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 » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:02 am

Freak, by Charles Carreon

My ass is wrapped in plastic ...
This nipple's plastic, too,
And all the food they feed me is
mushy, pasty goo.
My parents don't seem to talk a lot,
They sit and watch a glowing box;
I'm stuck inside this plastic cage,
The only one who acts his age.
I don't know why it is so stupid here;
There's dullness everywhere --
It seeps inside me day by day
And though I scream won't go away.
I haven't really learned
to form these questions in my head,
But like something out of focus,
Coming nearer every day,
I get this nasty feeling
That things won't go my way.
 
Now years have passed
and I have learned to speak
 and wipe my butt;
So now it's time to go to school --
An ugly place -- so what?
Mom works and works and now she's
getting wrinkles in her face --
Dad seems so tired when he comes home --
He sits in just one place.
And now it's growing louder
All this racket in my skull --
Please get in line, don't touch those things,
Please try to think; it's time to sing.
I'm a schoolboy, and I'm really thinking
'bout Nancy's underwear; I'm a schoolboy,
but they treat me like a convict everywhere.
 
Now nailed inside this TV coffin,
I'd like to die; I'm seventeen.
She turned me down one too often,
And I've been smoking too much weed.
The world outside my window's glum,
I won't get a job because I'm too dumb
The shoes aren't hip,
My face has zits
And my whole life is in the pits.
I'm a teenage nervous breakdown,
My karma is givin' me the shakedown;
If I had two horns I couldn't be weirder;
I hate that face in the mirror --
Don't know how I got hooked up with it
Between me and him, we're a losing pair --
Even schoolchildren stop and stare
And say "Freak, he's a weirdo;"
They aren't afraid of me --
Please let me out oh god if you are there;
Since I was a child I've looked
for you everywhere --
The nuns were fronts for a hollow scam,
And the Pope doesn't yell about Vietnam;
The whole damn earth just holds me down
And businessmen scare me with their frowns.
I'm a freak -- a weirdo --
A loser at the starting gate --
Freak -- a weirdo -- Don't worry
'bout me, I'm always late, Don't worry 'bout
me, I can't get a date; Don't worry 'bout
me, Don't worry, Don't worry 'bout me.
 
(Winter, 1986 at ML&B office)
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POETRY

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:03 am

From a Dream, by Charles Carreon

I dreamt of one of my ancestors, an Ainsa from the colonial era, that he was writing this --

"I have been pictured in reports wearing arms and carrying a musket, but I must clarify that I was never one of those valientes who fought for the King with weapons, and should not be so honored. All of my service has been with my quill pen, keeping records of the stocks of material and other properties of the King, which I did to the best of my ability.

And as for the meteorites that have been in our keeping, though it is said they fell from the stars, we do not know this to be their origin, for we did not see them fall, and if they did, we cannot explain how they came to be in the sky, so it is only conjecture from their molten appearance. As for those who say they fell from the buckets of angels sent to stoke the fire of the stars, we cannot know, but the notion seems far-fetched."
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SONG

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:05 am

Fuck the NWO, by Charles Carreon



Image

From the Lair of the
Defense Command
Comes the order
Destroy all men
Destroy all creatures
That walk on two
Legs are verboten
And tits are, too.

How it began
we can't recall
First we drove them
Now they drive us all
We're like cattle
And they're the prod
Lay down and worship
The mechanical god

Do you remember
when we used to play
In the land called the USA?
Little children
and mothers too
On the swings in the skies of blue
Then there came that
Terrible day
When they burned
the skies away

Now it's black
from border to border
You know the law
It says we torture
Stay inside
Till the curfew's over
We're rounding up
some terrorists
So where's your son?
He's on the list

Wake up Wake up
The bad dream's over
Wake up, wake up,
We crossed the border
Wake up, wake up,
We killed the monster
Wake up little child
And hug your father

Oh no you don't
You little shit
You thought you'd get
Away with it
We caught you now
The fun is over
Your little friends
Your little games
Your big ideas
They're to blame.

