Can't Find Home

~a collaborative poem by Scott Low & Shannon Foley

Liquor has started tasting
much more like home,
filling in all the holes.
I have nowhere left to go.

Grease your guns today,
effects unbound by your belongings.
It was too many decisions ago,
when we laughed like this.

There aren't any saviours.
and there ain't no saving left.
There's just me and you alone
smoking too many cigarettes.

I might as well be alone,
coulda just leaked outside.
I've done heard this song before,
it was my mama out the door.

That bluesman moans on my radio,
Giving me all the words
that get swallowed down in whiskey,
and ache inside my throat.

I'm a man's man, howling out
some sounds, could just be words.
I'll cut you for sourmash,
so darling come on home.

A bird outside the bedroom
belts out lonely songs all night.
I curse him in the blackness,
what the hell went wrong with this life?

Knew it was a joke last time,
just satire and fumbling for years.
Thought I was tired, but that was illusion
created in my inside so I could die.

G S-H

we may all have to go home one day
can’t chase these demons forever
tell me your words of freedom and peace
message the messagers the truth bout their message
tell me of the slums and smack heads
live for your race and go fall like a seed
reinvent the rhyme for these days of chaos
or freedom in expression is what saves us
pound the drum and speak in a stream ancient and fresh
i don’t have to agree to see what makes it real
run and destroy your record and our life
but rise like a garden and bring us back the truth
the troops and junkies, rappers and radicals
bartenders and bouncers, users and reborn
if i hadn’t been a liberal i couldn’t have been so stern
gotta do more than only live on for existence
remember home is were the hatred is and how it saved me
kick it quit it kick it quit it
i have gratitude of yearning respect for you old man
you were old when i met you and old when you left us
coltrane and whitey on the moon are the truth
truth of some perspective we lost focus on
can’t be your outlook if you can’t make it out
the battle costs us a few valuable chances
of longer life for our little ones and mothers too
did i write this for real when i heard you died?
blues in america can’t ever die
the best thing we gave the word is one thing
the blues we made and concurred makes us strong
the strong can be dumb or dead if they don’t express
souls like Gil have the wicked velocity of multiple angles
like a vision or a sound to sliding and using
run from the law and bury eleven lawyers
write legions of books questions of your standards
from the afro to the gutter back to paris for a hideout
return with some final last words was a nice eulogy
we gotta work for peace and life is a few directions
how many wives does it take to find the one who forgives
the angels of the life after gotta groove on forever
guess we all get a great show in heaven or hell it seems
glimpses of peace, rumors even would feel pretty nice
like i said gratitude of brave respect for our loss today
peace in your rest pick up the secrets and send em back
be god damn sure i get em or even just a touch of the wisdom
but not the dark side i feel it coming and hold me back
could tear it up for good any day now holding on like a october leaf
but if that is the last line i write i will be fine


Gil Scott-heron RIP.


Scott Low

it always spins

the buildings came down
the sand we pound
search out the infidel
for gun barrels swell
poke into the holes
bomb out the souls
blood in the gutter
as innocent suffer

today we dance
for this circumstance
gangs full of joy
over an evil boy
shot in the head
body full of lead
unlawful sick intent
turned into billions sent

who’s gonna wait for forgiveness
or revenge from the rest
as it never ends
it always spins

OBL dead May 1st, 2011

Scott Low
www.efrenmusic.com

Fading

There is blue, which is where we slide
our hands over and around the smoothness
of the years ebbing and flowing.
And  there is grey, that silent renegade
dredging up all of the debris from
fishing nets out past the rotting pier.

The moon sets,
moaning as it goes down.

Shannon Foley