Rhapsody in Retrograde
Material contained in the print edition of Rhapsody in Retrograde.
Rhapsody in Retrograde: Lyrical Loops in Verse
Available through Createspace:
https://www.createspace.com/4763105
Rhapsody in Retrograde: Lyrical Loops in Verse
Available through Createspace:
https://www.createspace.com/4763105
Catch of the Day
Still and silent through surge and ebb
The trick is not calling the catch too soon
Drag the diamonds in by the clock of the moon
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Foul
Sold a cheap plastic corporate vision
Between rounds of life imitation
As they prayed to the god of television
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The Mother of All Problems
It’s the Mother of all problems
Compounding original debt
Crushed under our cracking columns
Those pillars be the death of us yet
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Whether Vain
Don’t even have a clue
All the seasoning you’re pitchin’
Into my hoodoo stew
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Magnetism
But forgetting the rain
If you’re blinded by fire
To pitfalls and pain
If you are driven by desire
And conquests to gain
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Lattice of Errors
Is that you’d better factor in the glitch
Expeditions hanging on human hands
Rarely return without a hitch
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Concrescence
In the end all the worries roll into the sun
In the end all the glories turn tail and run
In the end we’ll know we’ve barely begun
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Cassandra’s Complex
Perfectly perched to run the whole scene
They had fingers in every pie that came by
Yet managed to keep their hands clean
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Rhapsody in Retrograde
By now we ought to know the drill
It’s enough to make old Murphy ill
Any glitch which can pop up probably will
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Wax and String
Last night I made a mountain
That would make Olympus weep
Rode up there on a fountain
From a well ten miles deep
Found a fresh new planet to live on
A world we’ll have the wit to keep
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Dimension Not Available
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Riverrun
Where the sand flows both ways
Not very clear on matters of mass
Tho’ quite precise where energy plays
Remember the future about like the past
Clouded by all that I’m missing today
All I can say is both move very fast
In the slowest of all possible ways
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Mark of the Djinn
When I walk into the wind
My hat won’t fly off
I am the eternal presence of air
I am the mad driver
Jumping cliffs on a dare
I am wind-whipped voices
Vaulting visceral visages
Painting invisible silhouettes
Across perceptual ridges
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At the Pharaoh’s
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Jack and the Green Stalk
They were watching grass grow and piling on bills
As water tanks emptied and the sky threatened to spill
The local farmers left crews to guard the fields
So they could gather and brag about their soon-to-be yields
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Corporate Logos
Outlines define shapes of the signs
Drawn in the span between high tide and low
Visible only when moonlight shines
Digging and ditching that double-edged duality
Emulating every enemy
As we go about the business
Of rebranding reality
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American Fall
Even the way she lies
Rolling her eyes and heaving her sighs
Tuned-up and spit-shined
All wound up and out of her mind
Not a thought in her head
About the prices of play
That’s okay
She doesn’t pay ’em anyway
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I Just Work Here
As you spark another blaze
Tangled up in cross-haired wires
Yet the gilded guitar still plays
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Pass The Confusion
Rub-a-dub dub and the Original Snub
Podge pushing Hodge in the Cosmic tub
First I must sprinkle you with fairy dust
Then I’ll proceed to spontaneously combust
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Mandrake Lake
Down by Mandrake Lake
Dreamwebs dropped from swan-drawn flight
Waves of wakening washed in the wake
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The Great Vehicle
Roll that rock up the slope once more
Falls every time but who’s keeping score?
