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Cyril Blythe Nov 2012
Janie pushes the metal book cart back into its parking space in the Document Delivery Department of the St. Louis Public Library and hangs the last sticky note for October 30, 2012 on the wall by the head of the department’s closed door. She retightens her brown scarf under her chin, tucking the wispy hairs above her ears back into hiding. Having your hair begin to prematurely gray as a teenager has dramatic effects on a person. Her mother wore scarves around her wrists when Janie was growing up and when Janie begin to wear scarves to conceal her salt-and-pepper hair, her mother just smiled. The clock hanging on the wall above the children’s section reads 11:28pm.
Two more minutes.
She reorganized the pens and books on her desk and set the box reading NOTES onto the right corner or her desk with three blue pens and a stack of note cards. Her coworkers learned fast that Janie does not like to talk. She does not like eye contact. She loves the silence, and never ever to ask her about her hair. Her manager gave her the NOTES box after about a month of horrible miscommunication and everyday it fills with requests for books or tasks that Janie has to complete. She completes the tasks one by one, alone, in her back office in the Reference Department and hangs the completed sticky notes on the wall by her manager’s door. She works the night shift and locks the library up every night. When she’s alone she can talk out loud to herself and those are the only voices she cares to hear.
“Goodnight, books. Good night, rooms.” Janie shut the heavy wooden door to the library, placed the color-coded keys in the front right pocket of her jacket, and began her walk to the bus stop one corner away. She avoids the main road, taking her first right onto a side street that she knows would spit her out right beside the bus stop.
“Goodnight Taco Bell Sign. Goodnight Rite-Aide. Goodnight Westside Apartments. Goodnight Jack-o-Lantern smile.” She stopped in the middle of the alley and peered up at the Jack-o-Lantern grinning down at her from the third story window above. “Mother wouldn’t’ve liked your smirk, Jack. She would’ve slapped that **** right off your face.” Janie, satisfied the pumpkin was put in its rightful place, smiled as she trotted on.
“Mother carved smiles into her arms and that’s why Daddy left, it is, it is.” She kicked at a crushed Mountain Dew can as she remembered that night from years ago.

“Mommy?” Janie pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and saw the moving-boxes torn open and all their contents scattered across the floor. She tiptoed through piles of scarves and silverware and corkscrews until she reached the bathroom in her mom’s room.
“Come to us like rain, oh lord, come and stay and sting a while more, oh lord…” her mother’s voice was slipping off the tiled bathroom walls. Janie pushed open the door and saw the blood for the first time pouring from her mother’s wrist. Her mother was naked and perched on the bathroom sink, singing to a red razor blade.
“Mommy?”
“GET OUT!” Her mother jumped from the counter and perched on all fours on the floor. She began to growl and speak in a voice too deep to be coming from her own throat.
“Mommy! It’s Janie!” She began to cry as her mother, still naked and bleeding, twisted and writhed onto her back and began to crawl towards the door that Janie hid behind.


“Thirty-Three percent, dear. Just a thirty-three percent chance.” She shivered trying to clear the last memory of her mother with the words that all the shrinks had echoed to her over the years. “Schizophrenia is directly related to genetics, little is known about the type of Schizophrenia mother was diagnosed with except that it is definitely passed on genetically. But, there is only a thirty-three percent chance you could have it, dear. Thirty-three percent.” The sound of the bus stop ahead reminds her it is time to be silent again.
“Disorganized Schizophrenia.” She mouthed to herself as she stepped back out onto the busy street from her alleyway. She tightened her scarf and saw the bus pull into the pickup spot. She walked forward to the bus, again immersed in her self-imposed silence.
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus doors close behind her.
“Where to baby?” The driver smiles a sticky smile. Her nametag reads, “Shannon” and has a decaying Hello-Kitty sticker in the bottom left corner.
“The Clinton Street drop.” She hands the driver her $2.50 fare and avoids the woman’s questioning eyes. The night drivers are always more talkative, curious.
“Your ticket hon.” She tears Janie a ticket stub. “Everything is pretty dead this late, I’ll have you there in ten minutes top.”
Janie begins to shuffle towards the seats, ignoring the woman.
“You mind if I crank up the music?” The bus driver asks, purple fingernails scratching in her thick blonde hair. “I need to keep my eyes open and blood flowing and music is my fire of choice you know?”
“Sure.” Janie shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and walks on before the woman can say anything else.
“Route E-2, homebound.” Shannon’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
She shuffles down the bus towards her usual seat; second from the back right side.  Shannon starts the bus rolling before she reaches her seat and Janie can hear her singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus floor, today, is sticky because of the morning rain. Two years of riding public transportation has taught Janie that staring at the floor as she walks to her seat is better than the risk of making eye contact. The bus is usually empty this late but if there ever happens to be anyone else on, it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
She plops into her seat filling the indention that ghosts of past passengers left. The seat is still warm and Janie squirms around until the stranger heat is forgotten. She tightens her scarf and sighs. The brown pleather seatback in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches the sodden city canvas roll past her out the foggy window. As she picks, the hole grows. She twists and digs her unpainted nails into the seat until her hands feel wet, warm. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.” she whispers, wiping her hands on her pants leg. She cautiously picks off another piece of pleather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud now falling onto her knees. A puddle of blood and mire splatter down her legs and pool around her feet as she picks at the seat. Her white tights are definitely beyond saving now, so she digs faster until her thumbnail catches on something, bends back, and cracks. She gasps and withdraws her shaking hand, watching her own blood mix with the clotting muck in the seat, half of her thumbnail completely stripped off.
Looking around, all else seems normal. The driver is now muttering along to some banter by Kanye West, completely unaware of Janie’s predicament. She closes her eyes.
This is a dream, this is a dream, wake the **** up.
She opens her eyes to see the pool of filth around her feet trickling towards the front of the bus. Panic sets in with a whisper, They’re going to think it was you, your fault, you’ll be thrown in jail.
“But I didn’t do this.” She lashes out to herself. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Next stop, E-2. Shannon blares on the intercom.
“It’s just a dream, get your **** together, Janie.” She laughs at herself, manic.
Prove it! Her subconscious screams.
Convinced to end this moment she has to continue; Janie plunges her hand into the pleather grave one more time. Frantic and confused she laughs as she digs, spittle of muck splashing on her bus window.
Faster, faster, faster.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Realer, realer, real.
Wake up, now!
Then, as the bus slows, one last chuck of mud splatters to the floor and Janie sees a pink piece of her thumbnail stabbed into the white of a bone in the bottom of the seatback pit. Her white Ked’s were becoming so red they were almost black. She pulls her knees up to her chest and begins to rock back and forth. Clenching shut her eyes she begins to hum. Janie’s sweet soprano harmonizes with the buses deep droning purr, their wet melody interweaving with the driver’s alto and Lil Wayne’s screech made her feel dizzy as the bus turned right.
She take my money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a trifling friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over town
That dig's on me
The bus slows to a stop and the bass is shaking. Janie is cold. She slowly peeks out of her right eye, expecting to be instantly immersed into the same dismal scene. The seatback is whole again. Releasing her knees, her feet fall back to the floor and her shaking fingers stroke the solid pleather.

“Ma’am? We’re at the Clinton Drop.”
Janie hurriedly picks up her bag and flees down the aisle to the bus doors.
“Everything alright, dear?” The bus driver asks, smiling.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You be safe out there tonight. The night is dark and only ghouls stroll the streets this late.”  Shannon laughed as Janie’s jaw dropped. “Happy Halloween, dear. It’s midnight, today is October 31st.”
The bus doors opened and a cold wind ****** the warm bot-air surrounding Janie into the streets. She begrudgingly followed, her mind spinning as she stepped onto the pavement. The doors slammed behind her and she turned to see Shannon pull out a tube of lipstick and smear it, red, across her cracked lips. Shannon made a duck-face in the mirror and reached down to crank up the music as loud as it would go. The bus exhaled and rolled forward, leaving Janie behind as it splashed through the potholes.
She surveys the surrounding midnight gloom and the street is quiet and dark. Even the stars are hidden behind swirling clouds. She begins to hum, hands in her pocket, and shuffle towards her apartment.
“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, street.”
As she approaches her single-bedroom apartment, digging through her coat pocket for her keys, her thumb pulsates. She grasps the keys and pulls them out as she steps up to the apartment. Sticking the cold, silver key in the lock she looks down at her thumb and in the shadows of the porch sees half of the nail completely missing. She laughs as she pushes the door open to her bare apartment, light flooding out. Without any hesitation she closes the door behind her, sheds her clothes, and slips onto the mattress in the corner of the room gripping her thumb tight. She reaches out for the glass of milk on the floor beside her bed from the morning and it’s still cold. Nursing the milk, surrounded by blankets and solitude, she reminds herself,  “Only a thirty-three percent chance. A nice, small, round number. Small.”  
She sets down the empty glass and curls into the fetal position under the heavy blankets, pointer finger tracing circles on her thumb. Only when she has heated her blanket cocoon enough to feel safe does she remove her scarf and allow her thick white hair to fall around her face.
“Goodnight, room. Goodnight, mother,”
Sienna Luna Jan 2017
A bullet

so small and strong

struck right where

my lungs met.

Embedded itself

this insult of occult

fake tidings riding on

elitist ****** attitudes.

A bullet

or was it an insult?

Either way, I am plummeting

towards humiliation street

with my tail between my legs.

A bullet

was that woman's sharp words

cutting through my skin

like a paper cut gone berserk.



She was a joplin spider

stuck in a ditch

and I should have

smashed her spindly

weak legged body

under my heavy black boots

creating an ugly stain

that looks like gunpowder

or left over oil

spilled over

with the utmost disrespect.
Geno Cattouse Oct 2012
I had Joe Willie from jump. The Jets were off the chain
Baltimore benched Johnny U cause he knew the game. And played it too.

The AFL was full of bells and whistles.Speed kills
Three yards and a cloud of dust. Get real coach. We shootin rockets to da moon. High tops . Cmon pops.

Change the guard.
Them people ain't done nothing to me said Ali.
Da Nang ain't my thang.  He was the greatest. Still is.

The Haight was great.  Oh yeah Kent STATE.
1968. Open the gate to the house of the rising sun.
Joplin. And Jimmy. Marvin and Tammy.

