What I Took From A Book

Wise Blood

I want some wise blood   
 I want to choose not to choose  
The world above us  
No excuse for what we lose 

Gotta make a decision   
For that I don't need this PhD  
Won't be an act of precision
For this freedom I fight then flee  

The walls of the Church                 
They're building them higher   
Into the clouds in search of God  
The walls of this church               
The great multiplier             
Run through the city, claim the streets and yards 

Chorus

I need to make a decision 
Reject the promise of sanctity
Forget that sin abolition
All those around here, they've taken the knee

The fog of the future                                 
The mist of the past                                  
Borders are bleeding in search of  God   
Ancients to slaughter                               
The chain and the lash                            
Tryouts tomorrow for the Junior Death Squad          





Wise Blood

based on the short story Sredni Vashtar by Saki

Do One Thing For Me

Do one thing for me                
I kneel at your shrine              
Red thoughts, white teeth       
They call for peace                  
As the planets align                 
Tool shed my cathedral            
A silence musty and dim          
Knotted and naked                   
Offering sacred                         
Blame the ferret and the hen    

Do one thing for me                            
A singular sacrifice                              
Do one thing on this witchy day          
One small sin for my paradise             
Do one thing, one precious thing         
The brown beast turns and roars         
The darkness takes what duty brought 
Like a writer lost in war                          

Sit down have a celebration              
Tea with buttered toast I'm making       
All the little children hiding in the forest  
The animals are running free                  

Sit down, then stand up at attention          
Salute the General, time too short to mention  
All the little children fighting in the forest    
The animals are running free                      

Do one thing for me         
This vicious moment in time  
Short story the rage               
Canvas the page                   
Make the madness divine     
Tool shed my cathedral            
A silence musty and dim          
Knotted and naked                   
Offering sacred                         
All hail the ferret and the hen    













Do One Thing For Me

my futile attempt at transcendence despite the wise teachings of Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert), whose insightful words bookend this song


Get Lost  

Gonna take a trip inside myself                                                
To find serenity
It’s not a place I know so well
But it’s where I’m taking me
I start this meditation
Close my eyes and count to ten
Lose myself and take a breath 
Repeat it once again

I get lost, get lost
Then I think too much and grok it up
My mantra just got tossed
Get lost, get lost
Conscious seething, breathing
Got my toes and fingers crossed

Drive the coast to Big Sur
A former hippie way
Timmy Leary, Dicky Alpert
What do those mushrooms say?
Well, Timmy went to prison
And Dicky changed his name
And me I go in circles
I can’t understand my brain

Get lost, get lost
Albert Hofmann’s in the kitchen
He can cook that secret sauce
Get lost, get lost
I wanna reach the 5th dimension
Go beyond my permafrost
                                                                                         
OOHH  the infinite beauty
OOHH the infinite me
OOHH the intoxication
Oh don't do don't do
 just be…. Let It Be

Ram Dass, the Dali Lama
Baba is my name
Yogacise don’t moralize
I play the Buddah game
Psilocybin take me higher
Mother Earth I feel her near
Holds me in her sunshine
I dissolve and disappear

Get lost, get lost
Then I think too much and grok it up
My mantra just got tossed
Get lost, get lost
I wanna reach the 5th dimension
Go beyond this permafrost



Get Lost

idea from the book El Sicario...por favor excuse some of  my beginner Spanish mispronunciations and I am sure grammatical errors....unpolished it is , lo siento

Sicario Blues (La Plata o Plomo)

La plata o plomo                                       
The silver or lead                                       
He's talking in Spanish                              
Got a gun at your head                              
Mas o menos, Señor                               
It's the Sicario blues                                   

He loves his mama
El ama a su madre
Got to bury your body first
Before he takes her to church on Sunday
Mas o menos, can't you see it
His Sicario blues

Lately, he's been wondering                       
Just whose side he's on                             
No quiere una guerra                                 
All these loaded guns                                
Sure, he's got some money                        
El dinero es grosso                                   
pero las manos, sus manos                             
Se han ensuciado                                     

