Drilling For Oil
flesh colored ghosts
walking through the
oil fields... carrying
mannequin babies
on their shoulders.
draped in American flags,
carrying Bibles, and
pearl handled revolvers.
past rusted out chevrolets,
stepping on books that
were banned....
singing the songs of Jesus
to corpses that cant hear....
past tomblike houses
where strangers lived and
died... pictures of dead presidents...
empty Jim Beam bottles in
the windows, covered with soot!
drilling for oil...
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Related quotes
Im Carrying
By dawns first light Ill come back to your room again
With my carnation hidden by the packages
Im carrying, something
Im carrying something for you
Ah, long time no see baby sure has been a while
And if my reappearance lacks a sense of style
Im carrying, something
Im carrying something for you
Im carrying.
Im carrying, cant help it.
Im carrying.
Im carrying something for you.
song performed by by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Half Drunk In Jesus Town
church bells ringing
down by the mission
walking these streets again
down by the old feed store,
and the row of empty buildings,
listening to the ghosts of the past.
the railroad tracks stand silent,
that old train dont run anymore.
here and there people walking,
aint nobody talking,
stray dogs and broken bottles,
stopped to light one last cigarette.
i can still hear my mother calling,
can still see my daddy's tired eyes,
can still hear the preacher, and
them old songs
but you cant take me down
to the water anymore.
old signs falling in the wind
take one last draw from the bottle
cant bring back what you never had
half drunk in Jesus town.
poem by Eric Cockrell
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The Gun
The man has a gun
He knows how to use it
Nine millimeter browning
Lets see what he can do
Hell point at your mouth
Say that hell blow your brains out
Dont you mess with me
Carrying a gun
Carrying a gun
Carrying a gun
Dont you mess with me
Carrying a gun
Carrying a gun
Carrying a gun
Dont mess with me
Ooohhh, carrying a gun
Get over there
Move slowly
Ill put a hole in your face
If you even breathe a word
Tell the lady to lie down
I want, ah, you to be sure to see this
I wouldnt want you to miss a second
Watch your wife
Carrying a gun
Shooting with a gun
Dirty animal
Carrying a gun
Carrying a gun
Watch you face
Carrying a gun
Carrying a gun
Carrying a gun
The animal dies with fear in his eyes
With a gun
Dont touch him, dont touch him
Stay away from him, hes got a gun
song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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America Revisited
put down your crack bowls
and your republican flags...
and let's go walking thru
the streets and alleys of America....
let's walk past the empty houses
with foreclosure signs in the yard...
past the vacant factory buildings
where the homeless break in
at night and sleep...
past the lily white churches
and the dead zone schools...
past the county jails and the courthouses
and the rooms where lawyers
buy and sell justice...
past the housing projects
where babies buy groceries...
down to the tent cities where
dreams hang in the air like opium.
down the dark streets where young
girls and boys sell their bodies
for their vampire pimps...
and everyday citizens buy them!
down to the unemployment offices
where angry people stand in
numbered lines...
past renegade gas pumps
guarded by dollar store slaves...
past the words of Jefferson, Franklin,
and Thomas Paine....
to the hypnotic ads of puffy-faced
liars with titles and plans...
down to the cemetary where
the last shreds of freedom
lie in unmarked graves....
and we call this....
America!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Walking With The Lover...
walking with the Lover...
i see empty fields plowed,
come alive with crops abundant.
empty factory buildings filled
with the ghosts of hard working lives.
empty houses lit up,
and the sounds of families.
empty hands given cups and bowls,
empty hearts held close!
empty words given meaning,
empty promises fulfilled.
walking with the Lover...
touching the plenty of empty!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Empty Old Houses
Empty Old Houses
Empty old houses can talk…
But one must know how to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses have stories…
But one must be eager to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses can suffer..
But one must have empathy …
To feel it
Empty old houses can feel pain
But one must be able to bear it …
To feel it
Empty old houses have memories
But one must believe … that they have…
To share them
Empty old houses contain people’s lives
But one must believe…that they do…
To share them
Empty old houses can seem dead and deserted
But one must know that they’re not..
To know them
Empty old houses can teem with life’s pleasures
But one must walk through
to sense the aura of life
Empty old houses abound in life’s treasures
But one cannot help but…
To admire them
poem by David Whalen
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Have Mercy!
