No snow in Alaska No bees in the field No frogs by the river No hands on the wheel No leaders in Congress No brakes on the booze No magic experience No truth in the news No teachers on the playground They can’t protect themselves No songs on the airwaves No food on the shelves Low wages for the workers No workers getting hired No rights & no more unions Speak up & you get fired No days off the schedule No end to the tasks No answers to questions that everyone asks No pause in the battle No one gets a pass There’s no break for the poor & no more middle class No fire alarms’re working The fire escapes are locked No lights in the hallway The fixtures have been hocked No whales in the ocean No robins on the lawn No colors in the sunset Firing squads at dawn No social security It’s stolen by a lie No more going bankrupt You’ll pay until you die This was the land of plenty & everyone gives thanks Now its all gone to shareholders & the CEOs of banks They can’t agree to fix the roads They’d have to

heard the story on the evening news ‘bout the Capulets & the Montagues ryan’s dream on a private highway airport bound the convoy speeds past shanty town bannon’s vision dragons on the sidewalk angels in the trees children on the border cut down like Christmas trees ryan’s sermon he’s my rock & my salvation I shall not be moved & tho a fire awaits you your credit’s pre-approved miller time the hate truck that yr driving the wheels will soon fall off the other pigs yr riding with will push you from the trough the union won the civil war it ended in a rout hatred never wins the day Hitler found that out yes on no you lost your taste for hearing truth then got lost in a polling booth the city is silent the sea is black the sun is cold the cables slack the sky is brick the clouds are fake our votes were cast into the lake fortune cookie “to see what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle.’

https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/PC-Bumble-Bee-day-1_01.m4a This is the Memphis Minnie blues, from the HWY 62 sessions at Sheldon Gombergs’s Carriage House Studio, in Los Angeles, performed on a guitar Ben Harper had just laid on me, a perfect replica of Lead Belly’s Stella 12-string. Bumble Bee was the first song I played on it. This song is Track 1 on a CD of blues, by Buffalo musicians, released to help homeless veterans in the Western New York area. Here is a link if you’d like to receive a copy, and help out a very good cause: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/buffaloblues  

bottomlessness (from Shakespeare Wars, by Ron Rosenbaum) ‘A highly developed, acute servant of other people’s truths.’ ‘He’s someone who empties himself out.’ ‘A million percent alive… this person, walking through the streets of London must have lived each single moment with an incredible richness of awareness, so many levels, infinite levels of meaning.’ ‘ He can overhear and notice two kinds of things: all the life & noise pouring out with great excitement. Yet at the same time, even though he is a very practical man, he can evoke in words faraway worlds, strange tales, astonishing ideas, and develop & link them to an intimation of meaning in society, in regard to the gods, a sense of cosmic reality, these were all pulsing through his mind, all these levels at the same time.’ ‘he didn’t have a lot of quiet attentive people in a dark room such as this.’ ‘It was rather, the most mixed audience that ever existed in the  theater: thieves, pickpockets, whores, drunks, half drunks, brawling in fights. As well as,  of course, the bourgeosie, there for entertainment, sophisticates, looking for the things that are sharp, witty, erudite. It is difficult to understand how deeply difficult the