LIVING IN LIVE OAK

“Living in Live Oak”

By Frank Ellsworth Lockwood
Feb. 16, 1019
(To rhythm of Satin Doll)

VS 1
Living in Live Oak
You know it’s funny
Those incredible live oaks “
They still remain

VS 2
Mistletoe loaded
All parasitic
Those live oaks
Penetrated my brain

Chorus
Well if you’re living in Live oak
You’d better not leave it
Cause if you do leave it
You’re surely insane

VS 3
Loving in Live Oak
Under those big trees
Christmas tree kissing
Beneath the mistletoe wreath

Ending
Da, da da, da da
Da, da da
D,a da da,
Daaa, da da, dee.

Note: Deaf guitarist/songwriter Frank Ellsworth Lockwood grew up in the Live Oak District of Santa Cruz, California.

#oaktree #santacruzcalifornia #song #lyrics #lockwood

Poem: RED GINGHAM DRESS AND BAREFOOT TOES

Red gingham dress and barefoot, sitting by a hickory tree, she was busy as could be. I said, “Darling what are you doing in the dirt on your knees?” She said, “Daddy I’m planting vitamin seeds.” 

I smiled and asked her where she found such seeds, and did she really think that they would grow?

She looked up with her three-year-old eyes and much to my surprise, held out a jar of special seeds, they were just the right size. The label  read, “Vitamin C,” so I guess they were seeds in disguise. So we finished planting the vitamin seeds, kneeling by the hickory tree. 

Some nifty years went by. 

Now I wish I could see daughter again, sitting barefoot on her knees. She grew up like we knew she would, and then she moved away. And far too soon her momma died and that left her brothers and me. She relocated to Florida, to live in Paradise. And now I sit here wondering, does she often think of me? 

She runs and swims, does Iron Woman too. Her home looks out on the ocean. Her yacht is harbored on the bay. But in her heart is there a hickory shaped hole, since my darling went away? And does she recall planting those seeds, as she sails from the quay?

Not long ago they say she caught a great amazing fish. It was a lovely day I’m sure. But none so lovely as this: that day, so many years ago, when we sat by the hickory tree, and in red gingham dress and barefoot toes, she planted Vitamin C.

Sounds of the Night... a poem by Frank Ellsworth Lockwood

But Whose Are These Children?

A poem about Americans, and  our refugee children

We are the Valiant Ones

We killed, but only 
To ensure truth, liberty, and justice for all.
So we said.

We are the purchasers and guardians of  freedom.
We are the Messiah's, the judges, the deliverers.
We are the good guys.
We are the Americans.
And we are  Babylonians, Assyrians, and Romans
And all the civilized peoples.

Without us, all would be slaves.
Or so they say.

We view the enemy differently:
They are not like us,
For they are evil, and we are good.
And we seek to destroy them,
We kill to bring life and happiness.
We fight wars to bring peace.

They taught us things in school,
And in Boy Scouts
And in Boot Camp.
And these are the thoughts our parents think.
And the politicians on T.V.
So they must be true.

We gather here, dearly beloved,
The men and the women,
The boys and the girls
All home grown.

We are the soldiers and sailors
Mariners, cavalry and airborne crews
And the camera people,
The peoples of the steeples.

And all manner of other occupations,
We are chosen by Destiny,
And now our time has come.
Our time has come.

We sink down low, beside our victims
In the slime and in the dirt, and in the dust of death.
We have given up our alleged "ghosts."
And we have joined the heavenly hosts.

Historian Speaks:
"They were destined for Greatness.
For glory."
But not all. Some did not die.
They are still here, among us. The wars are over ...
For some people, at least.

The noise has faded, and the smoke
And and the dust and the ashes,
And the songs and the dances,
After the far-away destruction,

On cable T.V.,
They still say,
"It was all worth it."

And all the people said, "I sure hope so."

Here we are
In the land of the free.
We water our lawns
And we drive our cars,
And we are the great ones of the earth.
And some of us sleep at night.

With dreams of our former glory.
We have made Our Nations great again.

We refuse to feel,
This sickness inside,
We must march on
In the names of our gods
And in the honor
Those who died.

