Song of an Old Bluesman

I rode bulls and water-skied with Lightning Hopkins

(His women wore pistols around their waists)

I sang “Purple Rain” in an empty bar

Beneath the flash of blue and red lights

I’ve bent notes on a six string guitar

I’ve made the end of a bottleneck cry

I’ve done time in the caverns of my mind

I’ve faced the throne of death

And looked it in the eye

Long ago, I launched a kite into the sky

It was held up by a big wind and tugged at my hand

It ran out of string and I watched it go

Reverie (While Listening To Miles Davis)

We master our own illusions.
We talk in code to ourselves.
We hide our faces.

We put our armor on in the dark.
We don’t waste our time with mirrors.
Instead we wander within the silver linings of our own reverie. 

A child plays with a purple dinosaur in a sandbox;
he imagines worlds from long ago
(now vanished if they ever existed at all).
 
We hear a voice.
It is our own.
We no longer sleep with the dead.

The night makes everything whole again.
The stars peek out at us from behind a curtain.
They see us before we see them.

For BB King

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(for Riley B. King)

He heard the wail of a train

He heard the sound of the rain.

He heard his mother cry:

“Blues Boy, why do you roam

so far from your home?”

With dust in his eyes,

he looked up at the sky:
“I can tell you only this.
I’ll find my way to Heaven.

I’ll build a bridge to bliss.”
Blues Boy, why do you roam

so far from your home?

One day, illness and age

carried him away.

With sleep in his eyes,

he looked up at the sky:
“I can tell you only this.
I’ll find my way to Heaven.

I’ll build a bridge to bliss.”
Blues Boy, why do you roam

so far from your home?

I can say only this.

You made your way to Heaven.

You built a bridge to bliss.

The Waters of Galilee

LISTEN HERE

There are those that can see in the dark,

that can breathe beneath the ocean’s waves,

that can fly above the clouds.

They are not birds. They are not fish.

They are like us 
(but move about the world unseen).

They talk to us while we sleep.

What is it that we have forgotten?

What is it that we see in the dark?

Can we breathe beneath the ocean’s waves?

Can we fly above the clouds?
Can we walk on the waters of Galilee? 

UFOs Over Hiroshima

I saw a spaceman in the park.

I saw UFOs in the dark.

I saw refugees on TV.

I saw the vapor trail of a fighter jet cross the sky.

I heard the wail of a mother cry.

There are missiles hidden in the west.

There are missiles hidden in the east.

I saw mankind buried in the belly of a beast.

I saw a spaceman in the dark.

I saw a homeless man in the park.

I saw refugees in the street. I saw UFOs on TV.

I saw the vapor trail of a fighter jet cross the sky.

I heard the wail of a mother cry.

There are missiles hidden in the west.

There are missiles hidden in the east.

I saw mankind buried in the belly of a beast.

We Do The Zombie Shuffle & Dance

The TV drones on, we watch in a trance.

We do the zombie shuffle and dance.

Blue and pink lights flash across the screen.

Reporters pontificate at the scene.

After we saw Lee Harvey Oswald shot on live TV,

there was no turning back.

Our old world had gone black.

Our memories have been blown away.

What story are we buying today?

The Boston bomber is on the loose.

Another five thousand dead in Syria, 

there’ll be no truce.

There are no umpires dressed in black.

There is no turning back.

The TV drones on, we watch in a trance.

We do the zombie shuffle and dance.

In The Belly Of A Beast

listen here

I saw a spaceman in the park.

I saw UFOs in the dark.

I saw refugees on TV.

I saw the vapor trail of a fighter jet cross the sky.

I heard the wail of a mother cry.

There are missiles hidden in the west.

There are missiles hidden in the east.

I saw mankind buried in the belly of a beast.

I saw a spaceman in the dark.

I saw a homeless man in the park.

I saw refugees in the street.

I saw UFOs on TV.

I saw the vapor trail of a fighter jet cross the sky.

I heard the wail of a mother cry.

