Some Songs for Bob Dylan
Long lines of hard words varying lengthwise to set in printer’s ink
characterize hexameters
strands sometimes
snippets repeated
patterns weaving words into whatever was intended to link
*
Time decays
short enough to quickly lose a fleeting thought
after years away
detained by Circe then Calypso, how would he explain?
Odysseus closed his eyes to run his trapline
twirled his toes, flexed his ankles, wrists. knees, neck, groin
a cup of tea could keep him longer
detained by his lady
one more day
*
Dactyl
dactyl
spondee
Dactyl dactyl spondee
Anapest anapest trochee
Four trochees and a dactyl
Goes the beat
mind your feet
baby
on your way don’t delay baby
Now you’re grooving now you’re fooling
Don’t you make it harder than it needs to be
Don’t risk defeat don’t be effete
take care
where you go what you do lady
Now you’re grooving now you’re fooling
Don’t you make it harder than it needs to be
All of you and all of me
lady
get on your feet we’re going to meet baby
Now you’re grooving now you’re fooling
Don’t you make it harder than it needs to be
*
tick tock tick tock
trit trot trit trot
Wordsworth?
was it not?
Or was it Keats?
Maybe Yeats
who said:
find me from all of those
find me a song from those I sang
find me one
that will rhyme through time
with my heart life long
*
Baby
I just got to get it
I just got to get it
Done
There’s nothing happening here
It seems to disappear
dissolved in EverClear
Something was happening here
It never was made clear
but something was happening here
Baby
I just got to get it
I just got to get it
I just got to get it
Done
That thing that was happening here
It never did disappear
but never fear
It will reappear
dissolved in EverClear
And I hope I’ll get it done
In time for it to happen
That thing that’s happening here
I just gotta get it done
*
Rhubarb pie strawberries
Summer sky irises
Be you x or be you y
Subtract yourself you’re zero
When you’re zero don’t ignite
Don’t engage the gears won't bite
Don’t stay home or don’t stay out
No one cares except you do
When you’re blue don’t get too chill
And when you’re rad don’t get too sad
Subtract yourself you’re zero
Be you x or be you y
I will love you
*
strewn through time
wildflowers gently brushed aside
shingle slid on
boulders stepped past
stone berms climbed
moments left behind
combed by memory
seedlings sown
not stepped on
*
You Aphrodite born of foam motherless yet majestic
Marry me so I can be free to work on words of worship
while you endow our home and weave our fabric
ambience fine food clear wine and friendship
Mutate if you must change to virus your way in
Where there’s beauty I know you’re in the air
I can smell your perfume sweet nectar on your breath
I know you’ll embrace me should I fall on the stair
Marry me Aphrodite let’s stop living in sin
Now’s not the time to act all proper and prim
I like sitting outside with you drinking iced gin
Embracing the future while the light grows dim
*
When I lay long-side to my love
the slow glide of my hand traveled terrain
applying lotion to warm curving flesh
unencumbered by black bikini ties
When I lay long-side to my love
When head on my hand I looked in her eyes
elbow propped in sand my hand inner thigh
she soon was above me her head framed by the sky
as the slow slide of my hands traveled terrain
When I lay long-side to my love
*
Your ideal man’s name will be found in a footnote
long after he’s dead his fame will spread
though just another bloke from somewhere remote
his name will node with high degree suggesting authority.
Your ideal man will share his DNA as best he can
given time constraints and social mores
his children will distribute his genes as Nature intends
through natural selection and sexual forays.
An ideal man is just a primate
more intelligent than most
mated with an ideal woman
but still a primate ape
END
Dick Russell Richard M Russell
2023
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