Go Little Sparrow

3 chords for Virginia

2007-04-22T19:33:00.001-07:00

3 plain chords

can it be (take #3)

2007-01-22T15:41:00.000-08:00

off-the-fingers version

another old tune

2007-01-18T22:47:00.000-08:00

another old tune

My One & Only Love

2007-01-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

Chet Baker classic (played by amateur)

January happens

2007-01-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

an ordinary chord progression

On the shortest day of the year

2005-12-21T17:22:00.000-08:00

when the light is fading fast

2005-12-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

just playing along

In the Summertime (easy does it)

2005-12-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

just improvising

Yadda da dee da (again)

2005-12-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

more more more

Yadda da deeda day

2005-12-13T18:55:00.000-08:00

Trying Audioblogger's instant "blog record" option

Go Little Sparrow on disc

2005-12-06T06:53:00.000-08:00

Some music from this blog is available online at Lulu.

In the lonely

2005-10-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

in the loneliest night

I see you, I hear you

2005-10-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

a very drafty rough draft

Russian Bells on Mars

2005-10-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

dingski-dongski

Cockadoodle Two

2005-10-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

more goofing around

One Two Three

2005-10-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

more chords

Happy Cockadoodle

2005-10-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

rough drafty

Bloggone to Mars

2005-08-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

so long, little green men

Two Martians Jam on the Porch of the Spaceship

2005-08-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

another warm night for Martians

In the Summertime

2005-08-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

take 2, simplified

Cooling Chords

2005-07-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

hot night on the porch

Sunday Chords

2005-07-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

A-1 Earth version

Remember How it Is (on Mars)

2005-07-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

not perfect... getting there (too)

Remember How it Is

2005-07-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

not perfect... getting there

from India Point

2005-07-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

as read by Clint Eastwood, with guitar accompaniment by Jimi Hendrix. read along with them here

Jubilee on Mars

2005-07-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

sing along with ecstatic Martians

Martian Guitar Doodle Infinity

2005-07-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

more porch music on Mars (I do not own a Martin Guitar)

Guitar Doodle Infinity

2005-07-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

more porch music

See You on Mars (again)

2005-07-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

take 3, simplified

Martian Mirage

2005-07-20T03:56:00.000-07:00

more trouble on Mars

Keep filling up the world with your lies and delusions
Keep taking from the poor, and giving to yourself

Keep pushing your wars on innocent people
Keep trying to rule with the power of the gun

Keep spreading around your theories of hatred
Keep killing the children for your pride

And I'll see you in hell
Yes I'll see you in hell

See You on Mars

2005-07-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

worried mind (on Mars)

Waiting on the Jubilee 2 (Martian Jam)

2005-07-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

still waiting

(rough & windy) Waiting on the Jubilee

2005-07-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

It's been dark
gettin little lighter now
waitin on the Jubilee

It's been long
gettin little brighter now
waitin round to be free

House of the Rising (Martian) Sun

2005-07-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

another old tune

Walking to Work

2005-06-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

late in the day, Jaybird

Can It Be (scribble #2)

2005-03-31T16:57:00.000-08:00

another take on this famous ballad

If I Could Say (Nostalgia for Mars)

2005-03-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

If I could say
if I could put into words
all the sweetness

Lost My Way

2005-03-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

Goin down the road

Two Riders from Mars

2005-03-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

Two Martians from Minnesota Jam on a Bob Dylan Song Based on a Line from Isaiah (About Mars)

2 Martians Jam on Separation of Civil & Spiritual Affairs on Mars

2005-03-15T19:26:00.000-08:00

2 Martians reflecting, in their music, on contemporary Martian issues

Late Night Rain

2005-03-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the sound quality. The rain was coming down hard; the piano was off in the distance somewhere.

Hart Crane

2005-03-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

1

  
 Above checkered flickering of late
 coffeehouse generations, light pricks
 tap out a dim, midnight tattoo.

  
 Is it the underbelly of a whale,
 unfurling a turbid Mardi Gras?  Slow
 motion horns dilate for one liquid eye.

  
 Answered by silence.  Orisons
 babble, fitful reeds rehearse,
 recount your rendezvous

  
 with a perfidious bark, while calipers
 compress the extant manuscripts
 (flagrant gulf no hands could span).

  
 It was a weatherbeaten, Southern face
 below the embroidered wash and spume
 whispered the one word –

  
 "follow."  Upward, through vertiginous
 mirror gardens – dangling fluted
 routes of a sunken – forsaken Babylon.

 
 2

  
 Spinning, restless, coaxial, cued
 to firewater, pried from pueblo
 gaol, a primeval kachina leaping
 into the blaze – out of time.

