Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
NAPKIN VERSES
Ffrom the book "Labors of Love" -
by Kenneeth Harper Finton
http://www.kennethharperfinton.com/labors-of-love.html
by Kenneeth Harper Finton
http://www.kennethharperfinton.com/labors-of-love.html
Napkin Verse
How many poems
in how many stops
have been written on
napkins in coffee shops.
While others make lists
of the things they must do,
I sip on my coffee
and write like a fool.
Not Every Love
Not every thought I think
is pure.
Not every move I make
is sure.
Not every song I write
can flow.
Not every love I make
can grow.
Silent Seeds
When hurt is a blanket of ice
smothering molten flames,
and the holy fire within
turns ashen dreams,
the silent seeds remain
where miracles are born,
awaiting but new rains
for love to bloom again.
Cosmic Love
Does cosmic love
seek concrete form
in human lovers?
Is this why some
feel dead
without another?
Yesterday
Yesterday was lonely
and tomorrow’s never won.
We wake to find the present
is all that ever comes.
Yesterday’s decisions
made the path we take today,
but yesterday is oh so far,
two billion miles away.
Society
Do you know
what society is?
It is a cloudy mirror
where one views oneself
in different forms.
Wings of Wax
I soared so high on wings of wax,
but not gone high enough to crash.
It’s time for me to make new plans
so flying can be safe again.
The Nip
There’s magic in this bottle.
I think I’ll take a nip
and pause between my many cares
as through this life I slip.
Electronic Love
Love is orbiting freely
around those
illumined souls
that light one’s path
but not gone high enough to crash.
It’s time for me to make new plans
so flying can be safe again.
Where Magic Grows
Where magic grows,
love goes.
Where laughter spills,
love will.
Where happy dwells,
all’s well.
I think I’ll take a nip
and pause between my many cares
as through this life I slip.
Daffodils
I lost my money, spun my wheels,
I wandered lonely city fields.
Although I looked with eyes of steel,
I did not find my daffodils.
around those
illumined souls
Friday, March 27, 2015
GERMANWINGS FLIGHT 9525
By Kenneth Harper Finton ©2015
An imaginary trip into the mind of Andreas Lubitz
A French helicopter departs for the site where Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed. CREDITPHOTOGRAPH BY MUSTAFA YALCIN/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY
Tired of living, spurned in loving, deficit in compassion,
Andreas Lubitz and his crippled amygdala
Donned his smart uniform and climbed aboard the plane.
A pretty stewardess smiled at him,
Bid him a good morning as he passed.
She smelled of a musky perfume
That reminded him of the sex he often craved with her.
He found sex to be an animalistic and ludicrous practice.
Love had always been a dream that faded away to sorrow.
He returned to her a faceless smile without meaning.
He took his place in the cockpit beside Patrick, his pilot.
It was less that two hours to Dusseldorf from Barcelona.
Patrick was loquacious, almost collegiate in manner.
As they bantered back and forth, Patrick’s banal conversation
Bored Andreas to death. He could only fake a smile for reply.
Andreas thought about how he hated God for giving him life.
An aching desire for release from the prison of time
Had overcome him. A dull ache of depression swept over him
As he remembered all the hideous assaults he had endured.
It was as though he wore glasses that saw only
The evil of time and hid away the pleasant moments.
When Patrick left the cabin, Andreas pushed the button
To lock the door so that he would not have to bear him any longer.
Alone in the cabin, with only the sky in his eyes and the engine noise
In his ears, Andreas was at last alone with himself.
He hated his aloneness. “Everyone is suffering in their meaningless
Lives just like I am,” he thought. The future brings nothing
But more disappointment, times filled with melancholy,
Nights filled with helpless thoughts, days filled with foolish actions
That try to mitigate the absurdity of living a desperately miserable existence.
Dog eats dog, life eats life, panicked schools of fish swirling
In circles as the sharks attack the outer layers of their being.
The images consumed him. The irrelevance of his very being
And all those around him felt like the beating drum of a hated heartbeat.
Mushroom clouds raining death, pits with decapitated bodies killed
By fools who thought themselves righteous appeared in the gray sky
When he adjusted the course of the plane to fly at one hundred feet.
“It will soon be over,” he thought to himself. “I am finally on control.”
He heard a frantic knocking on the door as Patrick tried to gain the cabin
His gut tensed, his breath came hard and fast. He could hear
The hysterical screams of the passengers behind him.
