have infested Robeson County, N. C., committing ****** and robbery, and otherwise setting defiance to the laws, was hung at Lumberton, on Friday last in the presence of a large assemblage. His execution took place a very few days after his conviction, and his death occurred almost without a struggle.

Today, the town square collapses as if scorched
by the whiskey he drank that morning to still himself,
folds itself up like Amazing Grace is finished.
A plinth is laid
in the shadow of his feet, sticky with pine,
here where the water sickens with roots.
Where the canoe overturned. Where the broken oar floated and fell.
Where the snake lives, and teethes on bark,
waiting for another uncle.

Where the tobacco waves near drying barns rusted like horseshoes
and cotton studs the ground like the cropped hair of the buried.
Where schoolchildren take the afternoon
to trim the kudzu growing between the bodies of slaves.
Where appetite is met with flood and fat
and a clinic for the heart.
Where barges took chips of tar to port,
for money that no one ever saw.

Tar sticks the heel but isn’t courage.
Tar seals the hulls -
binds the planks -
builds the road.
Tar, fiery on the tongue, heavy as bad blood in the family -
dead to glue the dead together to secure the living.
Tar on the roofs, pouring heat.
Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon,
obtained from a wide variety of organic materials
through destructive distillation.
Tar in the lungs will one day go as hard as a five-cent candy.

Liberty Food Mart
Cheapest Prices on Cigarettes
Parliament $22.50/carton
Marlboro $27.50/carton

The white-bibbed slaughterhouse Hmong hunch down the steps
of an old school bus with no air conditioner,
rush into the cool of the supermarket.
They pick clean the vegetables, flee with woven bags bulging.
What were they promised?
Air conditioning.
And what did they receive?
Chickenshit on the wind; a dead river they can't understand
with a name it gained from killing.

Truth:
A man was flung onto a fencepost and died in a front yard down the street.
A girl with a grudge in her eyes slipped a razorblade from her teeth and ended recess.
I once saw an Indian murdered for stealing a twelve-foot ladder.
The red line indicating heart disease grows higher and higher.
The red line indicating cardiovascular mortality grows higher and higher.
The red line indicating motor vehicle deaths grows higher and higher.
I burn with the desire to leave.

The stories make us full baskets of dark. No death troubles me.
Not the girl's blood, inert, tickled by opiates,
not the masked arson of the law;
not the smell of drywall as it rots,
or the door of the safe falling from its hinges,
or the chassis of cars, airborne over the rise by the planetarium,
three classmates plunging wide-eyed in the river’s icy arc –
absent from prom, still struggling to free themselves from their seatbelts -
the gunsmoke at the home invasion,
the tenement bisected by flood,
the cattle lowing, gelded
by agriculture students on a field trip.

The air contains skin and mud.
The galvanized barns, long empty, cough up
their dust of rotten feed, dry tobacco.
Men kneel in the tilled rows,
to pick up nails off the ground
still splashed with the blood of their makers.

You Never Sausage a Place
(You’re Always a ****** at Pedro’s!)
South of the Border – Fireworks, Motel & Rides
Exit 9: 10mi.

Drunkards in Dickies will tell you the roads are straight enough
that the drive home will not bend away from them.
Look in the woods to see by lamplight
two girls filling each other's mouths with smoke.
Hear a friendly command:
boys loosening a tire, stuck in the gut of a dog.
Turn on the radio between towns of two thousand
and hear the tiny voice of an AM preacher,
sharing the airwaves of country dark
with some chords plucked from a guitar.
Taste this water thick with tannin
and tell me that trees do not feel pain.
I would be a mausoleum for these thousands
if I only had the room.

I sealed myself against the flood.
Bodies knock against my eaves:
a clutch of cats drowned in a crawlspace,
an old woman bereft with a vase of pennies,
her dead son in her living room costumed as the black Jesus,
the ***** oil of a Chinese restaurant
dancing on top of black water.
A flow gauge spins its tin wheel
endlessly above the bloated dead,
and I will pretend not to be sick at dinner.

Misery now, a struggle ahead for Robeson County after flooding from Hurricane Matthew
LUMBERTON
After years of things leaving Robeson County – manufacturing plants, jobs, payrolls, people – something finally came in, and what was it but more misery?

I said a prayer to the city:
make me a figure in a figure,
solvent, owed and owing.
Take my jute sacks of wristbones,
my sheaves and sheaves of fealty,
the smell of the forest from my feet.
Weigh me only by my purse.
A slim woman with a college degree,
a rented room without the black wings
of palmetto roaches fleeing the damp:
I saw the calm white towers and subscribed.
No ingrate, I saved a space for the lost.
They filled it once, twice, and kept on,
eating greasy flesh straight from the bone,
craning their heads to ask a prayer for them instead.

