The Tower of Song

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With more skat
than a stray cat
can poke his eyeballs at
the punk
in the Midnight Choir
starts to twist and shout
Yet …
the All in All
all too beautiful
for even a bird on a wire
to sing about
Like that
concert hall in Vienna
where your lips
were so warm and wet
Getting a feel
of the real deal
… that love thing
Upon a mission
a royal commission
seeking foremost
the rock solid Kingdom
It all starts from within
Seizing the living moment
Best be in it
to win

And Leonard Cohen
he’s moved on
to the Tower of Song

To find truth
without love
or at least a trace
of faith and hope
like trying to climb
the highest peak
of Mount Everest
naked
without oxygen
or even a rope
Not saying it can’t be done
but man …
sounding much like
a clanging gong
in the Temple
of a world gone wrong
Or have I found
that love thing?
From the mire
of the dire basement
that we’re standing in
try as you might
to sight the heavens
across the endless skies
Far better
in the light
seeing the world
through heaven’s eyes
Heart and Soulful
Holy Mindfulness
is the rightful place
where we all belong

And Leonard Cohen
he’s moved on
to the Tower of Song

I too
have tried
in my way
to be free
If it be your will
then let it be
Yet
here on earth
they sentenced me
to forty years of mayhem
for spying
the celebrants
of sin
Tell me
where does
this world end
and the next begin?
Because
I don’t like your
toxic culture mister
And I don’t like
the choir
you’re singing in
I don’t like Big Brother’s
twisted little sister
The King
of everything
He’s coming back
He’s coming to reward them
The King of hearts
and minds
the Prince of Peace
returning
But first
we seek the Kingdom
Then let freedom ring

And Leonard Cohen
he’s moved on
to the Tower of Song

I’ve been buried
and I’ve been dug up
I call it grace amazing
You called it dumb luck
And thank you
for those items
that you sent me
The stone monkey
and the ink
under my skin
I’ve tunnelled
towards the light
and now I’m ready
First
we occupy the Kingdom
then
let the revolution begin

Yes … Jesus was a sailor
when he walked upon the water
Seeking the lost at sea
and the drowning
The stranger
the gambler
and me

And Leonard Cohen
he’s sailing on
to the Tower of Song

Through all
the rise and fall
the pulp fiction
from hell’s kitchen
I really like
to walk
that tightrope, baby
I really like
to hear
those Sirens sing
But to see that nightmare
of deception
prowling through creation
Jesus told us
yes he told us
Kingdom starts with

Remember me?
I use to to live
without rhyme or reason
Remember me?
I plugged your Hi-Fi in
You loved me as a loser
You’d hate
to ever see me win
With Christ Jesus
my ship has finally
come in
No longer tied
to a kitchen chair
With a Glory
and a broken Hallelujah!
But first
we take the Kingdom
Losing it all to win

And Leonard Cohen
he’s moved on
to the Tower of Song

I’m counselled
by a whisper
from the heavens
Once I was blinded
by visions in a spin
Now it’s …
So long Chicken Maryland
That frozen turkey
who nearly did me in
For now I’m guided
by the beauty of creation
and a thirst
for the Kingdom
where I first heard
those angels sing
Jesus told us
yes he told us
Kingdom begins within

And Leonard Cohen
he’s singing along
from the Tower of Song

~ by David B. Redpath © 2017-20

Artwork;
‘La Musica Sacra’
~ by Luigi Mussini

Photography:
David B. Redpath © 2017-20

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6,405 thoughts on “The Tower of Song”

    1. There is an Aussie Drag Queen,
      Courtney Act, who’s been working
      on a stage show impersonation,
      but she just can’t perfect the walk.

