June 2015
I’m nearing the end of my tenure as Connecticut’s State Poet Laureate (2010-2015). Holding the position has been mainly a pleasure, particularly reading at two Governor Inaugurations and visiting odd corners of our small state. About me? I’m a Zen Buddhist with a Methodist minister son and an Episcopal wife and daughter. I live not far from the shores of a small calm lake. My eighth book is This Shadowy Place, which won The New Criterion Poetry Prize for work which pays special attention to form. But I also write and publish free verse, including a type of associative poetry I call “Randomism.” This poetry type usually includes some of the song phrases floating through all Americans’ heads in the 21st Century. New poetry books I’m completing include The Zen Master Poems and The Neykhor. The latter is a book-length rhymed and metered narrative poem based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The former is greatly influenced by Han-Shan’s Cold Mountain poems as well as flapjacks, Crayola crayons and Johnny Cash. I feel I’m getting old.
L Y R I C S F O R T H R E E S O N G S
Freight Train Blues
They’ve kept you on the wrong side of the tracks,
They’ve kept you on the wrong side of the tracks,
And you’ve been woken by a freight train.
Beyond your fingertips, a digital clock,
Beyond your fingertips, a digital clock,
Keeps tossing up numbers, relentless as a freight train.
Almost everything’s hazy, the rest an act,
Almost everything’s hazy, the rest an act,
As if you’re looking from the wrong side of a freight train.
You put your shirt on, pull up each blue sock,
You put your shirt on, pull up each blue sock,
How much longer must you go against the grain?
The mirror, you say, the mirror is always cracked,
The mirror, you say, the mirror is always cracked,
What it reflects is just a long freight train.
Is there a floor beneath you in the dark?
Is there a floor beneath you in the dark?
You can’t tell if there is. Freight train, freight train.
You took me here, now take me back.
You took me here, now take me back.
Sometimes the only sound’s a long freight train.
A Fool's Errand (Duet)
I’m off to fetch a screwdriver
from that deadbeat down the road.
You might hail a train from Baltimore
or you might step on a toad.
The morning’s filled with sunshine.
It’s better than soft rain.
If you can scribble a crooked line
You might get home again.
First, I’ll see one bluebird,
the next thing you know there’ll be two.
There was a song I heard,
or it could have been a dropped shoe.
Wild roses grow in the meadow,
tire swings sway in the yard.
Whenever you open a window,
you’ll find out life plays hard.
You go to fetch one thing,
you come back with another.
Once, I went out for string,
but came back with an umbrella.
I sought life’s meaning, truly,
in lakes and valleys and hills,
but all you found was a dimpled knee
and a bottle of blue horse pills.
The deadbeat’s house is gunmetal gray,
and he lives in a rocking chair.
Does he have something wise to say?
I don’t think he cares.
You care too much. You would do right,
when others would do wrong.
Go ahead, tell me, “Go fly a kite,”
I’ll beat a Chinese gong.
I set out to save the world,
yet the world doesn’t want to be saved.
All people want is their flags unfurled
and their driveways paved.
If someone asks me to dig a hole,
You’ll dig a whole latrine.
If someone says I’m just a fool,
You’ll laugh. You won’t turn mean.
The screwdriver’s in the cellar,
just to the left of the nails.
The deadbeat owes you one dollar.
He says it’s in the mails.
If I get the deadbeat’s screwdriver,
a tool he’ll never miss,
the world will seem chopped liver.
It’s all in the wrist.
I’m just an errand-runner,
who’s never learned to pause.
You fetch one thing, then another,
lost cause to lost cause.
So if you see me coming,
you might toss me a candy bar,
a lark from someone humming,
or stripes from a racing car.
I swear I’ll be ever grateful.
I’ll dunk you in vats of praise,
I’ll sing for my supper. I’ll act the fool
to the end of your foolish days.
The Song of the Beaten Track
I woke up, groggy, in the town of Beaten Track
Where the wind flies in your face and the sheriff slaps your back.
“Since no one knows your name here, I think I’ll call you Jack.”
The church lies in a wheat field, the school is just a shack.
Toss oranges to strangers, toss apples to friends,
oranges and apples, and songs without ends.
Good James shook my hand, Sweet Joan took my arm.
“Don’t struggle so hard. You’ll come to no harm.”
I said not to worry. They said I should.
I’ve worried so little I do no one no good.
Toss oranges to strangers, toss apples to friends,
oranges and apples, who knows how it ends?
In Beaten Track’s backyards, no whim comes to blows.
I know what you know, yet what is it you know?
Rats in wood crates and scarecrows in corn,
What was your face before you were born?
Toss oranges to strangers, toss apples to friends,
oranges and apples, and means without ends.
I’ve wandered North’s blizzards, I’ve hot-rodded the South,
But I never took bread from my government’s mouth.
Since you don’t want a promise, I’ll swear you this oath:
If you drink black coffee, I’ll gulp down beef broth.
Toss oranges to strangers, toss apples to friends,
oranges and apples, for thirst never ends
The evening’s blown-away foam from a beer at the bar.
I want nothing to do with your off-the-cuff War.
Just give me calm for the day, a good book for the night.
I’ll leave Beaten Track gladly, at the first hint of light.
Toss oranges to strangers, toss apples to friends,
oranges and apples, beginnings and ends.
Sweet Joan led me hither, Good James led me yon.
By the time I got there, there mostly was gone.
Those things that I looked at looked right back at me.
Town Hall stayed locked tightly, for who had the key?
Toss oranges to strangers, toss apples to friends,
oranges and apples, don’t ask how it ends.
They say Schrodinger’s cat lies half-dead in the street,
That the razor of Ocam has been dulled by the heat
“When you pray, really pray. When you eat, really eat.”
Beaten Track’s out there, sure as soles on your feet.
Toss oranges to strangers, toss apples to friends,
oranges and apples, and songs without ends.
©2015 Dick Allen