In the movie
The hero finds
the great device
Plants it behind
the monster's eyes
Pulls the pin
And pays the price
Then it's off
to paradise

So this is it
The brand new order
No one is Free
Where are your papers?
This isn't you
In this picture
These prints are fake
she's not your sister
You're just another
war resister

You should have stood
When you had the chance
Now you're a victim
of circumstance
They give the orders
And you kneel down
Last thing you feel
Is the stony ground
Just wish you could have
said

Fuck you
And your fucking order
Your fucking guns
And fucking borders
Fuck you and your dollar bill
Fuck you and your torture skills
You'll have to kill me
to shut me up
Does anybody
Wanna back me up?

(Summer, Tucson 2009)
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POETRY

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:07 am

Gargoyle, by Charles Carreon

Image

A gargoyle face
Greeted me This Morning.
I patted its leering chops,
and it purred.
Heavy paws on my chest
eased back and the stone colored face
Turned feline gold.
The growl, the warm breath on my
nostrils
Is the rising sun.
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POETRY

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:08 am

Ghost Sheriff, by Charles Carreon

Fire the police force of your mind,
Those restless enforcers
wearing the badge of selfhood.

Their ceaseless stopping and interrogating
of vagrant thoughts
will not clean up the streets
of your mind, but only fill up
the jails of your suppressed impulses.

Let all thoughts walk freely
in this ghost-town,
And abandon the busy stock exchange
where desirable and undesirable
projections are traded
for dollars that have no worth

The broad voice of emptiness
Echoes through the disappearing landscape,
and tattered things
are blowing away in the wind.

Good riddance to bad rubbish--
Empty space and
the burn barrel take the lot of it.
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POETRY

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:12 am

Glimpsed in the Mirror of Dreams, by Charles Carreon

Image

Doing battle with you a thousand times ...
Damnable maiden,
Your excuse is youth,
But the bitterness remains.

No quarter ever given
in this game ...
True bloodsport
if there ever was
such a thing ...
After love,
The stalking,
The hunting,
The heart-destroying,
The burning,
The feast.

To compare with
Your eyes,
Wolves on a winter
Night would seem warm.

Now darkness falls
And I perceive
A grimmer silhouette,
A trick of light,
A shadow here,
But no there's something yet,
An intimation,
Dim and drear
Of purpose strangely set,
A chill, a subtle
Taste of fear
That good minds
Will forget.
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SONG

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:14 am

God Loves a Hypocrite, by Charles Carreon



Image

When you look on this world
Filled with sadness and grief
You might think that death
Is your only relief

But if you could just learn
To lie through your teeth
You wouldn't have to eat hamburger,
You'd dine on prime beef
Instead of smokin' shake,
You'd be tokin' fine spleef

Cause God loves a hypocrite
Sure as you're born
And a lie's the best shelter
From blame and scorn
The truth's just plain trouble,
But don't look so forlorn,
Just start spewin' bullshit
You'll find shelter from the storm

Some people are blessed
With a flexible tongue
That they occupy
With spreading cowdung

Whether lobbyists, lawyers,
Judges or thieves,
They make a fine dollar
From social disease
They all stand around
And share pats on the back
So glad to be one
Of such a fine bunch of chaps

Cause God loves a hypocrite
Sure as you're born
And a lie's the best shelter
From blame and scorn
The truth's just plain trouble,
But don't look so forlorn,
Just start spewin' bullshit
You'll find shelter from the storm

Some think that lying
Won't take you that far,
But to get someplace these days
You don't drive a car

You fire up a printing press
And co-opt TV,
Rig polls and elections
Pay folks to deceive --
When the votes are all counted
What a surprise!
The one who wins
Is the one who lies.