      I was going to email you advance
      copy, so you could do a revised edit
      of previous comments, but I had a
      rush of Bloggery Fever. Next time 👍

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  2. I was confused
    females waiting in line to become males
    that would have nothing to do with females
    males waiting in line to become females
    they’ve been told to date men with small dongs
    to fear any form of self-protection
    just lay naked on the sidewalk
    and ask strangers
    for an extended episode
    Walt Whitman would roll around
    and celebrate himself
    Male Headed Walt
    “not only do yourself
    do others”

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  3. “I’m going to tell Mom that you are putting yourself
    in a nondominant gender role”
    the patriarchal marriage parade
    the endless production of children
    outside
    the gates to the city
    the remains of witch-burnings
    a great reality check
    equal ownership
    unconscious patterning
    poetry justifying itself
    a childhood without witnesses
    abused, turned inside out
    —————–
    —————–
    (+) a great reality check: equal ownership
    (+) a great reality check: you have no idea
    how “equal ownership” could be used in a sentence

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    1. Here in the colonies
      we use the word
      … ‘Commonwealth’.
      It’s a nod and a wink
      to fellow tribal members
      in reference to the lands
      we stole from someone else.
      A team of true blue winners
      with good reason to rejoice.
      Any complaints from
      the losing malcontents
      are duly documented
      and then left upon a shelf.
      In this wide brown land,
      where men are men
      and the sheep are nervous,
      the pioneer’s wife
      knows what side of the toast
      to spread the butter on,
      to keep herself nice,
      and of course,
      how to serve a Sunday roast.

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  4. the librarian wants a reward for all the humiliation
    she and other library staff
    experienced after sprucing up
    the remains of a witch-burning
    ————
    ————
    knowing that the library kept the books warm at night
    we would slip in through a window
    and sleep in comfort
    yes,
    there were spirits and ghosts
    but no E.A. Poe passing gas

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  7. peace loving malcontents
    wanted “Ziggy Stardust”
    written on the breastplate
    but times—- far past that
    inner connections
    Daddy, Son, Spirit
    expressions silent
    a reworking perhaps
    both Testaments
    under attack
    the head, the tail
    the salvific roles
    no child can recall

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  8. however dreadfully disguised
    everything seemed a blessing
    fixing and then unfixing love skin
    harsh conditions from the thicket
    advancing a little, pass the rim
    the possibility of reproduction
    too much for the average man

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  12. everyone at the party
    looked like Simon and Garfunkel
    but no one had the sound of Lennon and McCartney
    young people too lazy to dance almost too lazy to stand
    dopers were consuming “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”
    there was a line of men waiting to finger someone
    another group in the bathroom
    having been fingered
    were trying to make
    it stop

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    1. They sure are
      going to miss him
      Jungle Jim
      out in the Ozarks
      and the trailer parks
      where the necks are red
      where those commies
      and café latte sipping lefties
      are all better of dead
      Till Jungle Jim
      is allowed out of the box
      the Democrats have prepared for him
      to do it all over again
      they’ll no doubt
      turn to Mike Pence
      for some Ku Klux Klan lovin’
      Southern fried chicken finger lickin’
      Placebo Town deliverance
      played nice and slow
      like a dualing banjo
      God help us!

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    1. “Have fun at our Black Jack tables,
      son. But your latino friend there,
      he ain’t welcome.”
      That’s what the pit boss
      at the Placebo Town Casino said
      whilst pointing his gun at Zorro,
      my Mexican companion.
      I didn’t bother to ask,
      but I assume the reason
      was that Zorro was wearing a mask.
      Such a pity
      as Zorro is particularly good
      at card counting,
      for which he has
      a well deserved reputation.

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  15. my friend, “the other guy”
    went to Vegas and found love
    little evidence of personal taste
    she walked around topless without notice
    he had a slightly bent poker and it made her sing
    you know you’re family when friends openly make sex
    bones in a tenuous envelope of flesh
    leaking seeds forced to explode
    between fantasy and reality
    I could embroider
    really embroider

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  16. some say that the only difference between Vegas and Placebo Town
    was the Hebrew curtains and the smell of semen
    nightmares about human seed on the tongue
    jism savored slowly as it is swallowed
    upside down with an open mouth
    (+) future cannibal
    (+) future gay

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  17. a life modified by drugs
    strangers loaded with
    psychoactive substances
    poppers and numb choppers
    narcotics essentially complete
    a life modified by nonstop sex
    relatives and strangers
    reach-a-rounds
    wheelbarrows
    hips and lips
    tits and tats

