Musings of my wandering youth
1 – “So quiet and hush of spring.”
I awoke in the morning quiet all around
It was a dark an’ dreary day
With only rain to make sound
An’ the day rolled on like ripples on the pond
An’ I prepared my work as the light was getting on
I walked out the front door to labor on my home
the rain eased up to fill the beggar’s cup
” Better moor your boat, tie down your sails”
Say all the good watchmen that watch only themselves
But I listened to the sound of the wind
That whistled and touched my ear’s
And there the birds fresh song too
So quiet the hush of spring.
2 – “Penny in my pocket”
I got a penny in my pocket
An’ two good feet in my shoes,
My belongings on my back.
And I’m coming home to you.
3 – “Blind River Man Blues”
I watched a man standing today he stood shoulder’s bent head bowed
He was in tall grass by the side of the road. This man swayed not an inch for an hour
Then as if to relieve some toil or strain from the grass beneath his shoe’s
He moved as if of pain a few steps ahead like a statue suddenly and was again still
Later he muttered ” decisions, decisions”
And bearing his belongings walked off the way he came.
4 – “American Conquest”
Over the dusty plains came the gold hunters
The stage coach rolling wheels, guns blazing
Indian ponies die, young braves stand to meet the gun
Rolling wheels wood and iron laid the trail
Then the tracks were laid and Iron horse came west
Rolling wheels, iron and steel, black smoke rising
And papoose babies going to die as young braves
Stand to meet the gun on the dusty plains.
5 – “Dashboard Mary”
Our lady Mary the vagabond dashboard virgin stuck many times over in a traffic jam,
Her imagined background of tail lights, exhaust pipes an rear view mirrors
Her feet magnetized upon the patrons dashboard’s she rides for free.
6 – ” Necklace of morning dew”
My apology to the spider, for barley recalling his craft
A skilled workman of nature, a Technic of survival secure
But how did you suspend such a feat
Between two pines ten feet apart ?
The length of which one strand
Of thy herculean fiber extended.
Thy work I saw in the morning
A morning yet misted by dew
As never have I seen a handicraft
So beautifully strung of dew drops.
7 – “Acapulco”
Knowing Phil wasn’t much, I didn’t know he couldn’t get published
If I had known I’m sure I would have gotten his autograph
That would have been nice but I didn’t see him go
I went out the next morning to take a stroll
It a was a grey day and Phil wasn’t any where to be seen
I walked down the street and back again
I did this three or four times looking for Phil.
Later I was in my room, lonely most of the time
I always had time to read articles about Phil in the times
I wondered how he would get to work in the morning
I looked out the window and never saw him go on time
But one night sitting in the room alone, I thought:
Maybe he’s dead, maybe it wasn’t Phil that I read about.
8 – “Pretty Water”
Everybody look’in for Father
Everybody look’in for pretty water
Artist’s look’in for the very real
Plumbers seeking out running water.
Everybody look’in for Padre
A family of children on earth
Men and women all making war.
Everybody look’in for pretty water
Fencing off the earth reserving all we can.
Big reservoir all around us, it’s the same game
We are playing all over town,
Everybody look’in for pretty water.
9- “Mt. Shasta’s Mist”
Looking like a fisherman’s net of silken white mist
Strained by the surge of a thousand winds westward
Encircling, enshrouding as does Saturn’s ring
Seemingly formed of perfection upon your uppermost peak.
10- ” The Cobblers of Wind”
Between stalks of wild grasses slip the shoe’s of the wind
It’s soles of gentle motion tread lightly upon the fields
Gently as the day begins to fade the wind makes hast after the sun
And the grasses all seem reluctantly swaying, I’m wondering should I run
Yes I’ll run grasping freedom in my mind, as the wind among the grass’s
And if some grain’s tangle in the laces of my shoe
I’ll bring them to sing of the wind for you.
11- “The Prize”
Life seems so old yet never knows death
And so I’ve cast me down unto the abyss at last.
And lo, the journey throbs on as the soldiers are running
Their lips wide open screaming hunger their token.
And their boots thud on stamping babies and flowers
And lo crumbles the pillars of our ivory towers
Life seems so cold, a family of children on earth
Men and women all making war.
Everybody look’in for pretty water
Fencing off the earth reserving all we can.
Big reservoir all around us, it’s the same game
We are playing all over town,
Everybody look’in for pretty water.
