Pioneers

Screw the blue jeans this is being used to sell; this is a great poem.

1
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!

2
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

3
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!

4
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!

5
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!

6
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!

7
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!

8
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!

9
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers!

10
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers!

11
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers!

12
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!

13
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!

14
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d, Pioneers! O pioneers!

15
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

16
Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers!

17
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!

18
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O pioneers!

19
Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers!

20
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers!

21
O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers!

22
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

23
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers!

24
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!

25
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers!

26
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers.

-Walt Whitman

Olbermann Says It All

please, somebody out there, get this gentleman back on the air

Allen Ginsberg - America

Suggestion: click "play" below, and read along. You'll be glad you did.

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good
looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial
for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came
over from Russia.
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious.
Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that jetplanes 1400 miles an hour
and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live
in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automo-
biles more so they're all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings
they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and
the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about
the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing
the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real
mensch Mother Bloor the Silk-strikers' Ewig-Weibliche made me cry
I once saw the Yiddish orator Israel Amter plain. Everybody must
have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. Her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black
niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

yet again, more lyrics

Low Stars - Calling All Friends

Calling all friends and people I met on the way down
Calling all friends and people I don’t even know
Calling on high I want to believe there’s a way now
I’m too tired to pretend
I don’t want to be alone

I’m calling all friends

Taken my time and trying to be what I wanted
Taken my chances when they came on the way
Taken there toll and nobody knows how I’m haunted
Things that I’ve done there isn’t a price I can pay

I have been broken I’ve been low
You want to disappear and no one needs to know
I’ve been there I’ve been where no one seems to care

Calling all friends and people I met on the way down
Calling all friends and people I don’t even know
Calling on high I want to believe there’s a way now
I’m too tired to pretend
I don’t want to be alone

I’m calling all friends

I have been broken I’ve been low
You want to disappear and no one needs to know
I’ve been there I’ve been where no one seems to care

Calling all friends and people I met on the way down
Calling all friends and people I don’t even know
Calling on high I want to believe there’s a way now
I’m too tired to pretend
I don’t want to be alone
I’m too tired to pretend
I don’t want to be alone

More Lyrics

Maybe you're getting tired of this lyrics bullshit, but sorry, I'm not.
I like these:
Colbie Caillat - Bubbly

I've been awake for a while now
You've got me feelin' like a child now
'Cause every time I see your bubbly face
I get the tingles in a silly place

And it starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose
Wherever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Wherever you go

The rain is falling on my window pane
But we are hiding in a safer place
Under covers staying dry and warm
[Another version of the song says: "Under covers staying safe and warm"]
You give me feelings that I adore

And it starts in my toes
Makes me crinkle my nose
Wherever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Wherever you go

What am I gonna say
When you make me feel this way
I just mmmmm

And they start in my toes
Makes me crinkle my nose
Wherever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Wherever you go

I've been asleep for a while now
You tuck me in just like a child now
'Cause every time you hold me in your arms
I'm comfortable enough to feel your warmth

And it starts in my soul
And I lose all control
When you kiss my nose
The feeling shows
'cause you make me smile baby
Just take your time now
Holdin' me tight

Wherever wherever wherever you go
Wherever wherever wherever you go

wherever you go
I always know
'Cause you make me smile
Even just for a while

Hollow Lyrics-- not so hollow

It's funny how some lyrics jump out, grab you by the throat and make you listen...

Hollow - Pantera
What's left inside him?
Don't he remember us?
Can't he believe me?
We seemed like brothers
Talked for hours last night
About what we wanna be
I sit now with his hand in mine
But I know he can't feel...

No one knows
What's done is done
It's as if he were dead

I'm close with his mother
And she cries endlessly
Lord how we miss him
At least what's remembered
It's so important to make best friends in life
But it's hard when my friend sits with blank expression

No one knows
What's done is done
It's as if he were dead

He as hollow as I alone now x4

He as hollow as I alone
A shell of my friend
Just flesh and bone
There's no soul
He sees no love
I shake my fists at skies above
Mad at God...Mad...

He as hollow as I converse
I wish he'd waken from this curse
Hear my words before it's through
I want to come in after you
My best friend x2
Come back!

He as hollow as I alone...
He as Hollow as I alone now...

Walt's Folly

I fell into these riches
Sharp and green
As I roll and wonder
At the sky
I rolled over
I stared
For ages
At this one blade
And questioned
The sky
Why so blue
How so green
Yellow bees
Assaulting me
Brown bark
Shielding those
Naked trees
Away from me
For naked plants
I do not care
But look at me now
And I know
You’ll stare
Howling thunder
Is what we'll call it
Dragging your mind
As fast as
You can haul it
How'd you get here
How fast did you do it
Ants are being antsi
Almost blew it
Bending back
Thrusting knees
Swift motion to stand
Just to watch you pass
Frolic
Breathe the meadow air
That one blade of grass
Was but
Imaginary
Wistful like glass
Stained
with nicotine
yellowed but
still clear

© Tim Whalen

Passenger lyrics

I like this song... Deftones, Maynard (Tool)... Awesome.

I lay
Still and breatheless
Just like always
Still I want some more
Mirrors sideways
Who cares whats behind
Just like always
Still your passenger

The chrome buttons buckled on leather surfaces
These and other lucky witnesses
Now to calm me
This time wont you please...
Drive faster!

