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Episodes
An exploration of songs and songwriting via the music of Scott Simpson and Dancin' Moon Studio of Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills of South Dakota
Episodes
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
Vocation
The voice that speaks us into engagement
names, and in so many words, creates us
--creates, not constructs,
names, not labels.
On the edge of an ocean I break again
and again... if I am alive;
what forms is not me but rather the one
who pronounces me lifts me up
and curls me over upon myself
translucent with living coral and darting
flecks of hunger and tosses me down,
digging out, eternally, the earth,
my cradle.
The secret of living
is not finally taking shape
but rather being ever rearticulated
by this great benevolent tongue
so that continents are moved,
tide pools populated,
living creatures sent scuttling
as one shattered form draws up once again
into another, reformed,
reborn, recreated, renamed,
one song, measures cresting
far out toward the horizon,
sounding me into being,
humming gently even now
in these shallows.
The Stones
Any rockslide's bound to leave a mark.
Boulder fields tell stories
of old adjustments made to mountains
you can read them just like
you read the rings of trees or ponds.
I heard about a boulder field
in North Carolina once where people came
with hammers 'cause the rocks would sing
when you beat them.
I have made adjustments too
thanks to gravity and late winter
ice, but I have yet to hear
the song my rocks might sing.
I'm not in charge of this shift
in my face, only responsible
for being brittle enough to come
down. I take on a new name
with each rockslide, each
new face, names as arbitrary
as clouds because I do not do
the naming. People project their dreams
upon a silhouette, they call
me Fortress, they call me Thunder,
they call me Old Man. In South
Dakota once, they jack hammered
dead politicians into
the sides of mountains, and now faithful
pilgrims lay gifts there
at the base of the rockslide, buy
trinkets to clasp later as they
mumble their prayers. I'll not
be shaped by jack hammers, even
if you promise me gifts
and worship. I am
the work of another, faults in my granite
bright with potential. Ice and gravity
wind and water know best
what I will be when I am done.
Sunday Nov 08, 2020
Sunday Nov 08, 2020
I Don't Need Poetry
I don't need poetry
unless it scratches secretly on my window.
I open the door
to discover it was only wind.
I don't need poetry
until it doesn't want my observation anymore.
when I lower my eyes
it stretches great wings across the sky.
I don't need poetry,
and I say that with the best intentions.
I retract it
when it lies cold in my hands.
I don't need poetry
unless it slopes up along the edges
so the heaviest words
get trapped when it begins to spin.
I need poetry...
like I need a small, white dove
winging hither an olive garnish
for this silver platter beneath my chin.
Quoting Robert Burns
It began with the woman in the commercial:
she had dirty socks
her boy had played
baseball-in-the-mud
as all AMERICAN boys do...
We had turned the set on
leaving the room to do our other business and
leaving it to its covertly explicit ramblings,
when suddenly childlike, percipient...
she began quoting Burns without a brogue
like making faces in the car on the highway
without adjusting the rearview mirror
to see them anymore:
doing the thing just to do it
not to keep sane on a long trip or
to try out different smiles
to use in public or
to sell detergent.
Of course I was not there,
otherwise it would have been tainted
as all commercials are having more to do with
the fat man in the biggest office
than with clean socks or
AMERICAN boys who, of course,
play baseball-in-the-mud.
*****
It was night
over the rows of dry cornstalk arms
(broken into elbows just above the surface)
snow was the promise for that night
and my truck whined down the highway
either side black as the
edge of a mattress
until
a glowing green house emerged orange
in the starboard vastness of dead
fields... Life was there:
roses, mums, zinnias, tulips
perhaps even strawberries or beans
In the darkness, the elbows
shuddered beneath the first flakes.
As I turned off the radio,
I believe my face glowed dimly in the mirror by
the dashboard lights...
Life was there.
The snow came secretly, later that night
rendering the stalk-arms overtly implicit
within the whiteness:
symbol of the housewife
with a million dirty socks
and no more commercial
to let her know,
quoting Burns without a brogue,
giving up on the impossible purity of snow
in anything too ulterior--- too
prepared.
