Born a poor young country boy--Mother Nature's son
All day long I'm sitting singing songs for everyone.

Sit beside a mountain stream--see her waters rise
Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies.

Find me in my field of grass--Mother Nature's son
Swaying daises sing a lazy song beneath the sun.

Mother Nature's son

Lennon/McCartney

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

By Billy Shears

Part the Fourth

I read the news today… oh man! Bitterness in the air; where is the love? I just got done talking about Johnny Cash, I can’t dig getting in to the battles that are. What we need is peace and love.

I’ve been listening to my favorite station XPN.org and they have been in my head for months, scary in every sense of the word. I heard Led Zeppelin’s Your Time Is Gonna Come today. I couldn’t help but the think about the weary world we live in.

I grant a pause then in the general action.

I submit to my alter egos.

I think back to the time that was, twenty years ago, in the misty motif malfunction of bashful blues and bussing bailment, we join a work in progress that feature film when we asked, well, what’s it gonna be then, eh?

I am going to try to buy the world a coke…

Tonight I want to rationalize peace. I want to put it out of the context of the Christians, the Muslims, the Jewish nation, the Zens, the Buddhists and anyone else with a claim to the supernatural metaphysical world that is tripping along in the universe.

At some point I discovered another world, or at least came back into being with a world that I once knew as a childe. This world was something of script, perhaps paper-hanging or a something that was authentic once but got commercialized and deteriorated into a myth of dancing LSD loving flower givers.

Don’t get me wrong, the message was special, but the means brought out the worst in everybody. Just like all the old prophets, you are best persecuted for what you believe in. Santa, wand your sleigh.

During the time of my immediate freedom, someone asked me if I was happy with my current circumstances. (I know I may be talking in code, but it is what it is). I answered that loaded question with a yea poz yes. I was happy for lack of a better understanding of what happiness was, but I was bound and determined to get there.

But how did I get there? It started with a poem by Byron, called Farewell If Ever Fondest Prayer. I read it out of a book that someone let me look at during a rather uneventful journalism class in high school. I am forever grateful. At that singular moment, I found happiness in the form that I understand now.

Old George Gordon gave me a conduit that I followed to many ends. I filled my excesses to a point that it probably did as much damage as good, but that is what we do. It led me to the path that my spiritual father John Lennon started. I eventually found what started his journey. The best of the best. Those folks who broke the boundaries. The ones who weren’t afraid, as Kerouac said, “The Mad Ones”.

The common denominator was peace and love. Yes, those old hippy terms. But the Beats started it. Jack, Neal, Allen, Lucien and Old Bull Lee (quoting Kerouac). They ran the gamete. They changed the consciousness. This was followed and perhaps even inspired by the civil rights leaders of the times, and the genuineness that folks like Woody Guthrie were singing about.

Of this legacy what remains? Who are our leaders? What has happened to the inspirations that ran from these ambitions? I include every and all from the dawn of time, which is what they represented. Where is the new Renaissance? Who will open up and exclaim the meaning of the words?

Can I walk back into that world and hold up to some of those steady ideals that pushed me out of the womb and into the arms of the fascinating world? And what about you? Are you able to ask of yourself? Can you be exuberant and faithful and resounding? Is grandeur most valuable? Are the sins forgivable?

This world needs a good kicking in the rear. We need people to start to stand up and decide that they want some sanity and normalcy. We will get nowhere with the negative waves… (to keep up with the movie quotes). We can learn the lessons of the past and come back to unite those that have fear and pain and isolation. We are not for isolation, we are for kindness, we are for empathy, we are for the better parts of ourselves, we are for regenerating the best of the best possible aspects of human nature.

Can you feel the inspiration? As Byron said in Manfred, Old man, tis not so difficult to die! Any fool can tell you… as well as any major dude…

This is my recommendation; don’t keep it under your hat. The days of being weary of what you think, see and feel are over. Become part of the solution, take time out to breathe, take some time out to extend your hand to something bigger than yourself. The Blind Watchmaker is sitting on a hot stone laughing at the miscalculation… that is so readily apparent the historians will have a hard time putting it to document.

Are you ready?

…all day long, singing songs for everyone…

(I know George sings it) but have you ever listened close to While My Guitar Gently Weeps? Can you hear where Paul ends and John begins? (in the chorus) We still have things to listen to again and learn.

Whisper to the wind and say that love has sinned (Willow Weep for Me)

I think under the guise of Billy Shears, has love sinned this wicked world?

Will you stand up and walk out on me?

(no links look ‘em up yerself if you want to know more than you know)

© wounded lord literature 2006