Roll the window down
This cool night air is curious
Let the whole world look in
Who cares who sees anything?
Im your passenger
Im your passenger

Drop...these down
Then...put them on me
Nice...cool seats there
To cushion your knees
Now to calm me
Take me around again
Dont pull over
This time wont you please
Drive faster!!!

Roll the window down
This cool night air is curious
Let the whole world look in
Who cares who sees what tonight?
Roll these misty windows
Down to catch my breath and then
Go and go and dont just
Drive me home then back again!

In amongst the trees

I ventured forth in the month of May
Into a forest, dull and gray

No voices, few noises entered my ears
As I breathed with the trees and eased all their fears
At first they were frightened, standing tall and straight
But as a wind swelled up they bore a graceful gait

Some wept for their fallen limbs
While others cordially tipped their green brims
Even more stood proudly, stretching up high
Reaching desperately at a cloud-filled sky

The penumbral puffy blanket overhead
Melted then moistened the cool forest bed
Thunder echoed and jolted the peace
Just moments later the light rainfall ceased
My newfound companions hadn’t let me get wet
Under their protective canopy, I was glad that we’d met

My boots were then caked with the dead skin cells of leaves
That had fallen days before from the towering eaves
I was lost in my travels when daylight faded
I couldn’t recall the path I had braided
Throughout this dimly lit wood
I needed to leave, but didn’t feel that I could

I stopped and leaned against a soaring oak tree
Then noticed a low branch pointing away from me
I let nature be my guide and soon found my way out
I trusted the timber and let go of all doubt
Once out in a clearing awash in the moon’s twilight shine
Quietly humbled, I thanked the trees for their time

© Tim Whalen

My Desert

Skin boiling
Chest heaving
Eyes dried, shriveled
Clothes torn, disheveled
Journey through desert
Quest for meaning
Shoes full of hot sand
Every step painful
Oasis in the distance
Never grows near
A mirage?
A hallucination?
Falling, now crawling
Scratching, clawing
At the desert floor
Hands bloodied
Still cannot reach sanctuary
Peace and refuge floating away
Face down on a rock
My desert
Your mirage
A blurry vision in the roadway
Your love
My water
Arms under shoulders
Carrying, resuscitating
Refreshing, renewing
Healthy now
Atop the mountain
Perched with the hawks
Howling with the wolves
Energized by those who cared
And pale blue light of the stars
Peering down the cliffs
I see you there
You've found your desert
Eyes blurred with tears
Your pain mine
Your struggle, ours
Lifting you from the sand
Aloft and flying to safety
Safe sanctity of the mountains
We're there
Peering down
Readying for the rescue
Of another
Who's found their desert...

©Tim Whalen

Process

Driving down the street
People, places seem so neat
I don't know them
They don't know
An introduction starts to show
They don't know me; unaware
Of the weird-ass stories I could share
Do they want to hear
Or will they fear
This creature's
Half-baked speeches?
No form, no order
No boundaries; no borders
What I do and say
Drives me through the day
When I write
I sometimes fight
At home, alone, behind closed doors
The scripting process is rarely a chore
It's a practice that I preach
Not an easy one I could teach
Blank screens or papers
Encourage my capers
But sometimes mock me
As I struggle to break free
Of thoughts so cloudy
Eventually words flow
But not everyone knows
If when or where the next line
Will weave their thoughts with mine

©Tim Whalen

Rhythmic Events

coffee and a cigarette
ashtray full of nicorette
gum up the works
say hi to the turks
sippin a cup-o-mud
thinning out my aching blood
what the fuck was that loud thud?
feet upon the pavement now
stop to say how now brown cow?
shore is a-hot
we stop here a lot
look what I got
tied up in a knot
now we're driving in a cadillac
'cuz someone had a heartattack
gonna see the show tonight?
only if the mood is right
hope they didn't start a fight
now my fuckin head is light
fallin on the floor and I can't get up
rollin and a-groovin, I spilled my cup
starin at the stars
questioning the wars
fallin in my brain
ain't nothing insane
say a short prayer
in the warm country air
nobody recalls what we did down there
nobody recalls what we did down there
that ain't bad
it ain't good
do what you will
just stop when you should
quit while ahead
or you might be dead
pushin up daisies, food for the worms
shoulda washed your hands to avoid all the germs

©Tim Whalen

St. Patrick's Day '07

No one man should be allowed to consume that much Guinness and Jameson in one day. Thanks to my friends who made the day complete, and thanks to those who PAID ATTENTION to my "speech" at Malone's. (and thanks for having my back, with a vengeful force against the opposition)

some pics are here

For those of you who missed it, here it is:

Our Irish brothers and sisters
Are not physically near
But we still hold them dear
As we celebrate here

This Celtic day of celebration
Spurns our elation
For being alive
And trying to thrive

Lest ye forget
Their well-placed bet
They gambled on a free existence
In trying the English patience

Why do I wear black?
It reminds me to think back
To a time when we weren't all so free
Under oppression of an ill-conceived monarchy

So here's a cheer
To everyone here
Raise a glass
To the times that'll pass
Pass a beer to your friends
And hope it never ends
Because, dare I say,
We're all Irish today...
©Tim Whalen

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