Downtown later in the easy dark,
three college boys in foam cowboy hats shout in poor Spanish.
They press into the night and the night presses into them.
They will go home when they have to.
Under the bridge lit in violet,
a folding chair is draped in a ***** blanket.
A grubby pair of tennis shoes lay beneath, no feet inside.
Iced tea seeps from a chewed cup.
I pass a bar lit like Christmas.
A mute and pretty face full of indoor light
makes a promise I see through a window.
I pay obscene rents to find out if it is true,
in this nation tied together with gallows-rope,
thumbing its codex of virtues.

Is it a gun or a knife?
What do the clues spell in advice?
A party full of guest
Invitations sent out as a request
When the guest arrived, and everyone sat down
Suddenly, darkness filled the room
Quick screams were the sound
The lights immediately came back on
But a ****** had just been committed
A knife was found in the back of Jay Henderson
Now Jay Henderson was of wealth
But there was a question concerning his health
Mr. Henderson had a bad heart
Yet he was murdered, and does anyone have any idea of the motive?
We seem have a sleuth
We have many speculations to go through
We need to determine the theory behind this
Now Mr. Henderson had fortune, but do to his health, he had made out a will
Still?
Why was Mr. Henderson’s business partner not included in the will?
Mr. Henderson knew his partner had stole from the business
He was killed, but it didn’t change the name of who was on the will
The business partner surely didn’t think
The will was already certified and signed in ink
The partner is going to jail with a life of no mail.

Henderson's had plaid failure citzens
Bust cow pie chart retina
Moldy bluejay penitentiary
May may may

she was hot, she was so hot
I didn't want anybody else to have her,
and if I didn't get home on time
she'd be gone, and I couldn't bear that-
I'd go mad. . .
it was foolish I know, childish,
but I was caught in it, I was caught.
I delivered all the mail
and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
in an old army truck,
the **** thing began to heat halfway through the run
and the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
and jumping in and out of the truck
filling mailsacks
the engine continuing to heat up
the temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
like Miriam.
leaped in and out
3 more pickups and into the station
I'd be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops. . .
the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again. . .
I had to be home by 8,8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
1/2 block from the station. . .
it wouldn't start, it couldn't start. . .
I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the
station. . .
I threw the keys down. . .signed out. . .
your ******* truck is stalled at the signal,
I shouted,
Pico and Western. . .
. . .I ran down the hall,put the key into the door,
opened it. . .her drinking glass was there, and a note:

  sun of a *****:
  I waited until 5 after ate
  you don't love me
  you sun of a *****
  somebody will love me
  I been wateing all day
  
  Miriam

I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
there were 5,000 bars in town
and I'd make 25 of them
looking for Miriam
her purple teddy bear held the note
as he leaned against a pillow
I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink
and got into the hot
water.

I come from a town with no identity.                          
It had one, once, but I think it was                              
uprooted with Shales forest                                            
to make way for outlet malls                                  
and housing complexes.  
Every street, every tree, and every person
was like a wrinkle on an otherwise
unblemished face, marking our
individuality with age and experience.
It’s amazing how fast cosmetic surgery
can destroy the past.
                                            
I hail from the smallest                                                  
large suburban town of our area.                                  
Growing up, we used to know everybody
that lived on our block, and no one was
in short supply of a handshake or hello.
Now, social courtesy ends at the foot
of your door, before you step into the world.
When I was a child, every person had a sense
of purpose, a contribution to the street.

Mrs. Henderson made the best
chocolate chip cookies around, and
all summer long her house was filled
with the smell of melting chocolate
over warm cookie dough, a scent
that would sneak out of her window
in the late afternoons, when you
could still see the sun setting in the sky,
and find its way over to mine. Now,
apartments block the view.

Nick Potts had a key to the private pool,
which was members only,
but every weekend he’d find
a new way to sneak us in.
John Probst owned the pool,
and would sit in the same yellow
and blue striped lawn chair by
the concession stand next to the
diving board, laughing at each
new scheme we conjured up to
help save a few bucks on a
humid summer’s day.

Kyle had a trampoline, that
despite the stupidity of all
nine-year-olds, never saw a
broken bone. Carl had his garden,
bursting with shades of colors
that could only be mirrored by
the burning dusk light.
Duncan had a tree fort,
the Richards, a tire swing.

