Please.
What difference can it make now?
So give me one, let me smoke.
Let me go
I’m done here
so anyway
we all know it.
Therefore,
give me a cigarette
and let me look along the waves
[Note: I quit; it’s just a poem–AW]
[Note: I’m a fictional character, the normal rules don’t apply-BW]
Everybody’s dead.
Freddy Mercury, David Bowie,
the whole thing.
I’m still alive,
but I’m not famous.
And even if I was, I’d have nothing much to say.
Everybody’s dead,
Abraham Lincoln and John Brown,
Bob Marley and his black mom and white dad,
JFK, MLK, RFK,
everybody all dead.
I mean sure I’m not dead,
but again I’m not famous
haven’t done anything exceptional
will die soon enough anyway.
We can complain about the country, but she’s our best hope. So let’s work on her–because we want a good place to go where we can meet our friends and laugh about the old days.
BW/AMW
Neun und neunzig Luftballoons,
als ich jung war du warst da.
Bin nicht mehr unendlich jung,
kenne dich auch gar nicht mehr.
Die verschiedensten Jahren
gehen doch vorbei und so muss
man gestehen, dass irgendwann–
Aber wer kann es ueberhaupt
irgendwie sagen,
so schrecklich ist das Gedanken.
So jung war ich damals
im daher leigenden Gegend
wo unsere schoene Unschuld liegt–
wir die damals jung waren.
Was sollen wir jetzt machen?
Wir sind nicht was wir waren
wir sind nicht was wir wollten
wir sind etwas ganz anderes
etwas damals unversehbares.
Grenzen der Menschheit
Wenn der uralte,
Heilige Vater
Mit gelassener Hand
Aus rollenden Wolken
Segnende Blitze
Über die Erde sät,
Küß ich den letzten
Saum seines Kleides,
Kindliche Schauer
Treu in der Brust.
Denn mit Göttern
Soll sich nicht messen
Irgendein Mensch.
Hebt er sich aufwärts
Und berührt
Mit dem Scheitel die Sterne,
Nirgends haften dann
Die unsichern Sohlen,
Und mit ihm spielen
Wolken und Winde.
Steht er mit festen,
Markigen Knochen
Auf der wohlgegründeten
Dauernden Erde,
Reicht er nicht auf,
Nur mit der Eiche
Oder der Rebe
Sich zu vergleichen.
Was unterscheidet
Götter von Menschen?
Daß viel Wellen
Vor jenen wandeln,
Ein ewiger Strom:
Uns hebt die Welle,
Verschlingt die Welle.
Und wir versinken.
Ein kleiner Ring
Begrenzt unser Leben
Und viele Geschlechter
Reihen sich dauernd
An ihres Daseins
Unendliche Kette
The stress of spirit in childtime shame
Is hard to fathom when no longer young.
The heart would care, but the mind looks for blame
or some excuse to hurry and be done.
Enjoyed by men alive but dead to joy.
Past reason hunting lonesome boredom’s pause;
Past reason hated, and thereby unknown–
unreal because we’ve got our certain laws.
Some children say some suppress memories
too scary bad big looming wrong to hold.
Others scoff and say no they don’t so please
no more confusing the easily sold.
You go down within till you hit the place
that hits you back, you spasm body face.
So who knows? And whatcha gonna do
about a hurt once diffuse
unknown but wide
and now compact
angry wounded howl
you could carry in a purse.
Stole some lines:
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Shall I compare you to a summer wind?
You lag more coolly and more flatly back:
Sunlight balloons and bursts dry airs much thinned
by cloudless carefree months adrift on slack.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
yet holds us still in stillness sweet as flight;
but you I cannot find within these mines
where working day on night we slip the light.
The summer brings her air and fairly spreads
clear peaceful vigor over land and sea;
we eat alone our daily mushy breads
by candles not seen by you or by me.
So long as we can breathe our friendship lasts:
the cords snuck past our lazy ass,
and now, we will or nay, they keep us fast.
Only one thing’s left–
to drop it all,
go back to start
learn ourselves again.
Stole some lines from this one by shakespeare:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
And the price we pay.
American pride.
And the price we exact.
American pride
because we’re kinder than
the Nazis
the Ottomans
the British Empire even.
And we apologize for our errors
right our wrongs
start over again
Don’t we?
The rebels who have no causes
do no good.
The rebels with causes
spill the beans
fart the world
spit it out.
Who’ll take me home?
I’m thinking of a girl.
That’s all the further
I ever really get.
Who’ll stop my pain?
that’s all the more
my political aspirations
extend.
Who
loves
me?
And rubs me right.
That’s all the conversation
I ever come up with.
And it bores me.
So I ask for something deeper
from the forces that be
beyond the slosh and enclose
of some dark seawater
on the corner
of an old cement dock.
But I guess I’m lying again.
Got to stop lying all the time.
Fuck
fuck
fu
well
Jesus was a sailor
when he walked across the water
Jesus was a hero
when he turned a handful
of tired fish
into a feast
for the thousands.
Jesu was a king when
God called him one.
And now the friends and the followers
walk through the narrow tan salted passageways
brown crumpling bricks on all sides
and underfoot the smooth
gray worn hard cobblestones.
Who’s fault is it?
You think your son should be allowed
to travel
to see the wider world
which he’s anyway
sought
and taken the time
to fill out the paper work.
America
America
where next?
It would be better
for us
if it was
better for you.
But what’s better for you,
mighty ship of state?
You know I can’t leave what I’ve known
your people
your places
your ideas
your myths
and the sentiments that tear them down.
Come on
help me
help us
to really find
a newer world.
AMW
Missing an old friend
who I let drown on the side of the lake.
Could’a jumped in; coulda braved the cold,
probably would’a made it,
didn’t try.
Missing an old friend
who I spent on trinkets.
Could’a stopped.
Could’a turned it around.
Didn’t bother.
Missing you so much.
Wishing there was some way
to talk to you
and make it OK again
as it once was
before it left itself
got out of hand
turned the handle
sorry
sorry
and sorry
but who cares?
I talk to the edges
I call out the sides
I look into the nooks
I realize the nuances.
We’ll not talk again.
Jesus got a raw deal
and Moses should’ve known better.
Buddha could’ve talked sweeter
and Joan might’ve arched
with more finesse.
I can’t tell the way
I can’t steal the light
I can’t hear the night.
Who will
anyway
now that we’ve found her.
All these pretty beads
of water
reflecting the various
shapes
a cactus
a stone
a Christmas wreath.
You know I love that shit
and I gobble it
with or without
the Pope’s sayso.
You know I follow
those cliffs
bayous
bellybuttons
ringlets
with or without
some kind of
something tight.
You know I kill it
every night
by myself
in the dark
without a spark
always without
and never with
nothing
you know
I do it.
BW/AMW
I conjure you,
come round,
hold my hand,
be my friend.
I conjure you,
take away all this
that falls apart
in noodles
in styrofoam.
I conjure you,
please.
Fuck it
let it go
I know when I’m beat.