Bob Dylan Didn't Show

Having protested against our war in Iraq since long before it began, I have been frustrated by the lack of response of most people to the heinous acts of our government - both international and internal. People say no single citizen can affect anything, but if all of the 70% of us who are so dissatisfied with the way things are going would state their dissatisfaction to their representatives, perhaps even Congress would find the guts to put a stop to it. The only certainty is that nothing will change as long as we are silent.

In the sixties - another time when people needed to speak out - Bob Dylan came along and spurred people to action. For the past several years I have hoped for a new 'Dylan' to emerge or that our old Bob Dylan would show up once again to put truth to music. Finally have given up. Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern and lots of reports have convinced me that the mob in charge of this mess is seriously planning to invade Iran, too. If that happens we can bend over and kiss our comfortable little lifestyles good-bye - not to mention other parts. I'm no Bob Dylan, but here's my best shot at what I think he might have written if he had come back out of his cave. By the way, if you've ever considered speaking out against the combination of executive tyranny and congressional apathy in our present government, THE FIRST SESSION OF THIS NEW CONGRESS IS THE TIME to do what you can to keep them from starting another war.

BOB DYLAN REVISITED

I can hear the silent screams in the alleys of your dreams

Where you cry and try to say that all is well.

But I can see that it is not from the way your blood runs hot

With the knowledge that your spot

Is just a target for a man

With a gun in his hand that you sold him.

I can see the signs of fear in the way you cock your ear

Listening to hear, but nothing will appear except

The darkness in your night and your remembering

When life was more than just your trembling

With the terrors of confusion and a sure and sad conclusion

Delivered at the hands

of a terroristic band

Bent on paying back our land for all its errors.

They don’t hate us for our freedom,

they’d just like to have their own,

They don’t hate us for our riches,

though they know we’re sonsabitches

They just don’t like us stealing it from them.

‘Cause we use it for our pleasure

and don’t pay them in fair measure,

And we sit and eat our popcorn while they starve.

And something is happening here and you don’t know what it is. Do you Mr. Jones?

(I do this in the Key of D. I tried to leave my chord placements here, but pasting blew the formatting, so if anyone would like to have them just leave a request in comments or go to my profile and email me. I'll send a sheet to you.)

Friends

Always vaguely dissatisfied with details of the daily grind and especially the way the “authorities” manage things, I have tended always to go my own way, though usually within the bounds of generally accepted behavior. This tendency to be on the edge of acceptability along with my natural reticence has meant that I often am more an observer than a participant.

Observation, combined with analysis, leads to conclusions about the behaviors observed. What follows are a couple of poems I have written about some of the people I have encountered and observed along the way. I hope you’ll enjoy them and maybe even recognize someone you know in them.

SOMNAMBULATION

Like a sleepwalker in deep woods,

I moved through what I thought were the chambers of your soul,

Seeking the soft, embracing pulse of your loving nature,

But finding only thorny, matted vines of fearful mistrust.

BRILLIANT BLUE

An awakening flower, I lift my head

Above the cool earth of my bed,

Stirring to shake off winter’s gray

On a rain tossed warming April day.

I think of you and cloudy skies turn Brilliant Blue

Leaf-like, swept by stream-washed shoal

Through dappled shade that cools my soul

And calms my spirit through and through

With a tender touch the way you do,

I think of you and cloudy skies turn Brilliant Blue.

In autumn’s winds I feel the chill

Of winter’s first attempt to kill

The green of summer’s smiling ways

With dark and glowering colder days.

I think of you and cloudy skies turn Brilliant Blue.

Like snow on winter’s wind I lift

Then settle in soft secluded drift,

Beneath the darkling storm-tossed sky,

Where, gently nestling down to earth, I

Think of you and cloudy skies turn Brilliant Blue.

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship sprouts in fallow fields,

We feed it from our souls.

And artificial waterings,

Will never make it grow.

So cultivate your friendships, friends,

Or they will fade away.

And you’ll be left – morose, bereft,

In the evening of your day.