I never knew how fast the changes
would come. It started small, a simple
lift here, some aging creme there,
but this was just preliminary measures
for botox and nose jobs. As a town,
we soon became an obsession of trends.
Individuality was outdated.
Every driveway had a minivan, every home,
a schitzu and a soccer ball.

A skin graph covered the sun spot
that was Mrs. Henderson.
A face lift cured the sagging skin
of Nick Potts. The pierce
of a needle and flowing
injection of toxins smoothed
the wrinkles that were
Kyle, Carl, and Duncan. In what
seemed like a few hours time, the
town that taught me integrity, respect,
and the value of a hard day’s work,
altered to the point of being unrecognizable.

Manufactured and fake, we’re nothing more
than a shinning porcelain doll straight off
the assembly line, distinctively similar
to all the others that follow. Every layer
of cosmetics cover another part
of our character, another aspect
of our history. We became lost
in the crowd, and in our own way,
faceless.

He'd just served up a dinger, 450 out...upper deck

His third home run that inning, and  he figured "what the heck"

He knew the hook was coming, first they had to make the call

Then the pitching coach would come out, before he had to give the ball

To the manager, all stoic, spouting rhetoric and then

He'd turn over the game ball, a kind of baseball zen

He'd come to learn this process,

He'd seen more and more this year

The time was getting closer

He'd have to hang 'em up this year

For five straight games he'd got the hook

Never getting to the third

And there was that team suspension

For flashing fans the bird

Frustration, more than anger made him vent and flash the sign

It was captured on the jumbotron, his finger.....8 foot 9

It made all of the sports reels, his finger in the air

But at 46, he thought, well....I really do not care

He was signed.. a bonus baby, out of Henderson N . V

He came up  out of high school in summer sixty three

His fastball, just untouchable...ninety miles per at least

And on opposing batters he would surely have a feast

He knew what he was throwing, was the best in many years

But at eighteen he was still surrounded by lots of big league  fears

In high school he set records, went to State, and led the team

He was the best left handed starter, Henderson had ever seen

He won each game he pitched in, hit for numbers, struck out tons

His team outscored opponents by at least three hundred runs

Scouts were out to watch him, every time he took the mound

And he knew this as he walked out, tossed the rosin on the ground

He chose to bypass college, heading to developmental ball

If he did what he was told, he be in Lakewood  by the fall

He got the call in August, saying "son, you're on your way"

"You'll be on the train this morning and tomorrow you might play"

So, he made his calls, told those he knew he was heading to N.J.

He was gonna set Lakewood  on fire, he was gonna have his day

He sat for weeks when he arrived, erratic was his stuff

"You've got to tame that curve ball kid, it's just not good enough"

His first start in September, he was nervous and concerned

What if I blow this chance and back to Texas, I'm returned

HE started off with two walks, hitting one then fanning three

He was feeling better, just what people came to see

After five innings they pulled him, with ten strike outs to his name

His team was up six nothing, he was gonna win this game

And sure enough the bullpen came on in and shut the door

And before the season ended he was winning three games more

That winter he went home again, and worked on his control

He knew what the coach wanted, he understood his role

Next spring down in  Clearwater he showed he had improved

So when the final cuts came down, up to double A he moved

It didn't take them long to find him burning up the mound

In fifteen starts, a hundred K's,  no one better could be found.

From here he went to Allentown, to AAA he'd go

Next move that he would make from here should put him in the show

He only threw 3 games down here, two big league starters down

He was called on up to the big time, and was starting....out of town

He only pitched an inning,  two thirds to be exact

He got lit up for 6 runs that night, hard to keep it all intact

He finshed out watching more games, than he pitched in but he knew

He'd be in the spring rotation wearing number forty two.

