LYRICS, POETRY AND PROSE 180813

FEATURED POSTS

August 11, 2018

A place to share some words of beauty, inspiration, and life. It’s the fire season in California and today’s lyrics are all about burning. Burning with desire, burning with lust, burning with passion. The first song, by June Carter, was inspired by Johnny Cash. The two had an affair, while he was still married to another woman and the father of four children. But love conquers all, or is it just lust? The second song by the “Killer,” Jerry Lee Lewis is a song of passion, desire, and full-speed-ahead joy. And the last by Jim Morrison of the Doors, includes both lyrics and a poem that makes you remember just how silly the ’60s were and makes you wish – just a little – that you had never given up on recreational drugs. Click on the name of the piece to get a video or more information.

Love is a burnin’ thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire
I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire

– Ring of Fire Singer: June Carter; Songwriters: June Carter & Merle Kilgore

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain
Too much love drives a man insane
You broke my will, oh what a thrill
Goodness gracious great balls of fire

I learned to love all of Hollywood money
You came along and you moved me honey
I changed my mind, looking fine
Goodness gracious great balls of fire

– Great Balls of Fire Singer: Jerry Lee Lewis; Songwriters: Jack Hammer & Otis Blackwell

The time to hesitate is through,
No time to wallow in the mire,
Try now we can only lose,
And our love become a funeral pyre.
Come on, baby, light my fire,
Come on, baby, light my fire.
Try to set the night on fire. Yeah!

PLUS “Graveyard Poem”

It was the greatest night of my life.
Although I still had not found a wife
I had my friends
Right there beside me.
We were close together.
We tripped the wall and we scaled the graveyard
Ancient shapes were all around us.
The wet dew felt fresh beside the fog.
Two made love in an ancient spot
One chased a rabbit into the dark
A girl got drunk and balled the dead
And I gave empty sermons to my head.
Cemetery, cool and quiet
Hate to leave your sacred lay
Dread the milky coming of the day.

– Light my Fire/Graveyard Poem Singer/Group: Jim Morrison, The Doors; Songwriters: John Densmore, Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger & Ray Manzarek

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.