1. |
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To me who was so pint-sized
It was a gift to get so high
Who knew toy trains and gravity
A chance to finally meet the sky
I wasn’t afraid to fall
With his arms wrapped about my knees
I felt like an aeroplane
I felt just like the trees
That we would walk among together
With the feeling of stars in my gut
He was so strong and sturdy
With his bigger person’s strut
People would smile and wave
Wishing they were me
Carried by an awesome ox
For miles I could see
It didn’t matter just how long
It seemed like forever
Whatever I was feeling
Suddenly I felt much better
Like a princess on an elephant
Like a cowboy on a horse
But the thing that meant to me most of all
Was how wonderfully close
I was to the one who made me
To my love and joy’s first author
Up among the angels’ clouds
On the shoulders of my father
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2. |
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Like Pablo Picasso who grew
Younger with time
From college to kindergarten
Being an artist
Teaches you to let go
To draw outside the lines
To mock and celebrate
At once
Like Andy Warhol
To be the drug
Like Salvador Dali
To try our best
To float down
The stream of consciousness
Like Jack Kerouac
To howl like Ginsberg
In a world of rules and expectations
We can Imagine
Like John Lennon
Rage against the machine
Like Zack De La Rocha
Tell the story of a dream within a dream
Like Edgar Allen Poe
Sing of how hope springs eternal
Like Alexander Pope
Add your name to the list
Write or paint or sing
Your version of the story
There are as many stories as stars
So let yourself shine
We’ve each been given
Just a little bit of time
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3. |
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Words in my mind
Sometimes get caught
Like leaves in ice
One phrase on display
Repeating its cogent shape
Until the sun comes and releases it
From the brain’s glacial grip
A book or a song helps
But there is a dialogue
Between friends
That is better than any monologue
It is more like a river
Like a flow chart
With many options
The news times twos
Humor, that human helper
Good questions
Which are the backbone of philosophy
The mind is not doubled or tripled
But multiplied
As if conversation were splendid sunshine
Or plant food
Pains not halved
But transformed fully by
Friendship’s photosynthesis
Growing you in ways
You had not thought of growing before
Grafting your lonely branch
Back into a tree of life
With leaves to heal the nations
Or at least the beloved people in the room
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4. |
An Elixir To Relax
01:54
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Sometimes you prefer the body over the mind
An elixir to relax
All those unsettled cells
Your heart becomes fizzy like bubbles
Your skin ringing like bells
It’s what fermentation
Was meant for
A chance to keep a different score
The prize at the bottom of the bottle
An afterglow Aristotle
Lips loosen
And hopefully don’t sink ships
You’re a little bit quicker with your quips
Over-monitored emotions
Begin to speak their truths
You don’t fear so much
The social monster’s tooth
A beer is a bit of a break
You needed it, for goodness’ sake
Just try not to go overboard
Don’t draw your gun
Or pull your sword
Everything in moderation
Liquor’s little litigation
Pour it and feel the palpitation
An antidote to life’s frustration
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5. |
Fiery Couplets
01:11
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I would be lying if I said I didn’t think much
About a woman’s tender touch
The softness of her body parts
The attention of her hidden heart
Because life demands intimacy
Imagination, intricacy
The soul, a secret rendezvous
Less of me and more of you
The titillation of surprise
To behold such beauty with my eyes
And hold it in my aching arms
Test the mettle of my charms
Because there’s nothing as special as consent
For one, with another, to be content
Taste the flavor of desire
Hold the glassworks to the fire
And cherish most, the shape you are
An exotic, beautiful bazaar
We wear our clothes to take them off
In the whimsy of suggestive thought
If it were for just one night
But birds have wings for manifold flight
Maybe we could last forever
A fiery couplet together
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6. |
The Word That's Blessed
01:49
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Finding the right phrases
Is a gift of greater graces
Knowing terminology
Digging the foundation of etymology
Words link us to the past
In a way that makes us last
And help us towards a future
With a vocab that is superlative
A well-placed remark
Can be the inspiration to embark
On the journey to our full expression
A crazy abstraction or a focused lesson
Where we learn to couch
Or vitally to vouch
For something we believe in
Karl Marx or Sufjan Stevens
The vegetation of our verbiage
Like a garden filled with herbage
With butterflies that flutter
With each magical word we utter
Wordsworthian or Confucian
The peace and wisdom of locution
The battles that we fight
With each combative word we write
Giving every choice
A mellifluous sort of voice
History or psychology
With the perfect phraseology
Taking from the wreckage
An influential message
Or praising things fantastic
With sentences elastic
You can start at any time
Put compelling thoughts to prose or rhyme
And it continues on forever
Goes from simplest to clever
There’re many ways to fill your life
To diagram through pleasure and plight
But words might be the best
Especially with the word that’s blessed
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7. |
A Palace Of God
02:49
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It’s more blessed to give
Than to receive
It builds our faith
When we have to believe
To see in the heart of another
A sister or a brother
Even if we’re not related by blood
Even if they can do us no good
To be like a house
That gives shelter
To be like a cloud
That gives weather
To be a big-hearted owner
And then to be an organ donor
Cause we have so much
To give away
And we all have the same
Hours in a day
To be a rainbow of peace
To make someone’s happiness increase
It’s a gift to be a giver
The ocean of hope is fed by that river
The darkness of loneliness
Lighted up with a smile
The marathon of mirth
Is when you run the extra mile
And even if you get no reward
Your faith tells you what
You’re working towards
A palace of God that’s the best
Even if it’s just inside your chest
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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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