He met with mixed success at times never coming up real big

For as each year passed his fastball slowed and harder he would dig

His bonus money squandered, three wives gone, investmestments too

He bounced around the league a bit, hitting eight teams in succession

It was enough to do a weak man in, at least there's a concession

He was still up there, the show, on top, it didn't matter where he pitched

As long as he stayed healthy, he wasn't getting ditched

But one day he, on three days rest felt a twinge in his left arm

He pulled himself, and iced it, not doing any harm

But his pitching got erratic, speed was gone and no control

It was then he got the phone call...he was going to the hole

They moved him down to rehab some in AA across the state

He knew with no improvement that this would be his fate

Two years down here and then again, a new kid came along

Sorry, but you're going down...that was a lonely song

Two years and then he moved on back out West just to see

He knew he still had some heat...throwing nearly ninety three

But control...no way at that speed, slow it down...they'd hit him hard

Once he dropped it under eighty...all the batters...they went yard

But still he kicked around some, working nights, coaching some

Then he got the call from Joplin, got to see if he was done

He showed up fit, and did his best but still just couldn't toss

He'd get the speed but no control, the plate it wouldn't cross

The team was just a throw back, small market and little park

But inside he had desire, this place lit in him a spark

There never were too many fans, eight hundred at the most

But when he took the mound there, he could feel his younger ghost

On nights he wasn't pitching, he played first and coached third base

On other nights, he sat around and sold programs round the place

He knew that soon the time would come, he knew his bubble'd burst

He didn't throw as fast to  home as these kids did to first

But now, with the suspension, and him getting pulled five straight

He knew he'd overstayed his welcome, he'd been here far too late

"The ball...Jim, Jim, the ball....was all he heard coach say

He was already in the dugout and he wasn't gonna stay

He packed up and he left the park, left his rooming house as well

He had nowhere to go to, and maybe just as well

But the next year he was out there slinging just like Jim could do"

He was selling peanuts and some ******* jack at a ball parkin Purdue

The game is in his soul you see, it's part of who he is

Like Gherig, Ruth, Diamaggio, like Peewee and The Dizz

He owes his life to baseball. even though he stayed too late

"If he'd just controlled his curveball"...the kid...coulda been great.

— for the American Mustang



Strung up on one leg, bled dry while alive,
unloaded off trailers crammed full
of the crippled and blind —mares
giving birth on three legs, foals trampled
by stallions, and a wave of fear
hovering over tossing manes
like the sea after Moby **** surfaced
for the first time. Last year,

135,000 horses died —

rounded up in hundreds and sent
off to slaughter like feeder goldfish,
three stops from Canada
or Cabo, displaced from plains
once revered for their livelihood.

In 1969, Vonnegut
wrote, “And so it goes…”

In 2061, our children will ask about the wild
horses who used to live in their backyards
as they catch the last fireflies and bottle
them up in jars, flickering and dying
like tired bulbs giving up on electricity —

2015 sees Henderson, Nevada grasses paying tribute
to power-plant-lines and a suburb built
on Tralfamadore fiction: house-mounds
and picket fences caging domesticated dogs,
curb-lined streets and caution signs, billboard
warnings of humanity’s fixation with progression,
combined like coffee with an overabundance
of half-and-half and too much sugar — only 99 cents
at Dunkin down a little ways, and home
to the dreamers who forget the word freedom.

I know this foreign method
     made my throbbing veins its home
'cuz the familiar's not familiar
     and I'm not fine
          lest I'm messed up on
wine.
     And 9/10 of all the times
I've tried to crack a smile
since I lost you have
turned out as half-assed lies.

I wander streets, worn out,
while I wonder where you are
and what you're thinking about while
     you drive down Henderson...
          I'll try to dry out
          from time to time
        but fall back into bouts
       internal I'm interred in
       eternally--and I'll never win them.
       I'll. Never. Win them.

Not without...

          Sorry...

I meander through months while
     you walk through my mind

--and I'm glad if you're happy?--

     but you were quite angry
    with me that night I took
     and torched our collection
     of 5 years' shared memories
          QUITE ANGRY
             with me.
    And the things you said were mean
          but you meant them.

And you were right
About how wrong I was
how bad I am,
and how I taste
like lemon lies
on the tongue.

     You were right.
     And I'm drunk.

And sad and sorry and selfish
and stupid and absorbed by a
salted skyline of cold, purple steel
          every night.

It *****.

You teach kids for a living,
about the age of 9.
Me? I try to dry out
now and then, time to time,
but it's hard.

And you're far.

And I'd still come if I could,
     but it's hard
     following this heart
     when it's buried
     at the confluence
     of the Red and Assiniboine
          Rivers.

Beneath The Forks...

And that heart? Like the ground above it,
     it's covered
with ******, commercial architecture
and the clothing of bureaucracy,
     but ****,
      we had fun there.

Didn't we...?

***** what the **** was you thinking
You're the main ******* reason for my heavy drinking                                        
Not caring about what you've done to me
Only caring about mother ******* stephanie
With all your *******, and all your lies
I'm glad we decided to cut our ties
You built a marriage on some ******* and lies
Going behind my back ******* other guys
On top of all this **** you were ****** in bed
Might as well been ******* someone that was dead
Keep on trying to bring me down to your level
One day everyone will see your a mother ******* devil
You take what you can get and give nothing back
Say **** in front of my kids and talking smack
One day all this **** will come slap you in the face
Leaving nothing behind but ****** *** taste
You're a poor terribile excuse for a human being
Don't care about nothing but your next ******* fling
Do you see what you're doing to our kids you ****
With your smile on your face, we all know it's a front
Your ******* our kids with your evil way
That's a price they shouldn't ******* pay
You stupid little ***** why can't you see
If your trying to hurt someone it sure aint me
Oh that's right, my last verse said it
You're so **** stupid and so **** pathetic
You tried to be friends but i'll have to pass
Intead you can kiss my pearly white ***
**** the whole ******* world and ***** *******
I refuse to let a ***** treat me the way you do
Take all your ******* and all your drama
And force feed that **** to your mother ******* mama
I'll end this **** with my last ******* verse
You aint a woman your a mother ******* curse
                                               BY: RANDY HENDERSON

