Dentist Sun Rise & Shine

Dentist’s office sun rises shines
Imprisoned by shadows stripes
Thinking grinding gnashing teeth
Some impressions made
Brain numbed by Novocaine
Lips lost face sags
“Open wider” whirring drill
Splashes suction smoking still
One imagines gaping holes
Picking drilling air-blasts woe
Fitting carbon paper bite
Drilling fitting bite again
Glued fitted bite down hold
No brushing eating or floss don’t chew
For three weeks until we call
To anoint the crown give proper reign
Don’t let that temp one fall

World Opposite

We talk
My world opposite yours
Your today is my tomorrow
My today is your yesterday
Through your voice I see the future
Through my voice you glimpse the past
When I see the light, you stand in darkness
When darkness engulfs me, your light shines
My summer is your winter
When you spring, I fall
Your world opposite mine
We talk

A Question An Answer

Eleanor at You Lil Dickens posted Ask Yourself with the question “Why is Poetry important to you?” I answered:

Poetry expresses many things we cannot layout as plain thoughts, words or deeds. Poetry allows us to mask reality in mysterious verse, soften hard realities, drive home points that need to be made. We can expose our deepest secrets, friendly or foul, in abstruse rhymes and mysterious lines left to the reader to unfold, and decode. Poetry is an avenue to express our feelings about life and death, love and rejection, freedom and oppression, faithfulness and unfaithfulness, sexuality and abstinence, belief and unbelief, good and evil. Through poetry we can express all the symptoms, right and wrong, of being human.

Chuck, The Reluctant Poet, asked me to post it here.

All Day And All Night Through

I am super excited about this collaboration between Resa at Graffiti Lux Art & More and ArtGowns, and me. Resa mentioned that the construction project to replace the 130 year old sewer lines that run under the street in front of where she lives in the old area of Toronto, Canada goes on “all day and all the night through!” I told her that would make a good parody. Resa wrote the parody lyrics to go to All Day And All Of The Night by The Kinks. I go the music and recorded the first round with my vocals. I sent the music to Resa and asked her to try singing her parody. When she sent me the audio file of her vocals, I was like “Wow!” she sounded super good. I mixed her vocals in with the music, Resa sent me video clips and photos of the construction from her window, and I put the parody music video together. Laurie was reviewing the video and she thought there needed to be more desperation in the chorus, and asked if I could add construction sounds to the chorus. I pulled the scraping sounds off a backhoe video and added snippets of the scrapping and clanking to the chorus and solo. That was enough to give a better sense of desperation to the parody.

When Resa first told me about the construction I really felt sorry for her. When we lived in Madrid, Spain, the city constructed a new Metro stop about 100 feet from the apartment building we lived in. The construction noise went on 24/7 for a year. It was horrible. However, we were not in lock down, and so it was easy for us to simply go to parks, museums, and bars to get away from the noise. Toronto is still locked down with stay at home orders, so Resa cannot simply say the heck with it, go out and get away from it all. She can go on walks, but she is very limited in her activity under the lock down orders.

ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT THROUGH
By Resa McConaghy

Oh they have got loud work to do in the day time
Evac, jack hammers and backhoes too, all the night through
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind too
It’s cruel they pound and crash then roar all of the time

All day and all night through
All day and all night through
All day and all night through

I believe this crazy work will always be there
Oh yeah all day and night time through – PTSD
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind
Evac, jack hammers and backhoes too, not a good time

All day and all night through
All day and all night through

Oh go away

I just know that they will be here forever
Oh yeah all day and night time through, fixing the sewer
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind
Oh they have got loud work to do in the day time

All day and all night through
All day and all night through
All day and all night through