1) The Blockhouse Baptist Church Camp Picnic
2) No Thing
3) Burn Deep, Sweet Memories
4) Little Ladies
5) Memory
6) Call upon the Rushing Wind
7) I Grant My Leave to the Fool
8) The Mediocre Martyr
9) Master Time
10) Daddy, Joshie's Hidin'

The Blockhouse Baptist Church Camp Picnic


Go, Gary, Go!
Look at that guy go!
Not bad for a guy the doctors said wouldn't see age 30.
Show' em they're wrong, Gary.
Go!
Win the race!
Demand the dignity and respect you deserve.
If you were in the womb today;
they'd be debating with your parents as to whether you should live or die.
Run, Gary, run!
Pull yourself out before the scraper goes in to get you.
Don't let them think you're not alive.
Win, Gary, win!
Win one for the defenseless.
You're competitive.
You're   more...capable.
You're enthusiastic.
You're alive, Gary!
This wheelbarrow race is more true to life than
the soap operas they use to quiet their rationalizations.
They care more about Another World than they do about yours
...and ours.
Show' em, Gary, show' em!
Your hope and optimism is a balm for this troubled world.
Man, you've been a Maple Leaf fan all your life.
No sanitized pails and disposable plastic bags for you, Gary.

Gary, you win!

But, the moralists don't run races, Gary.
They just sit on the sidelines and pass judgements.
They get their thrills vicariously.
You're more truly alive than they,
my friend.
You win!
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NO THING

This poet's seemed to come alive
on this, a night of nothing.
I've had no thoughts
on which to guide
my mind,
much less, my pen.

So, why do words come easy now
when nothing has been said?
Perhaps, it's best to write my song
when nothing's in my head!

BURN DEEP, SWEET MEMORIES
- A Valedictorian's address -


Burn deep, sweet memories,
for there shall come a day
when time has changed my mind and you
and friends have gone away.

Burn deep, sweet memories,
for time has passed us by.
So, I must leave your red-bricked halls
- searching for the sky.

Burn deep, sweet memories.
The words of learned men
have given me another chance
that I may start again.

Burn deep, sweet memories,
the time is drawing nigh
when I must turn my back to you
  more... and softly weep,"Good-bye".
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LITTLE LADIES
- An epitaph to innocence -

So,
this is the night.
The secretive swarm's milling around the local hang-out.
A secret society
whose thoughts would disturb
sweet parents' dreams.
To enter in
is to leave behind
hearth and home
and become the creed.
No entrance fee needed;
you pay as you go.
And go you shall...
fast cars, fast women, and Another World;
The world is yours, isn't it?
After all, it does revolve around   more...you... doesn't it?
Your world -
created by illuminated pulsations;
pounding...flashing...pounding...
into your void.


You nurse upon your own breast
and satisfy yourselves
with light and sound -
the glitter of Video Mania,
the clamour of Bedlam.
New sounds,
In sounds,
MY sound,
OUR sound...
New Music,
Much Music,
MY Music,
OUR Music!
Mighty names rhyming chants of ordinary lust;
Disguising themselves as Love
to the glory of OUR Music.

O, little ladies of the night;
Unprofessional...and, nieve.
Your virgin eyes
are beguiled by a sensory paradise;
The kiss of Friday's culture
swirls...
whirls its victims in a freedom song
that, "is not the sky!"


Back at home...
their Mothers' love drops
for the abandonment of innocence.
Birth pains shed for the adolescent stoic
that shares her home...
but, no longer her heart!

While perpetual parents plead,

"Arise...cry out in the night
in the beginning of the watches,
pour out your heart like water
before the face of the Lord.
Lift up your hands toward Him
for the life of thy young children
who faint for hunger
in the top of every street."


Arise...cry out
to the Light
for the little lost ladies of the night.


ALTERNATIVE VERSE

Around the corner,
on the other side of Wizards' World,
Truth lies in wait for you;
but, you're content to just lean against the wall!
Won't you heed the voice within you;
the one crying in the wilderness, proclaiming,
"Quarters can't set you free!"?
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