Cause God loves a hypocrite
Sure as you're born
And a lie's the best shelter
From blame and scorn
The truth's just plain trouble,
But don't look so forlorn,
Just start spewin' bullshit
You'll find shelter from the storm
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POETRY

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:17 am

Gold, by Charles Carreon

Image

Looking now through the window of a womb
At hands that have touched everything
in the universe --
Now clenched in embryonic fists --
The world's been turned to gold
Impacted, imploded, blasted inward,
Melted, smelted, and refined
 
"I dwelt among the rivers of your mind."
 
I have been walking in the empty hills
Down under the mountains
Through caverns of blackness
That echo with untrodden tunnels,
Searching for the El Dorado of the blind.
Now, look, where cold invisible herons
Come to spread their wings
In a sky rippled with clouds,
And ancient men in ancient clothes
Take shelter in the grottoes of the wind.
 
"The mountains are of gold;
The world is a jewel,
A spider in a precious web."
 
Unafraid, he said, I walk through
the golden abyss, the fathomless radiance,
Singing a song to cup the fragile
draught of life.
The tiger has become my friend.
The dragon makes merry with the clouds,
And among the mountain peaks
Ancient men in ancient clothes
Take shelter in the grottoes of the wind.
 
"The rivers and rocks are married together --
 No one remembers our name."
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POETRY

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:18 am

Good Evening, Cottonwood, by Charles Carreon

It's one of those opaque nights.
The moon goes down early and young.
The atmosphere thickens and hides
Stars, hills, trees --
Your voice is out there in the dark distance.
Listen, Cottonwood,
let's run away together,
tonight --
I'll be a leaf that doesn't care where
We're going. You can carry me beyond our
bridge, under the railroad, through the meadows
And into California. Splash by Hilt and
Slip through Hornbrook about midnight.
Merge with the Klamath in the dark
we'll give ourselves up to the rush
of its waves and wind through canyons
Of volcanic rock tottering with
individualistic pines and junipers.
Below Oak Knoll we'll yoke arms with Beaver Creek
and storm through Happy Camp --
tonight, Cottonwood, tonight.
As the cold comes on with increasing bite
we'll take the final stretch two steps
At a time, And in the predawn light
We'll sight the soft glow of endless waves
and oceanborne clouds.
As light spreads over the Coast
we'll look back through the weaving woods
-- tall trunks the warp, heavy boughs of emerald-black
the weft, with silver dawn like a luminous arch
suffusing the tapestry with light.
The grey waves, Cottonwood,
Will swallow us both and we'll return
to lap the shore we came from that gave us birth,
To shape with sandy fingers
the discarded roots and boles of the rain forest,
Drifting North and South along the rocky coast,
Wandering with the rain.
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POETRY

Postby admin » Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:19 am

Good Morning, Cottonwood, by Charles Carreon

Image

Good morning Cottonwood,
Freezing today. I suppose you felt it last night
stiffening the mud along your banks,
Forming fingers and half-moons of ice
in the still spots and puddles.
The meadow is covered with
cheap dime-store jewelry --
She's such a hick.
In the east the dawn's a silver disk
Where the sun's getting ready behind
its satin curtain.
Through the outhouse portal I see
that it is cold everywhere,
And besides your voice (which sounds hoarse
have you got a cold?), the first sounds
Are gasoline engines.
Down Colestine road a car buzzes
brightly; Jamie starts the Chevy-6
in his dumper; Shandor gets his generator going.
To join the fun I start the Toyota
that's parked halfway up the hill
full of wood where I left it yesterday
after three unsuccessful attempts to
reach the yurt. You see, I started
when the mud was hard, but with its
half-dead carburetor the Toyo took
so long to start, by the time I got rolling
the mud was all defrosted and halfway there
those super-high performance hiway tires'd
start spinning free as if the rear-end
were blocked up off the ground. pissed
me off. At any rate I won't bore you
with details, since you were probably
eavesdropping the whole time.
The sun's out of its dressing room now,
and looks like what the weatherman
calls "clear and cold with high clouds"
Have a nice day --
Your friend, Charles
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