It’s All Over Now Baby Blue

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

-Bob Dylan

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
In the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D. A.
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t try “No Doz”
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin’ to sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
‘Cause the vandals took the handles

-Bob Dylan

The Speaking Voice

I have this memory from years ago of my grandpa’s house. His yard was full of poplar trees so tall they seemed like stairways to heaven, like the massive incarnated innocence of babies and I remember standing at the base of them in disbelief. Sometimes the surging asphalt seas overwhelm me. Sometimes i can’t catch the spinning wheels. Sometimes the black rain of exhaust pours cold on my soul. Then i look to the trees, the watchers of men, silent lives and whisperers when the wind blows, they that come closest to the sun, branches arched either in agony or exstasy or both, but always toward the light, and i remember to be still, to be silent, and listening i hear the gentle whisper on the wind. He tells the roads that i have come by and the roads that i will go, and that i won’t go them alone.

Stairway To Heaven

Theres a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And shes buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
And shes buying a stairway to heaven.

Theres a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure
Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
Theres a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
And it makes me wonder.

Theres a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
And it makes me wonder

And its whispered that soon, if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If theres a bustle in your hedgerow
Dont be alarmed now,
Its just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
Theres still time to change the road youre on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it wont go
In case you dont know,
The pipers calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow,
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?

And as we wind on down the road,
Our shadows taller than our soul,
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.

-Robert Plant

The Most Beautiful Thing

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

-Jesus of Nazareth

Suggestions open for a title

The architecture of a kiss-
Stone circles, columns and mountains
Face west the sun to Elysium.
God is in the details.

Victorian gingerbread by name
And name-dropping fools;
Laughter there in red and blue
They forgot what lips are for.

Heavy hearted, broad browed,
Jill strode and stepped high on the walls
And ceiling.
She was as Doric as the Parthenon.

The Boxer

I am just a poor boy and my story’s seldom told
I’ve squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.

When I left my home and my family, I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers,
In the quiet of the railway station, runnin’ scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters, where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know.

Asking only workman’s wages, I come lookin’ for a job, but I get no offers
Just a comeon from the whores on 7th avenue.
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there.

And I’m laying out my winter clothes, wishing I was gone, goin’ home
Where the new york city winters aren’t bleedin’ me, leadin’ me to go home.

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains.

-Paul Simon

Just what the doctor ordered

when i get down this is where i go

symptoms

it’s like someone took a pinch of your stomache lining and twisted… with both hands around your throat. it’s like your face is a glass house and every sneeze is like a bomb going off behind your eyes. it’s like your voice is a cheese-grater and your throat is parmesean cheese. it’s like someone pumped your knuckles with frozen jello while you slept. it’s like a sumo wrestler in a ski mask threw a sixty pound box of envelopes at your lower back when you least expected it.

Life

Is feathery and whisper light,
Not the sublime-clouded epics of West or Church.
It beckons with a finger from the hedgerow,
Sits in the back row and
speaks softly, like sleep gives dreams
rattling you bones with a wink.