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Song Lyrics-selections by Tom Clausen

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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   I Wish You Love
        By:Tara Nevins
Times will change, that’s for sure
I’ll be here, knock at my door
Seas will rise, seas will fall
Love will see you through it all

Chorus:
I wish you love
I wish you love

Look to the heavens
Thank your lucky stars
Your feet are on the dance floor
And your head is in the clouds

The sky is opening
Your face wears a grin
You just can’t believe the way
It makes your head spin

Troubles
  Lyrics By:Traditional/Tara Nevins
Music By:Traditional/Tara Nevins
Unofficial LyricsTara Nevins: Mule to Ride (1999)
First set list: 6/19/1999
Fly Me To The Moon Cafe
Telluride, CO

Oh Lordy Me, Oh Lordy My
See you when you haven’t got a dime
Troubles are so deep, you can’t even sleep
See you when your troubles are like mine
See you when your troubles are like mine

Red, red bird, wings in the sky,
Mother Nature, Father Time
Up above a moonlight sky
Here’s a star for everyone who lied
Here’s a star for everyone who lied

Oh Lordy Me, Oh Lordy My
See you when you haven’t got a dime
Troubles are so deep, you can’t even sleep
See you when your troubles are like mine
See you when your troubles are like mine

***
Like a single feather light, drifting on the wind
No one knows where the feather blows
Where it stops and where it begins
Where it stops and where it begins

Oh Lordy Me, Oh Lordy My
See you when you haven’t got a dime
Troubles are so deep, you can’t even sleep
See you when your troubles are like mine
See you when your troubles are like mine

***

Oh Lordy Me, Oh Lordy My
See you when you haven’t got a dime
Troubles are so deep, you can’t even sleep
See you when your troubles are like mine
See you when your troubles are like mine

Sailing
  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
Music By:Tara Nevins
Official Lyrics

Run(ning) w/Sciszors: At the Rongo (1997)
Rockin' In the Weary Land (1998)
First setlist 3/29/96

Outside in the middle of a field
I can hold a finger high in the air
Under the sky in the middle of it all
I can feel the wind blow the same for us all

In the middle there's a lot to know
In the middle there's a lot to see
Of a world that can be so cold
Of a world with a heart of gold

Chorus:
Sailing, Sailing
Sailing, Sailing

So many ways the world does live
So many ways the world does give
So many ways the world does make
So many ways the world does take

So many different lives the world does live
So many rivers the world must cross
So many tears the world does stream
So many eyes the world to see
Seems to Want to Hurt This Time
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
Music By:Jeb Puryear
Unofficial Lyrics

Live From the American Ballroom (2001)
First setlist 12/16/00

Life, love, potential love
Causes so much joy
Has the adverse power 
To hurt you that much more
It's the same dark that falls
On the light that shines
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

I take a look inside
Nowhere to turn or go
No clear distinction
Above or below
Surreal existence
Casts its shadows to the blind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

Aw, the party's crashin' 
Fade into a distant drone
It only takes just one of us to be alone
Nobody's going but I still feel left behind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

Red lights serenade me as I try to go
Outside the wind crashes with the smell of blowing snow
Three in the morning, cradled by a mental bind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

Someday I will return
It will be none too soon
Jump off the front porch
Land on the crescent moon
Until then these fancy dreams
Are for another mind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

All I want to do is wake up
Return to the loving kind
But everything seems to want to hurt this time

All I want to do is wake up
Return to the living kind
But everything seems to want to hurt this time
Ancient Arms
  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
Music By:Tara Nevins
Official Lyrics

The Ones You Love (1996), Live From the American Ballroom (2001)
First setlist 7/1/94

Woah 
Can you imagine 
The farthest point from the naked eye 
She can take you out there 
Past the mystery in the night 
There is simplicity 
Out on a wave rolling in the weeds 
There is simplicity 
On the heels of south flying geese 

Chorus:
She must have been a primitive 
She feels it in her bones 
She can't tuck in these shirts 
With these ancient arms 
That have never moved this way before

Woah 
Can you imagine 
The furthest point from the naked eye 
3000 light years later 
She's the nightmare of a corporate eye 
There is simplicity 
Out on a wave rolling in the weeds 
There is simplicity 
On the heels of south flying geese 

The rise and the fall is our own creation 
The rise and the fall is our own creation
Each and Every Direction
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
Music By:Jeb Puryear
Official Lyrics

Rockin' In the Weary Land (1998)
First setlist 8/23/96

Blue petals - chocolate paste
Smell of dirt - stair steps
To an open space
It's a long story - where to begin
You're breathing out
As we're breathing in

Chorus:
Twilight mystery mystic speak to me
It's forever, it's so sweet
It's forever, with no repeat
Moonshine, twilight shine
It's forever, it's so sweet
It's forever

Bending river - passing time
Cracks are sweeping - on up my spine
Impressions striking - out from the core
This is big - this is big
We've seen it before

Each and every direction
There's a case made for love like this
Each and every direction
There's a case made for happiness

Family Picture
  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
  Music By:Tara Nevins
  Official Lyrics
Positive Friction (2000), Live from the American Ballroom (2001)
First setlist 1/28/00

The world is a wonderous puzzle
Everyone a piece and every piece fits
Every piece is alive making energy
Energy pulls the pieces together 
Into a round ball
And there is love
It's a round ball
And there is love

The ball jumps the ball rolls
The ball lives in the moment I am told
The ball pumps and rolls with the flow
The ball laughs as it bounces

Chorus:
Sure as the sunrise it doesn't matter the shape of the hat
It all fits together in a family picture
And every wall's got room for that

Every piece is a part of the whole
No one piece more important than the rest
So stand up, take a number
Every piece here's got someplace to go
It's a round ball
And there is love
It's a rond ball 
And there is love
There is love

Bridge:
Hey there look at you, you got nothin' else to do
you got any bright ideas
Tumbleweed rolling by
Catch the dust up in your eye 
Saddle up the grey and ride out
 

 Front Porch

  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
  Music By:Tara Nevins
  Official Lyrics

Positive Friction (2000)
First setlist 2/2/00

There's an easy feeling
Can you feel it, you can feel it
With an ease we're stepping out
Are you ready, could you be ready

Living's good on the front porch
When we rock it, sure we rock it
Stepping out with the front porch
In your pocket, in your pocket

Chorus:
We're stepping out, get hip to the motion
One step puts us in the groove
Back to the shack for what it might lack
One step forward, take the good life back

Fitting in the very world
That creates us and relates us
One a blessing, two a curse
Human nature, human nature

Every life a lesson
In humility, in humility
Beauty graces the world
With simplicity, with simplicity

Bridge:
Let it be you, surely free you
May your life be a pleasure you've found
Let it move you, surely clue you
Bring your faith to a higher ground
There's the needle in the haystack
Now you can lay all your worries down
Let it lift you, gently shift you
Let it bring your world around

Healing In the Name
  Lyrics By:Kevin Kinsella
  Music By:Kevin Kinsella
   Unofficial Lyrics
Kevin Kinsella: I-Town Revival (2000)
First setlist 8/15/98

Here's a little song that I wrote for you, oh God
All of my songs they are written by you
Pardon my words if they ever seem rude
I would gladly be what you want me to be
I would be everything that goes unseen
Let me humble myself one more time

Oh God, look what I have done
I hope my works they please you somehow
Oh God, now look what you have done
Ever since I met you, you make my heart stand still
Let me humble myself one more time
There's a healing in your name

Oh God, guard my mouth, take me from my own vanities
Oh God, bless my throat so I may always just sing thou praise

Let me humble myself one more time
Cause there's a healing in your name...

In This Life
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
   Unofficial Lyrics
Red Tape (1991), Live from the American Ballroom (2001)
First setlist 12/13/90

In this life, in this life, in this life 
We leave a trail that's far and wide 
Good or bad, bad or good 
Our memories decide 

There are some places where I've been 
Where you can still see the wounds 
Think to myself as I look at the scars 
Just who do you think you are 

Innocent, innocent no more 
I saw what I saw and I shut the door 
Innocent, innocent no more 
I knew it was wrong but I did it some more 

In '78 I went through a rude spell 
I knew it was fate, but I couldn't really tell 
I thought that this was the way it was always gonna be 
I hated everyone and everyone hated me 

In '88 I went through a great spell 
I knew it was fate, but I couldn't really tell 
I knew that this was the way I wanted it to be 
I loved everyone and everyone loved me 

Every action has a reaction 
Every life has a life to lead 
Every human needs a fancy reason 
Why they should live or breathe 

I sit here feeling sorry for myself 
For one thing or another 
I'm trying hard to blame somebody else 
For the miseries that I've discovered 

I make a wish over a boiling cauldron 
That I pass only strengths onto the children 
And may the spirit move me to laugh and to sing 
And I won't be drowned by the little things 

Until the day when there are no more desires 
And I put out all my little fires 
There's nothing left but a wishful song 
And there will be no right or wrong 

Until that day, until that day, until that day 
Sights and sounds they'll get to me

 

It's A New Day
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
  Official Lyrics
The Ones You Love (1996)
First setlist 5/19/94

Thank god so little remains 
Of that mental ball and chain 
I must admit I was going insane 
It's such a waste

Now the birds they're starting to flirt 
Got my hands all in the dirt 
So delicious this life on earth 
And I'm getting a taste 

Chorus:
It's a new day 
I feel it inside 
In every way 
We're up on holy ride

We did it once we'l do it again 
It's so good to see you my friend 
We're busy buckin' a nasty trend 
Sounds too good to be true

Later there'll be a party in the street 
Smiles on the people we meet 
We're curing all the itchy feet 
Cause it's all brand new 
Let Love Move Me
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
Music By:Jeb Puryear
Official Lyrics

Rockin' In the Weary Land (1998)
First setlist 7/22/94

Let love move through
Let love move me

Let love rise between us
Let love make the difference
There's a glory coming to me
I'm feeling oh so naturally
I'm not gonna force the issue
I'm tired of this frustrate and cry
I'm gonna live in full color
I'm gonna spread my wings and fly

Life So Short and Sweet
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
   Unofficial Lyrics

First setlist 6/21/01

Lately I've taken for granted
The things we've had
The seeds we've planted
Every day should be a treat
In a life so short and sweet

Give thanks to the dream
The good people
Great things we've seen
All the chances we've had to meet
In a life so short and sweet

Standing on the ground
Watching the sun go down
Another circle made complete
In a life so short and sweet

And now I say I'm sorry 
For creating the sad part of the story
What I fool I was to ever forget 
That life's so short and sweet

Life's A Ride
  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
  Music By:Tara Nevins
  Official Lyrics

Life's a Ride (2005)
First setlist 3/19/03

Used to be I was younger 
Used to be time moved slow 
Used to be all was said and done 
But I knew nothing 'bout the setting sun 

Used to be days seemed longer 
Used to be an infinite flow 
Used to be days were nothing but time 
But at the end of 'em I'd nothing to show 

Chorus: 
Who ever said one was better 
Between night and the light of day 
One is trying to get somewhere 
While the other might have found his way 
Life's a ride 
Every bit of the way 

Used to be I was restless 
Maybe now I still am 
Used to be I couldn't sit still in my seat 
And now I find I'm jumping out of my skin 

Used to be fooling someone 
Could've been fooling me 
Nobody's fooling anyone now 
Now because you know that talk is so cheap 

 Lifetime of a Fool
  
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
   Unofficial Lyrics

Run(ning) w/Sciszors: At the Rongo (1997)
First setlist 12/13/90

I threw away everything I had
Twist of life so cruel
And the outcome is so sad
In the lifetime of a fool

Well, I left the ones that I love
Thought fame and fortune would be mine
You have to watch just what you look for
The path of ambition is often blind

I threw away everything I had
Twist of life so cruel
And the outcome is so sad
In the lifetime of a fool

Now I walk this acre of pain
On the stepping stones of my loss
There's no way to return
When you burn every bridge that you cross

Living In Babylon
  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
  Music By:Tara Nevins
   Unofficial Lyrics

Red Tape (1991), Live From the American Ballroom (2001)
First setlist 1/1/90

Two old people lying in a bed
One rolled over to the other and said
If we had ever stopped and looked around 
We might have seen the earth shaking under our town

Two little babies lying in a bed
One rolled over to the other and said
Take this life you've got and live it well
Don't get caught living under the spell we are

Living in Babylon, Living in Babylon
Out of control you tumble and fall
Living in Babylon against the wall
Living in Babylon with nowhere to hide

With every step you wonder who you are
Who is this frightened boy alone in his car
Listen to the music coming out of its dash
Taking his tired brain to a place in the past

The light in your eyes like a sound in the dark
Leaves a trail of mystery with its own spark
Waiting for a moment to ease your stride
You are living in Baylon with nowhere to hide

Living in Babylon, Living in Babylon
Out of control you tumble and fall
Living in Babylon against the wall
Living in Babylon with nowhere to hide


 

 
Movin' On
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
  Official Lyrics
Run(ning) w/Sciszors: At the Rongo (1997)
Positive Friction (2000)
First setlist 4/18/97

You know all those conversations
All them funky ones we had before
Now they mean nothing to me
'Cause I'm here movin' on

Renewed spirit and a brave brave heart
I'll face the odds and conquer I shall
The future's all there is to me
'Cause I'm movin' on now

If getting drunk would help, drink up I would
But drinkin' don't seem to work like it used to
Sense of freshness is what we need 
After all that we been through

I'm takin' with me everything that I've learned
And I ain't going anywhere anyhow
With a sense of cosmic reborn
I'm movin on now

You can look at all of our great friends
They're busy busy tied up in knots
Well you know that I'm just like them
Except this morning I've come untied

This morning freedom paid a visit
And lifted me from a funk ridden cloud
All is right on these two feet
'Cause I'm movin on now

Off to Dreamland
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
  Official Lyrics

The Ones You Love (1996)
First setlist 7/2/95

Off to dreamland in grandma's dress 
They watched us depart through the upstairs window 
Across forever with a lover's curse 
At the center of the universe

Arrived with dented fenders and golden rings 
The weightlessness of fallen dreams 
It's sure lovely, but we could never stay 
We got too lost on the way 

Chorus:
My thoughts return to love 
Such a simple charm 
My thoughts return to love 
So sweet and warm

Hey there boy, what do you know 
Hey there boy, what do you see 
The rain is falling with the look of ghosts 
Reminds me of something that used to be 

 
 
Positive Friction
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
  Official Lyrics
Positive Friction (2000)
First setlist 1/22/99

Chorus:
Positive friction, under the upper crust
What does all this Hollywood really have to do with us 
True grit, timeless love 
There's no reason to pretend
Lets get together and become natural once again
Natural once again

There is a certain vibe, circulating in the air
Cast from all the energy that emanates from everywhere
Ah, such a lovely truth 
Beginning to unfold 
It's our brothers and sisters
All coming in from the cold...Natural once again

There's a family growing
I've seen it with my own two eyes
There's something that we're all knowing 
I hope its spreading like a wild fire
Back to a place one might call home

We have our own heroes 
They're dancing in the living room
We're busy, busy counting out from zero 
Not one minute too soon 
Back to a place one might call home 
 

 Rockin' Horse
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
  Music By:Jeb Puryear
  Official Lyrics
Life's a Ride (2005)
Debut 7/5/03

From one floorboard to another floorboard
Talkin' about the table leg, the couch and the rockin' horse
The rug's telling the liquor shelf desert stories about being born
And all the radiators started singing along

Something happened on a routine trip across the room
Sparkle of sunlight ended it's long journey
By hitting a pan lid and splashing in your hair
It was beautiful of course, told the rocking horse
And the whole world became about just one thing

Chorus:
All the radiators sing
Things are being realized
Won't you step on over here
Something's perfecting in your eyes
Hope to find that you would be so inclined
As to allow me the honor dear of loving you
Let's shrink the world down to just us two

There's a slow conversation rolling in our house
Took four years for the first sentence
And six years to figure it out
But now I just take it as a point of pride
Having smiling faces waking by my side

All of failures invitations have been respectfully declined
But destiny's destination is still destined to unwind
Gratefulness is in order for an atmosphere I never could fully understand
A way to be more than I really am




Rock of Ages
  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
Music By:Tara Nevins
Official Lyrics

Life's a Ride (2005)
First setlist 11/3/01

Isn't this world getting harder to live in
Isn't this road getting harder to travel on down
It doesn't really matter
When it shatters the glass just falls
It's never made a difference
Now you've got your due reward

Isn't one voice getting harder to come by
Isn't one Love getting harder to imagine now at all
It doesn't really matter
When it tumbles the weed just rolls
It's never made a difference
Your lack of readiness is growing old

Chorus:
We keep running down the rock
Were running down the rock of ages

Isn't the truth getting harder to hide from
Isn't what's right getting harder to better ignore
It doesn't really matter
When it catches the fire just burns
It's never made a difference
You'd think somewhere you might have learned

Bridge:
You reap what you sow
You're making your bed
Believe what you see
And you get what you get
You hope all's not lost
You look over your shoulder
Wondering what went wrong
Visitor
  Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
Music By:Jeb Puryear
Official Lyrics

The Ones You Love (1996)
First setlist 3/2/96

I'm just a visitor here, that's all right 
I'm just a visitor here, that's all right 
The prospect of dying makin' life so strange 
Just a worker bee workin' out on the range 
It's coming clear 
I'm just a visitor here

I feel the glory, the coming of the sun 
I feel the glory, the coming of the sun 
Behold the dawn it's setting just beyond 
We're just getting started getting things done 
Destiny's near 
I'm just a visitor here 

Chorus:
But I've come busy doin' what I can 
Furthering the world's gracious plan 
Always at a loss when not applied 
Furthering the world's gracious side
Little birdie, little birdie 
Won't you sing to me your song 
Such a short time to be here 
Such a long time to be gone

But I've become attached to the things that I've seen 
Mothers smile and the fields of green 
The way the sun sets on the valley below 
The way the things you love seem to come and go 
Then disappear 
I'm just a visitor here  

Big Parade

   Lyrics By:Jeb Puryear
   Music By:Jeb Puryear
    Unofficial Lyrics

Oh Mama, there's a madman climbing
Up the clock tower
Singing my favorite tune
About the desperate hour

Well, you know
I done lost my bag
Forgot all my charm
Now I raise my voice
And sound the alarm

Chorus:
We're gonna have such a BIG PARADE
Everybody's going
Yeah, we'll really have it made
When the trumpets start to blow

Oh where, oh where
Where is the beauty
I've seen in my dreams
It's just out of sight
Yeah, it's just out of reach

But somewhere, somewhere, there's a bus that's leaving
Love once strike the majic chord
Yeah, we're off to Cleveland
Why don't you get on board

Well the driver is an apparition
Leader of the cosmic dust
One more mystic reason
To get on that bus
Wishing Well
  Lyrics By:Tara Nevins
Music By:Tara Nevins
Official Lyrics

Purple (1993)
First setlist 12/13/90

The world was at our feet until
We stepped off of a wishing well
Looked to the future and it looked so bright
We just stood there on the edge of night

Learned our lesson and we learned it well
Love alone won't deliver us from hell
Looked to the future and it looked so bright
We just stood there on the edge of night

In a world that we don't understand
We couldn't count on each other
What do you expect when the world begins to tumble down

In my heart now the fire fades
Looking down the road in the opposite way
Looked to the future and it looked so bright
We just stood there on the edge of night

Ripple

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near, as it were your own?