12- My 21st birthday
My own exile concerns me little, I am apart from lesser laws
Those laws that lay upon my thoughts, they that sustain the earth are mine.
I squirm at the thought of again succumbing
to that of which my misplaced companions revel in
That, that governs my dear friends unknowing
Is now but a shred of my former existence’ It is said that
I am unwilling to become a responsible member of the ships crew
And I will swing, my feet aloft. I answered:” That birds swing upon the wind.”
All the verses of my life are at hand, I have only but to go
From the pillar’s strong that stand by the gates of my minstrel show.
13- ” Are you grown yet”
Behind my smile lie empty rooms, in their space my loneliness echo’s
Of words and scenes portrayed long ago with you, the path was chosen.
How pure, how fine you were mine and I thine, tis beauty I recall.
Of sun and leaves of our fall and of you evergreen as a pine.
14- “ Bring’s you home like a gun”
She’s got her long dress on, guitar case in hand
And she’s a free spoken woman, hair down flowing
She comes down from the mountains to western seas
She’s a far looking lady, colored soft brown eyes
Her eyes find you where you’re going, they’re watching you
All the way from Colorado Springs to San Francisco Bay
She’s a fine kind of woman her long hair down
A kind you’d like to be knowing when traveling on
She’s a kindly woman, brings you home like a gun.
15- “Sand Tracks”
I woke up the next morning to find various sets of tracks around me
Some next to my head, others around my sleeping bag and the sand hills around me
I hadn’t heard a sound other than the endless throb of he sea beyond the dunes
All and all I felt very much at home, here among the tracks in sand.
16- ” What good are we”
There are surly to be different men than you and me
But if we can’t see them, what good are we.
I’d sing you a song about the days gone by’
But I don’t think we will be here that long.
I’d sing a song about the guns and bombs
An’ the withering people beneath the plane’s of our times.
and I’d sing to you about our city streets
an’ about the times when there’re so full of heat.
But what would I be say ‘in , just talking about the past
Its you I’m thinking of now an’ how long your lives will last.
17-“The Prize”
Life seems so old yet never knows death
And so I’ve cast me down unto the abyss at last.
And lo, the journey throbs on as the soldiers are running
Their lips wide open screaming hunger their token.
And their boots thud on stamping babies and flowers
And lo crumbles the pillars of our ivory towers
Life seems so cold, would not death be warm?
Life seems stale and bitter to taste
As in the cellar below the stage the cadence of war drums
Torments the bodies of the poorest and innocent.
And so are ye rich hiding here below
In your castle of self, the realm of hell
See the players on the stage, view from here the game
Know it to be in your name the prize they shall claim.
18- “Slumber”
It seems so white and yet a bit grey
Yet also lighted and alive.
The sound so quiet yet full and looming
The long bare trees clacking and touching
Softly resounding high above the winter blanket
The thin vail sifts over my footsteps and ho the wind
So happy and spirited casting down and sowing
The seeds of the mothers slumber.
19- ” Of these objects”
Its not what something is that is of value or important in society today
It is what something reflects or the image that has been reflected in our eye.
Unreality is more desirable than reality, it is but nothing to alter reality
To observe an’ object, to differentiate it from the ID, to make of it a thought
to perceive that thought as it is unreality, not reality, as reality comes before thought
Without perception of an object or what we have made of it by observation
Is not to be confused with ourselves and taken for reality
What you see of objects an’ things is what there is of you
and what there is of you is unreality, what you perceive of you is unreality.
Ego is born in unreality, so think of what there is before you,
Observe your self as part of all, and observe all as part of your self.
20- “The Way”
When death comes, nevermore my flight for freedom
When death comes, darkness will lead the way
When death comes, hell’s fire shall extinguish
When death comes and my brothers are free
Light men will have seen the way.
21- “Where I’m from”
I have to this point thought of the words in my mind
As being new to the world, they are not.
They are of an old world, world of the past
I harvested them in life.
My poem unlike one ever before
It’s soil is of the past, it’s stalk is of my trials
It’s leaves catch the new rain, it’s life then replenished anew.
An old word is never known, a new world is yet to come
This world I shall keep in poetry
then shall I know where I’m from.
22- “Jon in Acapulco”
I met Jon yesterday here on the beach
He was writing like myself I know not what
But he seemed very exciting, very good
I didn’t know quite how to say hi
then he said hello.
Today is a new day and Jon has gone
I think I’ll know where cause he left trail markers
And he said that he hoped it wasn’t much farther ahead
Also that I might come along in time.
