Mark Hartenbach has done a fine edit and music video of my blues poem

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IlbdjKieY0g

Thank you Marko!

Big Rapids is hideous.

But at least Leona won't have to be here much longer. Kristyn and I came down Saturday and saw Leona briefly at Higgins Lake where she is at a enviromental conference. She will be back tonight. I am going up to get a small trailer at Reed City and K and I will load it this afternoon. Should get a lot of stuff out of here. Cathie (Leona's sister) told her she can stay with her for the rest of the school year and they can get the apartment here cleaned up. We will be paying for 3 months rent for an empty apartment unless we or Penny can find someone to rent it before. Worth to get out of here and up to Calumet. I start work at Ft. Wilkins SP on June 11th. Late shift from 2:30 to 10:30. Pays a little more and will allow me time to get work done at the Vertin studio too.

Tanka , Like the Blues and Haiku blues

The older Japanese Tanka often were about loss and longing - like the blues

So here is a bluesy tanka

Lucille?
She was a teacher
teacher of the blues
she taught them to me
she'll teach them to you

Haiku blues

issa certainly wrote bluesy haiku so here are a few attempts on my part


poor old fly
just like me
crushed


preacher man
wasting my time
fly buzzing


vanity
at my age to watch
young women

Just writing the blues (not life)

A Sad Song About the End of Love

refrain

i ain't nothin' but an old man
please take me by my hand
lead me outta this sad land
lead me outta this sad sad land


good times won't come again
no the good times are gone
i been traveling this lonely road
too long, yeah, far too long

r

thought love would be eternal
last forever, so they say
seems forever is a short time
seems i lost the way

r

i've tried dancing with the bible
and dancing with the wind
but when she left for another
i started dancing with sin

r

thought whiskey was my savior
but whiskey don't pay for meals
that just an airy illusion
it was either work or steal

r

i saw her once in Detroit
my flesh began to crawl
i lit out for Chicago
ran into that old blues wall

r

got down, so far down
couldn't see for tears in my eyes
whatever friends i had
looked at me with despise

r

i'm so tired of traveling
on liquor and the bus
so tired of traveling
feeling like a wuss

r

time to be a leaving
can you show me the way
preachers tried and bottles tried
i got nothing left to say

r