1. |
Sliver Of Sadness
01:35
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Like a black horse turns blue
In sunlight’s
Uncertain shuffle
Melancholy comes
And goes
The thought of love
And its losing
The woes of paucity
Corruption and crumbling
No matter how intense the azure
Orange or pink thoughts
Fill the sky
By day’s end
And the ocean’s blue
Turns clear or green
With the eyes’ minor adjustment
But what would we be
Without a color to mirror
Our doleful souls?
Every heart knows sorrow
And every eye starts blue
The world changes
Bluejays fly away
And bluebells last but a season
Sad songs speak to us less
At one time than another
But like the indigo mountains
That are always in the distance
We are surrounded by heartache
Our blood looks blue
Through human skin
And though the red of anger
The orange of contentment
The yellow of celebration
The green of envy
Fill our sightline
The rainbow will always contain
A sliver of sadness
Of sapphire
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2. |
The Color of Love
02:03
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Like a cardinal in a snowy world of white
Like a red triangle
In a Kandinsky painting
You draw my eye’s total attention
A single rose
In a white vase
So that the whole room disappears
The color of desire
The color of blood
The greatest of loves demands
Sacrifice
Crimson smeared over door lintils
The vermillion flag of revolution
It is the choosing of one
Over all the rest
If a color could glow
Like a train station at night
Take on three dimensions in a world that’s flat
You are my superhero’s cape
The hue that makes me fly
A French beret
That speaks of more than fashion
But passion
For poetry, story
A tale of unlikely winning
In a world of inevitable loss
Holding your hand
Even if it burns like fire
Red in nature is so rare
Like you are one of a kind
Ayers Rock in the middle of the desert
A ruby mushroom
On the verdant forest floor
The tongue
Of a singing meadowlark
But it has burst out
Like leaves in fall
Red is the boldest
Of lettering
On books and businesses
Though not always true
But I swear on the color of my heart
I love you
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3. |
Nature's Pinball Machine
01:27
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The light has turned from red to green
The barrenness of winter
To nature’s pinball machine
Bees flying from flower to flower
Fleshy leaves appearing on every boney branch
What was only the kernel of an idea
What was only a humble hunch
Has grown wings and flown like Falcon 9
Heading for the stars
Has made a schedule of blocks of time
Has started the trek
To places positively far
Because you can only spend so long
Nourished in your comfortable cocoon
There’re only so many times you can say
Soon and very soon
Until you put feet to your passions
You try your free will out
You see the seed you’ve watered
Begin to finally sprout
We take our cue from nature
Which bursts into full bloom
We hear the call of city, town
From our private little rooms
You might be young, you might be forty
You might be further on
But if you hear the music of the spheres
If you hear the river’s song
You’ll want to finally set adrift
Towards the ocean of your dreams
You’ll long to see your desert paths
Transforming into greens
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4. |
Purple Heart
02:01
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Some things you don’t ask for
Some things just find you
Like the purple evening
When I was young
Pushed deep into my chest
Like a Depeche Mode song
Surrounded me like a panoramic ghost
And whispered in a baritone
“You belong here”
Ever since I’ve been looking
Like a tuning fork
For what would resonate
Like a cat wandering
Through fields of lavender
Sometimes Elvis, or Jeff Buckley, or Coldplay
Sometimes Faulkner, or Oscar Wilde,
Or Haruki Marukami
Something with darkness
Not devoid of light
Like the world through violet sunglasses
A tint to everything
Perhaps it was just
The difference it provided
From the starkness of daylight
A place for my sensitive soul
To hide without being
Totally lost
I could still see my open hand
In front of my face
Hear another’s voice
If with some sort of affectation
I never wore black
I was never that sad or disillusioned
I didn’t think I could fit in with even them
I had no place but feeling and color
And I wanted a color that held hope
Humanity, perhaps a sort of royalty
If there is a color to my soul
I think it would be purple
My home in only a brief hour of the day
I am twilight
My bruised but beating heart
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5. |
The High Notes
02:41