There are missiles hidden in the west.

There are missiles hidden in the east.
I saw mankind buried in the belly of a beast.

A Vanishing Act

A Vanishing Act

We exist in ruins, in the dust.

An eye blinks and the world goes black.

What once could be recovered 
has now vanished.

Gaza is a prison camp, an open hole beneath the stars.

Children play in the rubble.

Isis bulldozes the ancient city of Nimrud;

its stone panels have been defaced,

the walls of its ancient palace crushed
(a human head
is severed from the body of a winged bull).

The ocean fills with plastic bottles

that some day will return to us; their labels gone, 
the messages inside lost.

Teach Me How To Fly Before I Die

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Teach me how to fly before I die.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

She Walked In From The Hills

Section 1 
| C#m#5    | B6 (Abm) | A6     | %     | 
| C#m#5    | B6 (Abm) | A6     | %     | 
| C#m#5    | B6 (Abm) | A6     | %     | 
| C#m#5    | Ebm6     | A6/E  C#sus4#9 | 
|B13 Abm7#5| AMAJ7    |  %     | 

Section 2 
Except for the 1st bar, each chord is anticipated 
by a half note 
| Dbm7     | A        | E      | Bsus4 | 

Section 3 
| Am9      | Abm#5    | F#m#5  | %     | 

Outro on Dbm9 

She walked in from the hills
wearing blue jeans with frills.
She sang a song in a broken voice.
It was the only one she had.
She had no choice.
Some say she took pills
to kill the pain.
She was a stranger here, no one knew her name.
There was beauty in her eyes.
There was a wound she could not hide.
Her hair had a touch of gray.
There were lines in her face.
She sang a song in a broken voice.
It was the only one she had.
She had no choice.
She walked in from the hills
wearing blue jeans with frills.
She sang a song in a broken voice.
It was the only one she had.
She had no choice.
She was a stranger here, no one knew her name.
There was beauty in her eyes.
There was a wound she could not hide.
Her hair had a touch of gray.
There were lines in her face.
She walked in from the hills
wearing blue jeans with frills.
She sang a song in a broken voice.
It was the only one she had.
She had no choice.

On A Horse Made of Snow

If this was the last word you ever heard
Would you give it back?
If this was the last song ever sung
Would you let it go?

Once there was a princess
Who rode on a horse made of snow
She searched for a lost dove
She searched for love

If this was the last song ever sung
Would you let it go?
If this was the last word you ever heard
Would you give it back?

Once there was a man who wore a black mask
He had a dark past
If this was the last word you ever heard
Would you give it back?

If this was the last song ever sung
Would you let it go?
If I took off the mask
Would you take me back?

If I told you the truth
Would you let me go?
Once there was a princess
Who rode on a horse made of snow

If this was the last song ever sung
Would you let it go?
If I took off the mask
Would you take me back?

Gather Up The Horses

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Teach me how to fly before I die.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

*Refrain of Eurydice

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river and let me be your bride.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Carry me across the water to the other side.

Carry me across the water and let me be your bride.

Carry me across the water.

Rumors of War

He sang a tune or two in a one man band

then hopped a train to a distant and nameless land.

And in a boxcar he heard someone say,

'You can't take back what you never gave away'.

No you can’t take back what you never gave away.

There are rumors of war; there are holes in the sky.

The dead line the roads but no one hears them cry.

The living are throwing stones into an empty well.

Their houses are bare; they have nothing left to sell.

I hum along to a song that I know and understand

as I trudge toward that distant and nameless land.

And in the darkness I hear someone say,

'You can't take back what you never gave away'.
No you can’t take back what you never gave away.

There are rumors of war; there are holes in the sky.

The dead line the roads but no one hears them cry. 

China is Sending Rockets to the Moon

We lost the sun.

We lost the moon.

We forgot the words.

We forgot the tune.

Out here in the cold

We do what we’re told

We were two lemons on a train.

I followed her out into the rain.

