Where were the massed marchs of our youths in the streets of this country to protest the fiasco in Iraq?

Hey:: Hope this isn’t too depressing…but if you are going to self publish than So Shall I>>>>

Day of the Dead at the Sea

All new poems are about the dead because
we write of the future, of desperate
blue seas, of Dad, and of Alexandra
and Harry and 3000 soldiers and
a 1/2 million Baghdadites, of death squad
surfers wrapped head to toe in black rubber
drifting between the solar and the
sublunar, as different viruses dance
and vie in seawater or locked in blood.
Brown kelp dries menacingly in salty
sun like memories that won’t disappear.
“I’m still alive, throw me back.” they whisper.
The goddess of death rises from the surf
in a soft-core porn attitude standing
beckoning. Where is Botticelli now?

Adverbs thrum systolic, the meaning
prismed, like the colors that come into view
and go out of existence in a hopeful metronome
of endless syllables.
But when the scheme breaks like a wave
the bottom becomes wet sand and the mooring is lost.
A pelican with a damaged wing rises like a crucifix in the Pacific wind
over a rippled molten Golgotha.
Across the sea Gog and Magog will strike,
and Pope and President will counter-strike,
Zoroaster will shake his bearded head finally before
the Caliph, the leaders and the monstrous, and ask: “What now human? What now? You have destroyed the garden…. Go live on the salt roads bleak and tumbled with rotting body parts. The wet sand will suck it all away burying it deep beneath sleeping layers.”

But I lied because there
are only two colors
earthsea water blue-gray-brown and
blindingwhite the center-of-the-sun.
I hear clearer now in the inescapable future.
I see more voluminously.
On the path the road.
The beach on the hot sand.
Not what I thought,
but flat as the horizon reflecting the sky.
I knew a boy once
who said he was going to walk from Venice to Mexico on the beach, black bangs, tough chancey teen with nervous runaway eyes. In writing about him now he must be dead. I can’t remember his name only his caramel colored dick and his sharp white teeth.
His tan kidneys now float on the high surf off of Portuguese Bend, his testicles split open like clamshells, his body has become seaweed,
just like the Humvees in Ur split open,
with charred rubber tentacles blossoming
from the engine well,
will eventually become seaweed.
Because this sea is all. It consumes all risk
and reminds us how
we really aren’t that tough at all.
Was there a boat ever big enough to rescue humanity?
Here’s the secret: It used to be
the earth.
Now the earth will become the sea.

Only show I ever saw at the fab mab was Savage Republic in 85.

Been lurking here for awhile; it took the DK’s to bring me out of the closet. Hello firepups.

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday.

Presented in rememberence.

Red Line Blues

I was fast asleep that morning on the day the buildings fell,
And the platform where I’d sing that afternoon was gone as well,
And I cried for all of those on whom my livelyhood depends,
When I saw the downtown covered in the ashes of my friends.

So I gathered up my old guitar for a gentle Christmas show,
I could hardly bear the sadness, but I knew I had to go,
‘Cause I heard that red line crying, sadly comin’ round the bends,
Kickin’ up amid the subway dust, the ashes of my friends.

I want to thank you for indulging this old subway serenade,
‘Cause it’s never been about how much or little I was paid,
I just stopped by to tell your hearts that true Love never ends,
And to sing this lonesome love song to the ashes of my friends.

I was fast asleep that morning on the day those towers fell,
And the platform where I’d sing that afternoon was gone as well,
And I cried for all of those on whom my livelyhood depends,
When I saw that downtown covered in the ashes of my friends.

David Teller

I’ve never run across this song before. Wow.

Every generation or subset thereof has their identifier I guess.

I feel lucky; Ms. Redshift was a bit younger than me, so she kind of yanked me out of what would have been my “generation” music (late 70s — the Eagles and such are fine, but I’m glad they’re not the soundtrack to my life.) That enabled me to do the same for her, and we’ve been able to pick and choose much of the best as we go along, without ever having to switch to the “classic” station to find all of “our” music.

Presented in rememberence.

Red Line Blues

I was fast asleep that morning on the day the buildings fell,
And the platform where I’d sing that afternoon was gone as well,
And I cried for all of those on whom my livelyhood depends,
When I saw the downtown covered in the ashes of my friends.

So I gathered up my old guitar for a gentle Christmas show,
I could hardly bear the sadness, but I knew I had to go,
‘Cause I heard that red line crying, sadly comin’ round the bends,
Kickin’ up amid the subway dust, the ashes of my friends.

I want to thank you for indulging this old subway serenade,
‘Cause it’s never been about how much or little I was paid,
I just stopped by to tell your hearts that true Love never ends,
And to sing this lonesome love song to the ashes of my friends.

I was fast asleep that morning on the day those towers fell,
And the platform where I’d sing that afternoon was gone as well,
And I cried for all of those on whom my livelyhood depends,
When I saw that downtown covered in the ashes of my friends.

David Teller

The punk thing passed me by, I liked Joan Jett though ; )

Don’t feel badly. Lately, I’m of the opinion that just about everything passed me by. :)

Hitchin’ to SF by myself in 69, living in an Apt on Haight and Ashbury, selling Berkeley Barbs for food money…ahhh…the memories…or was I imagining all that? *g*

and OK – Van is surely the man!

Folks – don’t miss Howie’s message before he takes off for parts adventurous:

http://downwithtyranny.blogspo…..a-del.html

goodness, we will miss him but triple goodness, we are so blessed to get to work with him!

As we are blessed with the wondrous writers here at FDL who have filled this day with thought and wit and righteous outrage …

it’s a great book with some great photos. it has an intro by hilly kristal and a after word by david byrne.

it’s called Thirty Years from the Home of Underground Rock
CBGB & OMFUG