Category: Audio Recordings

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

(Memorial for Alfred Huffstickler)

You were reading
at the Northwest Austin Borders
Lines I remember went something like this

“She wanted me to say forever, and so I
thought, why not, I have said forever so
many times before”

But now dear Huff, now that you have
stepped into forever

What will you say to all of them now

THE BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY

THE BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY

I think I’ve done it now
run out of places to hide
painted myself into a corner
surrounded on every side

For like every pilot
that ever learned to fly
I’ve got to help the captain
whenever I’m in the sky

All my time of thumbing
and a haulin heavy loads
links me with the Gypsies
that I meet along the roads

And if I look from side to side
at the lands along the way
why the farmer and the rancher
still within me want their say

Whenever I get to stop to rest
at any sweet Inn along the way
the years I’ve spent in running one
with constant detail mark my stay

And now I’m studying psychology
and the hidden parts of you and me
and prevalidation and master talk
and how one ought to walk one’s walk

Capped with the writers joy and chore
of finding a metaphor behind each door

ACT YOUR AGE

ACT YOUR AGE

I might have heard it first at six

when mother thought that I was acting three

And again at ten when acting six or three

certainly at sixteen, acting ten, or six, or three

There is the age that I am now

known as the age of responsible men

But there are those who know it’s just an act

the me’s of three and six and ten

ME AND THE DEITY

ME AND THE DEITY

Bin Laden and Bush are bombing for God
tantric devotees are humping for God

Hindus are sitting on peaks and lying on
nails and wiping out Moslems for God

In Ireland they’re still at killing their brother
in the name of the Father and the holy Mother

In the Holy lands while the world overlooks
they are killing for land and two holy books

As for me

I’ve done nothing near so dramatic this year
to show the depth of my belief

Although I’m wondering if maybe the Deity
may be finding that a bit of a relief