Beauty Isn't

Once I knew a queen of beauty

who preferred the life of tramp,

when the navy had us practice

walking through fire and drowning,

I could have told them

I learned that long ago.

Beauty isn’t as easily seen as ugly is,

stolen dreams and bones well broken

is ugly at its very best,

never let them steal your soul;

that is where beauty truly lives.

I knew a man from Biloxi, not far from

New Orleans I’m told, the land of fun streets.

I’ve known guys and gals who walked the mean streets,

Harlem, 8 Mile, Southside, but I’ve heard

the rubber burning down the thunder road.

Do those S curves at 100 mph and

three sheets to the wind and then tell me

about the razor’s edge.

We were young once, but never free,

forever we yearned for that glory road.

Once there was a dancer whose beautiful soul

was entwined with that of a poet. As luck would have it,

they each ran as fast as they could

down roads leading out of town;

never knowing that each were bound for each.

The glory road patiently waited

for their arrival.

I have seen the lies that beauty tells and

I have walked through fire down

the glory road and I know

what beauty is and what

beauty wasn’t.

Mike Carson

11-14-2010

The Tall Dark Horse from Tennessee

He was, of course, ten feet tall.

The tall, dark horse

from Tennessee.

“Camptown ladies sing this song…” ~ Stephen Foster

Put your money down

on the tall, dark horse

from Tennessee. I have an image in my head,

of a young Charles Bukowski, age ten, 1931;

running down to the corner news stand

to get his latest copy of Street and Smith’s

Sport Story to read Sam’s latest horse racing story.

I’ll give you even money on that one. I’ll bet Papa even

sneaked a peak to read the words of this man who

beat him to the left bank by two years.

“Man, that guy can write…horse racing and ladies in red…”

He was a front runner, odds on favorite

from any position, but he made the right move

at the wrong time. October, 1929 brought him to the ground

faster than the Hindenburg.

Put your money down

on the tall, dark horse

from Tennessee.

“Doo-da, doo-da”~ Stephen Foster

He watched his first Kentucky Derby

the year Old Rosebud came home first (1914) and

watched his last run for the roses in 1973,

Secretariat, a good enough ending, I suppose

for the man who called Grantland Rice “granny” and

Damon Runyon quiet. A sportswriter in Louisville

had to know and love his horses

and their riders.

Earl Sande on Zev, he said, was the best combo ever.

Here’s a Sam quote for you:

“It’s okay to dream, but then you gotta do.”

Put your money down

on the tall, dark horse

from Tennessee.

“And it’s run for the roses, as fast as you can…”~ Dan Fogelberg

Sam played guitar and every other instrument

in the band,

“Camptown racetrack five miles long” ~ Stephen Foster

Sam painted, just because he could, just like

he attended classes at the Sorbonne

because he and they were there,

he delighted in the Left Bank,

because he could clearly see,

they were he.

“My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man.

I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band.” ~ Dan Fogelberg

Sam gardened at age three, gave 25 years in service

to the teachers of farmers and was still writing

a weekly column (Coffee with Carson) for a large farm newspaper

on the day he reached the finish line.

“Oh, de doo-da day.” ~ Stephen Foster

Sam was a tall teller, a tall teller of

the stories of

our lives. He owned every room

he walked into, but not to enrich himself,

his goal was first and foremost,

to enrich you.

His poet was Wordsworth,

his authors Dickens, London and Hawthorne,

his friends legion and legend, his God

known only to him.

Put your money down

on the tall, dark horse

from Tennessee.

“Goin’ to run all night

Goin’ to run all day

I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag

Somebody bet on the gray.” ~ Stephen Foster

He was a southern man who

had no time for bigotry or

suffering fools, not a popular stance in 1910. How many speak it

from the side of their mouth in 2010?

He was a champion of the underdog,

strong supporter of lost causes,

a believer until the end that

the fourth estate could rise above

pettiness.

Put your money down

on the tall, dark horse

from Tennessee.

“And much it grieved my heart to think

what man has made of man.” ~ William Wordsworth

The army put a rifle in the hands of

Mentor Watson Carson and sent

him off to see what he could do with France.

The crazy dreamer he worked for (Luke Lea) thought it fairly simple,

“Capture the Kaiser!” Bring him to justice in Paris, heads will roll.

As plans go,

it wasn’t a bad one, just suffered a bit in the

execution.

Ah, those boys from Tennessee fight fierce,

the 114^th Artillary, 30^th Division, all volunteer, of course.

Put your money down

on the tall, dark horse

from Tennessee.

“Another year! – another deadly blow!

Another mighty empire overthrown!” ~ William Wordsworth

I knew him as Grandfather

with a capital G:

I had Coffee with Carson

when I was just five.