It’s a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they’re better left unsung
I don’t know, don’t really care
Let there be songs to fill the air (note 1)

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of man

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall, you fall alone
If you should stand, then who’s to guide you?
If I knew the way, I would take you home

The Wheel

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann

Chorus 1
The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down
You can’t let go and you can’t hold on
You can’t go back and you can’t stand still
If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will

Chorus 2
Won’t you try just a little bit harder
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more
Won’t you try just a little bit harder
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more

Round, round, Robin run around
Gotta get back where you belong
Little bit harder, just a little bit more
Little bit further than you gone before

[chorus 1]

Small wheel turning by the fire and rod
Big wheel turning by the grace of God
Every time that wheel turn round
Bound to cover just a little more ground

Uncle John’s Band

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry any more
‘Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me, let me know your mind
Wo-oh, what I want to know is, are you kind?

It’s a buck dancer’s choice my friend, better take my advice
You know all the rules by now, and the fire from the ice
Will you come with me, won’t you come with me?
Wo-oh, what I want to know, will you come with me?

God damn, well I declare, have you seen the like?
Their walls are built of cannon balls
Their motto is “don’t” tread on me”

Chorus 1
Come hear Uncle John’s Band, playing to the tide
Come with me or go alone
He’s come to take his children home

It’s the same story the crow told me, it’s the only one he knows
Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go
Ain’t no time to hate, barely time to wait
Wo-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?

I live in a silver mine and I call it beggar’s tomb
I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune
Anybody’s choice, I can hear your voice
Wo-oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?

Chorus 2
Come hear Uncle John’s Band, by the river side
Got some things to talk about
Here beside the rising tide

[chorus 1]

Wo-oh what I want to know, how does the song go?

[chorus 2]

Dark Star

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Garcia, Hart, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir

Dark star crashes (note a)
Pouring its light into ashes
Reason tatters
The forces tear loose from the axis
Searchlight casting
For faults in the clouds of delusion

Shall we go, you and I, while we can?
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds

Mirror shatters
In formless reflections of matter
Glass hand dissolving
To ice petal flowers revolving
Lady in velvet
Recedes in the nights of goodbye

Shall we go, you and I, while we can
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Astral weeks
Album: Astral Weeks
[” Astral Weeks ” CD]

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again
From the far side of the ocean
If I put the wheels in motion
And I stand with my arms behind me
And I’m pushin’ on the door
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again
There you go
Standin’ ! with the look of avarice
Talkin’ to Huddie Ledbetter
Showin’ pictures on the wall
Whisperin’ in the hall
And pointin’ a finger at me
There you go, there you go
Standin’ in the sun darlin’
With your arms behind you
And your eyes before
There you go
Takin’ good care of your boy
Seein’ that he’s got clean clothes
Puttin’ on his little red shoes
I see you know he’s got clean clothes
A-puttin’ on his little red shoes
A-pointin’ a finger at me
And here I am
Standing in your sad arrest
Trying to do my very best
Lookin’ straight at you
Comin’ through, darlin’
Yeah, yeah, yeah
If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dreams
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me
Would you kiss-a my eyes
Lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again
To be born again
In another world
In another world
In another ti! me
Got a home on high
Ain’t nothing but a stranger in this world
I’m nothing but a stranger in this world
I got a home on high
In another land
So far away
So far away
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
In another time
In another place
In another time
In another place
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
We are goin’ up to heaven
We are goin’ to heaven
In another time
In another place
In another time
In another place
In another face

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Sweet thing
Album: Astral Weeks
[” Astral Weeks ” CD]

I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And drink the clear
Clean waterfall to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats and they’ll get high

On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrow’s sky
And I will never grow so old again.
And I will walk and talk
In garden’s all wet with rain.

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
Oh my, my, my sweet thing.
And I shall drive my chariot
down you streets and cry
‘hey its me, I’m dynamite and I don’t know why’.

And you shall take me strongly in your arms again.
An! d I will not remember that I ever felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
in gardens all misty wet with rain.
And I will never, never, never grow so old again.

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing.
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing.
And I will raise my hand up
into the night cloud’s sky.
And count the stars shining in your eye.
Just to dig it all an’ not to wonder that’s just fine.
And I wil be satisfied
Not to read in between the lines.
And I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rain.
And I will never ever, ever grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing. Oh sugar baby
Sugar baby, sugar baby, sugar baby.
With your champagne eyes
And your saint-like smile.

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Madame george
Album: Astral Weeks
[” Astral Weeks ” CD]

Down on Cyprus Avenue
With a childlike vision leaping into view
Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
Ford & Fitzroy, Madame George
Marching with the soldier boy behind
He’s much older with hat on drinking wine
And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
The cool night air like Shalimar
And outside they’re making all the stops
The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops
Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops
Happy taken Madame George
That’s when you fall
Whoa, that’s when you fall
Yeah, ! that’s when you fall
When you fall into a trance
A sitting on a sofa playing games of chance
With your folded arms and history books you glance
Into the eyes of Madame George
And you think you found the bag
You’re getting weaker and your knees begin to sag
In the corner playing dominoes in drag
The one and only Madame George
And then from outside the frosty window raps
She jumps up and says Lord have mercy I think it’s the cops
And immediately drops everything she gots
Down into the street below
And you know you gotta go
On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row
Throwing pennies at the bridges down below
And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow
Say goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
And as you leave, the room is filled with music, laughing, music,
dancing, music all around the room
And all the little boys come around, walking away from it all
So cold
And as y! ou’re about to leave
She jumps up and says Hey love, you forgot you r gloves
And the gloves to love to love the gloves…
To say goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
Dry your eyes for Madame George
Say goodbye in the wind and the rain on the back street
In the backstreet, in the back street
Say goodbye to Madame George
In the backstreet, in the back street, in the back street
Down home, down home in the back street
Gotta go
Say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Dry your eye your eye your eye your eye your eye…
Say goodbye to Madame George
And the loves to love to love the love
Say goodbye
Oooooo
Mmmmmmm
Say goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
The love’s to love the love’s to love the love’s to love…
Say goodbye, goodbye
Get on the train
Get on the train, the train, the train…
This is the train, this is the train…
Whoa, say goodbye, goodbye.! …
Get on the train, get on the train…

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Cyprus avenue
Album: Astral Weeks
[” Astral Weeks ” CD]

And I’m caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I’m caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I’m conquered in a car seat
Not a thing that I can do
I may go crazy
Before that mansion on the hill
I may go crazy
Before that mansion on the hill
But my heart keeps beating faster
And my feet can’t keep still
And all the little girls rhyme something
On the way back home from school
And all the little girls rhyme something
On the way back home from school
And the leaves fall one by one by one by one
Call the ! autumn time a fool
Yeah baby my tongue gets tied
Every every every time I try to speak
My tongue gets tied
Every time I try to speak
And my inside shakes just like a leaf on a tree
I think I’ll go on by the river with my cherry cherry wine
I believe I’ll go walking by the railroad with my cherry cherry wine
If I pass the rumbling station where the lonesome engine drivers pine
And wait a minute, yonder comes my lady
Rainbow ribbons in her hair
Yonder comes my lady
Rainbow ribbons in her hair
Six white horses and a carriage
She’s returning from the fair
Baby, baby, baby
And if I’m caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And if I’m caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I’m conquered in a car seat
And I’m looking straight at you
Way up on, way up on, way up on….
The avenue of trees
Keep walking down
In the wind and the rain, darling
You keep walking down when the sun shone through the treesNobody, no, no, no, nobody stops me from loving you baby
So youn g and bold, fourteen years old
Baby, baby, baby…
Ooooh-ee

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Into the mystic
Album: Moondance
[” Moondance ” CD]

We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was one as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic

And when that fog horn blows I will be coming home
And when the fog horn blows I want to hear it
I don’t have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And magnificently we will flow into the mystic

When that fog horn blows you know I will be coming home
And w! hen that fog horn whistle blows I got to hear it
I don’t have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And together we will flow into the mystic
Come on girl…

Too late to stop now…

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Almost independence day
Album: Saint Dominic’S Preview
[” Saint Dominic’S Preview ” CD]

I can hear them calling way from Oregon
I can hear them calling way from Oregon
And it’s almost Independence Day

Me and my lady, we go steppin’ (we go steppin’)
We go steppin’ way out on China town
All to buy some Hong Kong silver
And the wadin’ rushing river (we go steppin’)
We go out on the, out on the town tonight

I can hear the fireworks
I can hear the fireworks
I can hear the fireworks
Up and down the, up and down the San Francisco bay
Up and down the, up and down the! San Francisco bay
I can hear them echoing
I can hear, I can hear them echoing
Up and down the, up and down the San Francisco bay

I can see the boats in the harbor (way across the harbor)
Lights shining out (lights shining out)
And a cool, cool night
And a cool, cool night across the harbor
I can hear the fireworks
I can hear the people, people shouting out
I can hear the people shouting out (up and down the line)
And it’s almost Independence Day

I can see the lights way out in the harbor
And the cool, and the cool, and the cool night
And the cool, and the cool, and the cool night breeze
And I feel the cool night breeze
And I feel, feel, feel the cool night breeze
And the boats go by
And it’s almost Independence Day
And it’s almost, and it’s almost Independence Day

Way up and down the line
Way up and down the line…

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Listen to the lion
Album: Saint Dominic’S Preview
[” Saint Dominic’S Preview ” CD]

All my love come down
All my love come tumblin’ down
An’ all my love come tumblin’ down

All-a my love, all-a my love
All a-my love come tumblin’ down
Oh, listen to the lion
Oh, listen listen listen, listen
To the lion, inside of me, inside of me
An’ I shall search my soul

I shall search a-my, search a-my very soul
And I shall search my very soul
I shall-a search a my very so-
Woh-woh-woh-woh-woh-woh-woh-woh-woh
Oh-ah, whoa-ah
For the lion, for the lion
For the lion, for ! the lion

Inside of me
In-side-a, side-a me, side-a-me, side-a-me
Side-a me, side-a me, side-a-me, side-a-me
Side-a me, side-a me, side-a-me, side-a-me

Spoken:
Life is strange

And all my tears have flown
All-a my tears like water flown
Water! Water! Water!
All my tears like water flown

And all my and all-a my, all-a my, all-a my, all-a my
All-a my, all-a my, all-a my
Tears like a water flown
For, for the lion-a, ha
For the lion
For the lion, hu
For the lion
Lion!

Inside of me, inside of me

Oh-oh, ooh-oh listen, listen, listen
To the lion
Whoa-oh, whoa-oooh
Oh listen, listen, listen
To the lion

Side a-me side a-me, side a-me
Side a-me, side a-me

And we sailed, and we sailed-a
And we sailed, and we sailed
Away from Denmark
Went from Denmark, way up to Caledonia

Lookin’ for a brand new start
Goin’, for a brand new start
Lookin’ for a brand new s! tart
Hey, hey, hey, hey-yeah
Lookin’ for a brand new start
I want a brand new start

Oh-ooo-ah-ooo-ah-ooo
I-a-ooo-rah-ooo-wah-ooo
Ooo-wah-ooo-wah-ooo-wah-ooo-wah-ooo-wah-ooo

Ooo-wah, ooo-wah, ooo-wah

Da-da-dada, da-da-da,da-da-da,da-da-da
Da-da-da,da-da-da, da-da-da
Oh yeah

Lookin’ for a brand new start
Lookin’ for a brand new start
Lookin’ for a brand new start

Lookin’ for abrand new start

(Whispers)
Lookin’ for a brand new start
Lookin’ for a brand new start
Lookin’ for a brand new start

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Saint dominic’s preview
Album: Saint Dominic’S Preview
[” Saint Dominic’S Preview ” CD]

Shammy [chamois] cleaning all the windows,
Singing songs about Edith Piaf’s soul.
And I hear blue strains of “no regredior”
Across the street from Cathedral Notre Dame.

Meanwhile back in San Francisco
We’re trying hard to make this whole thing blend,
As we sit upon this jagged
Storey block, with you my friend.

And it’s a long way to Buffalo.
It’s a long way to Belfast city too.
And I’m hoping the choice won’t blow the hoist
‘cos this town, they bit off more than they can chew! .

As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview

All the orange boxes are scattered.
We get to Safeway’s supermarket in the rain.
And everybody feels so determined
Not to feel anyone else’s pain.

(You know that) No one’s making no commitments
To anybody but themselves,
Hidin’ behind closed doorways,
Tryin’ to get outside, outside of empty shells

And for every cross-cuttin’ country corner,
For every Hank Williams railroad train that cried,
And all the chains, badges, flags and emblems
And every strain on every brain and every eye (?)

As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview.

And the restaurant tables are completely covered.
The record company has paid out for the wine.
Yo! u got everything in the world you ever wanted
Right about now your face should wear a smile.

That’s the way it all should happen
When you’re in, when you’re in the state you’re in;
You’ve got your pen and notebook ready,
I think it’s about time, time for us to begin.

And we’re over in a 52nd Street apartment,
Socializing with the whino few,
Just to be hip and get wet with the jet set.
But they’re flying too high to see my point of view.

As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview.

See them freedom marching,
Out on the street, freedom marching.
Saint Dominic’s Preview.

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Aryan mist
Album: Beautiful Vision
[” Beautiful Vision ” CD]

Aryan mist
Among the bridges
You hang by the river
You’ve been here forever
Aryan mist

What can the matter be
In a world full of glamour
Does it lift you up
Or is it railway carriage charm

You just sit here
And look from your carriage
As you watch the scene go by

Gurus from the east
Gurus from the west
Does it lift you up
Or is it railway carriage charm

Aryan mist
Among the bridges
You hang by the river
You’ve been here forever
Aryan mist
Aryan mist

There’s so m! any people
Going down by the river
Down by the river
To get clean

The fog of illusion
The fog of confusion
Is hanging all over the world

Gurus from the east
Gurus from the west
Does it lift you up
Or is it railway carriage charm

Aryan mist
You’ve been here forever
Remind me of Krishna
Love first sweet kiss
Aryan mist

Aryan mist
Among the bridges
You hang by the river
You’ve been here forever
Aryan mist

Does it lift you up
Or is it railway carriage charm

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: A Sense Of Wonder
Album: A Sense Of Wonder
[” A Sense Of Wonder ” CD]

I walked in my greatcoat
Down through the days of the leaves.
No before after, yes after before
We were shining our light into the days of blooming wonder
In the eternal presence, in the presence of the flame.

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision bright
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame.

On and on and on and on we kept singing our song
Over Newtonards and Comber, Gransha and the
Ballystockart Road.
With Boffyflow and Spike
I ! said I could describe the leaves for Samuel and Felicity
Rich, red browney, half burnt orange and green.

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision bright
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame.

It’s easy to describe the leaves in the Autumn
And it’s oh so easy in the Spring
But down through January and February it’s a very different thing.

On and on and on, through the winter of our discontent.
When the wind blows up the collar and the ears are frostbitten too
I said I could describe the leaves for Samuel and what it means to you and me

You may call my love Sophia, but I call my love Philosophy.

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame.

Wee Alfie at the
Castle Picture House on the Castlereagh Road.

Whistling on the corner next d! oor where
he kept Johnny Mack Brown’s horse.
O Solo Mio by McGim sey
and the man who played the saw
outside the city hall.
Pastie suppers down at Davey’s chipper
Gravy rings, barmbracks
Wagon wheels, snowballs

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Enlightenment
Album: Enlightenment
[” Enlightenment ” CD]

Chop that wood
Carry water
What’s the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is

Every second, every minute
It keeps changing to something different
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
It says it’s non attachment
Non attachment. non attachment

I’m in the here and now, and I’m meditating
And still I’m suffering but that’s my problem
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is

Wake up

Enlightenment says the world is nothing
Nothing but a dream,! everything’s an illusion
And nothing is real

Good or bad baby
You can change it anyway you want
You can rearrange it
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
Chop that wood
And carry water
What’s the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is

All around baby. you can see
You’re making your own reality. everyday because
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is

One more time

Enlightenment. don’t know what it is
It’s up to you
Enlightenment. don’t know what it is
It’s up to you everyday
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
It’s always up to you
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
It’s up to you, the way you think

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: So quiet in here
Album: Enlightenment
[” Enlightenment ” CD]

Foghorns blowing in the night
Salt sea air in the morning breeze
Driving cars all along the coastline
This must be what it’s all about
Oh this must be what it’s all about
This must be what paradise is like
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here

The warm look of radiance on your face
And your heart beating close to mine
And the evening fading in the candle glow
This must be what it’s all about
Oh this must be what it’s all about
This must be what paradise is like
So quiet ! in here. so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, yeah, so peaceful in here

All my struggling in the world
And so many dreams that don’t come true
Step back, put it all away
It don’t matter, it don’t matter anymore
Oh this must be what paradise is like
This must be what paradise is like
It’s so quiet in here, so peaceful in here
It’s so quiet in here, so peaceful in here

A glass of wine with some friends
Talking into the wee hours of the dawn
Sit back and relax your mind
This must be, this must be, what it’s all about
This must be what paradise is like
Oh this must be what paradise is like
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here

Big ships out in the night
And we’re floating across the waves
Sailing for some other shore
Where we can be what we wanna be
Oh this must be what paradise is like
This must be what paradise is like
Baby it’s so quiet in here, so pe! aceful in here
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, you can hear, it’s so quiet

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: Youth of 1,000 summers
Album: Enlightenment
[” Enlightenment ” CD]

He’s the youth of a thousand summers
He’s the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul. in my soul, in my soul
In my soul. in my soul. in my soul

And he looks so radiant
And he shines like the sun
And he looks so radiant
And he lights up the world

He’s the youth of a thousand summers
He’s the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my so! ul
Yeah, love it, yeah, love it
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul

He’s the king of the mountain
And the clear crystal fountain
He’s the saint of the river
He’s the ancient of days

He’s the youth of a thousand summers
He’s the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul

And he makes you go skipping
And he makes you go dancing
And he gets you in rhythm
And he moves you in song

He’s the youth of a thousand summers
He’s the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
Oh, in my soul, in my soul, in my soul

And a sweet bird of youth

In my soul (repeat)

Artist: Van Morrison
Song: On hyndford street
Album: Hymns To The Silence
[” Hymns To The Silence ” CD]

Take me back, take me way, way, way back
On Hyndford Street
Where you could feel the silence at half past eleven
On long summer nights
As the wireless played Radio Luxembourg
And the voices whispered across Beechie River
In the quietness as we sank into restful slumber in the silence
And carried on dreaming, in God
And walks up Cherry Valley from North Road Bridge, railway line
On sunny summer afternoons
Picking apples from the side of the tracks
That spilled over from the gardens of the houses on C! yprus Avenue
Watching the moth catcher working the floodlights in the evenings
And meeting down by the pylons
Playing round Mrs. Kelly’s lamp
Going out to Holywood on the bus
And walking from the end of the lines to the seaside
Stopping at Fusco’s for ice cream
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
Hyndford Street, Abetta Parade
Orangefield, St. Donard’s Church
Sunday six-bells, and in between the silence there was conversation
And laughter, and music and singing, and shivers up the back of the neck
And tuning in to Luxembourg late at night
And jazz and blues records during the day
Also Debussy on the third programme
Early mornings when contemplation was best
Going up the Castlereagh hills
And the cregagh glens in summer and coming back
To Hyndford Street, feeling wondrous and lit up inside
With a sense of everlasting life
And reading Mr. Jelly Roll and Big Bill Broonzy
And “Really The Blues” by “Mezz” Mezzrow
And! “Dharma Bums” by Jack Kerouac
Over and over again
And voices ec hoing late at night over Beechie River
And it’s always being now, and it’s always being now
It’s always now
Can you feel the silence?
On Hyndford Street where you could feel the silence
At half past eleven on long summer nights
As the wireless played Radio Luxembourg
And the voices whispered across Beechie River
And in the quietness we sank into restful slumber in silence
And carried on dreaming in God.

