Keeping it Green.

Curled in the middle of an eighteen-year low, I live my life with a green radio.

My radio’s green, an odd looking thing, and for too many years a mystery to me.

The radio’s buzz takes me to a happy New Year,

Where yesterday’s ache will never appear.

The deejay’s called Beam, he says I’m okay, as long as I listen late in the day.

I manipulate memories by changing the station;

It’s a secret fixation, a tempting distraction.

But why can’t I quiet the alto or bass? Am I foolish, addicted, or weak?

Curled in the middle of an eighteen-year low, I live my life with a green radio.

I knew its warm buzz, until the first frost,

When the cold chased the summer till Heaven was lost.

‘Twas eighteen years gone when I took the hook’s bid,

And turned up the radio to drown all my sin.

Green radio stays with me, can’t leave it behind.

It tells me what’s next: mad whiskey or wine.

It’s a master of time, oh it never neglects, to play its jade carols wherever I dance.

Now I play the old records, matters not if I like,

Dead singers like Elvis, Jimi, and Hank.

And I think rather smugly of classmates long dead,

If their music hadn’t frozen they’d be here instead.

Its off-color music’s taught me to lie, for my ways are secret, what I need to get by.

It sounds rather grim when I crave a green track,

But I have to do something, to pay the ice tax.

Only the next day will I worry and fret, when will the green voices freeze me to death?

Yesterday’s soldier is worthy of merit,

For hidden behind their medals, is youth lost in battle.

Debatable recollections modify themselves.

Restless hours take me back to Desert Storm,

Where I’m haunted too often by secret remorse.

A mutiny of mind:

Defiant memories flee through the oil smoke into the cold Arabian stars.

And I’m left with memories of memories, abstract and unclear,

More and more with each passing year.

Even today I’m ashamed of my fatigue,

Of dirty pained faces, and the cordite smell of war.

Green radio helps me escape the nightmare,

And bury my thoughts in bourbon and prayer.

The windows and walls, I have to question,

For they quietly witness my lonely existence.

Did green radio grant me good spirits or depression?

There’s no doubt that I listen too much,

But the radio persuades me, that I’m barely unique.

And it scares me to think, of losing my jade mate.

Could I cope with sour cravings until I escape?

So I hope and I watch, from the flowery back wall,

As the other guys waltz the highlife ball.

I listen to green music until the bell tolls,

When the only dance left, is with the devil himself.

God grant me mercy if I ever come clean,

For I’m olive green dirty, mind, body and soul.

The preacher smells brimstone, and says that it’s me;

That I’ve lost my soul to an evil rock king.

There’s no hurry, I’ll repent the day after today,

And bury green radio to mollify my dread.

And if I choose not, it’s not your affair. Mind your own business; why do you care?

Maybe I’m sick and maybe I’m tired, but this I know:

That everyone has a green radio!

A yearning for cake or a hatred of men,

A skeleton in the closet, that we deny to the end.

Curled in the middle of our very own low, we live our lives with a green radio.

© James E. Cressler Aug 2014