Poems and Song Lyrics
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Yata Peinovich and Timothy Young
Snow Has Fallen
by Young and Yata
Released May 1, 2008
All words and music by Timothy Young
and Yata Peinovich
© 2008
OUTSIDE LAS VEGAS
after Kabir
Why do you, my twin, have the
jitters?
If the Holy One cares for squirmy
otters,
dung-dipped cowbirds, and locusts
who clatter in the trees,
if He held you while we
were still in the womb
why wouldn’t He hold you now?
How could we have ended up
in a ’69 Rambler, living outside Las Vegas?
We’ve made too many friends
who sit all night at the slots,
waiting to perform in casino shows.
We’ve left the Holy One for
poker chips
on an empty
green table.
MUSICIAN
MARRIED
Today the musician married,
the long score plays and replays,
toward that
moment his wife knows far better
than he.
Wave after wave of music has courted her,
motion flowing
out of his fingers.
And she rustled, as leafs do.
Yet only in silence, so seemingly empty,
is there
fullness. They know it,
in their
souls, their bodies and kisses.
Only stillness can carry their marriage boat.
Only silence can generate music.
Only a musician who finds it, can give his music
to her
No matter her busyness,
no matter his attention,
she feeds
him stillness and he lifts her into his world.
Nothing else needs to be proved.
The song its flurries and rests,
its brightness and arbors, will generate greatness
in the two,
and
whichever third is coming.
SWEETNESS
AND CONTENTMENT
Outside
the window
peony
buds
are
about to burst
into
red bowls
of
fragrance.
I
hear wrens whistling
in
the soft rain.
I
hear water spill
as
my love showers
in
the dark bath.
My
heart fills
with
sweetness
and
contentment.
I'm
quiet, and
near
peace
with
the gray rain,
the
dark trees,
and our iridescent life.
Forgive
me.
Tonight,
ugly chrysanthemums
of smoke
spewed
from the bug-eyed,
flare-nosed
gargoyle
in my heart.
Forgive me.
PILGRIMAGE
1
It’s still dark on the road,
after forty years of working.
What do I have? Curiosity, fear?
Camping gear and a big car?
Let me
call this thing Emptiness.
2
I’m alone with the mosquitoes
at the Mississippi headwater,
in the parking lot called
Cemetery Circle
My car won’t start, the battery’s
dead.
Tomorrow seems as thick as a
black spruce
swamp
3
At the Deerwood Motel an old woman smoker
in a too-tight bra and lipstick job,
flips on “No Vacancy” as I arrive.
All the rooms are empty-- except one with a
trucker .
I smell Old
Spice in
the lobby.
4
The big river slides beneath Brainerd’s
bridge,
where meth-head painters
sign their names.
They tattoo pentagrams on the pylons,
pick their scabs and give up on all choice,
They’re following that long,
long road
like ghosts
5
The ground is trembling from nighttime
explosions
at Fort
Ripley’s
artillery range
I didn’t go to Nam, but Roger
and Steve and Dennis came back
and blew themselves away one
way or
another
6
Pig’s Eye is a wasteland, but it’s not
dead.
Prisons hunker up and down this River.
I’m not really a pilgrim
like Parsifal or Quixote
but there’s a rosary of sorrow
twisting in
my head.
7
Old paddlefish feel the river with their lips.
They never see more than the dark current.
Their scales hum the world’s oldest songs.
Their skeletons wash up on the sands
Eight vultures wobble
upon
the updraft.
8
The Qawwali singers of
the birds
are chanting in the woods.
Who are you, you wild song birds
whistling above poison ivy?
Why are you singing those sweet
songs for me?
MISSISSIPPI RIVER CHANT
M
ISS ISS
IPP I (3#)
Come down the river
aboard the Houseboat of Hope
Follow the blood through the homeless heart
Chorus:
Follow
the River
Follow
the River to the Sea
Follow
the River
M ISS ISS IPP I (3#)
Drift between the Great White Bluffs
Slide beside large beaver lodges
In and out of lily pad lagoons
Chorus:
Follow the River past the years of abuse
Follow the River through the tears and racism
Follow the River into the flow of Forgiveness
Chorus:
BEST
BLUES
The best blues come from old men,
men like Skillet Walker.
Bent-over piano man
in a tux among the bikers
His piano has a linoleum sound
but his sidekicks solid on guitar
Chorus:
Skillet's voice is worn out
like that Persian rug
I hear moaning through the frayed
ends
weeping on the bare threads
The old man pulls the blues
from deep in the earth
His licks are twinkling
like old sea fossils
asleep in a limestone bed.
There's no traffic in this small town
so I stand in the middle of the street
The moon's a bone over the road.
Tonight no dogs will sleep.
The best blues come from old men,
men like Skillet Walker.
His body leans into a crooked song,
there’s dust on his road to love.
Blues seep out the open screen doors
of this rivertown Star
Café
Chorus:
JULY STORM
I never kissed her cranberried lips,
I only listened to the bees
guarding her heart.
She said to me—
How long must I play for you?
Shake off your shyness.
I said—
Your smile is lightning
across the sky of my heart.
She said—
Your hesitation is a storm
ready to
rain on my zinnia garden.
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