Be Thou My Vision
Ok, last one. This is a beautiful old Irish Hymn. My version.
Ok, last one. This is a beautiful old Irish Hymn. My version.
You yearn for me
Like night yearns
For the moon
His silky hands
Run circles round
Her soft curves
You pant for me
As fire thirsts
For the air
His loins ablaze
In the wild
And unruly winds
You hunger for
Me as I hunger
For you
Feed.
Here is one more little vid I did. Playing around with the old hymn, Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy.
I threw in a little improv about halfway through.
More late night Hymn playing. In Georgia. Go figure.
There is one really funky note. My apologies, it was all un-rehearsed.
One of my favorite Old Hymns. Posted (late) for Good Friday.
Just was thumbing through my favorite old hymnal the other night and found this fantastic song.
Lyrics:
Were You There?
Old Negro Spiritual
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
my Lover is an early Spring night.
on this countenance have
the stars set their stares.
she is candlelight reflections
on your soap slick back, ransacked
by mirroring droplets of water.
i will rouse her from rest
and bring her to my side, rib to
rib, legs twisted. skin on skin.
a cobweb of carmine strands,
left tarnished by the Adulteress’
cords. bound tightly in knots at the end.
at the end of all things, there is
still she, naked in bouncing bands
of wick burnt sunlight. succumbed
to herself. resigned to give away
soul separated skin, inside, lightless.
surrendered to a man such as me.
and what is surrendered becomes spoils.
momma used to beat me
with an old wooden spoon.
anything else that was near
would do just as well.
once, my fuzzy mind recalls,
she found nothing nearby
so as to add insult to injury,
she sent me into her closet to
fetch for an instrument with
which she could beat my ass.
in pre-pubescent rebellion
i arrived by her side proudly
toting her slimmest Sunday
belt. ‘Twas the kind Southern
ladies, in the eighties, wore
on Easter. light as a
feather canvas with a small leather
strap. as if gleeful, my mother
snatching the belt in her hand,
holding just the small leather
strap proceeded to skin me
alive. once my grandfather beat
me in a similar fashion with his belt.
holding only the last six inches in
his camel stained hands.
we were living with them at the time
and i had broken a large mirror.
storming up the stairs all i remember
is smell of the sheets as my back
was made into minced meat.
my sister said later that the welts
looked like train tracks. and that
he had been drunk. train tracks
to drunkville. my granddaddy
killed dozens of Japs in the Great
War. so i forgave him for the
drinking…and the beating.
what else is a man who’s killed
supposed to do, after something such as that?
last thing that man needed hanging
over his head was seven more
years bad luck. bad luck indeed.
soon after my father had his
twentieth anniversary with his
third wife, dementia found my
momma. she lives in a cinder
block building up on the hill.
did i mention that she still
beats me with a wooden spoon?
she beats all the strangers.
would you take it
under the undulating green
of these newly budded leaves?
could the glossy beads
of sweat sliding down
your back rouse you forward?
surely the erect pistil of this
immodest vernal bloom will
inveigle the same sprouting
senses in you that have slept
heartily this long Winter past.
let us abscond this bitter scene
and find an impassioned plot
of mossy ground where we shall
succumb to the hive in you –
bursting with honey. ripe and ready,
our coitus will know no shame under
the watchful eye of this mighty canopy.
make this dazzling
sky any more
perfect, and
i shall be
forced
to
know God.
into the darkness we climb.
sliding on slippery moss
down, down, down
into the dank depths
beneath our otherwise
normal lives.
and since accouched
from an other’s womb
we have groped at the
walls of slippery intent
with none to save
none to save our river rock
souls. normal?
she chased me, humming,
through the pine groves of
South Georgia. steel stringed
winds buzzed with bee friends
and calloused cloud bears and
cloud tigers and cloud ponies,
tails brought brightly on
by the backlit sun.
she caught me by the tides
and pulled me from my
sandy shells. these metaphors
splashed against her naked
flesh, like cool, cool, cool
water. ripples brought
to a head at the touch
of her skin. breeze.
ah, but would it do us any
good to wait for morning? would
it requite this love in spite
of ourselves? indeed, love
becomes a charade when
left unchecked. when
left to its own devices.
so down we crawl,
head hung low,
back into the
womb.
failed at the afterlife
young Simon left
a trail of bread
crumbs to no
where.
the birds of prey
pecked at the
old morsels
’til they’re
gone.
he boarded from
land, stepping
into the scow,
two coins for
the boat
man.
you will bend low
bathe me in a tub
of ashes, freshly
fallen downy snow
from Thee i fly
from Thee i fly
three days in decay
we sulked. you and i
alone in our tomb.
born an endangered son
born to carry my father’s gun
born to lie in the center of sound
to feel the thump of your
heart, through walls, through fields
though no one calls, no one yields.
there is a trip i wish
to take, beyond the rolling
rivers, beyond the day. for
born to die ive been
infected by this
disease, life.
and only clouds
clear my view.
clouds and moon
and me and you.
the smoldering orange
cherry sent shadowy tentacles
up through an icy cavern
and into me.
were the fog horns installed
properly, surely all of the
harbor would have heard
the sonorous bellows.
as Northern Lights flashed
across the waters,
stealing my affections,
i reckoned this, in a
stumbling haze, to be
my very own kryptonite.
daytime is the illusion,
not this perfect night.
earth is not a blue sphere.
what of these greens
and browns? hillsides dotted
by yellow grasses? wooded
canopies covering over white
speckled dogwoods, early pink
azalea blooms and dark musty
mountain laurels? when
the sun is trumped, de facto
skies are revealed. vast
and black. infinite photons
cast from unfathomable
places all conjoin into a single
point, and i, lying in the yard,
way past dusk, am blessed enough
to arrive at that apogee.
one by one, tiny sparkling
sentinels burn their holes in the
Great Welkin. like scales
dropping from Paul’s eyes, so the
shadow of day retreats at the hands
of an Almighty Firmament. unmovable.
i was not born a creature of day.
this is the Great Guise. our lofty
blue shroud has lost its power over me.
