Forgotten great songs part two

Sweet Fire Of Love by Robbie Robertson (with U2). Album:Robbie Robertson

It's true: when you're a teenager, everything is about sex.

I was 16 in the fall of 1987. I had just gotten my driver's license and a beautiful Indian summer was in full swing. Robbie Robertson released his first solo album right around this time and it spoke to me. These were sexy songs, they captured perfectly the intense, giddy holiness that a teenager views sex-and much of life-with.

This song in particular really captures the mood of the album. Back in '87 it felt like jumping off a cliff into a river of cool water...or maybe a lake of fire. Twenty-three years later, my breath still catches and my heart begins to pound when I hear it.

New poem

Atlantic City, August 1979

1.

The morning fog
seperated the boardwalk
from the sea.
Only winos wanted to be on
the beach that early,
you could see them as shadows
pacing on the sand,
pretending to have concerns
and burdens greater than
the paper bag becoming too light.

2.

Children are at home in crowds,
a chance to be a mustang in a stampede,
a stone in an avalanche.

Supertramp blared from every passing car,
every open shop door,
the sun burned away the fog
and sang along to the hits.

3.

Sharks and stingrays
in a green lit tank,
small crocodile on a mossy log,
an aquarium of the defeated.

Next door,
a battered paperback of Spiderman comics hung from a bookrack just beyond my reach.

I couldn't dare to ask for it.

4.

At 8 years old,
I couldn't legally gamble,
even though I'd been taught my whole life what was at stake.

I had years,
decades even,
to learn I was in no postion to negotiate,

that we live entire lives
in the shadow of risk,
hoping our faces give nothing away,

that we hope we remain on the boardwalk and the people in the fog get taken by the sun.

9/1/10
Brian Moreau

Recent poems

Quicksilver, Slowsilver, Stillsilver

(for D)

All these years,

dreaming of your molten life,

your hot, mirrored heart.

Silver moonlight at dawn-

I’ll be sorry if I unblock (---)”s profile.

I just don’t want to know,

I’ll be sorry.

Where do we go…

no one can predict our motion,

our entanglements

that takes us from one end of the universe

to the other,

yet 3000 miles

is unbearably long

to your embrace.

Bolides.

All night,

green fire and loud booms

influence dreams.

A war in heaven,

you as Helen of Troy

sending angels into glorious battle.

8/26/10

Brian Moreau

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Heat Wave '10

The sun is lighting the world
into a Kurosawa film,
everywhere,
the bright orange corpse of grass.

The rain stays away out of shame.
One by one,
we find ourselves breaking down,
confessing,
hot kitchens and bedrooms
become silent and guilty.

The A/C drones the longest catechism
in history,
the warm breezes asking:
"If the rain won't forgive you,
how can a lover?
Or a heart that's grown to hate you?"

7/21/10

Brian Moreau

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Yellow moon behind clouds, October 1978


I wish you could have seen it love.

Mom and I were shopping in Fitchburg on a school night.
She bought me a Battlestar Galactica T-shirtand then burned rubber along the back roads to get me in bed an hour past bedtime.

That night, I dreamed I lived in a kingdom ruled by fellow children.
All we ever ate was spicy pasta and meatballs.
Then in my dream I was back on that lonely road

my Mom drove to get me home.

I saw a street light in the distance and it broke my heart.

I wanted that beautiful light to never go out,
shine on me always.

I know dreams should remain private
but sometimes they are the only things we can share,
that little bit of rope we throw to each other

when the voice of the abyss is loud, insistent.

04/28/09
Brian Moreau

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Depth Charge

I choose to believe

that the sailors found

the blossoms of light in the depths

beautiful

and that, come dawn,

the sight of the ocean littered

with U-boat debris could only

be considered a good omen,

one less enemy stalking them

thru the water.

Some days,

I’m only a bright flash in your shadows,

a weapon of love fired scattershot

into the dark.

Some days,

armistice seems impossible,

our hearts faltering

under the crushing pressure

of everything destiny has hidden from us.

6/9/09

Brian Moreau

About a week ago...

...I had a very strange dream. There were these people, not many of them but a few, who seemed to be the ones that were really in charge of...everything. I don't know how else to put it, they seemed to be the ones who pulled the strings of everyone and everything on Earth. And they were not nice people. The leader, in particular, was a cruel and hateful person, being around him made you feel sick.

Some friends and I decided that since we were the only ones in the world who knew the truth about this group of people, it was up to us to put a stop to them, by any means necessary. They seemed to live in another dimension. You could only get to their "world" by an elevator in an office building. Before we went to confront them, each of us tried to arm ourselves any way that we could. All I could manage to rustle up was an old red hammer and a rusty toy saw.

