found poem from a hacker

l pray my email finds you in good health, please can u lend me 2000USD today  I just arrived in Greece  and I am in a fix My Bank is currently having some network problems  and cannot transfer out currently, I will refund you the money  in few days soon as i return back. please get back to me  a s a p  if you can.

la ballade del pelligrino derelicto

here begins a long lyric sequence based upon a collection of photographs recently handed to me

i will trace the thematic content of each photo in the very order in which they reside in my possession at this moment in time

the sequence itself will be worked out on this one post











1)

i sing you sing we sing
the world around does not care
the tent offers shelter
to something less than birds

your guitar speaks to my guitar
your eyes seem to know my eyes

no one minds the fact
your hands
remain in soft black gloves

i can see the whole day
reflected in your eyeglasses

you are the melody
i try to find some harmony





2)

Ok alright  "G"
your left hand looks so confident
your right hand is intentional
poised as it is over the sound hole

that we play amid dirt and barren trees
means nothing to the rest of the world
it only has meaning for me

and you
should you remember one day
our effort to share our voices
if nothing else

i am listening
i have always been listening





3)

the girl in the blanket is dreaming
of a love she once knew

i cannot help the seriousness
of finding the right sound

nor do i take lightly
the approval in your face

you seemingly unaware
of the exhiliration in my heart




4)

only a few people might be able to verify
that i reside at ease in the shadow
i serenade a woman who sits by the fire
i croon for all i'm worth

gitchiegoomie takes note
in the black backdrop of winter windows

the gas fire
      as earnest as my song

light comes from many places

your designs not the least



5)

and then there's you
framed by a line of light
to  the east
streaming out of your winter cap
like a bolt of lightening

standing amid snow where you appear
quite at ease in morning light
the white snow speaking to something
not even i have dared to fathom

you are wrapped lightly in blue
and grey frames your head
the sky is grey
 water a darker grey
your eyes appear nearly shut

i cannot help looking at your smile

i cannot account for my attraction
to the lichen on the rocks





6)

five faces paying attention
to the same thing
the same song
five sets of hands

the fiddler her bow
poking the underbelly of heaven
the little guitar tuned to  "D"
a lonesome anonymous voice
howling quietly in the void
a woman's head her face
crowned with a stained glass design
and bright lamps above
you too hold a fiddle and present it
like mary presenting her baby son
a bearded guitarist
ready to whine with a slide sound
if the melody so calls
and
a bassist
head craned with deliberate desire
making sure we all can fly

a city looms behind us in the window
nothing will ever be the same
life changes imperceptively all the time

we pass through this moment like a subatomic particle
colliding with spinning rays of light
into an infinity of sally gardens




7)

we can be so profane
and yet we gather in sacred circle
christ above us  -   arms outstretched
including us in his passion
you are not thinking about the four men
who surround you
they are all named john

photo pictures are always out of focus
forcing depth into two dimensions
is always a compromise of vision

your face is serious
 intent on what the new proposal is
mate
abbot
 master of ceremony
and one born out of time
looking on from agape's perch

the altar speaks of welcome
you too are bread and wine




8)


someone saw you attending to the light
this is the night
o felix culpa
candle light shines your face
some consolation seeps out
from under your glasses
your husband  -   your father  -
a man with a child asleep in his arms behind you

i think you just might kiss
the light of the world

in this nymphogogical moment
your fecundity is made rich
for the work of god




9)


we have made our promises once again
promises against the lure of evil
the spectacle of false enchantment

that microphone made no excuses
your voice boomed off concrete walls
i knew right then you were really serious
though i did not show it then i must say
this time is deeper than i care to think about

i prayed hail mary
as your words  marched forth
your voice confident
resigned to this moment
from which you can never turn away

chrism seals you
marks you
prepares you
for a love supreme




10)

everyone in that church was given
to involuntary smiles that night
smiling before they thought about it
"hey,  i'm smiling"

you are praying
i am smiling behind my white beard
thinking
i watched the whole turn
i was present to this
in ways no one here will ever quite appreciate
the way you must

a shiny brick floor
reflects your shoes your legs

at some point i realized my role had been newly defined
i  am to be a father
that's how you appointed me

welcome to the edge of the predella
where you are the graphic scene
---everyone else is in attendance

i offer you to christ's altar



11)

i sit on a couch with a bride of christ
her laundry brushing up against my shoulder
your husband wonders what i will do next
and a franciscan priest looks on amused

this was before the big hill
this was before we separated
this was before i  challenged any pretense of cohesion

who knows what we sang in that moment
who cares
the walls speak in faded pink
of unrequited desires the whole world round

only the live pink flowers
in a floral pot before me
speak of certainties

we are ever in need of hospitals
of hospitaleros



12)

i admire the care each town took
to make water a delightful event
how flowers attend the sacrament
of slaking ones thirst
every fountain a gushing of god's love

shadows speak of sifting light
october days
benches mull over numerous butts
come and gone

only the girl with the camera
seems to cherish this moment
with love i've yet to fully understand

and a sign speaks of ambivalence in two directions
stone walls know the truth of the history of pedestrians



