bottledWalter

Written: 10/17/01
Words: Walter Koning

Life got you down
Girl not around
Missing kissing

Where’d the last one go
Why is she not allowed
Was something missing

Come to me darling
Love me darling
Speak to me baby

She thought you a clown
She wore me on down
From her there is
No missin’ the kissin’

Written: 3/22/01
Words: Walter Koning

Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade.
Keep on rocking in the free world, free world, rocking in the free world

Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock.
Rockin’ in the free world, free world.

Have respect for the free world, free world
Takes respect in the free world, free world
Trust in the free world, free world
Rockin’ in the free world, free world.

Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock.
Rockin’ in the free world, free world.
Love your brother man in the free world, free world
Chivalry ain’t dead in the free world, free world
Sex in the free world, free world
Growing older in the free world, free world

Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade. Fade.
Changing views of the free world, free world
Times gone by hurt the image of the free world, free world
It was true for the free world, free world
Some leaders were wrong in the free world, free world

Took advantage of the Third World, Third World
Should never have happened to the Third World, Third World
Has never ended in the Third World, Third World

Written: 4/26/01
Words: Walter Koning

The wind fell from my sails today
I was roaring ahead, full speed, aiming high, aiming fast
Past times and pastimes. I was ready to bring on summer
with a pocket full of singles and singleness

But no!

The wind fell from my sails today
A casual reminder of a one year review, responded to by a four month wait
Rather than two months ago for my money to grow
It’s four months more, working at this store

I’d be here anyway, I’d survive and do the same things even
So why the fallen sails today?
Why did it feel like I woke up Christmas morning to an empty floor?
Why did I smile less this afternoon?

I was roaring ahead, full speed, aiming high, aiming fast
Now I know my work is judged by time alone and merit later
No bonus for the hardwork
No merit based raises. No added incentive. No money for flying.

Bring on summer. I’ll ride my bike instead.
Strap a cloth to my back, let the wind fill my sails
In four more months I’ll write this all again

Written: 12/23/01
Words: Walter Koning

Eggs
Cooking on my stovetop in the frying pan
Eggs
Frying on the roof of my parents’ van

Life immitating art
I watched those kiddy cartoons
You know what I’m talking about
They’re always cooking eggs on the sidewalk

Eggs
Cooking on my stovetop
Eggs
Frying on my parents’ van

One day it was darn hot
I walked around barefoot
Burning my feet on the sidewalk
Next thing you know
I’m looking for some eggs
Out of the refrigerator
And into my hands

Eggs
Cook in a frying pan
But can they cook on my parents’ van

Tap tap
I crack an egg
Lay it down
Overeasy on the sidewalk
What can I say
It didn’t cook
It didn’t work
What to do
What else is hot
The metal on the van
Burning a hole in my hand

Eggs
Cook in a pan
But can they cook on a van

Two yolks
Drop from my hands to the van
Two whites
Start to run away
No looking back
They aren’t fooled
This ain’t no pan

Eggs
Cooking on my stovetop in a frying pan
Eggs
Proven not to cook on the roof of
My parents’ van

Written: 10/25/01
Words: Walter Koning

My vision is skewed
My eyes are glazed
My contacts stick
To my tearless eyes

I can’t see straight
I stayed up way too late
Now I’m paying the price
In this sightless state

What I need is to go to sleep
To close my eyes
Slip away off deep

Once again I lay in bed
My eyes are closed
They roll back in my head

I see the water falling down
Around the darkness of my pupils
The fluid surrounds

My vision comes back to me
My glaze disappears
My sight still skewed
By these endless tears

When I awake again
When I awake my friend
Is when I awake again and again
And when I awake at the end

I awake to this feeling often
I run and I run once again
I close my eyes to get away
I find that there’s never a way

Now and again the feeling fades
The path lights bright
For my eyes to gaze

I stare a glance to memorize
The view, the feeling inside my eyes
Little remains when it’s said and done
Little remains except a battle I’ve won

I close my eyes and recognize
All the feelings I tend to keep inside
Not dry not sore not restless anymore
The fluid remains to coat the sores

Written: 12/27/00
Words: Walter Koning
Note: Written in the dark watching the 1999 year in music review.

