Johnny Cash: Hurt

all my pretty boas

torment has never been my shtick

odd man out blinks in his knickers

winsome girls silenced by a brick

and all my feathered boas round the neck

dictate to me great consciousness

offer a platitude for my artlessness

i'm ten minutes late with my defense

and all my feathered boas round the neck

i'm cutting myself again she said

and I wonder how to stop her blood

dipping into salty wounds the bread

and all my pretty boas round the neck

voices i've heard from bearded men

under the width of my acoustical burka

the yolk is separated from the albumen

and all my pretty boas round the neck

Beneath the Surface

http://picsdigger.com/

I was a fisher's wife

and I know fish stories better than anyone,

better perhaps than He who scattered them,

for I have recited them as

verbs to a language:

Diving until my belly

runs through the weeds,

slides across mud,

taut with a slow exhalation, then easy pump,

and a searching with the hands.

As my lungs grow thick,

I rise to the light,

a bubble to the mass,

one wave of the arms and

I'm gone:

     Here behind you!

     Across the pond!

I view the rain in a mirrored hand

beneath the clear black surface,

where each drop forms a perfect arc

and the world becomes

an open mouth.

the formula

i've been working on this one for days, with changes averaging every 4.3 minutes... :>>))

i took a number and sat down

at the department of motor vehicles

i took a number, 59, and

glanced at the wall: 0044

i went to the calculator in my head

slid open the calculator draw with

all the functions i still don't know

even though i've had this calculator

for 30-odd years, such as

how to use the memory functions

find square roots, go back to square one

they did not matter at all because

i didn't have a proper ratio

the denominator was missing from

the only equation i ever use

the one that allows me to resize

anything resizable i need or want

to figure out what things are worth

in dollars, psyche or in verse

but all i had before me now

was 59 = 44  

and that was not enough

to conjure up impending costs

i hit the counter on my mental watch

the one that tells me how long

things take and sat waiting

for number 0045 to show up and

there it was in just under 2:00

now i had a ratio

yet only a sampling

of a probable variable

i needed more data, examples of

time divisible by averages

thus hitting the counter again in my head

sitting as straight as i possibly could

not to activate my weak back muscles

waiting for number 0046 to crack open

i sat and sat and sat, staring at

the teapot of digital detente

now fidgeting in my chair, wishing i'd

brought my book about eastern europe

instead of this mental monkeywrench, when

"flip" went the wall score and

0046 did appear in all its

phosphorescent glory...

4 minutes after the last, but then:

no one called #46 via the microphone

time did not move forward at all

'til the dmv person strode out the door

into the parking lot, around the corner

i don't know how long it was, i forgot to

push the mental button but

it seemed like a long long time

'til he strode back in again

and said, "46"... and i, thinking

i should probably add extra miles

then realizing how little it mattered

when i could simply repeat my error

with the next intrepid chafferer

so long a time did elapse

i fell asleep, elbowed by a jerk

sitting on my right who

let me know in no uncertain terms

that he found my mental calisthenics

too loud for his public and private reflections

as usual i was quite sincere

falling to my spiritual, yet antiquated knees

when i saw i had forgotten

during this mildly psychotic altercation

to arrest the mental counter

leaving me captive between numbers again

with a completely ambivalent figurehead

how long would i wait in

this hellhole of hard plastic chairs

color worn off of them

the powder-pale walls

tangible stress emanating from

a roomful of attenuated voyagers

a reshuffling of bums and crossing

and uncrossing of legs in

a total void of magazines, nothing to

break the monotony of the wait

except a mathematical formula

my cherished mental calculator

my timer and alarm

all of which i handled so badly

leaving me dangling between 0047

and 0048 on that friday afternoon

in august, goose pimply and sick

in the cold air conditioning?

chill

from getty images (discovered on robert fisk's great september 11, 2010 article
in the Independent, found here)

