Poetry of September 2019
- by Linn Barnes
Among the Clouds
-Linn Barnes
Playing a guitar properly
is not unlike threading a needle to
the wind as you bring into being
vast clouds of elemental sonic
shrouds draping the slim
line of spacetime you may
find yourself tangled up in
for a moment harnessing
shadows of pure joy
careening off the fabric of
where you may be delivering
a cuff or a pulse or a bump
into the the thickened air
and waiting for the perfect
and tender bounce in
what can only be described
as a close to perfect
moment of communion
transfiguring confusion
and blessing the
vanishing holy air.
Bad Weather
-Linn Barnes
When the sky bulges,
you’d best duck,
and if you’ve got
any luck,
you might be left
stranding among
the riddles of the
grim possibles
where most
of it won’t matter,
save the outside
chance that maybe
you’ve bought
the right ticket
on a quick ride
down a sad lane
where there might
be one tree left
standing
and
one leaf
about to
fall.
The Dunes
-Linn Barnes
The crumbling tower of
lies and outrage further
rattle the bewildered mind
when this sad president
tries to change a forecast
for no apparent reason
while the storm bears down
on the atlantic coast
and millions of soon to be victims
wonder why he still breathes
and has not been led into
the lonely wind blown dunes
where the grass is sparse
and the winds are harsh
where the graves are but
a murmur of the lives lost
to the rising wind and sea
where mercy does not exist
for mad men and fools
and only decay prevails.
Texas
-Linn Barnes
And now the shadow of fear
spreads gluon like
into the worst and most
despicable whatever sanity
might be before we judge
what it can never be
and then when it does
we wonder why
as the next sad magazine
lubricates it’s horrid way
into the willing chamber
of death without remorse
and life without love
while the volume rises
to an interminable scream.
Poetry of August 2019
- by Linn Barnes
Cthulhu Rising
-Linn Barnes
Cthulhu rises from the earth,
as terrifying as he may be,
and cries out to all
who choose to listen:
'Who can this man be?'
'Could he be of my blood,
a rip in the flesh of the deep earth,
which is unlikely, since I am
that which has been, is and will be.
Yet, he daily struggles to bring into
the lock shop something like identity
with the ancient Lords of time and
volition, who, like me, have ruled
over the centuries from the the first fabric
'till now, with his strange new artifice,
with no firmament or edge, no roundness
or shape, attempting to find glory
in the chaos of his own false creation?'
'While, what I have forever wanted was
to manifest myself as needed to bring
the holy to the Earth, for which I am
the greatest of priests, no matter
the reality currently stamped into being,
but never be a conjurer, liar or fool
casting weak shadows along
soon to be forgotten lanes.'
'It will not end well for this imposter.'
Moreau
-Linn Barnes
The trump dragon and
his fallen angles, busy,
have widened the horror,
seeking to seal the death of
countless innocents
suffering unimaginable terror
loading them onto the
hopper of hatred and fear
for a blood laden fling into
the wheezing and gagging
final days away from the care
that promised if nothing else
a slim glimmer of hope,
where we, at least some of us,
hoped to have a say
in the care of the sick
among us, yes, us.
‘Are we not men’,
we hear the scream from the
the shadows of the isle
of the hideous moreau,
now incarnate and
swaggering
among us,
deaf to all save his
hideous heart,
rallying the faithful
for a public and screaming
dance of death.
In Dreams
-Linn Barnes
At night, secretly calling to the four winds,
in glowing dreams, looking to mirror antiquity,
brings into focus the shards of poetry
vanished in the bog, bound and strangled,
sunk beneath the venom of revenge,
committed to the wrath of forever,
when the could have been did not.
Concatenations
-Linn Barnes
Stuck in the stink of another long night,
the dreary death soldiers bare their fangs,
kick the shit off their feet,
and rally, grim, tribe like, before
the dawn, somewhere near
the horizon, hanging just left
of east, if you’re sighting south,
to the confused stars out of orbit,
in the mist, pouring over the last
bit of a flash of desperate mourning,
trickery tipping the scales to another
explosion of confusion, lies, and humiliations,
cheering the advent of yet another day
when the sad shuddered state of truth
will be ground and pounded into the endless
mill of propaganda for the morose
concatenations of yet more foolery.
-Linn Barnes
These are times when being alive
is a bit like grifting another day
from improbability in a world gone so
damnably insane that the leader
of the free world can shamelessly
cavort in foreign lands
muttering mirthlessly
murderous lies that bring
dishonor to our country
and tears to our tired eyes.
Are we so doped beyond reason
that we will allow this aberrant creature
to continue to contaminate the
days and nights he has so polluted
ever more into an intolerable future?
Try hard, then harder, mes amis,
for the banner must be raised,
and the battle must be engaged
‘till the field is cleansed and may
once again be plowed with the
hope for reason and redemption
from this catastrophe and shame
we have for too long now been
made to grimly suffer.
Prometheus
-Linn Barnes
Prometheus, shackled to the earth,
stalked by the darkest solitude of night,
before the flights of vultures and eagles,
ripping flesh, day after day, are driven back,
for a brief moment, into the deep black vault,
while he remains nailed, crippled, torn,
shouting at no one to rise up and bring
the dour dark to the broad new light,
since the earth, betrayed, refuses to spawn
the day out of grim and hopeless rage.
And where, now, will he be?
Dreaming
-Linn Barnes
'It is dawn',
wrote ee cummings,
'and the world goes forth to murder dreams.'
And now, dreamless, drifting,
we've morphed to
day or night,
lock and load,
and murder the world.
