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Volume 4-2011
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That said, I view lyric writing as a poetic form, and certainly aspire toward poetic ends. Exhibits are included here. * * * * * * What Will It Mean? By Rick Alan Rice (RAR) Copyright © RAR 2011 (May 3, 2011)
What will it mean? Bin Laden is dead, Killed by a bullet As he rose in his bed
Perhaps from his sleep Awakened by wings The pulsating pistons Of killing machines
“Praise be to Allah”, “Fuck!” Or some such thing, Surely he muttered As shots rang and women screamed
We infidels will never know Where devout Muslim spirits go When in their dreams They hear the sounds Of Navy Seals on the ground
But what of now?
These noisy streets, The TV screens, Is that youth at a party? What is that they sing? In Manhattan At the haunted square Where towers crumbled From high, thin air
Oh caterwaul to the I bring Such tithes of grave dependencies On populations fraught with fear That Armageddon’s growing near
The boogeyman Who once we found Through news reports and Books and sound
Now lays there Wrapped in death-frock white Now slipping into black of night Beneath the waves To Allah’s praise Now taking us To Where?
What void will revelers replace Now that their cause has been erased Surveillance now must redirect Toward others whom we now suspect
Kim-Jong sleep with fleas tonight Admanajad you’d best stay bright For we have learned to take the fight To where you are in black of night And everything We say is true And every truth is aimed at you, To thee I sing.
Key resources laid to waste That could have built But went to chase This boogeyman, Now in the sea What did he mean?
A generation lived with him And knew his themes And knew his myths. Now what of them?
What of them That the War is Won The killing of enemy number one?
Has it made us safe As we rest in our rooms, Or is that something outside, In the chilling gloom?
A restive people Tasting blood Up late With morning soon to come
Perhaps their joy Will take to ground And spread…
But what is that sound?
Is that a helo setting down?
I have come to regard "The Clues" as my own Dante's Inferno, a descent into the nightmarish confusion of broken heartedness, including eternal pain. The Clues ©RAR 2008 I was young and not too quick to It seemed like time stood still A dark bird flew across the sun I was young and not too fit With all that time to fill Then morning came and I arose All my life you been around This life ain’t rich enough I was young and all alone It seemed like moss grew round my brain But time has come, time has gone This life ain’t rich enough
I Can Hardly Believe How Hard It Was to Be Me Before the Internet ©RAR 2007
I can hardly believe how hard it was to be me Before the Internet
For those who would like information, click here...
Riding On A Zephyr ©RAR 2005
Riding On A Zephyr is a song born of a childhood memory. There used to be a passenger train that ran between Chicago and Denver called the Denver Zephyr. (Zephyr was the Greek and Roman God of the refreshing west wind.) There it became the California Zephyr for the leg from Denver to Oakland. For reasons now lost to me, my mother and I rode the Denver Zephyr when I was a kid in the late 1950s and in memory it was one of those foundation events. Though the line had operated since 1931, the Zephyrs seemed like real Cadillacs in their day, symbols of American technological wonder. To me, looking back, they represented the confident plunge into the future that was the American experience of the 1950s. History, however, didn't stop at that moment of serene naiveté. As a nation, we were in the grip of historic events. I could see it in my own family, as my father in his career was swept by a wave of technology that carried him from the age of television to the race for outer space. Along the way something went terribly wrong -- for all of us. That is what Riding On A Zephyr is about.
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