FELICA
Felica, Felica
I cannot help even dreaming
of you my friend
It has been many hard years
But I would be honored to full fill
your long awaited unfulfilled
birthday wish
Problem is we are far apart-
I am not sure where you are
but imagine it's still Redding
and I am beyond Oregon-so if
you could come to me.................
I might some day visit where you are
However, this is uncertain
Nevertheless, I am constantly looking for you
my brown eyed brunette doll!
I was sitting on the dock of the bay listening to a song
when Otis Redding happened to come walking along.
He said, "You watching the ships roll in?"
I said, "Yeah, and then watching ‘em roll away again."
He said, "That stuff's really dug by some,
but I think it’s all pretty much ho-hum."
Glenn Campbell sang of Wichita
Trini Lopez of Kansas City
Otis Redding crooned of Sausalito, CA
Sittin’ on the dock of a bay
Chicago was Sinatra’s kind of town
He belted out the refrain
Guthrie’s ‘City of New Orleans’
Turned out be an Illinois train
So why don’t they sing of Annapolis!
It rhymes with Minneapolis and Indianapolis
And fifty-four astronauts graduated the Naval Academy
~ Updating ‘Anchors Aweigh’ would gladden me
~
A beauty from Redding,
alone on a hillside,
where dreams play viola
and wishes agree
Hair spun of moonbeams.
as eyes tend to wander.
while sharing the shade
of a sycamore tree
Gathering daisies.
with petals for pulling.
near shadows now painting
designs on the ground
Following seasons.
in soft subtle colors.
past butterfly whispers
of barely a sound
Endlessly dancing.
like dandelion seedlings.
that tumble and twirl
on the gentlest breeze
Barefoot and smiling.
she wanders the valley.
along lonely pathways
with hope if you please
Watch from a distance.
with silhouettes clinging.
to yesterday’s sorrows
now left on a shelf
Don’t bother calling,
she finds fading echoes.
are nothing but trouble
in spite of herself
For, she’s an illusion,
your imagination,
now conjured inside of
the heart in your chest
Memories carried,
alone on a hillside,
while time disappears
on this fantasy quest
Life sits there waiting,
it’s losing its patience
as you find your reasons
are more than you see
In search of a beauty,
who comes down from Redding,
where dreams play viola
and wishes agree
“I’m just sitting on the dock of the bay, wastin’ time.” Otis Redding
Don’t quit your daydream, son.
You’re just so good at it.
Each day we watch you go
down to the dock and sit.
Your friends have left their homes.
To college most have gone,
but you just like to go
down to the bay at dawn.
What do you dream about
while looking out to sea?
You can’t forever stay
at home with us for free!
Whatever would it take
to prompt you to do more
than keep dreams in your head
and not to let them soar?
Our ultimatum is
find work or go to school.
If not, don’t quit your daydream.
Be a homeless fool.
11/25/2022
(the son of this poem is fictional)
What sad fate does all of these celebrities likely have in common?
Aaliyah
Aaron Hernandez
Abraham Lincoln
Amy Winehouse
Anna Nicole Smith
Bob Marley
Brandon Lee
Brittany Murphy
Bruce Lee
Buddy Holly
Christopher Wallace - Notorious B.I.G.
Elvis Presley
Frank Zappa
George Washington
Gianni Versace
Grace Kelly
Heath Ledger
Jeffrey Epstein
Jim Morrison
Jimi Hendrix
Joan Rivers
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy, Jr.
John Lennon
John Todd
King Leopold II of Austria
Kobe Bryant
Kurt Cobain
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lou Reed
Malcolm X
Marilyn Monroe
Martin Luther King Jr
Michael Jackson
Otis Redding
Paul Walker
Pope John Paul I
Prince
Princess Diana
Ritchie Valens
Robert F. Kennedy
Robin Williams
Sam Cooke
Seth Rich
Stanley Kubrick
The Big Bopper
Tupac Shakur
Vince Foster
Whitney Houston
XXXTentacion
What We Need
(RESPECT)
By Franklin Price
06/24/2020
What we need in times of struggle
Is a place we can connect
We the people need to search for
Common ground for some RESPECT
Otis Redding wrote RESPECT
A thought provoking song
Only made a minor mark
'Til Aretha came along
She put her whole heart in it
RESPECT, her final goal
For RESPECT for one another
We must reach down in our soul
If you haven't been there
Then you don't know what it's like
To be called by disrespectful names
Honky, n----r , wet back, dyke
Now I've gone and done it
Put the words down on the page.
Is the anger welling from you,
From a long time pent up rage?
Life is not of black and white
And the differences of races
It's of RESPECT for one another
And our common times and places
We all are brothers, sisters
Why can't we all just get along?
Have RESPECT for one another
Listen to Aretha's song
If that doesn't do it for you
Follow the Golden Rule
Treat others, as you would like to be,
Don't continue on the fool
R.E.S.P. E.C.T
October Visitation
A peeking orange smear
Talked to the lad inside his head,
When he was eight and nine months,
On a breezy October twilight in 1960,
As the orange light told him silently,
To go to the river's edge behind the red house,
To go there and see what it wanted him to see.
Night’s shawl of descending gray began its covering,
As the boy walked down the horse trail in the midst of chutes,
Volleying up green and yellow digesting rotting salmon,
With lurching trees swaying a little in the beckoning wind.
