Monday

Korg Poly 800 Keyboard Checklist

John with the Golden Smile (to John Taylor)


John with his sparkling, shimmering eyes
is a little boy lost in a man
John, although grown-up and quite a success
is still in a fairy-tale land

John is a Tigger, if ever there was one,
yet with a deep tone in his voice,
John is a man and will prove it with grace,
and prefers manhood (given the choice)

But John still requires occasional parties
(as rock-n'-roll-types often do),
And at times he'll protest that he's doing what's best,
leaving others to argue what's true;

But when John really has to face up to himself,
he realizes that all the while,
John's always John with the sparkling eyes
and John with the golden smile

John sees himself as the noblest warrior,
base guitar ready in hand
and he sits at a table with 4 other dreamers,
the five of them making a band

And every night is the time of his life
as he does all he can for the crowd
But sometimes it's silence that John really likes
must the little girls be quite so loud?

It is then that he slips on another disguise
and finds him a silent retreat
And calls up the girlfriend or some chic acquaintance
and "how about we go out to eat?"

But when John has returned and is in for the night
he realizes that all the while,
John's always John with the sparkling eyes
and John with the golden smile

John fancies himself with fast cars and fast women,
and lives to be just like James Bond
Aston Martin, in gold - with a stripe if you please -
is John's car, of which he is quite fond

John has a dream to live up to his heroes
hence the fast pace he lives by
But John does have values and will not ignore them
although - once or twice - he may try

John has set out not to conquer the dragon 
but to rescue the princess so fair
And in bringing her back to us, carry the spirit
that will renew hope in the air

For though John is not perfect and sees that as truth,
he realizes that all the while,
John's always John with the sparkling eyes
and John with the golden smile.

- May 28, 1984, A.D.

Letter to Nick Rhodes (unfinished)


Dear Nick,

You are an enviable person!  About a month ago, I bought a copy of "Keyboard" magazine.  Oh, what I could do with a Fairlight CMI!  Some find it odd that I never grow tired of Duran Duran's music - but there's so much there!  For example: it's very late and I'm alone in my room, listening to "Rio".  All of a sudden - I'm not quite sure - but I believe I hear birds chirping.  Once more, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Spring, and "Hold Back the Rain" sounds completely different.  New keyboard lines that I hadn't noticed before; and Simon's lyrics, which always take so long to understand, are beginning to come clear.  This is the magic of Duran Duran.  If I open my mind to the music, something new is sure to be discovered every time.

I have a bootleg album of your which contains "Anyone Out There?", "Planet Earth", "To the Shore", "Late Bar", "Khanada", "Waiting for the Nightboat", "Last Chance on a Stairway", "Faster Than Light", and "My Own Way".  It's from 1982, I believe.  I love it!  I don't even think a Nick Rhodes could ever get it from me.

(unfinished)

- May 28, 1984, A.D.

Secret Oktober, by Duran Duran (lyrics)


Wise on a birthday party in a world full of surprising fireworks
And sudden silence shhh
Lying on a strangers bed the new day breaks like a speeding train or an old friend
Ever expected but never knocking
Holding your own in a battered car all night parties cocktail bars
And smile when the butterfly escapes the killing jar

Sure eyes awake before the dancing is over wise or naked in secret Oktober

Freefall on a windy morning shore nothing but a fading track of footsteps
Could prove that you never been there
Spoken on a cotton cloud like the sound of gunshot taken by the wind
And lost in distant thunder racing on a shining plain
And tomorrow you'll be content to watch as the lightning plays along the wires and you'll wonder

Sure eyes awake before the dancing is over wise or naked in secret Oktober
Sure eyes awake before the dancing is over wise or naked in secret Oktober


(1983)

More '84


the poet as a young Duran Duran fan


Sunday

You may be worried about me


Phew!  Did you hear that?  That massive exhalation?
Did you feel it?  The collective tension - the hands, gripping arm rests - slowly released?
Breathe, my friends.  It doesn't get worse than what we've just been through.

