I stand astride
Across the continent
Sea to shining sea
Watching the time
Flow back into the past
Counterclockwisely
Old men grow young
Their births then undone
Fruit grows into the tree
Which then turn to bud
Vanishes in the mud
Counterclockwisely
The ships full of men
Sailing against the tide
And back in time
Transatlantically
I see from above
Words flying off the page
Unwriting history
It’s not The New World
It’s not an empty stage
It’s another chance to be
Counterclockwisely
Nan ninna kitaki inda nortini, neenu chandra nante badalagtiya
I see you through the window, like the moon you're changing
A scrappy fellow from Idaho
Came to Europe to try to show
Poetry could break free from the past
Helped Hemingway Eliot Joyce
Helped define the modern voice
Yeah Ezra Pound kicked off with a Blast
Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound, you turned poetry around
Though your Cantos are a tough slog to this day
They seem so crabbed and bloated
Were you crazy when you wrote it
You’re a wild man but I love you Ezra Pound
American life moved too shittily
So he settled down in Italy
Didn’t mind expressing his political view
Loved Mussolini and the fascists
Never tried to mask it
Spoke out for the Axis powers in World War Two
Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound, are you brilliant or a clown
Are you a fascist or are you insane?
Your readers called you genius
But the Feds said you were treasonous
You’re a wild man but I love you Ezra Pound
I know that you fell into fascism pretty deep
But I won’t put you down for the company you keep
Didn’t Woody Guthrie after all fall in
With fellows who were followers of Stalin?
The Feds didn’t like what’d he expressed
So they put him to a mental test
Said he wasn’t guilty, just insane
Locked in the bughouse for twelve years
Didn’t change much it appears
Ezra Pound what went on in your brain?
Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound, you’ve turned my head around
No one did more for modern poetry
You sure did make it new
But you didn’t much like the Jews
You’re a wild man, but I love you Ezra Pound
Who do you trust
a mountain or a museum?
Who do you trust?
Which one do you trust?
Museums are made by people, for a start
And people are the ones who fill it up with art
That people have made to try to touch your heart
Or to touch your mind, your eye or touch some other part
No, culture’s just a weapon to tell us how to feel
It’s about control and not some big, lofty ideal
Of course that is the very thing the artist-types conceal
And instead they rely on artistic snob appeal
Who do you trust
a mountain or a museum?
Who do you trust?
Which one do you trust?
Now a mountain’s never going to try to tell you what to do
A mountain will not preach about the value of virtue
But if you look and listen closely, then I’m sure that you
Will find that you can trust a mountain, a mountain’s always true
It’s a true a mountain’s true, a mountain’s never lied
But a mountain doesn’t care if we live or died
Though not every artwork may serve as a guide
Art connects us to the mountain that we have inside
So who do you trust
a mountain or a museum?
Who do you trust?
Which one do you trust?
Kind of a companion piece to "Mt. Holyoke." I imagine it with a Mike Nesmith finger-pickin' background
We climbed Mount Holyoke to see the vista
Along with our dear friend, more like a sister
The clouds filtering pre-sunset rays
Creating a romantic golden haze
The sky, the light, the river: all sublime
Our friend says she takes pictures, every time
Forgetting the ones she has on her phone
Yet each one has a distinct look of its own
She told us there was a famous picture made
By Thomas Cole of this same mountain glade
Painted almost two hundred years ago
The same bend in the river, called oxbow
And though the mountain and the river are of course
Far older than the painting—they’re its source—
As we stand here late afternoon in October
I think how both picture and mountain will one day be over
A painting sometimes can become degraded
An artist’s reputation may have faded
Mountains crumble, they do not last forever
Flooding and dry seasons change a river
And though we may not say it in a song
Sometimes even love won’t last too long
For now we have both picture and the view, my love
For now we have a song for me and you, my love
It’s true you’re only twenty-five, Lillian
But what matters most is that you’re alive, Lillian
Life’s just a pattern that’s always repeating
The clock on the shelf might be over-heating
But listen, your heart is now beating
It’s you now, you’re one a million
The wheel just keeps turning
It may seem to the eye of the discerning
Nobody sees and nobody’s learning
But in all eternity there’s only one Lillian
The history book and the map, Lillian
Want to box you up into a trap, Lillian
All the codes you’ve so long hated
Return as if they had been fated
The ticking of time cannot be sedated
The routine has become so vaudevillian
The cycles are never completed
The universe never depleted
But don’t think that you’ll be defeated
As long as you’re here you are Lillian
