Booney Tunes Jukebox
Now you can listen to all six recordings by James Walktendonk by clicking here.
I remember jungles wher the ancient trees blocked the sun
And I wondered if the shades of green could speak what would they tell me
Where tribes of peoples wore trail stones smooth
Where the legions once warmed fires
Where highland greens and delta fields saw time stand still
Where poetry is life unwritten yet living
Where free fire zones roar with napalm burning
Where soldiers ly hidden in ambush
Where booby traps are buried waiting for one last step
Where beauty is soaked with sweat and fear
Where body bags ly on the red dirt waiting
Where the young men stare through the eyes of the old
Where I learned survival has luck as its best friend
Where the shades of green go on and on and on
They speak to me with frozen memories
Hot to the touch
1993 JWalktendonk
Azure and botox
Color and cure
Beautiful crowsfeet
Chartreuse for a lure
Symbols and memory
Dictation and wit
Dilation of puples
Does some of this fit
Anger with humble
No colors see by
Repetitious yet anxious
I’ll not likely comply
The show is a bombshell
Lets agree where it blows
On a dope dealers caddy
On a spot near his nose
If it’s justice I’m after
I’ll probably get screwed
But I’ll go down firing
Twin gas 60’s ain’t crude
10-30-03 JWalktendonk
Dark brown eyes
chartreuse skin
You tip the pitcher
To see what's within
So perfect and peaceful
A war disappears
No one gets injured
No one sheds tears
She pulls her wagon
With dolls inside
So Suzzie and Amberlin
Will go for a ride
Like cupcakes with frosting
Not an unusual thing
Until they are eaten
How astonishing
© 4-21-2003 JWalktendonk
He’s got fins for sideburns
She’s got onyx colored eyes
His hair is metallic golden
Both were worthy of the prize
Transparent in the abstract
They alone share tattooed dreams
While all about stay moving
They folded time and stepped through seams
There's no lesson to the learning
Not a cog of time was spent
The displacement found no error
There was no reason to lament
Evaporation sent them skyward
Like a disassembling array
There was no question of the meaning
Two old soul had gone their way
Of all the things I've witnessed
Could be spelled out just like this
There would be endless conversation
About the things I'd missed
© 3-4-96 Jim Wachtendonk
Melancholy music
Piano and obo
Poignant remembrance
A Sadness Asking
Which Way is it twords home
While Candles Flicker
Lost Souls find purchase
Reasoning with fate
Compassion surrounds them
Filling the void reserved for the innocent
What is left of our words
Reminders foreshadow the drums of war
Efforts mingle with blood
Lost in the ruins
Yet not forgotten
© 02 J Walk
Are you happy glad and perky, can you see the light ahead
Are you terminally nice all day, can you never be mislead
Do people never piss you off, do you forgive and then forget
Do you yield when challenged all the time, do you rarely get upset
There is a place to deep to anchor far away from sanity
It’s meant for those who falter far from the bourgeoisie
There are weapons for the taking, the not so nice folks call it home
It’s right down the road from happy where schizophrenics like to roam
Now let’s go back to thinking good thoughts, where every worker gets
a raise
Where bosses greet you at the door and he loves it when he pays
It’s a place where healthcare comes in first and the conditions are the
best
No co-pay for employees and no pollution to ingest
Is this pie in the sky I’m singing are only good thoughts safe for you
Yeh I know some of this is bullshit, but what the hey in the big sky blue
Are you that bimbo bitch from yuppie hell, are you all perfect clean and neat
Is that bustard hubby by your side and do you live on easy street
There is a place to deep to anchor, far away from sanity
It’s meant for those who falter, from the bourgeoisie
There are weapons for the taking, the not so nice folks call it home
It’s right down the road from happy where schizophrenics like to roam
The tabloids had a field day, was the president at fault
His gift in the Texas Air Guard was his daddy’s gift of no assault
No over seas involvement, just a cushy slide party boy
No Shrub would never have to fight, in Vietnamese it’s called “sin
loi”
Maybe I’m the one who took his place, because my daddy wasn’t rich
No strings to up the ante, it all went down with without a hitch
At ease with crooked oil deals he, lost more than he made
But power corrupts his dealings, he needed no welcome home parade
In Texas he was governor, his dad’s connections paved the way
With his intellect at question, the good ole boys told him what to say
His brother is Florida’s governor , the key state for the prez to be
Manipulation of the electorate, downright crimes most folks agree
So the Supreme Court said that Shrub won, the first time that it’s been
said
Not elected but selected, and now we’re stuck with this airhead
His handlers were his daddies and his daddy knew the ropes
A successful term in office meant the lieing to us dopes
There’s a place to deep to anchor far away from sanity
It’s meant for those who falter far from the bourgeoisie
There are weapons for the taking and not so nice folks call it home
It’s right down the road from happy where schizophrenics like to roam
I hate elitist attitudes, do you go slumming once in a while
Is the near east side close to the edge, will you go that extra mile
We are working class blue collar, not some boardroom CEO’s
It’s our jobs that they are exporting, for slave labor everyone knows
So if you’re happy good for you and if you’re pissed off that’s
good to
Because the zombies left in paradise lost the siege at Dien Bien Phu
Take your time and be cautious watch your flanks and stay alive
There are reasons why I ask this, because I want you to stay alive
I switched the gates in Heaven, not even St Peter held the keys
Nobody told me I couldn’t do it , God said you making fun of me?