  
 Hidden underfoot, to be quarried
 from the subway, the broken stone
 wheel of a ruptured earth mother
 revolves with disjointed orbit.

  
 Weft of vertigo, carbonized.  Exploded.
 Pronounced from wincing salt, faltering,
 slagged... flower names.  Fertile
 reproof.  Slanting, bedecked at last.

  
 Volcano, livid, fluent, enlists
 the police.  Magnified chevrons.
 Pulques Finos.  Skulls look up,
 fed your tangled battering ram.


     
 3

  
 Ironclad northern city in your nightmare,
 and the sound of the sea, too familiar,
 eager to lock you in a wavy ooze,
 forlorn foghorn... such was Death's only ruse.

  
 Who waits by the pier to feel your taunts
 will always wait now.  You waited once
 for shoulders tensely spare, the tide's advance;
 reposeful strength was gateway - into trance.

  
 The bridge you strung beneath your bones
 still rises, harbored, iridescent, out
 of your twenties and the century's, still
 delicately rides the storm.  And Ariel
 holds his song... and now Atlantis groans! –
 surfacing with your ascending steep descant.

(You can hear, faintly, in the 3rd section, the sound of an ambulance going down Hope St.)

[untitled]

2005-03-10T20:38:00.000-08:00

Short poem, written about 15 yrs ago. Published in Way Stations:

The poet is monotonous, his head
resting on her empty sleeve,
his voice out of the mineshaft
muttering rumors of precious gems.

 
And stars shine in the black sky,
peacefully, released at last
from that deep unspoken gloom
by his aimless, undying lament.

- I am NOT Clint Eastwood (though people used to say I looked like him).

Island Road 13-15

2005-03-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Another chapter in the sonnet sequence, read to you by Clint Eastwood's little brother Henry. You can read along here.

On Top of Old Smoky

2005-03-09T17:50:00.000-08:00

On Top of Old Smoky. Crooned at the keyboard by old Whisky-Smoky himself

Martian Background Music

2005-03-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

3.5 little green men, in a jam. Caution: loud Martian harmonica! Adjust earthling volume accordingly.

The Martians Are Leaving

2005-03-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

but I'm still here...

Island Road 10-12

2005-03-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

The saga continues. You can read along here.

2005-03-04T12:51:00.000-08:00

I wrote a note about my background in music over at HG Poetics today.

Play til Bedtime

2005-03-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

hush little baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna be here, by and by

I Am A Poor Wayfaring Stranger

2005-03-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

Old southern spiritual, from around 1790s

(& forgive me, I'm a poorly musician today)

Down Around Angola (rough take #1)

2005-03-03T09:18:00.000-08:00

More kitchen music. Imagine you're listening to an unknown musician from the 1470s (early days of recording). Imagine the background noise is the sound of the ocean.

Progression (toward spring)

2005-03-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

more downhome Henry doodling

A Far-Off Bird on the Evening Prairie

2005-03-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

Wish I could stay home sick like this every day.

(p.s. a bird on the bird clock in the kitchen - like the one I sent to Elena Shvarts once - joined in quite by chance. more about her over at HG Poetics. Maybe I should call this "...on the Evening Steppe")

Island Road 7-9

2005-03-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

OK, this is the last of the Castor oil for today. You can read along here.

Guitar Diddle #2

2005-03-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

more old front-porch chords

Island Road 4-6

2005-03-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

I'm home with a cold, fiddling around in my "recording studio". Here's the next few sonnets from Island Road, meanwhile. You can read along here.

Island Road 1-3

2005-02-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

You can find these poems at the online magazine Mudlark. If you'd like to read along, the sequence starts here.

Messy Little Medley

2005-02-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

I've been playing this on my porch steps, here in Little Rhody, late at night, in the summer, for years & years. How nice it is to be... HERE!

Eye On You

2005-02-28T17:33:00.000-08:00

another from Henry's Closet Tapes

Can It Be (Take 1)

2005-02-28T17:12:00.000-08:00

something new (roughest of rough cuts)

Redwing

2005-02-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

the redwing is a marsh bird with a distinctive reedy call

Shenandoah

2005-02-26T22:01:00.000-08:00

cf. Spider John Koerner version

So Far Away

2005-02-26T21:37:00.000-08:00

mood music

Ride On Little Darlin'

2005-02-26T21:18:00.000-08:00

ride on as you go

Gypsy Bells

2005-02-26T21:03:00.000-08:00

another from my old tape recorder

Go Little Sparrow

2005-02-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

HG on guitar, harmonica, vocals. Hibbing's got nothin' on me (I'm from Hopkins).

cf. Venerable Bede.