Crippled Wolf's inspiration

Over the past year, Crippled Wolf has been reclaiming Bob Dylan.

Back when he was a wannabe hippie back in the late 60s and early 70s, Crippled Wolf thought of Dylan as the radical leader of "the Revolution"—mainly because that's what the media kept saying.

However, from Sean Wilentz's excellent recent book, Bob Dylan in America, he has learned that Dylan himself hated and rejected that role.  In fact, until the mid-1980s, Dylan went to great lengths to "destroy" his own career.

So that the media and the fans would stop following him. So that they would stop asking him "What do the young generation want?"  So that he could get back to what he had always considered his true role: not as a minstrel for "the Revolution" by as a lover and re-inventor of the great traditions of American folk and blues.

Here's what Dylan wrote himself in his beautiful 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Volume One,  describing his youthful years in Minneapolis:

The Gregory Corso poem "Bomb" was more to the point and touched the spirit of the times better—a wasted world and totally mechanized—a lot of hustle and bustle—a lot of shelves to clean, boxes to stack. I wasn't going to pin my hopes on that. Creatively you couldn't do much with it.

I had already landed in a parallel universe, anyway, with more archaic principles and values; one where actions and virtues were old style and judgmental things came falling out on their heads. A culture of outlaw women, super thugs, demon lovers and gospel truths...streets and valleys, rich peaty swamps, with landowners and oilmen, Stagger Lee, Pretty Pollys and John Henrys—an invisible world that towered overhead with walls of gleaming corridors. It was all there and it was clear—ideal and God-fearing—but you had to go  find it....

Folk music was a reality of a more brilliant dimension. It exceeded all human understanding, and if it called out to you, you could disappear and be be sucked into it. I felt right at home in this mythical realm made up not with individuals so much as archetypes,...each rugged soul filled with natural knowing and inner wisdom. Each demanding a degree of respect.... Folk music was all I needed to exist.

Trouble was, there wasn't enough of it. It was out of date, had no proper connection to the actualities, the trends of the time. it was a huge story but hard to come across. (235-36)

  Earlier in Chronicles, Dylan explained how he went about re-inventing folk music:

What I usually did was start out with something, some kind of line written in stone and turn it with another line—make it add up to something else than it originally did. (228)

Currently, Crippled Wolf is listening to one album over and over, Oh, Mercy, Dylan's brilliant "come back" album from1989.

Here's Crippled Wolf's current favorite, a musically gorgeous song with shades of the late Lou Reed in its sound and delivery, yet with all the wryly ironic twists of Dylan's masterful poetry.

Most of the Time

Most of the time
I’m clear focused all around
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground
I can follow the path, I can read the signs
Stay right with it when the road unwinds
I can handle whatever I stumble upon
I don’t even notice she’s gone
Most of the time

Most of the time
It’s well understood
Most of the time
I wouldn’t change it if I could
I can make it all match up, I can hold my own
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone
I can survive, I can endure
And I don’t even think about her
Most of the time

Most of the time
My head is on straight
Most of the time
I’m strong enough not to hate
I don’t build up illusion ’til it makes me sick
I ain’t afraid of confusion no matter how thick
I can smile in the face of mankind
Don’t even remember what her lips felt like on mine
Most of the time

Most of the time
She ain’t even in my mind
I wouldn’t know her if I saw her
She’s that far behind
Most of the time
I can’t even be sure
If she was ever with me
Or if I was with her

Most of the time
I’m halfway content
Most of the time
I know exactly where it went
I don’t cheat on myself, I don’t run and hide
Hide from the feelings that are buried inside
I don’t compromise and I don’t pretend
I don’t even care if I ever see her again
Most of the time

Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music

Beautiful.

And so it is.

Blessèd Be,
Michael Bright Crow 

Don't know why I like this...

...but I do.