Absolutely yes I said and what’s the harm to shake things up a bit
But St Peter wasn’t laughing, he said I’m so mad that I could spit
Now seeing St Peter spit was a sight I’d like to see
Because the image of his holy form, leads toward blasphemy?
Sooooo St Peter filed a heavenly complaint to the Big Guy over this
The Big Guy smiled while listening, what a shakeup since Genesis
But in the end a deal was struck all gates disappeared but two
St Peter didn’t like it, he said one gate will surely do
Because who will watch over the other gate, God said James Peter was His man
He’s a bit odd but he means well, he’s an expatriate American
Holy shit is that all to it or will this dude keep writing verse
He goes on and on and on and on is this talent or a curse?
So don’t forget there is a place to deep to anchor, far away from sanity
It’s meant for those that falter, far from the bourgeoisie
There are weapons for the taking, the not so nice folks call it home
Just down the road from happy, where schizophrenics like to roam
6-27-03 JWalktendonk
The telling remains
An avalanche of words
First the sentence
Then the apocalyptic sense
Future has yet to agree
Tended by callous hands
Hardened bodies
Obeying within a cycle
Like a profuse order
Elders with wit as well as wisdom
The evidence that will confuse
The cynics around us
© 4-1-2003 JWalk
She hung limp in my arms
An infant suffering from a belly would
Eyes glazed half closed
In desperate need of triage
For enclosed us in a vacuum of brutality
Soundless except for poignant weeping
She needed help. I screamed for it
I heard nothing, not even an echo
I tore my fatigue shirt and gathered leaves
To control the bleeding, but it doesn't help
She looks at me and I'm suddenly her, looking at me
How ghoulish I/she appear
She eventually gives into the pain
She dies in her/my arms
I'm still holding I/she in my/her arms
Unable to find peace, cursing myself
Empty of who she was
Full of images like this one
Engaged to each other, every night
There's always another night
Wisps in the vacuum of brutality
Traces of fear and abandonment
Phantoms in step
Collecting macabre scenarios
I/she must live with them
And die knowing the pattern will never change
3-24-97 © Jim Wachtendonk
Top
Soaring high on thermal winds
Flying high on painted wings
Delving into Earths big belly
Finding new and dangerous things
Wishes used by evil men
Weapons fire to clear a trail
Booby traps not seen on maps
All resurface without fail
But somewhere there is an island
Never visited by man
It’s beach and vegetation
Are on no prime meridian
It could be here and gone tomorrow
And no one would ever know
Sea breezes never freezes
No quid pro quo
My attention peeked above ground
From a rumbling in the sky
Up high in close formation
Were brand new bombers flying by
I could see them black as midnight
There were so many I could not tell
From horizon to horizon
It was a photo out of hell
So I went down in my bunker
And turned on some Pink Floyd
I closed and clamped each airlock
Wondering how much will be destroyed
The tunes from twenty speakers
Drowned out the sound outside
Go ahead and call me crazy
That’s ok I’m Bonafide
7-30-03 JWalktendonk
It isn't every day when a flash of insight cruises down memory
lane
Like a spec of dirt
Irritating a lower eyelid
Hidden deep in tissue
So small you can't find it
Just bugging the shit out of you
Then, as if by magic, the insight cruises by
Sightless wrapped eyes
A war wound of unknowing proportion leaves you dead of the sense of sight
The fear of my enclosure leading me to all the what-ifs
Absence of light
Blind for now
I waited for news
Any spec of luck
Voices around me
I was in a ward
In bed
I remember a nurse
She'd found an unopened a letter from home
Shall I read it to you, she said
Yes
Her voice was soft and sincere
She was an angel whose glow I imagined inside
Thanks, I said, then she touched my cheek and left me to my thoughts of home,
Back in the world of my family
Insight was all I had,
My folks got a telegram I didn't know was sent
How they must have worried
This, I found out 26 years later
My sight returned slowly
I dodged that bullet
Whew
6-15-98 @ Jim Wachtendonk