The Doors and Hair. ****** in the air
What rhymes with Agent Orange...... Nothing.
Inevitably when I write I drift back to the sixties , seventies and even the eighties . Those times were scary and normal/safe at the same time. A convergence of many things that are  seared into my being forever.
Aaron LaLux Sep 2018
Mac Miller’s death wasn’t an Overdose,
it was a Suicide,
it was the path that he chose that’s the way it goes,
when you’re chewed inside,

when you’ve got those demons,
and even beautiful music doesn’t exercise them,
we all gotta go sooner or later,
so Mac at 26 is tragic but not surprising,

wish he’d held out for one more year,
then he could’ve gotten in the Forever 27 Club,
joined the likes of Hendrix Morrison and Joplin,
but anyways whatever it’s still all love,

even though,
it hurts so bad,
especially since I’m writing this,
to Mac’s Swimming soundtrack,

13 songs on Mac’s last album,
and the last track’s ‘So It Goes’,
and ‘So It Goes’,
is playing on a record in Mac’s final post,

one moment we’re living one moment we get ghost,
and that makes me think of Jaden,
who’s last track was Ghost,
oh God Jaden no don’t start fadin’,

you’re it man,
you’re the one,
please push past the darkness of the pain,
and shine like the All Seeing Sun,

you’re our last hope like Obi-Wan Kenobi,
so don’t shut your eyes Young Jedi,
you’ve got the torch now so let it burn bright,
because the only thing that doesn’t wait is time,

time doesn’t give a fck about clocks,
until they stop,
she puts me together when I’m out of order,
perfect,

gives me the shivers how the Lord deliver’s,
and I don’t even read psalms,
but I swear to God it was all written,
that’s why even in the chaos I’m calm,

nothing’s GO:OD in the AM,
when you’re not feeling The Divine Feminine,
nauseous everyone feels toxic and obnoxious,
you're conscious that the poison feels like medicine,

resurrected just to be dead again,

it’s scary or rather haunting how Mac’s last video,
show’d him trapped in a coffin,
with a message that read Memento Mori,
you might win some but you just lost one,

shout out to Lauryn Hill,
she lost her mind but didn’t lose her life,
see no matter how difficult things get,
you win no matter what as long as you stay alive,

and it hurts so bad that we lost him,
that even I right now feel dead inside,
better take care out there and beware,
Self Care's only effective with friends to stand by,

**** I,
want to find a way to make everything alright,
want to find a way to bring back Mac,
gone forever to that Castle in The Sky,

and I just wish I could’ve said one last word to him,
and it hurts so bad I want to cry,
see Mac Miller’s death wasn’t an Overdose,
it was a Suicide,

so if you’re feeling hurt and depressed,
find someone to get that ****t off your chest,
because you’re loved whether you know it or not,
and life’s to short for long stories or regrets,

life’s too short for long stories,
life’s too real for fake friends,
so know that I love you you can always come see me,
because it’s peace love and respect till the end,

and ****,
we lost a good one today my oh my,
Mac Miller’s death wasn’t an Overdose,
it was a Suicide,

RIP Mac Miller,
may you Rest In Peace on Cloud 9,
may you finally find that love you need,
at that Eternal House in The Sky….

∆ Aaron LaLux ∆
RIP
a poet gray Apr 2020
There is a hole in the world
All the doors are painted
a shade of liars faces
their colors while arriving
are also fading
but we are still here..
Where corroding slats of
63 year old wood
sound like the screams
echoing across
the crumbling pages of days
burnt yellow beneath the
fire of eyes
The purple pouring through unseen waves in the dusk sky as Janis joplin sang gray star clouds
into my heart
she sewed my wounds
with the ash of
of bodies adrift of lovers
living only in the mirage
air disguised
as smiles everlasting
glass of the
empty kind of love that lies,
and never breathes
yet forever dies
dreams devour you with
tears remembering the terror
in Janis's eyes,
she poured herself out
across the floor of the perishing world
while performing
"work me lord"
"live at stockholm 69'"
to the dark,
we were never there
we were born
into hands that were dying
we breathed our last breath of freedom-
then we were born,
It was then that
I heard the darkness cry.
we are dying..
because we have forgotten
the free gift given,
our lightless bones
loose around the spine
of every bolt we never knew,
strengthened our stance against
the murderous long night.
Choosing blindness,
over looking without sight,
The invisible mountain,
that breathed in our corroding
dusty hearts,
weilding love
against the demons behind
our mirror eyes..
Refusing to call his name..
we have lived for each one of us
just for ourselves  ("selflove")
so it is this then,
we have sold
our freedom
to the lie
named death.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
There is a song, each of has one.
It is that song that you listen to not once, not twice,
but over and over again.
This song I loved, and put it aside, 'lost' it,
and this afternoon, on a drive to Monterey a year ago,
it found me again.
Below are the words.
Find a video of Richie Havens (see the notes) singing it.
It is a song that you will listen to not once, not twice,
but over and over again, for when he cries out
follow, you will.

Why today?
For a number of reasons.  Primarily, because the first rock festival to change the nation was the 1967 10th Anniversary of the Monterey Jazz Festival, a crossover, because, Richie and Janis Joplin were included and exploded the world, paving the way for Woodstock, the festival heard round the world, where Richie was the opening act!

The headliners were: T-Bone Walker, B. B. King, Richie Havens, the Clara Ward Singers, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Modern Jazz Quartet, Ornette Coleman Quartet, Carmen McRae, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Richie Havens, and Big Brother & The Holding Company w/Janis Joplin.

Teach your children well, their father's hell will slowly go by...Crosby Stills and Nash

Soon it will be six months since Richie passed (April 22, 2014).
Patty M. reminded of Van Morrison today, and it in turn, brought me to this place, where my heart resided a year ago today.


*FOLLOW
(Words by Jerry Merrick)

Let the river rock you like a cradle
Climb to the treetops, child, if you’re able
Let your hands tie a knot across the table.
Come and touch the things you cannot feel.
And close your fingertips and fly where I can’t hold you
Let the sun-rain fall and let the dewy clouds enfold you
And maybe you can sing to me the words I just told you,
If all the things you feel ain’t what they seem.
And don’t mind me 'cos I ain't nothin' but a dream.

The mocking bird sings each different song
Each song has wings - they won’t stay long.
Do those who hear think he's doing wrong?
While the church bell tolls its one-note song
And the school bell is tinkling to the throng.
Come here where your ears cannot hear.
And close your eyes, child, and listen to what I’ll tell you
Follow in the darkest night the sounds that may impel you
And the song that I am singing may disturb or serve to quell you
If all the sounds you hear ain’t what they seem,
Then don’t mind me ‘cos I ain’t nothin’ but a dream.

The rising smell of fresh-cut grass,
Smothered cities choke and yell with fuming gas;
I hold some grapes up to the sun
And their flavour breaks upon my tongue.
With eager tongues we taste our strife
And fill our lungs with seas of life.
Come taste and smell the waters of our time.
And close your lips, child, so softly I might kiss you,
Let your flower perfume out and let the winds caress you.
As I walk on through the garden, I am hoping I don’t miss you
If all the things you taste ain’t what they seem,
Then don’t mind me ‘cos I ain’t nothin’ but a dream.

The sun and moon both are right,
And we’ll see them soon through days of night
But now silver leaves on mirrors bring delight.
And the colours of your eyes are fiery bright,
While darkness blinds the skies with all its light.
Come see where your eyes cannot see.
And close your eyes, child, and look at what I’ll show you;
Let your mind go reeling out and let the breezes blow you,
Then maybe, when we meet, suddenly I will know you.
If all the things you see ain't what they seem,
Then don’t mind me ‘cos I ain’t nothin’ but a dream .
And you can follow; And you can follow; follow…
Try

http://vimeo.com/37671417

The last time I saw Richie A-live, of all places, a poetic place perfect,, where we keep our treasures.



http://www.last.fm/event/588961+Richie+Havens+at+The+Metropolitan+Museum+of+Art+on+2+May+2008
Robin Carretti May 2018
I don't really know if this is cut out for me. I rather go to Colorado in my singing voice* how I wish I was your lover please_ let's respect one another....

Here are the
stage lights
If you cannot
stand the heat
Bud light
Other seasons
The Four Seasons
Sherry Baby

Delicacies
Diva and Don Perion
Dressed
Navy and bloodshot
Eyes maroon
The fire desire
Only made them
Moon up higher
legacy
The voices
appetizer

Pina Colada
Fireworks Bella Diva
Gondola
Sunrise Prima Donna
Between the Diva
Fireworks outside
Of Lady Madonna

(Moonstruck)
Havana
Fireworks at
her breast
hot singer
editorial
Designer Hermes
scarfed $
Diva she raises
money
Fill in her gaps
Gap Navy
So savvy Honey
Oh! Jesus
Another
genius
Fireman
Rifleman
Joplin
Baby baby
Baby

She stepped
away
from reality
What about
me Robin
I am a singer
World became
my Godly
duty
Miss Mom Judy

The music
All trends
addicted to
shopping
Men %% $
Those  Poppins
Pop stars
Robin bob bobbin
along
She's chicken
Avocado
Comando
Chief Fido

Fireworks top
crooks
The safe box
She cooks
crock ***
Aluminum Clad
Potheads
Australian lads
All spread out in
Chickenpox

Egg Foo young
Cream say cheese
Lox Hip Hop
Sugar Daddy
Pops
Collegiate
Quickie talk
((Chatterbox))
The made hit
singers paradox
Calm me, Colorado
Endless voice

Eldorado
Diva had too many
Stars at the sing sing
of Rosy®
At the check coat Sassy
Tommy can you hear me
Her mouth
mento mints

Extreme bossy
Deep-throat
(Juicy Pineapple
Dole) her

The singer sways
all over him
Dancing Glove pole
If this is the
last thing
we ever do

Designed for a
Diva with
Jimmy Choo, it's
not a
better life
for me and you

******* coo
Lana Turner,
Turntable 4 the record_
Tina Turner
What does
loving a Diva
got to do
with this!!

So tramped on
Diva devourer
He's the observer

Maxwell millionaires

Tantalizing tongues
The Canaries
Yellow Solo
Not the goddess the
Diva Luv-a sun
{Ralph Polo]
Little darlings
Vampire
Diaries
The mad
librarian
BLT Diva VIP
The hell of
tinnitus

D=F ****-Fun
in" D"
Devilology
Diva Fireworks
sanitarium
Disney
aquarium

My sign the
Aquarius
So Forestal Crystal
Forest Hills US
open tennis

We are the
champions
The  sexter pistol
wedding ring
Go, Crystal
He compelled her
Divas revolver
Wild thing makes
my heart sing
And his boxers
make me  
so closer

Diva solver
Frenzy firecracker
pleaser
Who is ready to vote
Songs wanted
love pusher

Diva's eyes
  Maybelline
Maybe all lined
Stadium of voices
titanium
The Diva to
be resold

Too many songs
were sold
Wife trophy
Platinum had
a voice tone

Diva Grand
Marnier
He's the
connoisseur
of mouth's
experimental

Mentally
He tricks you
Singing horse
you just know
won't trick you
A singer is like
a horse

Wizard of Odd
Moms many colors
performances
This land is your
land from
California but
the Diva Islands
flipping
Las Vegas

Nothing is
guaranteed
((Lady GaGa))
Your out
Haha
Stay upright
lights down
out of sight

*Brooklyn Blackout

Cake Ebinger
We were eating
Singing and Guessing

Diva sucker
lollipops
Panic at the disco
To run him over
What R the odds
Getting even road
Steven the Cosmos

The singing
highway
project
Robin was
from Bayview
Project
All Adultery
Bills
Clintons Mastery
No Susie
homemaker
Hilariously singing
Shining like the
shoemaker