Chocolate Jesus

by Tom Waits
from the album Mule Variations (1999)
photograph by Richard Kalvar

I Dont go to church on Sunday
I Dont get down on my knees to pray
I Dont memorize the books of the bible
I got my own special way
Bit I know Jesus loves me
Maybe just a little bit more
I fall on my knees every Sunday
At zerelda lees candy store

Well its got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied

Well I dont want no Abba zabba
Dont want no almond joy
There aint nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well its the only thing
That can pick me up
Better than a cup of gold
See only a chocolate Jesus
Can satisfy my soul

(solo)
When the weather gets rough
And its whiskey in the shade
Its best to wrap your savior
Up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy
But thats ok
Pour him over ice cream
For a nice parfait

Well its got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me

Well its got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied

"The moon calls ever more fiercely"

To the Algonquin speakers of the various
nations, this was the Seed Moon. Indeed
in midMarch we stick the slightly shriveled
seeds of peas into the cold earth.

Soon it's time for spinach and arugula,
white and red radishes, lettuces, cabbage.
Soon the soil crumbles in the hands
rich, a little sticky like devil's food cake.



The hill is bright with herds of daffodils
little intense blue scillas a color the sky
won't offer for months, red emperor
tulips lolling open like satin mouths.

It gets cold at night but the sun controls
the afternoons. Woodpeckers drill
ratatat on the house to impress mates.
Goldfinches sport their new plumage.

This moon summons buds to swell,
blows pollen in drifts, sucks the sap
as well as the tides. Earth cracks
over sprouting seeds and the geese

fly ounder the moon at night honking
while traveling ducks rest in the pines.
This moon makes everything rise, open
in a headlong hungry rushy to mate.

—Marge Piercy, reprinted in The '13 Lunar Calendar

---

See Bill Moyers: Sounds of Poetry (1999), Poet Marge Piercy

Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012

On today's post of 3 Quarks Daily, I just learned that Adrienne Rich has died.

Here is an article in today's Los Angeles Times:

Adrienne Rich, a pioneering feminist poet and essayist who challenged what she considered to be the myths of the American dream, has died. She was 82.

When I was coming out in the mid-1970s, her poetry, and especially her book Of Woman Born, were pivotal in giving me a feminist perspective on my own gayness and on the gender roles of all men and women.

Now, as we all do, she has died.

3 Quarks Daily posted one of her most powerful poems, "To keep the death of the poet from her poems...."

And so it is.

Blessèd be,
Michael

"October's Bright Blue Weather"

Here in Jacksonville, the summer turned suddenly to fall on October 1st, with a drop from the 80s Friday afternoon to mornings in the 50s and days in the low 70s this weekend.

Lughnassah/Lammastide, around August 1st, usually signals the first hint of autumn for me, in the faintest of shifts of air and light. We just crossed equinox a week ago, and the season is now crisp.

Jim and I both had Saturday and Sunday off together for a change, so we planned a week's menu and shopped, and Chef James picked out a new recipe for me to cook this afternoon. Turned out to be easy, fun to do, and delicious.

It's from Cook's Country Lost Recipes 2010 Special Issue. It's called New England Boiled Dinner, corned beef with beets, red potatoes, carrots, pearl onions and cabbage.

I steamed the beet greens as a side, we added Boston brown bread, and we toasted each other—and the new season—with Samuel Adams Octoberfest.

Cheers!
Bright Crow

---

October's Bright Blue Weather
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.

Love and death

Love and death

Lest
we
know

silence
comes
between us

so the only
hint
of assurance

is
in eyes
or skin

will I go
where
you go?

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

---

Note: These words came fully formed when I awoke this morning, cuddling with Jim, from a strange and elaborate dream of Bob Dylan being courted by a young ruffian whose poetry had caught his attention. The melody of "Romance in Durango" was playing in my head.

The soul is such a mystery.

Bright Crow

After sorrow, joy

Here is something beautiful which my brother shared with me last year. I've just rediscovered the link.



And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

"Hana"

Hana
by Joni Mitchell, on Shine

Hana steps out of a storm
Into a stranger's warm, but
Hard-up kitchen.
She sees what must be done
So she takes off her coat
Rolls up her sleeves
And starts pitchin' in.

