Because You are a Friend of Mine

May sunny days and velvet nights

find you love and give you life

Drink from the fountain of time and delight

because you are a friend of mine

Wings of angels dry your tears

Songs of sparrows fill your ears

the smallest of problems be yours through the years

because you are a friend of mine

Keep a smile of sunshine on your lips

the sparkle of a rainbow in your eyes

love the people all around you

and I know that you’ll get by

Take your youth and spend it well

although sometimes it feels like hell

The love through your life may it ring like a bell

because you are a friend of mine

You must be strong throughout the day

we all need someone this I can say

I wish you these things in your own special way

because you are a friend of mine

Copyright 2012 Dennis John Ferado

by Walter Ruhlmann, from The Year the World Ended… Not, 2012

Inside the head of a lonely man linger some creepy, childish thoughts.

Why isn’t it snowing when I live only minutes away from beautiful mountains?
I still wonder why the hell I have come over here!
Sometimes life plays tricks on you and what seems awesome at first
has in fact nothing appealing at all once you get it.

Inside my head linger tropical beaches imagery, prejudice, fallacy and
treachery.

Why hasn’t Santa come for me last night?
Outside, wind and dampness, cold weather but no snow.
Undecided, unwilling to move, unable to anyway, stuck in front of the screen, I
leave unclear messages on unchecked boxes, nonexistent and fallacious; I
declare war to gracefulness and bliss and all these feelings others wanted me to feel.

Sometimes life is so bitching you wonder why existence matters so much.
No trees, no garlands, no stupid baubles hung anywhere.
Other lands, dreamed and fancied, could give shelter to that deranged soul of mine.
Why haven’t they sent me tickets to take that ghost train to hell?

Fallacy, false images, fake and fancy dressing for the forlorn.
Omens crash on that wrecked brain of mine,
restless, neurosis and neurasthenia, neuralgia won’t leave me in peace, just bits and pieces that

clatter and eventually shatter.
Humus will remain after the fall.
rotten skin,
inane limbs,
stained soil,
torn flesh,
meaningless,
awkward,
sick and sulfuric ashes blown away by the wind from the snowy eastern border.

I’m standing in a useless old boat

Can’t catch a wind, fix a broken mast

Dressing up old words in a new cloak

This revolving shroud of night can’t last

Things’ll look better in the morning

I can’t stop thinking about the past

The sun bubbles up and makes his start

The sharpest blade will lose its edge fast

Searching for the language of the heart

The sweet nectar in my drinking glass

I can sooner walk away from me

I can’t stop thinking about the past

Reading verse softened and contented

Looking back those days were rainbowcast

Youthful garment I only borrowed

Smiles I tried to keep within my grasp

Standing in the eye of tomorrow

I can’t stop thinking about the past

I’ve never heard a giraffe complain

So I guess I haven’t heard it all

They can’t say my heart was ever feign

Time scoots by first your first then your last

many souls gone yet not forgotten

I can’t stop thinking about the past

I can’t retrieve my vanishing thoughts

Like marbles bouncing down long stone steps

I love the sun when I’m overwrought

But moonshine stands me up makes me prance

Autumn colors vanish in a flash

I can’t stop thinking about the past

Copyright 2012 Dennis John Ferado

 

such a great opera
Don Jose killed Carmen
many times

a soprano in cold shower
is she singing
or screaming?

everyone is going to an opera
I am going to a funeral
everyone will be moved and touched
so shall I
everybody will be clapping hands
so shall I

you are allowed to yell
bravo!
in an opera house
because she died singing
but you are not allowed to yell
bravo!
in a funeral home
just because she died singing

when the soprano sings an aria
do not sing along
because
her voice will climb to the high C note
sooner or later
and you can only croak
like a frog

in this silent holy night
three drunkards sing
a song of silent holy night

in an empty theater
the stage is set
for a mute tragedy
of chorus singers
who are mute
on the stage

- Frog Mantra, Accents Publishing, 2012 -

Down to the River

(i heard it through the walls,

momma telling poppa)

“Ashamed to die as perplexed and dumbfounded as you are?

