A Song For Who I Used to be…

Songwriting is not the same as poetry…..  It is totally different.  There is a beat in both, but the poet has much more room to wiggle in than the song writer does.

Frugality with words has never been my strongest point and so I have always levitated toward poetry. The reason for that is if I can’t drive my point home in the first stanza, then I’ve got three or four more stanzas to make up for that.  The song writer really doesn’t have that luxury because basically his story needs to be told in one stanza, maybe with a repeating chorus.  It needs to be short, sweet and to the point.

The ear and the eye are two completely different organs.    I think that may explain why some of our teenagers, the most imaginative and creative people among us, tend to text conversations more so than phoning them.  Flowery and depth in the written word can capture the reader, but those same words can be absorbed completely differently by the ear, which – as we know from Pavlonian training through every conversation we have ever had, is expected to be unscripted, and unencumbered with depth.

Song writers like John Lennon and Paul McCartney were prolific.   They could write songs in their sleep.    “I want to hold your hand.”   In written form it is very simple and direct, and let’s face it, completely boring.  Even as a classical poet I have absolutely little use for such an obvious statement.   But now let’s flip the 45 on the record player a moment and change it to “Ahhh wannnaaa hooooooolllllllddddddd yoooooooorrrrrrrrr Haaa-eeeee-yahhhh-eeeee-yahhhh-eeeeeee-annnnnnnnnnddddd” and suddenly it becomes a completely different monster which was so popular that it almost single handedly changed an entire generation’s view of music.

Other writers, like Jimmy Hendrix and Jim Croce found an amazing correlation between the two,  which I think is uncommon.  And so incredibly beautiful.

It’s important to challenge oneself, and this is my challenge at songwriting.

A Song For Who I used to Be
(when you were with me)

Memories so far away
distance keeps our lives at bay.

At sixteen years lived a boy in me,
who died yesterday.
And your eyes -
Slowly fade Away -
Away from yesterday.

How long can a memory last?
Longer than your heartfelt grasp
How strong can a memory be?
When your eyes were looking at me?

A different world sings a different song.
A different time and my life seems gone.

After sixteen -
I don’t -
belong.

At sixteen years lived a boy in me,
who died yesterday.
And your eyes -
Slowly fade Away -
Away from yesterday.

.

.

	Every time I tried to tell you
	The words just came out wrong
	So I had to say I love you
	In a song.
	-Jim Croce

Grateful Rising

A blissful day, could have slept away -
and lost this love for nothing more -
but for you this memory  to convey
For in fact I rose to the chore…

“Time is wasting,” echoed my dreams.
Eyes not aware of the lamp-blast glow.
“Get up – get dressed,” what seemed like screams,
Now the lamp spewed a dead-fast blow!

Standing aside and not yet fully in hue,
my eyes straining for a glimpse to see
(which nightmare must be in this queue?)
when Dad’s image emerged to me.

“It’s a quarter to four, let’s get out the door,”
“The fish won’t wait, you see?”
So I rubbed my eyes and hit the floor
for an all out fishing spree!

Now I remember,
t’was in bed by nine
Fully clothed too -
just to save time.

Dad pulled and tugged
on that old deep-green outboard
until it spewed and spugged
(actually smoked and chugged)
and then across to our reward….

Astride a lilly pad flock he’d seen,
one that had caught his eye,
as the sun began to peek o’er green,
I heard the plop of his popper from high.

“click click clickety click”
went his slow, methodical reel.
The top-water lure pulled up a lick
and then back to its reposing still.

Suddenly a splash and a “Snatch!” was seen,
his pole quickly whipped to set the hook.
And soon looking at me from our canteen,
was a largemouth’s angry and cold-eyed look.

To suppose for any more wonderful day,
you see it wasn’t the fish or lilly pad.
For evermore I will always say-
It was simply spending the day with Dad.

.

.

	Any man can be a Father but it takes someone special to be a dad.
	- Anne Geddes

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Thank you for visiting my page.  This poem will be offered as fodder to the wonderful folks at dversepoets.com for “Open Link Night” –  A place where poets gather to share their words…..  I hope you will join us…….