That what I’m writing with I’m afraid and fearful that a special one is going to be forgotten this
Looks like the piece is going far afield but it will fit I was in the fire department in the service we
Were out in the remote part of Hunter Liggett military reservation on the central coast of
California there wasn’t much likely hood of human carelessness being the cause of fire in this
Sector but Mother Nature and her angry lighting strikes were so we went out and we were
Control burning this was grass fuel mostly but a great deal of smoke and from that a fawn
Walked up out of this gulley she wasn’t unduly afraid just matter of course I walked down the
Gravel road and picked her up I held her to reassure her but I was the one touched by this little
Helpless creature I felt such peace it wasn’t just the facts about the fire would quickly burn out
But it was emotional I melted by every breath she took for a brief time before I released her I
Was enlarged I wasn’t just stomping around doing my duty my life was altered because of the
Most gentle nature my human nature was redirected I went back in millennia when we were all
One peaceful family before the animal took the path of tooth and claw and man from the club
To the gun in the peaceful shadow of a summer afternoon the one this piece is about came
Over To visit this was long before my service time but Janet came she can best be described as
A Young lamb she was identical in spirit as the fawn gentle sweet quiet trusting at first it
Was just another summer day but then she changed the atmosphere she started asking me
Questions about life I would barely get done answering one question then she would ask
Another Know this I never take it lightly when someone ask for my help I would have answered
With Tears if I known the future she was the rarest flower its where wonder lifts you out of the
Established course you stumble and tumble down among perfect surprises important designs
Rarely seen they have these tiny explosions perfumed scents tingling misty bubbles burst when
They Touch your face yes you have just been amazed by her purist soul so this special time ends
Life takes over with soothing rhythms to the most part the next time Janet was coming into her
Own sweet sixteen a job at the Dog&Sud;; root beer stand she was glowing this exquisite flower
Was on the threshold of life that we talked about two or three years before just beginning to
Blossom then the promise was forever canceled all words that we exchanged shriveled under
Leukemia’s murderous hand all the blissful hopes and dreams vanished when her eyes closed
For the last time in this realm because her family is gone I fear she will be forgotten that would
Be tragic and even cruel to lose sight of such a delightful soul Janet Henderson you will never be
Forgotten by me God bless your memory