The higher we push, the tougher it grows
I built this, Sisyphus, so I know how it goes
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Legend’s End
For visions that struck me blind
I’ve twice toured the veils of vice
For a glance at virtues cloaked behind
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Lonesome Blues
Counting this one off to hard knocks
Symbols of you sinking from sight
Slipping away in ripples of spite
My eyes are bone dry, but I won’t lie
This ocean here was a desert last night
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Dirge of Durga
Is that being born is a bit of a bad bet
And you won despite some very long odds
This chance to be a being who forgets being God
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Led Tritely
There’s a rule of thumb for every sorrow
Don’t reinvent the proverbial wheel
For what a dabbler dutifully borrows
The master shamelessly steals
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Flight Plans
It’s all in how you take the curves
Every storm you swerve
Just more fire for the nerves
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Djinn You Win
To awaken you like a tireless hound
For all the universe is thus revealed
When all the paltry veils are peeled
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Golden Apple
From Eris due to Her bad reputation
They wanted to have a quiet affair
And thought it was best if She wasn’t there
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Magma
Where greedy ghosts babble on
The living giving them power
To decide where lines are drawn
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Paperclip Latch
Rubbernecked struts and pillars of guilt
Paper-thin door held by paperclip latch
Ok, I give up, now who’s got a match?
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Mule’s Gold
Even broker by night
We deal in shades of grey
Green fading into white
Delivery’s done, fortune’s won
Pockets stuffed with burning dough
Another run under the gun
Just a little less than I owe
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Cool Need Ray
And every ear of everything
That can hear me sing
I call all on this sacred day
To bear witness
To the casting of the Cool Need Ray
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Pine Cone Ridge
As I tumble from the sky
Where half a blink before
I swear I knew how to fly
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Transitive Venus
All hung-up from where I sat
Found me most unfit for framing
And all my jokes were fallin’ flat
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Wizardry
As the map again unwraps
Sensing that some sensibilities
Carve impassable gaps
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Sandals In A Haystack
Inventing characters to play the charade
Some are wrapped up tight in the groove
Some keep wry eyes on each other’s moves
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Prisoner’s Dilemma
The men in suits shuffled me in
Talking tough and full of bluff
Down for a round of no one wins
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Down to Delphi
Line winding well beyond the horizon
For a fleeting peek behind time’s curtain
And they’re emerging looking
Even more uncertain
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Feedback
Which way is up or down
If I’ve hit a dangerous height
Or if we’re grazing near the ground
Can’t see where we’re heading
If it’s back to where I’ve been
Since I’m flyin’ blind
If you’d be so kind
Open a line and fill me in
Please open a line and fill me in
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Extensible Now
And apprehension
On the edge of invention
A hundred miles high
Automatic cognition
Tuned to transmissions
Material vision
Appears in the sky
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Tastelessly Tongue-Tied
Some erudite or at least clever thought
Some compelling gem, sparkling and rare
Or a little bit of that rapier wit
To slice the heavy atmosphere
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Hook and Nail
Orphans split up at birth
As opposite as yang and yin
As different as sky and Earth
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Green Glass Door
Losslessness but no increases
Shuffled illusion which never ceases
From jugglers tossing without releases
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Strange Loops
I wondered what would happen if I said
I have this thought inside my head
About this thought about this thought I had
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Transmigrant Blues
In protean pantomimes
One door opens
As another one closes
One bell silenced
As another one chimes
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It’s Not A Bug, It’s A Feature
It’s Not A Bug, It’s A Feature
This is a book of riddles.
What are riddles? Riddles are portals to the unknown. Riddles are spectacles of perspective, conceptual illusions, traps along the roads of routine reasoning. Riddles are big concepts conveying themselves in small spaces. Riddles are behind the green glass door. Life is littered with riddles. Our lives are how we answer them.
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Liquid Silver
Wings on his shoes and ready to race
Got up to play on his first day of birth
Full of fast ones to lay on the Earth
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Renaissance of Resonance
And swing from the limbs of realitree
Well shift happens
When we’re all fluxed up
So bring out your brilliance
And let’s raise our cups
To the Renaissance of resonance
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Nightly Newspeak
Debating the ticker on the stock exchange
Someone decided to for once deliver
A taste of real news for a change
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Here Comes Everybody/Finnegans Abridged Eulogy
Now here comes everybody
And who might this everybody be?
It might be fair to say you who
You who see and me
All in all, there’s worlds to miss
But I trust there must be some use for this
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