Absolutely Sweet Marie Lyrics

by Bob Dylan

Well, your railroad gate, you know I just can’t jump it
Sometimes it gets so hard, you see
I’m just sitting here beating on my trumpet
With all these promises you left for me
But where are you tonight, sweet Marie?

Well, I waited for you when I was half sick
Yes, I waited for you when you hated me
Well, I waited for you inside of the frozen traffic
When you knew I had some other place to be
Now, where are you tonight, sweet Marie?

Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously
But then, now again, not too many can be like you, fortunately.

Well, six white horses that you did promise
Were fin’lly delivered down to the penitentiary
But to live outside the law, you must be honest
I know you always say that you agree
But where are you tonight, sweet Marie?

Well, I don’t know how it happened
But the river-boat captain, he knows my fate
But ev’rybody else, even yourself
They’re just gonna have to wait.

Well, I got the fever down in my pockets
The Persian drunkard, he follows me
Yes, I can take him to your house but I can’t unlock it
You see, you forgot to leave me with the key
Oh, where are you tonight, sweet Marie?

Now, I been in jail when all my mail showed
That a man can’t give his address out to bad company
And now I stand here lookin’ at your yellow railroad
In the ruins of your balcony
Wond’ring where you are tonight, sweet Marie.

Jokerman Lyrics 

by Bob DylanStanding on the waters casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing.
Distant ships sailing into the mist,
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing.
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

So swiftly the sun sets in the sky,
You rise up and say goodbye to no one.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don’t show one.
Shedding off one more layer of skin,
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds,
Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister.
You’re going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain’t nobody there would want to marry your sister.
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame,
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers.
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed,
Michelangelo indeed could’ve carved out your features.
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space,
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh. oh. oh. Jokerman.

Well, the rifleman’s stalking the sick and the lame,
Preacherman seeks the same, who’ll get there first is uncertain.
Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks,
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain,
False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin,
Only a matter of time ’til night comes steppin’ in.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

It’s a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray,
A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet.
He’ll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat,
Take the motherless children off the street
And place them at the feet of a harlot.
Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants,
Oh, Jokerman, you don’t show any response.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Like a Rolling Stone Lyrics 

by Bob DylanOnce upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Queen Jane Approximately Lyrics 

by Bob DylanWhen your mother sends back all your invitations
And your father to your sister he explains
That you’re tired of yourself and all of your creations
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain
And all of your children start to resent you
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

Now when all the clowns that you have commissioned
Have died in battle or in vain
And you’re sick of all this repetition
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

When all of your advisers heave their plastic
At your feet to convince you of your pain
Trying to prove that your conclusions should be more drastic
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

Now when all the bandits that you turned your other cheek to
All lay down their bandanas and complain
And you want somebody you don’t have to speak to
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

Visions of Johanna Lyrics 

by Bob DylanAin’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here
The ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze
I can’t find my knees”
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”
But like Louise always says
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

When I Paint My Masterpiece Lyrics 

by Bob DylanOh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble,
Ancient footprints are everywhere.
You can almost think that you’re seein’ double
On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs.
Got to hurry on back to my hotel room,
Where I’ve got me a date with Botticelli’s niece.
She promised that she’d be right there with me
When I paint my masterpiece.

Oh, the hours I’ve spent inside the Coliseum,
Dodging lions and wastin’ time.
Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle, I could hardly stand to see ’em,
Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb.
Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my memory,
When I ran on the hilltop following a pack of wild geese.
Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody
When I paint my masterpiece.

Sailin’ ’round the world in a dirty gondola.
Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!

I left Rome and landed in Brussels,
On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried.
Clergymen in uniform and young girls pullin’ muscles,
Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped inside.
Newspapermen eating candy
Had to be held down by big police.
Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent
When I paint my masterpiece.

Youre A Big Girl Now Lyrics 

Our conversation was short and sweet
It nearly swept me off my feet
And I’m back in the rain
Oh, and you are on dry land
You made it there somehow
You’re a big girl nowBird on the horizon, sitting on a fence
He’s singing his song for me at his own expense
And I’m just like that bird
Oh, singing just for you
I hope that you can hear
Hear me singing through these tears

Love is so simple, to quote a phrase
You’ve known it all the time, I’m learning it these days
And I know where I can find you
Oh, in somebody’s room
It’s a price I have to pay
You’re a big girl all the way

Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast
Oh but what a shame, that all we’ve shared can’t last
I can change I swear
Oh, see what you can do
I can make it through
You can make it too

A change in the weather is known to be extreme
But what’s the sense in changing horses in midstream
I’m going out of my mind
Oh, with a pain that stops and starts
Like a corkscrew to the heart
Ever since we’ve been apart

Youre Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go Lyrics 

I’ve seen love go by my door
It’s never been this close before
Never been so easy or so slow
Been shootin’ in the dark too long
If something’s not right it’s wrong
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you goDragon clouds so high above
I’ve only known careless love
It’s always hit me from below
But this time around it’s more correct
Right on target and so direct
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go

Purple clover, Queen Anne’s lace
Crimson hair across your face
You can make me cry but you don’t know
Can’t remember what I was thinking of
You might be spoiling me with too much love
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go

Flowers on the hillside blooming crazy
Crickets talking back and forth in rhyme
Blue river running slow and lazy
I could spend forever with you and never realize the time

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine have been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud’s
But there’s no way I can compare
All them scenes to this affair, honey
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go

You’re gonna make me wonder what I’m doing
Staying far behind without you
You’re gonna make me wonder what I’m saying
You’re gonna make me give myself a good talking to

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
You’re gonna have to leave me now I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass in the ones I love
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go

 The Times The Are A-Changin Lyrics  

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

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’.

 Simple Twist of Fate Lyrics  

by Bob DylanThey sat together in the park
As the evening sky grew dark,
She looked at him and he felt a spark tingle to his bones.
‘Twas then he felt alone and wished that he’d gone straight
And watched out for a simple twist of fate.

They walked along by the old canal
A little confused, I remember well
And stopped into a strange hotel with a neon burnin’ bright.
He felt the heat of the night hit him like a freight train
Moving with a simple twist of fate.

A saxophone someplace far off played
As she was walkin’ by the arcade.
As the light bust through a beat-up shade where he was wakin’ up,
She dropped a coin into the cup of a blind man at the gate
And forgot about a simple twist of fate.

He woke up, the room was bare
He didn’t see her anywhere.
He told himself he didn’t care, pushed the window open wide,
Felt an emptiness inside to which he just could not relate
Brought on by a simple twist of fate.

He hears the ticking of the clocks
And walks along with a parrot that talks,
Hunts her down by the waterfront docks where the sailers all come in.
Maybe she’ll pick him out again, how long must he wait
Once more for a simple twist of fate.

People tell me it’s a sin
To know and feel too much within.
I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring.
She was born in spring, but I was born too late
Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) Lyrics 

by Bob DylanSenor, senor, do you know where we’re headin’?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?
Seems like I been down this way before.
Is there any truth in that, senor?

Senor, senor, do you know where she is hidin’?
How long are we gonna be ridin’?
How long must I keep my eyes glued to the door?
Will there be any comfort there, senor?

There’s a wicked wind still blowin’ on that upper deck,
There’s an iron cross still hanging down from around her neck.
There’s a marchin’ band still playin’ in that vacant lot
Where she held me in her arms one time and said, “Forget me not.”

Senor, senor, I can see that painted wagon,
I can smell the tail of the dragon.
Can’t stand the suspense anymore.
Can you tell me who to contact here, senor?

Well, the last thing I remember before I stripped and kneeled
Was that trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field.
A gypsy with a broken flag and a flashing ring Said,
“Son, this ain’t a dream no more, it’s the real thing.”

Senor, senor, you know their hearts is as hard as leather.
Well, give me a minute, let me get it together.
I just gotta pick myself up off the floor.
I’m ready when you are, senor.

Senor, senor, let’s disconnect these cables,
Overturn these tables.
This place don’t make sense to me no more.
Can you tell me what we’re waiting for, senor?

One Of Us Must Know Lyrics 

I didn’t mean to treat you so bad
You shouldn’t take it so personal
I didn’t mean to make you so sad
You just happened to be there, that’s all
When I saw you say “goodbye” to your friend and smile
I thought that it was well understood
That you’d be comin’ back in a little while
I didn’t know that you were sayin’ “goodbye” for goodBut, sooner or later, one of us must know
That you just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn’t see what you could show me
Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid
I couldn’t see how you could know me
But you said you knew me and I believed you did
When you whispered in my ear
And asked me if I was leavin’ with you or her
I didn’t realize just what I did hear
I didn’t realize how young you were

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
That your just doing what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn’t see when it started snowin’
Your voice was all that I heard
I couldn’t see where we were goin’
But you said you knew an’ I took your word
And then you told me later, as I apologized
That you were just kiddin’ me, you weren’t really from the farm
An’ I told you, as you clawed out my eyes
That I never really meant to do you any harm

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
That you a just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

New Morning Lyrics 

by Bob DylanCan’t you hear that rooster crowin’?
Rabbit runnin’ down across the road
Underneath the bridge where the water flowed through
So happy just to see you smile
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.

Can’t you hear that motor turnin’?
Automobile comin’ into style
Comin’ down the road for a country mile or two
So happy just to see you smile
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.

The night passed away so quickly
It always does when you’re with me.

Can’t you feel that sun a-shinin’?
Ground hog runnin’ by the country stream
This must be the day that all of my dreams come true
So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.

So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.
New morning . . .

Mr. Tambourine Man Lyrics 

by Bob DylanHey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.

Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin’.
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.

Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun,
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn’t pay it any mind, it’s just a shadow you’re
Seein’ that he’s chasing.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.

Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues Lyrics 

When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez
And it’s Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don’t pull you through
Don’t put on any airs
When you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa youNow if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks a lot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don’t have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor
Won’t even say what it is I’ve got

Sweet Melinda
The peasants call her the goddess of gloom
She speaks good English
And she invites you up into her room
And you’re so kind
And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice
And leaves you howling at the moon

Up on Housing Project Hill
It’s either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you’re lookin’ to get silly
You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don’t need you
And man they expect the same

Now all the authorities
They just stand around and boast
How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms
Into leaving his post
And picking up Angel who
Just arrived here from the coast
Who looked so fine at first
But left looking just like a ghost

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they’d stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I’m going back to New York City
I do believe I’ve had enough

 Blowin’ in the Wind Lyrics  

by Bob DylanHow many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ‘n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

 All Along the Watchtower Lyrics  

by Bob Dylan”There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

4th Time Around Lyrics 

by Bob DylanWhen she said,
“Don’t waste your words, they’re just lies,”
I cried she was deaf.
And she worked on my face until breaking my eyes,
Then said, “What else you got left?”
It was then that I got up to leave
But she said, “Don’t forget,
Everybody must give something back
For something they get.”

I stood there and hummed,
I tapped on her drum and asked her how come.
And she buttoned her boot,
And straightened her suit,
Then she said, “Don’t get cute.”
So I forced my hands in my pockets
And felt with my thumbs,
And gallantly handed her
My very last piece of gum.

She threw me outside,
I stood in the dirt where ev’ryone walked.
And after finding I’d
Forgotten my shirt,
I went back and knocked.
I waited in the hallway, she went to get it,
And I tried to make sense
Out of that picture of you in your wheelchair
That leaned up against . . .

Her Jamaican rum
And when she did come, I asked her for some.
She said, “No, dear.”
I said, “Your words aren’t clear,
You’d better spit out your gum.”
She screamed till her face got so red
Then she fell on the floor,
And I covered her up and then
Thought I’d go look through her drawer.

And, when I was through
I filled up my shoe
And brought it to you.
And you, you took me in,
You loved me then
You didn’t waste time.
And I, I never took much,
I never asked for your crutch.
Now don’t ask for mine.

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry Lyrics 

by Bob DylanWell, I ride on a mailtrain, baby,
Can’t buy a thrill.
Well, I’ve been up all night, baby,
Leanin’ on the window sill.
Well, if I die
On top of the hill
And if I don’t make it,
You know my baby will.

Don’t the moon look good, mama,
Shinin’ through the trees?
Don’t the brakeman look good, mama,
Flagging down the “Double E”?
Don’t the sun look good
Goin’ down over the sea?
Don’t my gal look fine
When she’s comin’ after me?

Now the wintertime is coming,
The windows are filled with frost.
I went to tell everybody,
But I could not get across.
Well, I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don’t wanna be your boss.
Don’t say I never warned you
When your train gets lost.

Just Like a Woman Lyrics 

by Bob DylanNobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev’rybody knows
That Baby’s got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls.
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.

Queen Mary, she’s my friend
Yes, I believe I’ll go see her again
Nobody has to guess
hat Baby can’t be blessed
Till she sees finally that she’s like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls.
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.

It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
And your long-time curse hurts
But what’s worse
Is this pain in here
I can’t stay in here
Ain’t it clear that

I just can’t fit
Yes, I believe it’s time for us to quit
When we meet again
Introduced as friends
Please don’t let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world.
Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do
You make love just like a woman, yes, you do
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Agai Lyrics 

by Bob DylanOh, the ragman draws circles
Up and down the block.
I’d ask him what the matter was
But I know that he don’t talk.
And the ladies treat me kindly
And furnish me with tape,
But deep inside my heart
I know I can’t escape.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells,
Speaking to some French girl,
Who says she knows me well.
And I would send a message
To find out if she’s talked,
But the post office has been stolen
And the mailbox is locked.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line.
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine.
An’ I said, “Oh, I didn’t know that,
But then again, there’s only one I’ve met
An’ he just smoked my eyelids
An’ punched my cigarette.”
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Grandpa died last week
And now he’s buried in the rocks,
But everybody still talks about
How badly they were shocked.
But me, I expected it to happen,
I knew he’d lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street
And shot it full of holes.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the senator came down here
Showing ev’ryone his gun,
Handing out free tickets
To the wedding of his son.
An’ me, I nearly got busted
An’ wouldn’t it be my luck
To get caught without a ticket
And be discovered beneath a truck.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With twenty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest.
But he cursed me when I proved it to him,
Then I whispered, “Not even you can hide.
You see, you’re just like me,
I hope you’re satisfied.”
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the rainman gave me two cures,
Then he said, “Jump right in.”
The one was Texas medicine,
The other was just railroad gin.
An’ like a fool I mixed them
An’ it strangled up my mind,
An’ now people just get uglier
An’ I have no sense of time.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

When Ruthie says come see her
In her honky-tonk lagoon,
Where I can watch her waltz for free
‘Neath her Panamanian moon.
An’ I say, “Aw come on now,
You must know about my debutante.”
An’ she says, “Your debutante just knows what you need
But I know what you want.”
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb.
They all fall there so perfectly,
It all seems so well timed.
An’ here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

 Mississippi Lyrics  

(Words and Music by Bob Dylan)Every step of the way, we walk the line
Your days are numbered, so are mine
Time is piling up, we struggle and we stray
We’re all boxed in, nowhere to escape

City’s just a jungle, more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it, tryin’ to get away
I was raised in the country, I been working in the town
I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down

Got nothing for you, I had nothing before
Don’t even have anything for myself anymore
Sky full of fire, Pain pouring down
Nothing you can sell me, I’ll see you around

All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime
Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well, the devil’s in the alley, mule’s in the stall
Say anything you wanna, I have heard it all
I was thinking about the things that Rosie said
I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed

Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees
Feeling like a stranger nobody sees
So many things that we never will undo
I know you’re sorry, I’m sorry too

Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t
Last night I knew you, tonight I don’t
I need something strong to distract my mind
I’m gonna look at you ’til my eyes go blind

Well I got here following the southern star
I crossed that river just to be where you are
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well my ship’s been split to splinters and it’s sinking fast
I’m drowning in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free
I’ve got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me

Everybody’s moving, if they ain’t already there
Everybody’s got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now

My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in
I know that fortune is waiting to be kind
So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine

Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Catch The Wind Lyrics – Donovan 

In the chilly hours and minutes,
Of uncertainty, I want to be,
In the warm hold of your loving mind.To feel you all around me,
And to take your hand, along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When sundown pales the sky,
I wanna hide a while, behind your smile,
And everywhere I’d look, your eyes I’d find.

For me to love you now,
Would be the sweetest thing, ‘twould make me sing,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.

When rain has hung the leaves with tears,
I want you near, to kill my fears
To help me to leave all my blues behind.

For standin’ in your heart,
Is where I want to be, and I long to be,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.

Broken Sky-  Steve Johnson ( Big Leg Emma)
Can I find you in the morning
Can I see you in the broken sky
How can I tell if you are lonesome
Maybe as I see your tears roll by.Well it’s time to change
Oh, I’m feeling strange
And the years keep a rollin’ by.

I know I know you from somewhere
Somewhere far off from this broken trail
Are you lost or are you lonesome
Did you sink your ship before you sailed?

Well, dreams are lost most everyday
And yours are nowhere to be found.

Oh yellow moon up in the evening
Shine down your light yes and help me see
I need your light so I can see her
I need your light so I can be free.

Well days go by and I
Well I just get high and
Leave the past behind.

