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POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:19 pm
by admin
Backroads Driver, by Charles Carreon

[Every generation thinks it is special. Apocalypse is always in vogue. When you can't make the world work, you hope it all goes to hell in a handbasket, because then you'll be no worse off than anyone else. Call it anarchist's revenge. When I was a young man, my friends and I lit out for the hills of Southern Oregon, in hopes of finding skinny-dipping, long summer days and big blue skies, easy living, milk and honey, no need for money. You can bet we didn't find it. No, instead we found shoddy living accommodations, bad roads, hostile neighbors and pickups, I mean people who would shoot bear for God's sake. On the other hand, you might see a mountain lion, certainly bobcat, and the coyotes could drive you plumb deaf when a big full moon came rising up behind Pilot Rock like a spotlight illuminating the entire valley. So it was mystical. So were we.]

Colestine?
Pretty much like the rest of the earth.
Dirt, trees, grass and sky. Clouds that come and go.
Wind blowing. In the morning, birds sing. Sometimes,
at night, coyotes howl. Later on, I will say things
more specific, but you should remember this, that it is
not different, not in any important way. What is really
important is how much it is the same as other places.

The road is bad. Most people will say this. I do not
say it is bad until winter turns it into three miles of
churned shit, but late at night it can wear me out. But
it is the boundary line, the essential demarcation
between town energy and country energy. When your tires
hit the paved road something clicks in your body -- you
accelerate the car and shift into third. Down the road
a mile, the mailbox may have something in it, then onward
to the business in town.

That night, when your tires roll off the pavement onto the
rough, uneven gravel of Colestine road, something in your
body is released. As your headlights illuminate the
winding road and the underbranches of the trees, as you
downshift into second to keep the washboard from ripping
the wheels off your car, you enter a different zone.
The zone of the backwoods driver. Drive on.

SONG

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:22 pm
by admin
Bankers From Hell, by Charles Carreon

In the City of New York
The pigs grow huge
They wear hundred dollar ties
And pin stripe suits
They never get slaughtered
‘Cause they own the joint
They cook the books
With PowerPoint

Oh yea,
Bankers from Hell
You heard me
Bankers from Hell

In the City of New York
The pigs are smart
They put whole countries
In their shopping cart
They don’t have curly tails
They use American Express
And the way they treat us all is
Priceless

Oh yeah,
Bankers from Hell
You heard me
Bankers from Hell

They got banker’s names
They play banker’s games
They get bonused big
To make bad loans
They say they’re not members
Of the Skull and Bones

Oh yea,
Bankers from Hell
Wearing pinstriped suits
Tailored in Hell

POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:23 pm
by admin
Bay Area Nonsense Poem #1, by Charles Carreon

Charles is a quick brown fox,
jumping over the lazy sunset,
making eyes at the fries,
Treating the Christmas maidens
To ice cream and dried dreams,
While the entertainment magazines
Promote brand-new spastic machines
That run wild in their butler uniforms
All day, then settle down at night
On their patios with cold cans
Of Spaghettios,
And never, ever touch the remote.

POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:24 pm
by admin
Bedtime Prayer, by Charles Carreon

Now I lay me
Down
To
Sleep,
I pray the Lord
My soul
To
Keep.
If dawn should catch me
Once again,
I pray I'll meet it
With a friend.
If sorrow makes it's bed with me
I pray to meet it fearlessly;
If solid earth should fall away
I pray to find a grasp somewhere;
And if this moment fades to stay,
Leaving my name to dust among
the voices of the living,
I pray that I will yet
Partake in the sacrament
of giving.
 
(Summer, 1986)

POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:25 pm
by admin
Better Safe Than Sorry, by Charles Carreon

Well it was just the other day
Went out on the runway
It was time to catch the plane
and I sure am glad to say
That the witch doctor was right there
Spilling blood all along the wing,
I could practically see the wind gods
Lifting us to the sky,
Cause I'm a superstitious guy
and you want to know why
Because I don't know where I came from
or where to go when I die,
And if I can't find someone to take my money
Then it's all gonna be so goddamn funny
So kill the beasts
Make the gods happy
If they don't cheer up
My life will be crappy
And we have to eat dinner anyway
So why not do it right after we pray
And kill
TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE!

SONG

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:29 pm
by admin
Beware Software, by Charles Carreon



Image

In Victorian times
Lived a man named Babbage
This song has nothing
to do with cabbage

It's all about software
That binds up your mind
That digital monster
That swallowed mankind

Beware, software
It'll eat you up
Bit by bit,
Byte by byte
Day and night,
Beware, software
For it has no soul
And no goal,
And soon,
Neither will you

Babbage imagined
programmed machines
That performed as directed
To a hundredth degree

Gates said "Make copies,
But I own each one!"
From Pac Man to Pokemon,
A barrel of fun

Beware, software
It'll eat you up
Bit by bit,
Byte by byte
Day and night,
Beware, software
It's not getting tired
Or feeling wired
Which is more than we
Can say for you

Now Frogger seems harmless
Email's a must
You might get a virus
Or hit by a bus

Some Nigerian scammer
Could make you his fool
Or you could bet a prescription
For a much bigger tool

Beware, software
It'll eat you up
Bit by bit,
Byte by byte
Day and night,
Beware, software
As you point and click
Don't forget
To save your work
And exit normally

POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:31 pm
by admin
Big House, by Charles Carreon

All my friends are disappearing;
I don't know where they go.
The clouds thin out to nothing
The waves dissolve on shore.

My suit is made of water
Propped up with hollow stones,
The sun floats somewhere in my head
Wind thrums inside my bones.

Electromagnet frequencies
Tie head to hand and toe,
And circulation systems
Are always on the go.

Hearing sounds, decoding symbols,
Ordering the stew,
Sensing's first, then making sense,
Then sensing what is true.

POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:32 pm
by admin
Bitter and Bile, by Charles Carreon

Bitter and Bile
Often would while
The hours away together.
Come rain or shine
Their thoughts would entwine --
Irrelevant was the weather.
Nothing disturbed them
As much as a thought
Unapproved by their mutual censor.
So when new thoughts come up
They just say "Shut up!"
And for hours they feel so much better.

POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:33 pm
by admin
Blackmail, by Charles CarreonI

It wasn't so nice of you to blackmail
me into loving you. You could have
tried some other way you know I have
a weakness for your type anyway.
In your daddy's car I could always
feel the bait and switch that made me
twitch. Ah but you knew, you knew
my secret and you couldn't help but
use it against me. Naughty you.

POETRY

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:35 pm
by admin
Boatman, by Charles Carreon

This autumn!
Mild and warm, blustery,
Day after day light and warmth prevail,
carrying on beyond their time,
Like lovers whose bond of ecstasy,
Not breaking, becomes more exquisite
with succeeding moments,
Each one drawn out lightly as a thread of silk
Unraveled from summer's cocoon.
Like a boatman who finds a stream
of clear blue sky
Running through drifting islets of dark cumulus,
And, skirting delicately those touches of frost
That would stiffen oars and rudder,
Averts the entrance of ice.

The prow parts delicately the floating mosaic
Of leaves that overcover the stream,
A stream so still as to seem directionless.
Yet the boatman is rowing
With gentle strokes upstream,
His back to the mountain of ice.

Out from the stern spreads a wedge
of ripples, and the oars with every stroke
Leave twin vortices swirling with captured leaves,
Whirling together, and unwinding into openness,
Like compasses in search of the pole.