Final Days
-Linn Barnes
Donald, Donald,
don't you see,
the time has come
to leave the stage,
and not mutter
anymore the grim drivel
we've been bored
with into the night and
into the day, now that it's
been clearly shown
you've been
gathering death
and shouting for more
among the shadows
that reek and plague
your final days, but
not ours
The Ax and the Sword
-Linn Barnes
The disaster is taking shape,
beneath the cool veneer
that is trying to gloss over as reality
what has been happening,
when things that have gotten
way out of control,
and the peasants you so
gleefully mustered are
beginning to take up
the ax and the sword
and, out of betrayal,
will finally demand your
life and your head.
But, this is the way
it has always been.
The only question,
as forever, is why
must it take so long.
At Dinner
-Linn Barnes
While I set the table
for the wonderful fruits of our garden
that Allison has so carefully nourished
and transformed into miracles,
I cannot but weep for the stricken with horror
in Texas and Ohio,
lost to weeping into
something like their dinner
they must try to consume
to survive...
and for them, right now,
death shall certainly
have a profound dominion.
I weep for them and theirs...
Iron Maiden
-Linn Barnes
“Good morning Mr whatever your name is.
I’m the chief prosecuting attorney for the State of Texas,
and I’m required to tell you that we will not
be seeking the death penalty for
your hideous crimes,
as unimaginably worthy as
they are of such a truly American procedure.
But, well, ‘the times they are a-changing’, get it?
Anyway, have you ever heard of the Iron Maiden?
Well, me neither until I got a
call from the director of the
Torture Museum in Rothenbuug, Germany.
It's really cool and kind of simple:
The 'Maiden' is the effigy of a large, fierce
and powerful looking woman
who opens up like a book
to reveal layer after layer of
iron spikes, which, once the
'accused and convicted' is 'introduced',
as it were, to 'our' Maiden,
oh, yes, we've ordered one,
well, all you have to do is 'shut' the doors,
and let the screaming begin....
There was a time when this was very popular...
We think it's on the way back.
How about that?"
Hemlock
-Linn Barnes
When the simpleton,
bullshit street thug who lives in
the white house tells everybody
to get it on, what right do we have
to be surprised when they do?
We have little to say
when we've had nothing
to say.
Out with the national pox,
bring on the hemlock
before all the youth are
drawn to their, and our,
doom.
National emergency rings
in the heated air.
-LinnBarnes
Oh, summer whither hast thou fled,
that now we are left with the sad
glories of Lughnasadh to come,
home again in the great plain of
the sacred year, with the harvest
soon to be done, under an August moon,
looking to the Fall, under the broadening light,
blinding blue fading with the early
flurry of leaves now beginning to fly
in the cooling wind bringing solace
to those who still dance,
and those who still sing,
though it may seem the
tunes are hard to find.
Poems of June and July 2019
- by Linn Barnes
The Carbon Vault
-Linn Barnes
The carbon vault beneath the cobalt blue
screams and shudders as the debate staggers.
Will it ever come into being the novel idea
that something must be done now and not
tomorrow when the shut down warming the
terminal fires to a blistering end screams to
all a weeping stuttering shouted final gasp.
The only real question which is abundantly clear:
Who will deal effectively with this reality beyond debate,
before time runs out, when the current show is swallowed
by its lies crimes blood guts dough and death.
For the sake of all find the one.
Good Luck
Drifting Down III
-Linn Barnes
When the sad wreck of a dark blues
tumbles into the maw of the grim news,
has splashed out on the bad luck
page, spread out on the not
so hot, but it must be so, tirade.
It’s then, with a turn that you begin
to figure you’re in the wrong
spot to navigate, even a bit,
whatever the river might bring up,
whether in song, love or death,
Where the tides are picking up,
and downstream looks just
like north, and the south you
imagine you’re sailing for
shrinks and shudders,
Wobbles and freezes the busted
compass somewhere between
yesterday and somehow soon,
you snap attention, kind of,
as your drift becomes a roar
To the now you’ve begun
falling into from which there can
be, finally, no other choice
but to sever the ancient cord,
now ruined, rotten and wasted,
That has bound all your days,
and you drop through the rushing
air and bulbous clouds to what’s left
of the once green earth below,
and the landing is not smooth.
Drifting Down II
-Linn Barnes
When the sad wreck of the blues
tumbles into the maw of the grim news
splashed out on the bad luck
page spread out on the not
so hot but it must be so tirade
it’s then that you begin
to figure you’re in the wrong
kind of place to navigate
whatever the river might bring
whether in song or death
where the tides begin to flow
and downstream looks just
like north and the south you
think you’re heading for
shrinks and shudders
wobbles and freezes the
compass somewhere between
yesterday and tomorrow
you pay attention kind of
until you begin to drift
to the now you’ve fallen into
from which there seems
to be no other choice
until you cut the cord
now rotten and wasted
that has forever bound
and you drop through the
air and bulbous clouds to
what’s left of the earth below
and the landing is not smooth.
-Linn Barnes
When the wreck of the blues
falls into the grim news
splashed out on the bad luck
page spread out on the not
so hot but it must be so
it’s then that you begin
to figure you’re in some kind of
wrong place to navigate
whatever the river might bring
whether song or death
when the tides begin to flow
and downstream looks just
like north and the south you
think you’re heading to
shrinks and shudders
wobbles and freezes the
compass somewhere between
yesterday and tomorrow
you pay attention kind of
until you begin to drift
to the now you’ve fallen into
from which there seems
to be no other choice
until you cut the cord
now rotten and wasted
that has forever bound
and you drop through the
air and bulbous clouds to
what’s left of the earth below
and the landing is not smooth.
For Faye on Her Sixth Birthday
-Linn Barnes
And so it shall come to pass,
as it always has,
that the unicorn shall serve
the day in magical ways
we may never fully know,
apart from the clear laughing,
knowing, when the pure heart
is singing and the song of the
divine child vibrates the earth
and brings time into being.