No sympathy for their plight crossed Andreas mind.
“They are all going to die anyway,” he thought.
“Today is as good a day to die as any other. Today is better.
It will save them from through suffering their ignorant lives.”
Adrenaline rushed through Andreas veins as the mountain
Loomed before him. He felt like a soldier entering battle.
“It is a good day to die,” the voices around him exclaimed.
He remembered the stewardess with the sexy perfume
Who greeted him when he stepped onto the plane.
Her voice was among those screaming behind him.
“I will not fuck her,” he told himself. “She will not tempt
Anyone to fuck her now. I can make sure of that.”
There was power in the thought; power had always escaped him.
The remembered scent of her perfume hung in his nostrils.
His own breath came hard and deep as he thought about
Having sex with her. Death, he thought, would be like conception,
One timeless contracting orgasm would begin the journey
To another useless, meaningless and painful life.
Another contraction would snap the miserable body away from experience
And into the vast nothingness of the universe.
He could picture himself letting go after the shock of impact.
It would be his final orgasm, his final statement, his final action.
Friday, September 19, 2014
words
© 2014 Kenneth Harper Finton
LYRICS — THE MUSIC IS ABOVE, THE LYRICS BELOW IT, AND THE STORY BELOW THAT.
Driving down the road I've got no secrets,
no one with me nothing to conceal.
I don't know why I even stopped to call her.
I was feeling good behind the wheel.
My words, said in anger brought her tears
while words, said thoughtfully bring cheer.
Words can make a smile come to her face
or words can bring disgrace.
There's something on my mind that makes my words come out that way.
I didn't want to hurt that girl, she knew I'd like to stay.
Sometimes I need to talk about the trouble that I find
and there within the darkness I can then begin to shine!
Words, said in anger brought her tears,
while words said thoughtfully bring cheer.
Words can make a smile come to her face
or words can bring disgrace.
So I'll go home and try again to make a better day.
Pleasant smiles require such little effort from my face.
I didn't mean to let my troubles get me down inside.
My duty is to wisdom and my downfall is my pride.
Words, said in anger brought her tears,
while words said thoughtfully bring cheer.
Words can make a smile come to her face
or words can bring disgrace.
The night is black and only the streaming glow of his headlights light the road ahead. White dashes – dotted lines of lane dividers – rush by in a stream.
He drives by rote. Traffic is light and he is thinking of what he should do now.
The argument had not been that serious ... or was it?
She had made what he thought was a snotty remark.
“What is the matter with you, girl,” he had said. “You are really beginning to piss me off. I was not flirting with that woman. We were just talking.”
“And that’s why you asked for her ‘Facebook’ address?”
“She’s a world traveler, woman. She goes places. She’s headed to the Himalayas in a month. It would be good to follow her trip.”
“Follow her butt,” you mean, she has said.
The road curves ahead and he slows down.
“Follow her butt,” he thinks. “Maybe I do. I follow all the butts. My God, if you can’t appreciate the rounded hips of life, then what in the hell can you appreciate?”
He should have told her that. Instead, he just got mad.
Walking out the door mad.
It really didn’t occur to him to think about a destination –– a place to head toward –– until he started the engine. Then he realized he needed to pick a road.
He had headed to the mountains. The mountains always make him view himself from a height. The world he left below is becoming visible now, but viewed from afar in a rear view mirror.
He knows the problem. He makes her feel unwanted too much. He’s so damned busy with himself and his own concerns that he does not take enough time to express the appreciation she needs.
She begins to feel uncertain of his love.
It doesn’t take much to go from that thought to: “He is looking for a replacement for me.”
“As though there could be a replacement,” he thinks. They had made a decision a long time ago that there was to be no replacement. They were always there for one another. That was the pledge.
Still, he was a man. Men look at women with lust in their hearts and desire in their loins. They were made that way. Nature herself seems to think it should be so.
Who was he to question nature? Who was she to question nature as well?
“How would you like it if I looked down the trousers of every man I see in the street?” she had said,
The truth is, he would not like it. It would make him feel insecure.
The highway is quite dark now. A startled deer stands at the side of the road as his car swhishes by.
“So I want to possess her?” he asks himself. But it seems to him that she wants to possess him equally.
“Women do not think that way,” he tells himself. “They do not want sex with every man they meet. They have a certain criteria. A woman is the one that makes the choice to possess.”
He seriously doubts that she would lust after every man she meets. That was an important character trait that he looked for in women.
