Archive for the ‘Random Poems’ Category

Not Dead… But Quite Possibly Forgotten

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead. – Monty Python & the Holy Grail (1975)

I’m Not Dead
Pink (2006)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
There’s all these cracks
Crack of sunlight
Crack in the mirror on your lips
It’s the moment of a sunset Friday
When our conversations twist,
It’s the fifth day of ice on a new tattoo
But the ice should be on our heads,
We only spun the wheel to catch ourselves
So we weren’t left for death.

And I was never looking for approval from anyone but you,
And though this journey is over I’ll go back if you ask me to.

I’m not dead, just floating
Right between the ink of your tattoo
In the belly of the beast we turned into,
I’m not scared, just changing
Right beyond the cigarette and the devilish smile
You’re my crack of sunlight

You can do the math a thousand ways, but you can’t erase the facts
That others come and others go, but you always come back
I’m a winter flower underground, always thirsty for summer rain
And just like the change of seasons
I know you’ll be back again

I’m not dead, just floating
Underneath the ink of my tattoo
I’ve tried to hide my scars from you
I’m not scared, just changing
Right beyond the cigarette and the devilish smile
You’re my crack of sunlight, oh

I’m not dead just yet
I’m not dead, I’m just floating
Doesn’t matter where I’m going
I’ll find you
I’m not scared at all
Underneath the cuts and bruises
Finally gained what no one loses
I’ll find you
I will find you

I’m not dead, just floating
I’m not scared, just changing
You’re my crack of sunlight, yeah

Jim Morrison : Poetry

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

The real synchronicity in today’s post is that all of those little bits and pieces were taken from over a dozen different web sites… and I copied them in random order, shuffled things around strictly based on length of each snippet… and none of it was planned to have come out the way it did on my profile… but if you put the YouTube video/audio playing in another tab, and just start reading today’s post from beginning to end… it could very well blow you away, like it did me.

None of these snippets, which I have read before in various places, ever really made that much sense to me… until I put them in this order right here on this profile late last night… and got a Whoa! reaction myself from it.

Interesting, no? I’m just not sure what to think about it all.

∞ Infinity ∞

… … … … … … … … …

Jim Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band, The Doors. He was also an author of several poetry books. Lyrically, the Doors broke new ground in rock music, with Morrison’s complex, surrealist, allusive lyrics exploring themes of sex, mysticism, drugs, murder, madness and death.

Morrison moved to Paris in March 1971 with the intention of concentrating on his writing and quitting drinking. He died on 3 July, 1971, in his bathtub at the age of 27; many fans and biographers have speculated that the cause of death was a drug overdose, but the official report listed “heart failure” as the cause of death, although there was apparently no autopsy performed.

Audio: Riders on the Storm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMvfAYEaE8c

‘When the doors of perception are cleansed
Things will appear as they are:
Infinite.’

∞ William Blake

‘There are things known
and there are things unknown,
and in between are the doors.’

∞ Jim Morrison

Moment of inner freedom
when the mind is opened & the
infinite universe revealed
& the soul is left to wander
dazed & confus’d searching
here & there for teachers & friends.

People need Connectors
Writers, heroes, stars, leaders
To give life form.
A child’s sand boat facing
the sun.
Plastic soldiers in the miniature
dirt war. Forts.
Garage Rocket Ships

Ceremonies, theatre, dances
To reassert
Tribal needs and memories
a call to worship, uniting
above all, a reversion,
a longing for family and the
safety magic of childhood

A man rakes leaves into
a heap in his yard, a pile,
and leans on his rake and
burns them utterly.

The fragrance fills the forest
children pause and heed the
smell, which will become
nostalgia in several years.

An angel runs
Thru the sudden light
Thru the room
A ghost precedes us
A shadow follows us
And each time we stop
We fall

The Endless quest a vigil
of watchtowers and fortresses
against the sea and time.
Have they won? Perhaps.
They still stand and in
their silent rooms still wander
the souls of the dead,
who keep their watch on the living.
Soon enough we shall join them.
Soon enough we shall walk
the walls of time. We shall
miss nothing
except each other.

No one thought up being;
he who thinks he has
Step forward

The Crossroads
a place where ghosts
reside to whisper into
the ears of travelers &
interest them in their fate

Hitchhiker drinks:
“I call again on the dark
hidden gods of blood”

-Why do you call us?
You know our price. It
never changes. Death of
you will give you life
& free you from a vile
fate. But it is getting late.