I'll be honest.  There have been moments since I started typing 1984 when I thought I'd better stop.  You got the point a long time ago - prisons, pain, and the monsters that lurk inside.  I don't know why I kept on.  I wanted to laugh, and put up a big, garish emoticon that said, "JUST KIDDING!"  I wanted to tell you it was all fiction, and I was just trying to pass the time when I wrote all that.

But I don't want to shortchange you of the journey.  I have to let myself speak for myself.  I want you to discover, as I discovered over time, the way out of the monster's clutches.

You may be worried about me.  As I think of the person I was and the words I wrote, my thoughts fall on the anarchy shirts, the trenchcoats and the graphic depictions in my poems of suicide and boredom and emotional violence.  I can't help thinking of Columbine.  I can see how you might, too.  But if you're making that connection, you're missing the point.  

I was never a nihilist.  Even through all of this, believe me when I say I hoped for the best.  Not just for me, but for the people I loved, for my community, and for all humanity.  The world was surely going to shit, but my reaction was never, never, NEVER to trash the joint because we were all going to die anyway.  I just wanted to know who was going to pick us up?  Who was going to STEP UP and make a change?

I can tell you that none of the "punks" that I ever encountered were violent people.  The skinheads came later, and we all hated them.  We were screaming at the top of our lungs for people to wake up and fix the fucking mess.  We were trying to force a paradigm shift - a violent paradigm shift, maybe, that wasn't ultimately effective.  But the underlying point was that we DIDN'T want to die.  It was the cold war, for chrissakes.  We were swarmed with statistics of nuclear warheads pointed at our home towns, and the calculated chance that even if no one meant it, MISTAKES COULD BE MADE.  We didn't want to die.  We didn't want to kill.  And we sure as hell did not want anyone - ANYONE - to be killed in our names.

I may have looked like the one to look out for, back then.  The one your mother warned you about.  I may have written things that will now be interpreted as an affirmation of someone's suicidal/genocidal ambitions.  And I just want to say, you got it wrong.  You're aiming at the wrong targets.  You're fetishizing armageddon now, and that was never the fucking point.  All I ever wanted was to live.  Live free.  Live not having to fear the other and fear the end.  The answer to your fear is not a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The answer is to break free.  Painfully, maybe.  Unpopularly.  Alone, even.  But to emerge alive, and as a reflection of your genuine, unique, unmarketable spirit.

Wake up and thrive.
Wake up and thrive in spite of pain.  
Wake up and invent your own way out to a better day.
THAT is what I meant.

Punk vs. Offspring


you're no better than us
with your neo-fashion neo-life
you came from here
and you condemn
but it just wasn't paying the bills,
was it?

we said life sucked
but we had targets - real targets
we wanted them to know
we wanted them to think

but you got sick of our "complaints"
you wanted to be happy
you told us to be happy
you sang about being happy
well, what do we do when we're not fucking happy?

you told us to get off our asses
and make life a better place
how?
by ignoring the bombs and the wars 
and the shitheads in office
"do your own thing"
"be happy"
well we're not fucking happy
and we're not "the latest thing"

we just want to tell you that
the world's full of shit
so are we
and so are you
and if you don't know that,
then you're the biggest lie that ever lived

we never told people what to do
we just wanted them to know
what was shit
then you came along
and you didn't want to "impose"
(so you told us what to do)
and you didn't want a "message"
so that we can think our own thoughts
and you didn't give us shit
you were so fucking concerned with your "art"
and you didn't give us a way to live,
which we needed so damn badly

how many little shits out there
were trying to decide about life?
and all you said was "do your own thing"
when we didn't know what the fuck 
our own thing was

and you didn't love life enough
to be strong and tell us what was wrong
and what was right
you called us "nihilistic",
but we wanted to survive
but how could we be happy
when the whole fucking world
isn't happy?