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  18. the famous bootleg Empire State Building
    in uptown Placebo Town
    Lou Reed like a modern ape
    scrambling up its sides
    functioning on brain-stem
    was it the drugs ?
    or something more sinister ?
    Darwinian vestiges of earlier times
    complete with exploratory behavior

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    1. Lou is the Patron Saint of my
      subterranean epicurean order,
      Brothers of the Velvet Underground.
      I had been diagnosed with a rare
      disorder, Discophobia.
      The Brothers claimed to have a cure,
      which was to do nothing at all.
      Being a New York punk
      who dared to wed Joan of Arc,
      only a good lawyer could save me.
      So I hit the mailine out of town.
      Things were getting rough.
      Long Island was no longer
      long enough,
      as Joan had put the pedal down
      sending the French army
      marauding across the border
      and into Manhattan.
      That Empire State Building
      was the first to fall.
      Next … the Twin Towers.

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    1. The real Mister Reed
      was born a thousand years ago
      He sailed the darkened seas
      on a great big clipper ship
      along with Andy Warhol
      and Zorro … my Latino amigo
      All carefree seafaring chaps
      going from this land here to that
      We all put on our
      sailor’s suits and caps
      and got away from the big city
      where a man cannot be free
      with all the evils of Placebo Town
      But Mister Reed fell overboard
      and now he just can’t be found
      I’ll forever miss the way he dressed
      and his Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal show
      Did Lou ever make it to dry land?
      I guess that we’ll never know
      Oh, I guess that we’ll never know

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  20. dark corners unexplored by biographers
    corrosive acid removed the fingerprints
    scissors attacked the Beatle length hair
    having no fear of another man naked
    perhaps a knob larger-than-life
    both puritanical and frisky
    Lou Reed autographing
    HIMSELF

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    1. Caroline says . . . to go
      down the Velvet Underground
      you must first go up on trip
      and then take the last exit
      over the transgalactic speed hump
      to the Placebo Town precinct car park
      An Elvis Impersonator
      (Or is he the real deal, who can tell?)
      will be there to greet you
      and show you to your room
      at the Honeymoon Hotel

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  21. memories of classmates
    chewing the fuzz
    off deer antlers
    the desire for
    the giant
    dong
    the school system with its violent constraints
    zipper spiders in the locker room
    with a measuring tape
    talking up a half inch
    the boss dick
    can kiss
    himself

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  24. those romantic moments with their fragmentary details
    women with powerful magnets in their privates
    the marital edifice held together
    the neighbors with their fancy fence
    row after row of money trees bearing fruit
    poor people cried one way
    rich another

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    1. I sat in the cheap seats
      for a magnetic encore performance
      Lolita couldn’t have been sweeter
      Enough to make the Jagger stagger
      Forbidden fruit always tastes nicer
      when it comes with a bit
      of street swagger

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    1. Cool like a night cat
      in an Americana Refrigerator™
      covered in fridge magnets
      Souvenirs of sweet dreams
      amongst the cheap seats
      Amazon the Wonder Barbarian
      Arnie the Terminator
      and the Placebo Town librarian
      doing the meat and greet
      for some hair raising exfoliation
      A most unholy threesome
      It beats white water rafting
      down Death Valley
      or even the Grand Canyon
      without any clothes on
      The Honeymoon Hotel
      is always a powder keg of fun

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  28. married men risking everything to finger what they have fingered before
    to finger something new and different, perhaps tighter or warmer
    or that vibrates to a different degree
    to survive the pressure cooker
    (@ to finger and not return)

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    1. A heavenly stairway
      or a stifling straight jacket?
      The snare of a religious racket?
      Who can say?
      A life sentence
      with no possibility of parole?
      Yet, with the the right cell mate
      marriage can free you
      to meet a much greater fate.
      It can nurture your very soul.
      Marriage is what two can make it,
      as it creates a binary whole.
      Or it can bury the impulsive,
      and the imprudent,
      in a very deep hole.
      So be wary of who you marry,
      or else you’ll pay a heavy toll.

