Saturday, February 22, 2014

Daily Blues

The brothers and the sisters
And all of the well wishers
The bastards and the legitimates too

The slow ones and the smart ones
And all of those who own guns
They’re all waiting for their next cue

The pool sharks and the owners
And all who push lawn mowers
The too many and the too few

The lowly and the highly
All of those who follow blindly
They’re all singing the daily blues

                You sing high, you sing low
                You carry on, say land ho
                You do what you do ‘cause you do it so well
               
                You try hard, not so much
                Some say it’s  go, some say it’s touch
                You do what you can ‘cause you got a story to tell

The misters and the misses
And all the little kisses
The spinsters and the bachelors woo

The sinners and the saints
And the ones who say they ain’t
They’re all waiting in the next pew

The slow dogs and the cool cats
And all the hungry street rats
They’re all trying to get a view

The blessed and the meek
The ones who seem so sleek
They’re all singing the daily blues

      You sing high, you sing low
                You carry on, say land ho
                You do what you do ‘cause you do it so well
               
                You try hard, not so much
                Some say it’s go, some say it’s touch
                You do what you can ‘cause you got a story to tell




Sunday, February 16, 2014

Down

Growled and grunted and groaned
Went down the rocky lane
To the valley that moaned

Like a mouth that is swallowing a pill
The valley was deep
Just waiting for the kill

                Down, straight down
                Bend at the right
                There’s no turning around

                Down straight down
                Keep walking straight
                You know where you are bound
                               
Darkened, dampened and dense
The ground was soft
The pressure was immense

Down in the bottom of that hole
The air was thick
The earth greedy for souls

      Down, straight down
                Bend at the right
                There’s no turning around

                Down straight down,
                Keep walking straight
                You know where you are bound

Walking through upstretched hands
Nails are black
The fingers begging for command

My hope, my charity, my gain
They all went to hell
When I wandered down that lane

      Down, straight down
                Bend at the right
                There’s no turning around

                Down straight down,
                Keep walking straight
                You know where you are bound



Friday, February 7, 2014

The Darkness

The darkness has seeped in
Like coldness through the bones
Like fog rolling off a lake
Like music with flat tones

That darkness has come fast
Like a cold and bitter wave
Like a sudden dreadful storm
Like marching to the grave

The darkness grabs the heart
With fingers as sharp as knives
With eyes as red as devils
With hands that reach for lives

The darkness grabs the soul
With weights too leaden to bear
With a crushing force of power
With no hope left to spare



Monday, February 3, 2014

The Ladies

Dresses tattered.  Eyes vacant
Hair matted.  Souls ancient
To the touch of a man, their bodies yielded
Their hearts away, barred and shielded
Love an illusion, a poets dream
A haunting phantom, a cruel scheme

Shoes battered.  Gaze blurry
Nails glittered.  Memory murky
In exchange for themselves, given to coin
Their senses stolen, their innocence purloined
Happiness a devil, a smile that stings
A thief in disguise, a taker of things

Beauty shattered.  Features sunken
Bones jutted.  Selves shrunken
Thrown away by the world, in nowhere land
Life dealt them a cruel, a deadly hand
Existence a sentence, for a mortal sin
Playing a game they never can win