QUAY WINSTON CHURCHILL

A fish hovers near the surface
of the river
and then turns and waves its tail
while I try to focus on the depths.
But the Marne is dark and green.

Late each night,
I warn my brother
to look out for knifes
and volatile lovers.
But the Marne is dark and green.

And like a ghost
on a departing train,
you wave and walk away
while I try to say goodbye.
But the Marne is dark and green.

I CANNOT TAKE IT FROM THEM

Outside children are laughing in the dark.
While amongst them a woman is dancing

(almost floating),
so beautiful, dressed in white.

Still I wish they would go,
so I could get some sleep.

But they won't. This is there night.
I cannot take it from them.

It’s too late for that now.
They won’t be coming back anyhow.

THE TROUBADOUR

for Townes Van Zandt

The hounds had the scent, but no one said a word

So, he went on out into that wilderness alone

And found a herd

Of wild horses and made a home

Later he tumbled while riding in the dark

But even as he fell, he hummed

To the chorus of a lullaby

That he once learned by heart

Rumor has it that he’s gone upriver (far away from here)

While others say he’s orbiting

Above Houston, preparing to parachute in

I say he’s the guy with the grin

On his face, hovering just there

Floating on nothing but air

THE DRAG QUEEN

He puts on a padded bra and then carefully applies lipstick,

rouge and powder blue eye shadow to his face,

topping it all off

with a platinum blonde wig and a white bridal gown.

Veiled and ready now, he makes his way

to the stage and takes his final vows.

A GIRL CALLED HEAVEN

She spoke to me from out of the darkness,
a prompter whispering from off stage.

She cued me to my longing.
I confessed I was trapped in a kind of cage.

She said her name was Heaven.
There was magic in what she said.

She spoke to me from out of the darkness
as I walked beneath the shadows of the dead.

MARDI GRAS BLUES

The woman's gone.

She's on the run.

She took my gun.

The woman's gone.

You hear me crying?

You know I'm dying.

Do you hear me crying?

You know I'm dying.

The woman's gone.

She's on the run.
She took my gun.

She packed a gown

and left this town.

She hopped a train

She's on a plane

A knife to the heart

is no place to start.

The woman's gone.

She's on the run.

Our love is done.

She took a flight

into the night.

Dressed in red

she walks with the dead.

A knife to the heart

is no place to start.

The woman's gone.

She's on the run.

THE MISSING

An egret whirls into the wind,

and then turns and folds in upon itself and lands

beneath a cloud of water;

while in the distance,

airplanes at the edge of thunder

murmur and echo

like the thin mirrors of the ego,

glittering and lost, and I shudder

in the dark and consider

the dead (and all of their voices),

an unwavering remembrance,

a delicate descent.

THE KING IN A COUNTRY OF RAIN

When the rains came, who would have guessed that he kept a secret?
That he knew his kingdom would fall, castles and all.

He was no prophet. He was just a king lost in dreams 
that no one could not quite recall.

When the rains came, who would have guessed that he kept a secret?
That he knew his kingdom would fall, castles and all.

THE GHOST OF A GIRL

Imagine the shadow of a sail moving over rough waters,

the waves like turbines

turning over and over again, tumbling endlessly.

There are no monuments where the car crashed

to honor the dead girl.

There is just a stump marking where the tree stood that stopped time.

Like a limb that has been surgically removed, her mother

and father can sense her presence. Sometimes

they can hear her voice coming from her bedroom

up the stairs, murmuring in a language

that they can't quite make out,

and even all these years later they believe she is with them,

reaching out, just beyond their grasp,

just out of sight.

BACK HERE AGAIN

I am back here again looking for something
that I lost a long time ago.
Something that I left in a box
for safekeeping and then forgot about until now.
Come with me and look.
Don’t be afraid.

The rooftops are still blue here at night
and the stars are so white.
Hold my hand.
There’s an ocean in the wind.
Can’t you hear it?
It’s so close it could almost blow us away.

THE MOON FOLLOWED ME HOME

The moon followed me home, 
its watchful eye 
wide open, never blinking, never looking away. 

There were no clouds, no obstacles between us, 
no shadows standing in our way, 
no barriers of any kind.

There was just an unconditional acceptance 
of each other, 
a connection, radiant and true.

OCEANS & TECHNOLOGY

Out here in this country of unending sleep,

I inherit horses in winter

and blowing hands;

above the clouds, and the televisions of L. A.

