On My Mind

I have more to say than a verse to hold
A few short lines
of verse of old
A few letter words that slide and play
As the wet tongue
curls up that way
Just as line or two abruptly stopped
echoes right back
from high mountain tops
I will hear inside my head the word
As I ponder that
that I’ve just heard
I hurry to write down just what I said
So someday they
will be loudly read
Not forgot but shouted echoed wide
on the paths and hills
of our country side
The few short words of verse and line
that twist and turn
but so nearly rhyme
Those few words that were only mine
Are now released
to bend other minds.

OC

 

 

 

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Casual Heros

Old men feeling the foreplay of the sensuous tug of war
Old men that have forgotten or have never known the smell of the smoke of death
But with blustering words from their arm chairs and their long tables
they easily speak of sending the young Armies
who believe the words shouted from the podiums of these old casual heroes.
Casual heroes that now voyeur from hovering satellite views
and the green starlit 20,000 foot cameras of robot planes.
Old casual heroes with hard-ons and loose belts, craving their pornography of war.

DSS.

(Let’s keep our eyes on the ball, soon there could be a lot of unusual things happening outside of the U.S. to distract us from a lot of unusual things that will soon be revealed right here at home.)

“Move Over” Beethoven

Deep down in Louisiana  *
close to New Orleans,
Way back up in the woods
among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin
made of earth and wood,
Where lived a country boy
named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned
to read or write so well,
But he could play a guitar
just like a ringing a bell. *

“Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry

 

My name is John. I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s. So when the music “Johnny B. Goode” came out, I instantly had a new name.

February third ’59 may have been the day the music died in Clear Lake, Iowa but in St. Louis, MO, they were still singing about “Memphis” Tennessee  and still playin’ “Rock and Roll Music”. And things were just fine “Back in the USA”.

If there is a Heaven, “Roll Over Beethoven” and listen, you’re going to meet one hell  of a Rock ‘n Roll Man!     And Ludwig, I guess even if you aren’t ready for this yet, your kids are gonna love it. **

We are going to miss you Chuck.

John

*  Lyrics from the Music  “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry
** Words roughly quoted from movie “Back to the Future”

The Foulness

The foulness that proceeds us,
the stench, the smoke, the half life
the static noise of mistuned radios and burnt out street lights
blown out streets and broken water mains.

lost shoes line the paths
broken wheels and blown out tires
bent and burnt cars with missing hoods and cracked blocks
and children playing with discarded green cans and skinny dogs

The foulness that proceeds us,
the wailing mothers and lost brothers
uncles and aunts now without nephews or nieces
no walls or roofs for their dirt floor gated homes

their minds without freedom left in them
without bread, meal or ovens to bake.
just to be left alone to make the new shoes and robes
and to pound tools from their new found scrap metal.

The foulness that proceeds us,
the despair and unleashed sorrow
and cautious walk of digital camo soldiers without cause or blame
only yearning to get home to a land more understood.

As the wind blown sand settles into drifts
across arched doorways and blocked exit roads
we hear distant sounds of flying war iron always overhead
we hear the sounds of lost hope, life and future
the sound of the sad foulness that proceeds us.

OC

(This is rewind week, just blowing off the stench, John) 

 

Winter Rain

As the street lights hum to life
roads reflect with orange flavored sheen
car lights bright of red and white
leave trails behind the wiper blades
Mercury vapor parking lots,
piled high with snows remains,
white hot stains of rocker salt
are washed away by the winter rain

many nights of snow and skidding ice
with no hope of warmer days
we bundled up in down feather coats
and followed the orange plowers sand and blade.
we slowly walked in our winter boots
our minds wandered to nicer days
when winds would change from north to south
and blow in the warm winter rain.

DSS

 

Today is a rewind to dust off something that DSS likes. He is thinking of those back east this week.

Royal Fly-Boys

Captain! Sometimes the most important person is you!
You!….. you dizzled drapes dropper
You! …. you measly mound of moose melt
Get up and fight the sons of bitches!
Hit ’em in the face!
Kick ’em in the balls!
Fuck’em up!

Now wait a minute……..
Think about this
The last skull you cracked still isn’t healed.
And you lost your Secret Society of Greenwich Ring.
Oh! Those were the days!
There was beer, blood and Brylcreem
smeared all over everything.
Royal Fly-boys!…. the Bastards!

Wake Up!!

Whew! That reoccurring WWI dream again!
What time is it?
6 O’clock already!

I HATE Daylight Saving Time!!!

OC

(DST has that affect on some people. This is OC’s  twice annually modified rant about it. Brylcreem??  John   )

Future or Past

Oh, I fondly remember the past and my won and lost opportunities
I remember the feelings of pride and joy and lust and regret.
The night of sensual conversation but saying the wrong words at closing time.
I regret nothing else, only the missed chance of what that night could have been..
Oh, I think of the aircraft I have yet to fly, the buildings I have yet laid blueprints to.
The coffee and whiskeys I have yet to taste.
But none of these I dwell on.
They are mere thoughts and digested brews
None are a vision, none like the vision I still see of you.
And saying the wrong words at closing time.

DSS

Thank You Walt Whitman, Thank You Volvo

If you are reading this and you also watch a little TV, I know that not only do you love and read poetry but you have had a gnawing and nagging feeling of familiarity each time that you may have watched or heard the latest Volvo auto TV commercial.

Even if you have only read or heard just once the poem “Song of the Open Road” you can’t listen to that commercial without saying to yourself or to your pardner, “I have heard those words before!”. And there the “earworm” begins.

Yes, we can thank Volvo for bringing to the front Walt Whitman’s beautiful words again. If only a few small but pungent slices of it.  I catch only the first three lines of the poem and two more separated lines taken from the the 5th Stanza in the short TV version.

It is really tastefully done but considering the cost of the car they are promoting, it would have been much nicer if they would more openly given Mr. Whitman much more credit than a short hashtag at the end.

Find “Song of the Open Road ” here.

Google Volvo Commercial Poem to hear the ad. But they make a little longer extended version for the internet. In it they move the lines around in a different order. It is such a beautiful poem and they only show the poem title for no more than a couple seconds at the end. But it seems to me they have bastardized a great work. They really make it appear that the fellow in the commercial wrote the words. I guess you would have to call it an iteration, perhaps.

DSS.

A Space Non-Citizen

One of those outer space things
visited me last night.
It had three eyes and a wide thin-lipped mouth,
It walked sort of sideways like
Because it had two right feet and untied shoes.
Ankles that looked like green and yellow Argyle socks.
Five foot nine, average size space creature,
You know the type
A real pain in the Galactic ass non-citizen
It had jumped our orbital border
looking for work no doubt.
And a free lunch.
It wanted to threaten our security,
and poison the minds of our young.
Burn and pillage our villages.
Steal our nuclear secrets, a real pest.
Didn’t mention anything about raping our women,
Probably looking for girls much greener
and ours have too few eyes.
But otherwise it looked real dangerous,
It would have been another real good enemy.
But it sideways hopped back into its space pod
and exited our Universe.
Must have been something we said.
I think it said we were weird.

E.