We plant white crosses
All in nice in rows on bright green lawns.
We look around,
And we behold
What is left of the pawns.

In our spare time,
When we think no one is looking,
Some of us still take out our knives
And we carve "killing sticks,"
Like they taught us to do in the Special Forces.

And some of us,
We still sleep with  loaded guns
Beneath our pillows,
For we are afraid of the sounds of the night.

And yet we say, "The war was good."

But who are these children,
Crossing our borders?
Why can't we send them home?
After all this misery of war,
Why must we endure their dirty, grieving faces?
Why can't they move on
To other places?

We have other things on our mind:

We try to forget the pain and the grief.
We try to deny our guilt.
We even tell ourselves
That we forgive our enemies.

But ourselves,
We cannot forgive,
Some of us,
Though we try.

Nor can we forget,
(For we know not how),
Who we were, in the innocent days,
And what we have now become.

And we hear at night,
Unwelcome sounds,
Though we plug our ears with wax,
And close our eyes real tight.

Still our destiny awaits:
The fruit of our valor.
What is this sad song I hear?
Why no warrior cries?

This ringing in my ears,
What is it? A belligerent veteran's song?
A lonely solo, perhaps. Some muted anthem
From another time and place.

Strange sounds of wars thundering,
Off in the distance: Some mother remembers
Her son.
She is slipping off the earth

We are all slipping, sliding,
Or have already slidden.
Into the same pit
In which our victims lie.

Who are the brilliant ones,
Behind this inhumane scheme?

What evil, unseen hand, if any,
Has already added
Ourselves and our children
To the ranks of the many?

Ruined, slaughtered or killed?

"Oh, but we were brave," they say.
"Oh yes, we were true and faithful."
But faithful to what? Or to whom?

We were human once,
Back in the day.
And we believed.
But then...

What god? Norse, or Roman, Babylonian?
What gods from whence?
Who are the two-legged,
Horrible Monsters
That have perpetuated this myth,
The myth of the Valiant Ones?
And we lie awake and wonder ...

"Whence come these sounds of the night?"


#poetry #poem #war  #grief #death #American #valor #destiny #civilizednations #frankelockwood #lockwood #refugeechildren #makeAmericagreatagain


 .

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie: You made the flowers bloom (A poem about Bernie Sanders, America's peaceful revolutionary)

The Flowers Miss Bernie Sanders

The flowers miss you Bernie. The garden keeper looks for you in vain.

You were the tip of an iceberg. A frosty peak that somehow melted into that big lump of snow ... the DNC.

You were the focal point, a magnifying glass that, aiming at injustices, might have turned them to ashes. A smoldering residue of hope is all that  now remains.

You were the watering can, that made the flowers bloom. Now the flowers wither for lack of your spout.

You were always found weeding, plotting for a garden of sweetness: You made the revolution swell. Why did you  leave the revolution? To join the opposition? To leave our hopes hope to wither and die?

Time will tell.

Your were the moon that lifted the tide. How that moon has  waned. See how the high-waters recede! 

You were the action figure, the hero who slammed his opponents into whimpering caricatures of doom. Now the fools are grinning with impish smiles.

You were like a magnet that held the iron filings in their unique and fascinating patterns on the pages of history. 

Now the iron falls this way and that.

You were nothing. A man. That's all. A good man, but just a man. All but having  gone away. Disappeared into the machinery of the party. Online pages lie idle.

Yet your fans imagine wild schemes.

Like martyrs in their buds, they dream of Resurrections. Some imagine vain things, back-stage plots. He will come again. He will be President!

Naysayers rub their hands in glee. "I told you so." 

Some believed the South would rise again, or the Soviet Union would reform. 

Bernie, we dreamed of you at night. We longef for your voice by day. We refused to let you just ... die. To us it seemed you more or less just went away at the crucial moment. 

Like a general taken captive, you are gone, as if to a foreign land. Without your direct leadership, it seems there now is none.

We dined among friends: The bread was wholesome, the wine was sweet. Now no one takes his place at the head of the table. An empty place sits vacant, a chair for unseen quest who will never pass this way again.

The charmer of the little bird. You are busy charming other little birds perhaps. Birds that sit in political convention seats, we are told.