We took the elevator, which takes you to a large field in their universe. Immediately upon arriving, a schism formed in our group. Half of us thought it was a mistake to fight these people and should try to find a peaceful way of dealing with them. My side of the group thought we should fight to be free of them, it was obvious that they were building up to something very awful that would hurt countless people and they would not listen to any peace talk.

Before our argument was resolved, I seemed to black out. When I came to, I was lying down in the back seat of a car. A woman was driving. She said she was taking me to where my friends were and that someone wanted to talk to me. She tossed a cell phone to me. On it was my brother, who I haven't spoken with for a few years. He was quietly taunting me for going on this mission. I listened but didn't say anything, hoping it wouldn't take too long to get to where my friends were and that we could somehow pull this off. That's where the dream ended.

***

As strange as all that was, what happened next was even stranger to me. I awoke and had the sensation that between the end of my dream and when I woke up, the universe had been "paused" or shut down for billions of years and had just been started up again. I can't really describe it any better. It's as if reality was a computer that had been shut down for billions of years and when it was restarted, I, as a "program" in that computer was aware of the time span that had passed but (thankfully!) did not experience the actual passage of that time. It was kind of pleasant and relaxing but I was acutely aware of the vast gap from one moment of existence to the other.

I don't think I've ever experienced any thing like that before. Has that happened to any of you?

Forgotten great songs part one

This is going to be a new "feature" I do from time to time, focusing on wonderful songs by well known artists that don't get the same amount of notice as some of that artists other songs but deserve it. I'll try to do at least one of these a week.

***

Snow In San Anselmo by Van Morrison. Album: Hardnose The Highway

I've always thought it was a shame that the general public never delved into Van Morrison's work beyond Brown Eyed Girl and Moondance. Those are great songs, to be sure, but there countless other gems in his catalog that many people will never get to hear and honestly don't care to, because they aren't bouncy pop songs.

One such song is Snow... It tells a simple story of people sitting in a 24 hour pancake house in a desert town, watching the first snowfall the town has seen in about thirty years. The music and mood has a tenseness and anxious urgency that seems to imply that there's more going on here than meets the eye. Almost like we're missing half the story, the characters in the song seem relived for the distraction of the freak snow storm...but a distraction from what? We're offered few clues, perhaps only "a madman looking for a fight" or "if you suffer from insomnia/you can spend your time away." Morrison himself has said this song is just a sketch of a moment in time and doesn't have any deeper meanings. I like to think this song is an example of a piece taking on life beyond what it's creator intended.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpcsThJEgWM&playnext=1&videos=55CIB-Aqt64

***

Here's a peek at future songs I plan to cover on here:

Bob Dylan-Jokerman

Elvis Presley-Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues

Pink Floyd-If

David Bowie-The Motel

The Beach Boys-Disney Girls (1957)

Frank Zappa-Catholic Girls

The Talking Heads-The Facts Of Life

I'll try to think of even more soon!

Seeing things?

I worked in a plastic factory for many years. Sometimes I had to wear ear protection due to the specific job of the day being extra loud. I noticed something strange whenever I had to wear the ear protection...I would keep seeing movement behind me, as if there was a huge crowd moving behind me. It was really impossible for there to be anyone behind me, the machines went nearly all the way to the back wall and there were pipes, tubes and barrels filling in the tiny little space there was. Yet, I'd be working along with the "ear muffs" on and again I'd see movement out of the corner of my eye, a vast crowd milling about.

One night, I was working with them on and I happened to look up. For a split second, I saw what appeared to be a black man, lunging towards me. I jumped back in shock but as soon as I saw this apparition, it was gone.

I have no idea why I "saw" these things. Maybe by removing my sense of sound caused any psychic ability I might have to become stronger...or maybe not being able to hear causes the brain to get bored and make shit up. I really don't know.

History's Greatest Monster AKA Brian

This won't be a very long post.

For three years I loved and cared about someone and each day that person hated me more and more for the simple reason that I did love and care about them. Finally, this morning I decided to stop being nice and return some of the verbal abuse I've been receiving.

I have found myself in this situation several times over the years. As long as people view me as a sweet, selfless, simple person they love to have me around but as soon as I start to become a complex person with needs and personal goals of my own...well, they can't handle that and look for the first sign that I'm a "bad" person and cut ties.

I don't want to be an angel.

Or a devil.

Just a man.