La plata o plomo 
The silver or lead 
He'd rather be in Iceland
In a nice warm feather bed 
Mas o menos por favor
Those Sicario blues

Sooner or later, he'll be coming around 
Juarez, Tijuana, he'll be hunting you down
Su corazón es duro 
And your alibi is soft 
You're the last one on his list of names
Before he's running off

La plata o plomo 
The silver or lead 
El hijo de Dios 
Gonna put you straight to bed 
Si claro, mi amigo 
Tiene el Sicario blues
Es verdad amigos 
No escaping those Sicario blues







Plata o Plomo (Sicario Blues)


intro is a quote from the novel Cat's Cradle(1963) by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

My Compass is Broken

Plans are vague                                                             
Imprecise                                                                         
Indistinct                                                                          
Like men and mice                                                        
But it's better than having a stone cold point of  view   
Feeling lost 
Cast adrift
Gone off course 
Missing ship
No need to understand where I'm heading to

My compass is broken                                                  
The arrow is starting to spin                                         
This path unspoken                                                       
Not sure of the place I'm in                                           
Do I turn East?                                                                
West?                                                                               
Father does not know best                                           
My compass is broken                                                  
I don't know what to do       

                                           
Empty maps
Beckon me
Find the lost
City of Z
Take a long, strange trip inside my little head
Foreign fields
Hallowed ground
Misunderstood
Tightly wound
Instead of finding the treasure, I find myself instead

Oh, my compass is broken 
A newfound split past everyone 
From one pole to the other 
Like Peary, Scott and Amundsen 
Do I turn North?
South?
Living foot in mouth
My compass is broken 
What do I have to do?

Peculiar travel suggestions                                           
Are dancing lessons from God                                    
So move your feet to this rhythm                                 
And do the Mashed Potato                                          
Or the Kurt Vonnegut                                                          

Grow a pair
Get a grip
Find a job
F#$* that shit
Destination unknown
Take a chance, enjoy the view

My compass is broken
It's a world of bobble and spin
I'm awake but unwoken 
It's the best place I've ever been
Switching it on....off....
From the equator to the permafrost
My compass is broken
Don't call the rescue crew                                           
My compass is broken                                                  
I'm far away from you                                         
My compass is broken
Do what I have to do


Lyrics Hand on the Rock/ K Vonnegut Jr
Music Hand on the Rock

My Compass Is Broken



Feb 11 1963....Death of Sylvia Plath... 62 years ago... 
Florida Dawn reference found within the pages of  the Bell Jar her only novel
Sylvia Plath reading a portion of Lady Lazarus opens tune...

Florida Dawn

All that we touch                                       
Turns to dust                                            
The flesh gone frantic                              
The ink upon the page                         
The idea stays                                         
Reading pages of Plath                            
Such a sad aftermath                               
I picked up those letters                             
And sprinkled some bits on your grave       
See love where it lays                                 

That February spinning round                       
Breath is getting thin                                     
Sit and watch the ocean tide                         
Centuries crashing in                                     
In the Florida Dawn                                        
Another episode of cruel                                
The leader and the ones lead on                    
Who's playing tricks on who?                          

Rain begets rust                                           
Turns steel into dust                                     
The flesh gone static                                    
A chemical tease for the brain                    
Why did you read her again?                          
She did a Sylvia Plath                                 
Climbing into the bath                                    
I'll spare you the details,                               
the end result was the same                       
Minus the fame                                            

Now everything is spinning round                 
In this space I'm in                                       
I sit and watch the ocean tide                        
All those centuries crashing in                       
In the Florida Dawn                                       
Replay your episode of cruel                            
The leader and the one lead on                    
Who's playing tricks on who?                          