To us it is all the same. You are out of sight. You are gone.

Before, you and the stars above made the night skies twinkle. Then they just  fizzled. How you and the sun made the days shine so brightly!

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. The Revolution that was meant to be.

The flowers miss you Bernie Sanders. The flower children miss you too.


By Frank Ellsworth Lockwood

-----------------------------------------------

*Democratic National Convention
** Sanders Endorsed his opponent, effectively making him support his party's political other candidate, his former opponent Hillary Clinton.

#berniesanders #missingberniesanders #grievingforberniesanders #atributetoberniesanders #theflowersmissyouberniesanders #politics #bernie

Crying with me last night: A song by Frank Ellsworth Lockwood

Dream Song: (Eerie Music)
This is a song written by Frank Ellsworth Lockwood on January 17, 2014, inspired by a dream and re-written/edited on October 28, 2015.. 

Who was that crying with me last night?

Chorus 1
I thought I heard laughter
Seeping through the rafters:
A sound of barroom music
Drifting through the night.

Verse 1
I was dreaming of
Old songs of sadness
Dancing on the left,
Talking on the right.

Instrumental

Verse 2

Oh yes, I heard laughter

But I was crying,
Shrinking on my pillow
In oceans of blue music,
Drifting through the night.


Verse 3
Please, I think I'm dying,
And sinking in this sand.
Someone can't you help me,
And hold my hand?

As I go smirking through the night.


Verse 4
Before my head goes under.
Something makes me wonder.
Will anyone be singing,
My songs when I die?

Chorus 2
I heard God laughing.
Someone called it "thunder."
Eerie dreary music.
Drifting through the night.


Verse 5
My aching body tenses,

While they break someone’s senses.
Out in the woodsheds
And we all condoned.

Instrumental

Verse 6
Slowly I am sifting, all I've seen and heard.
Some lunatic was laughing, amused at the absurd
Sighs and moans, oh, sighs and moans.
Songs of sorrow, someone was sobbing softly
In bed with me last night.

Chorus 2

Ending
Who was that crying with me last night?

 #song #crying #dying  #godlaughing #spiritualsong #laughter #poem

The Wonderful Fool

INCOMPLETE SONG: Needs more chords added.


A country western song by "Smirky" Frank Ellsworth Lockwood


Verse 1
Fm7 Such a wonderful fool. //

Fm7 Yes, I B7 was a EbM7wonderful Eb6 fool

Fm7 I flirted and Bb7 played my EbM7 way through Eb6 school,

Bbm7 'Cause I Eb7 was AbM7 such a Db7 wonderful Gm7 fool.

C7 - Yes Fm7 such a mag B7 nificent CbM7 fool.


Verse 2
Bbm7 Look at me Eb9 now AbM7 I'm a wandering Db9 soul.

Yes, a wandering soul.

I never know, which way to go,|

'Cause I'm E just a wandering soul.


Chorus
I should have stayed with you.

Our vows were to the grave.

I surely would have stayed,

Had I know the price we'd pay.

But I was a wonderful fool.


Verse 3
Now no-girl wants to stay

To have a wedding day.

With me ...

'Cause I'm just a wonderful fool.

The America of my dreams

I love my country!

I love my flag. I love liberty and justice for all.

I love the deserts in bloom and majestic mountains and clean seas and oceans, and lakes and rivers of pure water. I adore the high country and the lowlands, the big sky, the cities, the farms and the wilderness, the national parks and wildlife reserves. I love clean air and undiluted soil and clean energy.

I love campgrounds and parks, boat launches and fishing piers and golf courses and race tracks, and fairs and rodeos. I love hot air balloons, airplane rides and horse stables. I love grocery stores and Saturday markets and post offices and schools and fire departments and kindly and compassionate policemen.

I love our generous hosts, the Native Americans and our millions of minorities too, and I rejoice when they share political and economic power. I love public education for all, and safety nets for the unfortunate and opportunities for everyone. I love children’s hospitals and research programs and Arts in the Park. I love music. I love my vegetable garden.

