RISQUE REVUE

Okeedokee.

When I was young, I was raised on this stuff.
I recognized the rhythm and rhyme of it immediately.

And just jumped on board for that ghostly ride.
(Does anyone remember the first time they ever heard the original of "Ghost Riders in the Sky?)
Sort of struck me, like that.

That unmistakable metre.......
da doddley dah, da doddley dah
da doddley dah, de dum
(repeat)

A songwriter is tempted to sling it onto the back of a tune.......
but then again, I think not.
Some words need their driving wheels to race across the tracks of a page,
without the baggage car of a tune -
(that midnight whistle is tuneful enough.)
Travelin' light makes for more speed.

Notice, how the stage is set, without fanfare
the train is just there
as if coming up with no warning.

And then you have the sight and the sound of it
the smoke and the sparks
and that glorious wailing whistle
echoing through that high sound chamber
up to the clouds, the stars
eternity itself.

But (oh my)
It doesn't just roar on by.
No.
As if..........it were an animated inanimate object.
There are...........(someone) on it.

Up stand the hairs of imagination's consternation.
Who? How? What?

The riders.
And that's where the real story is.
The one that lingers
long after the train is gone.

For me,
tis old time, sure enough.
Like the childhood memories
that raised the freckles on the skin
and mumbled through dreams
deep into the night
and nibbled round the breakfast bowl
long after all the shadows faded.

Not so easy to bring all that back, these days -
but this did.

Like Songs of a Sourdough
Like Jack London's Tales of the North

- like the stories my Grandfather told me.

Bravo, Arakun.

(a final flick of a polishing chamois.....and the glint of a silver swash upon a mantleshelf)

- turns out the light and takes the dawg for a long walk.














Captain Midnight
Just let me laugh when it's funny
and when it's sad, let me cry