She would laugh and say,

'Have you heard the latest news?

China is sending rockets to the moon.'

There are clouds of dust on Mars.
There are mountains on the moon.

We forgot the words.

We forgot the tune.

Out here in the cold

We do what we’re told

We were two lemons on a train.

I followed her out into the rain.

She would laugh and say,

'Have you heard the latest news?

China is sending rockets to the moon.'

She would laugh and say,

'Have you heard the latest news?

China is sending rockets to the moon.'

Pat

He worked for a year on the floor of a foundry
In Erie Pennsylvania to pay for his future studies
His lungs blackened with soot
After work
At night he made charcoal copies of works
By Rembrandt and Degas

While his own paintings were utterly modern
Abstract made up of grids and parts of unknown machines
Hidden beneath the shapes of other unknowable things
As the trees turn white and pink and blossom
Outside my window
I think of Pat and the girls

I longed for so long ago   I would fall for them
Imagine being with them
But Pat would sleep with them
He was lucky
He was charming
At Madonna Hall   our Honda motorcycles

Sat side by side   I was a freshman
He was a grad student
We drank grapefruit juice
And Jack Daniels and played guitar
We listened to songs he recorded
On a reel-to-reel tape machine

One had the most haunting refrain
Written by a folk singer
Whose songs
Would later make one woman a country superstar
“Dancer  dancer  there on the floor 
Dance until you can dance no more”

The song was about an addict
A stripper and part-time hooker
But we knew the song was about us
And our addiction   Pat did not like illicit drugs
Whiskey was his mistress
Whiskey was his jailer

Once after shooting up speed and coke
I showed him my track marks
The bruises of my infidelity to booze
He shook his head in disbelief and scorn
He often told the story (I believe it to be true)
About meeting Jimi Hendrix

He conned his way backstage and into the dressing room
With a phony press pass
And an expensive camera around his neck
Everyone was stoned
Later during the performance as Jimi’s guitar
Ignited in waves of rage and sorrow

Jimi’s brother nudged Pat
And pointed
Toward the stage
Jimi's face was wet with tears
(His guitar and spirit fused)
Like his paintings  Pat was an enigma

A mystery closed off
Inaccessible
My mind flashes back to the first poem
I shared with him
He liked it and showed it off to everyone
I can't remember all of the lines

But I remember these
“The fire wheeling across the night
Is a siren bleeding into flight”
The poem then describes a body laid out
On the white sheets of a stretcher
It was an omen  a dark prophecy

Eight years later  Pat crashed his motorcycle
Into a tree just off a dirt road in the darkness
He was in a coma 

At Parkland hospital for two weeks 
I came late and missed the funeral Mass
But saw him lowered into the ground 

My sobriety had begun just six weeks before
As the trees turn white and pink and blossom
Outside my window
I think of Pat
I was lucky
I loved Pat

A Vanishing Act

We exist in ruins, in the dust.

An eye blinks

and the world goes black.

What once could be recovered has now vanished.

Gaza is a prison camp, an open hole beneath the stars.

Children play in the rubble.

Isis bulldozes the ancient city of Nimrud;

its stone panels 
have been defaced,

the walls of its ancient palace crushed
(a human head is severed from the body

of a winged bull).

The ocean fills with plastic bottles

that some day will return to us;

their labels gone, the messages inside lost.

The Black Madonna, Edith Stein & The Canticle of the Sun

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The Black Madonna

The candles burn all night, the fumes from the flames

darken her face, her eyes and skin.

The living see her in flashes of light but it is rare.

The dead are often surprised by her power,

her gravitational pull.

More will come, more will rise from their beds,

riding on ocean waves,

riding on clouds blown from the other side

of the known world.

Many are startled by her love.

She was once just a rumor, a fairy tale

told to children in nursery school.

The candles burn all night, the fumes from the flames

darken her face, her eyes and skin.

More will come, more will rise from their beds.

Will James

                   

The Woman in Dark Clothes

(for Edith Stein)

She adored Husserl, the depths of his thought.