“She’s too snotty,” he thinks. “She is very opinionated. Most men cannot live up to her expectations.”
He suddenly realizes that he is not living up to her expectations either. Regret sits down upon him like the first clod of dirt thrown into his grave.
“Besides,” he thought, “I would not really pursue another woman. One is trouble enough.”
“So it was all about nothing. Much ado about nothing,” he thought. “Someday I’ll have to read that play. It’s a great title.”
To him it seemed easy. He could do it. At least he could try. He could do better. “We all can,” he thought. He has to love her a little more. He has to giver her a little more time and focus.
That being decided, he turns the car around on the deserted highway and heads back down to the valley.
Thanks for listening and reading.
Follow me at:
http://www.kennethharperfinton.com
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
WE THE LIVING
September 11, 2001 holds ugly memories for us. Songs were written about that day, keeping with the old tradition of commemorating important events in song and verse.
This song celebrates the survivors, not the dead. Drink up to their memory, it says, and go on about your life.
WE THE LIVING © 2014 Kenneth Harper Finton
D Bm Em F#m
On a clear September morning, it happened without warning:
G F#m Em A
two flights left from Boston to Los Angeles on time,
D Bm Em F#m
It was so unexpected; both planes were redirected.
G F#m Bm G F#m Bm
The skyjackers had gained control; death was their unspoken goal.
G F#m Bm G Bm / / / Bm / / /
The passengers would never know ... never would know why.
G D F#m G
So here's to the living, for the dead will never know.
Em D E A
We, we the living, are left to choose the road.
G D F#m G
And here's to the safety of the world they left behind ...
Em D A D Bm / / / Bm / / /
and here's to the making of a better world in time.
D Bm Em F#m
In that most fatal hour, both planes hit the twin towers,
G F#m Em A
Where fifty thousand people went about their daily lives.
D Bm Em F#m
All who watched were humbled as both great towers crumbled,
G F#m Bm G F#m Bm
Smoke and dust filled up the sky, as thousands of good people died.
G F#m Bm G Bm / / / BM / / /
All that's left for you and I ... is uncertainty and woe.
G D F#m G
So here's to the living, for the dead will never know.
Em D E A
We, we the living, are left to choose the road.
G D F#m G
And here's to the safety of the world they left behind ...
Em D A D
and here's to the making of a better world in time.
REPEAT LAST TWO LINES AND OUT
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
THE WAY THINGS ARE
THE WAY THINGS ARE
©2014 Ken Finton
“What are we going to tell her, John?
“We just can’t tell her that it died.
She’ll take it very hard.
It wasn’t much of a kitty, I know,
Just a little yellow cat like the ones
You see on every street at night,
The eyes sort of shining like marbles.
It always purred. It even purred while dying.
Oh, John, she’ll take it so very hard.”
“We’ll have to tell her that she’s gone.
She’ll know anyway. You can’t hide something
Like that from a child. Listen, here she comes now.”
“Where's my kitty? Is she still sick?
I dreamed about her once last night.”
“John?”
“You handle it. I’ve got the cows to milk.”
“Where’s my kitty? Is she hurting yet?”
“Honey, no, the kitty died. It won’t hurt anymore.
God has taken it away like he did Grandpa
Nearly a year ago. You remember
How it was when Grandpa left?
He was so sick and frail and coughed so hard
And couldn’t find it in himself to breathe.”
“It was my kitty. God should give him back.
He doesn’t have to take her from me.
He has lots of kitties, I have one.”
“But darling, there is nothing we can do.
She’s gone... John, help me, please.
Don’t just stand there saying nothing.”
"What can I say? You’ve said it all. She understands...”
"I want my kitty."
“But, darling, now your kitty's gone.
It cannot hurt like it did last night.
It fell asleep and cannot wake.”
“Do kitties dream when they fall fast asleep?”
“Why, I don't know, but I suppose they do.”
“Then maybe now she 's dreaming about me
And how it used to be when she was well.
Will God take care of her like I did?
Give her warm milk and scratch her ears at night?”
“Yes, of course, and give her a little house
Somewhere in the stars where she can grow
And have a family of her own.”
"He doesn't need my kitty. Why did he take her?
Why my kitty and not the one that scratches when
You try to pick her up?"
“Yes, why? I wonder why myself sometimes.
I only guess that's just the way things are.”
“I’m going to milk the cows,” John said.
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