Oh clouded skys of desile angels
Wet down this world oh yes and make it clean
Please tell me soon that you’ll release me
Release me from this world of broken dreams.

Well there’s a time to live
And there’s a time to die and I say
Time is always on my side.

Moonless Night  
Music & Lyrics by:
Steve Johnson
© 2003
chorus) I can feel you
Stars like diamonds in the sky
I can see you
On a moonless night
Chase it with me
Dreams that always can come true
And don’t forget to
Shine on a moonless night

It will be time and time again
To forget what you are after
Lost love forgiveness
Well I don’t know how to ask her
I do believe that it can do no harm
It will keep it sheltered
From the storm


chorus) I can feel you
Stars like diamonds in the sky
I can see you
On a moonless night
Chase it with me
Dreams that always can come true
And don’t forget to
Shine on a moonless night

Take some time
To find your purpose
If you’re happy I’m happy
That’s my concern
Take it lightly
Don’t bust open the curtains ‘cuz
You know one day well you might get burned


chorus) I can feel you
Stars like diamonds in the sky
I can see you
On a moonless night
Chase it with me
Dreams that always can come true
And don’t forget to
Shine on a moonless night

Dogs- a selection of little poems

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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  At the summit tree,
my exhausted dog lifts his leg
a dry formality

– J.W. Hackett
 *
the tethered dog
watches the guide dog
enter a deli
– John Stevenson
 *
snowmelt
my dog’s nose
to the ground
– Hilary Tann
 *
  Whatever my dog
was chasing within his dream
he is now sniffing!
– J.W. Hackett
 *
sundown-
one dog starts
them all
– Jim Kacian
 *
  Suddenly thumping
the floor… a happy moment
in my dog’s dream
– J.W. Hackett
 *
the three-year-old
making their big dog
sit
– John Stevenson
 *

  Going in circles
trying to make ends meet
a frantic puppy

– J.W. Hackett
 *
new puppy
all about
himself
– Hilary Tann
 *

  The puppy’s wonder
tilts his head, first to one side
and then the other

– J.W. Hackett
 *
     the dog sits
in the bow of the canoe
    nose to the breeze
– Cor van den Heuvel
 *

  Romping new puppy
sits down every so often
and whimpers awhile

– J.W. Hackett
 *
traffic jam
a plastic dog
keeps on nodding
 – Yu Chang
 *
barks at me everyday
but just lately
he sounds lonely
– John Stevenson
*
91, they say
in human years-
my collie’s bright eyes
 – Hilary Tann
 *
the farmer’s old dog
panting
in the harvester
– Michael Dylan Welch
 *
snowdrift
news of a missing dog
from pole to pole
 – Yu Chang
 *
just arrived
their dog sniffs
our tires
 – Tom Clausen
 *
invisible fence
…
no sign of the dog
-Hilary Tann
*

  Before he lies down
on the floor, the dog paws away
centuries of leaves

– J.W. Hackett
 *

  Puppy gives each yawn
vocal accompaniment
to make sure its seen

– J.W. Hackett
 *
snowed in
the dog clicks
from room to room
– Roberta Beary
 *
distant thunder-
the dog’s toenails click
against the linoleum
– Gary Hotham
 *
letting
the dog out-
the stars out
– Gary Hotham
 *
day one
with the new puppy…
dog tired
  – Tom Clausen

Cats- little poem selection

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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Looking out the window
   with my kitten
     during the night…
 – Louis Cuneo
**

  The house cat watches
the flitting sparrow, with a
chattering hunger

-J.W. Hackett
**

  The door held for her
the cat stops on the threshold
and sniffs the jamb…

-J.W. Hackett
**

  When finally caught,
the kitten’s tail is given
a real good licking

-J.W. Hackett
**

  While being scolded
the old cat licks his shoulder
pretending not to hear…

-J.W. Hackett
**

  A moment ago
the kitten was full of life
now how limp it lies

-J.W. Hackett
**

  The kitten’s great yawn
goes all around the room…
and back again

-J.W. Hackett
**
****
Right in the middle
  of the cat’s yawn-
     a pink tongue
   – Arizona Zipper
**
In a circle of thaw
   the cat walks
     round and round
  – Virginia Brady Young
**
spring evening-
playing with the last kitten
to be given away
– Chuck Brickley
**
home late:
the cat’s fur in patches
on her housecoat
– Michael Dudley
**
      pacing
the shore
      the ship’s cat
– Raymond Roseliep
**
only letting in the cat
until
the morning star
– Penny Harter
**
Opening its eyes
  closing its eyes
   a cat in the sun.
  Arizona Zipper
**
Following the smoke ring
    out the window
      the cat’s eye
  – Arizona Zipper
**
After a hard rain,
   a cat stops to shake a paw
      before moving on.
  – Arizona Zipper
**

Dalai Lama-some selections

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Spend some time alone every day.
Sleep is the best meditation.
Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Follow the three Rs:
Respect for self
Respect for others
Responsibility for all your actions.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days.
An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to
make it meaningful: a meaningful friend- or a meaningful day.
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
I always believe that it is much better to have a variety of religions,
a variety of philosophies, rather than one single religion or philosophy.
This is necessary because of the different mental dispositions of each
human being. Each religion has certain unique ideas or techniques, and
 learning about them can only enrich one’s own faith.

selected quotes worth sharing along…

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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from vincent tripi:

They know most about beginning who help the rest of us begin

From tribe~ Meditations of a haiku poet:

Haiku enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing who we really are.

all things conspire to reveal us.

Day after day i treat my haiku as a bird might treat its feathers.

As poets, we’re all on the road sought by stillness…

Haiku is simply nature’s way of healing us with words.

A poem should be that sea which fills the empty shell within us.

Moments are like bread crumbs to the bird that always sings. The point is to sing and share our bread with one another.

We are not human beings trying to be poets. We are poets trying to be human beings.

Mostly i have to live the poem to truly understand it. The fact that there is a right poem for the right moment is an amazing & much needed credo for survival. The American Indians knew well when to get their herbs & where- that is how they got them. When the need was there. So with life & with the writing of haiku.

Poems are what we leave & what we find at the beginning.

from tribe~ Further Meditations of a haiku poet:

i am writing. You are reading. This is prayer.

i’ve always had a deep sense that writing was somehow bringing me closer to something. At the same time a sense that it was somehow taking me away from something. It is the poem that builds the bridge between these places.

The poem is never completely ours. Neither is the difficulty writing it.

Slow down! Slow down o snail! Let us be companions along the spiritual path.

The poem is an offering as well as an altar.

i want to leave behind the poem that can follow where i’m going…

We are made to write as the river is made to flow… not reflecting where it’s been nor where it’s going.

ah, the immensity of nature- room for all of her poets!

***

If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will
literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted with pennies,
you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It’s that simple. What
you see is what you get.
                                      – Annie Dillard
I see that I must give what I most need       – Ann Michaels
I tell you one thing-
if you want peace of mind,
do not find fault with others.
  – Sri Sarada Devi
If you ask me anything I don’t know,
I’m not going to answer.
– Yogi Berra
Happiness is not an individual matter. When you are able to bring relief, or bring back the smile to one person, not only that person profits, but you also profit.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
He was obedient to and at one with nature and the four seasons.     – Basho
Your everyday mind  –  that is the Way!     – Wu-Men
“He who buys what he doesn’t need steals from himself”     – Swedish proverb
The meaning of life is to see.       – Hui-Neng
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
( I am large, I contain multitudes.)
     – Walt Whitman
The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way… To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion- all in one.
                              – John Ruskin
Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves            – Basho
Everything we do is futile, but we must do it anyway.   – Mahatma Gandhi
Where one door shuts, another opens.               Spanish Proverb
One glimpse of the true human being, and we are in love.           – Ikkyu
a large heart can be filled with very little                  – Antonio Porchia
Do not seek perfection in a changing world. Instead, perfect  your love                                             – Sengstan
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
                                  – William Blake
Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation- this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it.
                                              – Dogen
You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeing it.
                          – Charlotte Joko Beck
Who need be afraid of the merge?        – Walt Whitman
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
                                       – Henry Miller
That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.
                                 – Willa Cather
We accept the graceful falling
of mountain cherry blossoms,
but it is much harder for us
to fall away from our own
attachment to the world.
        – Rengetsu
I should never have made my success in life if I had not bestowed upon the least thing I have undertaken the same attention and care I have bestowed upon the greatest.
                                           – Charles Dickens
The things we know best are the things we haven’t been taught.
                               – Vauvenargues
The shortest answer is doing.      – George Hebert
I learn by going where I have to go.        – Theodore Roethke
May you live all the days of your life.     – Jonathan Swift
Since everything is but an apparition perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may as well burst out laughing.
                                          – Longchenpa
The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me
until only the mountain remains.
          – Li Po
My mind is my own church.      – Thomas Paine
Simply the thing I am shall make me live.     – William Shakespeare
When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.      – Samuel Johnson
Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.
                                       – Alan Watts
Barn’s burnt down-
   Now
       I can see the moon
                – Masahide
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.    – Rumi
Midnight. No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.
         – Dogen
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
             – Will Rogers
A baby is born with a need to be loved- and never outgrows it.   – F. Clark
These things I do despise: hypocrisy and lies, and anything at all that dims the light in children’s eyes.
                       – Ruth Stamper
Too many people keep looking forward to the good old days.   A. Glasow
Would there be this eternal seeking if the found existed?    – Antonio Porchia
Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.   – Chinese proverb
In the end one only experiences oneself.       – Nietzsche
A good explanation: never explain anything.    Zen saying
I know that I know nothing.     – Socrates
He who tells the truth says almost nothing.    – Antonio Porchia
Coming, going, the waterbirds
don’t leave a trace,
don’t follow a path
       – Dogen
the fear of separation is all that unites.    – Antonio Porchia
The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself.  -Robert Pirsig
Everything comes from your own heart. This is what one ancient called bringing out the family treasure.
                               – Yuan-Wu
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand
 – Chinese Proverb
Value judgements are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
                             – John Cage
If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
                              – Seng-Ts’an
The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark.    – Zen saying
It is only change that is at work here.      – I-Ching
Life is an adventure in forgiveness.    – Norman Cousins
Learning to live is learning to let go.    – Sogyal Rinpoche
Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight, since we do not possess it, and thus need not fear its loss.
                               – John Cage
Do you imagine the universe is agitated. Go into the desert at night and look out at the stars. This practice should answer the question.
                               – Lao Tzu
To keep the body in good health is a duty: otherwise the mind is not strong and clear.
                                  – Buddha
This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
                                      – The Mahabharata
It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.
                                       – Dalai Lama
The wonderful thing about Zen practice is that you get to do it whether you like it or not.
                                   – Zen saying
Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.    – Ramakrishna
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.
                                  – Confucius
Do not say anything harsh: what you have said will be said back to you.
                               – Buddha
If three of us travel together, I shall find two teachers.   – Confucius
To get this chance ( to practice the Dharma) is very difficult. To be born as a human being is very difficult. Among uncountable sperms and eggs… you are here. Wonderful chance. Congratulations!
                                 – Soen Nakagawa
A human being is a part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection of a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
                                           – Albert Einstein
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms…
                               – Mary Oliver
Every day is a special day, every place is a special place as it is.  B. Glassman
If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.
                                – Thich Nhat Hanh
The quieter you become, the more you can hear.     – Ram Dass
you will find the distance that separates you from them, by joining them.
                          – Antonio Porchia
It’s not a person’s depth you must discover, but their ascent. Find their path from depth to ascent.
                                       – Anne Michaels
The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.   – Tennessee Williams
Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passses, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend- or a meaningful day.
                                           – Dalai Lama
To be able to hear the divine calling, for grace to flow abundantly, it is enough to love something dearly, music, the sun, or a little child.
                                   – Ramakrishna
Man is the matter of the cosmos, contemplating itself.             – Carl Sagan
My religion is kindness. A good heart, warm feelings- these are the most
important things.                                                    -Dalai Lama
Smile if you want a smile from another face. –                        Dalai Lama
From Rainer Maria Rilke: Rilke on Love and other Difficulties
At bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone. All companionship can consist only in the strengthening of two neighboring solitudes, whereas everything that one is wont to call giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to come close to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling.
I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation.
An intense love of solitude, distaste for involvement in worldly affairs,
persistence in knowing the Self and awareness of the goal of knowing-
all this is called true knowledge.
                     The Bhagavad Gita

A few zen related selections

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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The happiness of the drop is to die in the river.     – Al Ghazali
Someone asked, “What am I?”
Guangfan answered, “There is nothing in the whole universe that is not you.”
  – Zen mondo
A consciousness that conceives of inherent existence does not have a valid foundation. A wise consciousness, grounded in reality, understands that living beings and other phenomena- minds , bodies, buildings, and so forth- do not inherently exist. This is the wisdom of emptiness. Understanding reality exactly opposite to the misconception of inherent existence, wisdom gradually overcomes ignorance.
                                           – Dalai Lama
A monk asked Pai-chang,
“What is a matter of special wonder?”
Pai-chang said, “Sitting alone at Ta Hsiung Peak.”
      – Zen Mondo
A bush warbler-
    and of a hundred men
       not one knows it’s there.
                – Ryokan
The days grow long, the mountains beautiful.
The south wind blows over blossoming meadows.
Newly arrived swallows dart over streaming marshes.
Ducks in pairs drowse on the warm sand.
          – Tu Fu
Paradise is where I am.           – Voltaire
A billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that will be,
when the stars are dead.
      – Rainer Maria Rilke
No one can live your life except you.
No one can live my life except me.
You are responsible. I am responsible.
But what is our life? What is our death?
        – Maezumi Roshi
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.
          – William Wordsworth
As he listened,
Mindlessly,
The eavesdrops entered him.
      – Dogen
Months pass, days pile up,
like one intoxicated dream-
An old man sighs.
     – Ryokan
All heaven and earth have worked out this single buttercup:
Surely it will go on
Age after age.
– Japanese Zen Folk Saying
A raindrop becomes ocean
when it falls into the sea.
Thus does the soul become divine
on seeing its divinity.
    – Franck  from the Zen of Seeing
Happiness not in another place
but in this place…
    not for another hour,
              but for this hour….
          – Walt Whitman
Its crazy in this passing world
for a lender to feel he has lent
or a borrower to feel he has borrowed.
     – Japanese Zen saying
The perfect way out:
Theres no past/present/future,
Dawn after dawn, the sun!
Night after night, the moon!
     – Gestudo
“Wind Among the Pines”
The wind blows hard among the pines
Toward the beginning
of an endless past.
Listen: you’ve heard everything.
    – Sinkichi Takahashi
The mountain slopes crawl with lumberjacks,
Axing everything in sight-
Yet crimson flowers
Burn along the stream.
       – Chin-doba
Does one really have to fret about enlightenment?
No matter what road I travel I’m going home.
              – Shinsho
With one foot on the brick step,
The All burst in my head.
I had a good laugh by the box tree
Moon in the bluest sky.
     – Choro
From the start theres no Life and Death,
yet I’ve gained the leaving/staying mind.
In the next life I’ll probably return.
        – Sensai
Wish I could let them listen to the sound of falling snow
At midnight in the old temple of Shinoda Forest.
               Japanese Zen
Art is frozen Zen            – R.H. Blyth
Be master of yourself
         – everywhere
All you do
            proves true
              – Zen saying

Longer Poems selected by Tom Clausen

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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 Poem of the One World

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water
and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to
where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else
which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself
-Mary Oliver
BlossomIn April
the ponds open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere: frogs shouting
their desire,
their satisfaction. What
we know: that time
chops at us all like an iron
hoe, that death
is a state of paralysis. What
we long for: joy
before death, nights
in the swale – everything else
can wait but not
this thrust
from the root
of the body. What
we know: we are more
than blood – we are more
than our hunger and yet
we belong
to the moon and when the ponds
open, when the burning
begins the most
thoughtful among us dreams
of hurrying down
into the black petals
into the fire,
into the night where time lies shattered
into the body of another.

-Mary Oliver
   With Thanks to the Field Sparrow, Whose Voice
                 Is So Delicate and Humble
I do not live happily or comfortably
with the cleverness of our times.
The talk is all about computers,
the news is all about bombs and blood.
This morning, in the fresh field,
I came upon a hidden nest.
It held four warm, speckled eggs.
I touched them.
Then went away softly,
having felt something more wonderful
than all the electricity of New York City.
by Mary Oliver
Between the conscious and the unconscious,
the mind has put up a swing:
all earth creatures, even the supernovas,
sway between these two trees,
and it never winds down.
Angels, animals, humans, insects
by the million, also the wheeling sun and moon:
ages go by, and it goes on.
Everything is swinging: heaven, earth, water, fire,
and the secret one slowly growing a body.
Kabir saw that for fifteen seconds,
and it made him a servant for life.
Kabir (1440-1518)
            XV 
There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.
None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal , despair, –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.
When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ’tis like the distance
On the look of death.

-Emily Dickinson

            Buddha in Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

by Rainier Marie Rilke

from The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
                                 16
The point is we’re waiting, not how comfortable we are while waiting. Paleolithic man waited by caves for the realization of why he was there, and hunted; modern men wait in beautified homes and try to forget death and birth. We’re waiting for the realization that this is the golden eternity.
                               17
It came on time.

by Jack Kerouac

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)



I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.


And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.


I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

      A Man’s Household-   Wislawa Szymborska
He’s one of those men who want to do everything by themselves.You need to love him along with drawers, cabinets, and shelves, with what’s on top of cupboards, or inside or sticking out.
Everything is going to come in handy without a doubt.
Drills, hammers, files, chisels, melting pots, and pliers,
bundles of string, springs, and umbrella wires, squeezed-out
tubes, dried-out glue, jars big and small where something already grew, an assortment of pebbles, a little anvil, a vise, an alarm clock that’s already been broken twice, a dead beetle in a soap dish, beside an empty vial, on which a skull and crossbones have been painted in grand style, a batten, short and long plugs, buckles, and a gasket, a Lake Mamry water hen’s three feathers in a basket, a few champagne corks stuck in cement, two glass slides scorched in the course of an experiment, a pile of bars, some cardboard boxes, tiles, a gutter spout, and fitting uses for them all might soon be figured out, some handles to something, scraps of leather, a blanket torn to shreds, a boyish slingshot, scads of keys, and screws of varied threads…
May I throw out a thing or two? – I put this to him dearly, but in response the man I love just looked at me severely.

Prospective Immigrants Please Note

Either you will

go through this door

or you will not go through.

If you go through

there is always the risk

of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly

and you must look back

and let them happen.

If you do not go through

it is possible

to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes

to hold your position

to die bravely

but much will blind you,

much will evade you,

at what cost who knows?

The door itself

makes no promises.

It is only a door.

 – Adrienne Rich

 Red Bird

Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.

Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.

Still, for whatever reason-
perhaps because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue,

or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens-
I am grateful

that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else can do.