as with any plaster work, or draping muscles and bones and
organs in skin - i knew i reached a zenith of some sort:
forever introspective, that chance momentum
that never reaches a museum of retrospective
finalised banalities -
and with that's happening in America,
i get a chance glimpse into that part of the world
so bogus, so *****-like, so haphazardly
put together - the chance to see the rats (artists)
jump ship and head to Tangiers, Paris, London
(for the pillars of the movement to come,
London especially, but might i suggest Edinburgh?
the capital of the offshoot that's to come
from Scandinavian novels?) -
i wouldn't suggest heading to Prague -
or Budapest - never to tourist hot-spots, obscurity is
what you need - Edinburgh out of season,
then the theatrical circus isn't there -
***** poetics: poncy monologues and Annabel
art-house flea markets... but that's the beauty,
flea markets in France, charity shops in England...
but i did exhaust this one musical avenue,
i dropped the ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ - it got boring after a while:
all that charged up mythological feeling -
the way we always wanted: myths to feel with,
to eat, rather than the sterile scientific facts...
i've learned enough to later ditch them,
even a Professor of Chemistry will have a postcard
of Edward Hopper's painting by his desk,
that window to view the world that doesn't
necessarily encompass sun moon and constellations...
how anyone would be foolish to scrub off
some inspiration from such things bemuses me,
the lowest of the low of poetic expressions is
sung to things that manage too much: the moon
and the sea tides, the sun and the seasons and
phototropism - it's a double edged sword...
only from one art to another do we get to see
our labourers of attention, else the same old deficit:
god... who in his glee took offence at anyone
having more awe-inspiring sense to please such
things... no alone can you master contemplating
both the beauty and the utilisation behind such
objects as a single man... however well...
it's impossible... you're sharing the bronze platform
with those that simply wrote of the shallow
beauty, and those that found these objects
were not simply aesthetic, but meaningful in
the machinery of things... it was never up to
us to find that electric genius of combining the aesthetics
with the machinery as one...
for in that sense god is a form as fraction
of 9/1, 8/1, 7/1, 6/1, 5/1, 4/1...
the fraction of wholeness... a complete set to start with...
man has already proved the limit as a fraction
with the base 3... 9/3, and that didn't really end well...
at best man is composed of a fraction base of 2...
by sharing the world through marriage to a woman,
or through a learned devotion, a crumb of what a woman
is, a philia (love) of his interests, a soloist voyage...
some just say: you will either take to being faithful
to philology and yourself as its devotee,
or you'll take up a wife... oddly enough chemists are
defilers of marriage having any purpose other than
to distract... but as i said: you can rarely write
decent things when trying to admire celestial spheres...
more ambition comes from the distraction of the zodiac
"prophets" and astrologers... a poem about the moon
is just a poem that is levelled with a poem
about a dustbin... but hey... Top Cat lives in the dustbin,
Neil Armstrong bopped along the lessened gravity
surface... but which is easier to acquire for a smile?
Benny... cue the violin theatrics of lamenting to a comic
end.
well... we have to juggle each other's impressions,
taking at hacking the raw meat will not give any of us
medium-rare barbecue steaks marinated...
taking the moon as something else is: nice...
and you know how nice things end up as... as tacky
suburban *******... if you're going to tackle the
thing with all the rawness... i'd first spend looking
looking at that thing of your attention in a graveyard...
just to get the feel to the idea: well... my fellow daisies
sniffed from the roots up would probably have
said something sulky similar.
but it's like that, you get to exhaust certain musical avenues...
i'm currently at a period where i have enough
stash of jazz records to rekindle my interest in it...
on today's menu? the real McCoy (McCoy Tyner,
Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Elvin Flynn -
Flynn makes his mark, even though not the star
of the album, Art Blakey has a match) -
then onto the tragedy of Sonny Clark with his
cool struttin' alongside Art Farmer, Jackie McLean,
Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones...
i must admit that after watching the film whiplash
my ear-buds staged a coup to move from a certain
type of music into this... and even though
i already said that the climate in America at the moment
is very a second attempt at a Beat movement...
it's very much different... i guess jazz makes all the sense
in a pure urban environment...
jazz and urbanity, the hipster parties where wine flows
like poetry and people get to do their wild marijuana
******... but Bukowski changed everything
by bringing a taste of the classical into the scene...
it feels just like that these days...
there's no jazz on the radio...
going back to watches and radios, mono-utility things
that are the glamours of the inoffensive cluttering of a room...
no digital screen... the radio position at the back
of my head, behind me, the little fly-eye Rubik cube
ahead of me...
that's the odd thing with coming with jazz these days...
it's like Bukowski in the shadows of the beat movement
back when it was the beaten track...
so i said that jazz and urbanity are perfect partners...
well... take jazz from an urban environment and put it
in a outer-suburban environment, in a place
about 30 minute walk from farming fields with bulls
and horses... foxes the thieves rummaging in people's
trash... and... as classical music took to
teaching us the language of celestial bodies,
Holst... in this kind of environment jazz does the same...
jazz becomes equal to classical music with celestial
bodies... i'm just wondering if there are enough
instruments to arrange the solar system...
Mercury the Trumpet...
         Venus the Double Bass
Earth the Piano
                       Mars the Drums
Jupiter the Tenor Sax                                   (comparatively,
                Saturn the Soprano Sax                using a Holst
                                                           ­        schematic, the reverse,
                                             yet citing Jupiter, not as a planet,
                                           well, the bellowing voice of paternal fury)
Uranus the Clarinet
                                           (takes sheer magic to play that thing)
so that just leaves us with an Neptune as either
   Alto Sax or Trombone...
but that's how jazz morphed since it last came across
poetry... someone stole it from its urban environment
of busy streets and ugly manners and quick quick snappy
and the millionth time i could compare it to a spontaneous
encounter with someone in a bar... jazz lost its cool there...
people said the same thing about jazz
as Kaiser Joseph II did of Mozart... "too many notes"...
translate this urbanity into an outer-suburban environment
and put it against that kind of backdrop?
well... personally, there are just enough notes in each piece...
you looked outside the window? you could hear
a **** from a mile away and no tree would even sway
in nodding approval even with a galeforce wind slapping
them... jazz lost its synchronisation with the urban environment
it emerged from... but in so doing, it managed to mature
like good wine on the outskirts of large cities,
where it literally became the only thing that could ably
make a Kandinsky moment from semi-detached houses.
NEWSFLASH... what is this concern about art being
subjective? i don't see where these arguments go...
i thought art was about revealing the intimate,
not revealing the objective shallows of a method...
of limited scope like any philosophical systematisation...
if Christopher Columbus ever did things
objectively he might have discovered Lisbon or the Canary Islands...
art can't be objective... trying to argue that art is
"only a subjective" expression... well, if it was to be
a "greater" expression objectively, an artist would
walk into an art gallery, take all the paintings from
the canvases, and turn to the public and say:
now let's see your subjectivity, otherwise go ponce
off the art critics to take something they said to your
date about how: the light contorts the features of expressions
blah blah blah blah blah... the point of art being
superior as a subjective vehicle is so that i can feel someone
else's feelings... as opposed to thinking someone else's thoughts...
art is the sensual, not the premeditated dogmatic funeral -
which all philosophers attend: they're objective to the
point that they're afraid of having a personal attachment
to their outputs - they will hardly ever want to invite
a criticism of their objectivity, because they're such emotional
paupers - they fear criticism of their subjectivity to such
a point, that you can simply look at their pronoun usage
strategy, they really do use these words like kings -
but when Mozart is criticised by the Kaiser... he thought
nothing of it... he actually thought, nothing of it,
perhaps his vanity was wounded, but his virtue wasn't...
which is why he remains with us...
for the fatal wound incurred is not that of virtue,
but that of vanity... and true virtue is unafraid of criticism,
there's this cognitive blockage that enriches the
heart and leaves the mind blank... the sort of blank
that accommodates the Pyramid of Vanity:
bishops, priests, doctors, kings, queens, portrait artists,
Versailles... such things are so ****** void of anything
but scare-mongers, sycophants, leeches and finally tourists...
for whatever you take from the realm of Hades,
there's a stamp-duty on each precious element from that
realm... each thing is stamped: worthless...
you couldn't extract penicillin from Hades...
changing gold into a ring is worthless if such symbolism
of a union of monogamy end with the ring being
nothing more than a thing disputed over the divorce settlement.

