Monday, August 26, 2013

Lyrics in Progress, My American Album


Lyrics in Progress, My American Album


L. Edgar Otto   August 26, 2013....

* * *
Submitted for Open Link Monday  song writers use many methods from vague associations of sounds and words to fourmulas... which comes first the words or the music? How can some of the best poetry in our day be found in our shared songs and music?  I tried all such forms, well, not setting out to try them... but there is a transition to what can work in the simplification of a long poem turning into what is required for a song... these are such a transitional set to which as pre-lyrical I keep for the ideas and poetry's sake.

Lyrae

L. Edgar Otto   06 September, 2013 composed, Posting September 09, 2013

* * * * *

Easy Bake Oven

Come Christmas morning, at our last supper
without a warning the second coming
computers crashing, new millennium
moment to capture before your rapture

The plots so woven, your witches coven
pepper spay and whistles without warning
set fires and sirens, surprise as burning
love left your easy bake oven

My doppelganger so filled with anger
became so silent, rehearsed the violence
listening to those losers tramping violets
the old coat hanger, their cause gang banger

Maybe if I stopped or let you drink
you would have stayed around or if
I slapped you silly like lovers past you found
who didn't call you stupid but didn't let you think

You picked the pockets of the Christians then
shared their gifts of grace, turned up their tables
at the fair, now say I rejected faith as fables
you searching God-filled singles in chat rooms without sin

Like Daddy's pockets for change and cigarettes
you said control leaving my forty years a wilderness
my brain did not wish on you chains to leave us all a mess
his punch bag rag doll. he too rests in free fall from regrets

The old coat hanger, the kids don't believe it
seek their own manger not what we've woven
this time to try again lightly light their easy bake oven
that their children's world is real, we once conceived it

* * *

Crystal Tokyo

Fishes all aglow the ice wall melts
mantles fall waves break over sea walls
Damn, hell, Godzilla strewn on all I am
world shrugs, another childhood bones strontium

Oh the top hats tell us stories not as bad
the dark rain's eerie glory not seen sad
Glass bobbins break off the fishing nets
to ride the streams another millennium

The waning moon dream of Crystal Tokyo
still out of sight of school girls magic turns them
Into planet big eyed long legged goddesses
the rise and fall of empires made of meatballs

Koi fish live long while its rising sun, death white
red spot on its middle eye, chrysanthemum round
Short lived the hope of youth, Western ruby lips
sold to tourists as in dreams one falls in love

Don't we all long to go to Crystal Tokyo
climb the staircase of the planets safe to home?
Love's watched waters do not boil nor
up from the core and perfect cones, lava larval flow

* * * *

Neal, a Note

And for all the poets who lost their pets after a long time... old Neal really did drink beer (we kids stole from our parents when they had company) and loved to eat pancakes, so big a dog we rode him... he was a protector and childhood companion who went with us exploring the mudflats of Tidewater Va...  nothing more can be said, comments save.... I understand having been there.  Such things make most of the magic of  earlier and gentle, simpler times... of the poetic sort that does not fade.

*

*Digital clip art from Jennifer White in the Oklahoma heartland, Victorian Boy, Girl, and Dog... she asked to let here know how we used it...


Saturday, August 24, 2013

Lost in Your Troubled Dreams Fibonacci Form

Note:  I add a little clearer illustration called "God didn't make Little Green Apples or Canada Dry"
I revise this to complete lost steps visually too... added pollen and clouds of flies and falling leaves and daughter trees in golden proportion...


Lost in Your Troubled Dreams Fibonacci Form

L. Edgar Otto    Aug. 24, 2013

I posted for the toads my song on youtube. I will eventually re-post the full lyrics here but for now here is an excerpt from a common theme between the stanzas:
I
Saw
So long
You nineteen
Over night crow's feet
. . .
Knew
Pain
First tears
Little feet
Yet had so much fun
. . .
Sun
Dress
Long hair
In bare feet
How you loved your brood
. . . .