– Mary Oliver

 How to Meditate

    -lights out-
fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,
the gland inside of my brain discharging
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
i hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance-Healing
all my sicknesses-erasing all-not
even the shred of a “I-hope-you” or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind
blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought
comes a-springing from afar with its held-
forth figure of image, you spoof it out,
you spuff it off, you fake it, and
it fades, and thought never comes-and
with joy you realize for the first time
“thinking’s just like not thinking-
So I don’t have to think
any
more”

                                                    – Jack Kerouac
                    Aimless Love
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table
In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.
The love of a chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.
No lust, no slam of the door-
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida,
No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor-
just a twinge every now and then
for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.
But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.
After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,
so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.
    – Billy Collins
A Dream of Trees
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary Oliver

Blossom
In April
the ponds open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere: frogs shouting
their desire,
their satisfaction. What
we know: that time
chops at us all like an iron
hoe, that death
is a state of paralysis. What
we long for: joy
before death, nights
in the swale – everything else
can wait but not
this thrust
from the root
of the body. What
we know: we are more
than blood – we are more
than our hunger and yet
we belong
to the moon and when the ponds
open, when the burning
begins the most
thoughtful among us dreams
of hurrying down
into the black petals
into the fire,
into the night where time lies shattered
into the body of another.
Mary Oliver
Dogfish
Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman’s boot,
with a white belly.
If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.

And you know
what a smile means,
don’t you?

*

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.

*

It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don’t know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.

*

Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don’t we?

Slowly

*

the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.

*

You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it’s the same old story – – –
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

*

And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.

*

And probably,
if they don’t waste time
looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

Mary Oliver

Happiness
In the afternoon I watched
the she-bear; she was looking
for the secret bin of sweetness –
honey, that the bees store
in the trees’ soft caves.
Black block of gloom, she climbed down
tree after tree and shuffled on
through the woods. And then
she found it! The honey-house deep
as heartwood, and dipped into it
among the swarming bees – honey and comb
she lipped and tongued and scooped out
in her black nails, until
maybe she grew full, or sleepy, or maybe
a little drunk, and sticky
down the rugs of her arms,
and began to hum and sway.
I saw her let go of the branches,
I saw her lift her honeyed muzzle
into the leaves, and her thick arms,
as though she would fly –
an enormous bee
all sweetness and wings –
down into the meadows, the perfections
of honeysuckle and roses and clover –
to float and sleep in the sheer nets
swaying from flower to flower
day after shining day.

Mary Oliver

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches
Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches
of other lives –
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey,
hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning,
feel like?
Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?

Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over
the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!

Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left –
fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one’s foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!

To set one’s foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!

To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird’s pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened

in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe

I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what’s coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.

That was then, which hasn’t ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean’s edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

Mary Oliver

Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard
His beak could open a bottle,
and his eyes – when he lifts their soft lids –
go on reading something
just beyond your shoulder –
Blake, maybe,
or the Book of Revelation.
Never mind that he eats only
the black-smocked crickets,
and the dragonflies if they happen
to be out late over the ponds, and of course
the occasional festal mouse.
Never mind that he is only a memo
from the offices of fear –

it’s not size but surge that tells us
when we’re in touch with something real,
and when I hear him in the orchard
fluttering
down the little aliminum
ladder of his scream –
when I see his wings open, like two black ferns,

a flurry of palpitations
as cold as sleet
rackets across the marshlands
of my heart
like a wild spring day.

Somewhere in the universe,
in the gallery of important things,
the babyish owl, ruffled and rakish,
sits on its pedestal.
Dear, dark dapple of plush!
A message, reads the label,
from that mysterious conglomerate:
Oblivion and Co.
The hooked head stares
from its house of dark, feathery lace.
It could be a valentine.

Mary Oliver

Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
Mary Oliver
Moccasin Flowers
All my life,
so far,
I have loved
more than one thing,
including the mossy hooves
of dreams, including’
the spongy litter
under the tall trees.

In spring
the moccasin flowers
reach for the crackling
lick of the sun

and burn down. Sometimes,
in the shadows,
I see the hazy eyes,
the lamb-lips

of oblivion,
its deep drowse,
and I can imagine a new nothing
in the universe,

the matted leaves splitting
open, revealing
the black planks
of the stairs.

But all my life–sofar–
I have loved best
how the flowers rise
and open, how

the pink lungs of their bodies
enter the fore of the world
and stand there shining
and willing–the one

thing they can do before
they shuffle forward
into the floor of darkness, they
become the trees.

Mary Oliver

Fall Song
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries – roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Mary Oliver

Morning Poem
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Mary Oliver

Peonies
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open —
pools of lace,
white and pink —
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities —
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again —
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

Mary Oliver

Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York,1957
Once, in summer
in the blueberries,
I fell asleep, and woke
when a deer stumbled against me.
I guess
she was so busy with her own happiness
she had grown careless
and was just wandering along

listening
to the wind as she leaned down
to lip up the sweetness.
So, there we were

with nothing between us
but a few leaves, and wind’s
glossy voice
shouting instructions.

The deer
backed away finally
and flung up her white tail
and went floating off toward the trees –

but the moment she did that
was so wide and so deep
it has lasted to this day;
I have only to think of her –

the flower of her amazement
and the stalled breath of her curiosity,
and even the damp touch of her solicitude
before she took flight –

to be absent again from this world
and alive, again, in another
for thirty years
sleepy and amazed,

rising out of the rough weeds
listening and looking.
Beautiful girl,
where are you?

Mary Oliver

Poem (The spirit likes to dress up…)
The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning

in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather

plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body’s world,
instinct

and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,

to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is —

so it enters us —
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;

and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.

Mary Oliver

Poppies
Poppies
Mary Oliver
The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

Mary Oliver

Skunk Cabbage
And now as the iron rinds over
the ponds start dissolving,
you come, dreaming of ferns and flowers
and new leaves unfolding,
upon the brash
turnip-hearted skunk cabbage
slinging its bunches leaves up
through the chilling mud.
You kneel beside it. The smell
is lurid and flows out in the most
unabashed way, attracting
into itself a continual spattering
of protein. Appalling its rough
green caves, and the thought
of the thick root nested below, stubborn
and powerful as instinct!
But these are the woods you love,
where the secret name
of every death is life again – a miracle
wrought surely not of mere turning
but of dense and scalding reenactment. Not
tenderness, not longing, but daring and brawn
pull down the frozen waterfall, the past.
Ferns, leaves, flowers, the last subtle
refinements, elegant and easeful, wait
to rise and flourish.
What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.
Mary Oliver
Sleeping in the Forest
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
Mary Oliver
Snowy Night
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
Mary Oliver
Some Things The World Gave
1
Times in the morning early
when it rained and the long gray
buildings came forward from darkness
offering their windows for light.
2
Evenings out there on the plains
when sunset donated farms
that yearned so far to the west that the world
centered there and bowed down.

3
A teacher at a country school
walking home past a great marsh
where ducks came gliding in —
she saw the boy out hunting and waved.

4
Silence on a hill where the path ended
and then the forest below
moving in one long whisper
as evening touched the leaves.

5
Shelter in winter that day —
a storm coming, but in the lee
of an island in a cover with friends —
oh, little bright cup of sun.

Mary Oliver

Stars
Here in my head, language
Keeps making its tiny noises.
How can I hope to be friends
with the hard white stars

whose flaring and hissing are not speech
but a pure radiance?

How can I hope to be friends
with the yawning spaces between them

where nothing, ever, is spoken?
Tonight, at the edge of the field,

I stood very still, and looked up,
and tried to be empty of words.

What joy was it, that almost found me?
What amiable peace?

Then it was over, the wind
roused up in the oak trees behind me

and I fell back, easily.
Earth has a hundred thousand pure contraltos–

even the distant night bird
as it talks threat, as it talks love

over the cold, black fields.
Once, deep in the woods,

I found the white skull of a bear
and it was utterly silent–

and once a river otter, in a steel trap,
and it too was utterly silent.

What can we do
but keep on breathing in and out,

modest and willing, and in our places?
Listen, listen, I’m forever saying,

Listen to the river, to the hawk, to the hoof
to the mockingbird, to the jack-in-the-pulpit–

then I come up with a few words, like a gift.
Even as now.

Even as the darkness has remained the pure, deep darkness.
Even as the stars have twirled a little, while I stood here,

looking up,
one hot sentence after another.

Mary Oliver

The Fish
The first fish
I ever caught
would not lie down
quiet in the pail
but flailed and sucked
at the burning
amazement of the air
and died
in the slow pouring off
of rainbows. Later
I opened his body and separated
the flesh from the bones
and ate him. Now the sea
is in me: I am the fish, the fish
glitters in me; we are
risen, tangled together, certain to fall
back to the sea. Out of pain,
and pain, and more pain
we feed this feverish plot, we are nourished
by the mystery.
Mary Oliver
The Buddha’s Last Instruction
“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
Mary Oliver
The Rapture
All summer
I wandered the fields
that were thickening
every morning,
every rainfall,
with weeds and blossoms,
with the long loops
of the shimmering, and the extravagant-

pale as flames they rose
and fell back,
replete and beautiful-
that was all there was-

and I too
once or twice, at least,
felt myself rising,
my boots

touching suddenly the tops of the weeds,
the blue and silky air-
listen,
passion did it,

called me forth,
addled me,
stripped me clean
then covered me with the cloth of happiness-

I think there is no other prize,
only rapture the gleaming,
rapture the illogical the weightless-

whether it be for the perfect shapeliness
of something you love-
like an old German song-
or of someone-

or the dark floss of the earth itself,
heavy and electric.
At the edge of sweet sanity open
such wild, blind wings.

Mary Oliver

Turtle
Now I see it–
it nudges with its bulldog head
the slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble;
and now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal
who is leading her soft children
from one side of the pond to the other; she keeps
close to the edge
and they follow closely, the good children–

the tender children,
the sweet children, dangling their pretty feet
into the darkness.
And now will come–I can count on it–the murky splash,

the certain victory
of that pink and gassy mouth, and the frantic
circling of the hen while the rest of the chicks
flare away over the water and into the reeds, and my heart

will be most mournful
on their account. But, listen,
what’s important?
Nothing’s important

except that the great and cruel mystery of the world,
of which this is a part,
not to be denied. Once,
I happened to see, on a city street, in summer,

a dusty, fouled turtle plodded along–
a snapper–
broken out I suppose from some backyard cage–
and I knew what I had to do–

I looked it right in the eyes, and I caught it–
I put it, like a small mountain range,
into a knapsack, and I took it out
of the city, and I let it

down into the dark pond, into
the cool water,
and the light of the lilies,
to live.

Mary Oliver

When Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
Why I Wake Early
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?
Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.
But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?
Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.
When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking
to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,
as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?
Mary Oliver
The Chance to Love Everything
All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby –
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
or padded through the door,
grinning through their many teeth,
looking for seeds,
suet, sugar; muttering and humming,
opening the breadbox, happiest when
there was milk and music. But once
in the night I heard a sound
outside the door, the canvas
bulged slightly – something
was pressing inward at eye level.
I watched, trembling, sure I had heard
the click of claws, the smack of lips
outside my gauzy house –
I imagined the red eyes,
the broad tongue, the enormous lap.
Would it be friendly too?
Fear defeated me. And yet,
not in faith and not in madness
but with the courage I thought
my dream deserved,
I stepped outside. It was gone.
Then I whirled at the sound of some
shambling tonnage.
Did I see a black haunch slipping
back through the trees? Did I see
the moonlight shining on it?
Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope –
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?
Mary Oliver
Featured poem for September by Dave Etter
Hollyhocks
Hollyhocks are swaying gently
under the blue branches of an elm.
I watch 82 freight cars
sink into the corn leaves
and drop over the rim of the prairie.
On my back now, I watch the sky
make wool pictures of mothers.
Two blackbirds fly toward the river:
the muddy river of endless regret.
I could lie here forever
and look up at these hollyhocks.
I will never get on in the world.
Burning Oneself Out by Adrienne Rich
We can look into the stove tonight
as into a mirror, yes,the serrated log, the yellow-blue gaseous core

the crimson-flittered grey ash, yes.
I know inside my eyelids
and underneath my skin

Time takes hold of us like a draft
upward, drawing at the heats
in the belly, in the brain

You told me of setting your hand
into the print of a long-dead Indian
and for a moment, I knew that hand,

that print, that rock,
the sun producing powerful dreams
A word can do this

or, as tonight, the mirror of the fire
of my mind, burning as if it could go on
burning itself, burning down

feeding on everything
till there is nothing in life
that has not fed that fire

The Play’s the Thing

Forgive me, Lord,
for all the tasks
that went undone today.
But this morning when my child
toddled in and asked, “Mommy play?”
I simply had to say yes.
And between the puzzles and trucks
and blocks and dolls and old hats and
books and giggles,
we shared a thousand special thoughts,
a hundred hopes and dreams and hugs.
And tonight, when prayer time came
and he folded his hands and softly whispered,
“Thank you, God, for Mommy and Daddy and
toys and french fries, but ‘specially
for Mommy playing,”
I knew it was a day well wasted.
And I knew You’d understand. 

– by   Jayne Jaudon Ferrer

               ” The Green Noise of Ohio Hardwoods “
I sit in my woody house
and in the same midnight moment hear
the soft voice of the radio woman
one more genteel
instrumental piece, sure
to come from a safe century ago;
the windchimes on my front porch,
yellow plexiglass bird flying perpetually
into harmony by my old neighbor;
and the train:
this railroad town’s persistent
romantic distant hooting.
Thus suddenly alerted, I look
at my wood table, wooden chairs,
heavy wood sideboard, light wooden desk.
on a low chair ( wood) , I lean
against a little wood chest; my foot
rests on the base of the bookcase
that conjoins the central wooden pillars
holding up my house. I am living
inside a tree.
Squirrels come to the windows.
The little ficus from my sister
has stopped dropping leaves.
The looming hemlock never does.
These trees face each other,
outside and in.
I am leafborne, Tschaikovsky borne,
all my treetown grief transmuted
into woody vibrations.
   by  Kathe Davis  ( from  American Zen)
        Legacy
No easy task this
Cleanup of basement workbenchFull of multifarious clutter,
Dusty mementos of hand-me-downs.

The real chore is in tossing the
Handmade tools my father

Crafted as a machinist under
The final shadows of WW II

And the scraped-up pale-blue tackle box
Full of Lazy Ikes, Bombers, Jitterbugs,

River Runt Spooks, and
Hula Poppers.

A simple matter on the surface
But what’s not seen is

The slippery thought of
Letting go of steel craft and memories,

Lovingly bequeathed as if
They were brothers whose being

I’m now releasing like unwanted
Fish, letting them drop from my hands

To the trash bin below, letting them go
While I suppress a traitor’s smile,

Great Judas at the workbench, son
Who is not much more than an ingrate

Who will probably keep only the tackle box
In the end.

by Stephen Anderson

           Ochre and Blue

Waking to ochre birch leaves
sinking in the blue undersea of dawn,
I swim in the same currents,
needing nothing.
Later I’ll forget this,
and mourn the end of autumn.
What’s left to be said
about being human?
   by Chase Twichell
November

No sun — no moon!

No morn — no noon —

No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day.

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member —

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! —

November!

by Thomas Hood 1844

We Used to Live North

So many long rides back home,

I can see certain stretches of highway

but only as one might remember

home movies of impressionist landscapes.

At one end of the Empire State,

on the approach to Lake Erie,

an open stretch of Devonian seabed

inhabited by families of evergreen;

at the other end the moody Catskills

gathered around the Hudson

like the guardians of a powerful secret.

The two ends of the earth

where our tribes dug in for the duration.

After church and feasting,

the elders looking past us said little

about the success of the occasion,

asking instead:

were the children healthy,

were they happy,

did we still have jobs,

did everyone have enough?

Then let the fire die,

let the stars climb

the galactic stairway,

let the wind intone

its hushed hosanna.

Then to bed.

– Walt Cybulski

Huddled Beneath the Sky

The saddness I have caused any face
by letting a stray word
strike it,

any pain
I have caused you
What can I do to make us even?
Demand a hundred fold of me- I’ll pay it.
During the day I hold my feet accountable
to watch out for wondrous insects and their friends.

Why would I want to bring horror
into their extraordinary
world?

Magnetic fields draw us to light; they move our limbs and thoughts.
But it is still dark; if our hearts do not hold a lantern,
we will stumble over each other,

                                   huddled beneath the sky
as we are.
                                                            ~ Rumi ~

 

at the beginning and the end

 is there any love
 more intimate
than breathing
 is there any song
more exquisite
 than silence
is there any reason
more compelling
 than union
is there any truth
 beyond
 One.
~  by Deborah Wenzel
See it Through

When you’re up against a trouble,
Meet it squarely, face to face;
Lift your chin and set your shoulders,
Plant your feet and take a brace.
When it’s vain to try to dodge it,
Do the best that you can do;
You may fail, but you may conquer,
See it through!
Black may be the clouds about you
And your future may seem grim,
But don’t let your nerve desert you;
Keep yourself in fighting trim.
If the worst is bound to happen,
Spite of all that you can do,
Running from it will not save you,
See it through!

Even hope may seem but futile,
When with troubles you’re beset,
But remember you are facing
Just what other men have met.
You may fail, but fall still fighting;
Don’t give up, whate’er you do;
Eyes front, head high to the finish.
See it through!

Edgar Albert Guest

 

Mindful 

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for–
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world–
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant–
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these–
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
– Mary Oliver
CARBON GIRL
Silica will never really thrill me.
The highways I remember
were the kind
that threw wind in your face
and blew freedom
into your bones and heart
and made you tramp on
no matter what
because the rain
was only just ahead
or minutes behind,
and who wants to be soaking
wet when one could be high
and dry if only one were
to keep on moving.
And surf
is where all that I remember
or lived or dreamed or hoped
or wished
or cared for
became nothing
…this starfish
clinging to the battered rocks,
where water is the Friend
and the Enemy both,
to bask in or hide from
depending on the hour
and one’s ultimate
condition; oh, I am
a carbon girl.
what gives me hope is
this moth fluttering out
of the curtain when I open
my window
to the morning air,
and you can hear
its wings, and
you can see
its tiny eyes, and soft
oh so soft
little feelers,
feeling.
what could you be sensing
little moth?
what could you know
about this morning,
this hour,
that perhaps
I haven’t considered?
with wings already made of dust
could you understand, perhaps
better than I,
that the hour is less
than a moment long,
and the wind
is the Friend
and the Enemy both,
depending,
depending on
whether you are
holding on or
letting go, ah,
the wind,
the wind,
the wind.
which brings me back
to the surf
which brings me back
to the mountain
which brings me back
to the valley which
brings me back to this prism thing
I saw once hanging impossibly
in the sky;
there are names for it,
but really,
there are no names
for it;
oh,
I am
a water girl, waiting,
before carbon
even entered the lexicon.
don’t you remember?
before all this,
before this inscription
of encoded structure
stamped itself
upon the double helix
that we call home,
don’t you remember?
oh,
I am a carbon girl all right;
agreed to set this prism self
in living stone
and mix it up
for years
and years
and years to come;
I’m clinging to this rock,
and water seems to me
to be the Friend and the Enemy
both, depending,
depending on
whether I am
holding on
or letting go
these powder wings.

