An Older Gentler World

 It's an older gentler world

inside this song,

given birth by a Herco Flex 75 pick

with sleepy monkeys in the trees

waiting for enlightenment.

I'm high from a bass line,

going downstream on religious waters

where nuns and parrots appear and disappear

above and beneath the somnambulant surface,

casual whispering gods whose guitars

are touched

with sweet divinity.

Imagine My Surprise

 

Imagine my surprise

when I noticed that your body beside me

was a cello

and when you snored,

the sound was the most beautiful thing

I had ever heard.

Hush now,

do not speak

or get up, standing stiffly on your one leg.

There is no ceremonial dance to be done.

Our people have all fluttered

away, a cloud of crows

or treble clefs

dotting the air like ellipsis points.

They seed the sky and make it rain

golden notes

glittering dreams

wild and giddy

like experimental harmonics.

You have my ear, darling.

Speak and be 

the instrument of my glorious undoing.

___________

for Word Garden Word List Chouette

Music: Sunny & the Sunliners Talk To Me

Lovin' Baby Girl

 I was a lovin' baby girl

wrapped in the pages of a million old books.

lonesome as the last day of winter,

bright as a penny on the sill in sunlight.

It took me a long time, wandering midnight walks

solitary as Sunday, blue as a pound dog,

to know I was different inside my head

with its all-night jukebox and pocket poets jam.

I was a lovin' baby girl

who thought love was hearts and flowers

hidden in a busker's guitar case

so I ran out barefoot in the strange streets, looking.

I was just a girl, giving it all away,

even the words that fell from my mind.

and I wore away like sea glass

curled on a Great Lakes beach, inside a bottle.

I was a lovin baby girl

who stopped keeping secrets from herself,

once again the child who couldn't shut up,

the one I was, now with a poem behind every bloom. 

I'm still solitary as Sunday, but I haven't been always,

blue as a pound dog, but not as often. 

If I walk the beach, it's in the morning, with a smile

rolling out poems like waves on shoreline, a natural wonder.

______

for What's Going On? -- What is "it" about poetry?  Poetry and music have always been inextricably linked for me. I notice a number of poets today writing about songs they love. Music was and is integral to my life.  This poem is an homage to several songs I loved when I was young and still do. 

The main one I wrote from here is called Second Story Window, sung by Rita Coolidge. Her first solo album was the second LP I ever bought and I still have that same copy. This song was written by Marc Benno; his version: 

The title and repeated line is from Lovin' Baby Girl by Melanie Safka, a song I have referenced in my tags fairly often.

I was just a girl, giving it all away, is an homage to Leo Sayer's Giving It All Away. An anthem of my early adulthood.  

The song is more joyful these days as one thing has built upon the last. And the poetry is something that has only become more satisfying over time. 

Do The Do

Let's have some fun. Today I'm participating in Song Lyric Sunday, which can be found HERE. This week the theme is "Done With The Verb Do" and you can choose to feature any song with any variant of "do" in it. I've chosen Tim Hardin's "Do The Do", a lively dance tune, pretty atypical for the moody, introspective Hardin.

"Do The Do" was written by blues man Willie Dixon, a favorite songwriter of late 60's blues rockers. He also wrote "Backdoor Man" popularized by the Doors, and "Spoonful", memorably recorded by Cream and also Etta James. "Do The Do" was recorded by several people (according to internet research--I have never heard any other version but Hardin's) and the lyrics I will add at the end of the post are from Howlin' Wolf's version. 

I can't listen to Hardin's recording of "Do The Do" without wanting to get up and move, and it always puts a smile on my face. That it should have been recorded by Tim Hardin is surprising. Hardin is best known for writing and singing amazing ballads such as "If I Were A Carpenter" (made famous by Bobby Darin), "Reason To Believe" (which charted for Rod Stewart) and "How Can We Hang On To A Dream." His voice is expressive and unique. In fact, he disliked others covering his songs so much that he began making them more complex and hard to copy. The closest voice I can think of to Hardin's might be Ron Sexsmith's, but that's like saying a Focus and a Ferrari are both cars.

Tim Hardin's story is a sad one. Picking up a heroin habit while in the Marines in the early 60's, it eventually ruined his life. He had a rebellious and contrary nature, often claiming a relation to the outlaw John Wesley Harding, but there's no facts backing that up. Like Harry Nilsson, Hardin disliked performing live, even though he did release a live album. 

In the end, we are left with his hauntingly beautiful songs, voice and music. As a result of factors noted in the preceding paragraph, his album Painted Head did not contain any self-penned songs, but did include the funky, fun "Do The Do", presented here with all due flourishes and fanfare. Dig it!

the mildly sexist and beside-the-point lyrics, by Willie Dixon:

 Well I know

I've got a babe
And I know her
Love is true
But you ain't seen nothing
'Til you see her, see her
Do the do
Do the do

Shake her shoulder
Take her time
Mover her body
Like I move mine
When she's dancing
You'll love her too
When you see her
Do the do
Do the do

34 bust
22 waist
Everything
Right in place
Cool disposition
Love her too
When you see her
Do the do
Do the do

Well, well there
Ain't nothing like
When you see her
Do the do
Do the do

Well I know
I've got a babe
And I know her
Love is true
But you ain't seen nothing
'Til you see her, see her
Do the do
Do the do

Plath at 350

At the top of some stairs,
at The Bus Stop of the Eternal Downpour,
I met a man.

He wore a beret,
and an old-fashioned high collar,
giving the impression that he was forever being jauntily hanged.

He told me that he had recently broken up with a life sized doll named D'zeray,
and then taken up with a cello.
Either one of them--but not both--
could fit easily beneath his bed.

He went on to explain that although the doll had been a fine listener,
she was a disaster as a dancer,
and Farran (for this was my new acquaintance's name)
could not live without music in his world.

I whistled a little of the Trumpet Voluntary,
and swayed on my boot heels like a Sikh snake charmer.
Nearby, a depressive fought a losing battle with a watercolor,
but I could tell my cello man had better possibilities.

"Where did you get your...companion?" I asked.
"I slipped her out from under Sylvia Plath's tear-stained cheek," he told me,
but the temperature in her final dream had dried out the wood,
and ruined its tone.

"I'm taking her down to the boat docks
to use as an oar,
and I will tell her the fable of the Selkie and the fisherman."

"Oh my sweet and idiotic owl," I said softly,
"she can never be the listener your old love was."
Then I slipped my arm through his and asked if he wanted to get out of there.

He did.
I feel certain that he never saw my tail switch beneath my raincoat,
but when he saw my cottage on the sand 
and plenitude of tuna fish cans,

he only told me how much he liked the soothing green of my bedding,
and, kissing the bell on the collar around my neck,
assured me that I was all the music anyone could ever need.
_________

for The Mag #203

image" "Musician In The Rain" by Robert Doisneau

Musical Interlude

This is:

1. Pete Townsend in his dotage

2. Charo after running out of Neet

3. Slash without the hat

4. Sasquatch

???????

_______