The
Poetry of Harry Furness
Song
for Bob Dylan
I sing a song for Bobby boy
Which one of you do we think that we know
A young man creating a self in Minnesota singing Woody songs
Rhyming his way to stages in NYC
Finding his protest voice in winds of change
When the US tried to restart itself led by babes in jeans
Changing times blew in changing rhymes
Turn the electric on and play it loud
We didn't hear you the first time
Quick shovel dirt on Masters of War and quit the Maggie's Farm
Iconic hair and the spotlight was bright
It's alright Ma he's only bleeding
The charge was set, the time arose
Slamming motorcycles and hiding back with the band in a basement
Singing songs of baseball pitchers and outlaws
Laying ladies in Nashville
A fury past, the ins and outs and ups and downs
Have another cup of coffee as Isis ascends
Huge stages grow small as his voice grows gruff
But the words, oh the words
Idiot winds releasing blood on her tracks in leopard pill box
hats
Releasing everything broken on political worlds
He's still alias just alias
With his modern times singing working man's blues
When poetry sings it sounds like the mountain's alive
As the sun whispers shouts of glee
That jester's still in the glazed gleam of his eye
He waits alone in his house
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She
Smiled
I see you slowly tonight
And taste the texture of the color of your sky
It lifts the hem of my eyes
To wander in off the path and get lost
In the wordless wondering of your mind
Deep blue
I know that the sea has a floor
But I can't feel it when it drops so fast off the coast
I know that the ropes of our lives intertwine
Like dancing threads of DNA, swirling atoms
I sense the differences with distances from electron
To the center of your proton
I see you cross the room full of people
But they fade into the backdrop of painted curtain, shimmering
In time to your steps as you pass
Gravity pulls people to you as you spin around between
I feel the pull as your moon
As circling long distance astronomical bodies careen out to deep
space
I wish to travel those paths
As electrons pulled from molecules create new colors
I need to be part of that blur
Later tonight when we're alone and we've become different people
I will talk with you about the time
And you'll smile at me that smile for awhile
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Confusion
So what is then today?
Have you seen the foreign lights again
or
Have you decided what they might mean
Did you read the duck's patterns in the night sky
Or see a school of swimming lemmings
I crossed the sea on the thin coat of ice
And I knew that it was very fragile and I had more than a slight
Chance of breaking through to the under side
Could I have chanced the crossing to save
you
I would have in a second
I didn't pay close enough attention to know how much trouble
you
Were in
I can only fault myself
You were like someone from the signal corps, standing on the
Sandy hill sending messages that we were all suppose to know
And translate back from code so that we knew where the enemy
was
Instead I found out that I was the enemy not paying attention
to the
Signs
Even blind Indian scouts could have read the signals
That you loosened into the wind
I close my eyes and you're painted on the
inside of my eyelids
I see you through the watery grave that I've sent you to
And I don't want to feel your pain anymore
Not because I don't love you
But because I can't understand why you have to go through this
pain
Just to exist
Why can't I lay my hands on you and take some of your pain into
me
Why must we only share this side of waking hours
I scream out into the sun's light that
I want more sunshine in my life
And I want you to be warm and not cold and wet
I hear the church bells and I know that
you are still gone
I'm tired of the melodramatic gothic bullshit
I want straight, clean, stainless steel lines
No more blurring of this and that
It must stand as one or the other
I will refuse to stare out into a mist
and try and discern the horizon
All that we've built will one day fall down
Ring around the rosy and a pocket full of posies
Ashes to ashes we all will drown
In a sea of the uncaring, heading straight away to the third
star to the right
And we'll never look back to see who
We've missed or left on some other foreign shore
copyright Harry Furness
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For more from Harry visit his
columns: February, January, December,
November, October;
and his poetry: February,
January, December,
November, and October. Or his online
home or blog.
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