Peripatetic Blues
The signs along the highway
are leaking semiotic fluid
psychotic cacti strike a calculated pose
linguistic lizards parse the parched desert floor
Slim’s feeling demotic,
neurotic, anecdotal, over-used
he’s looking for a sanctuary
the fisherman and the shoes
he’s got those
needle in a haystack
peripatetic blues.
This is a response to Brendan’s challenge over at earthweal ……..The Perilous Chapel
“This week’s challenge is about finding that Chapel and a way through it. Where have you found it, what perils did you endure, how is it linked to the Grail you seek? What is that poetry? And what initiation is required to transform modernity into Earthdom?”
The poem above is an edit of a previous post, it’s more about the journey than the arrival…..here’s another take
The Road (re-mix)
the sun beats down like judgement
on the armor-plated road
you just called out God and the Devil
and neither of them showed
there’s a sour smell of whiskey sweat
on the air-conditioned air
sometimes you think you care too much
and sometimes you just don’t care
in a dream you see an angel
an angel with a gun
you’re five miles outside of nowhere
and you’re stuck inside a song.
Stopdraggingthepanda 
Really nice, both of them!
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Thank you
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Yes, it reads with all the rhythm of a song – a blues song, from the feel of it. Smiles. Always good to see you at Earthweal, Jim.
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Thanks Sherry! Enjoying earthweal and these challenges….keep it up…JIM
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I love how both poems are drench in the blues, Jim. Leaking semiotic fluid is a great play on words, and the contrast with ‘linguistic lizards parse the parched desert floor’ is powerful. The original would make a great song – it has the right length, pace and rhythm.
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Thanks Kim…..part of that second poem is from a song lyric and a musician friend, John Mitchell, wrote some music to it and recorded it which was a lot of fun..JIM
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Amen brudder – there is something essentially literate about the quest, it’s a new written version of the old oral tale, a transcription: And that presents its own forest of “semiotic fluid” and “linguistic lizards” – leaving one “stuck inside a song.” I got dem old intertextual blues. What did Harold Bloom, god rest his mandarin Falstaff soul, write in “The Anxiety of Influence”? “There are no poems, only relations between poems.” It tends to make one thirst for Grail hootch. The quest is twelve bars round and down.
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Thanks Brendan, keep those challenges coming!
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The blues are the soundtrack of the quest.
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yes, indeed, I’ve always liked that payoff line in a good blues song.
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