poetry

Destination by Dale Barrigar Williams

Beatrice had passed.

But now she was back.

She was naked

then not, and wearing

a long, strange, multi-colored

wig

that mostly covered some of her.

She was still beautiful, but

she looked so different!

In the dream, she died at 39;

so why is she still alive!?

And now we turned, and went

on a long, strange trip, traveling

on many bizarre, futuristic contraptions;

some like giant roller coasters that were,

and were not, at the same time.

(Just about to fall from your seat,

dangling in mid-air,

you realize you won’t,

over and over again.)

Fearless, fantastic, floating, futuristic

contraptions, stretching across a nameless

ocean which makes the Pacific look like

a puddle on another planet with

no final destination in sight.

And singingly, swimmingly, hey, ho, ah, oh,

whoa, my favorite girlfriend is back, still

beautiful but so, so different, somehow.

Friendly, whale-sized dolphins laughing

below us, fabulously glowing, radiant,

giant white seagulls soaring above us

as we two flew.

I could feel

the wind

from their wings

brushing our hair.

She had taken my hand

almost like in life

when mother was gone

and I was a child.

I didn’t know; we didn’t talk; we didn’t need to;

launched into a time where

no more talking is needed.

And it was OK, and she knew

where we were going.

The Night David Bowie Died; or, All the Time By Dale Barrigar Williams

Nightstands, lamps and books,

and we two stretched out on the bed,

we were both staring at separate

corners of the ceiling thinking

about something else, I suddenly noticed,

radiator of January clanking.

Then suddenly

we started talking

about David Bowie.

I don’t remember who

started it, but we were soon

wondering out loud about

health problems, genius and conflict,

how you need love and hate for creation –

like the man in the lobby

of the transient hotel

on Grand Street, LOVE and HATE tattooed

across the knuckles

of both hands, just like the guy

in the movie.

The very next day, we heard through

the systems that Bowie, the person,

was now gone

from this world.

Except for everything he left

back here.

We, Sophia and I, ah, we

were still together

then. And sometimes I called her

Mary

Magdalene.

It was before

our relationship

got too sick

of its own intensity,

and died.

Suddenly, like him.

No goodbye.

People always say

they don’t see ghosts

but I see ghosts

all the time.

Seven (or Fourteen) Reasons Why Bob Dylan is a Writer for Our Time by Dr. Dale Williams, aka The Drifter

When the dust settles, one man, at least, will still be standing.

He might only stand five feet seven inches in his socks (Eminem is, and Kerouac was, five-eight, a precursor and an heir), but Alexander Pope, one of the dozen or so greatest English poets of all time, was four feet six inches tall. (Pope died in 1744 at the age of 56.)

And Bob Dylan has more than a little of Pope’s verbal resources, great heart, wild intelligence, deep soul, artistic energy. If “Eloisa to Abelard,” by Pope, doesn’t break your heart and make you want to go on living, nothing will.

The Drifter has compiled seven reasons why, with their flipsides, Bob Dylan deserves his Nobel Prize. The reasons are brief and they are meant for quick reading in a busy world; but they are also meant to be pondered upon and thought about more later for any and all who are interested. (And meant to be USED.)

ONE: He both does, and does not, care what he looks like, and he looks like it.

TWO: He has done a lot of drugs but hasn’t done so many drugs that he isn’t still going strong at 84. The life of the artist, any artist, is a balancing act.

THREE: He puts out material at a relentless pace as if this were the most important thing in the world, and then does little to promote it.

FOUR: His “style” of life and work are ancient and modern.

FIVE: His work can exist “on the page” or in the air.

SIX: He does, and does not, care/s about “quality.”

SEVEN: He goes out into the world – while wearing disguises.

(Afterthought: Those last two should be hung out with like zen koans…)

Saragun Fable Verse: The Strange Case of Nikky Smonnicks

i

Nikky Smonnicks is a ghost without a host

No one died to make him

Some say not so, they say he lived and he was a cabin boy from the Barbary Coast

But that turned to be a corsair lie told to stake him

To the mirthless earth of self made men

So say they who long to be the flesh Nikky had forsaken

ii

Any ghost can be a special spirit

Human beings seldom get near it

Ghosts are burned clean at life’s end

The quick must unshackle from liens and wills and dishonest trusts before they are completely all in given

iii

Nikky Smonnicks it seems never lived nor was a stillborn child fitted with a shell common in both heaven and hell

He began as a ghost completing a journey never begun

How can this be, someone like he, a song finished yet neither written nor sung?

It matters not in the end even non-events can be considered done

iii

So welcome to the afterlife without a before, the angels and demons hope you are fun

You are an unlikely hair on the head of time

A Zombie in reverse

A long running show never rehearsed

And the reason why The Book of the Dead

is off by one

The Amoral: One needn’t live to be successfully dead

Saragun Verse: Pope of Alpha Centuari

i

How far are you willing to fly

To find a vicar to shine your mind

What insult will you bear

In grace for a ten percent share

ii

Who’s gonna to serve your mass

Now

That you’ve departed the blue ball of

Vow

Indulge your sins and pledge your soul

To me

The Pope of Alpha Centauri

iii

The universe is an endless second chance

But everywhere it is still a dimebag a dance

Open up and for a tiny fee

You can be an angel wild and free

Courtesy of me

The Pope of Alpha Centauri

iv

Pain is the same inside every skin

And the losses still out number wins

Take four years at the speed of light

Everyone in hell loves the night

Endless and without memory

The Pope of Alpha Centauri

Saragun Verse: The Power of Rabble Finis

i

The billigits flew a loopty loop around Heathcliff

“poor fellow, lucky in land yet poor in love

we know you long for sweetness’ fair lift

follow us to the wiccan meadow and you will soon praise the above”

ii

“‘Tis you wee bastards a-now and again,

Who fritter my feelings on strange dames

Love is nothing except heartbreak and pain;

Far as I care you can feed hell’s flames.”

iii

This was not the reply the billies were obliged to get

So that’s when snow fell on where it was sent

They ushered frozen Heathcliff to Eira’s abode

Some fellas are doomed to do as told

iv

Now we have reached the forever after

May it be marked by progeny and laughter

But as anyone who deals with people knows

We keep the lament and throw out the rose

(We hope that you have enjoyed the Springs first dabble in epic poetry; ‘tis for the rabble and in-the-know-etry)

Saragun Verse: The Power of Rabble Part Four

i

“Make it rain to drown the pain”

The junior Witch said again and again

The billigits are churlishly mellow

They whisper what you want to bellow

ii

“madam fair yet so au contraire how will you employ us

to find you a lad not a cad beyond the surface

but you can make it rain to fill every cracked surface

we wonder are you seeking love or something to plug the orafice”

iii

Eira was enraged by the little orange knights’ audacity

She placed the four billies into a catapult

“Across the moors with you tiny bores

You should know the score by the time you hit Cincinnati”

iv

But Eira had forgotten that billigits fly

And upon reaching the highest sky

They orgone rayed the clouds

And the rains came hard and proud