Befuddled as the day you came into this sad, sore world?

Mandolin dings, violin squeals, and the big drum bangs slowly.

Breezes of longing, rhythms of life sweep on over you.

Voices of tortured spirits from distant fields call your name.

Where dark is the wood, murky the path, comatose the souls.

Poor souls standing in cloaks of mournful sophistication,

Where the bread grows stale with age and spotted mold.

You dance, shuffle your shoulders in syncopation and hear

the hurtful lamentations of bruised, suffering women and

feel the pain, fear, confusion of all the young innocents.

Your shadow orbits you, a quickened dance of frustration.

Bury all your troubles and woes for dead men sleep soundly.

Take that hollow broken husk bear it down to the river.”

Copyright 2012 Dennis John Ferado

In Japanese
Zen

In Chinese
Chan

In Korean
Seon

But they mean the same
permutation or not

Zen Chan Seon
Zen Seon Chan

Chan Zen Seon
Chan Seon Zen

Seon Zen Chan
Seon Chan Zen

One Two Three
Left Right Left

Left Zen Chan
Right Seon Chan

Go Go Go
Come Come Come

Yup Yup Yup
Chap Chap Chap

Egg Too Yang
Yang Too Old

Won Tong Soup
No No No

Ing Yang soup
Yes Yes Yes

Zou En Light
Mao Zee Dung

Three Fleas Jump
Hop Hop Hop

One Two Three
Left Right Left

Three old monks
Marching on

- from “Frog Mantra,” Accents Publishing -

Dance of Three Buddhist Monks
by Suchoon Mo

upon the roof of a funeral home
a little bird sings

hey you
hey you
hey you you you

shut up!
a mortician says
to a corpse

- from “Frog Mantra,” Accents Publishing -

The heat and thickness of the day

began to dissipate, dusk slithered

down a flaming horizon, swirls and

patches of purple and blue stained

a creamsicle sky announcing the rising

full moon.

Sniffing drifting odors

carried on tropical winds as a

renegade piece of something

squirted across the

heavens.

Sounds of the approaching evening

caressed and lulled:  in the distance

a cawing concert of passing birds;

nearby the persistent whooshing

of waves on sand; boughs

rose and fell with shifting breezes;

creature sounds struck and rippled the

night like pebbles cast into

a motionless lake.

Dennis John Ferado Copyright 2012 Lyrics only. 

He was the baby of my father’s family and it broke my Grandma’s heart when he got drafted.
We listened to him on reel to reel tapes.
I was too young to totally comprehend the situation.
I played his Johnny Mathis records on my Grandma’s crappy stereo.
My uncle Tom was cool and handsome and blonde.

He got busted upon his stateside return.
He sold some pot to an undercover cop.
They pulled a raid and destroyed my Grandma’s apartment after finding the hashish-stuffed teddy bear
in my uncle’s room.
My parents put up bail, all the money they had in the world, but he jumped and disappeared for years.

My Grandma finally received a letter informing us my uncle was indeed alive and well and living with a Jewish girl in Boston.
The two of them surfaced for Thanksgiving that year.
My other uncle told bad Jewish jokes which I was thankfully too young to understand or even care about.
My uncle Tom came back from Nam.
He died a while ago after too much alcohol.
He must be where I get this writing thing from.

He wanted to be a singer not a soldier and still died too young.

As I move through Broadway

the rain keeps falling down

people in a hurry shufflin’ all around

some in darkened hallways

with broken over-lights

honey I’m so lonely

it’s that kind of night

It’s that kind of night moves something deep in me

It’s that kind of night when thinking makes me be

back in your arms again where living was so right

honey I’m so lonely it’s that kind of night

All night long visions of your flight

darlin’ I’m so lonely it’s that kind of night

On that misty morning

I awoke and found you gone

like a haunting song your spirit lingers on

walking-dreams of you dear

in this moon’s jaded light

honey I’m so lonely

it’s that kind of night

Copyright 2012 Dennis John Ferado

Music by Joseph Ardigo