Gather Up the Horses

 C EM C EM AM EM AM EM C EM C EM

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.

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.

Teach me how to fly before I die.

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ISBN #:   978-1-312-32519-7

Copyright © 2014 Will James

Contents

The Emperor’s New Clothes
Peachland in Winter
Mister Minnesota
Regarding Roger
Murmurs of the Heart

For Rosalie

Andy Warhol made movies of folks doing nothing. George Costanza, in the comedy “Seinfeld”, tried to persuade NBC to make a TV show about nothing. As much as I like “Seinfeld” and Andy Warhol, this journal won’t be about nothing. I won’t try to make something out of nothing. I will try to focus on the turning points, the moments of heartbreak and high drama (at least as they seemed to me). Not that I won’t engage in some navel gazing but I will attempt to cut away the rind, and get to the juice. Many things will be left out. In no way will this journal be an all inclusive representation of the events in my life. It will be more of a series of vignettes, incidents, stories and poems. Memory is a funny thing. It is not an event in itself but the fragmentary replication of an event, made of fleeting impressions, feelings and images. It cannot be weighed or measured. It is dependent on us, on our brains, on human consciousness. In the end, memory is a kind of fiction, an illusion, a magician’s trick, where the past is revived and pulled out of a hat.

On French TV, I once saw an interview with an American actor who used the expression “12 step program” instead of AA to protect his anonymity. In subtitles this was translated as Alcoholics Anonymous. The American actor did not break his anonymity, the translator did. While I will refrain from using last names (including my own), those referenced may recognize themselves. They may be wrong, or not. So be it. Of course, as the details of my life emerge in these pages the possibility of who I really am will become narrower. Then again, I may be making all of this story up or at least parts of it. Half remembered conversations certainly will become fictionalized. One cannot experience an event like God and see and remember all things. What happened decades ago flashes back to us in an instant, but it is not reality. Reality is long gone. Maybe the past is out there somewhere in an alternative universe, but access to it is uncertain. It seems to be locked away in a house with very few windows (where we can peer in and glimpse its inner secrets). It is in the realm of ghosts, the realm of dreams; it is in a far off country that one only hears rumors about (and no one really knows if any of those stories are true); it is in another world.

Folks whose names I have forgotten will be given new names; in more than a few cases, I will intentionally change even the first names of those who were once close to me.

We miss much of what goes on around us. In writing this, things may become clearer to me. I may discover things that have been buried, repressed, forgotten. So we will take this journey together. We will see what we can see.

                   

Murmurs of the Heart

The vampires were closing in. No, this isn't the retelling of a B movie but a portrait of my state of mind. Every night I’d fall into an abyss and in the morning I’d wake up with the shakes and a tubercular cough (the result of chain smoking cigarettes and pot).
“Did you see her?” I called out to Rosalie from across the room.

“Who?”

“The woman, the ghost standing right next to me.”

“Not this time.”

I downed a large tumbler of white wine and lit a joint, took a puff and handed it to Rosalie.

“We have to get out of here.”

“Where will we go, Billy?”

“To Terrell.”

“How?”

“We’ll go to work for Bob. We’ll get an advance.”

Rosalie and I met at the same fly by night company—one that I helped form. In 1982, the TV show Dallas was popular and I’d hooked up with a group of ex commodities brokers (all alcoholics and addicts themselves) peddling (telemarketing) oil and gas projects to investors across the country. Originally Rosalie hooked up with the president of the company. Since he had an ex wife and a teenage son who often stayed with him, Rosalie moved in with me. We slept together that first night. I was twenty five, she was thirty nine. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever known. She had short blonde hair, was five foot tall and weighed less than a hundred pounds and drank a fifth of scotch daily.

On New Year’s Eve we’d gone out with Jack (one of our associates) in his black Lincoln Continental. Jack had killed one man and severed the legs of another while driving drunk in that same car six months before. When Jack became too drunk, Rosalie and I took turns driving. But we were equally drunk, equally insane. I could not even sit on a bar stool without falling over much less drive a car.

Yes the vampires were closing in. But the darkness came from a sickness within and leaving town would not change that.

                               *  *   *   *

Rosalie and I did make our escape to Terrell, Texas (a small town just outside of Dallas). We lived in a farmhouse in a rustic setting. We drank constantly. For a time, Rosalie’s mother and nephew moved in with us. This was a disaster—but one that led ultimately to my sobriety. My family suggested to Rosalie that I be locked up in Terrell State Hospital. This frightened me. One morning, after Rosalie had a few drinks she called the number of a married couple who were in recovery. We met with them and began attending recovery meetings. Rosalie relapsed after thirty days of sobriety and left me.

Soon after this, I heard one of my oldest friends in Dallas had been killed in a drunken motorcycle accident. I met Pat when I was eighteen and a freshman in college. Pat was five years older than me and was pursuing an MFA in art. He was a musician and a fabulous artist. We were great drinking buddies. I saw Pat buried when I was forty five days sober. I believe he has been with me on my journey of recovery, one that we have taken together in spirit.

As I write these words, I realize how blessed I am; how blessed I am to have gone over thirty years without drinking any booze, or smoking any pot, snorting any coke or shooting any dope, or taking any kind of mind altering drugs. I'm down to aspirin and caffeine. And that is a miracle. I was once a three pack a day smoker—that too ended over twenty five years ago. I am so lucky and so blessed.

