Back and Thankful

Back to work rested & refreshed. I hope everyone had a good holiday. I added a link to Last Sound of Summer. This was one of the first music blogs I discovered and I've been remiss in not linking to it before now. Go have a look & listen.

Will it ever end?

Probably not. As long as I keep finding great music and great blogs.... I added the link promised on Monday and also recommend Keep the Coffee Coming.

More Music

Visit Honey, Where You Been So Long for some excellent classic blues. I'll add the link to the list soon.

Perhaps a poem...

With the kind permission of the person to whom this is dedicated, here is a new poem.

Perhaps a dance...

a simple two-step
with just our fingertips
touching and my hand
very light on your
back and if you
gently placed your
hand on my shoulder
we could sweep each
other along in lazy
circles around the
floor and if just
by chance you pressed
your cheek to mine
and rested your head
against my neck and
I caught the scent
of your hair
and pulled your body
a little more tightly
against me and I
couldn’t for a moment
tell your breathing from
mine or precisely where
my leg ended and yours
began and you whispered
something into my ear
and everything but the
music and our dancing
and our breathing
stopped….

(for Naomi)
October 29, 2004

New poem (of sorts) and a new music link

Inspired by unwitting & unwillling overhearing on the bus home last night:

Madness is not the end
of a slow descent it
chatters you into
first paralysis and
then frenzy if only
on the inside.

Make of it what you will. It felt good to get it out.

I've also added a link to Indie MP3 over on the link list. Especially recommended: some Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds tracks.

Link list updated

I mentioned & linked to Benn loxo du taccu in an earlier post, but I neglected to add to the list on the right hand side. So now I have. Go there for an amazing and marvelous variety of African music with very useful commentary and info. And say hi from Enchilada while you're there....

Time for some poetry

I've promised that this blog will be about more than music and my own poems. Here is an excerpt from a poem by one of my favorite poets and certainly one of America's very finest, Theodore Roethke. His "Collected Poems" is readily available at bookstores and online.

We sing together; we sing mouth to mouth.
The garden is a river flowing south.
She cries out loud the soul's own secret joy;
She dances and the ground bears her away.
She knows the speech of light, and makes it plain
A lively thing can come to light again.

-- Theodore Roethke

For more, visit the Academy of American Poets Roethke pages.

More music linkage

Just found this blog via BIGROCKCANDYMOUNTAIN. Visit Locust St. for a wide variety of tunes. Be sure to scroll down to the Bob Wills post! If you haven't heard "Brain Cloudy Blues," you'll be in for a treat.

Still here

Have been very busy with jobs, kids, new relationship. I should be posting more material soon. Keep dropping by!

Another music link

I've been meaning to add Spoilt Victorian Child to my links. It's well designed and very eclectic. I probably download fewer songs from them than some of the others, but what I have taken from there has been very good. It should have something for just about everyone. Go there and see & hear for yourself!

Another week begins

Back at work. On my way to see a (very special) friend last night, I composed the first draft of a poem. (I seem to be able to do a lot of writing on trains and buses.) A few tweaks here, line break adjustments there, and here's a new poem:

Shadow on Shadow

The bedside lamp
is the last one
left on. Its
light washes around
your body and
drops a gray wavering
shadow alongside.
The crumpled sheet
is dappled faintly
by softer light
from somewhere
outside. When you
switch off the lamp
and lay your head
down black shadow
envelops the others.

November 7, 2004

Back Home

Good to be back in the Blue Zone.

A poem for post-election consideration (and consolation). Perspective helps.

In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"


I
Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

II
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

III
Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.
--Thomas Hardy