p

Talking Old Soldiers

"Why hello, say, can I buy you another glass of beer?"

"Well thanks a lot, that's kind of you, it's nice to know you care.

These days there's so much going on,

No one seems to want to know.

I may be just an old soldier to some

But I know how it feels to grow old.

Yeah, that's right, you can see me here most every night.

You'll always see me staring at the walls and at the lights.

Funny, I remember, oh it's years ago, I'd say,

I'd stand at that bar with my friends who've passed away

And drink three times the beer that I can drink today.

Yes I know how it feels to grow old.

I know what they're saying, son,

There goes old mad Joe again.

Well, I may be mad at that. I've seen enough

To make a man go out his brains.

Well, do they know what it's like

To have a graveyard as a friend?

`Cause that's where they are boy, all of them.

Don't seem likely I'll get friends like that again."

"Well, it's time I moved off,

But it's been great just listening to you,

And I might even see you next time I'm passing through.

You're right, there's so much going on

No one seems to want to know.

So keep well, keep well old friend

And have another drink on me.

Just ignore all the others. You got your memories.

You got your memories."

Bernie Taupin

q

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn,
whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
Helen Keller

p

Thus Spake the Mockingbird

 

The mockingbird says, Hallelujah, coreopsis, I make the day

      bright, I wake the night-booming jasmine. I am

the duodecimo of desperate love, the hocus-pocus passion

      flower of delirious retribution. You never saw such a bird,

such a triage of blood and feathers, tongue and bone. O the world

      is a sad address, bitterness melting the tongues of babies,

breasts full of accidental milk, but I can teach the flowers to grow,

      take their tight buds, unfurl them like flags in the morning heat,

fat banners of scent, flat platters of riot on the emerald scene.

      I am the green god of pine trees, conducting the music

of rustling needle through a harp of wind. I am the heart of men,

      the wild bird that drives their sex, forges their engines,

jimmies their shattered locks in the dark flare where midnight slinks.

      I am the careless minx in the skirts of women, the bright moon

caressing their hair, the sharp words pouring from their beautiful mouths

      in board rooms, on bar stools, in big city laundrettes. I am

Lester Young's sidewinding sax, sending that Pony Express

      message out west in the Marconi tube hidden in every torso

tied tight in the corset of do and don't, high and low, yes and no. I am

      the radio, first god of the twentieth century, broadcasting

the news, the blues, the death counts, the mothers wailing

      when everyone's gone home. I am sweeping

through the Eustachian tube of the great plains, transmitting

      through every ear of corn, shimmying down the spine

of every Bible-thumping banker and bureaucrat, relaying the anointed

      word of the shimmering world. Every dirty foot that walks

the broken streets moves on my wings. I speak from the golden

      screens. Hear the roar of my discord murdering the trees,

screaming its furious rag, the fuselage of my revival-tent brag. Open

      your windows, slip on your castanets. I am the flamenco

in the heel of desire. I am the dancer. I am the choir. Hear my wild

      throat crowd the exploding sky. O I can make a noise.

 

Barbara Hamby

q

When you shoot an arrow of truth, dip its point in honey.
Arabian Proverb

p

You Must Sing

He sings in his father's arms, sings his father

to sleep, all the while seeing how on that face

grown suddenly strange, wasting to shadow,

time moves. Stern time. Sweet time. Because his father

asked, he sings; because they are wholly lost.

How else, in immaculate noon, will each find

each, who are so close now? So close and lost.

His voice stands at windows, runs everywhere.

Was death giant? O, how will he find his

father? They are so close. Was death a guest?

By which door did it come? All the day's doors

Are closed. He must go out of those hours, that house,

The enfolding limbs, go burdened to learn;

You must sing to be found; when found, you must sing.

Li-Young Lee

q

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. 

-Dalai Lama