Scrawled into notebooks from the familiar comforts of temporary homes and the passenger seats of mechanically unsound vehicles adrift on the highways and back roads of America, Perfect Sleeping Weather is fifteen years of thoughts, observations, facts, and fictions hammered into a collection of poetry that, according to one reader, "sounds like a sigh."
In this, his first book, writer/drummer/comedian Larry Fulford reflects on the usual -- life, death, love and leaving -- while still managing to name-check Van Halen. Twice.
Sold Out
lyrics
Something about him always reminded me
of my dad’s friend Dan,
but it was strictly physical
and maybe something as simple as the smile.
But, as a kid, I had a thing where I’d compare
my parents’ friends to stars.
Mel was the mall Santa from A Christmas Story.
BJ was a young Merle Haggard.
And Dan was Him,
but not as fast,
not as manic or funny or hairy or strung-out.
And Dan left when dad left,
so not as familiar,
since He stuck around,
willing to walk a tightrope damn near upside-down,
doing whatever it took for us to take the bait.
From the inside pocket of a tiny coat
tucked into the inside pocket of a regular coat
in the innermost closet of an underground bunker
the government nicknamed Inside Joke,
He gave us exactly what we needed
while still remaining Top Secret;
one small step and light years ahead.
If laughter truly does add seconds to our lives,
we owe Him for years.
Meanwhile, our leaders moonlight as war criminals,
or vice versa, and lead us astray,
and it’s never our best interest they have in mind anyway.
The wrong finger’s on the trigger when,
in the other hand, there isn’t a trigger at all.
The wrong mouths blow on trumpets to signal a charge
and, time after time, it’s a false alarm;
The Fonz, fully-armed, jumping the shark,
putting a bullet into the top of its head from mid-air
just to say, “I told you so.”
A country without cause,
a tightrope for a string,
our jesters should be kings.
But someone has to fall
so we can laugh it off
and distract us from the fact
that it will never be.
Our jesters know all too well
freedom isn’t free.
It’s loaned out at high interest rates
to you, and them, and me,
and someone’s putting snipers in the trees.
The worst possible people have paid to play the game
for a chance to be in charge of things,
but our jesters should be kings.
Poet Douglas Kearney and composer/producer/drummer Val Jeanty link up for a a compelling LP that feels like the written word come to life. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2021
