Don Van Vliet

A favourite creative of mine, better known as Captain Beefheart.
I love his music, his words & his painting. Sketched from photograph.
The heatwave we’ve got at the moment makes me think of his songs Tropical Hot Dog Night, and Ice Cream for Crow…

Copyright 2005 by Andrew Price, all rights reserved.

Poem #25 (Last song for a any loose change, otherwise known as…)

Yesterday, in the evening
The clouds gathered in the south,
The clouds had swelled;
Will it rain today?

So much dirt on the ground,
too much for rain
to wash away,
when it rains today.
Will it rain like in Tennessee?
When the clouds would open,
when the rain would swallow
me inside of everything.

I hope it will,
I long for those days,
it pains me–this desire–will it come?

Not in nostalgia
(memory delayed),
and all presence,
all desire deferred… will it come today,
and be how it was?

I am nothing, I have nothing anymore,
There is soft left coast drizzle,
not Tennessee storm,
No terror, no joy
In night or in waking up,
Finding the world destroyed, finding the neighborhood safe.

I am on a boat on the river,
looking, wandering into the sea,
Searching for the Queen of memory;
She’s left the South seas,
Forgetting her parrots with broken wings,
Her tower in disrepair,
Her black dress, caught in the reef.

My Serenity,
My queen of memory
Is still calling me,
She calls me a poet,
She calls me an artist,
She calls me to come
with my songs,
and my crayons.

For my queen,
her black dress caught on the reefs
is wearing white
She, who wore black,
With marble arms in moonlight,
Whose hair shone silver and white,
Will wear white,
and glisten golden in the sunlight.
My Queen, best of everything
and good night.