Poetry & Songs, by Charles Carreon

Identified as a trouble maker by the authorities since childhood, and resolved to live up to the description, Charles Carreon soon discovered that mischief is most effectively fomented through speech. Having mastered the art of flinging verbal pipe-bombs and molotov cocktails at an early age, he refined his skills by writing legal briefs and journalistic exposes, while developing a poetic style that meandered from the lyrical to the political. Journey with him into the dark caves of the human experience, illuminated by the torch of an outraged sense of injustice.

POETRY

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:27 pm

Whoa Earth, by Charles Carreon

Whoa, Earth, I want to dismount,
Said the Buddha
and got off,
Letting the orb resume its spinning,
Humanity continue sinning,
Now he's standing there in space
An azure smile upon his face
Which is to say
Without a trace.
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POETRY

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:29 pm

Windy Weather Sets You To Thinking, by Charles Carreon

Image

Wind-whipped morning,
Steel-gray light.
 
Spring is a sure thing now,
and winter's in a panic,
pulling out all the stops like a cop hoping for a suspect,
whipping up
a river of air that buffets everything and
sprays chilly droplets
against the windows
like buckshot.
Over this rough conduct preside impassive clouds
whose gray faces do not even pass judgment.
The sun like a friendly accomplice trying to lend a hand
probes with slender knives but can't even slip
an edge of daylight through the stuck casement of dawn.
The woods struggle on in the gloom trying to pull off the job.
Individual trees are only as sure of staying in their place
as their trunks and roots are firm.
They cross their branches and hope for the best.
 
Easy to lose your foothold in this world,
and never get it back.
So when we hear strong winds blow
and big branches creaking,
It sets us to thinking.
 
A wind can fell a human
as easy as a tree.
A person's roots aren't so deep.
And like a tree, when a person goes down for real,
We others can't help them up.
 
Do trees mourn fallen brethren
who go down with a crash?
Do they think, "There go I when the next wind blows,"
or "Life is short, make sugar now?"
 
Probably not, and still,
sap is flowing,
and after the difficult wind,
Spring comes for every one still standing.
 
(February, 1998)
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POETRY

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:33 pm

World Class Buddhist Shopper, by Charles Carreon

How's a man to be happy
When the world won't turn the right way?
How can I be happy
When the wind's always in my face?
How can I accept a situation
That so contradicts my will?

The whole universe insults me
Never asking what I want,
And though I don't get tortured
I still get treated bad,
And if this isn't my worst lifetime
It's the worst one that I've had.

All my wantings unfulfilled,
No provisioning for my needs --
It's such a tragic oversight
And never remedied.

No time to think of others
For my sympathies are otherwise occupied
With brooding over every slight
That life has ever dealt me.

This is my inspiration,
and I hold it to my breast,
To look around at all of life
And know what I detest.

Like a demanding Bergdorf shopper
Or devoted Neiman bargain hunter,
I'll find myself the best of all
This universe provides,

And I'll find it sooner than all of the saps
That shop in sleazy places,
I'm a discerning Buddhist buyer
Of the wisdom of the ages.
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SONG

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:40 pm

Workin' For The CIA, by Charles Carreon



Image

Well it's another perfect day
in the neighborhood
With perfect people everywhere
Painting picket fences
and makin' double lattes,
Workin' for the CIA.

There's not a whole lotta places a guy can go
To find employment and security.
The whole private sector is just a show,
A cover for the CIA.

We come in all shapes and sizes
Don't you know,
Mohamedan, Christian and Jew,
Buddhist and Taoist even some of us
Believe in Sai Baba, too
But under the skin
We're all blacker than sin
Workin' for the CIA.

Yeah the money's good here
And it spends real fine
Printed by the CIA,
And there's plenty of jobs
in interrogation
Workin' for the CIA,
Ya get to know your neighbors,
Ya get to know the truth
About a whole lot of things
We know about you,
Yeah there's a whole lotta perks
With a company spot,
Workin' for the CIA.

See that guy over there
In the cycle shop,
And that bum smokin' crack
at the old bus stop,
That postal employee
cleanin' out the box,
All workin' for the CIA.

It's just another perfect day
In the neighborhood,
Developed by the CIA.
And if you're not plugged in
It might not be so good,
I mean with the CIA.
So we'll be by again and see just what
you think,
And remember it's just CIA.
CIA.
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POETRY

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:41 pm

Worst Horse, by Charles Carreon

Sorrowful endings,
Endless mendings,
Long nights spent in loneliness and grief.

Stars grinding in the heavens,
heart laboring in heavy, dull thudding,
the mind overrun by armies of disenchantment.
Night is truly the time of bereavement.

