MUSES WHEN THEY GO AWAY

Muses When They Go Away

Sitting at this keyboard with no melody in sight

No lyrics fill my troubled mind, my mouth just won't sing right

I got no thoughts worth thinking, no tales that I can tell

I could lie to you 'bout Heaven but the truth feels like I'm in Hell.

There's a broken record playing but it's so scratched up I don't know

What the blues man still is moaning but he's howling out my woe

There's a baby crying somewhere that his folks can't put to sleep

And I know just how he's feeling 'cause Lord knows I want to weep.

If I could, I'd make the sun shine, if I could I'd make it bright

But the dawning day didn't show up and now all I have is night

There's a raven at my window, there's a wolf out side my door

There's a silence drowning out the music that I can't hear anymore.

Since the love has gone from my life, since the life's gone from my love

I can't feel the hand that fit my hand like a hand that fits a glove

And my every waking moment and my every sleepless night

Is filled with songs that I can't sing and songs that I can't write.

(Lord, what's wrong with me? Tell me, what is wrong with me?

My Muse is gone and I'm all alone and there's no good that I can see

Lord, what's wrong with me? Good Lord, what's wrong with me?!

If you give me back my music, you can do what you want with me.)

There was a time I filled the pages with a thousand pretty words

There were songs I sang for the pretty girls and my heart knows that they heard

There were all those nights of love and all those days of joy

Now I walk the street on my wandering feet, just a bruised and broken boy.

My guitar sits there by itself, just leaning on the wall

The flute, the drum, the violin lay where I watched them fall

I hear them calling out to me like lonely little friends

But I cannot play them 'cause I don't know the way this sad song ends.

Where do Muses go where they go away? Where does the music go to die?

Is there a place down deep where they go to sleep or a sweet space in the sky?

If I could, I'd write about it, if I could, I'd sing a song

But every note I'd play would just go astray and the words would come out wrong.

If there's still one thing I'm sure of, if there's still one thing I know

That as much as I need your sweet love, that I need to let you go

As my fingers touch the keyboard and my voice rises in my throat

I feel the song rush through me and I'm amazed at what I wrote.

(Lord, what's wrong with me? Tell me, what is wrong with me?

My Muse is gone and I'm all alone and there's no good that I can see

Lord, what's wrong with me? Good Lord, what's wrong with me?!

If you give me back my music, you can do what you want with me.)

Do what you want with me

You can do what you want with me

Send my Muse back with her music

And you can do what you want with me.

Want with me....want with me
Do what you want with me........

Send my Muse back with her music

and do what you want with me................

©by Voo

Aug 29, 2016

10:26 p.m.

written just now

on this keyboard

on this blog


For my friend Twayne
the guitar man

ON THE WIND

On The Wind

I left some words out on the wind

A whispered prayer, and said "amen"

I spoke into my hands and sighed

And then released them to the sky.

I saw your face there in the moon

For just a moment and none too soon

All day I'd hungered for your smile

To come and warm me for awhile.

I heard the voices in the trees

I felt the soft, sweet breath of breeze

It touched my hair, it touched my cheek

I was so moved, I couldn't speak.

Leaning on my cabin door

My heart was full but needed more

The day was done, the night was long

My ears were longing for your song.

Do you not see? Do you not know?

My heart's with you wherever you go

A hundred lifetimes, a hundred ages

You're written here on my life's pages.

How my soul yearns, my body burns

Do you not feel me? Do you discern?

I need to hold you. I need to say

The words to make you come and stay.

The morning dawns now and still I stand

Holding lonely in my hand

My words are out there flying free

Why can't your lost heart hear my plea?

©by Voo

Sept 1, 08

12:52 a.m.

for Mark C.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Information Overload

You used to tell me that I was evasive

And gave too little information

Now you ask me nothing 

And tell me even less

Is this normal or have I done

The unthinkable

And told you more than you

Ever wanted to know?

You used to tell me that I was like

A figment of your imagination

Now you look at me in a different tone

And I hear you thinking "Get real!"

I can't go back to mystery now

I've gone too far, told you too much

Revealed truth too sad and reality too scarred

What now? 

Is this the part where one of us runs?

©2007 by Voo

LOOKING

Looking

(the beginning of a journey)

Streets as dark as dark can get

Skies as black as blackest jet

I walk these hopeless paths and yet....