-If I could see you again
& talk w/ you, & walk a
short while in your company,
& drink the heady brew
of your conversations,
I thought

-to rescue a soul already
ruined. To achieve respite.
To plunder green gold
on a pirate raid & bring
to camp the glory of old.

-As the capesman faces
poisoned horns & drinks
red victory; the soldier,
too, w/ his trophy, a
pierced helmet; & the
ledge-walker shuddering
his way into inward grace

-(laughter) Well, then. Would
you mock yourself?

-No.

-Soon our voices must become
one, or one must leave.

There was preserved

in her

The fresh miracle

of

surprise.

open

The Night is young
& full of rest
I can’t describe
the way she’s dress’d
She’ll pander to some strange
requests
Anything that you suggest
Anything to please her guest

AWAKE

Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and
choose the sign of your day
The day’s divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach
in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose, they croon, the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon,
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.

STONED IMMACULATE

I’ll tell you this…
No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn.

Back in those days
everything was simpler and more confused
One summer night, going to the pier

I ran into two young girls
The blonde one was called Freedom
The dark one, Enterprise
We talked and they told me this story

Now listen to this…
I’ll tell you about Texas radio and the big beat
Soft driven, slow and mad

Like some new language
Reaching your head with the cold,
sudden fury of a divine messenger

Let me tell you about heartache
and the loss of god

Wandering, wandering in hopeless night
Out here in the perimeter

there are no stars

Out here we is stoned

Immaculate.

THE HITCHHIKER

Thoughts in time and out of season
The Hitchhiker stood by the side of the road
And leveled his thumb
In the calm calculus of reason.

Hi. How you doin’?

I just got back into town,

L.A.

I was out in the desert for awhile

“Riders on the storm”

Yeah. In the middle of it

“Riders on the storm”

Right…

“Into this world we’re born”

Hey, listen, man, I really got a problem

“Into this world we’re thrown”

When I was out on the desert, ya know

“Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan”

I don’t know how to tell you

“Riders on the storm”

but, ah, I killed somebody

“There’s a killer on the road”

No…

“His brain is squirming like a toad”

It’s no big deal, ya know

I don’t think anybody will find out about it, but…

“take a long holiday”

just, ah…

“Let your children play”

this guy gave me a ride, and ah…

“If you give this man a ride”

started giving me a lot of trouble

“Sweet family will die”

and I just couldn’t take it, ya know

“Killer on the road”

And I wasted him

Yeah.

‘Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as ravens claws.’

– Jim Morrison

Aine : Review on StumbleUpon

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

What a lovely poem I just discovered. It’s a review of my StumbleUpon blog. Thank you, Cindy. :)

Aine
takes me
to distant shores
where what was
is no more
and nothing matters
but the now
and the dirge
of knowing how
to dream
to think
to be.

Aine…

By Cindy Fraley 2007

Sep 16, 1:55pm

Clipped from made2dance.stumbleupon.com

The Mystic’s Path

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

“What many spiritual belief systems seem to have in common is what is often called the “journey within”, and I would agree that it is probably the most difficult journey of all. So easy is it to focus entirely on all our faults, mistakes, bad decisions, etc. that we can get “stuck” there… coming out of that into acceptance and self-love is often the longest and most difficult part of that journey.

“So much happens that is entirely out of our control… our parents die, our friends die, someday we too will die… hurricanes and tsunamis happen… governments and guerrillas wage war and it’s often those who had no part in any conflict who are the victims… experiencing all of that, even vicariously through reading the news can be horribly negative and lead to feelings of depression, powerlessness, and helplessness. That’s our kryptonite, much as most of us don’t really like Superman’s perfection, even he has a fatal flaw.

“And the gods and goddesses, whether they are real or simply creations of our own minds (I’m not here to debate that topic), whisper all around us… in the sound of wind through the trees, or the chirping of birds, or the aroma of fresh air after a rain storm… and so many of us go on in this rush-rush lifestyle of work, eat, sleep, work, repetitive cycle of existence that perhaps we are no longer listening to them, or hearing what they might advise.

“Things often do get a little unsettling when we forget who we are, where we are, what we are doing, why we are doing it. Just when things are going along swimmingly, something else we hadn’t noticed asserts itself: reality.

“Mystics do not describe enlightenment, they illuminate it. They help you recognize the path, they don’t put you on the path… because you were never really off it, you just didn’t See it. No one can give you enlightenment, teach you what it is; it must be discovered.”

