If you want to dream and live come with me I’ll take you to a place so beautiful We’ll both escape and go over there If you don’t want to dream then you can stay here
Hollywood realizes your dreams in front of a green screen We’ll see the sunset and forget about wars Come to California with me my queen You could think that the world is yours
You’ll see stars not in the sky, but in bars Huge skyscrapers that are not buildings You’ll forget about all your scars Come to California with me girl
Record your own life story in a studio You’ll meet some people that are so hooked on drugs It has its disadvantages, but I liked it Let’s realize our California dreams
They were beautiful in the clear early light— red, yellow, blue and green— is all I wanted to say about them, although for the rest of the day I pictured a lighter version of myself calling time through a little megaphone, first to the months of the year, then to the twelve apostles, all grimacing as they leaned and pulled on the long wooden oars.
— from Brightly Colored Boats on the Banks of the Charles by Billy Collins
Huffy Henry hid the day, unappeasable Henry sulked. I see his point,—a trying to put things over. It was the thought that they thought they could do it made Henry wicked & away. But he should have come out and talked.
All the world like a woolen lover once did seem on Henry’s side. Then came a departure. Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought. I don’t see how Henry, pried open for all the world to see, survived.
What he has now to say is a long wonder the world can bear & be. Once in a sycamore I was glad all at the top, and I sang. Hard on the land wears the strong sea and empty grows every bed.
He Plays To His Shadow (Afternoon Drinks On the Copper Queen Saloon Balcony) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
On A Bisbee Afternoon
he plays to his shadow devotedly on his violin nobody listens love torturing itself to rise above conversations lost in discontent limits of self-expression a saloon window reflection
there is no tragedy on the Queen’s saloon balcony the smell of lavender lingers from the ghosts of the hotel whores who are not indifferent listening to classical strings becoming a delightful moan
Becoming is Superior to Being 