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I can almost see the high notes
Like light through glass
So powerful
But the glass still does not shatter
My heart has been enlarged
By grace
To hold happiness like sunflowers
Appreciate the black seeds
That fall to the ground
And die
And make more bright yellow
To take its place
There was a time when I couldn’t hold
Dark and light in my own mind
When one was unreconcilable with the other
Like corruption in power
Like stains on pure linen
Like a drop of dirt in water
But purple and yellow are complimentary
The trumpet and the bass clarinet
The human heart and failure
It is the arc of story
It is the dynamic to engage
Our apathetic souls
It is what it is
And so I thrill at the light
As I thrill at the morose
Like a Trivial Pursuit playing piece
My heart is filling in with all of the colored pies
But life’s not trivial
That’s what makes our smiley face emojis
Our rubber duckies
Years and years of Simpson’s cartoons
So important
We need a flotation device for the soul
We need to see ourselves reflected
Like the face on a gold doubloon
To know how rich we are
Even when we’re poor
To sing even in sorrow
Have as many delights
as sand on the seashore
Even if our time is running out
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6. |
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There isn’t a war on pink
There isn’t a battle of the sexes
Any more than there’s been a battle
Between the id and the super-ego
Since the beginning of time
This desire to put someone in their place
As if people are spoons that go in kitchen drawers
Or guns that go in holsters
Men are not the super-ego
And we are not guns
But we are up in arms
Because that’s what you do with arms
Embrace the challenges
Signal the planes’ taking off or landing
And as more and more decide
To take to the skies
These battles for rights
For representation
Will ensue
This life is not just about you
When people have to fight their inner demons
And yours as well
We’re making this heaven a hell
When education is called perversion
When science is called fake news
Freedom determined by sexual organs
And pigments’ hues
When you call her flower
So that you can maintain the power
When you tell her to smile
But then accuse her of guile
You can call it a revolution
But minds have been turning
As long as our planet has
To see every one as worthy
And equal of opportunity
If there’s anything that
Makes us who were are
It is the pink of the tongue
And we all have the ability
To use it for life or for death
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7. |
Variation on Black
02:58
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At the end of the day
As all of the color drains from the sky
Like tears from our eyes
As the trees turn to shadows
And houses into silhouettes
The crickets chirp our memories
The crescent moon reflects
An inner-light remembered
The way the other side of the world
Held us in its sky-blue hands
For a day
The way our souls swayed
Like tulips in a field
Because of love
Or maybe crumbled like a building on fire
The blare of the fire engine
Our prayers shot like basketballs
Into the hoop of God’s merciful net
The sweat of a day’s work
The people we met
With a color wheel of ink on their skin
And on their rich or poor clothing
Vibrant greetings and goodbyes
And stories full of the bending
Of the blues’ guitar
And the gold notes of flutes
And triumphant trumpets
Announcements of engagements
And births and movings on
And changing ups
Black is the perfect backdrop
Like a chalkboard
Ready for education’s marking
Like the universe before the Big Bang
To draw our own conclusions
Like silence is a canvas for sound
Black is the negative
That can attract the biggest positive
A rest in the music of color
Black is so often associated
With death or sorrow
Or nothing at all
A dark yang to life’s yin
But what if it’s also the ink
That keeps writing and writing
On life’s vast and unlimited page?
The period
Or perhaps the comma
The full or partial stop
That makes it possible for us to go again?
The rest from the ocean of iridescence
A shutting of the eyes
The turning off of the anxious
And hurried brain
For a night
Come to us, like a crow
The harbinger of magic and dreams
Another reality beyond
The manifestation of the eyes alone
Put your toes on the black line
Look back in wonder
And fall forward toward
Another day
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Greg Walker Baltimore, Maryland
Indie rock, in the tradition of David Bazan, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Daniel Johnston, with a love for literature and lo fi music. Stays busy creating, so check back often.
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