Straight Out of Georgia

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

No, the other one.

For tonight’s entertainment I present two acts from the state of Georgia, the poet Randall Allen Shields and the band R.E.M.

It’s Hard at the Bottom

There is too much that we ignore,

Important things,

Like children,

And the young,

And the old,

And the sick,

And the poor,

And our prisoners,

And each other.

We don’t do enough to protect our children.

We don’t do enough to help each other.

We don’t do enough to save our planet.

We don’t do enough to save ourselves.

We care way too much about all the wrong things.

We despise the peasants, and worship the kings.

We spit on the angels, and lionize demons,

As the righteous among us are dragged away screamin’.

It’s all upside down,

But smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em,

’cause Lord have mercy!

It’s hard at the bottom.

Randall Allen Shields

Losing My Religion

The Night They Took Old Roscoe Down

It was a bitter cold night, at the tail end of December,

The frost was glistening like diamonds, I will always remember.

When they took old Roscoe down, it was half past twelve,

He was draped in chains, he looked sadder than hell.

He was walkin’ with the preacher, as they walked that last mile.

As they passed by my cell, old Roscoe threw me a little smile.

He said, “Don’t you worry Joe, it’s just this one last ride.”

I said, “It’s okay Roscoe, God is on your side.”

“We got to move along now,” that old warden said,

Knowin’ half an hour later, old Roscoe would be dead.

So they moved on down the hallway, they was movin’ real slow,

Roscoe shuff-a-lin’ along in chains, his head a-hanging low.

I watched them through the bars, as they came to that last door.

While the warden worked the lock, old Roscoe stared down at the floor.

Then the door was swung wide open, and the time just seemed to hang,

When old Roscoe, he raised his head and said, “I’m a regretful man.”

He said, “I am just a sinner, and I don’t deserve no better,

And I pray that God has mercy, on a man the likes of me.”

With that, he stepped right through that door, stepped through to meet his fate.

They slammed the door, and cranked the lock.  I could only stand and wait.

The time crawled by, it went real slow, as they strapped him to the chair.

But finally the time did come, you could feel it in the air.

The lights all dimmed, and the chair, it howled; it hollered, snapped, and growled!

The lights came back – then dimmed again.  It was horrible, and it was loud!

And then it all went quiet, and you couldn’t hear a sound,

And you knew that it was over, they had taken Roscoe down.

It was a bitter cold night, at the tail end of December,

The frost was glistening like diamonds, I will always remember.

When they took old Roscoe down, it was half past twelve,

He was draped in chains, he looked sadder than hell.

Now old Roscoe was a sinner, and he didn’t deserve no better,

And I can only pray,

That God has mercy,

On a man the likes of me.

Randall Allen Shields

Everybody Hurts  

Moan

I dreamed I was atop a towering mountain,

And everywhere I looked I saw desolation.

Charred gutted buildings, twisted skeletal trees,

Cinders, ashes, the hush of death, a blood-soaked barren land.

The wind no longer howls in these parts…

It moans.

Our generation has seen

The vicious rape of the American Dream

From deep inside our hallowed core

They festered, boiled

Plotted and schemed

Clawing and grasping

Dark and deranged

There is no evil we say these days

Yet evil remains

We have seen the greatest minds of our generation

Reduced to madness from fear and greed

Poets, priests and angelheaded hipsters

Shot down like dogs

On melancholy streets

We’ve seen children sacrificed

Promise, hope, humanity denied

To kill and die

On a rich man’s whim

To enrich the rich

Through fratricide

The wind no longer howls in these parts…

It moans.

Randall Allen Shields

Bad Day

Floating

I think of a million ancient tears, and how they ride,

Just beneath the surface of my leathery hard and horny hide.

We all just floating through here folks,

We all just floating thru.

Nobody told him there’d be daze like these,

Nobody told him there would be days.

I hear these old songs in my head,

I said.

Somebody should have said something,

I believe.

What difference do you reckon it would have made,

My friend?

What difference do you reckon it would have made?

I was floating near the outer edge of the Great Magellanic Cloud,

When I fell over backwards into a dreamtime sequence,

Running at double-speed in reverse,

Inside my own foolish head.

I lived my whole life all over again,

Quickly and for the first time.

Every sensation, every thought, every dream,

Different, familiar, and new.

And then again-very quickly,

I lived your lives.

All of them.

All at once.

In a blinding flash of highly compressed history,

All of humankind-in all of its mystery,

Dancing backwards among angels on the heads of pins.

Only chaos theory, quantum mechanics, and special relativity,

Could possibly ever explain it all.

There ARE explanations,

I believe.

But they’re complicated.

Nothing is really ever simple in this world.

Nothing is simple,

Or easy here.

Randall Allen Shields

Muchas Gracias Muchachos!

Good night, and…

Peace Out!

OPOL