Kevin Trent Boswell

Get Yourself a Dog

Everything crumbles, fails and breaks
All of it in shambles, all in due time
Crushing, the endless slew of heartbreaks
Before that long nap we take in the lime

One plan works out and we give many thanks
Success, daring us to dream more grand
Shedding tears, when another one tanks,
Going not-at-all how we’d imagined or planned

Through all of the ups, downs and plateaus
At the end of each, long, tired day
There’s some place that each of us goes
Where to rest, our heads down, we do lay

Some sleep in luxury, like kings and queens
Lovers in silk sheets, fathers and mothers
With children nearby, in comfortable means
Dreaming of futures, brighter than others’

Those on whom fortune never gives a call
More than just some, a much larger number
In hovels, which are hardly homes at all
In cars, shelters or alleys, they slumber

Each type faces their own, unique struggles
Days, a mix of good and bad, one discovers
Either one goes down easier with snuggles
With a little love, one more quickly recovers

Turbulent, these unplanned ups and downs
Coming home, victorious or beaten by the fight
Smiles are always more welcome than frowns
But not everyone thinks you’re such a delight

People are critters possessed of great capacity
For cruelty, murder, greed and deceit
But a dog is a true friend and lacks the ability
To ignore you, to lie, betray or mistreat

A puppy is always ecstatic to see you
When you’re gone for minutes or many an hour
And there’s very few things one can do
To cause their opinion of their master to sour

Get yourself a dog and to it, commit
Good food and walks, like clockwork
Never hit it or neglect, the least little bit
Remember well that dogs don’t speak Jerk

Every day, that dog, you have to be earning
Their kindness, something we don’t deserve
Train yourself, lots and lots of learning
How a happy, healthy dog, to preserve

Get your lazy butt up, take it on a walk
Read everything you can find about training
Give it routine and real love, not just talk
When they misbehave, your anger, restraining

Don’t try to reason with a dog, silly human
Learn their language, don’t angrily assume…
It doesn’t speak English, you have to illumine
You have to be the adult in the room

Pay no attention when they do naughty stuff
Lavish them with praise whenever they do right
Patiently teach them, never yell or be gruff
And you’ll know in the end, it was right

Because days… you’re going to have all kinds
Tragedies and celebrations, galore
Friends come and go and lovers lose their minds
But a dog will adore you now and evermore

Where we humans go, when our lights go out
Is a thing that we hotly debate and discuss
But all dogs go to heaven, without any doubt
Because dogs are far better people than us

No Rules

Grief possesses no blueprints
There is no schematic
For how to remember
Or to forget

While walking the gray path of
All the scattered leaves and ash
Of what was

There is no rhythm
To which you might match your steps

No beat
To keep time

There is only the labored,
Slouching forward,
Whenever one’s strength allows;
Coming and going as it does,
In sloppy, uneven, hot flashes

There is no wrong way to lament

There is no proper sequence
For when to laugh,
To cry or to sleep

There is no cutout pattern
For your sack cloth

No clock chimes,
Letting you know that it is now time
To rend your garments,
To rub dirt in your hair

Anyway, time itself is mourning,
Right alongside you

Put your ear to the clock,
Listen closely…
You will hear it quietly sobbing

But time is only an illusion
And being an illusion,
It can only mean that…

Time…
Is nothing more
Than you

So, like you, time is
Absolutely beside itself with sadness

All formalities have fallen by the wayside

It flops, impotently, like a fish
One that miscalculated its angle,
On the jump for a mosquito;
It has now managed to strand itself,
On a parcel of ground

No idea which way it should
Violently spasm,
That it might get back
Into the good, wet stuff

Time grieves with you,
Throttling too quickly
In this

Grinding clumsily along
In that

Fortunately,
Since time is nothing…
Nothing more than you…
It is always the
Perfect time to do
Whatsoever your
Stunned spirit
Feels like doing

Sleep
Or do not

Eat
Or wait for a while

Wail
Or be silent

Work
Or linger in lethargic stupor

Laugh
Or find joy in nothing

Do whatever is best
Or worst

And the rest will wait

There is no hurry

For, in the end,
There is nothing
That we can do
For the dead

They all wait,
Patiently, quietly…
To be us

And we,
Them

Photo courtesy of Ekaterina

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White Elephant

Here’s the music video for my song White Elephant.