(where once a blue whore danced on a powdered mask),

a woman is broadcast on air,

a former debutante manipulated by plastic surgeons

and ultimately disposed of by parapsychologists

in the Pentagon.

Out here in the shadow of a paradox,                    

I huddle in wonder, decomposed but undiminished

while a hundred warplanes

fly over toxic foam (oceans and technology),

breast implants found hidden in the hospital gown

of a surrogate mother.

TelePrompTer

HOLD US IN A HUMAN TELECAST

TOP STARS AND BLANK EXITS

WITH TELEVANGELISTS ON SATELLITES

AND UNREMEMBERED HEROES ON BLONDES

THE WATER COMES IN

WE UNDERSTAND

IT HAS COME THROUGH THE WIND AND THE CLOUDS

HOOKERS BY BLEACH

WHITE WIGS AND U.S. WARHEADS

BILLOWING ON BYLINES WORLDWIDE

BLANKET US UNMASKED

X TELEPATHS ON TOPLESS HOUSEBOATS

THIS IS OUR ULTIMATE BUYER

PARACHUTES BY ULTRA LIGHTS

HOLOGRAMS BY FOAM

A MASKED MAN

On top a white stallion the Lone Ranger descends

A masked man
Debilitated and unrehearsed

What is it that I want to say but ultimately cannot say?
I have become nothing
A ghost deprogrammed and on parole

I walk out into the shadows of televised snow
Televised desolation  blue trauma by a descending sky
Man of blankness  man of sighs

HIROSHIMA

In 2011, as I watched the heartbreaking news from Japan, I couldn't help but remember that we (the United States) once voluntarily unleashed radioactive weapons on the people of Japan. My poem entitled Hiroshima is based on the eyewitness account of Miyoka Matsubara. (At the time a 12 year old girl.) Later she visited the United States with a group of other Hiroshima survivors, all young women disfigured like herself, named "the Maidens of Hiroshima". She continues to this day to tell her story of horror in both Japan and the United States. My hope and prayer is that we do away with these weapons of war...


(for Miyoko Matsubara)

I heard the whirring engines of a B-29.
I glimpsed its wings and tail; a sign
of foreboding filled the earth and the sky
with the terrifying message that all must die.

I saw the shadow of the descending sword.
After the flash, the heavens roared.
I fell to the ground with my hands to my head.
I awoke in the darkness and the dust of the dead.

I ran toward my home, but I could never go back.
Everything had changed; the sky was black.
I went to the river to escape the flames.
I saw bodies sink into graves without names.

All around me were the broken pieces of mankind.
Had the whole world lost its mind?
Out of the chaos came a voice I knew.
Was this my friend? Could it be true?

Her face was swollen with slits for eyes.
From behind charred lips came her cries.
I was twelve years old when the A-Bomb hit.
Just a child when that fuse was lit.

I saw the shadow of the descending sword.
After the flash, the heavens roared.
I fell to the ground with my hands to my head.
I awoke in the darkness and the dust of the dead.

THEY'RE LOOKING FOR FLYING SAUCERS IN THE DARK

They're looking for flying saucers in the dark.
They're looking for a sign, some kind of spark.

They're looking for Bigfoot on TV.
They're looking in places where he might be.

They're searching the woods in the dark,
looking for a sign, looking for a mark.

They say he's a master of invisibility,
hiding over there just behind a tree.


They're looking for monsters under the bed.
They're looking for traces of the dead.

They're looking for the man who killed Kennedy.
They say there's been some kind of conspiracy.

They're looking for the assassin on TV.
They say he's a master of invisibility.

They're searching the files in the dark,
looking for a sign, looking for a mark.

They're looking for apparitions in the dark.
They're looking for a sign, some kind of spark.

They're looking for Bigfoot on TV.
They're looking in places where he might be.

They're searching the woods in the dark,
looking for a sign, looking for a mark.

They're looking for flying saucers in the dark.
They're looking for a sign, some kind of spark.

LINES WRITTEN LATE LAST NIGHT

I’ll wear a white shirt with pearl buttons.

The sky will be a pale blue.

And she’ll come to me, and our eyes will be opened.

Yes, I’ll wear a white shirt with pearl buttons.

The sky will be a pale blue.

And she’ll come to me, and our eyes will be opened.