Validations
-Linn Barnes
Perhaps the most
significant single question
intellectual historians bandy about is
the 'how', 'why', and just plain 'huh'?
of Adolf Hitler and the
phenomenology of the Third Reich.
Good thinkers will posit reasonable ideas,
Albert Einstein, for instance, and then,
over time, seek to empirically
demonstrate their authenticity.
Rarely, very rarely, are we presented
with walking, talking, screaming, drooling
manifestations authenticating much of what was hypothesized
concerning Herr Hitler and his monstrous
gang of murderous fools.
Well, you can dog my cats,
but last night our president
and his villainous mob of
'murderous fools' pretty much, once again,
dressed out in regal robes of truth
most of the hypotheses
I have entertained about the nazi trash
over lo these many years.
Never forget that if HItler hadn't the mob,
the mob who loved and 'validated' him so profoundly,
he would have starved to death
in the filthy post WWI streets of
Vienna or Munich…
Hier stehe Ich...
Pour Jean Paul
-Linn Barnes
Excuse me,
yes, you,
or, for that matter,
anybody,
really,
can you, please
point me to the exit?
you say, over there,
where over there?
or, up there,
but, where up there?
Would you mind leading me
to it?
What’s that, why did
you tell me to
forget about it?
Haven’t I read who?
Which French fellow is that?
Well, yeah, I guess I care,
I mean,
if he’s got the
directions,
but you say he
doesn’t...
Oh.
A Simple Question
-Linn Barnes
Why in the world does he do it,
what he must know is foolish,
what sad and demented anguish
orders him to strut out on that plank,
turn to the waiting horde, lean over the rail
and take the plunge to dishonor and disgrace.
It appears we are witnessing, in real time,
the manifestation of a decaying human being
shouting out for termination of the pain he never
imagined he would be saddled with.
There is reason for sadness here.
Jutland Again
for Seamus Heaney
-Linn Barnes
After looking for
signs of love among
the noble ancients,
you know, a carved femur,
a chiseled tattooed skull,
something more than
the hideous grins of
the strangled
in the death
pits of Jutland,
where they screamed
for a quick moment
as they sank into the bog
to the bottom of
the dire heap,
where the day they
trespassed now is
flayed open to the bone,
where with eyes shuttered tight
She will see no more,
only the rudeness of eternity,
and the false mockery of light.
Politics Aside
-Linn Barnes
High summer, after the solstice, has a way of
confusing you, bringing you down, changing your gait,
muffling the debris you raise as you slither down the line.
I mean, you thought you had some spring in your step,
until you tripped before noon, when the rains began to fall,
hard on your path, and the the storm crashed your gate,
Into the dark of the dead zone, between two and five,
when the hungry cannibals of the ruined day run amok
slaughtering all left floating in the sad sea of sucking mud.
Smoke and Flame
-Linn Barnes
When, long ago she took a look back at me
somewhere in a miserable dark corner,
bent over a guitar, sweat rolling down,
my face distorted in the heat and the night,
I floated for a confused moment in the thick air,
no longer near nor there, and drifted for a while
in her dark beauty and grace until the vision
collapsed and she vanished into the smoke.
I blinked twice, then twice again, until a heavy fog
rolled in and slammed closed the path she’d burned,
leaving me shoreless, cast out into that shinning night,
lights flashing hopelessly for what could never be rescued,
For a glimpse into that light, of what had vanished into the air,
on that lonely and forlorn night somewhere so very long ago,
when in an instant I knew that what had been revealed
would color the rest of my days with shadows and praise.
A Music Lesson
-Linn Barnes
Pummel the phrase
five thousand times,
then five thousand more,
work the scale a gram at a time
until you feel ground water
flowing beneath your hands,
and deep heat coursing well
into the will of it all.
The Deep Dark
-Linn Barnes
Sometimes late, watching the sky,
In the deep dark, we hear motion
not too far into the trees,
while we sit and listen,
a bit out of sorts,
as we bring to bear
the familiars, always there
for when things ring wrong,
be it any time, but mostly
in the depth of night,
when the unpredictable may deal
you a marginal hand and you’ve
no good hold card
but your solid will
and calm resolve,
in the deep dark,
where nothing can
really be known.
Then, finally, with a long breath,
we crease a shallow smile,
whistle a quick light tune
into the dark unknown where
more than you can imagine
swarms and stalks
most everything
including you.
Guitar In The Heat
-Linn Barnes
Alone, this afternoon,
in the growing shade,
I took a powerful amplifier,
to the deck in the woods,
the sun behind me in the west,
the heat, pulsing, but moderate,
a soft incidental breeze rising,
and plugged in the flamenco guitar,
and, after a moment or so of coy anticipation,
struck the instrument, hard, rattling the woods and,
I feel certain, engendering a tidal surge in the river,
where there can be none, but the shimmering water
seemed to laugh, shout back and, finally, cheer
one deafening rasquiado after another,
decorated with multiple improvised scales
slamming through the Spanish modalities,
until finally, with a deep breath, melting
into twelve bars of Mississippi delta blues
in the fading heat, until, as the sun began to set
beneath the western ridge, I pulled the plug
on a perfect moment deep in the woods,
still ringing, shuddering with the
last gasp of the miracle of music.
Fatigue
-Linn Barnes
I am tired of sadness in our land
so weepingly bent by the toxic rifts
carving into our sacred but scarred souls,
so fed up with the endless bullshit
we are told to hold close
and suffer endlessly
in the name of something
muttered about a greater good,
maybe, but finally collapsing
to loose change jangling
before empty dead eyes.