Collegiate Definition

White Elephant
noun

1: an Asian elephant of a pale color that is sometimes venerated in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar
2a: a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit
b: an object no longer of value to its owner but of value to others
c: something of little or no value

If I’d known all of this, back then,
I’d have learned how to leave
Arguing for something
In which you never believed

Hidden beneath gifts and gestures
And a sexy smile
Promises of forever,
Dipped in poison and guile

“Nothing is wrong.”
A comforting lie you could sell
I vaguely recall something about
Good intentions in hell

The dark witch’s oracle warned,
I shouldn’t let you pass
I taught myself to trust your love
And it bit me in the ass

White elephant on the bed
Whispers softly
“Come hide in the silence
Of secrets and shadows, with me.”

Mocked me at every chance,
Made sure everyone heard
For cruelty such as this,
I’m not sure that I know the word

Revenge is ill-suited to love
And so, I decline
The idea that mercy is weakness
Is yours and not mine

The way you spit venom
At those who tried to help you
I’ve no need to raise my bitten hand,
Your destroyer is you

The dark witch’s oracle warned,
I shouldn’t let you pass
I taught myself to trust your love
And it bit me in the ass

White elephant on the bed
Whispers softly
“Come hide in the silence
Of secrets and shadows, with me.”

All words and music
©2021 Kevin Trent Boswell

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Special thanks to the following people for providing the video footage and photos. If you enjoyed the visual aspects of the video, the credit is all theirs.

parody

in the sixties and seventies,
everyone went over the top

musicians wore outlandish costumes
and behaved as if they were invincible

sometimes, they believed it

but mostly, it was because they had
seen through the facade of the system

they did lots of psychedelic drugs
which taught them that everything…
and yes, i do mean… everything…
is utterly ridiculous

there’s literally nothing you can say,
think, feel, believe, wear or do
that isn’t… just plain silly

rather than take ourselves seriously,
why not revel and delight
in the temporal, inane
shenanigans that are
our lives…

ourselves

these days, everyone is
up their own asses,
again

everyone is busy, twenty-four-seven,
trying to convince everyone else
that they’re the coolest, that they’ve
got it all figured out

“if you’re into disco, you’re not cool,
because disco was silly and they just thought it was cool, before everyone knew better”

“if you’re into _______,
then you’re not cool, because ________.”

put whatever you want in there,
classic rock, polka, country, surf music…
whatever

someone is going to be
actually offended
that you like it

“if you’re into that, then you’re not cool,
because that’s not what i’m doing
and i’m pretty much the only one
who’s doing what’s cool.”

it only tells us
how terrified you are
of our opinions
of you

and that’s really
the only thing
that sets you apart as being
truly ridiculous

it’s the
not knowing
that you’re ridiculous

that not knowing
is what makes you comical, farcical

acting cool is cool
but believing you’re cool…
well, that just makes you
kitschy instead of campy

but if you start right out of the gate,
convinced that everything about you
and what you’re doing
is utterly ridiculous,
with the intention of milking that silliness
for everything it’s worth…

then it’s not ridiculous at all,
however ridiculous it is

and it is

for the love of god,
please stop trying to convince us
that you’re cool
and that what other people are doing
isn’t

it only makes you into
a sad caricature,
a parody

you see, we really don’t care
what you do,
as long as you do it
with all of your heart
and soul

put on a ten gallon hat
deck yourself out in wild makeup
wear a smoking jacket
sing out of key… in pig latin
play bongos while tap dancing
do the tango to speed metal
dress in leather and do opera
dress in drag and do gangsta rap
wear a suit and tie while you
sing outlaw country music

just know
beyond any shadow of doubt,
that before,
during and
after…

that you were,
you are and you
always will be

ridiculous

and we’ll absolutely
love you for it

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patience

there’s an air of it
all about the farm, today

having stepped briefly outside
for the dogs to tend their needs,
between pockets of rain,
buckets of it, steadily dropping,
now halted for a short while;
a temporary ceasefire,
however tenuous

everything damp
the cows,
they look like cardboard cutouts,
propped up in the fields

an air of patience leans in,
whispering to me
“the world will wait for you. it will wait.”