Sitting at
the pub
She ordered a
hot steaming
Spa voice
The Egyptian
grains
of love sand
Medler
Fergie Google
Ben Stiller
Singer just
pill her
burlesque

So Cher-like
if I could
change back
the time I would
do it anyway
Jumping Diva
Kangaroo  pouch

Too much Diva
Ouch----
Joe DiMaggio
fireworks of *****
Big wiggle
Opera
Marilyn Monroe
The Phantom
Of *** appeal
Propaganda

Blowing off
competition
nails

But__ dying inside
like a deadlight
Sparkle me
*** lights
That voice
signals
"Neon Nights"
ooh la the
Eifel tower
bowed her
Moonstruck
striking
wallet high Kicking
wages
Got her voice back
to be shot in stages

Her revolver
eight days a week
The real voice
never take
for granted

Genie
The Diva Luv
in her SUV
She was still
singing
And he wasted
his
whole
dinner

But I got
my voice back
Singing
She let her heart out
He turned his head
He said  what a stunner
Why on earth would anyone want to be a Diva what are the benefits?
Are they the ones with the best views I rather gather all my info and I have a sweet tooth. I just love those ladies with the (Charleston chews) they really know how to chew your ears off
Mike Hauser Aug 2013
I frequent a little taco stand
Every time that I'm out west
With Elvis behind the counter
Dressed in his leathers best

Janice Joplin doing dishes
With Southern Comfort breath
Arguing with fry cook Jim Morrison
Over the best way of cheating death

Jimi Hendrix works the tables
That they have set up out front
Recommending the mushroom taco
With the psychedelic crunch

Marilyn Monroe...the entertainment
Nightly serenades the gents
While wearing here favorite T-shirt
Bobby Kennedy for president

I highly recommend the little taco stand
If you ever find yourself out West
Who's going to show up to take your order that day
Could be anybody's guess
JJ Hutton Aug 2012
In the stands, down 35-3 with two minutes left in the fourth,
Fred Carson picks at the sticky, white remnants of a Coke bottle's label.
He leans over to me,
"Do you mind if I talk to you again?"
I don't, and haven't since kickoff.

"You know, I played running back on this same field."

"Oh yeah?" I say, allowing the story to commence.

"Started all four years. Rushed 1,000 yards as a freshman."

"Wow."

"It took five guys to bring me down by my senior year."

"That's insane."

"I probably still hold the record for most rush yards,
but I doubt they keep up with things like that."

He takes a sip from his drink. It's half empty.
His hair -- greasy, most likely on its third unwashed day --
parts to the left and clings to his skull.
He's wearing a long sleeve, plaid dress shirt.
The shirt is buttoned to the top.

"Hell, that was back in 1968," slows, "I graduated in 19-68. Jesus."

Fred retired from the post office six years back.
He claims he's never missed a game of Blue Jay football since 1970.
The high school band starts playing in the section next to us --
a misshapen cover of "Louie, Louie".
Fred raises his voice,

"You know, I've been to every football game since 1970."

"Yeah, you mentioned that last week."

"I apologize. Yeah, if it wasn't for that first year of college.
I got a scholarship to play ball at Florida State.
Couldn't be there and here at the same time, you know? Kinda hard."

He runs his big-knuckled right hand along his khaki'd thigh, checking his pocket.
He checks the left thigh -- nothing.
Reaches into his shirt pocket and reveals a lighter.
Then a soft pack of Marlboro Lights emerge.

"You know, I ran the fifty in less than five seconds."

To the dismay of cheerleader moms sitting behind us,
he lights the cigarette.
He stares at the Bic lighter with some NASCAR driver -- number 88 --
I don't recognize.
The cutout of the NASCAR driver's scraggly face
sits atop a navy blue and spiraling purple backdrop.
He starts to scratch at the label on the lighter.
A screech from a clarinet rises above the rest of the band,
Fred grimaces, takes a drag, continues,

"The coach at Florida State said I was the fastest boy he'd ever seen.
He said I was going to go pro. Sure thing, he said. I rushed for nearly
300 yards in the first game my freshman year. After the game,
the coach was like, see boy, I told you. You are going to tear it up
this season."

The NASCAR decal comes completely off. Under that purple and blue label,
Fred uncovers a white lighter.

"Would you look at that. I wouldn't have bought the **** thing if
I knew it was a white lighter. That's bad luck, you know. Hendrix and
that--uh--Janis Joplin lady both died with a white lighter in their hand.
Bad luck. A white lighter is bad luck."

"What happened at Florida State?" I ask.

"Well, we were playing Notre Dame during the second game that season.
Down by five with three seconds left on the clock.
We were on our own thirty, and the coach of Florida State was like,
run the hail mary play. But in the huddle, I look the quarterback
square in the eyes, and I say to him, captain -- he was team captain --
I say, captain, I'm hungry for that ball. He knew I could do it.
He took the snap, the receivers rushed down field, and I bolted toward
that line of scrimmage, took the handoff and I was gone, baby."

The crowd begins to cheer as the Blue Jay quarterback throws a long pass
to a wide open receiver. Fred freezes mid-story.
The cheer blurs into a silence, as each person in the bleachers
watches the ball ascend.

For the first time all night, the band lowers their instruments from their lips.
Just a ball floating.
The buzz from the stadium lights becomes audible.
One person gasps.
Then like dominoes the stadium follows suit.

The high arc of the ball betrays the distance,
and the pigskin plummets sharply.

"Interception!" the announcer cries through the speakers.

"That's a **** shame. I thought he was going to have it.
What were we talking about?" Fred asks as he drops his
finished cigarette into the nearly empty, naked Coke bottle.

"You were talking about Florida State. You were down five and--"

"That's right. So, I break up the middle. I dust that noseguard.
I stiff arm a linebacker. I looked like a Heisman trophy in motion.
I travel 69-yards down the field. I'm slowing down at the endzone,
thinking nobody is around, and sure enough -- plow -- the cornerback
dives right into my leg. I broke all kinds of bones and tore all kinds
of muscles. The doctor told me, he'd never seen anything like it."

The band plays the fight song as the clock winds down and the Blue Jays lose.
I try to disappear in the sea of blue and silver exiting t-shirts,
but Fred slows me down,

"It sure was good talking to you. I'll have to tell you more about Florida State
next week. Be sure to sit by me."

"I will," I say as the band director, Mr. Morton, steps in front of me.

"Hey, Fred," Mr. Morton says. He looks at me, then back to Fred.
He's trying to decide whether or not I'm of relation.
"Son, I went to Seminole State Junior College with Fred here
when we got out of high school."

"Really? Did you guys play football together?" I ask with innocent inquisitiveness.

"No, we weren't really into that. Though, we were at all the games.
We were in band together. Until Fred's wild streak got the best of him,"
Mr. Morton laughs, "am I right, Fred?"



The fight song came to a close.
With a lowered head, Fred walked into the silver, blue crowd
with a plaid dress shirt buttoned to the top.
blankpoems Aug 2013
You're so beautiful darling,
your words can move mountains even when you think
they can't touch an anthill.
You are a rebel with a cause and the cause is me.
You are Janis Joplin in the evening, without the ******.
"Darling, I love you"
"I love you, darling" and there was no need to say "too"
Three words were enough to throw a curveball in a hockey rink,
to ride horses in a car race, to love someone at night
and even more in the morning.
You are an earthquake, I know you'll break my heart but I welcome it.
It would be such an honor to be broken by you.
You are my guilty pleasure and all of my proud ones.
I want to tattoo you on my skin in places only I can see
so that every time I take off my sweater and my tshirt and everything
masking my scars and tree rings of age, I will always be surprised to find you.
I want to hold you in the crevice of my elbow like a baby and never ever let you go.
Darling, you're a willow tree that I write poems under.
In the most poetic way, I found you in hallways, always.
In my high school where I hid in the bathrooms, Jane loves John
and everything else scribbled in hearts in bad ninth grade writing.
I found you there. I find you here, in my heart.
You are filled with blood, you are 72% water that I would gladly drown in.
I think if I kissed you you'd poison me with your lips.
You are the forked tongue of desire.
I want to talk to you about dreams, I want to be your sweetest nightmare.
I don't want you to question reality but if you do, think you're lucid dreaming.
Because I want you to want me around; even when you're sleeping.
You are 2am with the lights on and the music loud.
You are a five hour time difference dancing inside of me like a storm.
If my knees wouldn't give out, I would run to you.
And when they did, I would crawl to you.
My hands scraped from debris from car crashes, you are electric.
You are heat lightning. You give me flashes of hope on a humid day.
You are a winter breeze through a cracked window in all of the glorious ways that could be glorious.
I will whisper to you that I don't know why I'm whispering,
there is nobody home, "I love you" sounds better in hushed tones.
You're so beautiful, Darling.
The prettiest pictures you'll ever take will be self-portraits.
Don't argue with me, I know you're stubborn.
It's written in the stars.
You can move me like a mountain or an anthill
because your strength is a blood diamond permanently placed on my left hand.
I did, I do, I will.
You are forever.
Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2012
Sights and sounds of the sixties

