Wind
Wind, Wind, Blow Wind
I remember how I felt, silly bastard that I was,
that sleepy, dusty Jersey day, the third of June,
with a girlfriend way too smart and a case of who am I
that would follow me down all the years it's taken me to die.
Well, the street was real suburban
and the love was new and fine.
I thought I shone as much as her,
the way we'd walk and pose.
Her hair was blond and mine was drab,
an army khaki pink,
but to my heart the rage had come,
my eyes bled red-blue flames.
That sleepy way of walking
Europeans cannot learn
was all the comfort I could pull
from dry, hot summer air
and if I'd known how long I'd last,
I swear I'd'a' pulled the plug
on all that sort of fear I had
from never drinking blood.
Oh, summer love, oh, love of loss,
why did you cheat me so?
I gave you all the hope I had
to win the final round.
But now the only dainty thought
I have cannot be said.
Remember this, remember that,
but fight the bastards off:
They'll give you Marlon Brando eyes
and make you write a check.
And then I walked across the bridge,
although I hated town.
Some guy was selling horoscopes
of London falling down.
5jun04
© William Strangmeyer 2004
Translations
Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own
I saw the film on TV late at night and fell asleep holding Scarlett Johansson’s foot. but the dreams are thin. Are movie stars hard or soft? Maybe the women are hard and the men are soft. Desire thwarted often will then thwart the goofy, set-up roles as, each in turn, each season conquers each and those who lose would rather win. Have you ever felt the way some film would have you feel? And in maturity now? And one could ask a question of each wight or lover that one sees. You say that the desire never left the whole time you had that losing streak? I asked you a direct question and you answer me with a prologue, the prologue to a short story about a serial monogamist or a fisherman? I was asking about the desire to do the wrong thing, the suicide gene. If only we could step out of bounds and have the match called off for that. A mulligan is all I ask of your God, but then, again, we’re all three rather hopeless. You find the clues strewn about your life and pick them up in tisket baskets on the off chance that you can find a better past for yourself, but it is carved now and all the woods are filled with wolves and the connections tenuous.
12jan18
(c) William STRANGMEYER 2018
Certain Connections
I listen to minor-key music, ironic and plodding, sometimes coming down heavy on one gimpy leg with a rhythm like a motor or a card in the spokes, at home with Greek peasants or effete, snotty snobs, a joke for Italians or for Corsican clowns, all prepositions and conjunctions or one verb repeated, and you can’t dance to it ‘cause it goes too fast, mustard having a fuzzy reaction with hot sauce or horseradish and humming like a green-glow, apple-lacquered car but it’s ginger-candied and the prickly-pear she’s singing is the fuzziness I crave. AT THE RECITAL And then I don’t need my revenge and feel obliged to uphold no cause, even though she’s clothed up, I realize but do not see, and shod and tapping. © William Strangmeyer 2003 Grand Delusion "She said to me, 'Everything you do in life, Valdemar, you do to make me happy.'" "Oh, yes," the girl cried out, as if struck to the heart. "That is how they talk to us, that is what they believe about us." -Isak Dinesen Tempests Anecdotes of Destiny An artist knows an artist by the rings in their ears and the beautiful charmers they get for their sex or else by the ring in their nose that's tugged by a master you don't even know, for here in the West you're the product of food, the tripe of religions and the drip from TVs, the news from the government peg-boy. So just try now to sing what comes straight from your heart, if you have got a heart, but it sometimes takes guts and the ennui of bored housewives is a product of cash, and adoration of the public, Christmas tinsel on a tree, and I'll tell you what else isn't hallelujah: Fashion. 9dec00 © William Strangmeyer 2000 1'00" - Retro Writes: The Music by William Walrond Strangmeyer
Fevers of the Mind 