collab

Monday, July 20, 2020

CRESCENT MOON ON THE HIGHWAY





     (start song  before reading)




Crescent Moon On The Highway



Lying here on this cold and misty Sunday afternoon
Cat at my feet on his blanket
The threat of rain outside my shuttered windows
I listen to Villanelle For Our Time by the master
Of the rough and tender voice
His verse running down my spine like a lover's fingers
Crooning bittersweet lyric into my ears with his distant tongue
The melody caresses me and makes me senseless
As he repeats "bitter searching of the heart" over and over and over
Until images conjure up from memory and lay themselves down
Upon my mind.


You, in that convertible under the stars on that long ago highway
We were laughing like mad people, kissing, more than paying attention
Music soaring on the tape deck 
And ebbing off behind us with the desert wind
My hair whipping around us like long black scarves
And thinking that if I could die of joy, then I would surely die
We were racing under clear cold skies looking for rain and storm
Loving lightning and angry clouds
But finding none, we drove on into the night
Listening to Leonard and holding each other hard enough to bruise.


Look, baby, you said and pointed to a crescent moon
Hanging low in the sky on the side of the highway 
A hundred miles from nowhere
And we pulled over 
And danced underneath that moon
Toasted it with champagne and kisses no one had ever kissed before
While the music trailed off into silence and clicked to a stop
As we stood in the glow of the headlights,
Our eyes locked onto one another
And our hearts as close as hearts can be.


That long ago highway 
And that crescent moon and you
With your crooked smile and wind blown hair
How it all comes back to me now
Damn you, Leonard, with your bitter searching of the heart
and your rough and tender poet's voice
Bringing the past alive and spotlighting the present
with it's loneliness
And loss.........................

Damn you, Leonard.




©by Voo
December 5, 2005
5 p.m.




  BLESS YOU, LEONARD

Sunday, July 19, 2020

The Garbage Man



THE GARBAGE MAN



HERE COMES THE GARBAGE MAN
GET OUT YOUR GARBAGE CANS
THROW OUT THAT TRASH THAT YOU'VE BEEN GLEANING
ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES AND GET SPRING CLEANING.


PITCH OUT THE HATE YOU'VE HELD SO LONG
THOSE LONESOME OLD BEER DRINKING SONGS
VACUUM UP THAT LITTERED STRIFE
AND GET THE GARBAGE OUT OF YOUR LIFE.


TEMPER YOUR TEMPER AND MEEKNESS RELEARN
IMPATIENCE THROW ON THE FIRE TO BURN
GATHER UP YOUR PARTY HATS
AND EMULATIONS ADD TO THAT.


THROW OUT THE POSTERS OF YOUR IDOLS
AND ON YOUR TONGUE PUT ON A BRIDLE
STOP YOUR EYES FROM ROVING OVER
TO THE BACK YARD OF YOUR BROTHER.


STOP YELLING AT YOUR LITTLE KIDS
FOR DOING SILLY THINGS YOU DID
` TURN OFF THE T.V. AND HIT YOUR KNEES
AND INSTEAD OF YOURSELF, TRY GOD TO PLEASE.


AND WHEN YOU'VE GATHERED UP YOUR TRASH
AND BURNED YOUR RUBBISH TO THE LAST
RUN YOU A BABTISM AND JUMP RIGHT IN
AND WASH AWAY ALL TRACE OF SIN.


THE GARBAGE TRUCK ROLLS BY EVERY HOME
AND KEEPS COMING BY TILL THE GARBAGE IS GONE
BUT THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER I'M TALKING ABOUT:
HE CAN'T PICK IT UP IF YOU DON'T PUT IT OUT.


©by Voo



The Persuasions!!!! Grew Up Listening to these guys!!! Phenomenal!


I Could Never love Another
(my fave)


The Man in Me
                                     
Good Times AND So Much in Love


Looking For An Echo


The Sun


He Aint Heavy

Buffalo Soldier


Be Good To Me, Baby


Got To Use My Imagination


It's You That I Need


Man, oh, Man

People Get Ready

Cancer


Cancer


There's a thousand kinds of cancer
A thousand kinds of death
A thousand ways to make us pay
For ever drawing breath.

I've seen it in every walk of life
I've seen it in my own
I've seen it my friends and family
I've seen it in my home.

Cancer eats and cancer knaws
And cancer lives to kill
Cancer takes our joy away
With a deadly perverse thrill.

Cancer thrives on things we love
It grows on what is bad
It takes the sunshine from our days
And replaces it with sad.

I've never known a human being
That's escaped that deadly touch
No one's immune from that hellish tune
That dirge I hate so much.

From hell it came to bring us pain
And steal our joy in life
To eat away both night and day
With it's hopeless heartless strife.

If cancer had one name alone
It's as it's always been
The worst from hell has come to dwell
That one name would be Sin.

Eating at God's Paradise
Eating at our tables
Eating at our very souls
We continue and enable.

So many kinds of cancer
So many kinds of ill
So many ways to shut out life
So many ways to kill.

The physical, the spiritual
The emotional, the soul
It has a way of grinding up
The things we see as gold.

And if there's a remedy for this
This cancer I speak of
To stop the spread before we're all dead
That remedy is Love.



©by Voo
December 9, 2004
 1 a.m.

CIRCLES


CIRCLES



RUNNING, RUNNING THROUGH THE RAIN
FROM THE HEARTACHE AND THE PAIN
PAUSING TO LOOK BACK TO SEE
WHAT NEW TERROR FOLLOWS ME

RUNNING, RUNNING FROM THE PAST
MEMORIES CHASE ME AND OUTLAST
I TRY TO HIDE THE HURT INSIDE
BUT SOON IT'S ALL EXPOSED BY PRIDE

RUNNING, RUNNING EVERYDAY
TO AND FRO, THIS WAY, THAT WAY
BACK AND FORTH FROM DAWN TO DUSK
BUT KEEP ON RUNNING, I KNOW I MUST

MY MEMORIES HUNT ME
MY MIND, THEY TAUNT
MY SOUL'S A CARNIVAL
THAT HEARTACHES HAUNT

SO I MUST RUN THIS LIFELONG RACE
AND STUMBLE TILL I FIND THE GRACE
AND PUT BEHIND ME THE SHADOWS' GRASP
UNTIL I SEE THE GOAL AT LAST

A CHILD, SO YOUNG AND YET SO OLD
I STARTED INNOCENT, I DIDN'T KNOW
HOW HARD THE TASK, HOW LOUD THE CLOCK
THAT CHIMES THE HOURS TILL MY HEART STOPS

SO I RUN ON AND ON AND ON
FROM PAST TO PRESENT AND FUTURE DAWN
RUNNING, RUNNING TO DISTANT SHORE
AND FROM THERE BACK TO THE START ONCE MORE

FOR LIFE'S A CIRCLE AND NOT A LINE
A DOCUMENTARY IN THE MIND
YOU WATCH IT FORWARD AND PLAY IT BACK
REWIND, DELETE SCENES THAT ARE CRACKED

WE RUN IN CIRCLES, SOMETIMES IN FEAR
THAT GOD HAS MADE US AND LEFT US HERE
TO FEND ALONE, TO BLINDLY RUN
UNTIL OUR LIVES ARE OVER, DONE

BUT JUST WHEN WE ARE AT OUR ENDS
WE SEE THAT PAIR OF OUTSTRETCHED HANDS
AND OLD AND FEEBLE AND WEAK AND LAME
WE BECOME CHILDREN ONCE AGAIN



©by Voo
July 22, 06
 1:30 p.m.