Summer’s end is around the bend just flying
The swimming suits are on the line just drying
~ John Prine, Summer’s End ~
summer’s end
Tag: words
sail away
on a lazy, warm, September day
in the air
I want to get caught in the spirit of some idea or words and write something that feels like the ocean, like lightning in the distance, like something glorious. Like the lights that shimmer off ordinary plants after a rain.
Prince
It would be remiss to remember his words without remembering his image. Pearl buttons, ruffled collar, and head-to-toe fair weather clouds. An impish grin, big brown eyes, and a medley of style and spirit, working like a magnet to draw you in.
Ready?
One,
Two,
One, two, three, four.
Yeah.
Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing
But different than the day before.
That’s when I saw her, ooh, I saw her.
She walked in through the out door, out door.
She wore a raspberry beret.
The kind you find at a second hand store.
A video popped up for me the other day. It was an event honoring George Harrison. Prince and Tom Petty were among many musicians performing George’s song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps. What a great performance by Prince.
Prince…Tom Petty…George Harrison…John Prine…John Lennon…Janis Jopin…they weren’t all there, of course, but such great talents gone too soon.
Some of this is a re-post, more or less. You can’t help but remember Prince this time of year.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Image and lyrics from Raspberry Beret by Prince & The Revolution (1985).
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
clouds
The picture of a cloudy day, unpretentious treetops, and a white expanse of nothing. A simple palette and few expectations.
Sometimes I look for heaven past the treetops.
I could shut my eyes and envision the divine among those dreamy colors that shine through the back of our eyelids. But I don’t.
I picture heaven somewhere far, far up past those treetops, and the stars and planets, and past a vast emptiness that’s not ours to see.
It’s a cloudy day. The browns are browner. The greens didn’t bother to shine.
white pines & music
Tall white pines and a path that takes you. It doesn’t lead you, it takes you.
Do you know the long soft needles of a tall white pine? A pine tall enough to meet the sunny sky in the last moments of a December day. North Country meets Norwegian Wood meets what? I don’t know. It’s gentle. Or it’s pain, or it’s a place to leave behind.
When you choose your favorite lyrics to a Dylan song, it’s hard to find THE lines. I have this thing – sort of a pretty unimportant guiding principle. If I single out the same musical lyrics more than once, if it’s a sequence of lines or a few words, if those are the words I remember or I want to remember after I hear a song, then I guess I love those words.
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day
Bob Dylan works a magic with images nobody else can do. And in the middle of all that you find words you plainly love.
life time
Life comes down to microseconds. Minutes, hours, seasons. Ordinary time. Weekdays, weekends. Occasions that come and go, and events that don’t seem consequential. It’s a blink. An instant we bring something special, something that breathes life into us. The marrow of our life blood. The sum and substance of our existence.
faded dreams ….
faded scenes and sinking dreams,
missed connections,
and narrow streets in all directions,
immense,
impending structures,
intense,
irrational stares,
dizzying stairs in random rooms,
that lead to rooms,
commanding,
tangled thoughts,
unravel reality,
erase familiarity,
hands sweaty,
legs heavy,
breathless,
and thready,
turning,
reverting,
blurring,
escape,
escape …
ahhh, yes … awake … yes … awake.
________________________
Do we all have pieces like this? Words we write, and we re-write, and re-write. It never feels complete or just right. I have at least five versions of this one. I’m not comfortable with this style of writing, but the words don’t fit well in sentences and paragraphs. Just maybe … it’s the sort of thing that should take me out of my comfort zone.
I just completed a small collection of written pieces and photos to give as presents this holiday. I did this last year too, and although the project is always surprisingly time-consuming, the end results are gratifying. This time, I tried to bring in plenty of bold colors and some of the dreamier layers of life. This piece is probably atypical, in terms of style, but it was one of the bits I included.
still
The air’s not still, but it’s slow motion. Like colors in a dream. The sun’s still warm, and flowers still bloom, and a season’s worth of foliage sways overhead, in a hazy lingering-summer’s lazy way.
You Say It’s Your Birthday – John Lennon
Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes
John Lennon, of course. Lucy in the Sky.
Meter to me is unattainable. I can hear it, I’m sure I like it, I just can’t grasp it. It would take a whole lot of focus and concentration for me to get it. Hence, I leave it to the professionals.
John Lennon would have been 81 tomorrow, and Lucy in the Sky begins with one of my favorite lines of all time.
Photo from wallpapercave.
etikser 