Soon you will be going to the class reunion I over exaggerate as you head for the door I think my kids
Think I not only read ally Oop in the comic strip they act like I knew him personally. Here is what they
Don’t know let’s start easy when you’re setting in the country club and there is a lull listen with your mind
It not that far to the end of the golf course from the west south corner to the first road that is an eighth
Of a mile every hot rod man or girl already knows that. Play the song GTO in your head going to shut
Them down GTO. Listen to Jims engine howl he had it stroked and bored out in Taylorville you can do
that when daddy owns a bar to bad howl will turn to sobs really. Glen’s driving a dodge cornet with an
automatic on the floor sixty six factory line job you wouldn’t know it by looking Glen blew him away
coming out of the hole never touched or came close at top end Glen was a lone well I told you what Jim
was doing.
Strain a little more you can hear a fifty five chevy leaving the Dog & Suds headed for Elvers Skating rink
he floors it finally he lets it back off what a sound as that glass pack muffler rips the night air see any
Dinosaurs got rid of that old feeling yet. Out on the street here comes the bad with a capital B Lee miller
Is driving his fifty five Chevy burnished brown all the chrome plus the door handles are gone inside and out it is a
Dream are you getting it yet I’m talking about your achievements. Kenny Krivage is over at Rocks burning
cigarettes through five dollar bills on his arm before he was just a good looking kid then the sixties got
Him you were either at rocks or hiding from those that went there. Lot safer drinking cherry coke with
Janice at the hometown cafe even Karate didn’t protect you at rocks the Neece kid even taught it but
when you got a fist of fives coming at your head it not time for theory its time for action. Who can forget
the pied piper Jim Handy was the shortest guy in town unless you were in the first grade but the gang of
six foot behemoths that were his constant companions were hard to miss it must have been how the
poles felt when they saw the Germans on the march. They had a menacing sound long before they laid a
little love on you, your life’s last moments filled with terror until you realized they turned the corner and
went another way how selfish you felt as you sang someone else is going to die today give me a fire
breathing dragon any day. Poor oh pop sinnard never got any business just one kid drinking a vanilla
shake his special thin hamburger I bet that guy could get a hundred burgers out of a pound of ground round
well the pin ball machine was wide open I guess the kid got even for the hamburger there was a certin
Song on the juke box something about eighteen miners scrambled from a would be grave there he stood
all alone Big bad John. Let me tell you Pop knew it he heard it every day I think he stated crying for the
miners one day or was something else on his mind.
Well I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about what was going on in the other part of the country west
coast on 101 going to Frisco going south 101 on the other side Jan and Dean the Beach boys came a live
for a mile and a half every blond guy and girl and all the hot rod chromed out zooped up cars of every
Description was headed to Laguna Seca to the races all the while we were in a Volkswagen bug military
haircuts civies on we looked like a bunch of confused narks like were going to fool any one in that car
And garb we were wearing not to worry hippies are not long on thinking especially when they stood on
the corner in the height and Ahbury in broad day light selling *** for a nickel a lid slang for five bucks you could get
small glad bag of Royal Gold hashish or do what the winos do get a bottle of thunderbird or ripple what
ever know this Wolf Man Jack is blasting the air waves from Mexico since he violated the rules our hero the
man could talk jive and if you were high you thought he was divine I guess you surmise I wasn’t a
Christian at this low point in my life but the Monterey Pop festival was in full swing. The line up Janis
Joplin Jimmy Hendricks mama and the Papas Otis Redding of Dock of the Bay fame and a cast of
Thousands of hippies you couldn’t find a bare spot down town Monterey sidewalks grass the kind you
walk on doorways every where a hippie and not a bar of soap among them. Know this you have been
tamed by time and age but to duck your head forget it this world won’t see your kind again.
judy smith Mar 2016
If you had to pick one adjective to sum up Michael Kors' collection at last month's New York Fashion Week, a good bet might be "feathery."

The designer was going for "the flirty freedom of things that move," to quote his production notes, and there were flirty feathers on at least 10 of the looks he sent down the runway - starting with feathers adorning a pair of jeans, and moving to feathers on a houndstooth tweed coat, on a denim or tweed skirt, and on black silk for ultimate evening effect.

There also were plenty of sequins, adding a very bright sheen to some of the fashions, especially a silver sequin embroidered "streamer" dress, with the hem cut into strips that indeed looked like streamers, and also a pair of seriously glistening silver metallic stretch tulle pants.

This is Kors' flagship collection, not his more accessibly priced secondary line.

Kors always has a healthy celebrity contingent at his fashion shows, and February's event was no exception: Blake Lively and Jennifer Hudson were among the front-row guests. They were there to witness an anniversary of sorts for Kors.

"I'm not one for anniversaries and I'm really not a big kind of looking-over-my-shoulder kind of guy," Kors said in a backstage interview. "But when I started designing this I realized, oh my God, this is my 35th fall collection. That's crazy!"

Kors added that as he reflected on the milestone, he realized the most important thing was to keep his fashion fun.

"I wanted this to be full of fun and charm," he said. "So it's very flirty, short, leggy, not a gown in sight. All the rules are broken because stylish people break the rules ... The seasons are crazy anyway. So when the weather's terrible, don't you want to put on a fabulous apple green coat to change your spirits? Don't you want to wear tweed with flowers? Don't you want to put feathers on flannel? Wear flats at night? Wear metallic for a day?"

From his sunglasses to his gold glitter pumps, Kors' collection exuded fun, not fuss. Even a denim skirt is luxe, when covered in feathers. A hoodie adds reality to a silver sequin cocktail dress. And who doesn't love handbags the colors of jelly beans.

CAVALLI'S DECADENCE

MILAN - Even while venturing back in time to the Belle Epoque era, Peter Dundas' latest collection for Roberto Cavalliremains rooted in the rock 'n' roll '60s and '70s. His collection bowed during Milan Fashion Week last month.

The languid looks were strong on glamour and workmanship, from the ephemeral sheer beaded evening dresses in pale shades to the colorful patchwork fur coats worthy of any rock star: art nouveau meets Janis Joplin.

''Decadence, superstition, mysticism, Gustav Klimt, Aubrey Beardsley - things that give me a kick," Dundas said backstage, describing his inspirations.

He said the Roberto Cavalli woman for the season is ''a little wild and instinctive."

The Cavalli animal print for next winter is tiger, in long skirts and short bomber jackets, while denim gets its due with a long trailing coat and flared embroidered jeans. Looks were finished with long scarves tied casually around the neck, makeup hastily done and hair loose and natural.

Notwithstanding the labor involved in his creations, Dundas says he would like to see his collections get into stores more quickly than the current system permits.

''I wish I could. I am working on it," Dundas.

DIOR'S PARISIENNE

PARIS - Vogue fashion doyenne Anna Wintour, former French first lady Bernadette Chirac and Chinese actress Liu Yifeiwere among the celebrities on the front row of the Dior show held in an annex inside the picturesque Rodin Museumgardens in January.

In the clothes, the "spontaneous, relaxed Parisienne of today" mixed with the iconic styles of the 1940s and 1950s.

High-cut post-War shoes with occasional retro ankle bows accessorized embroidered silk gowns in freestyle volumes - often with "sensual, bare" accentuated shoulders. A couple of flapper-style lace, chiffon and tulle look also evoked the joyful feeling of the 1920s - the period between the two World Wars.

Dior's studio team of designers also set about experimenting with the famed "bar jacket" - it "changes appearance depending on whether it is worn closed or loose," said the program notes.

It thus came in myriad forms: in tight, embroidered black wool, loose and white, open to expose the breast sensually, oversized and masculine, or as a beautiful dark navy wool coat.

There were also traces of the historical musings of past creative directors - such as Galliano and Simons - set off nicely in one look off-white wool "bar" jacket interpretation with flappy 18th-century cuffs.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses
Mike Hauser Aug 2013
I frequent a little taco stand
Every time I'm out in the Mid-West
With Elvis behind the counter
Dressed in his leather best

Janice Joplin doing the dishes
With enchilada breath
Arguing with the fry cook Jim Morrison
Over the  best way of cheating death

Jimi Hendrix works the tables
That they have set up out front
Recommending the mushroom taco
With the psychedelic crunch

Marilyn Monroe...the entertainment
Nightly serenades the gents
Wearing her favorite T-shirt
Bobby Kennedy for president

I highly recommend the little taco stand
If you ever find yourself out West
Who's going to show up to take your order that day
Could be anybody's guess...
Tyler King Oct 2015
I.
The people look like flowers at last - sick thoughts of dead men strike the clock winding backwards and ignite to illuminate my approach,
The people look like,
Cigarette burns,
Bullet wounds,
Casualties of Rollins' war with himself,
Of Ellis' numb utopia,
Of the Bukowski cynic suicide,
Of the thoughtless progeny of deadbeat generations desperate to push back,
Every street corner is holy, baptized in the blood of those who died believing,
A thousand fists moved to release a thousand frustrations, and a celebrity endorsement for each overdose death,
Angel mine, abate your gutter wars and mob mentalities,
The tattoo ink has dried and the clubs are closed for the night,
Where are the revolutionaries to go now?

II.
The revenge of the skinhead minority,
The born again soul of a fallen brother,
The madman defiant in publicized rage, the faces of the enemy painted with crosshairs on TV screens,
And the damaged finally able to stand on their own,
Damaged and unrepentant,
Damaged and brilliant,
Damaged with criminal record eyes,
with paranoia brain, with X's tattooed into calloused knuckles,
with track marked arms,
Damaged, the unstoppable tide of the righteous youth - caricatured in the spray painted stencils of their testaments

III.
The spoiled children of an undefinable zeitgeist with nothing to lose,
In ecstasy binges these angels hallucinated manifest destiny through non prescription lenses,
Studying traffic patterns I remember how people are afraid to merge and everybody is looking for just the right amount of trouble,
A fire dies and another is born almost immediately,
Careless ramblings in careless county - a land I'm sure was promised to someone, somewhere, sometime
But after the gold rush nobody could cash out fast enough,
I can't cash out fast enough -
Every girl has got the guilty smile of a teenage runaway living out a Janis Joplin fantasy, and all the boys line up like addicts itching to cop,
The air is so heavy nobody can hold a thought - and when I speak, It's the accent, they say, they can always tell,

IV.
Taxi rides in laser show utopia,
Sicilian saint newly minted tells me about the ******* machine and it's ravenous posturing -
be present & be seen,
Fake it till you make it,
Cop killers singing confessions for beer on the street corner,
While the socialist manifests itself in mispronounced beverages and faux-marked Russian volumes,
avant-garde hyperrealism & ritualistic sacrifice,
There was something about *** and dying on the radio I couldn't be bothered to hear,
A drunken brawl over a bad bet made, disappointing street race, police sirens distant growing moreso,
In ****** bars where ladies always drink free, I rewatch the fall of a ***** old man from the penthouse to the street all over again,
If you haven't figured it out by now,
Don't try

V.
In dreams I walk the Pacific Coast Highway dead of night, barefooted soul alive and naked in the Western night like a Jim Morrison poem, the traveler that never arrives, watching the sunrise form halos over the Sierra Nevada, like a girl I know back East who talks a great deal about plans, the best of which never even have an aftertaste of freedom
There is the same sublime anthems playing on every radio and palm trees forming crosses for any messiah who is willing to claim them,
Last train out of Anaheim as the tessellating California skies swell and give, catch and release,
I see the roofs of tenements lit up by Disneyland,
ocean reflecting the glare from Heaven,
faces of the impoverished reflecting the glare from Heaven,
everybody getting sunburned from the glare from Heaven,
I watch the lovers depart for Santa Ana,
Elderly Asian tourists for Irvine,
Hipsters for San Juan,
and the rest of the destitute ******* for Oceanside en route to San Diego,
There but by the grace of God go the drunk kids spilling out of greyhound buses, sitting till dawn contemplating skylines reflected on the bay, finding romance in every moan of living Earth,
wide eyed at possibility of removing themselves from the equation and finding the answer,
Neil Young harmonicas drift listless above Spanish villas,
Everybody talking like something bad was gonna happen but I couldn't see much thru the windows past the tourist burly shouldered slumbering beast,
I think it was somewhere between Yuma and Dallas, with Mexico stretched out like an invitation to an anarchist rally where I was haunted first,
I'm haunted by El Campo Santo, paved over restless Indian graves in the shadow of the hanging tree,
By La Calavera Catrina blessing the sinners as they pass, hollow faced and sunken on the ***** Spanish streets of their ancestral Apartheid home,
I'm haunted by Calvary, 3000 spirits hanging around unsure of what comes next,
I'm haunted by the faces of the beggars I couldn't spare a cigarette for,
In dreams the Western night releases me and I leave California a shade lighter,
And the handful of stars that manage to burn through the haze seem to promise me:
"You may be gone, but your shadow lives on without you"
I'm sorry about how long this is but it might be my favorite poem I've ever written so *******
Lee Nov 2015
What's really the cause of its arrival:
"it"'s questions.
"I"'m music.
I'm the part where words are said
that's to say not sung.
The context of my head's no more object than thought.
We'll take a while to talk about it.
Assuming "it", "talk", and "we" are any realer than the words within them.
If not then flesh, now you've eaten.
This is where it becomes convoluted.

uuuuhhhh

Is its own stanza
this "uuuuhhhh"'s in your voice in your head now.
In or outside,
your heads still a part of it strange enough.
Out or inside,
my hands still a part of it strange enough.
strange enough
my hands outside or in "it".
"it"'s been explained.