Have Mercy!
with final thoughts
i walk these streets,
past vacant buildings hallowed.
in silent mourning,
my heartbeat joining,
the concrete scarred by living.
passing strangers hurrying,
as if they had a life to return to.
while the shouts and cursing of working men,
rings inside the empty walls!
past tenemant buildings,
and unemployed stoops,
and eyes staring from windows.
dogs too hungry to bark,
squad cars passing slow,
tis the funeral of poverty.
while meth lab food stamp children,
sharpen knives against the curb.
and everything's grey, even the sounds,
the air is drunk with anger.
i caught a ride
with a trucker wired,
who mumbled slamming gears.
out into the country
once green and rich...
now brown and deserted.
fields not worked,
farm's foreclosed,
houses left to ghosts and memories.
tractors rusting in the sun,
the air is drunk with anger.
back into town,
past libraries closed,
and churches that ache with empty.
i can hear the sound
of the distant bells...
be it freedom or infinity.
past hospitals full,
and graveyards that move
with shadows in the night.
back to the small room
where i cant sleep...
where god weeps in the stillness.
America, America...
the air is drunk with anger!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Safe And Sound
Jesus, and the third world poets
carrying their dying children
across the starvation desert...
the stench of disease,
poverty, and dead eyed
hopelessness, ... hangs
in the indifferent air.
if you dont know their names
they're not real, just pictures
on the news you turn off...
finish your supper,
throw out the scraps;
get in your cars, and
go for a drive...
turn up the radio!
speed up! roll up your
windows... safe, and sound....
honk if you love Jesus!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Books
The universe (which others call the library). . .
-Jorge Luis Borges
Books which are stitched up the center with coarse white thread
Books on the beach with sunglass-colored pages
Books about food with pictures of weeping grapefruits
Books about baking bread with browned corners
Books about long-haired Frenchmen with uncut pages
Books of erotic engravings with pages that stick
Books about inns whose stars have sputtered out
Books of illuminations surrounded by darkness
Books with blank pages & printed margins
Books with fanatical footnotes in no-point type
Books with book lice
Books with rice-paper pastings
Books with book fungus blooming over their pages
Books with pages of skin with flesh-colored bindings
Books by men in love with the letter O
Books which smell of earth whose pages turn
poem by Erica Jong
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Burning Flags
they're burning flags again....
sit down stand up protesting,
cracking heads like eggs,
yolk running down on hallowed ground....
they're burning flags again...
soldier boys coming home
to no work, living in cars,
no help, without a country...
they're burning flags again...
your sister died giving birth.
your brother-in-law cant get work,
making meth in the tub...
crying at night 'neath a picture
of Jesus hanging on the cross....
they're burning flags again...
small town football heroes
in prison cells learning
to live outside the law....
they're burning flags again....
and the words of Jefferson
fall in the empty rooms
where justice and equality lived....
they're burning flags again!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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And Their Bindery
He lives among us like a eater of books,
Strolling with the guards of the laws and works.
He lived around the road,
Where they caught the load.
It was a book of inspiration
Carrying blind men a nation.
We do help a common man,
But this manly man was a book-fan.
Neither loving nor living his life,
The sword of a plain soldier was tough
To handle, to lift, and then swift
He challenges a most dangerous drift.
He lives with the bible of soldiery
Instead of the past-books, and their bindery.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Praying For Emptiness!
walking barefoot down the streets
of the holy city...
listening to the sounds,
the whimper, the cry, and the roar...
praying for emptiness....
the clock beats in rhythm
with the sidewalks and the walls.
the smell of burnt flesh
hangs in the air....
'Jesus Saves' painted on a fence....
oil rigs and chemical sprays,
fields filled with unmarked graves.
windows broken, doors sway, rusted hinges,
cars abandoned, vacant buildings,
dead bodies, eyes lost stare!
the spirits of the children
sing haunting and low...
words pierce like nails,
the birds hear and weep....
a hand gun, a needle, half pack of smokes....
nobody saves the night from the dawn!
praying for emptiness...
poem by Eric Cockrell
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The Route March
Did you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Did you hear the children singing as our troops went marching past?
In the sunshine and the rain,
As they’ll never sing again—
Hear the little school-girls singing as our troops went swinging past?
Did you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Did you hear the children singing for the first man and the last?
As they marched away and vanished,
To a tune we thought was banished—
Did you hear the children singing for the future and the past?
Shall you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Shall you hear the children singing in the sunshine or the rain?
