Monthly Archives: April 2015

Sandzén
“In a life properly lived, you’re a river. You touch things lightly or deeply; you move along because life herself moves, and you can’t stop it; you can’t figure out a banal game plan applicable to all situations; you just have to go with the “beingness” of life, as Rilke would have it.”
~ Jim Harrison
(nailcut by Birger Sandzén)

What’s On Holden Caulfield’s Playlist?

101 Books

Oh, Spotify, how I love you.

While I’m writing at work, I can pretty much pull up any song ever and listen to it—thanks to you, Spotify.

I can also do stupid and pointless stuff, like imagining what songs might be on Holden Caulfield’s Spotify playlist—were he actually a real person, alive today, as a teenager, with access to modern technology like computers and such.

So that’s what I’m doing today. I’m taking a stab at coming up with a Spotify playlist for perhaps the most annoying character in modern literature, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye.

While he’s annoying and hardly bearable, that doesn’t mean his musical selections are:

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UNTITLED

field of night

 

 

I am the wandering poet,
I do not sleep
I am wasting these days in the dregs
Of the deep.

I live in the church of myself
Bizarre & unfulfilled,
The spirit of the waking man,
And the fool, the reckless fool.

For I am walking round the circle
From the outside looking in,
I am the shadow on the wall
And the wall is growing thin.

So can you see me?

Only Here

And There,

And Now?

 

_____________

 

~ R.M. Engelhardt

AND IN THIS CORNER

And In This Corner- R.M.

 

And in this corner;

 

It’s the hollow man &

The drunken muse

And that song

That goes like this’

 

As the rain came down

Upon the city streets & poets, sonnets

And upon all of the earth

As If Mozart had just

Written it all for you

On a Saturday night

Himself

 

 

 

[And In Parenthesis]

 

The next round begins,

And they ring the bell

 

It’s the ghost in the machine

And all the silences in-between

 

Lifetimes.

 

Lovers

And friends

And strangers

And there’s a savior on every block

Just waiting for you with

The answer in their hands

Saying;

 

I’m alone in the dark

Without the directions home

 

 

So there,

 

Do you see?

All the desolate and the

Lost, the poor, and the rich

Who still ignore them,

See the universe

In vibrant words

And they just ignore you

 

Still.

 

 

 

As you,

Wordsmith of

The angry masses

Can only scream

 

Fuck you!

 

To Thine

Own Self

 

Be True

 

Be True.

 

 

And in this corner

It’s the serpent’s coil

And the soul of the dragon,

This world a weeping failure

In thy form, and in thy sight

As they pour more champagne

Half full into the glass

 

 

 

 

And it’s still the same damn song that goes like this,

 

As they lit our cigarettes with dollar bills

As all the children starved to death

 

 

 

 

In Shitsville & Manhattan,

And in the U. S. of A. America

Where all the rains came down

A hard rain still

Falling In buckets, sonnets & poems

That changed nothing

And never will

 

 

Because no one even

Bothered to ever

Read the words or

The writing on the wall

 

To see.

___________

 

~ R.M. Engelhardt

 

Ruthless Gravity

Tonight on television
there is an actor
talking about his battle with
drug addiction, sex addiction and life.

You would think that by the way
the host is interviewing him
that he is wise & worldly, an
ancient sage from his
battle with the curse

of “celebrity”

And there are a billion lights
in the great big city, a million lives
that get up everyday and go to work like
everybody else. And their addiction is food,
their addiction is rent and how to somehow
get thru the next day and make sure that
their children are dressed, educated & well-fed.

So the question is is that when you
look at the world do you see a gift? Or do you see an
enemy? Do you have faith or do you pretend that
all of these famous people are like you or your friends?

The constant partying,
the good life, broads & booze,
high fashion, money and
Paris Hilton bending over your
patio bench just waiting for
a piece of what you’ve got to give.

But there are those of us who
happen to live in the real world,
those who believe in more than just
the shallow trash that all the others
seem to admire.

And they call us the survivors who don’t
need the shit or the television to fulfill our
needs. The survivors who don’t need the
drama or the fake religions of the moment,
the meth or the cocaine, a little dog or
a brand new $400. dollar purse.

________________
R.M. ENGELHARDT