IF BLUES IS A WOMAN

If Blues Is A Woman

Honey, if blues, it is a woman

Well, then, heartache is a man

Can't nobody down here tell me

The devil don't have busy hands.

You see, the boys, they love to preach it

How they love us little girls

Then they love us and they leave us

Where they found us in this world.

Then they sit in bars till daylight

Talkin' how they was done wrong

Chasin' women, chasin' whiskey

Till ever drop o' love is gone.

Now, I've broke a heart or three

Had my share of dirty deals

Didn't love the one that loved me

So I know just how that feels.

But I never meant no evil

Never tried to do no bad

Made acquaintance with tha' lonely

Slept in rooms just full of sad.

Men say blues, it is a woman

Makes  'em hurt long as it can

But I say, if blues, it is a woman

Surely, heartache is a man.

        I'll Take Care of You by Van Morrison

    

©By Voo

May 11, 09

12:43 a.m.

APPARITION RIVER

APPARITION RIVER 

I walked along the river again today

I saw the places where we used to play

I saw the apparitions floating by

Of smile and kiss reflecting in the sky

I felt the touch I can't feel any more

Since you walked out and slammed that hollow door

And it bounced back and refused to catch and lock

And I sat there waiting three days for your knock.

After three days I thought I heard a siren's wail

But I was so far down I couldn't tell

Screaming past my house down by the water 

It woke me up and I went running after

My mother caught my arm and said "Go home."

Then she rocked me, crying, "Baby girl, he's gone."

So now I walk the river's edge and cry

And watch the apparitions floating by.

"There are ghosts in that river," you told me, "Suicides,

Lovers lost and widows, jilted brides."

You teased me every time we gathered there

But I loved you so much I didn't care

I remember how your ghost stories made me shiver

But how we loved that muddy rolling river

And now that dirty water is your grave

And I have nothing lovely left to save.

I saw you there last week by river's edge

You waved at me and smiled that golden smile

I stood there so dead still upon the ledge

And let your memory hold me for a while

I know I broke your heart but you forgive me

I know I lied to you and did you harm

For three long years I've walked along that river

And longed to be back in my true love's arms.

Tomorrow morning I shall get up early

I'll put on my unused white wedding gown

I'll carry roses in my arms to give you

And let your apparition pull me down 

Down to the muddy depths of cold, cold water

Reflecting blue that's borrowed from the sky

Then immortal, hand in hand, we'll walk together

And watch other apparitions floating by.

One More Time by Laura Pausini

©by Voo

March 3, 2004

THE SCARE CROW THAT I AM

the scare crow that I am


dead cornstalks hanging there in scattered rows
like broken mummified men
like me........
but they have ancient cornfields in which to stand
I have no place to be and no reason to exist

surveying the neglected countryside of my youth
and the forgotten fields that once were fruitful
I feel like the aftermath of a hurricane
and a desecrated cemetery

hopelessness walks around me in the mist
the cold gray morning whispers like a lover
who no longer loves but despises
and I try to cry but cannot well up tears
the ducts are as dry as the heart

why do we always run home when our souls
are snapped in two?
do we think we'll find ourselves there 
in those broken windows, those cobwebs,
those untended gardens and uninhabited pastures?

I couldn't wait to leave those hills and valleys
to run to the city and to the fulfillment of my dreams
I couldn't wait to leave home, to leave behind  
humiliations, real and imagined, to search for proud pursuits
and now this, the last straw on my humbled back:
home does not exist anymore, neither here nor there

the once green cornfields are now only haunting memories
like the love of my true love lost in the war of life
I walk into the corn rows and pose myself among 
the decaying stalks like the scarecrow that I am
and hang my head when even the crows laugh at my pain.


©by Voo Shining Stone
March 7, 2005

 7:30 p.m.