Hana has a special knack
For getting people back on the right track
'Cause she knows
They all matter
So she doesn't argue or flatter
She doesn't fight the slights
She takes it on the chin
Like a champ

Hana says when life's a drag
Don't cave in
Don't put up a white flag
Raise up
A white banner
In this manner-
Straighten your back
Dig in your heals
And get a good grip on your grief!


Hana says, "Don't get me wrong
This is no simple Sunday song
Where God or Jesus comes along
And they save ya."
You've got to be braver than that
You tackle the beast alone
With all its tenacious teeth!

Light the lamp.

© 2007; Crazy Crow Music

"Funny the way it is"

Funny The Way It Is

Lying in the park
On a beautiful day
Sunshine in the grass
And the children play
Sirens passing
Fire engine red
Someone's house is burning down
On a day like this

Evening comes
And we're hanging out
On the front step
And a car goes by
With the windows rolled down
That War song is playing
"Why Can't We Be Friends"
Someone is screaming and crying
In the apartment upstairs

Funny the way it is
If you think about it
Somebody's going hungry
Someone else is eating out
Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
Somebody's heart is broken
It becomes your favorite song

The way your mouth feels
In your lover's kiss
Like a pretty bird on a breeze
Or water to a fish
Bomb blast brings the building
Crashing to the floor
Hear the laughter
While the children play war

Funny the way it is
If you think about it
One kid walks ten miles to school
Another's droppin' out
Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
A soldier's last breath
His baby's being born

Standing on a bridge
Watch the water passing underneath
It must have been much harder
When there was no bridge just water
Now the world is small
Compared to how it used to be
With mountains and oceans and
Winters and rivers and stars

Cross the sky a jet plane
So far out of my reach
Is there someone up there
Looking down on me
Boy chase the bird
So close but every time
He never catch her
But he can't stop trying

Funny the way it is
If you think about it
One kid walks ten miles to school
Another's droppin' out
Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
Soldier's last breath
His baby's being born
Funny the way it is
Not right or wrong
Somebody's broken heart
Becomes your favorite song
Funny the way it is
If you think about it
One kid walks
Ten miles to school
Another's droppin' out

Standing on a bridge
Watch the water passing
Underneath
It must have been much harder
When there was no bridge
Just water
Now the world is small
Compared to how it used to be
With mountains and oceans
And winters and rivers and stars

—Dave Matthews Band
Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King

"Constant Craving"

Constant Craving
by K.D. Lang

Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

Constant craving
Has always been

Maybe a great magnet pulls
All souls towards truth
Or maybe it is life itself
That feels wisdom
To its youth

Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah ha
Constant craving
Has always been

Constant craving
Has always been
Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah ha
Constant craving
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been

"The Sky's Sheets"

The Sky's Sheets
by Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

When He touches me I clutch the sky's sheets,
the way other
lovers
do

the earth's weave
of clay.

Any real ecstasy is a sign
you are moving
in the right
direction,

don't let any prude tell
you otherwise.

—translated by Daniel Ladinsky
Love Poems from God:
Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
(contributed by Wendiferous)

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

"Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot"

Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot

When you're down and they're counting
When your secrets all found out
When your troubles take to mounting
When the map you have leads you to doubt
When there's no information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well
Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
He'll guide you well

When the doctors failed to heal you
When no medicine chest can make you well
When no counsel leads to comfort
When there are no more lies they can tell
No more useless information
And the compass spins
The compass spins between heaven and hell
Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
He'll guide you well

And your eyes turn towards the window pane
To the lights upon the hill
The distance seems so strange to you now
And the dark room seems so still

Let your pain be my sorrow
Let your tears be my tears too
Let your courage be my model
That the north you find will be true
When there's no more useless information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well
Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
Let your soul guide you
Let your soul guide you upon your way

—by Sting, on Mercury Falling

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

"Where the Shopkeeper Would Say"

"Where the Shopkeeper Would Say"
by Kabir (1440-1518)

I was
looking for that shop
where the shopkeeper would say,
"There is nothing of value in here."
I found it and did
not leave.
The richness of not wanting
wrote these
poems.