There’ll be sobs beneath the ringing
Of the cheers, and ’neath the singing
There’ll be tears of orphan children when
Our Boys come back again!
poem by Henry Lawson
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Montana Road
I see the mountains in the distance
This Montana road feels so quiet
Sunset brings ghosts
Chill of the past puts a tear in my eye
Fall stars so clear and bright tonight
Images of soldiers and helicopters
Long hairs and protest
We kissed amidst the turbulence
Lots of drugs and booze
We both lost friends in that era
Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison gone
Lately Vietnam haunts me
I put on some Buffalo Springfield
“A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs”
We were young and hungry
Man! am I glad I went thru the 60’s
This Montana road seems to go forever
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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This Desirable Mansion
THE long white windows blankly stare
Across the sodden, tangled grass,
Weed-covered are the pathways where
No footsteps ever pass;
No whispers wake, no kisses die,
No laughter thrills the dwindling flowers,
Only the night hears sigh on sigh
From ghosts of long-dead hours.
None come here now to laugh or weep;
The spider spins on stair and hall,
And round the windows shadows creep,
And loathly creatures crawl.
Cold is the hearth; the door is fast;
No guest the silent threshold sees
Save ghosts out of the happy past,--
And one who is as these.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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You Who Bury Your Poets
America....
you who bury your poets
like fallen leaves beneath weeping trees.
like the sound of the tire
that strikes the stray cat.
like the trembling dark skinned hands
you ban from your voting booths.
like the flag draped caskets
of your sacrificed young.
like the books you burn
with religious fervor....
like the shuffle of boots
in your unemployment lines.
like the faceless ones
in your clinics shutting down.
like the ones who speak out,
then suddenly disappear.
like the crack pipes and needles
of your 'worthless' poor....
like the babies born to babies
in your rat infested government housing.
like your Native Americans
in your 'poverty prisons'....
like the angry young men
you put behind bars.
like the hungry child sleeping
in the back of a broke down car.
like your factory ghosts
haunting empty shells.
like your foreclosed farms,
the fields left to crows.
America,
you who bury your poets,
and dance drunkenly in empty rooms,
neath the shadow of the noose
your indifference tied!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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A Hideaway
the house of
the pigeon assures
that you are
at a certain
safe height
on the beam of
the ceiling
two sparrows
are singing
you rock yourself
on the hammock
you are chasing
sleep who is
always far away
from you
it is carrying your
bundle of dreams
slippery as an ell
the sea breeze
comes always
pregnant with
some songs from
the other island
you walk barefoot
on the floor with
cracks and you
assure yourself
this is my home.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Caryatids
It could have been
the temple of Apollo,
more surely that of Athena
or maybe an even greater god
with female figures draped
in royal cloth somewhere in Sparta
supporting the entablature
dedicated to a god.
Set in rows like the porch
at the temple of Erechtheum
at the Acropolis, but facing out
as if every single one
was standing alone
carrying a frieze around the top,
carrying the weight of the world.
Dedication plastered on beautiful faces,
without joy or any other emotion
woman was making man
forming him in a ancient mould
and taking him to the heights
that he could reach.
Standing as the foundation,
carrying him from birth,
ever caring and nurturing
dedicated to help him rise
to where destiny demands.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Confused
i was walking
along a busy road
of this village
where the sound of
squeaking bikes
abound, and
this old woman
carrying a basket of
fish
stared at me, i
was carrying a book
and an umbrella
it was sunny and
the old woman
stared at me, perhaps
i guess, he must
have missed his son,
perhaps his son
stopped schooling
enlisted himself as
a soldier
because there is no
more money
to spend
for his tuition in
school....
perhaps, his
son died in
combat, and perhaps
his son once had
a book.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Voice
Between the open heart and the whisper goodbye,
Theres a perfect teardrop in your eye.
Between the lovers moon and the trembling sky,
Theres a broken dream in your mind.
And the voice is carrying the love you have lost,
And the change of heart in someone you trust.
Yea the voice is carrying the love and the scars.
Hear the lonely voice in the dark.
Between the careful touch and the breakaway kiss,
Theres a beauty you cant resist.
Mmm, between the fall apart and the moment of bliss,
There must be something more than this.
And the voice is carrying the love you have lost.
Love you have lost.
And the change of heart in someone you trust.
Yea the voice is carrying the love and the scars.
Love and the scars.
Hear the lonely voice in the dark.
In the dark.
Hear the lonely voice.
Hear the lonely voice.
And the voice is carrying the love you have lost.
Love you have lost.
And the change of heart in someone you trust.
Yea the voice is carrying the love and the scars.
Love and the scars.
Hear the lonely voice in the dark.
Oh, yea, the voice is carrying the love you have lost.
Love you have lost.
And the change of heart in someone you trust.
Yea the voice is carrying the love and the scars.
Love and the scars.
Hear the lonely voice in the dark. in the dark.
Lonely voice. lonely voice in the dark.
Hear the lonely voice.
Hear the lonely voice in the dark...
song performed by by Roxette
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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