Boxing up sorrows wholesale,
making a pyre of regrets,
a bonfire of woe,
Ah the heavens cry and
to their song we add our painful wail.

How long before release?
How many deserts must be crossed?
How many graves must be filled?
How many wombs passed through?
How many days? How many lives?
How many times to taste the honeyed knife?

No number will suffice until the time is right.
The worst horse runs at last,
Feeling the pain of the whip
In the marrow of his bones.
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POETRY

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:43 pm

Yearning To Fly, by Charles Carreon

Image

When I was just a little boy,
I thought a lot of things
I loved to fly toy airplanes
With rubber bands and strings

It seemed a thing most magical
To fly up in the sky,
And I longed to be an eagle
With a sharp-far-seeing eye

Yet the years went by
My eyes grew dim
And I never flew a stroke
Before I knew it I was gone,
A victim of false hopes

A man, I learned, just walks this earth
From his birthplace to his grave
And there are few remembered
The lovely and the brave

Our story will be no different
Than all who came before,
Except that for our carelessness
Perhaps there'll be no more

No you may think this is a tiresome tune
With a cheery melody
But I'm not sellin' lollipops,
That must be plain to see

I'm a prophet in a taproom
A real orphan's son
With a chip perched on my shoulder
And an appetite for fun

So if I chap your hide
Or tread upon beliefs
That's why God invented beer
So we wouldn't drown in grief

So have another drink with me my friend
We'll negotiate our way around this bend
Somehow people will muddle through
Somehow you and I both do,
So have another drink with me my friend

Well, back to being a little boy
As I previously said
Who'd seen the birds in flight
And got it in his head

That maybe he could fly
So he jumped from garage rooftops
But he didn't wanna die
So he never jumped off anything really very high
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SONG

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:45 pm

You Got Played, by Charles Carreon

(Sing to "Heart of Stone," by the Rolling Stones)

There’ve been so many
Voters I’ve known
Democrats are so dumb
Just like Republicans

Here comes the little girl,
Pushing her baby down the street
She’s all by herself,
Using food stamps get somethin’ to eat,

And I’ll promise change
Promise change
Promise CHANGE
And then forget…
I’ll go to Washington, but I’ll forget now.

Another election?
A fait acomplit ...
You could vote for that other guy,
Yeah, if you wanna die.
And you know you won’t
Know you won’t
Know you won’t
Know you won’t
Stand alone
You can’t stand alone, baby, need a man beside you.

You keep on hopin’ I’ll remember someday
And I’ll lead you on,
Yes on and on and on,

The bankers are my friends,
But ain’t I good to you?
Didn’t send you to Guantanamo,
Didn’t beat you black and blue,

So you’ll never leave,
Never leave,
Never leave,
You gotta come home,
You gotta come home to poppa babe.

You think you are different?
That you’ll “occupy”
But you just sat in your tent
Tryin’ to avoid the rent.
Couldn’t come up with no demands,
Playin’ your little anarchist games,
Hate to tell you baby,
You’re all pretty lame,
And some day you’ll see
Day you’ll see
Day you’ll see
Day you’ll see,
You just got played,
Played by me, yeah, I was the player
Played by me,
Yeah baby you just got played,
Played by me.
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POETRY

Postby admin » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:46 pm

Zombies Don't Come, by Charles Carreon

It all happened right here, in me.
The whole thing
everything
right here
peter frampton was right
i'm in you
You're in me
probably not how he meant it
but anyway
saw him once at the Ventura County Fair by the beach
poor bastard
me, I mean
stuck in a motel with wife and daughter
the daughter and I
decided to see the show
Actually, he was pretty good
And then I remembered
He was the guitarist in Humble Pie
Who fried my brain
At the celebrity theatre
on a full hit of orange sunshine
Came on after Loggins & Messina had me all blissed out and
electrocuted my ass
Goddamn singer talking cockney smack about a run-in with a London whore
Uuuuuuugghh
Dragged my mind through the fuck'n gutter
Then ground me through a brutal version of I don't need no doctor
Killer tune
Killed me about a dozen times
Then, when I was dead,
Turned me into a zombie
With everyone else
And moshed us psychically
with his fuzztone
Including the bit where the
bass player goes real quiet
Then cranks it up to eleven
So the whole floor falls out from under you and everyone else
And the whole room has an orgasm
sorta
except for me
cause I'm a zombie
and I know it
unlike the rest of them
and zombies don't come
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Re: Poetry & Songs, by Charles Carreon

Postby admin » Sun May 17, 2015 2:19 am

The Ballad of Javier Solis
by Charles Carreon

The DEA came into town,
One dark and slimy day,
Dressed like punker-hippie-
military-tattooed scum,
With consecutively numbered stacks
of Treasury-issued cash
To do some deals and add
some meth to Uncle Sammy's stash.