Space and the bright galaxy has always been my escape.
I’m not my own creator,
And the untamed monster
I make,
To be believable and harsh.
So kind hearted and fine art,
Renewable human cycle, my role model use to be Michael,
The way he moved,
Swift and light, is the exact same way I would move
In the bright space and galaxy;
Light and smooth
Marijuana and Corinthians;
My problems I soothe.
Last night I hugged and kissed the moon. It smoked my marijuana and
nodded
Its head with my groove.
You’ll think I’m delusional with a few loose screws,
But I feel perfectly normal,
For this on spare times is all I
Do.

      #Lord Knows


-Marci Henderson

I wear your winter coat
The one you love to wear
So I keep feeling close
To us beyond compare
The moment we can have
You catch me in your eyes
That beauty on my pillow
That holds me in the night

And I will find my strength to untape my mouth
When I used to be afraid of the words
But with you I've learned just to let it out
Now my heart is ready to burst
'Cause I, I feel like I'm ready for love
And I wanna be your everything and more
And I know every day you say it
But I just want you to be sure
That I'm yours

And if I've been feeling heavy
You take me from the dark
Your arms they keep me steady
So nothing could fall apart
And I will find my strength to untape my mouth
When I used to be afraid of the words
But with you I've learned just to let it out
Now my heart is ready to burst
'Cause I, I feel like I'm ready for love
And I wanna be your everything and more
And I know every day you say it
But I just want you to be sure
That I'm yours
That I'm yours

Songwriters: Ella Henderson / Josh Record

To someone you will always be
the best friend in the world
To someone you will always be
the brightest person they know
To someone you will always be
...The first person they want to call
To someone you will always be
the right person for the job
and to someone you will always be
the most beautiful girl in the room
©Rachel-erika Henderson 2010

to the grocer i run
to find the best sandwich buns
and the finest wine to see
on the budget that i heed

no time to matter on the childs nose
she'll wipe it her own
"we must run now it's time to leave
throw that purple dress on i just sleeved"

to the barbershop i take little john
so much like his father i admire
his cute little cheeks perked up in a smile
makes me fall in love all over again with his father

two babes on my hips as i stole the wiles
one ham, two loaves, a bag of potatoes
yogurt, milk and five tomatoes
and two candles for mom and dads own table

coming close to five o'clock
i put on the crock ***
put the stove on for this monday night dinner
the side soup on just a simmer

coming close to six
I give my husband a quick fix
of beer and wine for me as we sit
"What a day" he whispers, looking at me

"What a day.." i said, looking back at him.
"..henderson said Johnny had hair just like yours
when he used to cut it. and pat gave
the girls two pink bows in line when we were at the grocer

But the girls next door, as we were washing potatoes
said they have never seen a girl so happy
and I asked why? (you know I'm so gossipy)
They said, 'Why Sophie, your love shows right on your face'"

I could hardly look my husband in the eye
"you've got one hell of a place"

Do you remember
The water lilies
On Henderson's pond?