I love my neighbors: Christians, Atheists, Muslims and more. I love them when they are born in the USA and I love them when they are born somewhere else. I love to see them walking their dogs and playing with their kittens. I love to get along with my neighbors next door or around the world. I also love to work. And I love paydays! I love fair division of profits and I love it when hard work is rewarded, and when the gains from corporate productivity are shared equitably by all, owners and employees.

This is my America, the land of the free: The is the land and the people that I love: This is the America of my dreams.


End


#patriotic #america #americanflag #patriotism #loveofcountry #usa #Americaloveitorleaveit

Beware the Day of the Gods

The gods are rich!

The earth is their footstool: Their gifts make a way for them. The gods open doors that no man can shut, and close doors that no man can open. They create and destroy the world. They ascend to the heavens; yes, they are there. They drill their way to hell and poison the waters. If I make my bed in hell, they run the place.

They kill and they give life; they feed the poor, or starve them, whatever. Who are you to judge the gods? They say, “We worked hard to become gods. Work harder! And longer. "

If you are in the presence of a god, do not eat the dainties, the foods of the gods, for are laced with poisons.

The gods execute judgement on the nations, slaying the mighty ones and shredding the children and wives as they cower in their homes, in their schools, or in their hospitals. The sand is thirsty for their blood. Do you see the gods approaching? Flee to the hills. Do not remain, for two women shall be working in the fields: The one shall be taken. The other shall be left.

Not good to be taken. To “Heaven as they say.”

Not good to be left. To the ruins below.

A man of the desert -- a man dressed in black -- appears and takes her as a sex slave. The gods have made her a gift.

The gods make the laws and demand obedience and worship: We create banners, we make pledges and we wave flags and, of course we pay our taxes. Defy the gods if you dare. And if you live, flee to an Ecuadorian embassy.

The gods provide blinders for the sons of men. "Don’t look at Nicaragua, at Chile, at ... "

They point here and they point there: “Oh, look!” They say. "Look at Putin, look at China, look at Korea! Look at Iran!"

And while we are looking this way and that, they go away to where we do not know. Some high-mountain castle, perhaps, with wine and sex and grapes, with tables of oranges and apples and quiche. And with computers and smart phones and security cameras. And an evil god in another country sees it all, reads the text messages and the emails and laughs aloud. "Fools!” He says. “They must have mush for brains!”

Scientists speak and the gods flee. The oligarchy speaks and the gods return, and bring with them revivals of old religions, they bring back the gods whose names are too holy to pronounce.

Some say, “No, no, not those old beliefs! They are outdated!”

But in time the objectors are worn down, and the gods go on shaming them, ridiculing them, hounding them until they remain sullenly silent.

The gods forgive some of us, and we feel good.

We are the blessed. We sing, the new old songs: "God bless our land.” We chant of allegiances. We praise the brave and the strong who we sacrifice to our gods. And while we sing and pray, and chant, and die, the gods teach us another chorus, a bloody song of war that drowns out the cries the hungry, the old, the weak, the sick. It is a song that teaches us to hate, to fear and to kill.

The gods give men the gifts of fire and of poison, and with the fire they warm us, and sometimes they burn us. They swoop from the sky, howling like demons and spreading death in their wake. Mountains are leveled in their path, cities are demolished, hardly one stone left upon another. Museums are left in ruins.

We dare not displease them. The sound of their roaring is deafening. We tremble with shock and awe.

They can at times be inexplicably generous. They give gifts to men. The gifts deceive us.

They own the cattle on a thousand hills but they still want the Grande Canyon too. They collude to destroy the land. The earth trembles beneath their feet. The world reels with floods and fires, with tornadoes, earthquakes and tornadoes. Still, the gods spin the wind and the rain out of control: The climate changes at their command. Their breath melts the polar caps. The atmosphere stinks with the foul odors of their breath. We gasp.

A god in our country plots evil against a foreign land, and the evil god in that same country fondles the two buttons on his desk, one green, the other red.

Beware the Day of the Gods.  

#poem #thegods #thedayofthegods #beafraid #politics #oligarchy #gods #religion

The Sandy Cove Boy

I am a native son

Of Santa Cruz, California.

Sunny Cove pic from Internet

Sadly, I left the coves 

In my youth but ... 

The breakers are still in my blood.