But no one heard the woman or the
stalk's movement.
I make my faces alone
without even the eye of the mirror,
quoting Burns just because it's Burns.
Sunday Nov 01, 2020
Sunday Nov 01, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Lonely No More
You don't have to face
A thousand prying eyes
You don't have to count
A hundred cars pass you by
With only your face
And I'll never be lonely no more
It ain't ever scary
Just to listen to a lone coyote's call
The miles I was hopin'
To cover by early this fall
In the light of your smile
And I'll never be lonely no more
I have trouble breathin'
The noisy big-city air
And never a quiet
No matter how long you stay there
With the scent of your hair
Even one country mile
In the light of your smile
Just find me a place
And your loving face
And I'll never be lonely no more
Saturday Oct 24, 2020
Saturday Oct 24, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Wildflower Moon
And the rabbits play
Down by the waterside
Looking for love, looking for love
Down by Buffalo Gap
She's so sweet all the maple trees
Won't give up their sap
She's my little wildflower
You can't make pone
From store-bought meal
And you can't get shine
Without sour
Springtime full in bloom
Sun so bright you'll close your eyes
Rest your mind by the light of a
Wildflower moon
I asked her how I'd know
She said all the other pretty fellers she knew
Was a bit more kin than beau
She's my little wildflower
You can't make pone
From store-bought meal
And you can't get shine
Without sour
Wears it down to the church
Yeah, she's got a spirit rough as a oak
And a soul as white as a birch
She's my little wildflower
You can't make pone
From store-bought meal
And you can't get shine
Without sour
Springtime full in bloom
Sun so bright you'll close your eyes
Rest your mind by the light of a
Wildflower moon
And some grow just plain wild
But you'll always grow needles on a white-pine tree
And thorns on a wildflower child
She's my little wildflower
You can't make pone
From store-bought meal
And you can't get shine
Without sour
Springtime full in bloom
Sun so bright you'll close your eyes
Rest your mind by the light of a
Wildflower moon
Saturday Oct 17, 2020
Saturday Oct 17, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Dave
And you'd feel the knot;
His knuckles were twisted
But his spirit was not.
As a younger man
He built the roads,
As an older man
He somehow turned them all to gold.
We listened to his tales.
He gave the plane its wings
He gave the ship its sails
And he'd laugh at each
As he remembered them.
How his life was full;
How we used to laugh along with him.
Was like a man who owned two hounds;
One was kind and gentle
One would bite whoever was around
And the secret
Lay in learning how to know
Which to feed
And which to let go.
And he fed his children well
Upon the joy of his faith
Upon water from the living well.
You'd feel the knot,
Knuckles twisted
But the spirit, not.
As a younger man
He built the roads,
As an older man
He paved the way for us to go.
Monday Oct 12, 2020
Monday Oct 12, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Call It A Day
Fishing for lake trout in the stream
We caught nothing but the north wind
And a hand full of rainbow colored dreams
I chewed a blade of long-stemmed grass
The water clear as the future
The fish as hungry as the past
And from the far bank he did say
Looks like the good Lord wants us somewhere else
I guess we'll call it a day
Lining up ciphers on the page
His neck was red as the clay soil
His forehead pale as the sage
He kept our savings in a jar
He knew the shortness of a dollar bill
He knew a little could go far
And there was not enough to pay,
He said, Looks like the good Lord wants us somewhere else
I guess we'll call it a day
Lean his whole weight upon the latch
Thin as a weather-beaten split-rail
Light as a burned-out kitchen match
He didn't know no other way
What you hold back in your livin' son
He said, you'll only waste upon your grave
I knew exactly what he'd say
Looks like the good Lord wants me somewhere else, son,
I guess I'll call it a day...
Looks like the good Lord wants me somewhere else, son,
I guess I'll call it a day.