Blessèd Be.

Thanks to Wendiferous for sharing this.

"Blood Suckers From Hell"

"Blood Suckers From Hell"
by Jalaludin Rumi (1207-1273)

Rumi speaking to a crowd muses:

Watch out for those blood suckers from hell -
cause they're everywhere.

And the crowd wisely retorts:
"That sounds serious - what do they look like, any hints;
are they usually disguised?"

Rumi again: Yes, usually, they are awful tricky!

"How then to detect them?"

Well,
I have noticed
their eyes will narrow and their faces begin to squint
like prunes

if they hear good
poetry.

—Love Poems from God
Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
Daniel Ladinsky - Translator

Walhydra's friend Wendiferous found this in a book they both use.

*teehee*

Blesséd Thanksgiving

Look round our world; behold the chain of love.
Confirming all below and all above.
See plastic nature working to his end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endu'd
Press to one center still, the gen'ral good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again;
All forms that perish other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter born,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole;
One all-extending all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made beast in aid of man and man of beast;
All serv'd, all serving! nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.

—Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

And so it is.

Blesséd Be,
Michael Bright Crow

"The Creation of the Inaudible"

Walhydra's dear friend Wendiferous has shared a poem which needs to be passed on.

The Creation of the Inaudible
by Pattiann Rogers

Maybe no one can distinguish which voice
Is god’s voice sounding in a summer dusk
Because he calls with the same rising frequency,
The same rasp and rattling rustle the cicadas use
As they cling to the high leaves in the glowing
Dust of the oaks.

His exclamations might blend so precisely with the final
Crises of the swallows settling before dark
That no one will ever be able to say with certainty,
”That last long cry winging over the rooftop
Came from god.“

Breathy and low, the vibrations of his nightly
Incantations could easily be masked by the scarcely
Audible hush of the lakeline dealing with the rocky shore,
And when a thousand dry sheaths of rushes and thistles
Stiffen and shiver in an autumn wind, anyone can imagine
How quickly and irretrievably his whisper might be lost.

Someone faraway must be saying right now:
The only unique sound of his being
Is the spoken postulation of his unheard presence.

For even if he found the perfect chant this morning
And even if he played the perfect strings to accompany it,
Still, no one could be expected to know,
Because the blind click beetle flipping in midair,
And the slider turtle easing through the black iris bog,
And two savannah pines shedding dawn in staccato pieces
Of falling sun are already engaged in performing
The very same arrangement themselves.

Pattiann Rogers, “The Creation of the Inaudible” from Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by Pattiann Rogers.

Find this poem and more about Pattiann Rogers here.

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

"Summer Solstice, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka"

Summer Solstice,
Batticaloa, Sri Lanka

The war had turned inward until it resembled
suicide. The only soothing thing was water.
I passed the sentries, followed the surf out of sight.
I would sink into the elements, become simple.

Surf sounds like erasure, over and over.
I lay down and let go, the way you trust an animal.
When I opened my eyes, all down the strand
small crabs, the bright yellow of a crayon,

had come out onto the sand. Their numbers, scattered,
resembled the galactic spill and volume of the stars.
I, who had lain down alone, emptied,
waked at the center of ten thousand prayers.

Who would refuse such attention. I let it sweeten me
back into the universe. I was alive, in the midst

of great loving, which is all I've ever wanted.
The soldiers of both sides probably wanted just this.

—Marilyn Krysl,
quoted by Deborah Oak on her blog,branches up, roots down

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

"Lousy at math"

Blessings to Wendiferous for finding this one:

Lousy at Math

Once a group of thieves stole a rare diamond
larger than two goose eggs.

Its value could have easily bought three thousand horses
and three thousand acres of the most
fertile land in
Shiraz.