I have wilted in deserts,

And chilled in snowy hills, 

Yet my core I will always be .. 

A Sandy Cove boy. (FEL)

(Disclaimer: I do not own the photos. Found them on the Internet in an ad for a summer rental. You can find the ad at https://www.vrbo.com/598087)

Sunny Cove picture from Internet

#sandycove #nativeson #SantaCruzCalifornia #beachboy #beach #SantaCruz #beach #cove #poem

He Comes: An Easter Poem by Frank Ellsworth Lockwood

(An admittedly pedantic poem by Frank Ellsworth Lockwood, April 5, 2015, revised February 2016)

He comes. Jesus that is.
Every eye shall see him.
Flying as an eagle.
And we shall we behold him
Or so they say ...

He is our objective,
Our long awaited goal:
Is just ro see him 

As He really is.

Son of Man,
Or Son of God,
Or some sort of Being in between,
Much debated Savior 

Of an earlier church he left behind

Yet my own reflections 

Plague my weeping soul.
I look toward the mythical 

Heaven as the goal

And staring back I see
Only a gross image of me.

How can this be?
But I never see Him as he truly is!

None of us do.
His truth hides in harness,
Like a lowly beast of burden,
Plodding in a furrow where others never go.

He serves men with muddy feet
Submerged in Asian beds of rice,

Or buries himself deep in snow

Like a polar bear he sleeps

In caves of ice. 

He treads the sands with camels,
Piled high with spices
That leave us smelling nice,

But at what a hefty price!

He hides in pointed hats
And rides in furl turbans,
Or snuggles down in owl feathers
Or flies no more,

Now a quill in Indian headgear

Or He rides in the dust
In a cowboy hat
Western curled
Vaquero style.

A man who rides white steeds on high,
Who forges four eerie Horsemen,
Inspiring suffering Saint
And fiery Apocalyptic alike.

Yet sadly, this Savior
Seems to know his place
And to understand, to acquiesce.
He is the shield from Good Friday's glare.
A sacrifice made up nice.

In Easter bonnets and bunny baskets.
A protection from the scowling stare …
Of God, but he comes.

Yes he comes.
=
He comes riding on a lowly donkey,
Or on a white, prancing steed
He gallops through the skies,
Forgiving enemies,
Forging alibis.

Or slashing them to pieces
With double-flashing swords.
He feeds them to the birds.
(This is in the Bible too!)

Take your pick:
Any way he is … he comes.
And yet we do not see him
Not as he is.

And until we see him as he is
All things continue as from the beginning.
But wait! There he is in the desert! Or out in a field!
“Believe them not!”

He will come to rescue the world,
Or perhaps he will destroy it.
He is love, or he is hate.
He loves all men equally.
Or all equally he hates.

Oh, he has his special race.
His love knows no boundaries,
And lands he assigns, 

To designated people. 

To others a stone 

To smash the skulls,

Of the luckless babies 

Of foreign idols. 

But he is coming soon, 

Or perhaps, a thousand of years from now.
Regardless: Whoever,
Whatever
You or I imagine him to be:

That is not him!

Ever coming,
Always present
Yet never arriving.
The world awaits him.

Waits breathless
For every eye to open,
And that we all may see Him.
Yet not as we imagined him to be,
But as he is.

They say the Universe groans and yearns
For us to greet him, 

In all his humanity
Or in all his divinity.
Or in all his something else.

It is said that when we see him
We shall be like him.

Like him who always is ever past,

Who is continually Present, 

And always, always, Coming as well.

Purely love, or purely hate.
He is on the way, riding in his chariots
In the sky, and so it shall be when
And if, every eye beholds him ... 

That justice will be due.

Until then: He comes. Parousia. The Presence.

Happy Easter 2015  (Maranatha.)

Edited February 1, 2017

End.------------------------

Notes: (See dictionary.com)

Par·ou·si·a
[puh-roo-zee-uh, -see-uh, pahr-oo-see-uh]

NOUN
1.advent.
2.(lowercase) Platonism. the presence in any thing of the idea after which it was formed.
Source: Dictionary.com

#easter #easterpoem #frankellsworthlockwood #poem #poems #hecomes #religion #christianity #jesus #oarousia