The Fibonacci Poem  "I"



I

I held

I held her close

Close
rose
colored
glassy eyes

Her
dance
far from
prying crowds

I
held
her close
we danced, rose
rhymed far from colors
crowd's madding prying eyes

Danced
from
madness
her
held
I

* * * *



Seeking Out There Somewhere
L. Edgar Otto   Sunday, 25 August, 2013

I
thought
I might
find the truth
if out there somewhere
aborted
our dreams
fade
back

No
damn
quantum
cat no damn
cradle made of strings
fiery walled
black holes
new
worlds

More
real
than she
held so close
baby universes
conjuring
space time's
deep
eyes

Braids
knots
weightless
discoveries
our geometries
written down
nowhere
in
books

One
truth
forgive
out of time
fading falling sand
far from heat
emptied
nests
keys

* * * *
Gentle Raindrops, Peaceful Tidal Sway

L. Edgar Otto   25 August, 2013

No
null
zero
beyond time
stopping quanta waves
once begun
many
beats
lubb dub
synchronize
our cycles, heart sparks
wading pool
Petri
dish

So
full
his life
swath thru time
room enough unique
world like mine
distinct
near
rhyme

* * * *

Monday, August 19, 2013

Hayley

Hayley

L. Edgar Otto   ( posted  Monday, 19 August, 2013 )


Why do you treat me like a brother, call me friend
Guess our gentle kisses made no difference
Little Mama, Honey Chile, Sweet Pal of Mine
Guess I just couldn't be
              ... your peace of mind

Now I blamed your tipsy mother for you time of troubled sin
and I damned your gypsy father for leaving you abandoned
But there's and end to finding fault, naked you and me
Bumbled thru our brambled bed our hearts not free
               ... just like them

So Hayley, don't you go all holy on me
Don't paint me like the Devil pointing out the worst in me
Nor treat me like a holy man too pure for the touch
I might be your human eyes but not your helpless crutch
Human eyes... not helpless crutch

Now I don't mean to mess up your beautiful dream
There's much in Gothic images the pure heart redeems
But we must suffer sister suffer like beads upon a chant
Lose ourselves in our own will we never can recant
Lose ourselves... be born again

I know your denigm rose is an earthly shade of blue
and your leather bounded Bible really comforts you
But how I long to follow you like you follow Him and
wear those pilgrim overalls and sing those Surrey hymns...

So Hayley ... ... ...

* * * *

Lyrics for the Toad poets 

Note: in a comment I replied I was waiting for a bus with groceries on one of your poems which captured the moment and feelings of the experience, things in a distant part of town waiting long and reminding me of those moods and times of uncertainty and strange places foreboding on the road.

By the way  Hayley is not written for a real person as a subject of love...  she is really a child not conceived or born when matters of faith changed things in the face of life...

Here is the picture of the mundane bus stop as the moon rose...


Saturday, August 17, 2013

Downloading Marianne




Dramatis Personae:

Insitu- in a universal scenario, situation
Denovo- something emerges, surprise, anew
Invitro- conditions controlled in a house of glass
Instar- the changing step in bodies of butterflies
Insei- Japanese for meteor
Deresu- concerning or about substance
Insync- making beautiful music or noise together
Immuni- protected against disruption of an entity
Tranz- that which goes across or beyond worlds
Xtal- she who clings to ritual, senses replication
Sapiosaurus- wiser lizards crave wiser company
Grid- how we draw the map, yet not a landscape
Cloud- the illusion we or the world has no maps
Mauve- Mr. Tompkins's wife, wonderland entropy
Fractus- Fractal fracturing of evolving wholes
Holonia- All returning to a fading whole again
Lyrae- one new constellation guides the way

Downloading Marianne  
L. Edgar Otto    17 August, 2013

We slime thru the landscape licking rust
downloading Marianne, the state her bust
Awakening in revolution all the motes of dust

So sang Insitu to Insei in formation
so probable the outcome of disinformation
That sleep again conforms each confirmation

* * *
Lyrae kept watch over Instar and her worms
as Immuni seeded Cloud in the war for germs
Fractus and Holonia fought then came to terms

Denovo and Deresu found their love Insync
children of Sapiosaurus tamed, learned to think
Xtal and shifting Grid held brittle on the brink

* * *
Tranz brought flowers to Mauve, Invitro so came
Driving to Oklahoma pursing comet tails his aim

* * * *

Footnote in a poetic form with suggestive new terms to be expanded later into a novel that covers a wide physical and social landscape with particulars while local color in great works becomes universal for all peoples, a sort of converse to express this.  This inspired by the painting of Marianne on the toad poet site whose breast of liberty represent the state feeding the hungry.  Speculative or Science Fiction in spirit.  We are given in stealth or seek to download things like HIV in hopes past the extension and dependence on survival at some certain end that the ultimate reality is that we can find a cure.