The Halberd
-Linn Barnes
When the candy crumbles
along the road to sorrow,
and the pretty faces flash
sad grainless shallow grins
before the hills of weeping
children savaged and brought
to the dens of vicious men
lying among the leftovers
of not a goddamned thing
worth even a moment of
gloomy consideration,
it is then that we take up
the halberd and draw a deep breath
before bringing it crashing
down on the empty skulls,
drooling before the scales
of justice which have finally found
and fledged a full set of righteous wings.
Fading Nightmare
-Linn Barnes
I’ve got it, took a while, but here it is:
We think we are witnessing reality,
bizarre entities cavorting on the stage,
before vanishing only to re-appear,
a driver in one hand and a speech
in the other, dancing and screaming,
grabbing and goosing one another,
until the probabilities explode,
and the whole exercise collapses,
bringing down what no one thought
possible until it lay sprawling
and shattered on the kitchen floor,
components flying away from each other
at warp speed, where the mustard
explodes into the light and the leftovers
dance a rubric rhumba as the dawn
begins to shine, shutting the fading
nightmare down, which soon crumbles to
a swarm of what may have been
to a cloud of past and future dust.
Forlorn Symmetries
-Linn Barnes
A shadow has drifted into view,
where the eagle and the falcon
once flew in a deeply chilled wind,
now blowing wet and too warm,
fogging the walls and the rims,
diving and rising before
the tempest begins,
sounding ill-fated notes,
out of place, in an unknown major key,
yielding to sad rumors of a minor mode,
an aeolian grumble thrown from crumbling clay,
bringing no respite or light,
no harmonic redemption,
only crippled cadences,
wandering in and out of
an open pallet of myth and illusion,
blurring the forlorn symmetries
of antique time that will not cease.
to bring life to bear upon the most hopeless heart,
but not this tart, oh no, this one stays within the fold,
with camembert and glorious calvados to feast the day'...
-Linn Barnes
-Linn Barnes
It is July two, two days until the fourth,
two days until tanks will roll in Washington,
and the weeping and crying of lost children
starving and living in filth, in heat, will be drowned
out by the roar of machinery and stamping boots,
the roar of explosives, planes overhead, after dark,
after we are fêted to the political lies,
hyperbole and nonsense of the least
patriotic among us, a man who shames
all of us at home and abroad,
bragging of deals, where none are made,
cavorting with middle eastern potentates,
who eat their own and murder and dismember ours,
falling prey to a ruthless asian dictator who tricks him,
us, into moronic nuclear appeasement,
joking blithely with a sad russian murderer,
who successfully ensured his elevation
to the highest office in the land,
which should have gone to another,
a brave soul who now keeps Her peace,
and, like the rest of us, is now
looking for some payback.
-Linn Barnes
The door is closing on 75, three quarters of a century,
the remaining yaw of 25 years to the century
displays itself in block print and fading colors
before my clear, at the moment, but no doubt
soon to be fading eyes, dulling tastes,
confused mind, vanishing glamour,
most of which has already fled, and,
most of all, bewilderment at the notion
of it all, as it picks up to even greater speed,
rocketing forward to the sure
destiny looming at the dawn of each
and every noble and perfect day.
And, then I begin to play, and
the limits melt as I engage eternity.
War
-Linn Barnes
Full alert,
do you copy?
The proof is boiling over,
the stew is overdone,
drop your satchel,
grab your spear,
meet me at the shield wall
for buttercups and beer.
The savages are at the gate,
where dark blood swarms the air,
where blinking back tears
has become the order of the day,
where high crimes and scandal
are the rule of the day,
where the rulers are reveling
in the slick sick lust of
the murderous fray,
where the clarion call
to war rings out as the
slim gamble for peace
is being stomped, crunched
and split upon the altar
of failed implorations and lies
where the assembly
of the macabre machine
clangs, bangs and rattles
in the solemn darkness
of the melancholy night.
Dylan
-Linn Barnes
When Daphne taught us the tides
we came and we went, water all around,
the shore slipping beneath our souls,
as we righted the morning and the day,
with barely a thought of tomorrow,
until the meta-fabric of a new dawn spread
a gravelly false torc across the collective
throat, bringing to a collapse what
had shuddered into being, one time
when we were young and strong,
a pure harmonious truth
that seemed to have no end.
And this is why we listen to Dylan.
Beach time
-Linn Barnes
The sea is calm
Birds are flying
People are walking
North and south
The wind is cool
Steady with gusts
Up to...
Don’t need
A weatherman to
Know which way
The wind is...
I’m thinking about flamenco
Chills and thrills on the guitar
My new cyprus and spruce
Flamenco guitar a wonder of
Light woods and clear air
Reminds me of a perfect day
On a lonely beach when colors
Are shouting in every key
Doubling falling into one another
While I buckle up put on the picks
And bring more than light
To what’s left of this world
On The Strand
-Linn Barnes
By the raw windy strand,
I stand disheveled and
Staggered to the bone,
With an ugly, heated wind
Burning my flesh, driving
Home the sure knowledge
That this sad day is but
A random toss upon
A shrinking bit of sand,
Whirling out of control,
Blowing up into a grim wind,
Hellbent for some far horizon,
Finally vanishing, passing into
Something like hope for tomorrow.
But the sky has yet to clear.
Normandy
-Linn Barnes
When you walk the beach,
most of the shells are broken,
shattered by the waves,
ground to near dust by the sand,
devoid of any organic rewards
for the crabs or the birds
in their never ending search
for anything that may be, or,
for a brief moment was, a
spell ago, in the torrent of waves,
an organic possibility, suitable
for slaughter and consumption.