Saturday Oct 03, 2020
Saturday Oct 03, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Take All You Want
Made Grandpa kinda tight
He wouldn't part with a wooden nickel
Without a fight
And when he married Grandma
Sixty years ago, he said,
Darlin' there is something you should know
But eat all you take
Don't fill up on salad
When you went and ordered steak
If you want to be at Heaven's banquet
Then you'll have to clean your plate
Take all you want, but eat all you take
And she did it well
The scent would travel miles around
Just like a dinner-bell
And the family quickly multiplied
But one thing we all knew
At Grandpa's house, there's one thing
You must do
But eat all you take
Don't fill up on salad
When you went and ordered steak
If you want to be at Heaven's banquet
Then you'll have to clean your plate
Take all you want, but eat all you take
On bread alone
I reckon Grandpa knew his Bible well
Cause every meal they served was like
A smorgasbord
Each time we went to visit I would swell
Swell, swell
Will leave this earthly vale
And no one will give a second thought
To where his ship will sail
And when he meets old Peter
At them pearly gates on high
He'll tell him with a hunger in his eye
But I'll eat all I take
I won't fill up on salad
Cause I done ordered steak
I've been waiting for Heaven's banquet
And I'm gonna clean my plate
I'll take all I want, but I'll eat all I take
But eat all you take
Don't fill up on salad
When you went and ordered steak
If you want to be at Heaven's banquet
Then you'll have to clean your plate
Take all you want, but eat all you take
Saturday Sep 26, 2020
Saturday Sep 26, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Place the Flowers
Throw some seed out for the birds
Stop to hear the children's laughter
Work a kind thought into words
Into words
But a moment's all you need
See the mist rise from the lake
Catch something flash beneath the surface
Know something hidden can awake
Can awake
But a moment's all you need
Ancient wisdom in her glow
Tiny sparks that leave the campfire
Burn so bright before they go
But they must go
But a moment's all you need
Till you pause to plant the seed
Sunday Sep 20, 2020
Sunday Sep 20, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
Hampton Town
A stranger alone has cause for fear
If you go down to Hampton, watch your back
Or it's tar and a-feather and don't come back
Or you're wearing a rope without no slack
You'll be swinging like taters in a gunny sack...
If you go down to Hampton, watch your back
Grease his palm, he'll turn his head
'Less a man like you is toting cash,
Best make your visit, make it fast
Your luck's gonna run out in a flash
Them Hampton folk don't take to "trash"
'Less a man like you is toting cash
For the good folk God done spread around
But I'd burn my boots and settle down
'Fore I'd step a foot in Hampton town
For the good folk God done spread around
But I'd burn my boots and settle down
'Fore I'd step a foot in Hampton town
Was the sweetest thing you'd ever know
But she went down to Hampton and never came out
Yeah, they twisted her nearly inside-out
She forgot what love is all about
Now she's a Hampton girl, ain't no doubt
Yeah, she went down to Hampton and never came out
For the good folk God done spread around
But I'd burn my boots and settle down
'Fore I'd step a foot in Hampton town
Sometimes I want to kiss the ground
For the good folk God done spread around
But I'd burn my boots and settle down
'Fore I'd step a foot in Hampton town
Sunday Sep 06, 2020
Sunday Sep 06, 2020
Featured song from 2020's Ozzie's Guitar 20 Years Later LP &
from 2000's Ozzie's Guitar LP
A Good Man
His mamma's only son
He'd pull his Converse high-tops on
And man, could David run.
Growing up south Arkansas
In 1952
Free-throws and picture shows—
What more could a good boy do?
What more could a good boy do?
His name was known by few
But everywhere that David went
Well, he'd have some time for you.
What else would a good boy do?
And he found himself a wife
Got a job in Memphis
Settled down into his life.
Their first child was a big surprise
Right out of the blue
Of course, he named him David
What else would a good boy do?
What else would a good boy do?
Leastwise, that I knew
But he wrapped his family in his arms
And loved them strong and true.
What else would a good man do?
I reckon that it's true—
And if that job paid any better
There wouldn't be so few.
So here's to all the good boys,
Every mother's son
Lace up your high-tops lads
Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Spread his wings and flew
But he chose to stay here on the ground
To show his son just what to do.
What more could a good man do?
Spread your wings and flew
But you chose to stay here on the ground
To show me what to do.
And I want to be a good man just like you.
Dad, I want to be a good man just like you.