Were there lilies there,
I cannot recall?
Sure, you remember,

We came with the boys
To fish and gaze. Boys?
What boys were they?

My mind's just a haze.
Our boys, young Jacob
And John, remember

Them? John and Jacob?
We had two sons? Sure,
We did, way back then,

Years before. Where are
They now? Are they here
About? No, don't you

Remember? They died
In the War. You cried
For days and for years.

Poor dears; don't recall
Them, my mind's a haze.
You must remember,

How can you forget?
Who are you, then, dear?
Have we ever met?

Farewell my lovely,
Henderson had said,
Pushing his hat to
The back of his head,
Breaking a smile a

Mile wide, giving Jess
A touching lips kiss,
A small salute, thinking
Of war, the shedding
Of blood, a medal

Or two, all in one
Piece, if he got through,
Which he didn't, caught
His dying end in
42 and his

Drawled words lingered in
The air wherever
She went, on the porch
Sitting and looking
Out at the sky or

In bed gazing at
His photo on
The side, wishing he
Had lived long and loved,
Not fought fierce and died.

Today is your birthday,
And I should be happy,
But my grief from your lost
Is causing me despondency.
Our memories flash in my head constantly,
And honestly,
I still wish you was here so I can be
Daddy’s little
Girl
To.
Maybe that’ll take away my
Fears
Of guns and bullet wounds.
The blood that splatters and fumes,
And nothing that I can do to stop
My mind that assumes
The president will continue to let
This resume in the sake
Of living I wish I had you to groom
My life when needed.
I see little girls hugged in their daddies arms,
And all I can do is close my eyes
While my insides are screaming.
I wish this despair would go away.
Lord is this a wakeup call
For the sins I have to pay?
The grief that takes over my
Life,
And the non-existence of allay,
But you know everything happens for
A reason,
Even though sometimes in my heart
I feel treason of betrayal and
Cool season.
Daddy my time with you
Was very
S
H
O
R
T.
I’ve became anti-social,
And built my own private
Fort.
Lord I have no resorts, and I’m down to my last.
Lord what am I supposed to do when,
School, friends, family, and life
Kicking me in the a$$?
Daddy you’re rested up and gone,
I just pray you left me a spot
Next to you when I get
Home.
I pray when I start feeling like this
That you’ll never leave me
Alone.
Daddy I will try and make
My success seen for your sake,
And finish what you didn’t.
So upon your decease,
Daddy may you rest in peace.
~October 27,2001- November 16,1974~



Love, Your Daughter
Marci Henderson.

When she wasn't infectin' mayors wirh V.D. as Florence Henderson
she was ******* naked on the cut backs of horse sense lender men
whose oral contracts imparted a back-alley-*****-tense fender bend
along with milk-shook mamas behind puréeing a core blender trend
along with milk-shaken sisters behind puréeing a sore blender trend
underneath creamed-up sailors above puréeing a porch tender mend
while Carol Brady was no more ****-like than Florence Henderson
'cause it'd be a Brady day to be a **** just like Florence Henderson

The rich kids line up
to receive capitalist communion;

The poor kids line up
strangled by their holy binding—

Henderson, 2018

When I look into the mirror
I imagine the size I want to be
As I look closer, all I see is me,
Losing my weight,
Loving myself more
It’s always on my mind
As I
Daily I struggle with my weight,
work harder to lose my weight
Still I give it all I got
All I see is me,
Losing my weight
Loving myself more

Staying consistent, humble, and meek
It’s a daily task changing the way I think and eat
All I see is me,
Losing my weight,
Loving myself more.

The days go by, the craving aren’t as bad
The more I lose my weight,
I don’t feel as sad
All I see is me,
Loving myself more

I’m comfortable with my size
And exercising is starting to come easy now
It’s not just what you eat,
It’s how you eat
As I’m losing my weight
Loving myself more

Truly I feel better about myself
Losing weight is more than the reduction of size,
It’s the way you live
And learning to put your pride aside

Written by Rufus Calvin Henderson