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    1. When Puberty Came To Town
      is my favour B. B. King song
      It gave Bono such a boner
      he just had to sing along
      All full of desire for Gloria
      But he still hasn’t found
      what he’s looking for 👁️⚡👁️
      Sadly . . . he never will
      in dirty old Placebo Town
      Where love is the drug
      that does the junkie tricks
      like some poor two-bit whore
      and drives many underground

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  33. the night porter dropped off his cousin
    she was smoking men as if they were cigarettes
    the smell of hair burning like home
    she was commenting on who
    produced the items
    that Adam named
    (+) God started birth and couldn’t stop

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    1. Not being an apex predator
      with a member
      beyond measure
      I did my own reconnoitre
      at the Placebo Town
      Batchelor & Spinster’s Ball
      None could accommodate
      nor afford
      the Porter’s night rate
      None could pay that heavy toll
      It would make you cry
      all the poor and horny
      hung out to dry
      endlessly seeking
      that special soul mate
      in a town without pity
      Many are just left
      to curl up and die

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  36. inexcusably idiotic mind freeze
    in a room full of humans
    who mistake photography
    for reality
    no camera is fast enough
    to capture a single moment’s complexity
    images are cheap Dollar Store rubbish
    the real thing, that takes something Holy

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    1. NO NEED OF A CAMERA

      The Night Manager
      is the main perpetrator
      as the porter proudly plays
      the surreptitious facilitator
      Too late for the malignant
      and the recalcitrant
      those guests who’ve already
      taken the elevator
      that random flash
      that illuminates the hotel lobby
      from reception desk to eternity
      The most stubborn
      and forlorn shadow
      in the shade
      of the deepest hollow
      the price of a soul being sold
      at the end of the rainbow
      with it’s pot of gold
      the spell of power and glory
      and every other lie
      you’ve ever been told
      all exposed with acidic clarity
      Far too soon for some . . .
      as an overnight stay
      at the Honeymoon Hotel
      is a slide show
      of both heaven and hell
      with a complimentary
      foray into bedlam
      So be completely sure
      before you ever come
      that all your doings
      have been well
      and truly done

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      1. “before you ever come
        that all your doings
        have been well
        and truly done”
        ——Redpath
        for $5000 he will show up to your church
        come in a covered wagon with two horses
        sisters possible for the motivated
        the money talks
        with force appropriate
        pressed down hard
        abundantly wealthy
        get sodomized
        in a Chevrolet

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    1. I once saw
      the Night Manager’s
      handy work
      in the window
      of a butcher shop
      It was
      a kaleidoscopic trip
      through the reflection
      of a first class looking glass
      I soon went vegetarian
      But then
      to survive the harsh
      Aussie outback
      where protein is scarce
      I then went carnivorous again
      (Actually, crocodile is quite tasty!
      But I drew the line at kangaroo,
      emu, or koala.)
      Life on Planet Earth
      is a series of compromises
      . . . I guess
      Yet I find this Selfie Culture
      and it’s Economic Cult of the Vulture
      just way too intense
      not being an apex predator

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    1. You will never be the same

      After that laser flash to the brain

      Not even a Buddha Bowl

      Full of lentils, organic greens,

      And whole grain

      So popular in Placebo Town

      Can bring you back again

      To that altered state of slavery

      To wear the ball and chain

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  40. Led Zeppelin wearing the ball and chain
    just ain’t the same thing
    pistol-popping
    in a man show
    the Truck Stop was open today
    hairbrush spankings for the first 10
    they took my temperature
    I was at 94 degrees
    they thought bad
    of me

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  42. 94 degrees
    and my life is a train wreck
    “Lady, don’t go looking none too close”
    I wanted to be me
    but it was increasingly growing more difficult
    what was the night porter slipping me ?
    (+) all the word tools put together into the “Language of Michael”

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  43. outside the nest:
    treachery and uncertainty
    European underwear in a European sports car
    the dong strategically located
    feeling lucky in a no-win
    eight minutes may not be that long
    but eight inches is a great introduction

