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robert ashley - the bar side 1 lyrics

this is a close up
an arm
big muscles
gone to seed
it moves
but first
we read
rodney
the design
looks chinese
flashpowder
tattoo
in the beginning
there were rocks
and on those rocks with harder rocks
we learned to make a million bruises
to spell out things like:
we were here and watch your water
they only moved it
the idea of bruises adding up to something
from rocks to skin
a tendency toward motion pictures
in this case on the forearm
slightly gone to seed. rodney
in a garland of roses and with a flag
fortyeight stars
the good old days
flowers, flag and rodney in a military star
a one man arlington
good luck rodney. write when you can
i’ll be here when you return + unchanged
faithful, still desperately in love

we were
made for one another
remember, we were close, and
when the arm moves, finally, making room for other things
we start a long, a slow
release from rodney and his history
a pulling back, as they say
widening the shot. an unfolding
the world streams on the edges
i know what i’m doing this is heaven. no, not yet
this is just the bar
and rodney is the bartender
watching them come in as we watch rodney
at 11pm on a tuesday
afternoon, after a successful day at work
not exactly at the office, but at work
day off from music, what’s better than a drink?
just a little one to celebrate
also to be seen. you know how that is
so rodney’s not the star. star
enters now, with a friend, a slightly seedy older man
and smiling. and why not smile? a job well done is a job worth doing
around us in the bar we hear the sounds of life
things
like:
i say
don’t you read the bible?
and: place like that’ll make your
skin ?
and: you never know where they are
on this portable equipment
and: just one more time, then
put it in the joke museum
and: she wanted her savings and
whatever she could get on credit. i said
ma’am, it’s not my neck, but what can an old fart like you
do with all this money on a friday morning?
and: ‘cause if you’re gonna talk about the future you gotta talk about
right here. this is where the future’s at
and: after they was gone she cam an’ took over
you how them women are
and: he never told me how he’d do it
and i sure ain’t about to ask
and:
twenty+two
and: he’s been standin’ out in the back there
every night for a year or so
he’s never the same
after he came back, y’know
and: well, i’ve done it three times, and
three times is enough, i’d say
and:
woah she’s a cute little thing
things like that
rodney, on the other hand, is less idealistic
a little knowledge dot dot dot
rodney has seen the world
now don’t forget the star and his friend
who are strangers at this bar + the other one +
and: for reasons we are yet to understand
bring out the worst in rodney something about them makes him…
suspicious. if it’s not the suit or shoes or shirt
or the contract between the star
and the other man, it’s gotta be the dogs
he says, right off “we don’t
serve fine wine in half pints buddy”

little things do wear out your welcome, that i know
one is clothes, the perfection of the body
another is shoes, you distance. and the carriage
in your shoulders, your self+respect
not so much the colour of the skin or hair, now
lightness is another ?
another, probably least, is talk, including breath
enzymes graded on a scale of five
seven patients from the door to bar and it’s gone
my welcome
i’m no brown survivor here, from a lost civilisation
no mingling, please
and, just for instance, words from a gentleman behind
the bar + a sort of prisoner
we don’t serve fine wine on half+pints, buddy

how could he know that that’s my name? or that
half a pint is just enough for me
move closer to the bar to reassure him. notice
thanks to this strange light, the feeling
don’t keep from yourself the need to do good
? of purpose no
so with his message, i adjust my body some towards him
we’re all in this together, aren’t we?
hi, my name is buddy, if i could help you make the
load a little lighter, it would be my pleasure
we’ve all felt that it’s hard, at least harder than
we think it should be, and we look for change
it’s my way + it’s been given me + to move among
the people, and to know our nature
so, i should not hesitate to share my thoughts
and my experience with you
for instance, to begin from the beginning, as it
should be:

