Maureen

I'm a novelist, compiling on-the-road rock and roll stories. Email me if you have any good ones, particularly from the 1970s.
Background artwork: "Matamoe" by Gauguin.
The "Be Delighted and Amazed" Section Sugar Blue
One week of art:
The "Useful Fodder for Me but You Might Like it Too" Section:
Song For R.
The Be Good Tanyas
(Samantha Parton)
You see people coming from all sides
With their broken hearts and hollow eyes
And you try to love but it's easier to hate
When the seed that was planted was watered too late
Oooh oh child
Oooh oh child
Your roots stretch down to grow up wild
Roots stretch down to grow up wild
It was late last night when the doorbell rang
My brother in some trouble
He stood shaking on the doorstep in the rain
With a freight train pounding in his veins
And I took him in and cleaned him up
Gave him some water and I put him to bed
Then I cried for the sadness of his life
And his lonely struggle with addiction
Friends say oh what a shame
Mum says no one but himself to blame
But I don't want to play that game
'cos I know the truth is not so plain
Call it a hard life or a lack of love
Call it passed down from his father
Call it lack of faith in god above
There are no easy answers
He is just a child
He is just a child
Arms stretched out for love
Arms stretched out for love
Arms stretched out for love
MORE One week of art:
DEAD POETS SOCIETY
(recorded by Slaid Cleaves as "Everette")
Steve Brooks
Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
Through the forests of the night.
Everette's was the hand and eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry.
Everette, could cage it in a
Line of thought, a line of verse.
Everette knew what words were worth.
And Everette's words were diamond words.
Whenever you heard them, something stirred
Inside of you.
'Cause that's what poets do.
Oh, Everette, he never et
A square meal in thirty years.
But men don't live by bread alone,
And you could find him any time,
Slouched up on his high chair,
Drinking scotch,
And staring at his crotch.
He slept on sofas, slept on floors.
Some nights he slept out of doors.
Napkin backs and envelopes
Were the places Everette wrote
His masterworks,
And all of us young Turks
Gathered up the scraps
That Everette tossed into our laps.
And that's how Everette won his fame:
We'd print them under Everette's name,
Every year or two,
'Cause that's what poets do.
Who was the man behind the mask?
None of us ever dared to ask.
Poetry was Everette's shield and sword.
Despair could be its own reward,
When despair was polished hard,
Until it shone, like a precious stone,
Where all of the pain could sparkle through.
'Cause that's what poets do.
And all of us at the Maple Leaf,
Knew that he would come to grief.
Some folks live so close to death,
That you can swear you smell it on their breath
Yes, poets dream, and poets drink,
And poets live life on the brink.
Poets smoke, and poets die,
And if you ever ask them why,
They'll tell you, they don't have a clue.
They'll tell you,
It's just what poets do.
So, Everette's body turned to ash,
And we all had a mighty bash.
People came from near and far,
To toast the bard at the bard's bar.
We knew he would have done the same for us.
And Everette, wherever you are,
Leaning on some heavenly bar,
Sloshed upon some sacred stool,
Where God serves His holy fools -
Even while you damn Him to His face -
Everette, I know you've got His grace.
And as I listened at your wake,
I saw how only you could make
A triumph out of tragedy,
Tragedy into a divine comedy.
Your words, your words have outlived you.
'Cause, Everette,
That's what poets do.

Jesca Hoop:

Empty
Ray LaMantagne
She lifts her skirt up to her knees
Walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing
I never learned to count my blessings
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters
Walk on down the hill
Through the grass grown tall and brown
And still it's hard somehow to let go of my pain
On past the busted back
Of that old and rusted Cadillac
That sinks into this field collecting rain
Will I always feel this way
So empty, so estranged
Of these cutthroat busted sunsets
These cold and damp white mornings I have grown weary
If through my cracked and dusty dimestore lips
I spoke these words out loud would no one hear me
Lay your blouse across the chair
Let fall the flowers from your hair
And kiss me with that country mouth so plain
Outside the rain is tapping on the leaves
To me it sounds like they're applauding us
The quiet love we make
Will I always feel this way
So empty, so estranged
Well I looked my demons in the eye
Laid bare my chest said do your best destroy me
See I've been to hell and back so many times
I must admit you kinda bore me
There's a lot of things that can kill a man
There's a lot of ways to die
Yes and some already dead who walk beside you
There's a lot of things I don't understand
Why so many people lie
Well it's the hurt you hide that fuels the fires inside you