When you walk the beach,
for the most part, you stave off
the notion that you are walking
among the dead and dying,
as the living struggle to
devour what is left of the rest,
in an impossible tableau,
suggesting the hopes,
prayers and fears of the lost
rains down and drops you
to your knees where the soaking
sand, which time can never forget,
crushes you to tears and lamentations
of the horror born by those who
suffered, sacrificed and died
to pave your way into the world.
Buckingham
-Linn Barnes
Willing to let the British monarchy be what it is,
I guess, a path to antiquity, a way from then to when,
just plain old one of those wonderful, sort of, things
which serve the present, kind of, as well as the past.
But is this really the case? Are we, British or otherwise,
being served by those who stand and wait,
while they welcome, and I can’t imagine why,
some of the worst examples of the species to the realm?
The depressing vision of Queen Elizabeth II
welcoming Trump to Buckingham, guns and all,
was enough to turn any sane person
into a bloodthirsty bolshevik in a sad wink of the eye.
Heroes
-Linn Barnes
Could a blessing actually be invoked,
I say blessèd be the slaves to reason,
the untiring mostly ridiculed and reviled
cadres of dreamers and scholars
who somehow imagine they
can have an effect upon
the shameless devastation
wrought upon our amazing diverse
pluralistic and unique society
by frauds, liars, schemers and traitors.
Beached
-Linn Barnes
One night when things
were not so good,
I dreamed a sad moment
when they were worse,
which shotgunned me to
the surface of the sea,
breaching the shore bound waves,
slamming me into the sandy surf,
where I lay stunned and breathless
until I gagged my way to the surface
only to be struck again, dragged down
and tided out to sea, this time for good.
Or, so it may have appeared to the
casual passerby, sucking a soda,
choking on burgers and fries,
lighting up another lucky,
but it was not to be so,
since the gates were shut
for this callous unbeliever.
But I crawled my way
out of the ripping crush
barely in the nick of time
to wallow in the wash
until I was, dead fish-like,
half buried on the shore,
food for the crabs and birds,
crawling, screeching for a taste
of the waste so fortuitously
shot up, filleted and presented,
on a bed of seaweed and baby clams.
Poems of April and May 2019
- by Linn Barnes
Poems from April and May, 2019
Truth
-Linn Barnes
While a dabble of so-called truth
about maybe not much,
but still more than less,
and that’s not easy,
may always seem
questionable, controversial,
the sadder truth is
that it is not anywhere near
as shocking as someone
posturing as an apostle of a
convinced assumption
about most anything,
clinging doggedly to
something our simple
notion of truth continues to show
to be a lie, and, what’s worse,
an evident peril for us all.
This becomes the moment
the bells must be rung loudly
all through the land.
What Matters
The thing about what matters is simple:
It has to matter. What doesn't, doesn't count,
and is best left to fools and parasites,
you know, the familiars of everyday life,
we shudder to hear, and ought to have
the good sense to ignore, no matter the volume.
The moment is upon us to cast off
the detritus that has managed to surface
in our national life, which, if taken seriously,
pretends to be a threat, but is really only tiresome.
Pay no attention to fools and trash,
they will not follow you, if you don't let them....
For you are too goddamned strong.
Pour Tous Les Morts
-Linn Barnes
I’m up before light with the mist
rain on the way, spitting now,
to drape heavily the coming day
with gloomy heavy shards and sheets.
Still dark when I go to the studio,
buried in sagging green on the hillside.
I go out on the woodland deck
and breath deeply the dense wet air.
The light is struggling hopelessly
to bring some form to the gloom,
the river rattling over the rocks below
a forlorn fantasia in no time at all.
I tune the nylon string guitar,
and begin to play with bare flesh,
not with the usual brass finger picks,
whispering over empty scales and arpeggios.
I’m in standard tuning, home for the guitar,
first time in a long while I’ve left lute tuning;
I’m quietly, firmly, almost uncannily drawn into a deep
communion and melancholic semi trance with:
E minor, the saddest key, the closest key
on the guitar to a wide open and desperate chord,
the first three strings ringing siren-like as high drones,
fingers boring into the forlorn scale over three bases.
I am all but swimming with the dark bases
the guitar wet, heavy, now weeping,
finally grinding into the mist and dim light
the only possible music for now from long, long ago:
The impossible and perfect anthem by Gary Davis:
Death don’t have no mercy in this land.
Death
-Linn Barnes
I have just heard of
the death of an old friend.
With this new and sad knowledge,
now in overdrive, I plan nothing,
and there are no plans for me,
only the cosmos wielding on,
where only change is constant,
and that constant a sad whimsy,
where nothing is proffered,
and where we finally must stand alone.
Farewell, old friend. We are less without you.
Soda Fountain
-Linn Barnes
There was a time long ago, innocent
at some soda fountain somewhere,
among the many lost shades of those days,
when you may have felt a pure breath of air,
the whimsicality of a brief moment bathed in
ice cream and coke, when you were sure
things were on track and time was on your side,
when the music wailed, cried, moaned and died
beneath the glimmering icy mirrored walls.
Wind
-Linn Barnes
The afternoon was rapidly heating up
the air thick with humidity
when the wind began to trickle in
out of the northwest,
and then, after a wink and a nod,
to blow, blow hard,
bending the newly leafed out trees,
filling spinnakers of green with
flashing brown exploded rigging
waving before the mountain gale,
the rain slamming, hard, sideways,
riding the chariots of blasting wind
straight at and through us, huddled
behind closed windows and doors,
when the lightening filled the sky
and knifed into the land
followed by volley after volley of
thunderous slamming.
Then, it all passed, blew off to the south.
We never even lost power.
But, this is Virginia, in the mountains,
not the vast flats further west,
where it must seem the walls
of creation are collapsing
millions of lives shattered,
where whole towns are crushed
beneath the tornado’s wholesale reaping
in the wink of a terrified bloodshot eye.