Keep looking, I keep looking.

There in the night, a distant light

There in the light, a dim lit sight

I run to see if I am right.....

For looking, always looking.

Too many times, too many days

I've lost my treasure, lost my ways

Grabbed hold so tight, they slipped away....

But continued looking, continued looking.

There is a place, I know, for me

And I will know it when I see

An oasis from this world, will be.....

If I keep looking, just keep looking.

My footsteps, slower now, with age

My life, words, on a yellowed page

My heart, a sad thing in a cage.....

Beats faintly, but still looking, looking.

Love, it calls my unknown name

Like taunting children at a game

Life, it changes, but stays the same....

And I go on looking, I go on looking.

Then up ahead, around a curve

A bright light rises from the swerve

And welcomes me with smile and verve....

And I stop looking, I stop looking.

(the ending)

Written

For the man who is still looking
my friend S.............

Looking For the All Nite Cafe
by John Trudell

©by Voo

March 22, 08

3:50 p.m.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR

Woman of the Year



Standing there in the spotlight
In my slinky black dress and three-inch heels,
Glittering diamonds falling near to my smooth shoulders
(Shining almost as brightly as these eyes of golden brown)
I drowned in the adoration and applause,
The thunderous pounding of my own heart,
(Foolish though it be, founded in vanity and hope)
And the flattery that only an hungry heart can consume.


The pedestal held me high
Proclaimed me Queen and above all others,
Raised me up to heights I had only imagined
In childhood daydreams, crowned me with tiaras
And stood me on tip-toe dancing like a ballerina
Before stunned, breathless masses
Watching me twirl
Like the plastic girl on top of a music box
Like the jester that does not know
Why the audience laughs.


I was The Woman of the Year
The Chosen One, the Queen For a Day,
The Princess Without a Kingdom,
The Star That Fell From The Sky,
And the fool that only read half of the book
And did not know how the fairy tale faded
Because I believed the author that told me
That it never would, it never would
That the position was mine until the end of Forever
(Which apparently ended yesterday
 When closed doors were opened
And new chapters revealed.)


Tumbling off that pedestal
Into the dirt of betrayal and the shame
That only comes with love and trust,
I lay in the darkness that falls
When the spotlight goes out and the silence descends
Into the happy, noisy halls of innocence
And joy that wakes at love's discovery
Silence
As deafening as the roaring crowd at a silver screen premiere
And as piercing as a dagger in the hand of Caesar's friend.


There she stands today
In yesterday's spotlight
My spotlight, my glory, my adoration, my love
Beaming like the only starlet that ever graced your skies,
Shining like Venus in eternal orbit, your orbit
Your damned, beautiful orbit, cold as space,
Blazing with ice and cubic zirconium,
Dark enough to hide the wolf in your laughing eyes
But light enough to snare a soul
Like me
Lost, wandering in the night.


I was the Woman of the Year
But now the year is over
And another fool has taken my place
The place I took from the fool before
The place that will always be there
In the future
With a younger face
The orbit widens, it never slows down,
The spotlight always beckons, always lures
And every poor and trusting heart
That mounts that pedestal made of lies, says:
"This is my place and here I will always stay."

I was the Woman of the Year
But the spotlight that held me in it's embrace
Has forever gone dark
In your eyes................

©By Voo
July 18, 2009
7:47 p.m.

IT'S NOT THAT I'M UNWOUNDED

It's Not That I'm Unwounded 

             

it's not that i'm unwounded

i just feel the way i feel

i fear that i am not afraid

for i see what is real

and what is real is that you're gone

and may never come my way

and that my love was not enough

to make you want to stay

but life goes on as life it does

and love may come again

and it may wound me deeper still

when i let it in again

it's not that i'm unwounded

i'm just strong enough to say

that love is always welcome here

even if it walks away.

©by Voo

November 29, 06

Love Was My Alibi

like Justin said: I mighta been gone

but I never walked out...........

COMMUNICATE

Communicate

We don't need words

When we communicate

We don't need nouns or verbs

Or syllables

We don't even need sound.....

My heart wants

Your heart responds

Your heart needs

And my heart gives

It's always been

That way with us

Always.....

Our minds met

In dreams

Our hearts met

In poetry 

Our souls met

In destiny.