 

Never On The Crack

 

 

 

My Dear Mother, Valerie

Never on the Crack

Who’s to say, as we often played,
stepping on cracks
breaks Mama’s backs.  So we stayed -
inbetween -

inbetween – like Mama’s scrubbed floor
and her all day cooking.
So young was the Sun, its shine just begun -
inbetween -

So leisurely we played,
While London bridge merrily -
merrily -
fell down the stream.
Ashes.

inbetween, inbetween,
lifes lines never change.
Except the good things.

Shes’ gone now.
So is the bridge.
Did she ever know
the pains I took to show
that I loved her?

Inbetween.
Always inbetween.

Hatred’s Accomplices

Whenst may the fallen shards of pain betray
these eyes of swollen tears?
Upon thy yielding breast I’ll lay
to hide my remaining years.

For evil’s pawn has spun her yarn
to lash my escaping soul.
Her venom spews as words diffuse,
my life in kind she stole.

Dear Lord, forgive this child,
for the evil she spreads has homes.
It is not solely her revile,
but others that throw her stones.

 

Time Enough

This poem was meant to be a whimsical little piece on the nature of hussle-bussle and goal oriented world that the U.S. has been accused of being.  From de Tocqueville to today we have famously earned the reputation of giving our children goals before they are even born.   I think our contemporary time is worse than ever before.  Complicate that with our hedonistic desires and staggering deficits and borrowing habits, we are passing a bill onto them that they will never be able to work off.   I hope you will enjoy my little peom, though it is more of an auto-biography, I fear….

This poem will be offered on the open-mike of dversepoets.com on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013.  Please join us.

Time Enough

When shall I ponder thee, Life?
Your treasures abound yet my
hand’s tightly bound to
to this rudder found – at birth.

The taskmasters wait
at every passing gate
and I haven’t a moment to give.

Their blinders on straight and
their goals chasing haste -
I’ve barely a breath left to live.

When, sweet Life, may I ask without strife,
of your glory and blessed concern?

May I sneak in the night, like a fleeing thief might,
to hear your story and learn?

Or must I wait upon the edge of ever,
and risk the chance to forever sever
the hopes and dreams I’ve been taught to yearn?

Oh, dear Life, if all were but goals,
and the world filled with but ragged-run souls,
then what is our purpose here?

For if we shant find
a moment in kind
to explore your best complexities,
Then we should be lashed to post
as does our dog’s unkind host
and be robbed of your kindest amenities.

So to you I vow
Someday, somehow,
I will hold your hand in mine.
You will tell me
And I will tell you,
and somehow our stories will unwind….

	The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
	Rabindranath Tagore

copyright John Richter, 2013

Circle’s End

A Sopwith flew,
as tensions grew,
Black cross on red denied.

A dozen men,
a thousand when,
lives are lost to pride.

A spawn of war,
on to more,
upon his hateful stride.

Six million Jews,
laid by crews,
who only went to hide.

Korea next,
Saigon flexed,
and the whole world cried.

Do you think your goal is new?
that when your mayhem is through…
We should think greater of you?

The circle lives because of men like you.
Just a cold, dark heart in wintry stew.

Fuck you, terrorist.
(with a little “t”)

	“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
	Ernest Hemingway

 

 

This poem is being offered at dversepoets.com…..  Hope you can join us.

A Moment Ago….

Moments live……

Blessed by breath they come upon us – these moments, chaining our impassioned journeys into little chunks of joy and tragedy, ruthlessly bestowing upon us the tempestuous will of God.  Their lives seem so frail, so tenderly lost to the next moment, the next cause, the next drama…..  But moments don’t just fade away.  Nigh, young heart, you shall find them again.

The cock crows for the birthing sun, which brings to him a new day, a new chance, a burgeoning life filled with endless possibilities…  But he doesn’t remember yesterday – nor does he know of tomorrow.  This moment is all he has, and all he will ever be.

Seek those lost moments friend, and keep my heart with you always – polish them with the oils of kinship, love and time.  For they shall soothe you when your own sun sets…..