Upon the smooth stones he slowly trod in foreboding fear,
And there upon a large smooth stone he knelt,
Folding his hands as in preparation for the mysteries,
And then, the boy was compelled to gaze skyward with peering eyes,
And he saw it, a silvery flying thing, ethereal as sugar icing,
Hover above him, as the first stars exposed themselves like a pox,
And the lad prayed to this angel,
This otherworldly visitor from the Iam,
There incredibly seen, on an obscure river bank near Redding.
Redding Poem 2
"Sacramento River WordScape"
These descendent waters swim like mad lagoon fish,
Heading decidedly south with a fiery mindless turn,
Their cool liquid urgencies reaching to all sides enticing
The bosomy turning earth and its pectoral indecencies,
With an impotent power unknown to anyone alive now,
As watery signatures knife their way into the crestfallen sand bars,
Adrift in an ambiguous undertow of death-marked reticences;
Swimming and floating lazily as a red lily floats downstream,
Enveloped cooly in blue clarity, absorbed by diamond sureness,
These arching trees lapping inward the reeking salmon atoms,
As rippling currents of heaving hands and wild bone sneezes,
Salvage the unsalvageable, and a solitary blue bird
Jiggling a crimson ring, as it bobs upon its ascended perch.
Beheld, the warmth that softens my face
Whilst in the coolness that brisk my nose
Ere, the queen of day, comforts my space
Like petals fragrance; a healthy rose
Freckles; suns beckon - hidden in dark
Tanning or Redding on pale white skin
Gorgeous this day...shall thy walk the park
I am king...this glorious mornin'
My presence makes my painting...Perfect!
i worked on
a bay dock
hotter than
sin but in the
winter warmth
was remembrance
but i never
forgot what
confused
consumed
me that i
thought
that which
would be
me and
please
beam
me
up Scotty
only to hear
i've no control
Captain you are
going to be a molecular
jigsaw puzzle of one thousand
pieces
to be put
back together
again Humpty
Dumpty but was
this puzzle before or
after
the
fall
I yearn for shades of Autumn and all that it could bring
the chromis strews of redding bricks the chilly burrr
Blushing apples high as kites tied to apron strings
and acorns full of french berets and nutmeg tinted plur
falling down like parachutes with no inter ;
I do foretell the signs of summer's end and so salute
the fury tilts of sapling greens in soakly forest wood;
Those elongated serenades of change with no refute
who can question them beneath God's plentish hood
except his "FIVE" bounteous leaves of cherry wood;
Swiveling down here and there aiming far with dip
the rusky calls of brownie birds as they lose their fur
The cheep- cheep- cheep of a baby's nest, a quip
that zings across the equinox of fall and oft conjures
the memory of an Autumn's tale and sweet procure ;
I yearn for gatherings of pumpkin pies and feast
the shaky janks of corn roast romps
the evening hearth that says "you're truly blessed"
Yes I love the Autumn's bold audacious stomp,
that sells to me its beauty and its comp...
August 24, 2018
Chasing my thirst into the
desert at night,
Otis Redding was right….
“You don’t miss the water till the well runs dry”
And marrying the wrong woman
for the second time,
Smokey Robinson was right….
“You better shop around”
Writing my pen empty with the
same old words,
Cat Stevens was right….
“The first cut truly is the deepest”
And living in Macon because
I thought it was safe,
Charlie Daniels was right….
“The devil did come down to Georgia”
Losing my religion only to
seek God again,
Robert Plant was right….
“You can’t buy a stairway to heaven”
And when I’m alone and desperate and have
nowhere left to turn,
Bob Dylan was the most righteous of all….
“When you ain’t got nothin, you got nothin to lose”
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)
Lazy days in fields of bluebonnets;
lost in romantic, Shakespearian sonnets.
Sipping blueberry wine neath a sky blue dome,
on this amazing blue planet I get to call home.
Voyages across the deep blue sea;
pale blue moon lights the way for me.
Blue whales spew mist upon my sails.
Feast on blue crab and lobster tails.
Chillin' on the porch in faded blue jeans;
bluegrass strums across banjo strings.
Frisky blue heeler dancing at my feet;
bluebirds sing along; tweet tweet tweet.
Old Blue Eyes crooning on the radio.
The Blue Lounge was the place to go.
Oddis Redding with those rhythm and blues;
Elvis jirates in Blue Suede Shoes.
All these blues are truly grand,
but baby, when you take my hand;
your touch, delicate as bluebell flowers,
Yet strong as bluestones of castle towers.
When I feel the blues start creeping in,
I gaze your baby blues again.
To my soul and spirit, you are leaven.
You, my love, are my blue heaven.
Everybody lives with a sense of hope
looking always for a better thing
they go for many a different wish
not really sure what to sing!
Now there is a hope that's secure
the only one that holds you still
gives you foundation great and strong
a view that overcomes every hill
This hope is eternally focused
for the author is of divine origen
creator supreme of perfect love
His spirit does need no oxygin
Your real hope is simply divine
the Lord brings a certain assurance
giving His presence to fill you for real
this source of hope in abundance
("Our hope in God pulls us into the future. Hope allows us to affirm the reality of the abundant life that is ours in Christ. Hope allows us to stand in pain and to hold them until they are able to feel the love of God for themselves again. Hope allows us to work and bring God's reign upon the earth even when we see no results. Our hope begins and ends in God, the source of all hope" - Mary Lou Redding)
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