The thieves got drunk that night to celebrate their great haul,
but during the course of the evening the effects of the liquor,
and their mistrust of each other grew
to such an extent

they decided to divide the stone into pieces.
Of course then the Priceless became lost.

Most everyone is lousy at math and does that to God -
dissects the Indivisible One,

by thinking, by saying,
"This is my Beloved, he looks like this and acts like that,
how could that moron over there
really
be

God?"

—The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi Master
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

Hafiz, again

Walhydra was looking this morning for something she could use to comfort her brilliant brother and his wife and son, all of whom are going through major challenges.

She wasn't surprised to find it here:

You Were Brave in that Holy War

You have done well
In the contest of madness.

You were brave in that holy war.

You have all the honorable wounds
Of one who has tried to find love
Where the Beautiful Bird
Does not drink.

May I speak to you
Like we are close
And locked away together?
Once I found a stray kitten
And I used to soak my fingers
In warm milk;

It came to think I was five mothers
On one hand.

Wayfarer,
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.

Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
I will so gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.

Surely
There is something wrong
With your ideas of
God

O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of
God

If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.

—The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi Master
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

"What the Light Teaches"

Walhydra is still hiding out. Her edges feel way too edgy to share right now.

This is mainly because her SSRI experiment was rudely interrupted one month in by her employer's health insurance HMO.
[Remember way back in the earliest days of the so-called "Reagan Revolution," when HMOs were supposedly invented to make health care and health insurance cheaper and more accessible?]

As she had been warned, Walhydra's first twelve days on Lexapro were a tormenting ride, her neurotransmitter levels ricocheting between artificial panic and long hours of befogged despair.

Then, on the second Monday, Walhydra woke up, did her tai chi foundations, had breakfast, went to work—and suddenly exclaimed: "Hey! I feel normal. Um...at least normal for me."

That evening she bowled a blissful three games, 40 pins above her average. She didn't even curse and swear if she missed a spare, but sat smiling beatifically.

"Well...maybe that isn't normal for me. But I hadn't realized until now just how far off the emotional path I'd wandered over the past half year or so. Whew!"

So, Walhydra went in for her follow-up doctor's appointment and got the prescription for a full month of Lexapro...which her health insurance company promptly denied.

"They won't pay for it," said the pharmacist. "They want you to take Zoloft instead. It's cheaper."

"#$%&*#@! capitalist robber barons!!!"

"Yes, well, um.... Your doctor can recommend special authorization."

The pharmacist called the doctor's office. "They said they can give you a few weeks' worth of samples while the appeal is processed."

Two weeks later her doctor's staff called: "Sorry. They denied the appeal. You'll have to wean yourself off Lexapro over the next two weeks and then start on Zoloft."

"SO I HAVE TO BE OFF WHAT'S ALREADY WORKING AND DEAL WITH A NEW SET OF SIDE EFFECTS TWO WEEKS BEFORE MOM'S CHRISTMAS VISIT?? AAAAAAAAGH!!!"

Anyway....

Walhydra is now back on the tormenting ride again, just starting the second week of Zoloft—which is barely making a dent so far.

One of her best friends at work says, "Just keep breathing." Walhydra's response is to hyperventilate, until her friend gives her a sideways look.

In any event, it's not the sort of condition in which one feels like telling personal stories—especially not amusing ones.

But...this morning Walhydra got zapped once again by poetry, sent her by one of her favorite "old souls."

Walhydra read the piece first thing this morning at work, and it shocked her completely out of her self-centered whining—and lifting her, just momentarily, into that transpersonal awareness which links us all.
The passage her friend quoted is the first part of a long poem by Anne Michaels.

What the Light Teaches

Countless times this river has been bruised by our bodies;
liquid fossils of light.
We shed our ghost skins in the current;
then climb the bank, heavy and human.

The river is a loose tongue,
a folk song. At night we go down to listen.
Stars like sparks from a bonfire.
We take off what we are,
and step into the moon.

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.