I want "you" to picture"me" holding a rock to the sun
asking why neither are thirsty.
"you" want "me" to be a rock in a picture of the sun,
"you" don't need to ask to be thirsty,
"i"m niether.

Water and a handful of pennies
makes a mouthful for a moment.
Last nights moment's a *** of coffee in my mouth,
told to self I really was trying to sleep.

How many "you"s in this poem's really "you" "you"'ve asked.
I'll say so much as to know the answer's the sun,
that said that still I'm not sure.
How many "I"'s in this poem's really "I" "I"'ve asked.
You'll see so much as to guess the answers: under pain of death.
That's your words, my head.

Set your things on top of me,
I'm auditioning for the part of a table made from a different table .
I've played the part of the one who built it.
Neither move.
Lines please.
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Sights and sounds of the sixties
Soon you will be going to the class reunion I over exaggerate as you head for the door I think my kids
Think I not only read ally Oop in the comic strip they act like I knew him personally. Here is what they
Don’t know let’s start easy when you’re setting in the country club and there is a lull listen with your mind
It not that far to the end of the golf course from the west south corner to the first road that is an eighth
Of a mile every hot rod man or girl already knows that. Play the song GTO in your head going to shut
Them down GTO. Listen to Jims engine howl he had it stroked and bored out in Taylorville you can do
that when daddy owns a bar to bad howl will turn to sobs really. Glen’s driving a dodge cornet with an
automatic on the floor sixty six factory line job you wouldn’t know it by looking Glen blew him away
coming out of the hole never touched or came close at top end Glen was a lone well I told you what Jim
was doing.
Strain a little more you can hear a fifty five chevy leaving the Dog & Suds headed for Elvers Skating rink
he floors it finally he lets it back off what a sound as that glass pack muffler rips the night air see any
Dinosaurs got rid of that old feeling yet. Out on the street here comes the bad with a capital B Lee miller
Is driving his fifty five Chevy burnished brown all the chrome plus the door handles are gone inside and out it is a
Dream are you getting it yet I’m talking about your achievements. Kenny Krivage is over at Rocks burning
cigarettes through five dollar bills on his arm before he was just a good looking kid then the sixties got
Him you were either at rocks or hiding from those that went there. Lot safer drinking cherry coke with
Janice at the hometown cafe even Karate didn’t protect you at rocks the Neece kid even taught it but
when you got a fist of fives coming at your head it not time for theory its time for action. Who can forget
the pied piper Jim Handy was the shortest guy in town unless you were in the first grade but the gang of
six foot behemoths that were his constant companions were hard to miss it must have been how the
poles felt when they saw the Germans on the march. They had a menacing sound long before they laid a
little love on you, your life’s last moments filled with terror until you realized they turned the corner and
went another way how selfish you felt as you sang someone else is going to die today give me a fire
breathing dragon any day. Poor oh pop sinnard never got any business just one kid drinking a vanilla
shake his special thin hamburger I bet that guy could get a hundred burgers out of a pound of ground round
well the pin ball machine was wide open I guess the kid got even for the hamburger there was a certin
Song on the juke box something about eighteen miners scrambled from a would be grave there he stood
all alone Big bad John. Let me tell you Pop knew it he heard it every day I think he stated crying for the
miners one day or was something else on his mind.
Well I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about what was going on in the other part of the country west
coast on 101 going to Frisco going south 101 on the other side Jan and Dean the Beach boys came a live
for a mile and a half every blond guy and girl and all the hot rod chromed out zooped up cars of every
Description was headed to Laguna Seca to the races all the while we were in a Volkswagen bug military
haircuts civies on we looked like a bunch of confused narks like were going to fool any one in that car
And garb we were wearing not to worry hippies are not long on thinking especially when they stood on
the corner in the height and Ahbury in broad day light selling *** for a nickel a lid slang for five bucks you could get
small glad bag of Royal Gold hashish or do what the winos do get a bottle of thunderbird or ripple what
ever know this Wolf Man Jack is blasting the air waves from Mexico since he violated the rules our hero the
man could talk jive and if you were high you thought he was divine I guess you surmise I wasn’t a
Christian at this low point in my life but the Monterey Pop festival was in full swing. The line up Janis
Joplin Jimmy Hendricks mama and the Papas Otis Redding of Dock of the Bay fame and a cast of
Thousands of hippies you couldn’t find a bare spot down town Monterey sidewalks grass the kind you
walk on doorways every where a hippie and not a bar of soap among them. Know this you have been
tamed by time and age but to duck your head forget it this world won’t see your kind again.
cd Aug 2015
my favourite song is sail to the moon live by radiohead and when he replied that it was his as well I was overwhelmed
we layed together and let the haunting phonics echo through your room

uninterrupted

I pressed my head to your chest and let your heart beat sync with the sound

two days later you told me you loved me and I was astounded when I heard the same words fall from my lips

I fell asleep listening to radiohead my head on the pillow and my heart in your hands

everyone warns you about heartbreak
They say that young love never lasts
and while they may be right I ask
Myself why I was never warned of the danger of a different kind of fracture

You broke my taste in music you ****

Teenage relationships don't generally end in divorces but the forces were at play and it ended anyway

Nobody worries about who walks away with the songs you've loved since childhood

Like Bono was my dude but you loved Beautiful Day so now we're not on good terms

Like Real People Do was the jam but you ruined it man

Why did I have to talk to you about music,
Janis Joplin, was poppin and Bob Dylan was killin but I told you all about it and now I'm not about it

the opening bars of sail to the moon rip me in open

and while we didnt have children I'm the short amount of time that we were living
In each other's embrace

music was our offspring and someone should have warned me about this thing where you aren't supposed to overshare
and though I have many questions about why it ended, why it's still going on, the biggest are why I told you my favourite song
and after the pseudo divorce

Who the hell gets custody of radiohead??
chipped tooth Jul 2017
Your childhood home is up for sale, but no one wants to remember why you left.
Your face is used for tourist advertisements on the billboards next to the others that say,
"Are you going to Heaven or Hell? Call now.”
All the men that loved you, and the women that no one knew
about- are they with you now?
Is the Mercedes Benz
all the luxury that the Neches
never provided?
The only voice that ever
bellowed out from
the belly of that forsaken water,
(from boredom, for freedom)
did not die from an overdose.
She perished when they
condemned her
the moment
she began to sing
Joshua Soesanto Jun 2014
tanah anarki gersang hari ini
tertutup paparan awan hitam menghiasi
seduh kopi distorsi
di surga, Janis Joplin bernyanyi
goyanglah badan menari gipsi

tarik hisap jauh kepala nikotin
tahan..
sruputlah pelan-pelan kopimu
buanglah limbahnya

giting murah..
bidadari senja jatuh..

lihatlah mawar hitam mulai melayu
tertusuknya hati oleh belati
sesosok perempuan sendayu
matanya jatuh terhujani rayu

semakin dekat semakin terlihat
otak terlintas
badan gitar mata belati
seksi rasa Debbie Blondie
Gary L Misch Oct 2011
The mighty
Breath of air
Roared past,
And,
In a stark moment,
A city of trees
Is no more,
It's just a broken
City,
Awaiting help
In stunned disbelief,
While a hundred
Chain saws,
Strip it bare
Of the wreckage
Of its beauty.
They were spared
The Presidential
Circus
For a week,
A week to
Take stock,
To look for dead,
To gather pictures,
Broken treasures,
But now they've got,
Their photo op,
They can plant
Their trees anew,
And if they live
Ninety years,
Well,
Ninety years more,
They'll see
Their city
Bloom anew,
It's a time,
To contemplate
Our limits,
Forget what
We have lost,
And give thanks,
For what we have,
Amen.
mark john junor Mar 2014
she opens a pack of
sheffield english type  number five cigarettes
i rest my head in her lap
as she reads a french newspaper
its raining in paris and theres a girl there who is unhappy
dreams of romantic places never have sad girls in them
she must be a tourist

she sips some strange brew of teas
that has a heavy bouquet
loam and flowers..like a sweet wine
she suddenly laughs and translates a piece of the
french news for me
but i dont hear what she says
i only hear the rich beauty of her voice
i only hear the captivating beauties of her
i lean up and kiss her
she tastes of the sea and english cigarettes
i am lost in her essence and her her girlish delights

she pokes me and makes me look at a photograph in
the paris newspaper...its the sad girl
she looks english
that graceful beautiful elegant sadness
that only english girls can speak without ever saying a word
jezebel sips her tea and smokes her english sheffield cigarette
holding it like girls hold cigarettes in that dainty way
i forget the english girl and her sadness
as i lay looking into the eyes of this dreadlock hippie queen
janis joplin plays softly from her mp3
shes tapping her bejewelled toes to the ancient music
bachelors in literature she loves the written word
she has read everything ever written by anyone
she has read her way through forty years worth of poetry by me
and corrected my atrocious spelling along the way
this is morning in her arms
now you know why i am so in love with her
now you see why she is everything to me
she leans down and lays a single tender kiss on my cheek
and tells me she loves me
this is heaven
Coyote Nov 2011
I walked up to the pearly gates
and rang the golden bell
Saint Peter popped his
head out and he gave a hearty yell

He said 'what are you doing here
you're supposed to be alive?'
I said 'I blew my brains out
with a magnum 45'

'In that case I can't let you in'
Saint Peter sadly said
'You've got to take the
dark road to that other place instead'

I thanked him for his kindness
and he sent me on my way
I turned onto that evil road
and slowly walked away

The path was long and winding
and the scenery was bare
It reminded me of Kansas
when Dorothy lived there

I seemed to walk for hours
but it could have been much more
Then up ahead I saw a light
behind a wooden door

A man appeared quite suddenly
from where, I do not know
He said 'my name is Lucifer
but you can call me Joe'

He led me to the wooden door
and gave a mighty shove
The thing swung open slowly
and a light shone from above

To my surprise I did not see
the brimstone, flame or tar
Just a band of really happy folks
all drinking at a bar

Virginia Woolf and Hemingway
were sitting with Van Gogh
While Kurt Cobain was sipping wine
with Magdalene Kahlo

And Lenny Bruce was telling jokes
that made Cleopatra blush
And Hunter T. wrote frantically
As always, in a rush

Old Joe he only grinned at me
and slapped me on the back
'You didn't really think that
I would torture Kerouac?'