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    1. Is there a bustle in your hedgerow
      whilst I was detained in Moscow?
      I took the risk of a Russian arrest
      after landing hot and heavy
      in the back seat of a ’57 Chevy
      The novichok had finally worn off
      after drinking that cocktail molotov
      Being an opposition leader
      in the former USSR ain’t easy
      I just couldn’t stand there silent
      and take it in the rear end
      like some cheap Gorky Park whore
      as Putin slipped his dictatorship
      into a compliant Kremlin
      He’s sure got a lot of gore
      and nerve agent galore
      that autocratic Russian gremlin

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  44. reality through childhood
    everyone has the
    same memory implants
    an audience every second of your life
    life is a performance, simple or complex
    what suits your particular talents
    secondary players watch
    your every move
    watch and learn

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    1. Not being
      an apex predator
      and unable
      to keep up the pretence
      I gravitated towards the border
      The giants of disorder
      all seemed much smaller
      with the perspective of distance
      I soon found
      a ring of confidence
      surrounding my very existence
      I could never put a finger on it
      until I jumped the fence
      It was the reassuring voice
      of the good shepherd
      Jesus Christ
      So I made the choice
      He took my crooked path
      and straightened it’s course

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  45. The Beach Boys and their new hit record:
    “The Overthrow of the Government
    of the United States”
    strangers on the bus speaking dialogue
    moving slowly through time and space
    citizens of cinema without cinema
    key information hidden, repressed
    romance out of chronological order
    your brother’s wife comes on to you
    why does she have to look like Elizabeth Taylor ?
    why does your dong desire to be strangled ?
    on the outside you think not
    but a single wink of a eye

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    1. Life is a beach
      back in the USA
      especially Florida
      where the Toggler Tamer
      starring a butch looking
      Liz Taylor look-alike
      is always within reach
      and on reality TV
      Two girls on the one bike
      Tether me in leather
      for I’m the boy who saved the day
      by placing a finger in the dyke
      My oldest brother
      the Little Emperor
      and his uber dominatrix
      a devotee of the Third Reich
      have saved me
      from any sibling rivalry
      as she is strictly a bitch
      I don’t know the mechanism
      of sadomasochism
      but I know what I don’t like
      Ouch❗😎

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    1. In the house of the Unholy
      the spectre of Anton LaVey
      sleeps restlessly
      upon Jimmy Page’s couch
      where the surf is always up.
      Jimmy is such a good host.
      In the guest bedroom
      the ghost of John Bonham
      can still be heard to vomit
      after too much vodka.
      His rock steady drumbeat
      from somewhere underground
      can never drown it out.
      The house of Robert Plant
      grows a root far deeper
      into unconsecrated earth
      as the May Queen
      sprinkles a glimmer
      of sweet deception upon it
      for better … or for worse.

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  47. the mechanism of sadomasochism
    (the educational system)
    years and years of pure crap
    and no one asks “why”
    the shadow of the moon
    employment
    commerce
    social conditioning
    and mostly it boils down to babysitting
    (not reality but a dream) rubber trees nervous
    about putting all those tires on school buses

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  48. I go to the stomach of the dragon
    I wait inside the lobby
    15 minutes
    a hour
    I get taken to a hidden guarded elevator
    the guard asks me if I came from “outside”
    the sound of his voice makes me feel like I’m wearing Jagger socks
    I assure him that the real world is going strong
    he takes me to 6A but I am to go to 7A
    he fails at his simple task
    I feel sorry for him
    a weak link

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  49. 2021 evolutionary flow poetry……….given the circumstances
    apes that exercise their ability to symbolize
    sex and murder often in the key of red
    trying to understand what we know
    yes brother, yes sister
    understand tomorrow today
    50 pounds of kite string but no kite
    Bob Dylan with all his theories
    about the purpose of streams
    and trees
    living in fear
    that Robert Frost
    will take up more shelf space
    Robert, please stay in your orbit
    an angry heterosexual
    his primary mode
    his hand

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  50. all alone and falling apart
    money in a dozen banks
    endless loving
    the guys in prison
    would say that they
    were polishing the Cross
    it just seemed really wrong
    to combine pain with pleasure
    having lived a complete life
    no need to cling to survival

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