But philosophy was not enough for her.

She became a student of love.

We breathe in the ashes of those burned

in the ovens of Auschwitz.

Flowers bloom out of the dust.

She walks with us in the darkness.

She is familiar with it.

She knows the way out.

They were not aliens from another planet.

They put their human faces on just like us

before they dropped Zyklon B in a hole

in the roof and waited for the bodies to fall.

That they shared in our common humanity

somehow made monsters of us all.

But why should we feel responsible

for their crimes,

when we barely recognize our own?

But the stain remains just the same.

It will take all of human history to recover

from that loss.

We breathe in the ashes of those burned

in the ovens of Auschwitz.

Flowers bloom out of the dust.

She walks with us in the darkness.

She is familiar with it.

She knows the way out.

Will James

“As a child of the Jewish people who, by the grace of God, for the past eleven years has also been a child of the Catholic Church, I dare to speak to the Father of Christianity about that which oppresses millions of Germans. For weeks we have seen deeds perpetrated in Germany which mock any sense of justice and humanity, not to mention love of neighbor. For years the leaders of National Socialism have been preaching hatred of the Jews...But the responsibility must fall, after all, on those who brought them to this point and it also falls on those who keep silent in the face of such happenings.

Everything that happened and continues to happen on a daily basis originates with a government that calls itself 'Christian.' For weeks not only Jews but also thousands of faithful Catholics in Germany, and, I believe, all over the world, have been waiting and hoping for the Church of Christ to raise its voice to put a stop to this abuse of Christ's name.” ―Edith Stein, Letter to Pope Pius XI (1933)

Letter to her Prioress at Carmel Echt

JM

Drente-Westerbork, Barracks 36, August 6, 1942

Dear Mother,

A Mother Superior from one of the convents arrived last evening with suitcases for her child and now offers to take some short letters along. Early tomorrow a transport leaves (Silesia or Czechoslovakia??).

What is most necessary: woolen stockings, two blankets. For Rosa all the warm underwear and whatever was in the laundry; for us both towels and wash cloths. Rosa also has no toothbrush, no Cross and no rosary. I would like the next volume of the breviary (so far I have been able to pray gloriously). Our identity cards, registration cards (as Jews), and ration cards.

A thousand thanks, greetings to all, Y.R.’s grateful child,

B.

(P.S.) 1 habit and aprons, 1 small veil.

The letter of August 6, 1942, was the final letter. On Friday, August 7, at the railway station in Schifferstadt, Germany, a woman in dark clothing inside a sealed transport hailed the stationmaster who was standing on the platform. She identified herself as Edith Stein and asked him to pass her greetings and a message to friends who lived there. The message was, “We are travelling east.”

The transport carrying Edith and Rosa Stein arrived at Auschwitz on Sunday, August 9. All the women and children as well as most of the men were immediately gassed. They were buried in a mass grave.

“It was Edith Stein’s complete calm and self-possession that marked her out from the rest of the prisoners. There was a spirit of indescribable misery in the camp; the new prisoners, especially, suffered from extreme anxiety. Edith Stein went among the women like an angel, comforting, helping, and consoling them. Many of the mothers were on the brink of insanity and had sat moaning for days, without giving any thought to their children. Edith Stein immediately set about taking care of these little ones. She washed them, combed their hair, and tried to make sure they were fed and cared for.”

                                        

Paterson die 26 Novembris, 1905

FR. EDUARDUS BLECKE, O.F.M.

Provinciae SS. Nominis Jesu Minister Provincialis

✠ PATRITIUS JOANNES

Archiep. Philadelphien.

