Day 64

12/7/2006
Pearl Harbor Day
Tom Waits' birthday
One day after the release of the Iraq Commission Report

Hey kids, dig the first takes
Ain't that some interpretation
When Sinatra sings against Nelson Riddle Strings
Then takes a vacation.

-- Van Morrison, Hard Nose the Highway

Never heard the melody
'Till I needed the song.

Tom Waits, San Diego Serenade

It comes on you all at once
Or festers deep in troubled sleep.
You gather all the pieces shorn
From the same-sung widow's torn
Embrace. And all the crumpled wordage
Spread across your splintered head
Displays a truth, e'er unawarned.

The simple thing is lay it raw,
Bleak on first word-splash replete.
But honor still its birth and show,
Tamp down lumps, trim edges so
A penny-marker turns polished bronze
When nailed on long, unending wall,
A shallow, shifty, slanted mall,
So viewed by mind-thralls racing past.

The silent edges I work, cleaning
So you don't have to winter meaning.

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