Grateful Dead

pushing pulling whirling filling overflowing

words spill out

on the ground

leaving stains residue and moving around

talking talking talking talking

relentless energy impossible to ignore coming from

all around

this tank is filling overflowing spilling staining

everybody watching pointing talking seeing

taking taking taking taking

impossible craziness

strange weirdness

pumping pumping spilling moving staining

hurting swelling bursting

loneliness

OK. So, this one is sort of a follow-up to one I wrote, and a good friend of mine put music to, a long time ago. We'll see what the future holds. . .

"Suzie's Still Gone"

Her mama wondered where she'd gone
Until the day the angels came
She cried herself to sleep each night
In her heart she held the blame.

She left her home somewhere down South
With dreams of where she'd go
But never in her young girl dreams
Could she feel cold rain and snow.

Now Suzie's living turning tricks
Shame cuts her like a knife
She feels too damn dead for dyin
For her, living ain't much life.

There's heartache on the streets tonight
So many lifetimes full of pain
Faces filled with "want-to-go"
But they'll be back again.

Stories made to melt a heart
Coax the dollars from your fist
Eyes of stone cold emptiness
Staring at you thru the mist.

What happened to innocence? Burned like a book at a fundamental gathering, tossed like a stone into a pool of adulthood. Does it seem hard to understand that the very things we throw towards the sun are the very things that will come back down upon our heads? I want to walk a long road for a day or two. Not to look for anything, but to let the road speak to me. Let it call my name. I long for Kerouac's highway and God's navigation. To speak through my fingers like cosmic rays. To tell stories through an A minor. Would anyone listen? Burn in me, oh call of the road. Burn, burn, burn until it swells. Let me never dream of this empty chair. Let me never pine for this central air. Let me never wish for perfect hair. I want to be flawed and dirty. To be viewed as an anomaly, not a citizen. I have no place on this earth. I have no country that wants me. We, who ask too many questions, who seek more than material, who reach for more than more are the ones who are asked to leave. There's the door! Open the door! Don't come back through that door! But when it's time to be represented by the underground, the door swings open! "We've always been open!" they say through perfect teeth and sculpted lips. "We are your friends!" NO, NO, NO! My friends are still outside. My friends are the ones who reach for the road as well. My friends speak through E strings and parchment. My friends lay their heads on beds made of rejection and wake up feeling refreshed, renewed, inspired, desired. You have never understood the underground, the under-educated, the under-dressed, the under-nourished, the under-showered, the understood. Put your manicured hand back in your wallet. Keep your perfect face away from the faces of anguish. Leave the door closed. We children of a homeless king do not need your hand. We need His. We need the road. We need each other. We need to sing.

“Let there be songs to fill the air.”

The Weather Channel said "Cold Front"
"Last one of the year? its Loop Road time!"
We cancelled our Palm Pilot schedules and drove
West of South Beach, towering glass condos, clubs with velevt fences, west of Little Havana and men still fighting on the Bay of Pigs
on Tamiami Trail
The 4 lane road to the Gulf od Mexico
You turn at the little sign before 40 Mile Bend
drive past the Miccosukee mansions built with gaming money
Roadtrips 79 on with Sirius GD ready to fill in if needed.
Its cold for Miami
No clouds no humidity
Toklas's formula has kicked in gently and sweetly
Oak trees bent with blooming tislandia shooting red and purple spikes towards the cold blue sky
A group of snowy egrets stalk misquito fish in dark water dyed brown red by cypress tannin.
The Loop is busy many rangers and scientists and others appreciating a cold day
its quiet no jets or cars or verizon we sit outside watching cold gators float in the shallow
river.
Terrapin begins we sing softly aching always for Jerry and Brent
There is a tunnel of pidgeon plums and mastics drooped over the stream like a covered bridge the wind whips the pine island ridge we have reached the end and its time for a double decker pork sandwhich at the Pit BarBQ and cell service.
Damn.

And the road goes on forever....
BobbaLee

your soft hair on my pillow
your sweet smell in the morning
I watch you sleep