LYRICS, POETRY AND PROSE 180615

FEATURED POSTS

June 14, 2018

A place to share some words of beauty, inspiration, and life. Today’s lyrics pay homage to author Jack Kerouac, whose book On the Road introduced America to the Beat Generation. The book talks of road trips across America, freedom, jazz, women and drugs. The writings of Kerouac inspired a new generation of writers and musicians. Click on the name of the piece to get a video or more information.

I speculate and browse the Duraflame
Winter in the west coast cool
Out by the sea where no one knows my name
I’m on the road like Jack, Jack Kerouac
Like Jack, Jack Kerouac
Like Jack, Jack Kerouac
Like Jack, Jack Kerouac

– Jack Kerouac Singer and writer: Brooke Fraser

Jack Kerouac took old Highway 6
Traveled across the great divide
Wrote books and poems as he rambled
Confessions that he couldn’t hide
Desolation angels dancing on the road
Like a subterranean jazz club that never had to close
Vanity and visions in a blues haiku
Left me howling the bohemian cowboy blues

Inspired a whole beat generation
To put their thumbs out in the wind
Took that long long road less traveled
Again and again

– Bohemian Cowboy Blues Singer and writer Jimmy Lavave

Hey Jack, now for the tricky part
When you are the brightest star who were the shadows
Of he San Fancisco beat boys who were the favorite
Nows they sit and rattle their bones and think of their blood stoned days
You chose your words from mouths of babies got lost in the wood
The hip flask slinging madman, steaming cafe flirts,
Nights in Chinatown howling at night

Allen baby, why so jaded
Have the boys all grown up and their beauty faded
Billy, what a saint they made you
Just like Mary down in Mexico on All Souls’ Day

– Hey Jack Kerouac Singer:Natalie Merchant; Group: 10,000 Maniacs; Writers: Robert Buck & Natalie Merchant

News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.