We speak telepathically

Like they do in Paradise

Where minds are One

And hearts are One

And love is all there is.

It feels good to be known

For who we truly are

And not for who they think we are

Or want us to be..........

For we are truly us

When we are together.

One day God smiled

And orchestrated our meeting

Communicating His desire

To see us happy

To see us complete

As planned in eternity

Before we knew ourselves

And that we were not yet whole.

We don't need words

You and I

Because we feel so much

Say so much with every kiss,

Every embrace,

Every caress........

Every glance 

Of our matching dark eyes.

We communicate

In ways the world would never understand

Woman and man.....

Hand in hand and heart to heart

Where you end and where I start

We cannot tell, we cannot say

For it has always been this way.

My fingers beg and beckon you

My eyes flash lightning

My breath calls your name

My arms bid you welcome

My body takes you home.

What more is there to say?

What words could convey

The way I need, I want, I love

Better than the song in my eyes?

The poetry in my touch?

We communicate......

We communicate......

Every need met

Every hunger fed

Every yearning, fulfilled

Every dark fear, conquered.

We need no words......

But lest the unseeing world

Think us fools and dunces

Who live in silence...........

I will scream my love into the wind,

Call the clouds to listen to our story,

Thank God in prayer for sending you to me

And tell the universe .......

In a thousand ways, unsaid and said:

How much I love you and your smiling eyes

That speak to me in gentleness and bliss

That fan the fires inside of me without a word

And then consume me in your love

And with the flame of your sweet kiss.

Communicate with me, my love

Communicate with me.

Dan and Shay  Speechless

©by Voo

November 12, 2018

4:33 a.m.

THE LONG NEON NIGHT one of my all time faves

City of Tortured Souls  **By The Material Objects

 Play song while reading the poem..

then listen again   and again and again.........

 song by my friend Mark that inspired this write.....

bone shaking, dynamite song with the greatest 

scream I've ever heard in rock.......

...

 and this is Mark..
the screamer, composer and singer of the song

The Long Neon Night

Lights

Blink.... 

On.

Off.

On.

Off.

Red,

Then 

Yellow,

Red,

Then 

Yellow.

Hissing neon

Crackling

In the midnight

Hitting me in the face

Between lightning bolts

And the drum roll

Of deep, black thunder.

Can't shut it out

It peeks there

Through the curtains

One inch short of closing

Taunting me with advertisements

Of a better life

Found somewhere down below

In a happy hour bar.

This bed 

Is my hell.

This bed

Is my sanctuary.

I can't leave it

It won't let me.

See how it holds me

In it's dirty sheets?

It's comforter

That gives no comfort?

It's pillows scented

With a thousand other heads?

Over and over

I have this 

Dream

Every night

From dusk till dawn

The screaming rising

From sun deprived streets

Up, up to my window

Desolate voices calling

Pleading, asking for things

I cannot give them

And do not want to hear.

Then your face appears

And I exalt 

In momentary joy

As you hover there

Bathed in red neon waters

Beckoning to me

From the top of another

Mildewed motel.

You're always smiling

At least, until 

The fake yellow neon sun

Shows you for what you are.

Down the hall to the left

There's a guy always

Playing the blues

On his guitar

The walls tremble with it

The rodents sing harmony

And the residents curse

And bang on the ceiling

In rhythm to the song

For a moment or two

There's silence.......

And the song begins again.

I no longer know

Which is the dream

And which is my life

I don't know 

How long I've lain here

When I checked in

Or if I'll check out

I don't know

If you ever truly loved me

Or if I made you up

Like some madman's apparition.

Flashes

Of waking perception 

Make me catch my breath

Sit upright,

And reach out to the empty void

That stretches around the room

Down the hall

And back to me

Carrying nothing

But snippets

Of the blues man's song

And mourning

From the dying day.

Then...

I sleep

Again.

Hear the screams,

Feel the fear,

Touch the terror,

Taste the tangible,

Smell the soured milk smell

Of love that lived

And withered like a mushroom

In a corner

Of a room

Under a bed

In a thirty story building

On a street that's always crying

In a city of

Tortured souls.

Blink....

On.

Off.

On.

Off.

Red

Then

Yellow

Red

Then 

Yellow

Blink.

Blink.

Blink. 

  ©by Voo, words, images

and Mark, music, face

Feb 20, 08 midnight