Lyrics are in my bedroom
Sitting on the floor
Written in the paper
Newspapers everyday tell the story
That I could try to tell with this pen in my hand

What’s the difference? What’s it matter?
No one cares. No one really listens.
No one can change the world with a vision of a saint.
It takes the efforts and desires of everyone involved.
By oneself it’s just wishful thinking.
With the effective leadership of a few people
This saint can become a flesh living reality.

Don’t limit the love.

Written: 11/26/00
Words: Walter Koning

TV lies
TV tells me that love is magic
TV tells me to love
TV tells me that life goes on
TV tells me to forget what I feel
and love what I don’t think is real

Screw TV’s lies

TV makes me forget about reality
TV tells me that we’re stuck in the past
TV says we’re moving forward
I think we’re just as bad as we ever were

Screw TV’s lies

TV tries to capture what happens
TV tries to suggest a better way
People don’t want to change
People are too lazy to improve society
People make me sick
People make me sick
I can’t say it enough
Some people make me sick

Written: 4/18/01
Words: Walter Koning

We could stand up here and preach to you
With intentions over the top

We could write all day all of our dreams for you
And still not even dent your confused mind

We could keep a journal of our thoughts
Hoping to find the answers that will help you

But what it boils down to is that you’ve got
To want to listen and develop yourself

No ones going to change anything if the thing to
Be changed is opposed through and through

The only way for things to improve is if
We improve your attitude gradually

Improve it too fast, you’ll just be swayed back later
Force it on you and you’ve got our ways, not developed ways

You’ve got to learn what matters and seek help
For how to get there

That’s where we come in
We’ve got your answers

We stand up here and preach to you
But you’ve got to develop yourself

We write all day our dreams for you
But you’ve got to develop yourself

Written: 6/6/02
Words: Walter Koning

Pioneer punk rocker dies
Dee Dee Ramone
Was to play in San Francisco Saturday
Drug overdose suspected
1952 to 2002

Dee Dee Ramone
Left the Ramones
He experimented with rap
The he came back to the Ramones

Pioneer punk rocker dies
Dee Dee Ramone
50 years old
Last year
Joey Ramone died
48 years old

Written: 5/23/02
Words: Walter Koning

Birth
Growth
School
Work
Live
Age
Settle
Mature
Rest
Decease

Written: 4/17/01
Words: Walter Koning

Are you on the upswing
Are you on the cutting edge
Do you read that newspaper
Everyday, to appease your head
Have you caught a cab to Macy’s yet today
Nordstrom’s, Hudson’s, they’re all on sale

Are you convinced the media represents reality
Those pictures and people are really like that
It took them two hours of posing
And an hour more to airbrush away
All the blemishs and features you or I would see on them today

Do you believe what you see in the news
Do you believe what you read
Do you believe fashion makes you any more than who you are
Do you believe the world is caught in 20 second video clips

Have you helped an old lady cross the street ever in your life
Have you lent a helping hand to those who live at the banks of a flooding riverside
Are you willing to forgive your neighbor if he’s willing to forgive you too

What cutting edge are you on
If you read about it all and watch it in the news
And go to church to ask forgiveness
And wear the clothes to give off that image
Then why don’t you give anything positive back

Written: 3/19/02
Words: Walter Koning

I remember how the stores displayed
All of the fancy clothes in display windows
Selling clothes based on style and price and name
Quality was assumed
People walked through the store door
Sellers rushed to the selling floor
Offering advice no one could ignore
I just laughed
At the comedy
Of it all

I don’t buy name brand clothes
And I don’t buy all that name brand gear
Most of my clothes are secondhand
Because I don’t want to fill that hole in the land

Function before flaunting
Pragmatic, Oh, Practical
I may wear clothes from Eddie Bauer
But they’ve never seen a dime of mine

As we grow older we lose our eccentricities
Don’t cut off those curls
Don’t blend in
As the years go by and my peers stop by
They say

You’re growing up
And
You’re getting older

So why
Oh why
Does it feel like I’m not any wiser
My knowledge has grown
And my memories show
What a good life should be
So why
Oh why
Do I feel like a compromiser

At work people say not to dress that way
In my mind I’m convinced there’s no better way
So I pack up my things
And go out and enjoy the day

Written: 5/28/02
Words: Walter Koning

With one paper left and two stops to go
I want to keep writing so I pace myself slow