fire on the rubicon

and no looking back

hackensack's lookin' mighty slack

pauvre amérique

knee deep in debt

there are roms in france

diggin' through the trash

there's an eu debate

but they don't have the cash

for a wholesale buyout

ny was havin' fun

until al qaida came on

with 600 tons of hate

and we waved them in

from the tarmac

eu reps fly down

for deal making in the south

the south the south

latin despots and poverty

500 rapes in the drc

blizzards will come

to chill our fears

with fresh white snows

enough to cover the stains

on the chosen ones' clothes

and then the terrible floods

breaking through the dams

and then mechanical silence

as we sit like

three monkeys

god it was hot

in ny this year

glad i've got my little

catacomb of hope

and false flag disease

haven't seen the sun

for a bevy of weeks

stayin' chill

in the noisy glow

of a 42 inch peace

One Too Many Muses

One too many muses

I've got two

One who's kinda bluesy

One who's stuck on you

One who's shy and lonely

One who bought new shoes

She's so thin and bony

The other one can't lose

One who rails cacophonous

and sets her toe on line

One who rises with the sun

and loves the spring's bright light

One who takes you to a cliff

and drops you off the edge

and so does visit bitter blight

on our new age sagesse

One who dreams of weekend bliss

and mornings spent in bed

with late late nights and dal with rice

that spicy taste of sin!

One who calls and one who comes

Expectation/mirrored awe

Riveted/spirited, psychopath/limited

God... and human after all

She hands me the punchline

like so much melted butter

I give her a smiley face

and lift her from the gutter

"It's another dark day..."

"But the sun is shining!"

"It's another ace of spades..."

"But goddammit you won!"

Bee Song

for Edna St. Vincent-Millay (and for the bees)

They said I was an optimist

when I was very small,

and I believed them when at four

it's hard to judge at all.

I grew believing everything

and trusting with my heart

every word and every song

and every dream i sought;

Until the day the summer turned

and bees were everywhere,

And I thought softly to myself,

It's time for a new friend!

Optimistically approaching,

I squatted near the bee

and reached my ever-trusting hand

toward hope of amity.

I stroked its bristled back

its black and orange hue,

I moved my finger carefully

with love I always knew.

But then it turned and stung me

and swiftly flew away,

yet, I could not betray the truth

for all my days of pain.

So I grew in the secret self

where nothing can be tamed,

while one to another they remarked,

"She just isn't the same!"


(1981)

A perte de vue - Alain Bashung/Jean Fauque

i've been pretty sick the last couple of months. this song certainly seems appropriate... love to all. ~lt xooxoxoxox

Thank you to poyettee for this recording of Alain live in Brussels!!!

Words: Alain Bashung and Jean Fauque

Music: Alain Bashung

À perte de vue 

As far as the eye can see 

Des lacs gelés 

The frozen lakes 

Qu'un jour j'ai juré d'enjamber

That one day I swore to step over

À perte de vue

As far as the eye can see 

Des défilés 

The processions 

Des filles à lever

Of girls to raise up 

Des défis à relever 

Of dares to take up again

Des prix décernés dans tes yeux

The prizes discerned in your eyes

À perte de vue
As far as the eye can see

Dodelinent des grues

The cranes shake their heads 

Les pieds dans la boue 

Feet in the mud 

Qui eût cru

Who would have believed 

Qu'un jour nos amours

That one day our loves 

Déborderaient 

Would overflow 

Fassent oublier aux ajusteurs

Make the fitters forget 

La clé

The key

Plus de boulons

No more nuts and bolts 

Pour réparer la brute épaisse

To repair the thick brute 

Ma pute à coeur ouvert

My whore with an open heart 

Trop de cuirassés

Too many battleships 

Pas assez d'écrevisses

Not enough crawfish 

Pour une fricassée

For a fricassee

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens 

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

À perte de vue

As far as the eye can see 

Du déjà vu

Of the already seen 

Du déjà vécu

Of the already lived 

Se précipitent

Rushing at 

A mes trousses

My heels

Qu'en dit le héron 

As says the heron 

Il en sait long 

He knows it long 

Qu'en dit l'éolienne 

As says the wind machine 

Voie d'eau dans la coque du Poseïdon

Waterway into the hull of the Poseidon

Hamacs éperonnés

Hammocks broken in 

Est-ce un espadon

Is it a swordfish 

L'oeuf d'un esturgeon

The egg of a sturgeon 

Ou un concours de circonstances

Or a contest of circumstances 

Qu'aurait engendré ce paysage désolé

That would have engendered this desolate landscape 

De n'être pas resté

Not to have stayed

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données 

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données

Give me new givens

À perte de vue

As far as the eye can see 

Des lacs gelés

The frozen lakes 

Qu'un jour j'ai juré d'enjamber

That one day I swore to step over

À perte de vue

As far as can be seen   

Des défilés

The processions 

Des filles à lever

Of girls to raise up 

Des défis à relever

Of dares to take up again
 

Des prix décernés dans tes yeux 

The prizes discerned in your eyes 

Des prix décernés dans tes yeux

The prizes discerned in your eyes

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