BLACK COAT & TAILS (IF LOOKS COULD KILL)

Like a magician, he's up to his old tricks,
another show, another fix.
His heart's in a box
bound by a thousand and one locks.
His world is whirling and about to tilt.
The knives are in all the way to the hilt.
He'd let them go but he doesn't know how.
If looks could kill, he'd be a ghost by now...

From the shadows, he calls out your name.
Just one shot and you're back in the game.
Your heart's in a box
bound by a thousand and one locks.
Your world is whirling and about to tilt.
The knives are in all the way to the hilt.
You'd let them go but you don't know how.
If looks could kill, you'd be a ghost by now...

Transformation

We drift out into a world of clouds  

and unending water, 

of ghosts 

that hover and then descend, 

and with each breath 

enter into us, 

until there is nothing left to name 

or to remember, 

until there are no more spells 

left to be broken.

  







         

THE BLUE POET

DOWNLOAD THE BLUE POET PDF formatted screenplay

THE BLUE POET  (WGAw #984754) 

Haunted by the ghosts of the past, a young musician turns to drugs.

Set in the mid seventies (except for flashbacks from the Kennedy era), and in the spirit of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and ORDINARY PEOPLE, THE BLUE POET tells the story of a young man haunted by both the Kennedy assassination & the death of his own father in a drunken car crash.

SYNOPSIS: JESSE SANDSTROM, 17, sings and plays bass for one of the most promising rock bands in the Twin Cities (with the help of his best friend FRANKIE O'REILLY on guitar). But Jesse wants to leave the band behind and study art in Paris. Jesse's mother, MARY SANDSTROM, 37, tells Jesse they do not have the money to send Jesse to Paris. However Jesse's musician grandfather, GUS CHRISTIANS, 60s, encourages Jesse to apply. But just as Jesse sends in his application, his sister, ANNIE SANDSTROM, 14, is diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

At Saint Mary's hospital in Saint Paul, Jesse meets SISTER MARY FRANCIS and is asked to play at the Christmas party in the children's ward. There Annie (completely bald after her chemo treatments) sings and plays on piano a hilarious version of "A Natural Woman"; and Jesse performs a touching rendition of "Tiny Dancer" with the help of a frail, leukemia patient, SARAH, 8.

After a gig at a ski resort overlooking Lake Superior, Jesse engages in a night of sex and drugs with an older couple, VAL and BRIAN, and shoots heroin for the first time. When Frankie slips up and tells their mutual friend, RENEE, about Jesse's night with Val and Brian (not realizing that Renee and Jesse are now together), Jesse quits the band.

As Annie's illness progresses, so does Jesse's addiction to heroin. In the hospital near death Annie gives Jesse a rosary and asks him to pray with her. Jesse says nothing but cannot bring himself to pray. After Annie's funeral Jesse turns, once again, to drugs and overdoses on Annie's leftover morphine. He has visions of his dead father. As he lays unconscious on the floor, Jesse in a dream state converses with THE BLUE POET, a name he gave Robert Frost when as a boy he watched the Kennedy inaugural in a darkened basement and the flickering images on the screen turned the room blue.

Mary Sandstrom discovers Jesse near death and calls an ambulance..

Sister Mary Francis visits Jesse in the hospital after the overdose and emphasizes the importance of his artistic vocation and encourages him to seek treatment for his problem with drugs.

After treatment, Mary Sandstrom finds Jesse's accepted application & makes arrangements for Jesse to study in Paris.

And still later: a Minneapolis nightclub. The crowd calls out for an encore. Faces stare expectantly at the stage. Jesse reconciled with his former bandmates comes on stage. The crowd CHEERS...

Flash forward to the Paris Metro. Jesse enters the Metro. He is startled by an approaching train, sparks shooting off from the base of the train as it emerges from the dark tunnel. Jesse makes his way to Notre Dame (the rosary Annie gave him in his hand). Jesse puts the rosary around his neck as he enters Notre Dame.

GHOSTS IN WINTER

What do I care about Prozac and depression, price controls

and the unemployment rate (blue voices in a dark room),

while a lost girl wades through drifts and drifts of Minnesota snow
and apparitions huddle high above the frozen river?

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Once again I've come back to the hills
of a half forgotten country, back to the beginning

of stones and hope, and back to where 
I once stood transfixed before the figure of a woman

even as the particles of her breath
hovered and then vanished into the cold, winter air.