They haunted bars and strip joints
Like real tattooed scum,
They hung around, talked shit
And told pornographic jokes,
Treated Mexes at the bar
Like ordinary folks,
And at suspicious intervals
Got up to take a whiz,
Made faces like they'd copped a buzz,
And were always up for biz.

Well soon they'd rounded up
A nice young man from Nayarit
Who swore his uncle knew a man
Whose crank was pure and sweet,
He tossed off his tequila,
The cops poured him one more,
They set the deal to go down
In a chicken coop at four.
Those doughty DEA guys thought
They'd hatched a nice surprise.

At three o’clock, the backup team
Arrived at their spot on a ridge above
The chicken coop described.
In the dry and dusty valley
The snipers cleaned their sights.

At four o’clock, the narcs rolled up
All bad in their Mustang 5.
With their bag of funny-money,
And swaggering gangster panache,
With their visible guns and hidden badges,
They were ready for anything,
Hoping for action.

Behind a counter in the heat
Sat a man with a poundscale,
A scoop, and some bags,
A heap of some whitish substance,
And a smile as warm as the sun.
The scum looked at each other,
And jerked their guns real fast.
But the Mexican started laughing,
And waved his hands at last.

He wasn't frightened, didn't cry,
And explained in perfect Spanish,
The fertilizer was not that dear,
And there was no need to steal it.
Besides the boss had always said
The police were all their friends.
“What's that guys name?”
A Spanish-speaking cop was quick to ask.
"Oh, he's well known around these parts.
He's called Javier Solis."

Then the man was very helpful,
And showed the DEA
How he mixed the powders and liquids
In a manner he'd well-memorized:
"Two scoops of this, one scoop of that,
Mix well and cook with this.
Decant, then strain, and filter again.
We made several pounds each day,
And at the end of every week,
Solis took it all away,
Bringing beans, tortillas, chile,
Bacon, chicken, cabbage too.
A very good man Solis was,
Kind and honest, just like you.
I'm sure he'd want you to have it,
So take a pound or two."

They took him into custody
But hell, it was no fun.
He knew it was a mixup
And didn't try to run,
Besides, they'd got the name now
Of a local drug kingpin.
They decided they should go back
Undercover for a spin.

Back in town, they quietly whispered
To the guys in the strip-bar toilet
That they sought Javier Solis.
Like a charm, the name
Drew forth laughs and knowing nods.
"Sure," said a dapper fellow
Slicking his hair in the mirror,
"He goes to that one place all the time ...
You remember ese," he says,
Turning to his comrade,
Whose head bobs in agreement,
"It's in that town where the mill gone closed,
A little bar, where I think he owns a share,
Cause him and his homies,
They're always drinkin there."

So they went to the bar in
the town up the road,
And asked if Solis was there.
A helpful fellow answered
"Dude, you missed him,
He was here,
But I know where he's going,
And if you hurry
You might catch him there."

And so they went from town to town,
Chasing old Solis on down,
Till at last their Mustang lights
Revealed a motel by a lettuce field,
Where an old Marine smokin' Chesterfields,
Was watchin’ TV at the manager's desk.

They told him, whispering closely,
They were looking for Javier Solis.
The manager squinted, and twisted his head
And answered “Say that again?”
They repeated themselves,
And when he was sure that they’d said
What he thought they had said,
He started to laugh,
And turned to the screen
Where a charro with a guitar on horseback
Serenaded a girl with long, black hair.
As he smiled with satisfaction, he said,
“That’s the man, right there.”
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Re: Poetry & Songs, by Charles Carreon

Postby admin » Sun May 24, 2015 3:49 am

You Can’t Defeat an Avocado
by Charles Carreon




Image

(It’s like a wind that blows a thousand miles an hour.
You will be like -- “All my shit has been blown away…”)


Yeah many man's tried
And many man's died
Because you can’t defeat
An avocado
An avocado may look small
But inside, it’s ten feet tall,
That’s why you can’t defeat an avocado
You may learn some lessons in your life
From your husband or your wife
But until you see the light
You don’t know wrong from right
But you need never fear
The avocado’s here
And you can’t defeat an avocado
We’re takin’ bets here every night
The smart money’s always right
And you bet
That it’s on
The avocado
Because you can’t
No you can’t
You just can’t
No you can’t
You just can’t
Defeat
An avocado
Like Napoleon at Waterloo
My friend that will be you
If you attempt to overthrow
An avocado
Yeah, like Hitler at Stalingrad
It will be that bad
If you try to defeat
An avocado
Now wine comes from grapes
And people came from apes
But an avocado has a pit
And that’s just the heart of it!
So you can’t
No you can’t
No you can’t
No you can’t
You just can’t defeat an avocado
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