Featured Poet: Andrew Lundwall

Andrew Lundwall is the managing editor of the electronic literary journal melancholia's tremulous dreadlocks. He currently lives in his home state of Wisconsin after residing for three years in the Washington D.C. metropolitan region. Recent work can be found in Ocho, Otoliths and PFS Post .

erasure of phil ochs’ song chords of fame

I found him by the stage last night

He was breathing his last breath

A bottle of wine and a cigarette

Was all that he had left

"I can see you make the music

'Cause you carry a guitar

God help the troubadour

Who tries to be a star"

        So play the chords of love, my friend

        Play the chords of pain

        If you want to keep your song,

        Don't, don't, don't, don't play the chords of fame

I seen my share of hustlers

As they try to take the world

When they find their melody

They're surrounded by the girls

But it all fade s so quickly

Like a sunny summer day

Reporters ask you questions

They write down what you say

        So play the chords of love, my friend

        Play the chords of pain

        If you want to keep your song,

        Don't, don't, don't, don't play the chords of fame

They'll rob you of your innocence

They will put you up for sale

The more that you will find success

The more that you will fail

the dyslexic ballet

the soul rumbles

under its nonsensical sheets

to go or not to to stay as scarred

and skinny fright legs burst its sockets

tangled in alchemical masturbation

to make the other thing spiritual flow

to make another massachusetts left of the dial

necking in an abandoned cadillac

like spider-veined comets

as sacred mushrooms of wanting

spray static tonight sucking

signal curtains for the dyslexic ballet

screwed-in kiss

what machine 

with screwed-in kiss 

that vulgarity’s torch

should raise a hand 

of all the static 

to you i could bring 

my caravan

erasure of merle haggard’s song the bottle let me down

Tonight the bottle let me down,

And left your memory come around;

The one true friend I thought I'd found,

Tonight the bottle let me down.

Each night I leave the bar room when it's over,

Not feeling any pain at closing time;

But tonight your memory found me much too sober,

I couldn't drink enough to keep you off my mind.

Tonight the bottle let me down,

And left your memory come around;

The one true friend I thought I'd found,

Tonight the bottle let me down.

--- Instrumental ---

I've always had a bottle I could turn to,

And lately I've been turnin' every day;

But the wine don't take effect the way it used to,

And I'm hurtin' in an old familiar ways.

Tonight the bottle let me down,

And left your memory come around;

The one true friend I thought I'd found,

Tonight the bottle let me down.

Tonight the bottle let me down...

I been around, I've had my share

And I really can't complain

But I wonder who I left behind

The other side of fame

(Raspberry beret)
Tell me
Where have all the raspberry women gone? (And if it was warm she)
(Wouldn't wear much more)
(Raspberry beret)

I thin

Copyright 2006 Andrew Lundwall