OF WINTER & WARS

(for Robert Bly)

This is a country of winter

Of old men and wars

And ghosts defaced in a white mist
Of trees with long black limbs
And snow banks
Piled up high against the back of the house

Here the sky is a kind of blanket
Or shroud
For the dead
And daylight is like a secret
Hidden
In a book that no one has yet to open

THE EIGHTH OF DECEMBER (THE DEATH OF JOHN LENNON)

It was the eighth of December.
This is what I remember.
This is what they said:
John Lennon had been shot.
John Lennon was dead.

It could have been George C Scott.
It could have been anyone.
But a psycho with a gun
had snuffed out the sun.
Yoko took to her bed.
John Lennon was dead.

It was the eighth of December
That is what they said.
This is what I remember:
John Lennon had been shot.
John Lennon was dead.

Images of Assisi & other works by Mark Balma

Mark Balma is currently creating paintings in an early renaissance technique pioneered by Leonardo da Vinci. The oil paintings are composed of many layers of hand-ground paint superimposed upon each other with small brush strokes in a secret essential oil and resin mixture. The result is an exceptional depth and richness of color that complements the soul and character of the painting. Balma also creates works in tempera, watercolor, and fresco. His mastery of drawing is expressed in etchings, stone lithography, and drawings in pencil, ink, and red chalk. His portraiture includes children, adults, family groups, and official portraits for business and government. Considered a metaphysical realist, he paints beyond the reality of the subject toward the spiritual. Born in Wichita, Kansas in 1957, Balma studied in the academy tradition at Atelier Lack in Minneapolis before moving to Italy at age 19 to continue his studies with Maestro Pietro Annigoni in Florence. He has maintained studios in Italy, London, and Minnesota. His works have been exhibited in Europe and America and are held in both private and public collections.

"Faith is taking the first step even when you cannot see the whole staircase"

Martin Luther King Jr.


Images of Assisi


These stone etchings are printed by hand in small editions, signed and numbered by the artist. Each of these images were carefully studied directly in Assisi by Mark Balma, capturing the subtle spirit of the Franciscan message. Complete set of the three stone lithographs $3,000 (only a few sets remaining)

Mark and I first became friends in junior high school (together we started a Rock & Roll band). As Mark developed as an artist, I became interested in poetry and art history. I was lucky to continue my study of art history in Rome, Italy at the age of 19.

If you would like to purchase a set of these lithographs, send me an email at billybluejay@gmail.com and I will be happy to get you in touch directly with Mark Balma.



Thanks, Will James                                           



Assisi Grotto
Stone Lithograph
11 x 14 inches

1. 
   

Ascending- St Chiara
Stone Lithograph 22 x 30 inches

Doorway San Pietro

Stone Lithograph

11 x 14 inches

Mark's latest fresco in progress: ARAB SPRING 

Aung San Suu Kyi . Her portrait in fresco.

Christmas Jam (The Super Santa Song)

Merry Christmas, pretty baby.
How you doin'? Hope you're doin' fine.
Just thought I'd drop you a line.
I've been so blue
without you,
like walking around with just one shoe.


Merry Christmas, pretty baby.
How do you do?
Hope you're doin' fine.
Got my Santa suit on the line.
My Super Santa is going to visit you.
My Super Santa got a present for you.


Merry Christmas, pretty baby.
I've been so blue
without you
like walking around with a bad case of the flu.
Hope you're doing alright,
tonight.


Merry Christmas, pretty baby.
How you doin'? Hope you're doin' fine.
Just thought I'd drop you a line.
I've been true
just to you.
Merry Christmas, pretty baby.

2 POEMS WRITTEN IN PARIS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR IN IRAQ

MARCH 2003 

Gusts of wind blow across the beach and with just one
final turn, the surf crashes against the shore.
They are crossing over now, breaking through the green waves
and white foam like flying fish glittering in the sun.
Death carries a long knife, there are shadows behind his eyes.

The Pentagon insists that once Iraq is disarmed,
the sanctions will come to an end.
But the dead will not be paroled from their prison cells
and their severed limbs will not grow back.
Death carries a long knife, there are shadows behind his eyes.



HIGH CONDITION (RED)

Air raid sirens sound as clouds of smoke billow over Baghdad;
and so it has begun, so that even now as flowers bloom
in pink, white and violet clusters, F/A 18 Hornets take off

from dark blue strips in the Mediterranean, their engines
emitting vapor trails that drift and then vanish into the desert sky;
and even now as women in white march in Jakarta

and protesters stand outside the Houses of Parliament in London,
a mother discovers the torso of her missing child
and blue on blue fire kills another marine.

