Verse and Re-Verse

Black-and-Blue Nation

HELTER SKELTER burning up hot July /Manson sits in his cell laughing cause he knows why/He gets his 3 squares and shelter/doesn't have to lead Helter Skelter/People are doing it for him/Killing each other on a whim/The man was crazy like a fox/He had visions of this pox/Look into his crazy eyes/All the hate there was no disguise/The Hounds of Hell come a-pelter/Straight Satans ready for Helter Skelter/All the girls shake their bootys/Charlie scratches his cooties/Got a swastika on his head/Showing everybody has to be dead/Black-and-blue nation/Killing all of creation/Abomination/Assassination/Helter Skelter in the smelter/Apocalyptical/Typical. . . .

Stranded Out in Time

This poem is written from a male point of view as a kind of song . . . .

Stranded Out in Time

She’s a gentle woman.

She don’t mean me any harm.

Yet, I will not take her

Into the circle of my palm.

I’d best pick up my suitcase

An’ pack my lies inside

That old clock keeps tickin’

An’ tells me to run an hide.

There’s a voice, a song

That keeps poundin on my brain

It says “Brother you best move along

Before you go insane.”

It seems it’s my nature

T’ be stranded out in time.

Can’t say why or when

I’ll be movin down the line.

Never meant to cause no pain

T’ no soul abroad at night

Need to go with the darkness

strayin far from the light.

No matter how many hearts I break

I do remember them all.

Their soft an’ gentle sweetness

And the sounds of their rootless call.

Just once I would love to settle

And ease my hollow pain

But, soon as I grow roots

I pull them up again.

It seems it’s my nature

T’ be stranded out in time.

Can’t say why or when

I’ll be movin down the line.

I was asked to deliver a message

But got lost along the way.

I fell down by the roadside.

Layin’, blinded to the day.

The words on that tearstained paper

Left by my ragged self.

Still lay with the dust

In a bottle on the shelf.

Someone finer and far better

Will have to find it here still burnin

And give it to the fair-haired ladies,

Who pray for my returnin’

It seems it’s my nature

T’ be stranded out in time.

Can’t say why or when

I’ll be movin’ down the line.

1/8/13

Child of the Wind

I can feel your pain.

I’ve been lost out in the rain

But it was never something

I chose for me.

How can you ask me

To stand beside you

And ease your empty heart

When comes the dawning

In the early morning,

I know you’ll be on your way

Leaving your trail of broken hearts

And broken minds behind you?

You’re a child of the wind

Ever restless, never content.

Do you really believe you belong nowhere

Not even among those who were left behind?

No, I go where the light is warm.

I stay where the home fires are burning

Where love awaits every turning.

It’s true maybe I don’t fit in.

Maybe I don’t belong.

Maybe there will always be something wrong.

But it doesn’t really matter

Because when love came calling

I was wide open and ready.

I wasn’t going to stand outside your gate.

Trying to pick the lock

Over and and over and over again.

I don’t know what you’re hiding

Don’t know why you’re riding.

Seems to me that you carry a ghost inside you

That can never let you rest, never let you love.

Each new lover can never satisfy your hunger

Like a vampire, you seduce and sway

Take a victim’s blood away

And then return to the dark mists

Of nowhere and nothing.

Until you dare to care

Open your heart

You’d best beware,

For you will wander the night

Forever—a child of the wind.

2-12-12

I recognize...

I recognize it was you

who makes me feel special

by easing my pains

often filled with

worry and woe

I recognize it was you

Who brought out a talent

That I thought I had lost

Now there are words

To help me feel new

I recognize it is you.

—From Jimmy "Paddy" Spaight

to Billie

as an answer to Cog

Cog

I am but cog

A little cog

In a big, big wheel

Wheel turns rapidly

Rushing over bumpy roads

Avoiding crashes

Speeding people and things

To their destinations.

I am unseen, unmentioned

except when I come loose and fail.

Then I am brutally pushed

Back into my small place.

I dream great dreams

Of greatness

Recognized and achieved

And wish to be more.

But look at the word recognized!

There is cog

That little word

Right in the middle

Without, which recognized

Would utterly fail.

Cog is needed.

Nothing can work

Or go forward

Without cog.

I am cog.

I hold things together.

I am necessary.

I serve

Something greater

Than myself.

What greater

Purpose can one have?

Ultimately, everyone

Is blessed to be cog

In the universe.

6-7-12

Ms. Billie M. Spaight