I walk these words and find myself              
Where you said you'd be 
I walk these words to where you ought to be                            
But there's only me                                       







Florida Dawn

A litte song about Flannery O'Connor, American novelist and short story writer who died in 1964
age 39 from Lupus, with the last 10 years of her life becoming increasingly incapacitated by her illness  
.. despite her suffering she continued her craft at the highest level..
There was a movie recently released called Wildcat about her and Ms O'Connor was portrayed by Maya Hawke
I have not seen the film but I took the sound clips in the song from the trailer....don't tell.....

Hey Flannery

Hey Flannery, gone undercover 
Biding your time, country livin’ with your mother 
In that little room, there's a place for the lame and the blind  
Takes a life to discover a good man is hard to find      

Hey Flannery, limping to salvation           
Body betrayed, you write your revelation 
In that little world, you've found a place for the damned and the divine                           
Takes a lifetime to discover a good man is hard to find   

Create him                                       
Erase him                                             
Lover or Liar, he wanders the land     
Embrace him                                            
Forsake him                             
Up on the cross, they don't understand   
The path to grace, a gunshot through the pines  
It's killing time                                   

Hey Flannery, this world is turning   
Books they be banning and forests they be burning 
Your typewriter sings the musings of your mind      
Takes a lifetime to discover a good man is hard to find   

Preach or plead                                      
We've lost our way                                   
Gone off the road                                  
This sunny day                                        
There's a meanness in the world             
Where dark meets light                             
Although we try to run from it                    
It's two steps faster when we slip          
Our fall from grace, the bodies left behind

                        
Hey Flannery, your sisters and your brothers  
Marching up to heaven after hurting one another 
The road to redemption around your little heart it winds  
Takes a lifetime to discover a good man is hard to find 
Takes a life to discover a good man is hard to find
Takes a life to discover that a good man is hard to find








A Good Man Is Hard To Find (Hey Flannery)

My Dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you
Let it drain from you your all.
Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you, and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you
both slowly and fastly.
but it’s much better to be killed by a lover
falsely yours, 

Henry Charles Bukowski

Years back,I saw the above stanza on the internet...  According to Bukowski "experts" he actually  did not write this...so idk ....the author origin is a mystery....
so for this piece,
I lifted the first line but made a more positive song as I wanted the "kill" to really to be  more of a metamorphosis...a change..a salvation..a call to pursue your passion  without delay as our time left on this mortal coil  is unknown.... So keep on creating  keep on playing ...find what you love...

                            
       Find What You Love, Let It Kill You

Find what you love, let it kill you                                                            
Let it devour your senses                                                                      
Engulf and embrace your resolve    
                                                     
Find what you love, let it save you
Your sweet resurrection 
Reframe and regroup then dissolve 

Fade away but don’t fade to black                                                         
Fly to the orange, the red                                                                     
Like Icarus into the sun
Take a breath, there's no turning back 
Each moment a memory, minute
Lean on the learned ones.

Find what you love, let it kill you
Be born from the ashes
In purpose and pain comes the light 

Find what you love and let it change you
Don't be afraid of the mockers or mourners 
Who pass in the night 

Run away, but don’t run too far
Your hand on the rock
Like Sisyphus, now the moment's begun
Take a breath, it's all that you are 
You feel it growing, yearning
Live like the ancient ones.

Find what you love...Find what you love…

This could be our last stand                                                                     
American Bandstand 
The Alamo of your life
A Soundcloud crucifix                                                                             
No need to surrender                                                                        
Are you a player
Or just a pretender 
Another suspect device                                                                           
Feel the clock inside you tick 
                                                               
Find what you love, let it kill you 
Death the divider
The boatman is seeking his toll
Find what you love, let it take you
Gone solo, gone swimming
Swift currents, lose control

Walk along the edge of the knife 
Always counting, comparing your silver
There is so much more to be won
You're only floating on the surface of life
Try to dive deeper, dream away
Let the day go undone.

Find what you love...Find what you love..