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the fumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

This was something I posted over at one of the threads on Newsvine today.

Southern Cross by Crosby, Stills, Nash

Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

Crosby, Stills, Nash : Daylight Again

Southern Cross

Got out of town on a boat goin’ to southern islands
Sailing a reach before a followin’ sea
She was makin’ for the trades on the outside,
And the downhill run to Papeete Bay

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas
We got eighty feet of the waterline, nicely making way
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away

CHORUS:

Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin’
What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten
I have been around the world lookin’ for that woman, girl
Who knows love can endure, and you know it will,
and you know it will

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small
But it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day

So I’m sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a dyin’
And my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain
I have my ship and all her flags are a flyin’
She is all that I have left and music is her name

CHORUS:

So we cheated and we lied and we tested
And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do
You will survive being bested
But somebody fine will come along
make me forget about loving you
In the Southern Cross.

- – -

The “Southern Cross” is a constellation also known as the Crux Constellation that can be viewed from most of the Southern hemisphere. The 4 brightest stars within the constellation form a cross pattern. Sailors have relied on the “Southern Cross” to help in navigating their boats.

Southern Cross
Written by Stephen Stills, Richard Curtis, and Michael Curtis
Performed by Crosby, Stills and Nash
Album: Daylight Again
Track #3: Southern Cross
Date: 1982

Limitless Compassion

Monday, April 16th, 2007

There are countless stories in the Buddhist scriptures about the expression of limitless compassion. None expresses this better than the following story from the Zen tradition.

Once there was a simple Buddhist monk by the name of Ryokan who lived in perpetual retreat in a small hut at the base of a mountain. One evening a thief broke into his hut only to discover it was empty. Ryokan returned and caught him.

“You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.”

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. Ryokan sat naked looking at the full moon.

“Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon, too.”

Clipped from www.freep.com

This event prompted Ryokan to compose one of his best known poems:

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window.

The Choice

Friday, January 26th, 2007


icelandic horse, originally uploaded by m@@ike.

IT is true that you say the gods are more use to you than fairies,
But for all that I have seen you on a high, white, noble horse,
Like some strange queen in a story.

It is odd that you should be covered with long robes and trailing tendrils and flowers;
It is odd that you should be changing your face and resembling some other woman to plague me;
It is odd that you should be hiding yourself in the cloud of beautiful women, who do not concern me.

And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind!
They will say that I deserve this.

— Ezra Pound

Borrowed Time

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006

StyxSong : Borrowed Time
Written by : Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw
Lead Vocals by : Dennis DeYoung
Group : Styx
Album : Cornerstone

Yeah yeah!
Don’t look now, but here come the eighties!

I was so cool back in sixty-five
I had it made ’cause I understood what to do to survive
I had my car, and I made the scene
Didn’t give a damn about no gasoline
They can go to hell
My friend we never thought about the world
And its realities
The promised land was ours
We were the Great Society

I’m so confused by the things I read, I need the truth
But the truth is, I don’t know who to believe
The Left say ‘yes,’ and the Right says ‘no’
I’m in between and the more I learn
Well, the less that I know
I got to make a show

Livin’ high, living fine
Livin’ high on borrowed time

Yes! No!
Yes! No!
No! Yes!
No! Yes!

Faith be with me now
I’m just a dreamer in a dreamland
Faith be with me now
I’m just a dreamer in a dreamland

‘Cause we’re
Livin’ high
Livin’ fine (You know I’m livin’ fine)
Livin’ high (Yes I’m livin’ high)
On borrowed time (On borrowed time)
Livin’ high (Whoohoo!)
Livin’ fine (Ahhh!)
Livin’ high
On Lake Shore Drive (Midnight ride)
Livin’ high (We’re livin’ high)
On Leslie Lane (Let’s go back and play it again!)
Livin’ high (We’re livin’ high)
On Red Bud Trail (On Red Bud, Red Bud Trail!)
Livin’ high
On Central Drive (He’s on Central Drive!)
Livin’ high (We’re livin’, livin’ high)
On Prestwick Drive (Catch me on Prestwick Drive!…)
Livin’ high (…gettin’ in and drivin’ my Mercedes…)
Livin’ fine (…up and down and up and down — sh*t! I don’t….)

open-mindedness

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

If we take one thing to be the truth
And cling to it,
Even if truth itself comes in person
And knocks at our door,
We won’t open it.
For things to reveal themselves to us,
We need to be ready to abandon our views about them.

—Thich Nhat Hanh