-Deborah Wenzel

Prayer for What is Lost
We are moving forward
or in some direction up,
down, east, west, to the side,
down the canyon walls,
watching the light fall
on the cliffs, which makes
the light seem ancient because
the red stone is hundreds
of millions of years old,
but the light is from today,
it is what the plants are moving
out of the earth to meet,
it heats the air that lifts the birds
that float and hover
over what is made from now.
-Stuart Kestenbaum

Was it Light

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?
A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.
by

Theodore Roethke
  How to Parachute

Disregard what they tell you—
the pose doesn’t matterwhen you jump: feet first
eyes first, cannonball knees into

chest.  Don’t think about
how full the sky is how devastating
the blowing wind feels
against goggles. The ripcord
is another detail your body
will remember
like right and left, gas and brake.
Folded silk is stronger
than you’d suspect.
Hold your hand out
as though the world is Braille
and passing through each cloud,
you are a missile dispatched
by someone who knows missiles,
spinning out into nothing, rushing
to the corn fields, the ocean even,
answering all the questions you’ve
had strapped to your back,
knowing at the end
you’ll sway from puppet strings

and be right with the sky.

by Ethan Joella
Open Road: Indiana

On the way north out of South Bend,
the faded gray skull of an abandoned Studebaker
stares out from a field. One of the ghosts
of the old prosperity that flourished,
dried up, moved on, leaving behind
a trail of artifacts and dust.
All colors and names and directions fall away
in a moment of open road loneliness-truth, all caught
and spun into the still, empty sky
by the twister of change that leaves nothing untouched.
All that remains is speed and motion, and the will
to arrive somewhere, to stop and see something
because whatever falls by the wayside is gone.
The ground hard and dry, dust rising up
and moving with more spirit than men.
At a roadside stand the farmer leans his chair
against the wall of splintered wood,
listens to the weather on the radio. He says
the hard times come any year, any season.
– by Walter Cybulski

 

They don’t get much odder than this, mister

You were not there in my dream of you.

Others arrived like birds gathering before a migration

hovering, landing nearby, rising, hovering,

turning from raindrops into clouds

and back into raindrops.

I knew we were in the vicinity of the old homestead

but everything felt a bit strange. Why the fake nose?

Why the clown shoes? Why the greasy piano?

Old mother crow in her ebony housecoat and indigo babushka

smoked a pipe and puffed smoke signals to the moon.

She wore bottle cap glasses and kept flicking

scraps of used light from her ever-busy wings.

Such are dreams they provide us with pictures

that invite analysis but do not demand it.

In the same midnight that surrounds my sleep

babies are being born deals are going down.

The dreaming dog’s restless legs churn

as if to escape from a primordial menace.

When the night shift cop flips a switch

his cruiser begins to flash and howl.

Down the road they barrel, sheriff and thief,

until the sorry climax of the episode

explodes in silent fireworks a million miles away.

Do not ask if it makes any sense.

Death walks toward us from the factory ruins

dangling a set of keys from a bony finger.

The night watchman turns to you and asks

if you want to meet the author, so you answer

yes or no depending on the intensity of your fear.

All I have learned so far is that in certain souls

what you would call light is barely visible

and consists mainly of what remains

after spending all the lottery winnings on darkness.

– by Walt Cybulski

Favorite Tanka selected by Tom Clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

≈ Leave a comment

son of mine
what’s done is done…
seed by seed, I’d breathe
back the dandelion clock,
place its stem in your hand
– Claire Everett
 *
*
*
*
thirty years
on the job
I’ve become
something of an expert
on what’s unimportant
    – John Stevenson
 *
*
*
*
all I found
when I Googled my father
was his obituary
    a small wind releases
      the song of the wind chime
   – Margaret Chula
 *
*
*
*
inscribed,
with enduring love
my darling,
the book he found
at a rummage sale
  – John Martell
*
*
*
*
the unknown man
who stared down the tanks-
we love him
and also the one
who pulled him aside
  – John Stevenson
 *
*
*
*
Bee’s, butterflies, birds
swaying meadow flowers
and something more…
just beyond
comprehension
– George Swede
*
*
*
*
how you say
everything
I wanted to hear
now that it’s
too late
– Rose Hunter
 *
*
*
*
so many years ago
the night she left me,
and still it lingers:
on the car radio a song
just right for my blues
– Sanford Goldstein
 *
*
*
*
Noticed
right away among
the smooth pebbles
of the Zen garden
a small, jagged stone
– George Swede
 *
*
*
*
no matter
if I never take
another lover-
I have your imprint
our children and the sea
– Amelia Fielden
*
*
*
*
after I am gone
break my plate
bury my pen
plant flowers
in my cup
– Michael Ketchek
 *
*
*
*
Thunder at dawn
shakes me out of a dream
I didn’t want to leave
that green space in the woods
where wildflowers hide
– Carol Purington
 *
*
*
*
in this season
of falling leaves
how easy
to watch dreams vanish
in wisps of autumn smoke
– Angela Leuck
 *
*
*
*
one’s life
can no more be entrusted
to another
than can the timing
of a perfect soft-boiled egg
– Mariko Kitakubo
 *
*
*
*
my parents and in-laws
moving toward senility
suddenly
there’s  no one
I need to impress
– Margaret Chula
 *
*
*
*
wanting to stay,
I could not,
and leaving,
I wanted
to write ten thousand poems
 – Sanford Goldstein
 *
*
*
*
we drive in silence
and even though I offer
occasional smiles
you know you’ll never reach where
it is that my thoughts wander
  – Jean Jorgensen
 *
*
*
*
Seeing a layer
of dust on the surface
of my bathroom mirror,
I traced a finger through it
to make a Happy face
 – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
she says she
owns two very fine cats,
though probably
unaware that cats do not
have owners, only staff
  – Art Stein
 *
*
*
*
as if she feels
how much I am missing you
already
a girl near me on the plane
begins to weep
  – Laura Maffei
*
*
*
*
Gone all morning
I come home for lunch
and scratch his ears
– my little dog
so happy with so little
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
November chill-
tangles of silver caught
in my brush.
Tell me
I’m still yours
  – Pamela Miller Ness
 *
*
*
*
wakeful
in early darkness
I plan
how to fit twenty things
into a ten thing day
   – Kirsty Karkow
 *
*
*
*
maybe we’ll meet again
in the fullness of tomorrow’s moon
alone in my room
I notice how smoothly my jeans
slide off my hips
   – Thelma Mariano
*
*
*
*
if it’s not the headlines
it’s a dead deer by the roadside
or something else
I just keep tripping over
the first noble truth
   – Michael Ketchek


*
*
*
*
I, who
have almost nothing,
want little
beyond freedom from this
freedom from that
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
The huge reservoir
beyond the dam
thinking of my wife
I realize the great value
of holding back my words
   – Michael Ketchek
*
*
*
*
semester’s last class
and his twenty-two students
end their stiff questions-
the moment comes like a winged bird
like a Prometheus unbound
  – Sanford Goldstein
 *
*
*
*
barefoot
on warm sand
my toes
inches from the whole
Atlantic Ocean
  – Art Stein
*
*
*
*
wondering for years
what would be
my life’s defining moment
      an egret staring at me
      me staring back
  – Jeanne Emerich
*
*
*
*
brick factory building
abandoned twenty year-
the small town boys
still haven’t broken
every window
  – Michael Ketchek
 *
*
*
*
Clouds gather
and part, gather and part.
So will we.
Even now, it seems,
we’re gathering, parting
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
dry seeds scatter
from my hand into the wind-
one clings
as if to say there is in me
something yet to be
  – Jeanne Emerich
 *
*
*
*
I walk fast
as if far is not
far enough
as if these loved fields
were not gift enough
  – Caroline Gourlay
 *
*
*
*
Come quickly- as soon as
these blossoms open
they fall
this world exists
as a sheen of dew on flowers
  – Lady Izumi Shikibu
 *
*
*
*
She waits
in purple- lidded privacy
ignoring the tea
with a sweep of one hand
sends the waitress away
  – Patricia Prime
 *
*
*
*
they say the moon
little by little each day
moves away
I confess to no one
what strangers we have become
 – Marjorie Buettner
 *
*
*
*
How afraid
so many of us are of life-
not wanting
to leave behind the known
not knowing whats ahead
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
an old photograph
of my parents
young and happy,
    of all the things I own
    that is the saddest
  – Michael McClintock
*
*
*
*
how will I know you
on the Internet-
in Cyberspace-
without the warmth of your voice
the touch of your hand
   – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
Here in the desert,
spring is over just like that,
Our lives, too, are short.
Who knows whether you and I
will meet in the next world?
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
*
*
*
*
writing
on the back of the letter
she wrote to me
      a poem about windows
      and distance
   – Leatrice Lifshitz
 *
*
*
*
Thinking about it,

what else is there but this—
birth, death,
and something in between
of uncertain duration?
   – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
walking
the railroad tracks
alone-
more and more we live
our parallel lives
  – Larry Kimmel
 *
*
*
*
parting with
my telescope
and with it
a certain way
of seeing myself
   – John Stevenson
 *
*
*
*
Department meeting:
while the mouths utter business
the eyes ripple with
someone sailing, someone fishing
someone drowning
    – George Swede
*
*
*
*
long after she’s left
the garden she tended
weeds reclaim the flowerbeds
my heart too
has grown wild
   – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
invited at last
to meet his parents
i find myself
wondering which me
i should wear
   – Doris Kasson
*
*
*
*
you climb
a speck on the rockface
of the mountain-
waiting here below it is
I who am exposed
  – Caroline Gourlay
 *
*
*
*
vacation’s end
the highway still unraveling
when I close my eyes
how many parts of myself
have I left homeless behind
  – Marjorie Buettner
 *
*
*
*
he’s traveled
these highways most of his life
yet today
somewhere between anger and tears
old man admits he is lost
  – Jean Jorgensen
 *
*
*
*
I tell my guardian angel
I’ll happily die
in April
alas, each April comes
and I tell her I’m not ready
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
I had read
your love poems
and now,
having met you,
read them again
  – John Stevenson
*
*
*
*
far down the valley
she waves and calls to me
I love her more
in the time it takes
her voice to arrive
    – John Sheirer
*
*
*
*
sleeping
on my lap
the cat
becomes a book-rest
for my other world
  – Carolyn Thomas
 *
*
*
*
her plane disappears
into starlight…
and somewhere
in her luggage
my love poem
  – Michael Dylan Welch
 *
*
*
*
watching
the storm tossed trees
through glass
afraid to let myself go
where the wind would take me
  – Alison Williams
 *
*
*
*
in the curve of light
the crash and spray
of the full-moon tide;
   for a moment with arms crossed
   the power of my youth
  – Jeff Witkin
 *
*
*
*
the wind-blown clouds
lighten and darken
lighten and darken
the room
in which we argue
  – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
A subway train,
traveling beside ours,
veers up and away.
My feelings for you
go where they go
  – John Stevenson
*
*
*
*
hair clean and long
sun-dried in the wind
my face
searches the blue sky
for its final destination
  – Jane Reichhold
 *
*
*
*
this road
connecting to another
that to another
until reaching the spot
where i will turn cold
  – William Ramsey
 *
*
*
*
Not to disturb
the spider in her web
between two trees
I take
the other path
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
Writing a poem
of longing for her
I’m irritated
by the interruption
of her phone call
  – George Swede
 *
*
*
*
dawn
and you open
your deep-green eyes-
blackbirds stir
somewhere in the conifers
  – John Barlow
 *
*
*
*
with a man
who was once
the center of my universe
I discuss
interest rates
  – Fay Aoyagi
 *
*
*
*
not a single star
out of place in the
 milky way-
the garden gate
left ajar all night
  – Pamela Babusci
 *
*
*
*
just five minutes
pressed against a stranger
on a crowded train
so why do I spend my day
dreaming of a life with her?
  – John Barlow
 *
*
*
*
on the night train
through that foreign land
I waver once
glimpsing
a lit farm kitchen
  – Marianne Bluger
 *
*
*
*
Ice in the corners
of my bedroom window
reminds me
how long it’s been
since I saw her last.
   – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
Almost invisible
the zero
I traced
only last week
in the mantle dust…
 – Marianne Bluger
 *
*
*
*
in the dark
a tawny owl calls
unanswered
I pour out my last drop
of whiskey
  – John Barlow
*
*
*
*
late spring hike
the trail still full of snow
on the north slope
we take turns walking
in each other’s footsteps
   – David Rice
 *
*
*
*
weeding in the garden
humming to myself
suddenly a mourning dove
calls from me some sadness
I can’t quite name
     – Mary Lou Bittle-DeLapa
*
*
*
*
*
Several languages
and a thousand theorems
safe in his cranium
how serene my father
looks in death
 – Marianne Bluger
 *
*
*
*
all day at my desk
to glance up
at sunset
the housebricks
a deeper red
   – Brian Tasker
 *
*
*
*
in the ship’s wake
a pair of sea gulls
follow, then tail off
in different directions
the words I meant to say
   – Carlos Colon
 *
*
*
*
*
I’m never happier
than at dawn, walking down
a mountain trail,
the day ahead an empty bowl
waiting to be filled
   – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk  ( for Marian Olson )
 *
*
*
*
thinking of my wife
I accidentally say
I love you
to a stranger’s
answering machine
    – John Sheirer
*
*
*
*
it takes
this thick snowfall
to remind me
how thin and more thin
is my desire
 – Sanford Goldstein
*
*
*
*
overlooking the moor
it came to me here;
a feeling of loneliness
brought by the wind
the warmth of the sun
  – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
in morning fog
we ship our oars and drift
between loon calls
all that’s left of this world
the warmth of our bodies
  – Christopher Herold
 *
*
*
*
a sudden loud noise
all the pigeons of Venice
at once fill the sky
that is how it felt when your hand
accidentally touched mine
   – Ruby Spriggs
 *
*
*
*
  the spirit again
as a crab in a shell
   able to walk
sideways into the sea
  and back to you
   – Werner Reichhold
 *
*
*
*
Snow on the peaks
of the far mountains
faintly blue…
packing my few things
for the winter road
 – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
Dressing
for a meal I’ll eat
alone
I decide to let loose
my hair.
    – Pamela Miller Ness
 *
*
*
*
after the long night
near my dying mother’s bed
I turn from her face
to watch the gathering light
in another morning sky
  – Jerry Kilbride
*
*
*
*
one derelict boat
lost in a maze of mudflats
in the setting sun
    automatically I think
    of my life- nothing like that!
   David Steele
 *
*
*
*
a wintry evening
all the way back to the car;
hardly knowing her
yet so intimately
her perfume remains
 – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
suddenly
caught:
the emptiness
in that girl’s
yawn
  – Sanford Goldstein
*
*
*
*
when I think
we may never
meet again…
this hillside of aspens
endlessly fluttering
 – Larry Kimmel
 *
*
*
*
listening to you
talk about him, about you,
about them, about me,
and now, here it is, somehow
the dinner I made for us
  – Christopher Herold
 *
*
*
*
like receipts
of a business
gone bankrupt
I keep
these old love letters
  – Kenneth Tanemura
 *
*
*
*
Wind, do not tease me
do not muss my hair
My joy is too large for the house
and I cannot go in
to await his coming
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
these hands
slicing onions for dinner…
but my heart has gone
to wherever it is
that you are
  – Christopher Herold
 *
*
*
*
warm in bed-
I wonder
where the birds
are weathering
the storm
  – Kenneth Tanemura
 *
*
*
*
This is a selection of some of my favorite tanka from Takuboku, whose tanka honesty I find refreshing and inspiring. It was his tanka that sparked my interest in tanka after discovering them in his book titled : Poems to Eat.
*
*
the trouble is
every man
keeps a prisoner
groaning
in his heart
 *
*
came to
a mirror shop
what a jolt-
I could’ve been
some bum walking by
 *
*
unforgettable
that face-
man in the street
laughing, police
dragging him off
*
*
having buried
my youth
you keep kissing
the gravestone
you built
 *
*
like a train
through the wilderness
every so often
this torment
travels across my mind
*
*
everybody’s
heading in
the same direction-
I watch
from the sidelines
 *
*
never forget
that man, tears
running down his face
a handful of sand
held out to show me
*
*
wrote GREAT
in the sand
a hundred times
forgot about dying
and went on home
*
*
regrets
live secretly
inside me
these days-
won’t let me laugh
 *
*
feels like
there’s a cliff
in my head
crumbling
day by day
*
*
like a kite
cut from the string
the soul
of my youth
has fluttered away
*
*
always come
to this gloomy bar
the late sunset
reddening, shines
right in my drink
 *
*
guy I saw
on a park bench
once or twice
don’t see
him lately…
 *
*
somehow
tomorrow will
be better-
yeah, sure…
I go to sleep

Favorite Senryu- selected by Tom Clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