Find What You Love, Let It Kill You

song about Allen Ginsberg

soundclips from AG reading parts of  his poem Howl

Drunken Dumbshow  

Holy, holy, we're holy
This land of prayer and restraint 
Weapon born from society 
An insect stuck in the paint 
Hospital laugh with appended smile
True lust to fake the faint
A faint hope that's close to nothing at all
But it's something for the people who ain't 

Beat down, strung out, colorful, crazy
The weight of the world is love
In the end, it is enough
In the end, it has to be enough 
Broken mother, father 
Like the rest of us fallen ones
On the streets we Howl and run

Kaddish, death convention 
Now he's the King of May
The long hair of Adam
His cosmic beard at play
To ease the pain of living
The work will set you free
That was the message he breathed 
The politics of ecstasy 

Beat down, strung out, colorful, crazy
The weight of the world is love
In the end, it is enough
In the end, it has to be enough 
Broken mother, father 
Like the rest of us fallen ones
On the streets we Howl and run

Poet, pilgrim, sacrilege 
Buddhist, lover, anarchist 
5 to 1, he is on their list 
Acid-dropping dreamer, God's pharmacist 
All else is
Drunken dumbshow







Drunken Dumbshow

The Count of Monte Cristo

I’m a newfound man                                                      
I burn and I bake                                                           
I’m your Japan in a Dishpan                                        
I’m the flesh and the fake                                                   

Like the Count of Monte Cristo                                                  
Watch me tear the bag and swim
After 14 years of smothering 
I will breathe and start again


You only see the beauty
Watch it bind and blind the eye
The titles and the treasures
This life I live in style

Like the Count of Monte Cristo
It’s who I choose to be
But sleeping in that gunny sack
There’s a corpse disguised as me


At night, I sink and swim                                               
Leave that dungeon damp and dim                            
To an island cave, a place inside my mind                
These lands, I am estranged                                       
Invent, outlast, arrange                                                  
Til I'm  left standing with the ones my hate does find  

              
I’m a newfound man                                                      
I’m your Japan in a Dishpan                                         
Like the Count of Monte Cristo                                     
The Count of Monte Cristo                                                     

I’m a newfound man                                                      
Your Japan in a Dishpan                                         
Like the Count of Monte Cristo                                   
The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo

Existential  Pop...written 2020 during Covid Lockdowns

"I only want to be"...the wish of everyone and everything .....in this absurd universe  life is still precious... sometimes it helps to forget the questions and answers and just enjoy the ride while it lasts...

(intro sound clip is the lovely Geena Davis from David Cronenberg's The Fly)

The Chosen One 

That luncheon lady she's so Ubermensch preachy   
Always quoting Herr Friedrich Nietzsche   
Thus spake this and thus spake that 
 I'm kind of fearful of her nihilistic moan                                                                        
I'm a soon to be victim of her deinfestation
A subject not wanted in a hundred nations
Passport check, I'm a fly, a dust speck
I was born into this hostile home

I just want to roam                                                    
I only want to be                                                        
Escape this shell, the world is wide                     
All these ruminations ruining me                            
I just want to sail                                                       
Through the sand and sun                                       
Asking too many questions                                     
I don't know the answers                                          
I thought I was the chosen one                                 
The chosen one                                                           

That lady's talking to walls, she got an outsider view
She's been writing, she been reading some Celine and Camus
Debating this, disregarding that
In our unholy, existential zone

I'm an insect man buzzed on hope and glory
Fablizing, fairytaling all of these stories 
With Kafka creep and doublespeak 
It's untranslatable, my twisted tone

I just want to roam
I only want to be
Escape that swatter splat
My world is flat
Got a wordy woman chasing me
I just want to bail
Out  the window and run
Asking too many questions 
I don't know the answers
I thought I was the chosen one
The chosen one

She said Don't try                         
This is a NO FLY zone                
God is dead                                
Your life is mine, time to recall the loan 
She said Don't fly                         
This is a NO TRY zone               
God is Dead, like Nietzsche said, time to disconnect yer phone 









The Chosen One

There’s a treasure down deep in this garbage can
To find it, plug your nose, feel the dirt on your hands
Just remember that they never really understand 
Your personal Rosetta Stone

