Jeff Buckley - Grace (BBC Late Show 01-17-95)

Tim Buckley's son Jeff demonstrates vocal prowess equal to his father in this video. Some may find the soaring vocals to be a bit over the top, but the song holds together. Another talent that died young and stupidly, not by drugs, but drowning in the Mississippi River after going swimming fully clothed.

Grace

There's the moon asking to stay
Long enough for the clouds to fly me away
Though it's my time coming, I'm not afraid, afraid to die
My fading voice sings of love,
But she cries to the clicking of time,
Of time

Wait in the fire...

And she weeps on my arm
Walking to the bright lights in sorrow
Oh drink a bit of wine we both might go tomorrow,oh my love
And the rain is falling and I believe
My time has come
It reminds me of the pain I might leave
Leave behind

Wait in the fire...

And I feel them drown my name
So easy to know and forget with this kiss
But I'm not afraid to go but it goes so slow

Wait in the fire...

Tim Buckley on The Monkey's Show - Song of the Siren

Yes, this is from the flower power days of TV, and probably my favorite version of the song.


Song of the Siren

Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang
Sail to me
Sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you

Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks,
For you sing, touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow:
O my heart, o my heart shies from the sorrow

I am puzzled as the oyster
I am troubled as the tide:
Should I stand amid your breakers?
Should I lie with death my bride?
Hear me sing, swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you:
Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you

Homage to My Favorite Film Genre

I have tried to craft this poem as a series of cinematic images that could have been lifted from some of these grainy crime dramas, though slightly more surrealistic to enhance the overall mysterious atmosphere.  You be the judge of whether I've succeeded or not.

Film Noir


call me the savior of moonshine
unfit to lick your Daddy's boots

call me the myths of regret reborn
the lie that always tells the truth

in the dark night of your soul
I'm the wound that opens like an eye

call me allegory of a burnt tick
jerking through your dreams
in 16mm

in mine
my words scale your body
like liana
for all the junkies to climb

call me sphinx
built by the slaves of love

I always leave the screen door unlatched
on the hottest nights
to hear the whirling of the fan
whisper your name
across the fields

call me singed hair
clinging to the bullet of a song

you're the smear of lipstick
staining the lips
of the empty bottle left on my nightstand

the alibi
for all my futures
forking perpetually through time

Nick Drake - Riverman

I love this song, the hypnotic strings, voice and guitar, and its dreamlike atmosphere. Drake was largely unknown during his short lifetime, was too shy to perform in public, and his music really didn't lend itself to live performances with his intricate and custom guitar tunings. In the 35 years since his death from an overdose of antidepressants at the age of 26, his music has steadily grown in popularity and been featured in several films and a Volkswagen commercial.



Riverman, words and music by Nick Drake

Betty came by on her way
Said she had a word to say
About things today
And fallen leaves.

Said she hadn't heard the news
Hadn't had the time to choose
A way to lose
But she believes.

Going to see the river man
Going to tell him all I can
About the plan
For lilac time.

If he tells me all he knows
About the way his river flows
And all night shows
In summertime.

Betty said she prayed today
For the sky to blow away
Or maybe stay
She wasn't sure.

For when she thought of summer rain
Calling for her mind again
She lost the pain
And stayed for more.

Going to see the river man
Going to tell him all I can
About the ban
On feeling free.

If he tells me all he knows
About the way his river flows
I don't suppose
It's meant for me.

Oh, how they come and go
Oh, how they come and go.

A Glorious Dawn - Carl Sagen Remix (featuring Stephen Hawking)

I love this odd music mix from Carl Sagan's TV shows.... it's strangely inspirational, almost poetic, and darn clever, whoever put it together.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

How many people think like that?

Quote of the Day: Blogs, Modern Day Public Square

Whatever the drawbacks and limitations of blogging, it serves, today, as our culture’s indispensable public square. Rather than one tidy ‘unifying narrative,’ it provides a noisy arena, open to everyone, for the collective working out of old conflicts and new ideas. As the profession of journalism tries to rescue itself from the wreckage of print and rethink its digital future, this is where its most knowledgeable practitioners and most creative students are doing their hardest thinking.

~Scott Rosenberg, from "Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters"

Hat Tip (Carpe Diem)

Poetry Reading: Ted Kooser

The charming and humble Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate 2004-2006, and master of the metaphor.


Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Jim Carroll Interview on Today Show Discussing School Violence & The Basketball Diaries

In this 1999 interview, the late, great Jim Carroll discusses the relationship between violence in schools and the influence of movies and literature.

Purity means that you always have something up your sleeve, that you have something you've earned, that you have something to move toward, that your vision is intact. Purity, to me, exists within states of what would be thought of as impure. You can live within a state of total decay. You can live in that state and still be totally pure if your vision remains intact, if you know that you've go to keep moving ahead because you haven't reached that light yet, the light at the end of the tunnel.

~ Jim Carroll

LRR Summer Issue Now Live

I am pleased to say the Summer issue of Loch Raven Review is now live.

The issue features poetry by Sara Bernert, Jenn Blair, Janet Butler, Clay Carpenter, Holly Day, Nina Forsythe, Howie Good, John Grochalski, Catherine Hartlove, Chuck Levenstein, Mark A. Murphy, Constantine Pantazonis, Michael Pedersen, Erik Richardson, John Riley, S. Thomas Summers, and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub; an essay by Dan Cuddy on Baltimore poet Clarinda Harriss: A Baltimore Treasure; four poems by Bertolt Brecht translated by Jim Doss; and fiction by Danny Birchall, Elizabeth Costello, and Tom Sheehan.

Check us out at http://www.lochravenreview.net.