Just A Poet

 I’m just a poet
Not an effin’ rock star.

A poet: the lowest of the low,
Good for nada
In most folks’ eyes
Except maybe at presidential inaugurals.

“So, if you’re a poet,
Where are all the rhymes?
This doesn’t rhyme.”

Well, this is free verse:
Rhymes happen sometimes
Here in the Occident
Almost by accident.
You want more rhyming?
Read Ogden Nash or that guy
Foozy in Alley Oop who ends
Every other line in rhyme.
I don’t get paid to rhyme.
I don’t get paid at all.
And that, my friend, is why
We call it free verse.

Bob Loomis, 07-09-2022

Saturday's Child Revisited #1: Hit & Run

 

This is a song I previously posted on my weekly series called Saturday's Child. I think I played ukulele on that video, but this is a sound track of the closest it ever got, sonically, to what I envisioned as a rock song. This is the original band The UnConcord during a practice in 2018. Not a great recording, especially the vocal, but as close as I can provide right now of how I hear this song in my head. Thanks to band mates back then Warren Dreher, Mel Bearns and Mark Thomson.

Hit & Run

The U.S. Holy Gun Blues

I got the U.S. Blues all right,

The ones the Grateful Dead

Used to sing so well

PLUS a whole lot more,

A whole ‘nother level of blues,

The Holy Gun Blues from Hell:

The blues of a parent

Whose child’s been blown away

By a mad young man who’s allowed

To buy a weapon only a real trained

Military killer ought to carry.

I got the no background checks

blues, the crazy hate blues,

The we just don’t give a crap blues,

The moneyed pockets of politicians who

Are in the pockets of the NRA

And gunmakers blues.

I got the Total Dumass Holy Gun

Worshippers Blues, the twisted meaning

2nd Amendment blues misconstrued

By people who never faced hostile fire

And never lost a son or daughter

To bullets from an automatic blues weapon

& will never be in any formal militia but

The Money Militia.

Yeah, I got the U.S. blues all right,

I got the phony views 

Of why we are so beset with 

So many children’s murders, the

We let anyone carry a Holy Gun 

Death stick blues. 

Bob Loomis

06-02-2022

In Memory f the Uvalde, TX mass shoting victims.

Siblings Day 2022

Happy National Siblings Day

to all my unborn siblings

and my siblings in spirit

and to you, brother, 

and to you, sister,

and to anyone

in between.

It's been years

since I've seen 

you all

or even at all.

But I thought

of you a lot

those L.A. afternoons

when Mom was at work

and playmates were

unavailable and

I was too young

to have a car

and go cruisin'

and too old to play

cowboys by myself.

And I think of you

this special day

when, as usual, 

you are once again

unavailable or

out of town

or nonexistent.

It's the thought

that counts.

Or so they say,

Robert Loomis

04-11-2022

Concord CA

Saturday's Child: One More Song by Bob Loomis

This is the last of my 52 weekly original song posts in the Saturday's Child series. I hope you've enjoyed the songs and that if you especially liked any of them you'll include them in your repertoire. I'll be posting other songs in the future, no doubt, but not on a weekly basis. I hope you enjoy this one, thanks for watching!

Saturday's Child: Livin' in The Hills by Bob Loomis

No. 51 of 52 weekly posts of my original songs. This one goes way back. I hope you enjoy it!

Saturday's Child: Among These New Machines By Bob Loomis

No. 50 of the 52 of my songs that I am sharing, one each week. Enjoy!

Saturday's Child: I Can Hardly Even Play The Blues by Bob Loomis

No. 50 of the 52 songs I chose to share on a weekly basis when I began this series. Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoy it!

Saturday"s Child: Is Anybody Really There? By Bob Loomis

A sort of offbeat song appropriate for pandemic times. I hope you enjoy it!

Saturday's Child: Evil, Mean and Ugly by Bob Loomis

My weekly original song post. I hope you enjoy it!

Saturday's Child: I Just Do You by Bob Loomis

My weekly original song post, No. 46 out of 52.  Thanks for watching!

Ukulele Bob Loomis 2022 Newsletter

    Hello, all and Happy New Year! I haven’t sent out a music newsletter in several years now, what with the lack of music performances since 2018 (hand surgery) and COVID (2020 to present). I thought I’d fill you in on my latest creative projects, music and otherwise.

    Musically, I’m a about two-thirds through a weekly series I call Saturday's Child in which I am sharing 52 of my original songs via YouTube and social media accounts.  Here’s a recent posting, “Simple Rhyming Waltz”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVYxSHv_kt4

    The entire series is here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ukebob/videos

    I hope you’ll take a look at them from time to time if you haven’t been following them already. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and provide some feedback if so moved. 

    They are also available via my blog “music words music” along with some cartoons shared over the past year or so and other writing. Please subscribe to it if you like the site and/or don’t want to use YouTube or Facebook for some reason:
https://musicmanna.blogspot.com/

    I hope our Celtic music band The Irish Newsboys can resume performing as as soon as possible to do so safely. We are awaiting developments, COVID-wise. Our Facebook page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/415543328585545

    I continue to play with Blue Eyed Grass, the house band for Save Mount Diablo. We have had several private performances this past summer as I write this and are practicing with our new bass player Dave Schneider. Band mates Ted Clement and John Gallagher and I love having Dave in the band! And BTW, the Save Mount Diablo Web site is a treasure trove of area outdoor information and activities and a worthy cause if you can donate:

https://savemountdiablo.org/

    I’m currently leaning toward more writing projects during the coming year, including tanka, a Japanese poetry form now widely practiced around the world. I’ve had a number of poems published in Ribbons, the Tanka Society of America’s quarterly journal, and one in their 20^th anniversary annual anthology, Dance into The World, published in 2020. I offer it here as a sample:

another spring

weeds sprout

in office planters

    on window ledges

         pigeons strut and coo

    My previous poetry collection, “Till We Have Faces,” is available as either a Kindle E-Book or a paperback at Amazon.com:

https://tinyurl.com/pjud3kc2

    My “as told to” nonfiction adventure story of one man’s experiences in the early marijuana trade, SCORE: Memoirs of A Weed Smuggler,” is also available in either format there:
https://tinyurl.com/awz4waw3

    I hope you are all staying safe through the pandemic and that you have not lost loved ones. I pray that with vaccines and a waning of COVID, surges will become as rare as the other diseases we’ve eradicated in the past.

    Thanks, have a great rest of the New Year! May we be able to freely enjoy live music again in 2022!

Ukulele Bob Loomis

Saturday's Child: Hewitt's Cabin by Bob Loomis

My weekly original song post. I hope you enjoy it!

Saturdays Child: Simple Rhyming Waltz by Bob Loomis

A couple of little glitches in y song for this week, I'm hoping you'll forgive them.  Thanks for watching and have a great week!

Saturday's Child: New Year Prayer by Bob Loomis

Happy New Year, all! Have a great one!

Saturday's Child: Rebel Jesus Cover by Bob Loomis

Happy Holidays, all! Taking a day off from my original song posts to share this one. I hope you like it.

Saturdays Child: Roundtrip Soundtrip by Bob Loomis

My weekly original song post. I hope you enjoy it!

Saturday's Child: Baker's Cove by Bob Loomis

My weekly original song post for 12-11-2021.  I hope you enjoy it!

Saturday's Child: New Gypsy Blues by Bob Loomis

My weekly original song post for 12-04-2021. This one is a new version of a song that dates back to 1970. Enjoy!

Saturdays Child: Maybe I Just Need by Bob Loomis

My weekly original song post for 11-27-2021. Enjoy!