He called out to the bartender
and soon I had a brew
'I must admit" I said to him
before my beer was through

‘I expected something different
in the land of pain and dread'
Old Joe gave me a wicked smile
and this is what he said:

'Take a look around you son
and tell me what you see'
I saw ten thousand people
not including Joe and me

And suddenly it hit me like a
bolt out of the blue
'All these people left the world
before their time was due'

Joe finished up his bottle and
he tossed it in the sand
He said 'son every one of them
has died by their own hand

You see they lived their Hell on earth
on that you can't deny
They know what pain is really like
so I don't even try'

So friends I am still sitting here
it's been a year or so
Tomorrow night I've got a date
with Marilyn Monroe

We're going to see Hendrix
at the Fillmore down below
And the word is Janis Joplin
will be opening the show

And I don't believe that Heaven
could exact a higher praise
They can keep their harps and
trumpets...

I prefer my Purple Haze
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.
It's a long, baseball themed tome. With a nod of the head to Henderson, Nevada.
Erin M Petersen May 2012
She came from a childhood of magic
of scrap metal bubbles and a love of Christmas
a father whom was often gone but never forgotten and never unloved
a mother whom tried for her little girl but ended up lost in the bottle to wash the world away
born in the small world that was Dogdeville, 1947
but being whisked away to Madison, a bigger better place
of sound public education and endless Indian trails along the deep blue lake
She grew with independence and an inevitable book under her arm, for that was what she knew
{a latch-key-kid from age five up}
pouring her heart into the creation of stories and poems
filling her mind with the worlds of great authors
'the classics'  
a seven year old to afraid to share the depth of her written word
speaking to a class with heads down on their desks for she feared the thoughts in their eyes
her last word greeted by the great applause that brought her to love writing
love books
love English {her never ending favourite class}
She grew with words as her protection
and friends who understood her strange imagination
learning to drive in her boyfriends truck
his head between his legs in fear
leaving school a credit short when a fun night turned into a little baby
growing inside her young body
{in those days you couldn't go to high school an unmarried pregnant teen, you just couldn't}
17 at Martha Washington Home for ***** Mothers
her graduating was thanks to English {as many things in her life are}
a caring teacher who stood up for a scared young girl
we still haven't found were Nadine is {the little baby that grew inside her}
that next year she started college
a freshman in a class of thousands
University of Wisconsin Madison
hiding away in her studies
{creative writing}
over sized glasses and frilly wild hair
once again she graduated and
She was off
leaving Wisconsin in the dust
out to California {her land of dreams}
gate 6 and the shifting mass of house boats
raising three boys on 36 by 8 feet of bobbing wood {in the shape of a football}
my two uncles 'The crash and burn brothers' and my father 'baby poops a lot, batteries not included'
walking day after day to the Bait Shop Market for black coffee
and the feeling of being alive
She came to age in the craze of the 60's
continued to grow through the fight of the 70's
remembers the blue romper in high school gym when Kennedy was shot
marching with students on the streets when Martin Luther King went down
listening to Bob Dylan
'The Times They Are a-Changin' through it all
{The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.}
her friends shared hatred of government as Nixon came and went {she never would have voted for him. Not in a million years}
the draft of their friends
going to a land that they all knew they wouldn't return from {far away from those they loved}
She became to personally know Melba Pattilo-Beals as they worked together
editing 'Warriors Don't Cry' {the story of a young black girl going to white school}
in a society run by the music
Peter Paul & Mary
Bob Dylan
The Beatles
Janis Joplin
Jimmy Hendrix
The Rolling Stones
Crosby Stills & Nash
The Who
The BeeGees
The Grateful Dead
Rod Stewart
Joni Mitchell
Joan Baez
Country Joe and The Fish
run on the beat
the lyrics
the melody
the overwhelming need to be
different
through the 50's
60's
70's
80's
90's
The Hippie Movement
Vietnam
Kennedy
Nixon
Through raising three boys
two university degrees {UWMadion's creative writing and law}
second one while raising me
Through all of that and so much more
she was lived
seeing the world through the eyes of a writer
a child
a teen
a mother
a grandmother
an editor
a lawyer
a women
She is the reason I am living
and she gave me the love of writing
and the love of the world.
my grandmother
Jon York Jun 2010
The years, they have come and gone so
fast, nothing seemed to last, like the loves
that have come and gone and when
we are young and wish the time didn't
pass so slow, as we get older, we wish
things didn't move so fast, and that the
nice things would last just a little longer.

In  65  I was seventeen, somewhere
between mean and lean and I didn't
know much, but most don't when they
are only a teen and my first love, dear
Anne  was so young
and sweet,and she never missed
a beat, so soft and tender, a real
credit to her gender, and one day
she just disappeared and I can't
remember if I even got to say goodbye.

In 69, I was twenty-one and made my
living with a gun, in a no - win situation
called Vietnam and life was no fun.

Surviving 13 months of daily combat
I give thanks that I was trained by the
best -  the ( Marine Corp ) but the battles
in my head would never  let me rest when
I returned home.

The decorations they came, but I would
never be the same. coming home to a very
mean and angry Country that was fighting
an unpopular War and didn't seem to care
any more about their returning warriors
and just closed the door.

In  77   I was twenty - nine, aging like a
fine wine but waking up in a Hospital room
in Joplin one day from an automobile
accident not knowing what to say,except
"what happened to me ? ","where am I, and
"who am I ?"

"You can't walk" the nurse said and the
pain so great, I felt that I would be better
off dead and I was discarded as a crippled
by my wife and I was forced to begin a
new life which would be filled with strife.

Learning everything again that I already
knew like walking, talking and being a
human being was no fun at 29 but it had
to be done, because I had no where to run.

In 1980 I was recovered and strong
after rebuilding my body and I was
on my way to embark on a new way
of  life and I had something to prove to
myself and not to anybody else.

In 1990, moving to another State,
with the idea that it was not too late
for a new start, and this time I would
have a new part to play.

I learned what the War had done to me,
and that our  freedom never comes free,
and that I needed help in my head,
or I would end up up dead.

In 2010 I am  sixty - one  and wonder
what I have done with my life. Where
did the years go, gone like a vapor
in the air and all you can do is simply
stare in the mirror asking yourself
"is that really me ?"

Then this Angel came out of nowhere,
this beautiful lady who needed me I
thought as much as I needed her.

It took 61 years to find her and we
were together for two years in a union
that I thought would last forever, but
for her the truth was never.

She lied to me for two years about her
past and her intentions so she could use
me and keep herself amused.

I couldn't see what she was doing
because my love for her was so strong
and she just wasn't equipped to handle
so much love and it didn't take her long
to find someone else that could keep
her amused.

When I found her,I thought that real
love was unstoppable and that it would
always find you and that you could not hide.

Instead I got taken for one big ride by this
Kansas Queen who also turned out to be
very mean and who thought that she could
get away with it clean.

Together I thought that we faced the World
with our hearts in each others hands and I
thought that we knew that the others love
was true.

But upon discovering her lies she only
made me blue because her lies were so cool
and so very cruel it made me think I should
go back to school.

With her lies she professed her love for me
and I smiled because she made me happy
and she let me know if I made her mad or
made her sad.

But she appeared much to my surprise
to be glad when I opened the door for her
to leave and I was even more surprised
at how fast that she hit the door running.

Was it to another man who was waiting and
knew she was coming but that's all right
because it really doesn't matter because I was
glad and fortunate to see her scatter.

So we must be prepared for changes that
come at us so fast often leaving you to wonder,
"how long can I last?" and leaving you
wondering "how did I last this long," when
so many times you thought you were gone.

She told me everyday for two years
that she loved me and that that she
would never leave me saying to me that
I was the "one" that had been sent to her
by Jesus, and in the end I was just numb
and must have looked pretty dumb
because I believed all of her lies which
resulted in so many cries.

Life will blindside you when you least
expect it so we have to learn to expect the
unexpected and learn to love and not hate.

In the beginning she showed me that I
could love, taking away my hate but in
the end she took away that love
and brought back so much hate.

Because of her lies I will never be the
same because it was all just her game
that I lost but I will never play that
way again and I will never lose like
that again.

I will survive and live to see another day
and another love will come my way. 

Just do what you have to do to survive
while you are on this crazy ride................                  
Jon York        wrote 2010,    edited 2012
DC raw love Dec 2014
We lose so much talent to addiction
Some of you may not care, but I do
This is my tribute to them

Alan Wilson
Canned Heat

Jimi Hendrix
The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Janis Joplin

Jim Morrison
The Doors

Brian Cole
The Association

Billy Murcia
New York Dolls

Danny Whitten
Crazy Horse

Gram Parsons
The Stooges

Gary Thain
Uriah Heep

Elvis Presley

Gregory Herbert
Blood, Sweat & Tears

Keith Moon
The Who

Sid Vicious
*** Pistols

Lowell George
Little Feat

Jimmy McCulloch
Wings

John Bonham
Led Zeppelin

Darby Crash
Germs

James Honeyman-Scott
Pretenders

Pete Farndon
Pretenders

Paul Gardiner
Tubeway Army

Gary Holton
Heavy Metal Kids

Phil Lynott
Thin Lizzy

Andrew Wood
Mother Love Bone

Brent Mydland
Grateful Dead

Steve Clark
Def Leppard

Johnny Thunders
New York Dolls

David Ruffin
The Temptations

Kristen Pfaff
Hole

Shannon Hoon
Blind Melon

Bradley Nowell
Sublime

John Kahn
Jerry Garcia Band

Jonathan Melvoin
The Smashing Pumpkins

Billy Mackenzie
Associates

West Arkeen
The Outpatience

Nick Traina
Link 80

John Baker Saunders
Mad Season


Bobby Sheehan
Blues Traveler

Wes Berggren
Tripping Daisy

Allen Woody
The Allman Brothers Band

Carl Crack
Atari Teenage Riot

Layne Staley
Alice in Chains/Mad Seasons

Kurt Cobain
Nirvana

Dee Dee
Ramones

Robbin Crosby
Ratt

John Entwistle
The Who

Howie Epstein
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Jeremy Michael Ward
De Facto

Tim Hemensley
GOD

Dave Schulthise
The Dead Milkmen

Rick James

Kevin DuBrow
Quiet Riot

Ike Turner

Gidget Gein
Marilyn Manson

Jay Bennett
Wilco

Michael Jackson

The Rev
Avenged Sevenfold


Paul Gray
Slipknot

Mike Starr
Alice in Chains

Amy Winehouse


We are not bad people, we just have bad ways
Yet, not many understand
Have love in your heart for all
We are all one in the same
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
---- 2023 youtube I wonder if, and lo': The Planets
A grand background orchestra, mental direct
there, you hav it, too, listen, a few times,
just in the mood, to listen
maybe as you get, that it starts at Mars,
begin as we
think we
Read this at your pace the writer advised,
and I did, a couple of times,
like long stuck records…
To Holst, an offered libation,
to all the minds whose words
are music as big as any mind
limited by my unknowing,
only
using, the truth, music, leading after words,
through ever away,
silent for a now,
or so,
from the Sun, past the fragment,
the single lump at the core,
of the process,
Ash as
Icarus, and Hermes, speedy messenger,
such as see thee, hold the knowledge holy,

watch, see, the wandering planets Holst,
might have seen today,
looking through my eyes,
wordless, right on, so far, as we

agree, there
is power in the mind that writes and reads
music,
power alloted some in blind feel,
power exuding from an ever in times past,

lasting ever tones thinning, spreading, patterning
perfected harmonies unexpected
yet
taken as granted, felt, in passion y sympassion,
same sound,

my once known wind, my bass oboe player,
acquaintance, who called me by name,
accusing me, subtly of not knowing,
there is a forest of low stature,
and there are missions there,
where if you pray,
they feed you twinkies… I recall, between
Venus and busy laughing Earth,

I remember Mars is next,
I am ready, I went into the dark kitchen,
back of the Mission on Fourth Street,
across from an Electra Records Billboard…

ifery approaches, Holst has not gotten me to Mars,
I am pulling in an experience, from a mission,
on Fourth Street, in a mindtimespace shared,

as of yet, by a few, who will know the place,
the ******* Mission, the one
with the Joker who used rats,
to get a startle response,

and at exactly the wrong place, for men with
certain
kinds of sure thing reactions, to diabolic attacks.