                              *   *    *   *

Murmurs of the Heart (for Rosalie)

Together we drank fire and walked
on waves of guilt.
We spoke the language of the drowned.

At night, I could hear the murmur
of her heart,
and feel her breath on my neck.

She was so small and so pretty.

Asleep, she dreamt of a prince 

and a white wedding gown.

While still a child, she offered her virginity to Christ

but her father took it in a drunken stupor

and left a hole in her psyche

she would never fill.

She entered the convent but never took her vows.

She drank fire and walked
on waves of guilt.

She spoke the language of the drowned.

She made the call that saved my life.

Neverland

Variations on the Man with the Blue Guitar

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"The strings are cold on the blue guitar" Wallace Stevens

1

A boy blew out a tune on a toy whistle.

The moon heard it echo. The wind heard it cry.

The clouds changed its sound.

In another country, it fell from the sky.

Unnoticed, it fell to the ground.

There are words only heard in the dark.

There are stories only told to strangers.

We dance to radio signals warbling in the air. 

We change our faces daily.

We turn the world over. We sleep when we can.

2

They wear masks of tin; they glitter in the sun.

Their rockets blaze; they build warheads by the ton.

They talk of peace but it never comes.

A cloud descends, the lies resume.

Their minds are empty; their hearts are blank.

We walk and stumble along a darkened wall.

We hear a whistle. We hear a call.

But we can't be sure. There are so many before us,

so many bodies pushing and shoving,

hordes of them. We become confused. We fall.

3

The boy adored the blue guitar.

He made a kind of shrine.

He bathed in the light of that star.

The world glistened and shined.

He was born again when he heard the blue guitar.

They are flying drones way up high

(UFOs whiz around in the dark).

A robot pushes a button and lives vanish.

Out here in the white sands of the desert,

after the blast, the dead disembark.

4

At midnight, the world turned to stone;

and with it, the human head was reduced to bone.

The mountains turned purple, the sky turned gray.

Rivers and oceans froze, the land filled with snow.

The world went to sleep; the world turned to stone.

Architects silently put their tools away.

The shape of things had become an empty hole.

The boy feared his dreams might stop, his vision fade.

The boy feared he would turn to stone.

The boy feared he would be reduced to bone.

5

In his mind, the boy made a shadow box

of all the things he had known and seen.

He made a shadow box of violet, blue and green.

He remembered oceans, clouds and ponds.

He remembered all the things he had known and seen.

An X marked the houses of the dead.

Bloated bodies floated down Canal Street.

The Superdome was in total darkness.

The lights were out; there was no turning back.

The boy painted his fingernails black.

6

Folks waved white flags from rooftops.

The president did a flyover.

He kept his distance, his view was blurred.

Only Kafka could invent something so absurd.

A man went up into the clouds.

The man traversed an ocean for love.

He could have been an astronaut, he was so far gone.

He was lost in the air.

He whirled and tumbled and when he came down,

his wife was not there.

7

The man examined the clues.

The man had a bad case of the blues.

The man made a trip to the Pale Horse Tattoo

parlor. He wanted to commemorate 

his years of clandestine service 

in the company of shadows,

when Peter Lorre was his avatar and guide,

when the world was dark and blue.

The man heard the thunder roar.

The man was weary of war.

8

Children are gathering in the dark.

An idea forms and we begin to bloom,

almost invisibly but not quite.

Think of the resurrection as a kind

of second chance, as a kind of blossoming.

Some died by fire, some died in a blast.

Some vanished like a vapor, some died in a crash.

We let go of our secrets

but our voices seem strange.

We must move beyond this phantom feeling.

9

History has abandoned us.

The old world fades but the ruins remain.

We breathe in its dust and it changes us.

We have no need of sleep.

We bloom like flowers in the night.

We know what it is like to shiver in the cold.

We know what it is like to stumble and fall.

But our eyes were opened. We heard the call.

We followed the light of a distant star.

We heard the sound of the blue guitar.

10

A boy blew out a tune on a toy whistle.

The moon heard it echo. Constellations heard it cry.

On another planet, it fell from the sky.

The clouds changed its sound.

Unnoticed, it fell to the ground.

There are words only heard in the dark.

There are stories only told to strangers.

We dance to radio signals warbling in the air.

We fly by the light of a nameless star.

We dance to the sound of the blue guitar.

Blue 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 ride.
Carry me across the river to the other side.
Carry me across the river.

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.

*Gather up the horses and 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.

*voice of Eurydice

Monsters

They once wore hoods over their heads
so no one would know
who they really were.
Their rituals were practiced in the dark.
Now they act out in the daylight.
A plane goes down in the Ukraine.
Troops line the border.
Villages burn.
 

Chemical weapons drop from the sky.
Children are bombed in Gaza.
A drone kills a reporter in Iraq.
The innocent are tortured.
But no one is brought to trial.
They make warplanes and missiles.
They declare this to be
in everyone's interest.

A baby is dissected beneath the glare
of surgical lights; its organs sold.
They make laws that allow the killing to go on.
(Even Doctor Frankenstein sought to create life not to destroy it.)
They make speeches and raise funds.
They run for office. They often win.
They are hard to stop.
They rule the world

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

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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?