13)

blue grapes in black buckets
some golden and green grapes mixed in
grouped together before the quiet brown doors
and the rose colored panels for the door nextdoor
paving stones where many have trod

these grapes soon to be crushed
trampled under foot
made right for table sacrifice
made wine for the mystery of smiles

october is a month when wisdom has a chance in spain






14)

you amid the vineyard
leaves tending to blood red
landscape and cloudscape
embrace and kiss along the
hillside shrouded in fog

your face in a photograph is nothing
compared to my eyes beholding you
in the only real time i know

we are the pilgrims of the moist cool day





15)

el rucio
true servant of the brotherhood of laboring souls
your ears are alert to the intricacies of sound in the air
you cannot help but look a little sad
your countenance seems to say
i don't know what this hobble chain is doing around my neck
i would never run far
everyday is surreal amid the trees
i make my way along the fading grass
that is my sustenance

for you
 to be
 is heroic






16)

so much graffitti
so little to say
a tunnel with streams of water
taking two pilgrims to a hill
on the further side


for the life of me i cannot remember where in spain
this is
the day does not matter
the time of day does not matter
the place is important
for it speaks
of going from one place to another
yet i have no name to give this tunnel

a destiny every pilgrim agrees to

the tips of our ski poles clicked on the pavement




17)


we can speak of vineyards
we can speak of cemeteries
we can speak of spanish facades
that mark the entrance of all the chapels
all the capillas
we can speak of storks'  nests with some  authority

but it is the red earth that speaks of us





18)

i am alone in this world
i walked before you
knowing  myself a solitary
how you brought me in
to be with you
in the midst of another sacred trust
i shall never quite know
perhaps it doesn't matter
love will find a way
or so i'm told

i can let gravity take me down paths into brushy arroyos
i can kick the stones
and marvel at the dull pain of carrying my life
on my back like a mule

i can strap a small guitar on my back
and wear my mongolian camel hair hat

i can walk as determined as any other pilgrim

what thoughts saunter there
in my westward walking in spain




19)

some days i found myself thinking
you are more beautiful than the sky in spain
you are more beautiful than the landscape
impressive as it was
more beautiful than the trees along the way

i
more than once
was lost in the contours of your face

ennobled by the gentle reminder that you are near

the sun through the clouds does everything it can
to enhance what my eyes have truly seen up close

we were fools to go on that long walk
now there's no telling where we might end up







20)

the villages all blend together into one
we walked but one day that is all
we arose at daylight
we watched the sun go down
we wove our lives amid a thousand other lives
like it was the most normal thing in the world
and lord knows it is so

the churches in spain are still wounded
from the wars in the early days of last century
nobody seems to remember why people fought
i tend to think it was about hoarding  wine

the storks gossip in spring
tell stories of rare pilgrims
aerial narratives colored with dusk





21)


stone chapels are important
why bother with stone
the stones make themselves an offering

faith is upheld by the gifts of the earth
if there are no stones your faith is worthless
one stork nest is a prayer
only god can hear

blue sky
a few whisps of cloud
some trees in the distance
held in your eye
for a moment






22)


everything converges in a moment
while playing that little martin guitar
i knew i had the world by the throat
i could toss away all prudence
i could scoff at patience
i could kill with a word

but i sang
where hospitality was free
where shade was offered
and tea for the weary

it appears that i could care less if anyone listened
appears that i do things with surprising intent
without pondering the motivations
i but a beast of burden
armed with a spear with six wire strings attached
ever ready to take on the monsters
of the day of infinite banality






23)

o golden spanish poplar
only golden tree amid a forest of green
you speak beside the road of varying enthusiasms
only you take note of the wayward and the lost
only you speak of your contentment
to reside by this road
and sing the slow song of your
impending nakedness






24)

your husband and i are not friends
particularly
often i feel like a child in a strangers' house
he wondering what i'm doing reaching for a glass
without asking permission

yet we look at the same river
we contemplate time in the same way
we take equal note that the arches of this bridge
date to the early middle ages

across the way there is a jousting field

where we are different
is that i am pondering the water
in terms of a bath
i am looking earnestly for access
i've already decided we are staying here
i'm willing to fall way behind if you want to go on
i'm going in the river

before we left this town
you and i walked to the church
opposite our beds
across the bridge
we knelt there
and received a stamp
confirmed
you and i

we conceded and swam with glee you and i
i did my best to ask a flyfisherman
if we could swim would we bother him
he uttered
there is water aplenty
aqua mui mucho
and he waded further up the stream delicately
like kissing placing his little flies
in the pools beneath the wet willows
while we floated in the cold current

