Lessen Zen lesson

Red hot? Ha! Right now I’d be happy with luke warm. Gave up coffee the first of the month and just coincidentally (I hope) stopped writing poems at the same time. Longest I’ve gone between poems in 3 years.

Not only that, but I’ve little to say, which makes daily blogging problematic. Been showing foto montages lately to try and fake folk out.

Here’s a low-key perhaps too laid back song. Took me 5 days to decide to blog it because I first listened to it on tinny laptop speakers and was horrified at how bad I sounded, but tried again with headfones and decided it was sort of okay. Certainly not going to get me on American Idle, but might get me kicked out of a karaoke bar. If nothing else it reminds me of Lee Marvin’s bad attempt at singing Wandering Star in Paint Your Wagon.

Here’s Lee . . . a blatant attempt to make me sound better by comparison: Wandering Star sorta sung by Lee Marvin

Peter Ball added a backing vocal to try to give some depth to my monotone vocal. Click here to play Zen Lessen sorta sung by Smith

Zen Lessen

Lessen Zen lesson to get where you’re going
Better cut the apple to bake the pie
Lighten your luggage in hope of enlightenment
Best break the hold of your precious pride

You learn and forget and forget to remember
Redo today what you last day did
Though yearned there is no rest before ending
No final curtain for reading last line

  The lesson is endless in lopsided lie
  Best learn that we’re all designed to fail
  Worst of the worm is this endless why
  The best is that it’s just one trail

Hocked to the yolk you’re all over uneasy
Already spent before they give you a dime
This now born of becoming tomorrow
Is sorrow for sorrow as sorrow declines

The All-is-All is, until it goes isn’t
The this of the that is the them of the those
Zen becomes then when am becomes ever
Or never whichever the whether allows

  The lesson’s unending illogical lie
  Circle work preprogrammed in frail
  The worst is worm of endless why
  The best is that it’s just one trail

Inside is outside and outside is other
The tone of the bell the shape of the stone
Easier to accept the pain of the udder
Than expect the circle to leave you alone

Either-Or more whore than moral gospel
Yes-No more damage than original sin
I choose All The Above in multiple answer
And dance at the byways as both ways I grin

— Smith, original poem 6.9.2010 rewritten as song 3.20.2012

Music, mix, backing vocal, recording by Peter Ball of Apartment One; lyrics, vocal Smith.

There are 41 Ball & Smith very odd songs available for listening and free download at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.