Sad songs in major chords

eye to eye
we dance
in the breeze
and the sounds
of this frail
gypsy wedding
are carried north
between the trees
to fade on sullen shores
where children play
oblivious to the water
that was once
red
with the blood
of their grandfathers

and on these six strings
tended by bruised
soft-spoken hands
the burden rests
with silent strength
and wanderlust

playing sad songs
in major chords

Into starlight.

The Ship Song

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

Come loose your dogs upon me
And let your hair hang down
You are a little mystery to me
Every time you come around

We talk about it all night long
We define our moral ground
But when I crawl into your arms
Everything comes tumbling down

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

Your face has fallen sad now
For you know the time is nigh
When I must remove your wings
And you, you must try to fly

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

Come loose your dogs upon me
And let your hair hang down
You are a little mystery to me
Every time you come around

-Nick Cave

Into starlight.

New year's bestiary

as you said
I almost forgot to
wish you
a happy new year
staring at this screen
as I have been

looking at

rising gas prices
political campaigns
sports heroes
and sporty heiresses
wireless applications
and faster data transmission
fixed interest rates
gross national products
and stock ratings
new trends in trance music
feng shui
vegetarianism
veganism and detox diets
historical novels
reality shows
and postmodernist TV
promising young stylists
interior design
this season's colours
and the new generation
of just about everything

and wishing they'd just
fuck off and go die
somewhere else

oh yeah
and confessional blogs
fuck'em too

happy new year

Into starlight.

Leaving Kristiania

and so with our
back to the stars
we bid
farewell and revel
in glories long gone

and to the sound of
ticking clocks
and our childishreveries
we bow
in graceful lament

this scent of raisins
everywhere
brings back
the sickness in me

and I have nothing to say
to your beautiful
starlit eyes
for the sea
will be rising soon
and no more will
these salt-stained ropes
keep us in port

silently shivering
I turn away from your gaze
and I search for words
the wind is howling
stronger and
in a way
we are all
leaving Kristiania

Into starlight.

Merry Christmas, what else?

to everyone
a Merry Christmas
or fucking happy holidays
if that suits your
politically correct views
best

nevertheless I hope
you all have a fine time
with crackling fireplaces
and steaming pieces
of roast
followed by that special
granny licquor
over beautiful tables

and I hope your eyes
glow with delight
by candlelight
as you're surrounded
by wrapping paper
and smiles of loved ones

may your evenings be filled
with warmth and comfort
and gifts that keep you
happy
well into the new year

and while you're at it
do remember that
it's not what it's all about

Into twilight.

Let the bells ring

I long for
redemption
somewhere under
these cobblestones
a sigh
a whisper
a madness
growing sweetly
under this
sky

a flame held out
stretching thin
in this air
and your words
marking the breeze

gently I stir
and I think of the
tender loins of freedom
as the ocean
fills my gaze
and its salty spray
is all I crave for

Into starlight.

In Memoriam

John Lennon

October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980

Into twilight.

The great music of the centuries

"There´s nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don´t live up until their death. They don´t honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can´t hear it. Most people´s deaths are a sham. There´s nothing left to die."

- Charles Bukowski

Into twilight.

November's mists

wandering through
November's mists
I search
for a light
that light
that dwelled in your
eyes

but your eyes
veiled in
November's mists
do not
look for me
anymore

and their sullen laments
rising no more than
a gentle dirge
walk me blindly
through
November's mists
the greatest requiem
of them all

and even if I
find a way
to keep from shivering
as I call your name
I hear no more
than my own words
drowning in circles
and tainted
in November's mists

Into starlight.

Small music from broken windows

a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.

- Charles Bukowski

Into twilight.

Driftwood

the world has gone
cold
drowning
as sadness pours
from your eyes

and in this silent darkness
this never fulfilled
dawn
you shiver and listen
to the trickling waters
of sadness

no murmurs
no dreams
no candles dying out
and a rope of silence
is all you grasp for

but you live
and you breathe
as you wait

for
even broken
you have a heart
and you count the pieces
of the most beautiful
driftwood

Into starlight.