He got scolded by Mergie,

but he just scoffed at her admonishments,

he knew what was really important.

I remember the days of wonder:

Hey! Come take a look at this!

Tomatoes the size of softballs,

a lifetime of knowledge behind them,

Clickity-clack, clckity-clack, clickity-clack, beep, zing,

clickity-clack, clickity-clack, clickity-clack, beep, zing, whirl,

a lifetime of knowledge leaping upon the page,

the trunk in the attic on Holbrook full of war treasures,

the ’69 Chevy doing 70 between red-lights on Broadway,

walking with him in his old home town,

selling the cookbooks in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg,

watching Bob Gibson dare the batters to hit his pitch,

the smell of pipe tobacco and old sweaters well worn.

I would have cut the grass for free

a thousand times.

I remember the last time and I remember

that sunset.

Put your money down

on the tall, dark horse

from Tennessee.

I’ve already bet my life on him.

“_____It seems a day

(I speak of one from many singled out)

One of those heavenly days that cannot die” ~ William Wordsworth

Mike Carson

9-27-2010

From Hell

I have found truth and now

I know that

I never really wanted it.

I used to wonder about things and now

my wonder is fading as

the black holes eat all of

the white spaces.

It seems that time has inevitably

worn the razor sharp edge

to a dull, rusty finish, but is that

what really happens? If truth be

all the gods mere figments of

our insanity, life nothing more

than a cosmic joke, then I would still

have reasons to go forward.

Living though, kills everything piecemeal.

Joy and wonder are just the first casualties

There is so much truth in the universe, that

we can always pick and chose

which to see and

which to ignore.

The truth is;

there is no writer,

no singer,

no artist, no preacher

who knows ultimate truth.

Go ask the men who wait

right over the ridge,

I’m sure they have an opinion.

I think I’ll stop looking for truth and

scare up a little

wonder and joy.

Mike Carson

9-20-2010

The Faded Man

Plastic yellow roses don't
hold their color under
the skies of July.

Absurd colors swirl madly
into the black center as
the faded man searches for
something, anything that isn't
gray.

There's no marker.

In 1972, the faded man watched
his father console
his father
on the night his cousin died and
the faded man's father's father
couldn't understand why
a God would take
the young and leave
the old behind
to grieve in such
agony and pain.

The faded man has seen
grayer skies than he ever
would have imagined or
dreamed of and oh, yes,
he has seen rainbows
and blue skies;
but the gray plastic rose
has sent him tumbling
down the years
to all of the places
that sadness does not reach,
but he finds it lurking now
in every corner and
nothing, no thing, will take
it's place.

In 1976, the faded man
talked to God and
begged him to reconsider.
Ignored by God and
the rest of the universe,
he told them all to go to Hell.

The faded man feels faded
inside and out.
Secretly, he was never really sure
he was really here.

There should be a marker.

The faded man forces himself
down to his knees,
thinking maybe she
can hear him better
the closer he gets.

The faded man has lingered
long past all of the
others who put
the color in his life and
his mind circles round
and round the keen idea
that he might as well
end his fading now.

The faded man once brought home
a dozen yellow plastic roses and
now he wonders if
he should go get one
or a dozen
or a hundred, just
to watch them fade?
What would be the point?
That, of course, leads back to
the question of why and
what is the point of any of it.

The faded man can only hope that
he never stops caring about
the answer.

Mike Carson
7-30-2009

Goodbye

I. Before and After Dying

Yesterday a wasp landed on the rail to my back deck
and died.
Today a honey bee made a feeble attempt
to enter my car and join me
on the drive to work.
The last gasp in late fall
of bees looking for a warm place
to be before dying.
Believe me, I can relate.

About a month after my dad died,
my mother took me and Gail outside
to show us Sam’s star.
She said it suddenly appeared about
a week after his death and was proof
that he was watching out for her.
I told Gail I was worried about her,
Gail said, “Don’t, she’ll be alright.”

Those of us who have not, but need to
say goodbye;
twist in the breeze like the last
leaf on an oak, desperately clinging
to the known and familiar ways.
A wise man once said, “Make no changes for a year,”
and then he died, leaving his wise woman
in charge of the lost and grieving
left gasping for air in the vast vacuum
that followed his passing
from this presence to the other.


II. Pain

Goodbye hurts,
it hurts down to the marrow
of my bones
which someday will be
pulverized and returned to the sea.
The hurt blackens all
of the colors that used
to live in my life and
readies me for the deep, dark night
that leads somewhere, but
no one here can say for sure where.
No, don’t give me the surety
that you have no right
to give. You don’t really know
anything for sure, just as I.
I know that hurt can change
a rainbow into black and
like all other obstacles we face,
must be overcome before it
takes us down
below the ground.

