It takes more nerve than most men could muster in a lifetime of adventure and danger…
more about that later, a Song and a Poem… however, in this early hour of my blog site i was really wondering about why i’m here? not necessarily the; why was i born and to what end will i bring myself kind of idea-that is best discussed in a Religious context, for those are the kind of questions that Religion is obliged to answer.
no, i’m wondering why i’m here preparing to straddle some of life’s deepest caverns… at this moment in Time. perhaps the rather offhanded choice of monikers that i gave Mr. Schmidt as he helped me set up this site, would divulge hidden information(?) words like; Ruminations, Indigestible, Vagabond, Soliloquies…
Ruminations to begin with is a very, animal word, a ruminant according to Mr. Webster; (i’ll mention at the outset that i Absolutely Love Mr. Webster, there we begin to discover the ambiguity of words, a sort of Smearing of Absolutes) is a Cud Chewing Mammal having a stomach with four chambers. ever watch a Cow or a Goat chew the cud?
Wait! dear Reader, this might be the place to answer the question; just how Country are you(?) if you’ve never seen it, chewing the Cud is a slow… lazy… even thoughtful process, try if you will, imagine a Deer or Sheep in the Meditative state. the Meditative state! i could have said Jerry Dowell’s Meditations! but no, that sounds way to smug, or to Shamanistic in some otherworldly spiritual way… no, i would like to sound more Organic, more Earthy… smelling like Spring Rain and Dirt, yeah, Mud… you’ll find that early in the Book of Genesis. i’m of the humble opinion that Humans, or Mankind, is half Animal… and it’s interesting that as i look around, i see no Animals that are half Human…
anyway so, Indigestible or not? this is a purty much to the point word, no ambiguity going on here. in the Animals spoken of, Ruminations (in the Cud sense) must be at some stage, digestible to be of any use. just as Art, Music, and Poetry must be Intellectually digestible in some way to achieve their respective aims of having to do with Goodness, Truth, and Beauty in the everyday lives of individual Humans as well as corporately in the Cultural life of Nations as well as the World… involving the entire Human Experience.
as we will discuss later in the Poem, Footsteps of the Vagabond, the Human Experience involves Isolation, Sorrow and Loss, Love & Grief, Victory and Defeat, one could go on and beyond with descriptions of this most Paradoxical existence/experience of Being People. incidental to the Human Experience is; self-consciousness, or in a sense, Isolation on a journey of hopefully evolving into the kind of Being that gives more than he takes, considers more than he is considered, Loves instead of Hates, and perhaps thinks of others before himself… that might be St. Paul somewhere in the area of 1Corinthians 13… in short, a Romantic Figure, a prevailing figure capable of sustaining the deadliest of wounds (Crucifixion perhaps?) Equally Human and Equally Divine…
isn’t this precisely how we would like to see ourselves? as the Hero, the Rescuer, the final Victor… i find that several Songs and Poems that i have written share this theme; Footsteps of the Vagabond, Prince Charming, Stardust Cowboy, The Ballad of Billy Edwards… these Songs are all from the full length CD, NAKED, released in 2004. the word Vagabond however, isn’t cast in a very positive light by Mr. Webster; ‘a wondering, drifting, shiftless person living an unsettled irresponsible life…’ basically. close kin to the word Vagrant who in the legal use of the word, applies to regarding this person as a public nuisance subject to arrest. but, as we shall see in the Poem even though this character may indeed be of a shiftless nature, his eyes have not been filled with the glare of the material world so as to be blinded to the Platonic Triad of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty and which, (according to the Greek Philosopher Plato) lie at the Center of all things in the material world and especially beyond…
the last word to be considered as i attempt to unravel just why i’m here preparing to straddle life’s deepest caverns is Soliloquies. not only because of the interesting meaning of this word did it come to mind, but more important i think, is that i just like the way it sounds, the way it almost silently slips between the lips as it comes up from the throat, sort of a slick whisper… Mr. Webster tells us that Soliloquy is ; 1. an act or instance of talking to oneself 2. lines in a drama in which a character reveals his or her thoughts to the audience, but not to the other characters, by speaking as if to himself or herself. simply then, a revealing of thoughts…
lets take stock of what we have here; if, through these four words i have attempted (in a sort of Freudian way) to reveal something of myself or my literary motives… i’m a Wondering Goat lazily chewing his Cud hoping to eventually digest sufficient amounts of whatever fodder has been made available to him so as to be able to coherently talk to himself! you might laff but knowing me as i do, this assessment may not be very far off…
FOOTSTEPS OF THE VAGABOND
( first, a few thoughts from the Author)
Poetry and most Songs are generally considered to rhyme, this one however in its song form anyway, has rhythm and meter but no rhyme in its four lines of Chorus nor in its three ten line verses. looking at this Poem as one peering into someone’s work that is not his own, i may be tempted to assume the highly generalized events documented in the Piece are actual experiences of the Author(?)
as Experiences and Events of our lives provide fodder for thoughtful Rumination, anyone who has had the Nerve to do something outside their ordinary routine of often dull (work, and or school) have perhaps encountered Adventure and quite possibly Danger, as expressed in the first four lines, or Chorus of this Poem/Song.
the first of the three ten line verses seem to be an expression of our American life; from the neighborhoods with tree lined Boulevards, to the Warehouses and Ghettos… the footsteps of many a Wondering Soul… and in the second of the ten line verses; the struggles of our lives when the ‘Prospects don’t look so good’, or the ‘bittersweet memories’ remind us of Relationships that weren’t what they could have been… in ‘tracing down’ these footsteps we may recognize them as our own… in the third and last of the verses; the bare naked Truth of Goodness and Beauty is that our encounters of or with them are often fleeting and few and far between. Redemption appears in the last three lines; a ‘True Vagabond’ must be one who not only has nothing in the way of material things and no home, but also one who has realized that in the End none of these things really offers lasting or Eternal Satisfaction, because he; ‘Sees the Divine in all of Destiny’ his footsteps then become Hallowed…
It takes more nerve than most men
Could muster in a lifetime
Of adventure and danger,
To follow in the footsteps of the Vagabond,
Coming down that fast lane
Open highway,
Rolling on through all those
Genteel neighborhoods,
Where the tree lined boulevards
Give way, to the gray smoky skies,
Of the industrial factories,
Truck stops, steel yards,
Warehouses and ghettos,
These are the footsteps of the Vagabond,
Got to abandon the cockpit,
Pull over to the side of the road,
Run out of gasoline and money,
Prospects don’t look so good,
Walking on pulling his collar up
Against the cold and wind that’s,
Blowing back bittersweet memories
Of a woman, in whose arms
Held all his hopes and dreams,
Tracing down the footsteps of the Vagabond,
Goodness Truth and Beauty,
All that’s left when everything else is gone,
Beauty is all about proportion
And Truth is yet to be found,
Goodness is one kind handout
In those places for those who are down,
On something they call hard luck,
But a true Vagabond
Sees the Divine in all of Destiny,
Hallowed are the footsteps of the Vagabond.