our "message" came out strong
and clear
the people either liked it or hated it
but at least they knew

we made a point that lasted
you just faded away into your "art"
but you came from us
and you hate to be reminded
and you feel no obligations

all we did to you was change your life
you say we can't change the world,
you say we're a dying race,
and you say that we're killing ourselves
but at least we know who we are
at least we're not so fucking nebulus
at least we're not living some fairy tale
where everyone is happy
because the world is not fucking happy

we wanted people to squirm in their seats
to be uncomfortable
to worry about their security
and where their kids go at night
to see ugliness
because people have made something
very ugly out of the world, today

we left you to do the healing
but never like this
you closed your eyes
and you denied us
but we're still surviving
we'll find our way back
we still want you to worry
and beware of dark corners

we'll teach you to see life
as it is
it's full of shit and full of ugliness
so don't say it again,
I don't want to be happy
this isn't a happy world.

- May 27, 1984, A.D.

Tuesday

Hemingway


I went to sleep with "The Old Man and the Sea"
I woke up with "The Old Man and the Sea"
and nothing had happened while I was gone
this is what I think of Hemingway

- May 8, 1984, A.D.

Monday

Bedroom from a dream

Dream 2


The vision:
there is a purple-blue sky with pale stars
and in the distance,
a huge eye begins to open
from beneath the eyelid comes
not an eye
but a planet where the eye should be
a pale greenish-yellow-white planet
that's watching me

Although it's warm outside,
the trees speak late Autumn or Winter
There are little half-consciousness who,
as the rays of this planet hit them,
run off like animated goblins,
looking for a dark place to hide

which leaves only me
I remember from a film about the Holocaust
the phrase, "War nods, but has one eye open"

Is this that eye?
it bears a striking resemblance to Earth

If that is Earth,
where am I?
on my own planet, far, far away
my own world
the Earth sheds a light on me

is this the eye of war, as spoken?
is this what I should fear?
it captivates me
but I feel as though I should 
run away with the others

like the moon, coming out of an eclipse,
it watches

but dark corners are still dark corners
and my world remains intact.

- May 7, 1984, A.D.

The Boy and the Girl Who Let it Be


A river of tears spilled out of his desk. the others turned and gazed. There was no way to cover up his embarrassment. He tried to stop it, but at last, let it go. Girls and boys alike picked up their feet and let the river run by. Only one girl kept both feet on the floor and let the water wash over them. The other children climbed over desks and chairs to reach the door or the windows. The boy looked over at the girl, who in turn opened her desk and let loose her own river. Their tears flowed into one and filled the room, and ran out the door. The connection had been made.

The two children then ran through the room, opening desks of the ones long gone, filled with nameless tears. The girl walked back to her desk and dipped her hands in. She offered the boy a drink. He drank slowly and sparingly, and when finished, he went over to his desk and came back, hands cupped, with his own share of tears. The girl savored each tender drop, and they fell to the floor and immersed themselves in the river.

The tears dried, and the girl began to speak. The words fell out of her mouth to form meadows and forests and babbling brooks; and flowers of the brightest hues of yellow, orange, and purple. In response, the boy uttered mountains, valleys, rain forests, apple orchards that blossomed in spring and maple trees that turned the colors of fire in Autumn.

All at once, the classroom became overgrown. The walls disintegrated, and sunshine crept in. The desks became trees, and the chalkboards, boulders. The two children laughed as they looked around at what they had created, and they ran into the woods, leaving old memories of walled rooms and lives to fade away into distant rays of sun that bounced back and forth between the trees and touched every dark corner of the forest. At last, freedom was theirs, as they joined together and united with the sun.

- May 7, 1984, A.D.

Dream


The vision:
a dream of isolation
without fear
ice

the rider dies of cold
but the horse continues on
I am the horse

I walk
and there are ice formations
in the snow

I meet a friend
and flowers -
the most beautiful, colorful flowers-
rise up before our eyes

into the house
they grow

outside the front window
no children play
all are gone
humanity left with no forwarding address
but just a dream

the flowers fade
check in the refrigerator
the light's on
and there's tuna fish in
the burner works
and children ride bikes down the street.

- May 7, 1984, A.D.