FOR AGNES AT THE CAFÉ

She didn’t like them was all she could say.

She didn’t like poetry

in general and didn’t like my poems in particular.

But why had she been so honest?

That was what I wanted to know.

I tried to tell her that I was reaching

for something unknown,

that I wanted to float up

out of my body

and out of the room and touch the heavens;

and then I remembered a moment in a café,

weeks before, so clear to me now,

when she looked away,

a crease appearing on her forehead

as she frowned,

as if I were speaking in tongues

or skywriting

with just a finger while flying in the dark.

Nuit Blanche

The portrait of a man in electric blue,
a torso actually,

hangs there on the wall;
and further down

the depiction of an electric chair
dangles in pink, red and violet pastels.

(Oh how the shadows cry,
the voices of the dead.)

And turning now we realize too late
that we have passed through

an opened door
into a forgotten room

where no one ever sleeps
and no one ever leaves.        

THE WAVES AT MIDNIGHT

I sleep with books of poetry in my bed.
There's an ocean at my door.
I hear the hum of voices in my head.

The waves at midnight are dark and blue.
I can't remember anything anymore.
I've swum out so far, I've lost sight of the shore.

The West Memphis Three (Finally Free)

The West Memphis Three (Finally Free)
*click on link above

A mother had a premonition.
A mother had the chills.
Three drowned boys
in the Robin Hood Hills.
No more games, no more toys
for the boys
from the Robin Hood Hills.

A mother had a premonition.
A mother had the chills.
One had a fractured skull, three drowned boys
in the Robin Hood Hills.

The police targeted a teen.
A false confession
placed him at the scene.
They said he wore black.
They said his life was off track.
They said his art was obscene.

No evidence, no DNA, but a jury
found him guilty
of killing the boys
in the Robin Hood Hills.

He wanted to sleep.
He wanted to go.
But he was in too deep
there on death row.

After eighteen years, he was freed.
After eighteen years, the West Memphis three
are finally free.

A mother had a premonition.
A mother had the chills.
Three drowned boys
in the Robin Hood Hills.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IN TV HEAVEN

The flashbulbs are so much brighter here.
After all, this is the land of laugh tracks,

big screen TVs and Cadillacs,
where games shows are broadcast twenty-four hours
a day and everyone is a winner. The thousand pound man
and the five hundred pound mom, can Doctor Phil save them?

Her bodyguard said her eyes were fixed and dilated.
The coroner ruled that a combination of pills
and chloral hydrate killed her.
Rumor has it that Andy Warhol
has already commissioned her portrait.
But Einstein wants nothing to do with it.

We open ourselves up to darkness but not to love.
Our heads are getting bigger everyday
while our legs are shrinking from disuse.
Did OJ commit armed robbery in Las Vegas?
Do flying saucers really exist? Can America be saved?
Stay tuned. 

ABOVE DAM SQUARE

Above the heroin and the whores, the sex shops
and the Van Goghs, 
we float high atop a Ferris wheel

on brilliant waves of pink, blue and neon orange; 
and breathless 

we hover there, rising, but longing to descend.

TOO LONG IN THE WIND

When I open the book of my failures, 

I know that I have lived too long with my secrets, 

with words that no one else ever hears, 

and I’m left with a longing 

and a kind of emptiness seemingly as big 

and blank as the space between the stars.

BLACK COAT & TAILS

Like a magician, he's up to his old tricks.
Another show, another fix.
His heart's in a box
bound by a thousand and one locks.
His world is whirling and about to tilt.
The knives are in all the way to the hilt.
He'd let them go but he doesn't know how.
If looks could kill, he'd be a ghost by now...

From the shadows, he calls out your name.
Just one shot and you're back in the game.
Your heart's in a box
bound by a thousand and one locks.
Your world is whirling and about to tilt.
The knives are in all the way to the hilt.
You'd let them go but you don't know how.
If looks could kill, you'd be a ghost by now...

True story of an incident near Chateau de Vincennes with the daughter of a Chinese opera star

She hovered around me for hours in the rain
talking about heaven and God 

and apparitions and signs; and after that, 
she took off her wet, black stockings 

in the bathroom of a café and then reappeared
without them as if no one would ever notice.