there is only one self. that self is
light. the self is ageless
the body has four forms, times
eras, four ages
but the self, the one and only self is ageless
without age and without ageing
the self is without coincidence, being
the only thing, the self
the self is without attainment
being perfect
the body has four ages. first is the
seed and mainly we remember…
and only have ideas about that form, because our
consciousness, the reflected light of the self
as the moon is the reflected light of the sun, the self
in its orbit about the earth, the body
now in this age, happens to reflect on that
part of the earth, the body in the region of
the age of dot dot dot
the branches (pause)

that is the seed, the age of the seed
is the age before the body is
quote, separated from the other body before
birth, as it were, that’s simple
then comes the age of the root, ’n their beauty
to our eyes is in their gnarledness
’n the great emotions that they represent in their great
heat that they need the coldness of the earth
to not explode from their own heat, there is so
much of it pause

that’s why childhood is like root + in its
gnarledness and in its heat, ’n
that’s why children have to have a home when they are children
to absorb the heat and to relieve + no
not relieve the pain of gnarledness, i almost spoke wrong
to make life possible on that age
after childhood, age of the root comes the age of the
trunk, ’n that lasts some thirty years
that is, if childhood lasts some fourteen years
then, in the same way
the age of the trunk lasts some thirty years
maybe thirty five
to continue dot dot dot in the orbit
of the consciousness about the body
there is a passing now, from the region of the
trunk into the region of the branches
i said earlier, if you remember, that the consciousness
now is in the region of
the branches, but that was a form of speaking
too soon, pause

to be precise, it’s passing now, from one
region to another
it’s on the crest above the highest mountains
so one reason we remember
and only have ideas about the form that’s called the
seed, as i said earlier
is that we are so far from it in time
we are as far from it as we can be
another reason is in passing
from one region to another
there is a sort of spoon that happens, so we are
just awakening in the branches now
and things in general, are still
foggy

i brought up this idea, the idea of the tree of life
to have something to compare the self to, we were
talking about the self
we said the self is without coincidence
being singular
we said the self is without attainment
being perfect
and we said the self is ageless being
but i don’t know
the word eternal is a mystery to me
i don’t understand that word
i can’t say the self is ageless
being eternal
so i have to find another way of seeing, another way of understanding that the self is ageless
’n the way i’ve found that works for me is
i say

imagine the self shaving for the first time
no
imagine the self learning to walk
no
so the self must be as ageless
as it feels
has yourself, changed
no
do you remember when yourself was other than it
is? no
the self is ageless. the self is without
coincidence
and the self is without attainment
these things we know
the light of yourself, rodney, is all
around you, for us to see
you say to me, we don’t serve fine wine in
half pints, buddy
’n that sound is just what we expect… and
need
we take sound, so much for granted, don’t we? it’s the sound of god
we don’t serve fine wine in half pints, buddy
is the sound of god
’n i’m allowed to use that word
because i’m brown

does this break rodney’s heart?
no
more than one part of rodney is
hard as stone
when it comes to things like god
no, rodney has heard it all
his chart today say:

problems of children
or other loved ones
are likely to require the use of
marital resources
worry, strange word
is likely to be greater
care with spending on creative project
is necessary
a speculation
may be disappointing
by concentrating on
routine activities
depression
can be avoided

in other words
keep moving is rodney’s chart
and he interprets that to mean
the money baby spent
on lessons at the music store
will not insure her place
among the greats of boogie woogie.. or even
get her playing at the bar
happy she is, the travelling
salesmen say
but boogie woogie
she is not

thirty lessons guaranteed to merge
the left hand with the right
in one ear and out the other hand
across the great divide
some got it and some don’t
she sats at night
i got it
poor rodney. art widower
he lost it to the left hand memories
the structure
he lost it to the right hand
blue notes
i got it. rodney’s baby says
boogie woogie all the way

she goes down to the river when she can…
the holy river where the notes came up from new orleans
because it’s there, the doctor says
she is enchanted
she has learned that short ideas repeated
massage the brain

- robert ashley lyrics

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