your smile like to drown me

i was close to being transformed
into my fish self
i could've swum for another hour

but we needed to eat too

i slept well that night
i walked alone before sleeping
down a long long lane
an ancient lane
along the river
a park where quite obviously
 human leisure is taken seriously
it went on for more than mile

and my life was as quiet there
as i ever remember it being quiet before
quieter





25)

at least john douglas mcgill and i can stand
side by side and exchange cognitive tidbits
much the same way we can play guitar
to each others' tastes
most of the time

a clear blue day is darkening
and our shadows say evening

we are waiting for you
we are both waiting for you
we are alike in that as well
we will both always wait for you
a power pole to our backs
a yellow arrow pointing almost like fate
if we believed in that
there are always choices
or so i am told

at nearly every bridge i waited for you
it was the least i could do




26)


i'm playing a leonard cohen song to a plastic table
i do not care about the camera
i never have

john is clean and you are freshened up
the setting sun lightens
the rightside of your face

a canadian trekker
takes the picture

we are fenced in it seems
this albuergue a moment's destiny




27)

well of course i am going to sing love songs
to a beautiful spanish woman
this woman actually kissed me

i still wear the sunglasses i purchased
the day we climbed out of leon
passed the hobbit huvels on the hill
my old fishing cap snug on my head

who knows what's come over me at this time
who remembers the zeal in my heart
i shall assure everyone before i die
that love is worth the song

to stop singing is to express cruelty

she promised me a tour of st froilan

the umbrella is indifferent

if i'm not mistaken
our first paella was that night

and i was introduced to the massive choral phenomenon
of snoring siffling and farting
of the shared domicile
an idea for orchestration took root

our dormition the song long awaited
human ensembles of the one two orifice 
mouths noses and anuses
straining for some odd harmony
all

night


long

at one point i walked out into the castillian night
and was happy enough to be alive somewhere else
somewhere where i was away from where i was used to being

as i recall
we were pretty happy the next morning
giddy as the sunrise



28)


willing to share my fruit
willing to sit in the same sun
willing to look face to face
willing to let my body
mold to the slatted bench
willing to let the tree
be sufficient shade
willing to be grateful
for the water fountain
willing now to go on
the inevitable has taken hold
maps are superfluous

a strange australian woman came to greet me
later she told the story of her miserable feet
she was driven
"god wants me to do this pilgrimage"

i could barely get beyond

"god must be amused"

only now do i notice the
prevalence of shadows in northern spain



29)

no i am not above resting my pack
on a mileage marker
no i am not afraid to be
in the middle of nowhere
no i have no anxiety about
the road ahead
no i am not impatient
no i really have nothing
better to do
than stand there
gazing at the clear blue sky
contemplating brown fields

the grey road stretches on up
over the hill

you and i will go there
up over that hill
we will
we both will it
why not

i don't recall ever being tired
except at the end of the day
and at the very end
before walking into compostela proper
i collapsed
in a sea of darkness
wondering if i could go any further
wondering if i weren't in fact
actually
very very lost

i could not have done
 the long walk
without you




30)


quite likely
i'm playing the blues
because well
that's what i do

outside the first albuergue
i made a point of establishing
my preference for the sound
once again
i've been doing it
ever since listening to my father's old LPs
i have no knowledge of actually ever learning
the blues

your husband looks
like he could care less
he smiles for the camera

i'm singing to my feet
for the walk ahead



31)

i do not know
you will have to tell me
for i cannot quite remember
if this shot is just before you
twisted your back or afterward
when we were actually
about to take the first real steps
on the way

john looks ebullient
i'm quixotic at best
collegeville marked across
my chest

behind us two women
are stopped -- observing something

rash leon
is printed a la graffitti
below a window

it is the day
it is the wall
where you reclined in pain
stopping us before we started
bringing us to a literal standstill
way to go baby
it wasn't that long
we himmed and hawwed a bit
you conceded to some percoset
you did some gentle stretching
some squating you relaxed
within 20 minutes you were
up and at 'em
and we trudged
ever so timidly
through leon
maybe it took an hour i don't know
i only recall feeling very anxious
about your well being
and i was a bit conflicted
about how deeply i was feeling about this

i suppose i did not tell you then
that i will always be honored to serve you

the garbage cans attended our drama
as did the nuns across the way

when the ambulance showed up
we knew it was time to leave

let's go to leon again some day




32)


yes i am your knight errant
your epistemological nomad
sometimes short on the logic part
yes i will stand with you in the sun
in the shade in the rain in the cold
yes i will be near the park
near the shady trees
i will stand near the curb
i am warmed by the light
 emanating from your face
being doused by the sun

i have no idea where we were exactly

there are days when i think
i am a player in your dream

other times it is the pain of knowing
my heart that keeps me close

if you left me
i'd take to staring down the depths of dark

your husband
taking the picture
is the prominent shadow

if this is blessing
i cannot get enough














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