This is the sea

"Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What God, what Christ? They were myths I once believed, and now they were beliefs I felt were myths. This is the sea, and this is Arturo, and the sea is real, and Arturo believes it real. Then I turn from the sea, and everywhere I look there is land; I walk on and on, and still the land goes stretching away to the horizons. A year, five years, ten years, and I have not seen the sea. I say unto myself, but what has happened to the sea? And I answer, the sea is back there, back in the reservoir of memory. The sea is a myth. There never was a sea. But there was a sea! I tell you I was born on the seashore! I bathed in the waters of the sea! It gave me food and it gave me peace, and its fascinating distances fed my dreams! No Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but you go through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a myth you once believed. But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source."

- John Fante

Into starlight.

At dawn's last breath

give me a desk
a desk
a pen
and a notebook
to chronicle eternity
even if there's no one beyond it

no attentive reader
or subtle censor
no infuriated student
or drunken lecturer

I am judgemental
or so they tell me
but I wonder who's there to judge
if the cells are empty
and I see nothing
but hangmen
with bibles under their belts

sooner or later
walking into this room
-they'll know why no more than me-
I shall be asked to rise
for the calling of the noose
its shadow dangling loosely
in the morning sun
that is still too weak to break
the cold and sweetness
of dawn's last breath

- do you have any requests?
but one, sir
- speak up
raise a flower on my blood
if you will

Into twilight.

A road looking for a map

"Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the National University, a Jew in Germany, an ombudsman in the Defense Ministry, a communist in the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery or portfolio.... A pacifist in Bosnia, a housewife alone on Saturday night in any neighborhood in any city in Mexico, a striker in the CTM, a reporter writing filler stories for the back pages, a single woman on the subway at 10 pm, a peasant without land, an unemployed worker... an unhappy student, a dissident amid free market economics, a writer without books or readers, and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains of southeast Mexico. So Marcos is a human being, any human being, in this world. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities, resisting and saying, 'Enough'!"

- 'Subcomandante Marcos', EZLN spokesperson

Into starlight.

Virtually all that you are

I guess you too
have much to tell

I guess you have stories
kept from everyone
and secret cigarettes shared at dusk
with people with whom
you drank and laughed and cried
a few nights away

I guess you’ve loved someone
you pretended to hate
or the opposite
I guess you’ve kissed a stranger
- we’ve all had our fair share –
and have at least
two fears and one desire
that will die alone with you

I guess there’s more
but still I’m asking you:
have you ever been in a room
so filled with hate
you could actually fall back
and not hit the floor?

Into starlight.

Pinned to the hook

"My father had a friend when he was a kid in Texas, in a place called Sulphur Springs. He was kind of the local James Dean, and he used to race the train to the crossing on an Indian motorcycle. He was always talking about getting out of town. That was his big thing: getting out of town. But he always went to the edge of town and turned around and came back. And whenever the train would go through, it would have to slow down to pick up the mail. They had a hook that would come out and catch the mail sack and then keep going. And one day he was racing the train and he met it right at the crossing, and crashed into it. And he was pinned to the hook. But it did take him all the way to the next town."

- Tom Waits

Into starlight.

To a hundred graves and back

I look at this smile
this weathered
broken down
smile
and I think of how much of it
has been left behind through the years
and how you're still nursing it
in silent and tender toil
and I wish
there was more of it for you

but sorrow
sorrow
like an old whore
keeps luring it back
her bony hands
stroking its hair
and glowing
soaked in its dusty remains
while she sings deatlhy lullabies
of a love that bears no promises

I hum these songs myself
and somehow
I look at this smile
and I wish
there was more of it for you

Into starlight.