≈ Leave a comment

“Great day”   I say,
my neighbor, not to be outdone, says,
“Best one yet”
  – Frank Robinson
**
The laugh’s on me:
   this year’s man
     is last year’s man
        – Ching-An
 **
on the freeway
discussing the chocolate bar
in the trunk
    – Dee Evetts
 **
The last kid picked
running his fastest
 to right field
 – Mike Dillon
 **
       deadline approaches
    my nose drips
faster
    – John Stevenson
 **
 radio interview
the candidate
adjusts her hair
 – Hilary Tann
 **
 even with the mikes on
 the politician
shouts
  – Anita Virgil
 **
She’s running for office-
for the first time
my neighbor waves!
 – Alexis Rotella
 **
neighbor’s children leave…
casually the cat slips out
of the hall closet
– Patricia Neubauer
 **
birdsong
my imaginary lover
alive again
– Yu Chang
**
300 miles away-
my father makes sure
I hear him sigh
  – Alexis Rotella
 **
 remote village
 after the camera’s click
 her smile
 – Ruth Yarrow
 **
Undressed-
today’s role dangles
from a metal hanger
– Alexis Rotella
 **
channel dispute
she aims the clicker
at me
 – Dee Evetts
 **
nothing good on t.v.
every channel
 for about three hours now
 – John Sheirer
 **
three times I’ve said
 “your husband…”
now we can just talk
– John Stevenson
**
safe for a while
around the haiku poets
a fly
– Mykel Board
 **
his dust mask
a hole poked through it
 for the cigarette
– Dee Evetts
**
 bad movie
 I’m only awake
during the explosions
– John Sheirer
**
 table for one
 the waiter doesn’t
 light my candle
– Bruce Detrick
**
in the breakdown lane
I contemplate
my life
  – John Sheirer
 **
new flypaper
she waves her arms
to get them going
 – Dee Evetts
 **
 strap hanging
a top view
of his careful hairdo
– Karen Sohne
 **
first cold night
the fat tomcat hangs from
the window screen
 – Carl Patrick
 **
 road construction
my life
still under construction
– John Sheirer
 **
his “eyeball it”
for the rest of our days
a crooked wall…
– Carol Montgomery
 **
turning down the t.v.
   to hear more
of the neighbors’ argument
               – John Sheirer
 **
 my easy heart
 two drinks
 and it’s love
– Michael Ketchek
 **
 checking the driver
as I pass a car
 just like mine
– John Stevenson
**
 loud applause
for the last speech
 before lunch
 – Dee Evetts
 **
 while I’m gone
 my dog
 takes the driver’s seat
– Christopher Herold
 **
Clear about
everything
the window washer
 – vincent tripi
 **
 20,000 feet
 traces of masking tape
on the jet engine
– Dee Evetts
**
Empty school bus;
smile on the face
of the driver
   – Garry Gay
**
bags
under his eyes-
traveling salesman
– Michael Dylan Welch
 **
Weight lifter
slowly lifting
the tea cup
 – Garry Gay
**
single living
I allow the kettle
a full whistle
 – Carmen Sterba
 Oscar night
adjusting the cuffs
of my pajamas
  – John Stevenson
 **
the men on both sides
have taken
my armrests
       – Karen Sohne
 **
inserting a piece
 in my jigsaw puzzle
 the TV repairman
 – Francine Porad
**
paint by number
the child’s river
escapes its bank
   – Tom Painting
**
 my nephew’s fast ball-
 I hand back the glove
 and keep the sting
– Barry George
 **
morning commute-
recognizing
most of the strangers
 – Dorothy McLaughlin
 half-empty bed
 I try to recall
 his faults
 – Peggy Heinrich
 **
war begins-
my husband and I
stop bickering
   – Margaret Chula
 **
mid morning bus
 no one young enough
 to give up their seat
– Sheila Butterworth
**
game over
men turn to leave
the tv department
– John Stevenson
 **
 on my dying bed
 a neighbor reads out
 the ball scores
– H.F. Noyes
 **
January 3rd
the Weight Watchers meeting
doubles in size
    – Carolyn Hall
 **
store window
the young couple take turns
testing the double bed
  – Dee Evetts
 **
new hammock-
my beer on the other side
of the porch
     – Mark Brooks
 fiftieth birthday
standing a little closer
 to the toilet
 – Mykel Board
 **
the mirror
wiped clean
for a guest
– John Stevenson
 **
long night
 I adjust my breathing
 to his
– Francine Porad
 **
Starbuck’s
a man in cowboy boots
asks for latte
    – Yu Chang
 **
by phone
my sister says
we are in touch
– Hilary Tann
**
word for word
she remembers
our last argument
 – John Sheirer
 **
 Trying to forget him
stabbing
 the potatoes
– Alexis Rotella
 **
 running away,
 Mommy
 helps me pack
 – Adele Kenny
 **
midwest interstate
car ahead signals a turn
for fifty-nine miles
– John Sheirer
**
 girls in bikinis

the man I’m with
trying not to look
– Brenda Gannam
**
on the twelfth floor
a life’s work holds open
the book-reviewer’s door
– Martin Burke
 **
While the guests order,
 the table cloth hides his hands-
counting his money
 – Clement Hoyt
**
new dean
all blackboards
turn white
– Yu Chang
 **
 red light
 I study the face
 of my tailgater
 – Hilary Tann
 **
eye exam
i stop trying
 so hard
  – Hilary Tann
**
circuits lab
his mistakes
in the air
– Yu Chang
 **
A selection of classic senryu from old time senryu anthologies in Japan:
when a man
comes asking for a loan
how honest he looks!
 *
*
*
someone at the door:
the scolding session
stops – for awhile
 *
*
*
when he finally
falls in love with his wife
the end is near
*
*
*
she’s been let go
yet in her mother’s words
“she’s left him”
*
*
*
“Don’t let this worry you”
he says, then tells you something
that has to worry you
 *
*
*
his wife knows
how to scare a collector:
“He’s down with typhoid”
*
*
*
the weapon he uses
for threatening his mother:
a distant land
*
*
*
now that he has a child
he knows all the local dogs
by name
 *
*
*
a son kicked out-
several houses down the street
a wife is divorced
*
*
*
the whole town
knows of it, except
the husband
*
*
*
“Bad for my health”-
when you begin to feel so
you’ve begun to age
*
*
*
    the wife-
so much harder to handle
than the mother
*
*
*
having lash out
too much at his wife
he’s cooking the rice
*
*
*
since their baby was born
telling him what to do
has become her habit
*
*
*
suckling the baby
in bed, she shakes her head
at her husband
*
*
*
convenient
and inconvenient-
having a wife
*
*
*
no nagging on the day
her husband was a winner-
now there’s a woman!
*
*
*
“Just a father-in-law
whose days are numbered”
says the matchmaker
*
*
*
professional smile
of the mortician’s wife:
a look of grief
*
*
*
to put it briefly
courting is tantamount
to begging
*
*
*
“older daughter first”
the parents kept saying, until
the younger eloped
*
*
*
the love letter
from the man she doesn’t care for
she shows it to mother
*
*
*
first eye to eye
then hand to hand
and mouth to mouth
*
*
*
many excuses
he has used before – his wife
remembers them all
*
*
*
her husband’s
becoming a little too kind
weighs on her mind
 *
*
*
united at last
in death, a pair
of happy faces

Favorite Haiku-little poems selected by Tom Clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

