FLOGGING MOLLY - DRUNKEN LULLABIES

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell
What Savior rests while on his cross we die
Forgotten freedom burns
Has the Shepherd led his lambs astray
to the bigot and the gun

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

I watch and stare as Rosin’s eyes
Turn a darker shade of red
And the bullet with this sniper lie
In their bloody gutless cell
Must we starve on crumbs from long ago
Through these bars of men made steel
Is it a great or little thing we fought
Left a conscience blessed to kill

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

Ah, well maybe it’s the way we’re taught
Or maybe it’s the way we fought
But a smile never grins without tears to begin
For each kiss is a cry we all lost
Though nothing is left to gain
But for the banshee that stole the grave
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

I sit and dwell on faces past
Like memories seem to fade
No colour left but black and white
And soon will all turn grey
But may these shadows rise to walk again
With lessons truly learnt
When the blossom flowers in each our hearts
Shall beat a new found flame

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

THE TROPICS OF NEW YORK

Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root
    Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
    Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Sat in the window, bringing memories
    of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical skies
    In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;
    A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways
    I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

Claude McKay (1889 - 1948), Jamaican writer and poet.

RAIN
by Claribel Alegría (translated by Margaret S. Peden)

As the falling rain
trickles among the stones
memories come bubbling out.

It’s as if the rain
had pierced my temples.

Streaming
streaming chaotically
come memories:
the reedy voice
of the servant
telling me tales
of ghosts.

They sat beside me
the ghosts
and the bed creaked
that purple-dark afternoon
when I learned you were leaving forever,
a gleaming pebble
from constant rubbing
becomes a comet.

Rain is falling
falling
and memories keep flooding by
they show me a senseless
world
a voracious
world—abyss
ambush
whirlwind
spur
but I keep loving it
because I do
because of my five senses
because of my amazement
because every morning,
because forever, I have loved it
without knowing why.

From Casting Off by Claribel Alegría. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. Copyright © 2003 by Curbstone Press. Distributed by Consortium. Reprinted without permission of Curbstone Press. All rights reserved.

PENNYWISE - YESTERDAYS

Up from the ashes and over the hill
We knew more then than we ever will
Back when the days passed by so slow
And now we’ll never know
That sense that tomorrow was far away
And our dreams they will never fade
We never thought the good times could end.

Can we go back to those days—
When everything was simple then?
And nothing could ever change
Can we go back to those days—
We didn’t have a care at all
I wish I could remain—
Back in Yesterday!

Pictures of another place and time
They seem like scenes from a different life
We didn’t notice as the days went past
We knew it couldn’t last
But looking back I wouldn’t change a thing
The memories shared, they’ll always stay with me
We never thought the good times would end.

Can we go back to those days—
When everything was simple then?
And nothing could ever change
Can we go back to those days—
We didn’t have a care at all
I wish I could remain—
Back in Yesterday!

Can we go back to those days—
When everything was simple then?
And nothing could ever change
Can we go back to those days—
we didn’t have a care at all
I wish I could remain —
Back in yesterday!
Back in yesterdays!
Back in yesterdays!
Back in yesterdays!

The Doctor’s second CX clinic of the season was this evening at Sugarhouse Park.

Having only spent one brief hour on my bike in the past month, needless to say, I wasn’t really feeling it this evening. When one lap around a basically flat park winds you, then you know you’re fat and out of shape. So I spent my time rolling easy on the grass, stumbling over the barriers a couple of times, and knockin’ my ‘nads on a really poorly timed remount.

Thanks to Kathy Sherwin for lending me her multi-tool so I could reset my saddle from a 45-degree up-angle to level. Clearly, I am not ready for next weekend’s CX season opener in Ogden, but I’ll be up there nonetheless, rolling easy for a couple laps before helping officiate the latter 3 flites.

CZT missed tonight for obvious reasons … do funerals in Massachusetts become food and boozefests like they do in the South? There’s nothing quite like returning from a somber ceremony at the church and cemetary to a big ol’ party at the house, will all the pig, potatoes, gin and juice you can suck down. Lots of stories, lots of memories, lots of laughter, and more than anything, lots of love.

I can’t imagine a funeral any other way.