it’s an enticing thought,
though, steeped in bitter lies,
it most certainly is

the world waits for no one

the world gives not a single, used damn for you

not for your upper respiratory infection
not for your needing to heal, before you can
move on and finish up all those projects

the world thinks nothing
of burying your carcass in its garden

you’ll make good fertilizer
for its flowers,
it does care about those;
far, far more than it does about you,
at any rate

lots of useful minerals and nutrients
in a decaying human body;
should produce some prize petunias

but all this relaxed barometric pressure
the gentle, lilting fog,
the peaceful quiet,
the slow, calm meandering
of the dogs
and these fake cows

today, it all conspires

enveloping me
in pleasant, wistful fictions,
treating me as its mushroom,
kept in the dark of convalescence
and fed the manure of untruth

back inside, now
the humidifier is gurgling its gentle truths
i dive into the recesses of its deep end
swimming in the mists of vapor,
hints of rosemary, clove, camphor
and the other, colorful fish
who lurk in its dark ocean

i take leisurely swims
in the splintering, fingering streams
of the internet
and all its watery amusements
it too, tells me
wonderfully entertaining lies,
everything i want to hear
and more

but i know better…
about the world
and the possibility of it
patiently waiting

i know how it will steamroll
right over the slow,
the weak, the poor, the infirm,
the drowning;

those who are drowning in debt,
drowning in heartbreak,
drowning in their own lungs

the world is all too happy
to step on their heads,
with its heavy boots
and its callous lack of caring

it cares not
for your concerns
of convenience

i know of the world,
how it is
how it always
will be

i know of the world

i know that,
at least for now,
i will stay here,
in this little, comfortable blindspot,
a nook, a cranny
which the world has
somehow overlooked,
somehow erroneously
missed

the world
be dammed

if you ask me,
it has gotten
its own way
for far
too long

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Hoochie Coochie Man (Slight Return)

Here is my cover of “Hoochie Coochie Man”. This tune was written by the preeminent Godfather of the Blues, Muddy Waters.

Muddy Waters, The Godfather of the Blues

The lyrics are heavily laced with references to the Hoodoo conjure tradition of the American South. One commonly misunderstood line is:

I got the John the Conqueror Root

I’m gonna mess with you

To mess with someone was to put roots on them, meaning to cast spells on that person.

The root known as John the Conqueror (Ipomoea jalapa) is widely regarded as one of the most powerful roots or Plant Spirits; if not the most powerful.

The root, all by itself, was potent and to possess it was to hold power to exert one’s will. However, to possess a mojo hand (aka, mojo bag), made and empowered by a knowledgeable rootworker, was an awe-inspiring thing.

It was not a simple matter to travel to Louisiana and get a mojo, especially for a Black person, who had less opportunities and greater obstacles. If you wanted the magick, the only way to get it was to find a skilled doctor.

This was a man or woman who knew how to coerce the Spirits to work on their behalf. First, you had to find a rootworker and then you had to convince them to make a hand for you and pay them whatever their fee was, no questions asked.

Any rituals they prescribed you or tasks assigned must be followed scrupulously. But once you had a mojo hand, especially one containing John the Conqueror, it meant that you were a force to be reckoned with.

I’m doing all the guitar, bass and vocal parts on this track. I added Slight Return to the title as a little tip of the hat to another major influence of mine, the immortal Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was well aware of the lore mentioned here and his song “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” references similar themes.

During the last verse, you’ll see a quote, placed over a pic of Muddy Waters. It comes from the movie Crossroads, starring Ralph Machio; not to be confused with the movie Crossroads, starring Britney Spears.

It’s the story of a young, classical guitarist who dreams of nothing but playing the Mississippi Delta Blues. He’s a classical music major at The Juilliard School of Music but is mostly obsessed with Robert Johnson, arguably the greatest blues man ever.