Muddy Water

Mary, grab the baby, the river's rising
Muddy water taking back the land
The old-frame house, she can't take-a one more beating
Ain't no use to stay and make a stand

Well the morning light shows water in the valley
Daddy's grave just went below the line
Things to say, you just can't take em with ya
This flood will swallow all you've left behind

Won't be back to start all over
Cause what I felt before is gone

Mary, take the child, the river's rising
Muddy water taking back my home
The road is gone, there's just one way to leave here
Turn my back on what I've left below
Shifting land, broken farms around me
Muddy water's changing all I know

It's hard to say just what I'm losing
Ain't never felt so all alone

Mary, take the child, the river's rising
Muddy water taking back my home

Won't be back to start all over
Cause what I felt before is gone

Mary, take the child, the river's rising
Muddy water's changing all I know
Muddy water's changing all I know
Lord, this muddy water is taking back my home

- John Bundrick

Into starlight.

A dog in the manger of mercies

Sunday evening is dissolving
into night
I have a beer in my hand
and Jacques Brel on my stereo
as I hear you call
it's nice of you to call
- no, I swear, it really is -
you ask me how I’m doing
and I can’t tell you
for sure

I guess I could tell you
about the man at the door
and his shadow
that looms over sleepless nights
even though I can’t
see him
and about this
endless
ugly
nameless fever
and the sickly yellow days
it has been spawning
and I could go on about
wanderlust
and trains and planes and cars
about sunsets
and moss-covered stone walls
about the different shapes of love
and its shortcomings

and how I’m subscribing
to my own mythology

I guess I could tell you this and much more
but I say I’m doing fine
and goodbye
trying to forget your silence
wondering if you’re not hurt by mine

You see
I do have Brel on my stereo
and a beer in my hand
so I guess I’m doing fine

Into starlight.

Headlights burning in daylight

“(…) that the assassins are sick, I will admit, and that the Father-Image is also sick, I will also admit. I’m also told by the God-fearing that I have sinned because I was born a human being and once upon a time human beings did something to one Jesus Christ. I neither killed Christ or Kennedy and neither did Gov. Reagan. that makes us even, not him one up. I see no reason to lose any judicial or spiritual freedoms, small as these may be now. who is bullshitting who? if a man dies in bed while fucking, must the rest of us stop copulating? if one non-citizen is a madman must all citizens be treated as madmen? if somebody killed God, did I want to kill God? if somebody killed Kennedy, did I want to kill Kennedy? what makes the governor, himself, so right and the rest of us so wrong? speech-writers, and not very good ones at that.
(…)
I too have worked for dismal wages while some fat boy has raped fourteen-year-old virgins in Beverly Hills. I’ve seen men fired for taking five minutes too long in the crapper. I’ve seen things I don’t even want to talk about. but before you kill something make sure you have something better to replace it with; (…) as yet, I have seen nothing but this emotional and romantic yen for Revolution; I’ve seen no solid leader or no realistic platform to insure AGAINST the betrayal that has always, so far, followed. if I am going to kill a man I don’t want to see him replaced by a carbon copy of the same man and the same way. we have wasted history like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men’s crapper of the local bar.
(…)
the boys screaming for your sacrifice in the public parks are usually the furthest away when the shooting begins. they want to live to write their memoirs.
(…)
if there is a battle, and I believe that there is, always has been, and that’s what has made Van Goghs and Mahlers as well as Dizzy Gillespies and Charley Parkers, then please be careful of your leaders, for there are many in your ranks who would rather be president of General Motors than burn down the Shell Oil station around the corner. but since they can’t have one, they take the other. these are the human rats of the centuries who have kept us where we are.
(…)
I’m not saying give up. I’m for the true human spirit wherever it is, wherever it has been hiding, whatever it is.
(…)
I am ashamed to be a member of the human race but I don’t want to add any more to that shame, I want to scrape a little of it off.”

- Charles Bukowski

Into starlight.