Jon is back and I didn’t even have time
To collect all the trail markers
There’s a lot of new people now, different faces
But I’m not sure, not sure of myself
And they make me wonder, like Jon does
Like everyone doesn’t, right?
23- “Strange People”
These days of sand, surf and sun are coming to an end
Brit just walked up behind me an I guess he thought
That I was doing something important,
he didn’t make a sound and then was gone
If he’d made any faint sounds the turmoil of the breakers
Would have drowned them out anyway
He’s thinking of a soon to come journey
But alas his has no time table like mine
And Jon doesn’t act as if he’s gonna leave here for awhile
At least a couple of days or so, you know Jon
Off I go, walking 300 miles south to Acapulco again
Mexican’s are a strange people. I love them all.
24- “One Snowflake alone”
You’ve come quietly, lightly upon the winds
Soundless, lite and crystalline
From far I’ve come to here
And farther yet to go, I alone
My paths through the wood and field
Gathers yours like you are gathered by me
Suddenly your folly and I encounter
Flinching I blink from reflex and your gone
Known to me but a second a crystal pattern on my eye
Now sketched in my mind perfectly.
25- SOHO 1995 ” My Debtor’s Prison”
I’ve hoarded the trailing’s and leavings of my adopted world
and like a fisherman’s worm I am dangled a still wiggling bait.
From distance great and small my debtors wail like a siren’s song upon my walls.
I must have hoped for too much food, two morsels here a morsel there.
A stamp of emblazoned guilt upon my back burns deeper as again my stomach cry’s loud
the sound of it echo’s across landscaped pigment circling upward past O’Keeffe’s water towers.
Delirious drifting reminders, companions in the dusk, tired thoughts entertain.
There should be more light in my room or more room for my light.
As low with dogged determination of spirt, blazes a ray of sunlight
Eighty stories down never finds me but there in the scape of fields and dreams
The light is splendor and wholeness of healing.
I’ve asked too much again.
26 “A heavy load”
You know as time’s passing on, there are things that are hurting way deep inside.
So your living your material games an then one day reading the paper or watching TV
An they tell you the story of a Bengali refugee, a man without glory an just a simple story
Ain’t got no food, ain’t got no clothes, ain’t got no shoes, an its a dusty crowded road
Carrying your mother on your back and your children stumbling blind
Running, escaping from bullets and your brothers falling by your side
And where are you going with millions on the road
And the dust its choking you and there is no hope that your eyes can see
Life is a heavy load, life’s road is a dead end for the refugee.
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27 ” All the famous people are dead”
A silken white tie, no brown shoes, a starched white shirt and khaki pants
Your hair cut and clean, one pair of blue jeans, news paper streets and appointments to beat
Babies your making under fine silk sheets, Pakistani babies dying in the heat.
Your reading Newsweek an eating beef, lunching at McDonald’s right down the street
Its a glorious way that we are going today, an all the famous people
are dead.
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28 ” Innocent before the Lord”
The children are forsaken in the natural world today
They have come when there is not enough for them to be
They never felt the freedom that life force gives to others
Yet still they never have to know the pain of vain greed
and are innocent before the Lord
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29 “Artist Statement, 1973”
As the tactical officer has a plan of attack, myself as a student of life has one as well
My plan and a plan it is, is to completely circumnavigate the modern Art world
Perverted by means of the money handlers, subjected to dullness and schemes of symmetry
A total cop out on the human sprit having no empathy or concern for suffering
I find there not the least moving or stirring of emotion that may speak to the human condition
Suffering and death in this so advanced an age is left to war museums and rarely expressed
The blind walk among the seeing, seers pay homage to the blind
How many times in this life have I seen museum’s and felt nothing but awkwardness and horror
Surly color in spectrum is beauty but I don’t see it as Art, only barter for time, only energy misdirected
If that I am deluded as to what is creative or inspired, maybe it is my place to strive ahead
A time for Man to explore that which is as unknown as America was to Columbus
Yet that I know beauty in this life, also will I represent the suffering for the benefit of all mankind
The poorest an hungriest first and thus making my Art to heavy for a successful career, not pretty
Caring for my fellow man is firmly instilled in me and I hope to have success by being true to myself.
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30 “Sleep”
A quite afternoon, still like a forest lake
None are here to entertain, My mind awash with sky.
Closing my eyes I dream Yet I do not sleep
There before me the myriads Acclaiming all hail
Inhibited so of sprit, I go beyond the force of will
And am adrift like a water bug.
