With chestnut feathers
and jet-black eyes,
the Sparrow told me,
“Jim, you’ve got to grow,
and you should know
that after a while
the clouds will move
and, in the deep-blue sky,
the lucky, old sun will hide
and you’ll have to go.”
I said, “Sparrow, no!”
***
With chestnut feathers
and coal-black eyes
the Sparrow told me,
“Jim, someday you’ll die,
but that’s all right.”
I said, “Sparrow, no!”
Here’s one that I wrote at least 5 years ago. It’s a song that I played with Green Rifle at almost every show.
Those trees,
these leaves,
this heart-
going down to the river,
then out to the sea
where everything flows someday.
Everything dies someday.
Two boats
on a sea
too deep.
Holding my breath
only goes to show
how small and insignificant my lungs are.
And though my heart beats proud now,
I know,
I know
that my life will end some day.
But my will will stay.
So, why must I be afraid all the time?
Wow! It’s been a year or more since I updates this. I’m too lazy to even look at the date of my last post. Anyway, I’m not promising anything, but I plan to start posting my backlog of poems and songs. I’ve got the grief from losing my dad out my system and am much happier now than when I used to post stuff, so I’m thinking a little more clearly. Hopefully.
I will be posting some sad poems about my grief experience that I’ve already written, but most of the new ones are a bit more positive.
Friends might recognize some of these as I’ve sung quite a few of them at shows in one form or another, but most have been revised numerous times. Without further ado, here is something I wrote a while ago that was a chorus to a song I played with Kolbiter at some of our earlier shows, but started as a four line poem:
My New Plan
I’ve got a new plan:
doing things the very best I can.
It’s better than my last plan:
keeping my head firmly in the sand.
Sometimes I try so hard to write,
but nothing comes to mind
that I can write about.
There are some crumbs of food or rot
casting shadows, lying
on the kitchen floor.
I could sweep them up and put
my mind at ease or I could just sit staring.
As I looked out at the newly fallen snow,
I thought that, to a bird
looking down from the crisp expanse of sky above,
this dying city might look like a wife,
tenderly wrapped in a winding-sheet
by her grieving husband.
