Having a beer with Bob

We talk of losses, dead family, while Bob searches You Tube for old country, cry in your beer music. On the table his Bible is open to Psalms. My mind rages poetry: David sang to God, “I love you; you love me. Zap my enemy.” Sober, the lines come across as trite. Our enemy is ourselves. There is no other. But the beer helps us cope with ourselves. Poems often die when exposed to the light of sobriety. Drunk we sing; and the song is us.

Bob on the guitar and I on the harmonica. We sing our roots and sanctify our despair. Some call it therapy; others—piss and moan. Our understanding is mutual comfort. How much of David was pure blues? All that was left was he, God and the harp song.

In hell one can still sing.

I like this.

Me too, go on Ir! Please!

Thanks, Phoneutria and Orbie. In “Diapsalmata” Kierkegaard tells of an ancient society that roasted people inside metal bulls. The moans and groans of the tortured sounded to watchers like the sounds of the bull. Kierkegaard’s summary was that poets are asked to sing from their pain, which comes across to listeners as sweet sounds.
The old Johnny Cash sings the 9 inch nails song “Hurt”. We listen, Bob and I. We understand.

Cut my wings. Still I will sing as if I had them. The song is loss of things that can never be again. David lost his son Absalom. Bob and I have lost parents, siblings, lovers. The saddest words of tongue or pen are not it might have been. They are it will never be again. “Nevermore” says the raven that picks at the entrails of Prometheus. But the song endures.
And it sounds sweet in the ears of fellow sufferers.

In vino veritas. Latin proverb–“in wine there is truth”.

Music soothes the pain.

Music is a longing, a despair, a melancholy. The despair sounds beautiful to our ears. The greatest poetry is written at a time of sadness. Edgar Allen Poe was demented. Mindless Gonzo was demented. The Joker was demented.

People enjoy hearing the laments of the damned. Heaven and dreams are the purified essence of suffering souls. Anode to cathode. Father to son.

See the above on Kierkegaard. It states the same sentiment.
Baptized in beer, Bob and I sing.

Ir, i sing along with You, just follow the dots.

Can I also have a beer, please?

Ya, wohl, licht oder dark, bitte?

Hell oder dunkel, Orbie? Dunkel, bitte.

Bier_und_Alt-Bier.jpg
Ja, danke!

Ierrellus, are you having a beer with the ILP Bob?


Bob.

No, but I’d like that.
The Bob who sings is my step nephew. He’s a tormented country soul to the bone.

David’s pain songs were a mix of praise to god and lament. So are Bob’s and mine.

I see the dots, but then I’m inebriated. Our song is praise and complaint—all too human. The essence of pain songs is why me?

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