Die 8 Decembris, 1905

TO THE

MOST REVEREND

Father Denis Schuler

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH SUCCESSOR OF

SAINT FRANCIS AS MINISTER GENERAL

OF THE FRIARS MINOR

                        THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN

Of the several "cantica in vulgari" which St. Francis composed, the only one that has come down to us, as far as is known, is the "Praises of the Creatures," or, as it is now more commonly called, "The Canticle of the Sun." Celano, who alludes to this laud, says of St. Francis that he was of the race of Ananias, Azarias and Misael, inviting all creatures with him to glorify Him who made them. 1 It is this side of St. Francis’ thoughts which finds expression in the Canticle; and in this particular order of ideas modern religious poetry has never produced anything comparable to this sublime improvisation into which have passed alike "all the wealth of the Saint's imagination and all the boldness of his genius." 2 Tradition tells us that Fra Pacifico had a hand in the embellishment of this laud, 3 about which a whole controversial literature has grown. 4 Some light may perhaps be thrown on this delicate question in the new critical edition of the Canticle promised by Luigi Suttina.

The Canticle appears to have been composed toward the close of the year 1225 in a poor little hut near the Monastery of San Damiano, whither St.

p. 151

[paragraph continues]Francis had retired on account of his infirmities, and, if we may believe the tradition which finds formal expression in theSpeculum Perfectionis, two strophes were subsequently added by the Saint to the original composition,—the eighth strophe upon the occasion of a feud between the Bishop and the magistrates of Assisi, and the ninth one when the Saint recognized the approach of death. M. Renan, with what Canon Knox Little 1 calls "his characteristic inaccuracy," asserts that we do not possess the Italian original of the Canticle, but have only an Italian translation from the Portuguese, which was in turn translated from the Spanish. 2 And yet the original Italian text exists, as M. Sabatier notes, 3 not only in numerous MSS. in Italy and France, notably in the Assisi MS. M 338 4 and at the Mazarin Library, 5 but also in the Book of the Conformities.

The Canticle is accepted as authentic by Professors Boehmer and Goetz in their recent works on the Opuscula of St. Francis. If it does not figure in the Quaracchi edition, the reason is that the Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Ævi, of which the Opuscula forms part, is confined to works written in Latin, and hence M. Sabatier's animadversions on the "theological preoccupations" of the Quaracchi editors are altogether aside the mark.

The text of the Canticle here translated is that of the Assisi MS. 338 (fol. 33), from which the version

p. 152

given in the Conformities (pars. 2, fol. ii) 1 differs only by some unimportant variants. The following is an attempt to render literally into English the naïf rhythm of the original Italian, which necessarily disappears in any formal rhymed translation:

HERE BEGIN THE PRAISES OF THE CREATURES WHICH THE BLESSED FRANCIS MADE TO THE PRAISE AND HONOR OF GOD WHILE HE WAS ILL AT ST. DAMIAN'S:

Most high, omnipotent, good Lord,

Praise, glory and honor and benediction all, are Thine.

To Thee alone do they belong, most High,

And there is no man fit to mention Thee.

Praise be to Thee, my Lord, with all Thy creatures,

Especially to my worshipful brother sun,

The which lights up the day, and through him dost Thou brightness give;

And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great;

Of Thee, most High, signification gives.

Praised be my Lord, for sister moon and for the stars,

In heaven Thou hast formed them clear and precious and fair. p. 153

Praised be my Lord for brother wind

And for the air and clouds and fair and every kind of weather,

By the which Thou givest to Thy creatures nourishment.

Praised be my Lord for sister water,

The which is greatly helpful and humble and precious and pure.

Praised be my Lord for brother fire,

By the which Thou lightest up the dark.

And fair is he and gay and mighty and strong.

Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth,

The which sustains and keeps us

And brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers bright.

Praised be my Lord for those who for Thy love forgive

And weakness bear and tribulation.

Blessed those who shall in peace endure,

For by Thee, most High, shall they be crowned.

Praised be my Lord for our sister, the bodily death,

From the which no living man can flee.

Woe to them who die in mortal sin;

Blessed those who shall find themselves in Thy most holy will,

For the second death shall do them no ill.

Praise ye and bless ye my Lord, and give Him thanks,

And be subject unto Him with great humility.