For the Win
-Linn Barnes
The thing about surviving a left hook is the guard,
same with a right cross and, sure, an uppercut,
you just plain got to dance away from them;
but there’s really nothing quite like a clean block
from a reckless punch, followed by
a straight shot to the center of the show,
that brings the game crashing on home,
focuses the attention of the shouting hungry mob,
drunk and screaming as they usually are,
for the the coming blood spattered
crunch, pain and blinding savagery
about to be executed on the tottering combatant
before the referee can step in and call a merciful halt;
but, you know, sometimes they don’t bother,
while the howls, shouts and grunts
thumbs-down the hapless victim,
now blinded and crippled in a mist of agony,
blood and tears, who crumbles in a limp heap
to the sad soaked canvas,
his last and only chance to survive,
while the rising screams and warped rage
of the blood-lusted mob bring to focus
the horror we have grown to abide
and, it appears, will not stand to lose.
The Dawning
-Linn Barnes
While it may seem like
the continued abuse of each day
must cripple the wounded heart,
and the illusion of nothing left to say
holds open the festering wounds
of hopelessness and decay,
it is just plain not so.
Rather, we are fully fueled,
lean, starving for the fray,
all hands on deck for the
dawning of the new day.
The Fall
-Linn Barnes
Today, with the heat of the afternoon,
when the wind blew up a notch or two,
a dying tree, I guess long ready,
snapped and crashed in the forest
surrounding the woodland cottage
with the profound percussion of a
high powered rifle fired down below by the river,
a percussive crack, sudden, sharp and ringing,
then a creaking fall to the greenwood floor,
smashing down with impossible weight and energy,
smothering hundreds of lives in its path,
lives about which we will now know nothing,
although we certainly never would have anyway.
The Eyes Have It
-Linn Barnes
With open media-shocked eyes we witness
a glorious experiment founded by bold men
founder, gurgle and sputter in the ugly dust
of bald faced lies and criminal corruption,
heaped high to the failing gunnels of credibility,
where we now seem unable to calm a growing storm
rising higher with the turning of each new day,
vaguely flashing after the fading of yet another sad night,
where the grim fantasies of madmen have prevailed,
where the clear, clean and forgiving dawn has buckled
and begins to recede to the realm of lost hope and myth,
a severed tendon vanishing into a quivering muscle,
very hard to find, even harder to retrieve.
Whirl
-Linn Barnes
All is whirl, said dark Heraclitus:
there is nothing, nothing but change,
even the bright stars careen,
grinding out the threads of ancient overtures,
vanishing to no more than a heavy back beat,
but, if you fire the imagination and
lean in a little, you can’t miss it,
all of which, among the impermanence,
within which we navigate,
speaks loudly the simple truth:
We are the stuff of motion,
bouncing in our time
to and fro, this way and that,
affirming and celebrating,
if we choose to be clever,
if we are close watchers,
the fabric and glory of our being.
If this is as much so, as it seems,
why then are we so damnably
challenged by the sad imposition of faith
into the realm of enlightened contemplation,
where, as lovely as it may seem to be,
it still has no reasonable and proper place,
and serves only to darken our days
and diminish the special glory of our lives,
where dance will out if given the chance.
Persia
-Linn Barnes
There is much deadly dancing afoot,
where the peacock throne is no more,
whirling beyond the flash of heel and toe,
driven by clashing out of tune symbols,
drums courting, counting dull cadence,
the maddened blood driven beyond
what dimmed witted pressure will allow,
drawing heavy, grim and fatal bows
to the swollen cheeks of bloodlust and greed,
ready to loose a vast mist of deadly shafts
once again onto the cradle of Persian dreams,
where we failed before and now will fail again,
our corrupt and false leader lashed to a flaming chariot,
charging into the gaping jaws of his dying days.
Staying in Time
-Linn Barnes
Beyond the layout, the clamor for more
than proof in the burned out pudding,
there lies the quantum truth
floating in the random mist
of mis-spent shots in an unholy night
where nothing is really actual,
and lies are as real as others,
where the worst swim with all,
and all swim alone, a random soup
of guesses and glimmers,
where light collides with the dark
and gathers strength from another
far brighter and darker shadow.
It is here that we trespass, dance upon
the delicate gathering of our hours,
until we are sure shocked and finally stand,
bolt straight to the lies and corruption,
shout out the truth until, nearing exhaustion,
we must lay down, and, mercifully, rest.
But now, it is clear, is not that time.
The Mother
-Linn Barnes
The mother of us all
is the mother of each of us;
this is the story that binds,
the story that bears
the fruit we can all believe,
in the face of improbability,
no matter the cost,
when we are left, finally,
with our glorious memories
and our undying love.
The Storm
-Linn Barnes
A storm is flooding the rancid wells
where there’s been nothing,
nothing but a sandy death invading
the gaging nostrils
of the soon to perish;
where the light, bent to a horrible angle,
offers no repose,
no shelter from the wind, the rain,
and the grim tidings of the end;
where the walking, stumbling, crippled
crawl onto the slack jawed public stage
and are stoned to dust and vanish
into the wilderness they have worshipped,
where the rulers play the usual sad game,
and once again conquer the hearts of a few,
but this time, no where near most.
Waiting
-Linn Barnes
Ancient dragons are swarming the land,
charring the hearts and chilling the minds,
wielding sharp swords, spitting murderous flames,
collapsing the thin canopy where none can hope to hide,
forcing all into the open where battle must rage,
where sky is caving beneath shotgun blasts of lies,
where shields are melting before murderous rain
drenching mud pits where huddle the abandoned,
weary souls in the grip of the darkest of nights,
waiting for the holy warriors of a prophesied dawn.
Beltane
-Linn Barnes
The earth has spun once more to Beltane.
