April 19, 2021: I've Done My Time

I’ve Done My Time

Waiting at the station; feeling so alone!
I see old friends in the faces of folks I’ve never known,
I think I’d know just where to go if I wanted to get stoned,
But that ain’t what I’m looking for – from the jail house, going home!
 
Riding in the subway, seems like everything’s in tact,
When all at once I’m mystified by a girl in checkered slacks.
I think she threw a smile at me, but how would someone ask?
So I look out the back window to the darkness of the tracks.
 
Chorus:
I’m gonna make it.  
I know I can take it
If I have to fake it,
‘Cause I’ve got my pride.
Wake up in the morning and meet the day;
Find me a job so I can earn my pay.
Somebody make this pain go away
That I’m always feeling inside.
 
My loneliness confuses me about what I stand to gain.
Ten years in a prison cell.  I have no cause to feel ashamed.
But no one knows what I’m going through.  Nobody feels my pain.
Some day I'm going to write a book on how the world has gone insane!
 
Chorus
 
Walking from the subway - Someone’s  rocking to the blues.
I’m watching sanguine faces digest the daily news.
I ask someone what he’s looking for, but I’m silently excused.
Does he think that I’m a criminal?  I thought I’d paid my dues!
 
Chorus

April 19, 2021: To Althea from Prison by Richard Lovelace in Harvard Classics, Vol. 41, pg. 355

 To Althea from Prison

When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fetter'd to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses crown'd,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free --
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, linnet-like confin-ed I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarg-ed winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above
Enjoy such liberty. 

April 18, 2021: Rivers of the Desert

               Rivers of the Desert

The rivers of the desert

Carve deep into the stone,

Stripping the banks like an outlaw

Who needs to be left alone.

 

A river in the desert

Stays hidden, and he's running fast;

Pioneering the future

while he delves down into the past.

 

I am a river.

I'm changing the land.

Not much to give

To the rock and the sand,

So for now, I take it away.

For now, that's the role I play.

One day,

I'll grow wide and provide

For a lush, green valley.

I do believe that's the plan.

I've really got no time to dally.

I can only do what I can!

 

I become a raging torrent

From occasional pelting rains,

And then I become a trickle,

Hardly able to sustain

The wildlife and the foliage

Who dwell in this narrow gorge,

Yet they keep on coming back

Because the dry desert heat is a scourge.

 

I am a river.

I'm changing the land.

Not much to give

To the rock and the sand,

So for now, I take it away.

For now, that's the role I play.

One day,

I'll grow wide and provide

For a lush, green valley.

I do believe that's the plan.

I've really got no time to dally.

I can only do what I can!

April 18, 2021: XXXII II. 103. naco re mero man, matta hoy - by Kabir in "Songs of Kabir", pg. 80

II. 103.  Naco Re Mero Man, Matta Hoy

Dance, my heart!  dance today with joy.
The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music,
And the world is listening to its melodies:

Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.
The hills and the sea and the earth dance. 
The world of man dances in laughter and tears.

Why put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in lonely pride?

Behold !  my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts;
and the Creator is well pleased.

April 17, 2021: Spirit Song

Spirit Song

 

I’m swept away by the sounds of the day;

The neighbor’s singing to his radio.

I’m like a child in endless play!

The birds!  They are singing in stereo.

 

Images swell like a transient brook

When the moment is touching my feelings,

And then they are gone – I don’t know where to look

For the message that needs revealing.

 

But I run from feelings when my words don’t jell.

I look for them later – they’re gone.

Soon I will have to break out of this spell

For the vision cries out to be drawn.

 

Words escape me, but thought knows its time.

I can’t tell you how they are chosen,

But like a dry well that just needs to be primed,

The Spirit awakens the ages once frozen.

 

Strong as a mountain of solid stone;

Bright as the sun when it shines in your eyes,

The Spirit plays like a saxophone;

Enlivens the night in its improvise.

 

Like bees in the meadows, we dance with the hum

To point the way towards the nectar.

The Spirit says, “Let my children come,
                  And I will be their protector." 

April 17, 2021: The Sage Lectured by Stephen Crane in the Mentor Bk of Major Amer. Poets, pg. 229

The Sage Lectured

The sage lectured brilliantly.
Before him, two images:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
He turned away.
Then a cunning pupil
Changed the positions.
Turned the sage again:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
The pupils sat, grinning,
And rejoiced in the game.
But the sage was a sage.

April 16, 2021: Faith and Doubt

 Faith And Doubt

There remains in me a desire to know:
What is right? What is whole?
I know I’m a seed, and I just want to grow,
And make sense of what I feel in my soul!
 
I have no attachments, for nothing is mine,
My aim is to nurture my part of creation;
Seek myself in the meeting of fruit and vine;
Fulfillment from a broken relation!
 
Losing myself, I’ll be finding me,
As I persist in my journey from day to day.
I’ve seen that the only way to be free
Is to follow a wise and disciplined way.
 
So what could I possibly have to hide
As I flow from such feelings and reason?
Well, just that I may wait too long for a ride;
For mutations to find their season.