2023, approaching Mars with Lou Holtz, I thum thum
thummin wearin' my Razorback hat,
Inter Planatary Hwy 71, to Joplin,
ur in my realm.

Bass every thing slow creep slow, seep as sludge,
to the edge, and look beyond,
this is it, this is the Earth,
we shall survive!

We slay the unbelievers and fake it til we make it,
right, kids?

---------- longhair music, epicyc-lical as neckties,
to male tipped stacking schema for *****,
or stones,
or crystaline tones accompanying the heating up
of life's core cargo cult's last load,

Holst, bass trombones,
here, is the dance of little devils with a mind to make
a difference
in the depths of ever after,
up to now,
I had forgotten the piccolo parts, and the French horns,
and the joy of the big parade,
marching off
to war explore the unknown
for exploitations as per the underling theme,
go forth
subdue the Earth, and conquer all who refuse, to say
this is the way,
this is the good old way,

war
glory and honor, earn the urim'nthummin'n'human
inhumainity, we, the chosen warrior beings,
messengers of differing mocking gods of ****** mud
beyond the final river,
every slogger knows, forever, there remains
one more
river to cross, a final thread to tie to you, listener,

Holtz, still in the background, a journey, what price
each player plays in this, orchestration shared,
as I read, I wrote, as I hoped, I did,

and I remain, giddily glad… my side won the war
I lost.

Peace came, unbidden, apparently,
a deep breath, and harp strings,

this is the future from any ever before, now
to know
this is common, not so rare, as even the idea,
not so long ago,
first radio mono performance,
what child lay in the crib and heard this,
through the grand horn of Gram's Gramma phone.
Y''ello,
toldja, ai ain't no Injunsaint. Pretend, then,
right, ai and mai-y grandma

can piece together some occassional lessons, given us,
she in her time telling me in mine,sssince ever about
I was forty-nine, or so, she told me she was an orphan,
and had no family knowledge, past begins
at the last common thread,
to a native american epic,

when the old deluder, Satan, act, attached
to law and order and rectangular resettlement
of wilderness liberated from savages and beasts…
pawn, both steps, dare… help the Macedonians
and take Uncle Tom wit'cha, whicha oughtn't had
never the less, young wombed men, did tend
to become aspirational, after becoming
inspired read-up young wombed men, hot
to seek adventure, teachin' young'n's, out west.

indistanct depth Holst at the kettle drumms softerafter
- the silent version has a different light show
--- circa 1880's, not historically long ago, most places.
This character,
qwerty guy's friend, has kin as close as my Uncle Cebe'n'me,
who died at Wounded Knee, where my liege republic,
honored some two dozen rapid fire cannon supported
avengers of The Seventh Cav!
And in their hearts,
if not their lips,
was the march in time to Garry Owen. Their families
must be proud.

And that's a shame. We were taught to grant worth
to a medal signifying honor brought to the liege, in victory.

Peace passes that, music makes bubbles, we revisit,
replay the gramma phone version,
some scratchy
real realizing strings singing chimes and harps
of ages past
unveiling, hiding nothing knowing freedom is a sense,
you know
you do not own it,
you do not make it up, it is free. The idea

I had, approached as
hunter
in pursuit, steady as she blows,

leave us hap as may be at a triumph of joyous
curious
dancing twinkle noise amusing being a muse used,
enter tained, and voiced by bass
then tinkles
thin thin thin then Zildjian  K-bang!

____
Yes. Loaded. RIP
Jonny Angel Aug 2014
If I could pick the menu,
I'd choose a tasty appetizer of Hendrix pituitary,
& a huge salad covered with Joplin cortex.
Plant's gray matter for the main course,
sides of Jaggar & Morrison stems,
along with a bottle of Springsteen spinal fluid.
I'd definitely have to order
an ample sweet-portion
of Daltrey thalamus
& sprinkle it with some Cobain lobes.
A shot of John's cranium
with a nightcap of Townsend cerebellum
would surely hit the spot.
Sive Myeki Jun 2016
To Jimi & Janis

Lost in a fools paradise
No map to land my dice
No body to govern this space
This bearing aligns my chase
This day I will seize in thought
And forth I will bring what is sought
This seed I sow in fertility
A mind surreal as lake tranquility
The depths I see
This body I flee
I set the task for you to do
Space and time I shall subdue
Under control of mental abrasion
Layer by layer free from emotion
A foolish man retrieves the soul
Lost in paradise he becomes the whole
Cyril Blythe Oct 2012
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus door closes behind her.
Route E-2, Westbound.
She shuffles down the bus toward her usual seat; second from the back, left side. The driver starts the bus and from her seat Janie can hear him singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus is always empty this late and if there ever is anyone else aboard it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
The brown pleather seat in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches out the foggy window. She idly picks and peels until she feels her hands wetted, cold. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.”  She whispers, wiping her hands on her scarf. She continues to peel back the leather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud slowly falling too. Then, she sees the white of a bone. The bus turns right.
Gather ‘round, warriors. This is your time.

This is your time to shine. It’s your day in the sun. It’s one-of-a-kind, o ye cheaters of death, but this is, nevertheless, your finest hour.

You found a home in war. You entered into a contract with bad company and gave up the rights to your body, your mind, everything but your mortal soul. They took advantage of the circumstance and you wound up deep in a bunk hole, hiding behind the tenuous wall of a manure pile. Bullets whizzed by your ears, fear possessed your frames like a demon taunted by the Lord. Death swooped in to put it’s fear into you, but you all laughed in his face and spat in his eye, turned your back on him without saying goodbye. Perhaps “See ya later” would have been appropriate. 

But no matter, husky gladiators. It is time to rest from your battle. It’s time to put away your swords and scabbards, your spears and your slings. Your automatic machine guns and your hand grenades. Your potent strains of anthrax and your agent orange. Surrender your arms, troglodytes. Cast them to the ground below. Consider the clatter they all make as they fall to the pavement. Take it in, breathe it all in, make it yours…

…for it IS yours.

Sorry, we didn’t get around to telling you. It was always yours, we just figured you would find it out on your own if you wanted it bad enough. No, I would agree: that is NOT fair. And I would also say this to you, “Fairness is a relative concept. When you consider the value we placed on you actually knowing this as a fact…well, I think it should be pretty ****** obvious. Don’t be a *****, you give all servicemen a bad name when you do that, you know?”

But enough of the self esteem-building fodder all, that is not why I have gathered ye here to-day. Nay, not even close. I have brought you all here together because I wanted to be the first to tell you. You’re all going home. That’s right, you’re homeward bound. Soon you’ll be able to pack your **** and take a southbound train to ride. You’ve lost your minds killing innocent civilians, you’ve struggled to keep your eyes open most nights, as staying awake meant staying alive. But you’re going home! Warm nights tucked between clean linen sheets. Soft goose down pillows to bore your heads into. The smell of coffee in the morning, bacon and eggs if you’re lucky. The prospect of another day that won’t be defined by the number of lives you’ve ended between sunrise and sunset.

The journey home will be a victorious one, indeed. You shall see it from the comfort of a first class seat on the most expensive airliner we can afford! A small bottle of gin or whiskey is only a few feet away and all you have to do to get one is ask the attendant. If you ask nicely I don’t doubt she might let you have more of those little bottles than administrative policy usually allows. But she sees it in your eyes…you’re a grizzled soldier. You’re still warm to the touch from the heat of battle. You know this. This is who you are, it’s what we made you. And she will sense this. It will drive her mad with desire. Her knees will quiver, she’ll blush, she’ll radiate ****** charm…but all you’ll be able to think of is that Vietnamese farmer with the plaid shirt. 

A ***** plaid shirt. Dripping with dark, brown mud, he smiled at you from beneath the brim of a straw hat that looked as if it had seen many better years. A smear in the drying clay was on the right side of his face where he’d wiped sweat. His lips were dry and cracked and his nose was a little runny. 

The buttons on that plaid shirt were the cute mother-of-pearl finish jobs, the kind that snap shut real easy. How many men would have noticed that? How many of the sharpest minds in the known universe would have missed how his left boot didn’t quite seem to match the right. But you caught it right away and you stored it into that immense data bank that is your United States Marine Corps certified brain. 

If only you could forget it, though. Right men? I see a few tears in a few eyes. I know I’m on the right track here, so if you still think I’m not talking to YOU, I have an invitation right here in my back pocket that will entitle the man to whom I give it a 6 month stint in the back of a mess peeling spuds. You don’t want that, now, do ye? What? No takers? I thought not.

But where was I? Oh, HOME, that’s what I was on about. You all have very nice homes, no doubt, and I’d bet there’s not a single one of you who isn’t just itchin’ to get back to ‘em. Is it the one you grew up in? Is it one you just bought? No matter, when you leave this place it will either be in a body bag or on the better side of Uncle Sam, who looks after all of those fine men and women who have risked life and limb in his service.

So what’s it going to be, worms? Death? He calls often here, and don’t think I don’t know that his is the song of the siren to many a worn out Spartan. But faileth not, loyal comrades. 

Will it be insanity? Will the wage of life and death struggle prove to be nothing more than a tug-of-war between lucidity and madness? Yer going home, grunt, why should it matter? Either one’s better than lying face down in a pool of your own guts. Don’t worry about it, just get on the plane. Baby, it’s your ticket to ride.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

I stepped onto the tarmac with a firm determination to forget the last 2 years. Maybe even the last 15. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just tired of looking for an answer. I’ve listened for the still, small voice of reason and wisdom, but it seems to have stayed behind in the battlefield. Probably where it belongs. 