All is green, wet and luscious in the meadows and fields,
the woods riot with the glamour of May, leafing out to the watcher.
Tonight, somewhere, everywhere, actual, virtual,
the towering fires will be kindled and lit,
dancing and song will stamp out the cold,
warm hungry hearts and feed starving souls.
Bells will ring out and drums will be struck,
the harp and the lute will shimmer ancient tunes
and an aching maligned world will once again weep
for the ripeness of pure, innocent passion on this,
our perfect day.
Guitars
-Linn Barnes
The guitar, our national instrument, how does it work?
A really big but good question.
To strike the string, sings the body of the guitar.
To fret and strike the string, shortens the string
and sings again the body, only higher.
To fret twice, then more, creates a special form of language
that we have come to call music.
This is the art of the guitar.
What we ‘do’ is engender a sonic vapor,
gilding lightly over a brief moment,
which will quickly evaporate back to potentiality.
This is where the player becomes the medium,
the imagination on full alert and on fire.
Guitars, like all musical instruments,
are in the service of dreams.
The Guitar
-Linn Barnes
April continues to be the cruelest month, as Eliot told us,
splashing gore and horror throughout the world.
You’d think we were at war. Are we?
I have taken to my instruments with a primal vengeance,
attacking the Martin 000-28 with an unexpected furor,
building power and strength in deep draughts.
I have returned, in part, to the sixteenth century for solace,
the works of Francesco da Milano and John Dowland
leaping into being, this time on the guitar, not the lute.
‘Il faux vivais dans son temps’, say the wise French,
‘You must live in your own time’, and, without regret or fear;
I revel in the guitar playing of my youth, now punctuated with my life.
The steel stringed Martin, fired by visionary technologies,
reverberates wildly, driven by invisible choruses into vast halls,
timeless cathedrals and deep caves throughout the world,
creating stunning sanctuaries of sadness, power and joy,
bridging the gap from hopelessness to shelter, and, then,
begging the poet’s permission, ‘brings it all back home’.
For Joe
-Linn Barnes
Joe and I are about the same age.
We probably had a few together at the
Bottle and Cork on one if those forgotten
Sundays so very long ago when Dewey
was learning to be Dewey.
Everybody who was there remembers those days,
even if you can’t quite nail ‘em down.
Innocence was in the air,
the beer was frozen to near ice,
the laughter was without fear,
the music was crazy loud
in a reckless Fender kind of way,
swooping and colliding
with our happily addled heads
‘till we finally staggered off
to barely make it to where
we were hoping to get to
with very little reason
to imagine we had even
a glimmer of a chance.
But we did, and with a shrug
we waded into Monday
somewhere, fools perhaps,
but with few regrets and
mostly without sorrow.
Once again, we raise
a happy glass to Joe.
See you on Sunday.
The Night Sky
-Linn Barnes
Alone with the night sky, the other side of day,
grappling with the stars, enchanted by the murky galaxies,
which appear vanishing beyond the far terminal horizons,
where ruthlessness can never be discussed,
and time at that close range hardly ticks,
while near and very far is nothing
but speed and heat and combustion,
the fuel of being in a thing we call our time,
the one we so ignorantly and ungraciously inhabit,
with hardly a glimpse into the fog
we eternally muddle through,
calling it something like reality,
which, with one glimpse, is a joke,
and another a tragedy.
High Tide
-Linn Barnes
When finally wisdom began screaming for a retreat,
The long sharp blades were already out,
Slashing the fabric of anything called truth,
Skinning the ancient oracular vision along the
Perforated bent worthless rudder no longer
Guiding anything, much less the water
Flooding the gunnels beyond any bailing,
Sinking the vessel in the grim gloomy mire,
Waves washing, crashing in, then out,
Creatures of the sea both around
And among you preparing for the feast
You have so perfectly prepared for them.
After so many centuries of indolence,
Arrogance and greed did you expect
Anything like an even break, a deal?
Courting the Waters
-Linn Barnes
Sometimes you must step deeply
into flowing and dangerous waters,
let them cover and take you at speed
through the perilous canyons
toward the glorious truth, without fear,
but rather with full conviction,
even a broad high grin,
knowing that at the end
that truth will be your fast friend.
It appears it has become time
to rattle off your fear and take that dive.
Spread the word,
no life jackets allowed.
The Flames
-Linn Barnes
I have been stranded upon many sad shores,
cast up by the seas of despair,
to lie desolately coiled in fear,
waiting for some hope, mostly impossible to imagine;
and then, it somehow crunches through.
And now, again in this drifting moment,
with the odds casting far to the dark side,
Do I err with hope, when the seas seem clearing?
The portrait of brothers and sisters chanting
for the re-birth of the lost power of antiquity,
the flames having savaged the world,
ringing in a powerful major scale the
indomitability of the world in rebound.
On Kingship
- by Linn Barnes
The wheel of the year is always spinning, and, while
there are no fixed points between ‘then’ and ‘when’
but we do hypothesize a ‘now’, in spite of the grammatical
and philosophical challenges. Try and think of a ‘now’ before when it was
a ‘then’; or, a ‘now’ on ‘it’s’ way to ‘when-dom’. ‘Nows’ are tough to pin down.
However, today, ‘now’, kind of, the dawn of the winter solstice,
the moment when the earth begins to tilt toward the longer and finally warmer days
until the summer solstice, when it tilts back toward the dark, all of this
has enormous mytho-historical significance.
The old, very old, legends suggest that there were
two gods responsible for ‘managing’ the year.
First, the god of the waning year, from June 21
until the second god, his twin or ‘tanist’, of the waxing year, took over
on December 21, the winter solstice, until he once again was replaced by the
god of the waning year, and so forth.