All is now quiet hush as there comes immersed
A kindly wisp of thought sleep, hush sleep.
Ho you vandal now ravage my soul
Work of my life and boldly enact your deed
But sleep I know not, nor you my companion
You are only another water bug to me
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#31 ” Child in her arms”
I find the hills and the outline they trace against the sky
To resemble most truly the silhouette of a reclining woman
The valleys are shadows between the cascading limbs
Like they seem to be partially buried in the soil of earth
Like the solidness of stone sculpture
Yes, if imagination even in the mouth of an ant hill
I still see that she has the child in her arms.
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32 ” What good are we”
There are surly to be different men than you and me
But if we can’t see them, what good are we.
I’d sing you a song about the days gone by’
But I don’t think we will be here that long.
I’d sing a song about the guns and bombs
An’ the withering people beneath the plane’s of our times.
and I’d sing to you about our city streets
an’ about the times when there’re so full of heat.
But what would I be say ‘in , just talking about the past
Its you I’m thinking of now an’ how long your lives will last.
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” Notes from the road”
There’s got to be a reason
wouldn’t it make us all but fail
To know that living is but for learning
An’ keys should be ideas unfit for jail.
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For our freedom there is no deadline
For our country’s youth no borders
A common space between generations
With antiquated laws for bad vibrations
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And my hands shall ache with the pain of it, and I shall laugh
And kindle the fires of my soul; with laughter.
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Freedom thy road with age grows cold
Covered with the ashes of truth
Flashes of sprit bought and sold
Forgotten in the surging of eternal youth.
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Many are the dead an many are the living
and many are the sands between.
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I seen Mountain Annie an I seen Jellyroll
They’re coming down to sing their songs
New years eve in Big Sur at the lodge.
Gonna be one hell of a night.
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I must make the well of my knowledge
as deep and full as possible
So that in the future when I draw from this well of my past
It prove to be plentiful and enrich my life.
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Got the Orangeville county blues
This scene is for the actors
To let their feelings be told
As people playing the character’s
Whose freedom is bought and sold.
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“Glad to be busted in Canada, the US has got to much social pressure”
So says Jeff, he’s pretty sure that our youth has the cure
I’ve lived and learned that Cages aren’t for birds an jails not for me.
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The mother who lives next to me now is an unwelcome companion to me in the day time
A most unpleasant one, she yells and swears constantly at her child
Like a dog will scratch fleas she raises her child
as if he were a product of a factory for lonely children
“David, Get off the floor, God Dam it!!!!!!”
I’m gonna bitch slap her soon.
She is a prisoner to her self, in herself she seems in hell
there in hell she raises her son David a young boy
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The rain’s a falling all over you
The truth is plain I can see you’re blue
What you’re seeing ain’t quite clear
Baby times a rolling an’ you are so near
He said he’s made you tame
said there’ll be no more game
Said he’s going to give you his name
But I see your eyes just the same.
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I like people who pick their noses,
There’re just like you and me, without the privacy.
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My life is all I have and what is done
By these hands shall be my epitaph.
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Finding oneself alone when one has failed
to make a choice is likely.
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The water became still almost solid
Looking as if by touch to be hard
The air nigh little but a wisp
enough but to stir the butterfly.
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Death is a footfall of life
and life is the length of that footfall. 11/15/68
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My dog just came up to me and asked
“what the fuck is happening here ? Lets go”
We left after I wiped off my face.
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I feel heavy in this river,
like a man in an iron canoe paddling against foul weather.
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I wish it was like it is right now
For it would have been good
To be here now when it was.
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Been given a time and place, the paper he signed with an X
He knew that death was close, so close, he tainted rashly.
Now you see him sitting there smiling above the grave
and never knowing of the grave diggers strike.
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It’s raining tonight and I think of love
How it can be, how tenderly held
A kiss between lovers can be savored
So real the sweet touch of lips.
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Suddenly my thought motion ceased
My being spent at the song birds whistle
Like a man done freshly in soft clay
That enters the oven where thought tarry little.
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I know always where my book of Emerson’s Journal’s is
Even as the smoker knows the crevice where his pipe is.
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Shake the dust off your carpets and sit your body down
fix your eye on the ancient canvas, now watch the long shadows come
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My gun fell in the river and it’s likely to rest there on it’s side forever
It was a fine gun that always found it’s target, tonight it found my foot.
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