I worry of content and who might read this next
Remembering silently how no reads my simple texts

Pictures and jpegs and tiffs draw an audience
While my rhymes and rhythms
Are merely commuter line came and wents
To work and back home on paper my whims

Hardly a word worth repeating alone
Apart from the casual daisy I’ve grown

And even then folks reject the adjective horny
As though it’s as bad as completing this line with corny

Despite the audience size attracted by all this
I’ll write all the way home
Every day my brain ticks

Written: 4/6/01
Words: Walter Koning

So many single people everyone waiting for a supermodel
You see an attractive person
Think they should have an attractive spouse
What about those ugly people
Who do they get?
I’d say I’m mediocre and I have the chance at anyone
Who’s to say that I don’t deserve a gorgeous babe?
What about those ugly people
They have a chance at anyone too
There’s nothing stopping a great looking female from being attracted
To a lumpy, lopsided, lazy looking man
But a guy is less likely to go for a woman who doesn’t have it going on

Or maybe it’s our goals
Maybe the woman sought after will match our lifestyles
Our vicarious dreams for our future
If we’re athletic we want an activity partner
If we read we want a literary foil
If we reflect upon the 1800’s the industrial revolution, the electronic age
We may desire a parallel mind
Someone who’ll feel the same, use the same tools, be submissive all the same

Physical features attract
Beauty maintains
Habits annoy
Common interests propel
Exactly alike stagnates

Written: 5/25/02
Words: Walter Koning

Sandy Pines
Big Whitefish Lake
Camping grounds
Short one tent stake

Living our lives together
Without breaks
With Christ our Lord
Forgiving our mistakes

Jill I look to you
Every day I wake
And pray the Lord
My soul to take

But before he does
All I ask for
Is the love it takes
To cherish you more

Written: 10/17/01
Words: Walter Koning

One hour to get to work.
Four hours until lunch.
One hour for lunch.
Four hours until the end of the day.
One hour to get home.
One hour for dinner.
One child on the floor.
One TV in the corner of the room.
One recliner just sat in.
One child turns around.
One lap fills the child’s eyes.
One mouth shyly asks, “Is this seat taken?”

Written: 5/27/02
Words: Walter Koning

Cheeseheads are coming
Cheeseheads are coming
Will they bring cheese for me to eat

Cheeseheads are coming
Cheeseheads are coming
Will they have a head that looks like me

Cheeseheads are coming
Cheeseheads are coming
Will they be following a band from show to show

Cheeseheads are coming
Cheeseheads are coming
Will they be dirty and have no jobs
Except what they sell at each show

Cheeseheads are coming
Cheeseheads are coming
Nobody knows
Nobody knows
How large this following will finally grow

Cheeseheads are coming
Cheeseheads are coming

Written: 1/17/02
Words: Walter Koning

It was
Almost more fun
Admiring her from afar
It was
Great having Bren break the ice
I built up
A nerve big enough
To talk to her
And so I walked up
And talked to her
And her friends
Then just to her
For awhile
PR
She does PR
They’ve heard of Red Envelope
Negative Experiences, both of them
She and her friend

4/6/01
Words: Walter Koning

CGonTWTB
I saw her walking home from BART the other night
Skinny legs, high-heeled shoes, skirt around her waist
Backpack over her shoulder and arms shivering
I asked if she was freezing in her oh so business clothes
It was warm this morning, the sun melting Lafayette
Then over the hills you go and it’s cloudy the whole day
I was there, I know, but what about those clothes
I didn’t ask, she didn’t say, we kept up on our way

Like kids in school walking home, I was the boy trying to
Talk to the girl
She was the girl, stringing me along
We had our backpacks
We had boy meets girl
We had just walked from our “school” bus called BART

She said have a good night, I said you too
Now it’s been a week and she’s back
In my mind and on my path to BART
Raining today, still wearing a skirt
Umbrella in hand, still looking good
I casually pass her by then turn and say hello
She acknowledges me, we continue on
No longer school kids I don’t bother her again
A bid farewell at the turn-style
And a few casual glances
So long CGOL
May we meet again

Written: 3/29/01
Words: Walter Koning

7:40 train

Got on at Rockridge

Standing at the door by the end

Let her be

She got off after me