The night was cloudy and the stars shone like pinpricks in a dark black veil that covered the most brilliant light…ha, I almost said “life”…I may not have been too far wrong there. I wanted to cut the cord of gravity, float through however many miles it might take to reach one of the punctured holes. Then I would tear the fabric and crawl into the other side. Disappear into the brilliant aura.

Only a dream, only a wish. I drug my weary frame from the bustling airport to the highway. An old two-lane road, dangerous after dark. It doesn’t bother me. It’s purpose is to facilitate the traversing of distance from one point to another. I could care less about where it could lead me. I only knew that I would not turn back no matter where I wound up, so I stuck out my thumb and waited for someone to give me a ride.

Does anybody stop to give rides to strangers anymore? I wouldn’t. It’s not something I condone. In fact, I have only done it once in my life, when I was just a kid, before seeing “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”. After watching that seminal film I resolved to never, ever pick up hitch-hikers again. I wasn’t going to help anybody on the side of the road, either. **** being a “good Samaritan” if it means getting my brains blown clear out of my skull, flung to the side of the road like rotten fruit. 

Despite all of this I still had my hand stretched out, thumb in the universal position that signifies the need of transportation for the “down-on-his-luck” traveler. I remember asking myself what could be more pathetic. I was reduced, by circumstances beyond my control, to hitching or hoping that someone might be clueless enough to pick me up.

Yet, that is exactly what happened.

A hookah smoking caterpillar sat behind the wheel, and he seemed glad to do a small kindness to me. He could tell I was a veteran of psychic wars. He felt obligated, I was sure.

“Hop in, friend,” he said. “I can see that you’re a little down on your luck. I been there ma’self a time ‘er two. Just throw yer pack in the back seat and climb up here with me.”

I wasn’t shocked in the least that a hookah smoking caterpillar was driving a GMC Jimmy east on Route 66. It did, however, give me quite a shock to think that he would pull over and offer me a ride. I am no fool.

“Off we go,” I said to him. 


The road was a long one that took us out of the state. As we crossed the line the caterpillar turned the radio up real loud and started singing along to a Journey song they were playing on the classic rock station.

“Ooooh, wheel in the sky keeps on turning,” he wailed. “I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow!!!”

I turned to him. “You have a very distinct grasp of Steve Perry’s vocal mannerisms. Have you ever sang professionally?”

“Oh no, not me. I could never go onstage in front of a lot of people and sing. I just don’t have it in me.”

“Well, you aren’t afraid to sing in front of me. What’s the difference between one stranger and a hundred strangers?”

“Oh, it’s not that. It’s not that at all,” he repeated. “I had a friend who used to play and sing in a lot of the bars on the circuit between California and New Orleans. It was a job to him, you know? He told me about a lot of the stuff that goes on in those places. He told me how one time he was singing a Roy Orbison song when some pool-shooting loser throws the cue ball right at him. Beaned him on the forehead, BOP! Had to hurt. Said the bruise swelled up so bad directly afterwards that people started calling him “the Elephant Man”. I was a beginner in the days when he regaled me with these anecdotes and mister, I’ll tell you, he put the fear of God in me. I was so terrified of getting conked in the head with a pool ball that I never pursued the craft.”

I felt a tinge of sympathy for his plight. “I’m sorry to hear that. I bet you would have been a star if you’d gone for it. Bigger than Steve Perry, even.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I don’t feel cheated or like I’ve missed anything essential to my happiness. As long as I’ve got wheels, my hookah and something to put in it, I am a happy caterpillar. Remember that: I am merely a caterpillar.”

“I will do that, but you’re a caterpillar who could kick Steve Perry’s *** any day of the week!”

“Wheel in the sky keeps on turning!”

“**** straight…I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow!” 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The caterpillar held the wheel steady and kept on truckin’. He sang along with every single classic rock song that came on the radio. From Kansas to Boston to “Sweet Home Chicago” he knew them all and, to be perfectly honest, he did a **** good job. He belted ‘em out like Springsteen, he crooned like Bryan Ferry, he croaked like Joe Cocker, he wailed like Janis Joplin, he screamed like that dude from Slayer. No two ways about it. This hookah smoking caterpillar had serious talent. 

I was curious. “So, mister, what to do you do for a living?”

“My friend, I am a mortician. I deal with death every single day. I do a job that most folks would find distasteful and not a little disturbing. And yet I love my job. I do, oh yes, I do. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the whole world.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said. “How does a man get a start in a field like yours?”

“It’s not too hard, really,” he replied. “You come with me, I’ll make you an apprentice. You lookin’ for work?”

“No, sir. I can’t say that I am right now. Still got a little cache stashed away from military days.” I made a gesture with my hand that signified that I was grateful for the offer, but would have to pass. “Maybe one of these days I might change my mind. I think I could handle it. I’m not squeamish. No, not at all.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could handle it. I can tell by the way you look straight ahead, you don’t look back, you’ve got a grip on everything in this world and you think there’s nothing that could ever shake your foundations, whether it be from the east wind or the west. The north or the south. Do I read you correctly?”

“I reckon you do. I’ve had a hard run most of my days. Experience has taught me one lesson, but it taught me good and well: Nothing is as you really think it is, and it could all be gone tomorrow. ”
Julianna Eisner Mar 2014
..
Mouth full of semi-raw fried potatoes and
dehydrated orange wheels, doesn't Mr. Appleseed come out of
nowhere
and plant a speck of a seed right smack dab in the centre of my
reptilian cortex, but I
pay no mind because Buddy has adored me for a whole five minutes until he rebounds
              harder
                        than an
                                    addict discharged
                                                    fr­om
                                                        forest-y­ methadone clinics
                                                        i­n downtown cores
                                                        pop­pin' Hilfiger blue collars
                                                        y­ackin' it on the phones to guys named D, or
                                                        D yackin' it to guys named Friendo, Jai, or
                                                        Little­ Tim,
                                                        buri­ed from ******* back too much hillbilly
                                                       ­ ******, while
                                                        col­lege girls sleep in their Sahara beds,
                                                        sav­ing up to buy bouncy trampolines with
                                                        boun­cy cheques,
                                                        ­listening to lullaby coos of pimps and ******
                                                        on­ the downstairs couch,
                                                        ga­zing fawn-eyed at cavediums next to
                                                        nobody cares muffins and syrup-y coffee
                                                        canyoudropmeoff?
                                             ­           outside of the seventh-story window of
                                                        million dollar saloons,
                                                        ­wearing blings and rings,
                                                        purchase­d by wealthy husbands and
                                                        travelin­g yuppies for their wives' veneer,
                                                        eating breakfast cereals that go
                                                        Snap! Crackle! Pop!
                                                        for three square meals,
                                                        re­furbishing plastic containers
                                                        on foot-stained broadloom,
                                                        with cage and cagey roommates,
                                                        throwing life rafts to bloated bodies in
                                                        Great Lakes
                                                        for the price of a debt,
                                                        recalling waffling road trips,
                                                        visiting one-man tents behind billowing
                                                        smokestacks;
                                                        I blew my brains out in an air duct,
                                                        lost my life lifting up heavy floor mattresses,
                                                        climbing out of basement windows,
                                                        while hitch hiking mothers sing karaoke
                                                        nursery rhymes by Janis Joplin,
                                                        20 notes off-key,
                                                        harboring skeletons in stairwells and rusted
                                                        out Grand Ams,
                                                        making friends in Tim Hortons after last call,
                                                        dressed in leprechaun fatigue,
                                                        driving like England at midnight,
                                                        I spoke to a faceless man,
                                                        whom I'll never get a chance to send a
                                                                ­               thank you
                                                       card...
                                                       as for me? I never touched the stuff

but I was too spent to care and was already floating on cheap Chardonnay and authentic vitamin D with my bindle stuffed to the brim so I thought I'd just American Beauty plastic bag my way through this one, cropped in floral, patio sunglasses, swirling and twirling on Ballet Boulevard until
An e.ch-o-y sound in my
left  ear
I turned my head,
slo-mo tracers flashed in warp speed,
        the testa bursts open.
..
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Dead people are no doubt bored, so I'm sure these folks would be happy for free food and conversation. Of course, this is just a partial list, subject to addition and deletion. Feel free to add your own in comments.

Buddha, but a light lunch.
Jesus, but kosher of course.
******, come on, who wouldn't.
James Joyce, just to mock him.
George Washington, to try to catch him in a lie.
Hemingway, but just for drinks.
Reagan, to deliver some Depends.
Bakunin, for mutual aid.
William Butler, my ancestor who survived The Wheatfield at Gettysburg.
Audrey Hepburn, but a date, not lunch.
Ingmar Bergman, just to cheer me up.
Ervin Schrödinger, about that cat.
Shakespeare, because I've always wanted to meet an extra-terrestrial.
Ezra Pound, to tell him he was right about usury.
God, to let her know how disappointed I am.
Richard Nixon, so I could drive a stake through his heart.
Julia Child, just to hear her voice again.
Lenin, because he was a self-starter.
Mozart, because he would be fun.
Emma Goldman, to dance.
James Dean, as we look so much alike.
Janis Joplin, because I might get lucky.

Come on, I'm sure you can add to the list. Don't be shy, try.

mce
Who would you add? It can be anyone but Justin Bieber. I'm open-minded for a geezer, but not that much.  :) Anyway, they must be dead. That's the only rule.
Aura
Written by: Mario Vitale
Shades of pine grafted in again resign
Shattered pine in elm certain grove alone
My meadow had a thorn certain credit
The factual harm of its heartless swarm
Featured within in the created design with pine
Eyes sharpened as a willow in garb
The tornado sequence has even the fog alone
Again tempors fly like never before
Blatant lies have come at no surprise
In parts unknown an aura of repute to harm
Sound the alarm in fetters arm
Choirs of saints in regard to its beckoning drawn
Empire strain inside my brain fragments of cure
The surface of the sun has tainted my vision with harm
Sound the alarm agiain my faithful friend by whom we can depend
Shattered glass on the parchment floor
Aura
An impulse deep in regards to the heart
Shades of pine will line the volume of scattered pillows
A willow in derision you made a final decision
A thought provokoing reason to believe in
Shattered memory's in the moments of innocence with a plight of disbelief
We have soon turned over a brand new leaf
Timeless peaks in a swelll shattered fragments from within
A great design still sublime in its timeless parts the heart
Aura
Jim Morrison had it
Janis Joplin couldn't stop it
Jimi Hendrix sought this quick fix
An unbellievable call being caught in the mix!



Aura II

they think they know
but its far more then that
they think they strive
among the impossible links

taking each stride
I wonder what happened to Molech
we were here before
the mystery unfolds

a glow from a worm
its often hard to discern
to be a bird
upon a wire

the taunt of the remedy
Joplin's finest
the exquisite foretaste
amidst its calamity

come with me through the barren sea
the sea of grown mockery
through the leaves
a doorbell rings

a trophy for the winner
stay and wait for dinner
a passenger or the driver
you act like a Magive

why does on equate logic with fear
all draw near
lend me an ear
the soft linguistic cheer

— The End —