≈ 3 Comments

losing its name
a river
enters the sea
– John Sandbach
*
children squealing
slowly the oldest gorilla
focuses elsewhere
– Ruth Yarrow
*
 The thief left it behind,
        the moon
              at the window
  – Ryokan
What is really ours?  In the sense of this  haiku ( my personal favorite) what we “own” or possess may be very little… perhaps our memories of who we once were or what we once had… perhaps some understanding and then…
*
                                     The moon
                                broken again and again on the sea
                                      so easily mends
                                                            – Choshu
*
                                           aware
                                           of the heart:
                                           handling glassware
                                                     – Raymond Roseliep
*
                                      A firefly flitted by:
                                      “Look”!  I almost said
                                      but I was alone
                                      – Taigi
*
                                   Simply trust:
                                   do not the petals flutter down,
                                                just like that
                                                               – Issa
*
                                           poppy-
                                           both of us
                                           simply alive
                                          -Issa
*
                                                   The next morning
                                                      rereading the last page
                                                        of the happy ending
                                                      – Tom Tico
 *
free at last, the fly
flew out the window-and then
right back in again
    – James Hackett
*
monastery bell
the curled cat opens its eyes
closes them again
         – Jerry Kilbride
 *
Today it struck me-
the thought of red suns setting
 after I’m gone
– Gunther Klinge
*
vacation over–
hearing the sea
in the traffic’s roar
-Pamela Miller Ness
 *
   the old cat carries off
   a little sunshine
    on his back
     – Anita Virgil
*
 Everyone is asleep
 there is nothing to come between
 the moon and me
                  – Enomoto Siefu-Jo
 –
–
warm evening
an open door
to someone’s living room
        – John Stevenson
 *
This huge ocean-
I could stand here forever
 it would still come to me
– Proxade Davis
 *
when I have sat long enough
the red dragonfly
   comes to the wheatgrass
     – Laurie Stoelting
 *
Resting…
the sagging fence
goes on up the hill
 – Foster Jewell
 *
coming home
      flower
              by
                      flower
   – Jane Reichhold
 *
fence fallen away
    I close the rusted gate
              behind me
       – Yvonne Hardenbrook
 *
in the pollen
on my car
her signature
– John Stevenson
 *
old passport
the tug
of my father’s smile
– Yu Chang
 *
cabin steps
fresh birch seeds
since morning
– Hilary Tann
 *
as the light fails,
still hammering
from the treehouse
– Lee Gurga
 *
noh play-
watching the throat
behind the mask
 – Hilary Tann
 *
waiting for you
another pair of headlights
through the fog
– Yu Chang
*
amber light…
creased in the roadmap
a place we’ve been
 – Peggy Willis Lyles
 *
Across the fields
  a swallow carrying one hair
      from the plow horse
              – vincent tripi
*
migrating geese-
once there was so much
         to say
– Adele Kenny
*
 lone red-winged blackbird
riding a reed in high-tide-
billowing clouds
 – Nick Vigilio
 *
in autumn rain
looking back at the smoke
from my chimney
 – Anita Virgil
*
in the mountains
a roadhouse sign goes out
clouds blow off the stars
 – Cor van den Heuvel
 *
The little breeze
that touched my face
returns
– Alexis Rotella
 *
a deep bruise
I don’t remember getting
autumn evening
-John Stevenson
*
crowded bus through fog
someone singing
 in another language
  – Ruth Yarrow
 *
   In this empty web,
   left by a will to be free
  a pair of small wings
   – James Hackett
 *
Just leaves
where the carnival
was
– Alexis Rotella
 *
winter evening
leaving father’s footprints
I sink into deep snow
 – Nick Virgilio
 *
   stalled car
  foot tracks being filled
   with snow
  – Gary Hotham
 *
the river-
coming to it with nothing
in my hands
– Leatrice Lifshitz
 *
how silently
the wave-tossed log is beached
        and snow-flaked
  – Geraldine C. Little
 *
   At the summit tree,
my exhausted dog lifts his leg
     a dry formality
– James Hackett
 *
 the old man
 blows his nose   then smells
 the daisy
  – John Wills
 *
Moving with
the clock tower’s shadow
   the flower lady
 – Alexis Rotella
 *
as the sun comes out
a sail appears from behind
       the island
 – Cor van den Heuvel
*
summer night
   the tide flows
     from the estuary
 – John Stevenson
 *
On the rabbit’s fur
just enough snow
 to be snow
 – vincent tripi
 *
at the corner
 she finds a wind to spin
the pinwheel faster
   -Gary Hotham
 *
old slippers
the comfort
coming apart
– John Stevenson
*
night of the blizzard:
my snow angel glowing
under a street lamp
 – Adele Kenny
 *
a crow in the snowy pine
inching up a branch,
letting the evening sun through
– Nick Virgilio
 *
no sound to this
spring rain-
but the rocks darken
 – Anita Virgil
 *
dark road
sparks from a cigarette
bounce behind a car
 – Cor van den Heuvel
*
Old Lincoln-
 a deeper lavender
 where the wrench lay
  – Alexis Rotella
 *
       another bend
now    at last     the moon
        and all the stars
   – John Wills
 *
pueblo roof edge
Hopi mother pats the dance
into her baby’s back
 – Ruth Yarrow
                                   An old spider web
                                   low above the forest floor,
                                   sagging full of seeds
                                   – James Hackett
                                                          The day i find,
                                                            the day it finds,
                                                                firefly
                                                           – vincent tripi
                                        Indian summer-
                                        we ride around town
                                        just to be riding
                                          – Lenard D. Moore
Saturday downpour-
    swiveling the stool
      at the soda counter
          – H.F. Noyes
                                                                    A wisp of spring cloud
                                                                    drifting apart from the rest
                                                                            slowly evaporates
                                                                               – Tom Tico
Old pond:
frog jump in
water sound
  – Basho
                          oppossum bones
                        wedged in an upper fork-
                           budding leaves
                         – Lee Gurga
                                                   A Halloween mask
                                                   floating face up in a ditch
                                                   slowly shakes its head
                                                        – Clement Hoyt
Lean-to of tin;
a pintail on the river
in the pelting rain
  – Robert Spiess
                                                                     In a tight skirt
                                                                     a woman sweeping leaves
                                                                              into the wind
                                                                         – Virginia Brady Young
                                                   a poppy…
                                              a field of poppies!
                                          the hills blowing with poppies
                                                  – Michael McClintock
the flick of high beams-
out of the dark roadside ditch
leaps a tall grass clump
       – Paul O. Williams
                                                             fog moves through
                                                             the burned out house:
                                                             gently
                                                              – Jack Cain
                                                Since settling to earth
                                                the high spirit of that kite
                                                has gone completely
                                                         – Kubouta
quietly
we become
audience
– Hilary Tann
                                          a bit of birdsong
                                          before we start
                                          our engines
                                           – John Stevenson
              yesterday’s paper
              in the next seat-
              the train picks up speed
                              – Gary Hotham
The feeling and sense of this wonderful haiku have stuck with me for years. Being in this moment is to be touched by all that is constantly left behind. The newspaper is a token of what was, not what is, and as such presents a potent reminder in concert with the train’s picking up speed that the moment is fleeting and quickly lost. You have a sense of being alone and looking to the empty next seat and there’s a random wonder about whether yesterday’s news is worthy of retrieving. The paper and the train’s motion together fill you with a depth of recognition that captures perfectly the heart of loneliness, of leaving and of transience, creating at once the poignancy of an instant.
From  As Far as the Light Goes, LaCrosse, Wisconsin: Juniper Press, 1990
commentary published in Woodnotes  #25 Summer 1995
           after the garden party         the garden
                                          – Ruth Yarrow   ( Wind Chimes #7, Winter 1983)
Among many haiku I read early on that awakened my interest and inspired my sense of just what a haiku is, I still rank this spare poem by Ruth Yarrow as very influential. The contrast of the garden filled with people and emptied out is at once familiar, vivid and crystal clear. To attend an event with many people and share comraderie, place, and a common memory creates a multilayered response to suddenly be in this same place later, alone. Indelibly the garden is revealed in itself without everyone else there.
      We are left to determine how this now empty garden makes us feel. Are we sad the party is over? Are we glad to be free of the social obligations and noisy commotion? This freedom of determination and variety of readings helped me begin to identify critical qualities of a successful haiku. The magic and charm of this garden after its garden party is found in savoring the beauty and intricacy of each and every thing there that we are open to once the party is over. Without the distraction of others or the self performing itself we come closer to a genuine communion with the gardens of our lives.
( commentary published in Woodnotes #30  Autumn 1996)
Late autumn-
a single chair waiting
for someone yet to come
        – Arima Akito
                                         sand storm
                                         the scorpion’s stinger
                                         aiming at the wind
                                              – William Cullen Jr.
                                       so many boulders
                                in the stream   all of the water
                                         finding its way
                                                             – David Elliot
We are made up of mostly water and constantly it is finding its way through our life. To imagine how much water passes through us in a lifetime is to recognize how truly we are each a fleshy filter experiencing the very river of our existence.
All the water finding its way through so many boulders is a beautiful and reassuring statement about each of us finding our way through the myriad trials and tribulations of life. Each season of our lives is rife with “boulders.” At times we are frustrated, if not terrified or exhausted, by these barricades and the process of negotiating passage past them. The wisdom of time equalling change and the zen of now expresses exactly the deliverance that exists in moving…toward destiny… the way. Destiny is movement, and even when we are seemingly still in ourselves the planet continues to plow space, circling its way through the dark-light spin. People gather and empty out of a space… rooms fill with glee and then silence and wind blows on the peak top.
We are always in motion, as is the essential nature of water. Our form is perpetually the miracle dance that is emptiness defining itself. This simple, brilliant haiku says it all so well… and on the way too.
( published in Brussels Sprout, vol. X:2, 1993 )
low over the railroad
wild geese flying-
a moonlit night
  – Shiki
in the shadow of the cherry blossom
complete strangers
there are none…
   – Issa
the first dream of the year-
I kept it a secret
and smiled to myself
     – Sho-u
                                               father and son
                                               hunching along together-
                                               the snow banked road
                                                H.F. Noyes
snowy night
sometimes you can’t be
quiet enough
– John Stevenson
                                      Drifting round a bend
                                      – the sliding turtles plash
                                      tells a downstream deer
                                                       – Robert Spiess
 This haiku by Robert Spiess irresistably draws us into the concentric connections that make the haiku way the perfection that is nature. The motion of the canoe ( or water) drifting is like each of us rounding each moment in our lives. Daily by chance or design we encounter myriad meanings in our experiences. Our momentum forward is inextricably linked to everything we come in contact with. We effect and we are affected. This is the setting up a chain of gently reacting images. We, the canoe, cause a turtle to slide, whose sound, so subtle is the reduced plash, in turn causes a deer to perk its ear, which in turn comes back to us as the images expand and complete a circuit at once. The resonance operates simply yet profoundly in infinite fashion throughout our lives. Our part in the cycle of sense awareness from surface to depth and back again seems to be at the core of haiku fascination. The way in which one entity touches another, then another, reverberating in each the other is the precious faith and brilliance of haiku.
( published in Brussels Sprout  v. VI, Issue 3,  1989 )
                                        car piled with luggage
                                straying into the funeral
                                                            procession
                                                                   – Yvonne Hardenbrook
One of the tests of a poem’s strength is how well it holds up over repeated readings. A favorite of mine that continues to intrigue me is this odd and humoristic image that Yvonne captures so aptly. A car loaded down with one’s worldly belongings is an obvious sight. The person/ people moving are in contradictory states of being. Burdened by belongings can create a vulnerable awkwardness that in part is offset by some comfort that comes from having so much of one’s life close at hand.
That this potent load is juxtaposed with a funeral is a priceless peek at mystery itself. A funeral procession often creates a striking image that amidst regular life seems out of place and deserving of notice. To combine someone moving with this procession is to suggest that in death we make our biggest move. The only possession we take along is the procession of family and friends as they make their way to pay respects.
This poem elicits a constant tip of the hat to what’s mysterious in life moving with death. It also alludes to the universal truth that our last move, in death, is always without any luggage.
( published in Brussels Sprout,  v. XI: 1, 1994 )
empty tracks
a stranger and I
looking in the same direction
   – Yu Chang
                                 music two centuries old-
                                 the color flows
                                 out of the teabag
                                                    – Gary Hotham
         This beautiful haiku brings out asubliminal sense of interpenetration where things are most realized when they are in concert with a medium. Music exists in many forms yet is most vital when performed, played and appreciated by listeners. The musical notes on a page are truly music only when combined with each other and the synthesis of instruments, practice, direction, technology and an audience. Similarly tea in a teabag becomes tea ultimately only when it enters the water in a teacup. The magic of this poem is this correspondance, where two disparate events are shown to share an essence of the same fundamental truth. This underlying truth suggests that everything depends upon and is in relation to other things. This association and awareness is where reading and writing haiku begins.
( published in Brussels Sprout, v.XII: 2 , 1995 )
far at sea
a tiny bird
rests on flotsam
          – Margaret Molarsky
                                                         open to the sky
                                                         the upper window
                                                         of the abandoned barn
                                                                    – Bruce Ross
End of autumn-
I leave the gate to the garden
                 ajar
           -Alexis Rotella
                                                                  To hear it,
                                                               not to hear myself
                                                                    waterfall
                                                                          – vincent tripi
up late-
the furnace comes on
by itself
         – Gary Hotham
                                                     he removes his glove
                                                             to point out
                                                                             Orion
                                                                           – Raymond Roseliep
Sunflower
its head now too heavy
to meet the sun
           -Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
                                                                    watching the sun disappear
                                                                     then standing, to watch it
                                                                           disappear again
                                                                                  – Hilary Tann
autumn twilight:
the wreath on the door
lifts in the wind
            -Nick Virgilio
                                                                         in the bucket
                                                                             bait fish
                                                                                schooling
                                                                                   – Lea Lifshitz
rolling a cigarette
the canoe drifts
just where I want to go
                 – Michael Ketchek
                                                                     my hand moves out
                                                                        touches the sun
                                                                            on a log
                                                                                  – John Wills
After I step
through the moonbeam-
    I do it again
              – George Swede
                                                                   up from the sea wall
                                                                   a plume of spray
                                                                   filled with dusk light
                                                                              -Geraldine C. Little
warm rain before dawn:
my milk flows into her
       unseen
               – Ruth Yarrow
                                                                      leaving us
                                                                      to find our own light
                                                                      last of the sun
                                                                               – Marian Olson
on a mountain trail
alone-
but never alone
              – Margaret Molarsky
                                                                          alone…
                                                                          a downdraft
                                                                          stirs the ashes
                                                                                    – R.A. Stefanac
lonely night
the faces painted on the windows
of a toy bus
         – Cor van den Heuvel
                                      Summer night:
                                      we turn out all the lights
                                       to hear the rain
                                        -Peggy Willis Lyles
                                                                        phone call
                                                                        from a faraway friend
                                                                        the cat starts purring
                                                                                – Penny Harter
warm kitchen
the rise and fall
of friend’s laughter
              – Barry George
                                                                        beneath the stars
                                                                        hand in hand
                                                                        with my son
                                                                                 – Michael Ketchek
an ocean away-
I try to draw her closer
with pad and pencil
           – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
                                                                Nightfall-
                                                                the rose lets go
                                                                its red
                                                                           – Alexis Rotella
hand to hand-
the unframed photos
      of her life
          – Gary Hotham
                                                                             beach walk
                                                                             the stick I tossed
                                                                             yesterday
                                                                                   – Tom Painting
freight train
moving all
the caterpillar’s hair
         – vincent tripi
                                                                       station by moonlight-
                                                                       one traveler gets out
                                                                       and one gets on
                                                                             – Cor Langedij
May morning
the door opens
before I knock
             – John Stevenson
                                                                       the geese have gone-
                                                                       in the chilly twilight
                                                                       empty milkweed pods
                                                                            – Cor van den Heuvel
Now and again
a birdsong gives rest
to the monk’s silence
              – vincent tripi
                                                                     Not a ginkgo on the block
                                                                                yet this leaf
                                                                             on my front step
                                                                                    – Alexis Rotella
falling on a face
in the small seaport window-
evening sunlight
           – Gunther Klinge
                                                                         The resthome van–
                                                                         toothless old faces smile
                                                                         as a firetruck races past
                                                                                – David LeCount
waves crash
against the pier – the bottle
slips from my hand
         – Michael Ketchek
                                                          hot night
                                                          turning the pillow
                                                          to the cool side
                                                               – Cor van den Heuvel
The waves now fall short
of the stranded jelly fish…
In it shines the sky
    – O. Mabson Southard
                                                    snow patches
                                                    thicket along the stream
                                                    snags the fog
                                                   – Ruth Yarrow
fountain spray
and the blindman’s upturned face
finding each other
   H.F. Noyes
                                                                     no longer dripping
                                                                     the icicle holds
                                                                     the sunset
                                                                       – Ruth Yarrow
                                                                freshly fallen snow-
                                                                opening a new package
                                                                of typing paper
                                                                           – Nick Avis
      lulling me to sleep
            the rain
   then waking me
        – Michael Dudley
                                                               the frustrated fly
                                                               drops to the window sill
                                                                and throws a buzzing fit
                                                                         – James Hackett
   If I go alone,
I’ll lie in the wildflowers
                 and dream of you
             – Rod Willmot
                                                                              Summer night:
                                                                              in my eyes starlight
                                                                              hundreds of years old
                                                                                   – George Swede
That breeze brought it-
a moment of moonlight
to the hidden fern.
             – Foster Jewell
fireworks
I close my eyes
for a second look
     – John Stevenson
                                                             birdsong
                                                             through open windows
                                                             he lifts the veil
                                                              – Peggy W. Lyles
distant glimmer
of a beach fire-
autumn moonrise
  – Marje Dyck
two crabs
grappling with locked claws
taken by a wave
  – Robert Zukowski
                                                               long sermon-
                                                               in the roof beams
                                                               cobwebs flutter
                                                                 – Dean Summers
leaves budding
a little girl
spinning in her dress
       -John Stevenson
                                             Dusk over the lake
                                           a turtle’s head emerges
                                             then silently sinks
                                               – Virgil  Hutton
                                                  lily:
                                                out of the water…
                                                out of itself
                                                  – Nick Virgilio
in this warm spring rain
tiny leaves are sprouting
from the eggplant seed
      – Basho
west- bound train
the winter sunset
lasts awhile
   – Donna Claire Gallagher
November evening-
the wind from a passing truck
ripples a roadside puddle
 – Cor van den Heuvel
                                                       geese overhead
                                                       the dog stops licking
                                                       to listen
                                                         – Joann Klontz
                                                        The hills
                                                          release the summer clouds
                                                          one…by one…by one
                                                            – John Wills
birthcry!
   the stars
   are all in place
      – Raymond Roseliep
                                            Shooting the rapids!
                                                  – a glimpse of a meadow
                                                 gold with buttercups
                                                      – Robert Spiess
shooting the rapids-
even the back of his head
looks surprised
       H.F. Noyes
                                                                     low tide-
                                                                     stones that have dried
                                                                     among those that haven’t
                                                                            – John Stevenson
sitting
where I sat as a child
I wait out the storm
       – Hilary Tann
                                                               not seeing
                                                               the room is white
                                                               until that red apple
                                                                – Anita Virgil
I am one
who eats his breakfast
gazing at the morning glories
      – Basho
                                                          breakfasting
                                                          with the morning glories-
                                                          painted on my cup
                                                               – H.F. Noyes
On the gray church wall,
the shadow of a candle
… shadow of its smoke
         – L.A. Davidson
Morning:
catching that tail-end
of a dream
 – Michael McClintock
 late afternoon:
cattle lie
in the billboard shade
  – Randy Brooks
                                  The fog has settled
                                  around us. A faint redness
                                  where the maple was.
                                   – Claire Pratt
                                                                     twisting inland,
                                                                  the sea fog takes awhile
                                                                      in the apple trees
                                                                    – Michael McClintock
I look up
from writing
to daylight.
– William Higginson
                                                                             evening star
                                                                             almost within
                                                                             the moon’s half-curve
                                                                            – William Higginson
the evening star
just above the snow the tip
of an alder bush
  – Nick Avis
                                           Winter moon;
                                              a beaver lodge in the marsh,
                                                 mounded with snow
                                             – Robert Spiess
                                                                   i catch
                                                                   the maple leaf     then let
                                                                   it go
                                                                   – John Wills
                                                                  after Beethoven
                                                                  he gets the furnace
                                                                  roaring
                                                                   – Raymond Roseliep
feeling foolish love
for the water in the stream
just passing by
   – H.F. Noyes
                                                                     overtaken
                                                                         by a single cloud,
                                                                            and letting it pass
                                                                       – Michael McClintock
summer sunrise
a man on a ladder
changing the price of gas
    – John Stevenson
                                                             the hidden path
                                                           through the woods
                                                              plain with snow
                                                              – Jim Kacian
I read
she reads
winter evening
   – Lee Gurga
                                                                   I sink a little bridge
                                                                   to the aquarium floor-
                                                                   first day of summer
                                                                      – Emiko Miyashita
Winter morning-
the sound of a board
hitting the pile
       – Barry George
                                                               old garden shed
                                                                  the insecticide can
                                                                      full of spiders
                                                                         – Ernest Berry
                                                still ahead of us
                                                the storm
                                                we’ve been driving toward
                                                   – John Stevenson
legs pawing
the summer wind-monarch
in the wiper blade
   – Lee Gurga
                                                                  Hiking by full moon-
                                                             the rockslide a spill of light
                                                          down the mountain
                                                                 – David Elliott
The fire-fly
   gives light
     to its pursuer
         – Oemaru
                                      quietly
                                         the fireworks
                                                     far away
                                                        – Gary Hotham
                                                                 After gazing at stars…
                                                                    now, I adjust to the rocks
                                                                       under my sleeping bag
                                                                         – Tom Tico
The distant mountains
are reflected in the eye
of the dragonfly
    – Issa
                                       hiking
                                       into the clouds
                                       the view within
                                       – Garry Gay
                                                                  migrating birds-
                                                                  the weight
                                                                  of my first voters’ guide
                                                                   – Fay Aoyagi
crab
washed ashore
each feeler intact
  – Francine Porad
                                       First Christmas-
                                       my daughter plays
                                       with a cardboard box
                                         – Kathy Cobb
                                                                        lighting the woodstove
                                                                        he kneels absorbed
                                                                        in last year’s newspaper
                                                                          – Dee Evetts
snow now rain
   your picture
      by mine
       – Gary Hotham
                                   picking the last pears
                                       yellow windows hang
                                          in the dusk
                                            – Ruth Yarrow
                                  old Indian trail
                                      we too,
                                   pause for the view
                                   – Margaret Molarsky
rainswept parking lot
headlights of a locked car
grow dim
  – Charles Dickson
                                                     everytime
                                                 the bushes dip   the bees
                                                     change places
                                                     – John Wills
                                                                family album-
                                                                the black and white
                                                                of my youth
                                                                 – Jim Kacian
morning twilight…
horse asleep in the pasture
covered with frost
  – Lee Gurga
                                          november evening
                                       the faintest tick of snow
                                           upon the cornstalks
                                               – John Wills
                                                                        change of kimono:
                                                                        showing only her back
                                                                        to the blossom’s fragrance
                                                                       – Chiyo-ni
                                            glancing back
                                            the woman I passed
                                            grows lovelier
                                            – Jeffrey Winke
spring twilight…
the hanging fern
      turns
  – Anita Virgil
                                           over and over
                                           on the railway embankment
                                            the same scrawny tree
                                             – Doris Heitmeyer
                                                                  end of the line
                                                              the conductor starts turning
                                                                   the seats around
                                                                  – Cor van den Heuvel
in one room
everything she has
and a window
   – Lea Lifshitz
                                         rainstorm on the pond;
                                         beaver pushing a poplar limb
                                         to plug the dam
                                         – Charles Dickson
                                         the swan’s head
                                         turns away from sunset
                                             to his dark side
                                               – Anita Virgil
                                                                        The Beloved-
                                                                           how simple
                                                                       the bear sniffs the air
                                                                        -vincent tripi
                                               A cloud of bugs
                                                 busy going nowhere
                                                        in a ray of sun
                                                    – James Hackett
casting stones
in a quiet pool
for company
– Jim Normington
                                                     deepening autumn-
                                                     soundless drift of leaves
                                                     against the boathouse
                                                      – H.F. Noyes
                                                                       sixteenth autumn since
                                                                       barely visible grease marks
                                                                       where he parked his car
                                                                        – Nick Virgilio
the evening paper
on the darkening lawn
first star
– Cor van den Heuvel
                                                 figure drawing class-
                                             in the models deepest shadows
                                                 a stark white string
                                                      – Lee Gurga
A long wedge of geese
straw gold needles of the larch
    on the flowing stream
        – Robert Spiess
                                            slowly too
                                          grass where we loved
                                             realigning
                                          – vincent tripi
                                                                       Slow mountain descent
                                                                    the turbulent river gentles
                                                                          into a lake
                                                                            – Jean Jorgensen
the geese fly off…
and it comes to me
that I am still here
    – H.F. Noyes
                                                                        walking the snow-crust
                                                                              not sinking
                                                                                 sinking
                                                                        – Anita Virgil
Two flies, so small
it’s a wonder they ever met,
  are mating on this rose
  – James Hackett
                                                     calm evening
                                                   alone on the porch I rouse
                                                     the windchimes
                                                    – Yvonne Hardenbrook
bursting free
from a box-shaped pruning
                          forsythia branches
   – Francine Porad
                                                      up late with old friends…
                                                      my daughter and her blankie
                                                      out of the dark
                                                       – Randy Brooks
     reading a mystery
a cool breeze comes through
     the beach roses
  – Cor van den Heuvel
Compassion-
the taste of the pear
bruised by other pears
     – vincent tripi
                                                                       dispute at second base
                                                                       the catcher lets some dirt
                                                                       run through his fingers
                                                                       – Cor van den Heuvel
                                            field of wild iris-
                                            the pinto pony
                                            kicks up his heels
                                            – Elizabeth Searle Lamb
schools out-
a boy follows his dog
into the woods
  – Randy Brooks
                                                 a dusting of snow
                                                 tire tracks grow visible
                                                 in the road’s soft edge
                                                 – Dee Evetts
                                                                       in the pack rat’s nest
                                                                       bits of an old calendar,
                                                                       a tarnished spoon
                                                                        – Elizabeth S. Lamb
autumn twilight-
in the closed barbershop
  the mirrors darken
  – Cor van den Heuvel
                                                              a deep gorge…
                                                                some of the silence
                                                                      is me
                                                                – John Stevenson
long meeting
I study the pattern
embossed on the napkin
    – Miriam Borne
                                                            why does the mandarin duck
                                                            float alone-
                                                            first winter rain
                                                            – Chiyo-ni
a warm gust…
back through the gate it comes
the whole pile of leaves
       – Christopher Herold
                                                       all those haiku
                                                       about the moon in the trees
                                                       the moon in the trees
                                                       – John Stevenson
my high wire act
for you
and this moon
 – Fay Aoyagi
                                              fog…
                                              just the tree and I
                                              at the bus stop
                                             – Jerry Kilbride
                                                                       winter beach
                                                                       a piece of driftwood
                                                                       charred at one end
                                                                      – John Stevenson
nudged by her boot tip
to the sidewalk’s edge
a dead sparrow
  – Pamela Miller Ness
                                                 between cities
                                                 on the interstate
                                                 so many stars
                                                – Karen Sohne
                                                darkening road
                                                wind parts the fur
                                                of the dead cat
                                                – Dee Evetts
                                               two lines in the water…
                                               not a word between
                                               father and son
                                               – Randy Brooks
                                             heat lightning
                                             the cow’s udder
                                             shivers
                                            – John Stevenson
cloud shadow
long enough to close
the poppies
 – Christopher Herold
                                        monastery cell-
                                        a blue window opens
                                        to sea and sky
                                       – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
Aging willow leafs out
   its image unsteady
     in the flowing stream
          – Robert Spiess
                                                     fluttering madly-
                                                         butterfly in the slipstream
                                                              of a passing freight
                                                          – Lee Gurga
                                              Takeoff:
                                              in the runway crack
                                              a single weed
                                               – Ross Kremer
letting go
 leaves pass leaves
    holding on
  – Robert Henry Poulin
     a bike in the grass
one wheel slowly turning-
    summer afternoon
   – Lee Gurga
after all these years
ankle deep
in the other ocean
– Pamela Miller Ness
wind in the pampas grass
                       the rowboat strains
          against its mooring
– Ce Rosenow
dragonflies mating-
the outboard motor
coughs into life
– Charlie Trumbull
the farther into it,
the farther it moves away-
spring mist
– Wally Swist
rows of corn
stretch to the horizon-
sun on the thunderhead
– Lee Gurga
night journey-
entering town
I lose the stars
-Hilary Tann
Milky Way-
carefully she spreads
the quilt
– Yu Chang
new snow
the arc
the door makes
– John Stevenson
candlelight dinner-
his finger slowly circles
the rim of his glass
– Lee Gurga
one broken pane
remaining in the shed
full moon
– Wally Swist
at rest
on the hospice wall
a mayfly
– Charlie Trumbull
beads of water
on the manzanita leaf
         none touch
– Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
winter sun
a stranger makes room
without looking
– John Stevenson
blinding snow
there is no need
to understand everything
– Yu Chang
January thaw
easing the log
into the current
– Hilary Tann
for my birthday
another trip
around the sun
– Jim Kacian
each hole in turn…
a wasp checks out
where the bolts pulled loose
– Charlie Trumbull
exploring the cave…
my son’s flashlight beam
disappears ahead
– Lee Gurga
in the dark she whispers to me
      “the deer have eaten
                   my tulips”
   – Ronald Baatz
steady summer rain…
an old swayback farmhouse
by the road
– Bruce Ross
missing you-
windows rattle
with the wind
– Ce Rosenow
deep twilight-
the abandoned horse pasture
thick with buttercups
– Wally Swist
   a squirrel leaping
 from a tree in the rain
loves the soft earth of april
– Ronald Baatz
last bale of hay-
we sit down on it
and watch the moon
– Lee Gurga
curling tighter
a leaf
ctaches fire
– John Stevenson
a stone
i saved
casting stones
– Stanford M. Forrester
autumn morning-
repainting our bedroom
the color it was
– Mike Spikes
hot afternoon
the squeak of my hands
on my daughter’s coffin
– Leonard Moore
River stones
worn smooth
I have no regrets
– Garry Gay
autumn wind
the leaves are going
where I’m going
– John Stevenson
   going out the door
  i pass a grape that had
rolled away from breakfast
– Ronald Baatz
dawn mists rise…
the river bottom covered
with mud-ckaed stones
– Wally Swist
from one end
of the plane to the other
winter fly
– Charlie Trumbull
I finish my tea
the cup still full
of warmth
   – Philomene Kocher
starry night-
biting into a melon
   full of seeds
   – Yu Chang
as if
it had split the boulder
pine seedling
   – paul m.
Cabin fever-
  spinning the child’s globe
     until it blurs blue
  – Carol Purington
   first frost
a homeless man appears
in the new development
  – Yu Chang
old railway bed
the ties
remain
  – Hilary Tann
mountain moonrise
the sound I didn’t know
I had in me
   – Peter Yovu
cycling with my son-
this is the autumn
I fall behind
  Curtis Dunlap
longing for something-
an unknown seabird
soars out of sight
– Ce Rosenow
milky way-
even the know-it-all
speechless
   – Hank Dunlap
autumn downpour
a tow truck pulling
another
  Carlos Colon
pull of the moon
I am not myself
tonight
  – Yu Chang
the broken harp string
curving
into sunlight
  -Elizabeth Searle Lamb
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