These two figures were seen as a necessary pair
of twins, rising and dying over and over again, insuring
the continuity of the tribe and the endurance of tradition.
This is the stuff some modern religions are built on,
however that may express itself.
These two king-gods were known to the ancients as
‘sacred-kings’, really only one, but thought of as two, which,
of course, rings plenty of bells in our religious calendar.
The interesting thing here is that these two iterations of
the same spirit were ‘obliged’ to die, no exceptions; one died,
the other took over, when it died and the other was re-born.
Over and over and over, the year spun, each reigning ‘king-god’
managing things in accordance with custom, in compliance with tradition.
it would have been inconceivable that one of these figures
act out of the ‘ordinary’, or, ‘selfishly’, or, in any interest other
that the benefit of the tribe to which he was bound.
Any behavior remotely resembling anything which would
threaten the continued existence of the tribe by one of these twins
was unthinkable. However, since there were ‘elected’ representations
of these spiritual entities, and, since humans are never anything like the gods,
it is conceivable that mischief was possible.
The point is inescapable: the transgressor would be replaced or the
tribe would suffer and vanish.
There were no exceptions and there was no merci.
The tribe would collectively demand that the
king must die, even out of season to atone for his misdeeds.
There was no middle ground.
You rode the ‘king’s highway’,
you fulfilled your part of the ‘deal’.
If not, you were replaced, with extreme prejudice.
Quaint, right?
Now
- by Linn Barnes
Now,
a few days before Christmas,
now,
when there is no snow upon the ground,
now,
when the temperatures are rising
and rain is expected,
now,
when the lights are all sparkling
and merry tinsel is tweaking the trees,
now,
when we dream of a radiant past,
now,
when we hope for deliverance in time
of this time when the pure light of joy is shrouded,
mostly eclipsed beneath clouds of intrigue and lies,
when
the clear light of truth
struggles for a breath of clean air,
when now is the time
for the stalwart soldiers of the open way
to speak and to be unafraid
to flash their ribbons of honor
for the whole world the see
and be brought glistening
into the valor of a brilliant new year.
A Winter Prayer
- by Linn Barnes
A Winter Prayer
-Linn Barnes
On a cold morning in late December,
windows frosted, breath freezing before my eyes,
tears streaming down my burning cheek,
I slipped into the shadow of a sliver of the elusive past,
looking everywhere for the glamor that
once seemed to grace me,
which I finally found shining brightly
in the new and glittering snow,
which careened me into the now,
the now of this Christmastide,
celebrating the sweet charm,
the enduring grace of warmth and fellowship,
simmered now to a fine and potent stew,
which may not be burned or damaged by
the sad travails of a troubled world.
The light of hope, at this time, call it holy, if you will,
shines for all who shine from within, for all the world
to be illuminated and finally bathed in the purest
and most powerful fire of hope and redemption.
The Leader
- by Linn Barnes
The Leader
-Linn Barnes
About our large and yellow leader,
One thing’s plain and sloppy:
He’s as drumpled as he’s trumpled,
Lost in a whirligig of sputtering rages.
And when it comes to being a man,
Of nature sweet and kind,
He’s as clouty and galooty,
The worst of the demon’s seed,
Grim and sans souci, bletched,
Bedraggled and de-noosed,
Carnavoréd and repulséd.
And, as we squirm and watch what we must see,
We are shuddered with the saddest flow of tears,
Forced to hear his savage and repulsive jokes and jeers
That fall upon the eyes and ears of his despairing victims,
Whose beloved have been untimely blasted from the earth,
The undisputed clear result of his manic and demonic chatter.
This must not endure.
Lords of the Woods
- by Linn Barnes
Listen!
There is crashing and breaking slightly off to our left, upwind,
coming with a fierce will toward us through the fog and dark,
antlers hanging up on low hanging branches, as he burrows his scent
deep in the wood, scraping clean the bark to the wet wood, his signature raw,
clear and powerful, coming to claim his hard won prize, the doe in season
he senses, but cannot yet scent. But, he must pass us first, and he will,
since we never take the large trophy bucks in spite of their great beauty.
The truth for us is simple and self serving: The finest venison is from the younger,
smaller creatures, male or female. We have always hunted for the wild and perfect
meat which we cherish, leaving the mature antlered bucks to their rightful domain,
and never taking the alpha breeding males, upon which the life and myth of the herd depends.
We witness and are cowed by their great beauty, ferocity and elegance as they rule
their antique kingdom, this perfect and holy forest once made sacred
for all time in an ancient and now mostly lost world.
These eternal creatures are the true, rightful and anointed
Lords of the Woods.
Deer Season First Day
- by Linn Barnes
This morning, very early, and way too warm we went to our stands for the first time this year. We jumped five deer going in, four does and a large buck. They stood on full alert while we, as quietly as possible, unloaded the crossbows and began our carefully watched trek up the hill to the stands. They held for a surprisingly long time, finally, tails flashing high white flags , vanishing into the deep cover of the woods, not to be seen again. The trick is to get there first, obviously, but it's never a sure bet. They won this round, but the show was well worth it. We had plenty of fog over very high grass at the edges, since the farmer can't make hay in the wet, and wet it has been. It all had a mysterious and primitive quality, the deer appearing and vanishing without a sound to break the ethereal silence of this much too warm morning. After two hours of being entertained by a horde of mosquitos and gnats, we called it a morning. A final salute from a gaggle of Canada geese flying overhead, on a mission between the ponds, as they piped us back to the car. Win or lose, it's never dull. We'll be out again tonight at another spot where we will have the south wind in our favor. This is crepuscular work, the bulk of the day is slow and silent. Although, when the weather is right with a temperature in the 40s or low 50s you can bring lunch, take a nap and stay all day...