III. Us


There have been 18,800 days
of me and
7,035 days of us.
When I say goodbye to you,
I say goodbye to us and
most of me.

It was late on a Thursday evening,
early November and I was down at
the gas station helping Sara with her
paperwork and you dropped by to say hello.
You were getting impatient with me by then;
your transfer had gone through and we had already
danced and kissed and you made sure I
had the chance to run my hand down
your leg and it would have happened
that Saturday night if Sara had not got drunk
and picked a fight that Bud had to finish and
we all ended up at the jail half the night,
but with another fun story to tell, but
I never told this one,
did I?

I asked you where you were going as
you started to wander off and you
replied that you were going to
the Holiday Inn to drink schnapps and beer and
I recalled what you had said about
what that leads to on the night I saw
you tie a knot in a cherry stem with your tongue.
I looked at Sara and calmly asked her
what I should do.
Sara, who besides having a Psych degree,
was in San Fran in the summer of ’67 and
on a farm in upstate New York in the summer of ’69.
From the moment I hired her,
we started teaching each other.
We certainly both got each other immediately.
Sara looked at me and uttered the immortal words;
“Shit or get off the pot.”
I ran into your arms and
all of our tomorrows.
We got schnapps and beer and took it
to my place and sat on the floor and starting watching
LA Law and
never made it anywhere near the
end.

IV. Beauty on the Balcony

On a cool winter’s evening,
long after midnight,
you stood on my balcony
naked to the world
and I waited for
my warm place to be
to return to me.

There are places, words and feelings
that never fade, no
matter how dark
it gets. I remember saying,
“I love you,” and your reply,
“Don’t say it unless you mean it.”
I wanted nothing else but
to share your space for
the rest of my life.
It was just one month later
that we both knew for sure.

“Will you take this woman…”

The moon and the stars were
shining down on us
“I could turn the air conditioner on…”

“It’s better this way…”

“To have and to hold…”

with a deep yellow glow
“I want to hold you for the rest of my life…”

“Promise?”

“I do.”

as we became one

“In sickness and in health…”

“Where did the stars go?”

“It’ll be alright.”

by candlelight.
“So very dark…”

“I’m here, dear.”

“Till death do you part?”

“I can’t feel you anymore…”

“I did.”

“Yes, we did!”

“Whisper to me, wet and wild…”

All of our tomorrows
belong to yesterday and
even the moonlight fades to black
after the stars are
hidden away and
the whispers die
in the late autumn breeze.

“Goodbye my love.”

MJ Carson
11-01-2009

The 17th August The 17th

Raging spirit,
furious words flung at
a brick wall,
only to reverberate
in silence.

It has been seventeen years
since your light went out.
Each year there are fewer
and fewer who
knew the glow.

We never played that game of golf,
but then again,
you never were that
tossing baseballs in the side yard
type of father.

You were the type that
drew corrections to the builder's plans
for our first house and
then re-plumbed the hot water yourself
after the idiot builder put it
in the attic and it burst
taking out the ceil heat.

You made them pay for it,
but did the work yourself
to make sure it was done right.
I watched your every move and
I decided somewhere along the way
to be an engineer, but I didn't
cope with life quite well enough and
I know I disappointed you as
well as so many others along the way,
but in the end I think;
you really understood.

Here I sit flinging words
at a brick wall.

You were a provider;
you provided strength and
humor,
the amount of
love and affection you could spare,
a home and hearth and
the power of words.

You taught me to
keep flinging the words until
the walls fall down.

17 years,
I started this journey at 17.

34 years,
two times seventeen and you were gone.

51 years,
I guess going for four
won't be so bad,
as long as I keep
writing the walls down.

I still rage about
the loss of light, but
I can see that by your
own standards;
you lived carpe diem
every day.

Drink up,
live well,
love well,
die well.
This I think,
you taught me well.


Mike Carson
8-17-2009

It’s Easy To Hide Inside A Dream

There is no hiding place for the poet
I dodged the issue for thirty long years
Running from that stage fright, don't you know it
Forever putting excuses to my fears
~
I dodged the issue for thirty long years
While living a life so worth the living
Forever putting excuses to my fears
My own soul to keep, that now I'm giving
~
While living a life so worth the living
When I'm holding the treasure in my hands
My own soul to keep, that now I'm giving
Well worn particles of time's golden sands
~
When I'm holding the treasure in my hands
I can see the world with eyes wide open
Well worn particles of time's golden sands
Bound for that which I was always hoping
~
I can see the world with eyes wide open
Running from that stage fright, don't you know it
Bound for that which I was always hoping
There is no hiding place for the poet
~
Mjcarson