My petunias are none of your business

May 25, 2025 


We played in the dirt 
And you wiggled off my shirt 
You were amusing for a while 
With your agonizing smile

Now it's back to your wife 
Your respectable life
You can think of what we did
When you're playing with your kids 

My petunias are none of your business 
I don't care if you think they're looking nice
My petunias are none of your business
I won't make the same mistake twice 

You’re a weasel and a whiner 
And a coward and a fool
You sit on the council 
With the men who make the rules

It's a talky little town 
And the stories always flow
I’m not really bothered 
By what they think they know

My petunias are none of your business
Another man's gain will be your loss
My petunias are none of your business
Forget about my pumpkins and my squash

By Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Louise Erdrich, Poetry | Leave a Comment »

There’s not a wrong road or a right road

May 23, 2025 



You did the things you did
And here is where you are 
The future pulls us forward
Like the engine in my car

Since you were a kid 
You've been wearing out your luck
And now you're feeling empty
Like the gas in your truck 

There’s not a wrong road
Or a right road
There’s just one road to live
What you gonna take?
What you gonna give?

You can't fix the things you broke
Can't take back what you said
When your dreams go up in smoke 
You gotta make your own bed

The world is changing every day
And you can do it too
You can build your own road
You can create your own view

There’s not a wrong road
Or a right road
There’s just one road to live
What you gonna take?
What you gonna give?

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in If it sounds country, Lyrics | Leave a Comment »

It’s not that I don’t care but the pain is only there

May 21, 2025 


don't ever 
say how i am feeling 
cuz i'm safer not revealing 
life is gonna hurt me
and the world is gonna 
dirt me

It's not that I don't care
But the pain is only there

the piano tried
to tell me
but i didn't wanna
smell me
swept it under the floor
cuz i couldn't
take any more

It's not that I don't care
But the pain is only there

so i'll open
up the door
just a little bit
not more
since you showed
me yours
and there isn't
keeping score

It's not that I don't care
But the pain is only there

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in If it sounds country, Lyrics | Leave a Comment »

All of the suffering the world could ever know

May 10, 2025 

When life is lost to violence 
It diminishes the world
What looks back in the mirror 
When you murder boys and girls? 

Accumulated Silence 
In the face of a Crime
Echoes through the Galaxy 
Beyond all sense of Time 

All of the suffering 
The world could ever know
Exists inside the body 
Of a child who will not grow

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry | Leave a Comment »

Hope and Feeling

May 4, 2025 

You don't have 
To follow trends
If friends object 
Then find new friends

We carry hurt
From days gone by
But you can look it
In the eye

Every day 
Is fresh and new
It doesn’t have to
Shackle you 

Now is time for
Hugs and healing 
Don’t be afraid of 
Hope and feeling

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in If it sounds country, Lyrics | Leave a Comment »

Let sober be your superpower

April 19, 2025 


You can tweak your neurotransmitters
Every single day
You can live inside a bottle
But the pain won't go away

You can obey your ball and chain
But it isn't very sane
Missing out on all that sunshine
There's such a better way 

Let sober be your superpower 
In control and not so dumb
Clean and free and unencumbered 
Many happy days to come

Building life around addiction
Crashing cars, constructing fiction
You'll always be a victim
When you're crawling in the haze

Quitting’s hard but drinking’s worse
Don't live your curse inside a hearse 
The choice is yours if you accept it
Wake up fresh and seize the day

Let sober be your superpower 
In control and not so dumb
Clean and free and unencumbered 
Many happy days to come

By Richard W. Bray

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Posted in If it sounds country, Lyrics | Leave a Comment »

All that lives outside us

April 11, 2025 

In slow sustained consistent vibration all over outside
Tapping window, streaking roof,
               running down runnel and drain
Waking a sense, once more, of all that lived outside of us!
–Delmore Schwartz 

All that lives outside us
The Gift that grows and guides us
An ocean and a windstorm
And a flame

The sun that warms and feeds us
Though it doesn't need us
I'm pretty sure it loves us
Just the same 

Fade into what sustains us
What bleeds and entertains us
What drizzles from above us
Down the drain

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Delmore Schwartz, Poetry | Leave a Comment »

The Tyranny of the Therapeutic

March 27, 2025 

I’ve been seeing my psychiatrist
For thirty-seven years
We've almost cleaned up
The mess between my ears

I'm passive-aggressive 
With an abnormal brain
I got second opinion 
And it turns out I'm insane

I'm neurotic and psychotic
With an overactive id
I've got as much self-control
As a four-year-old kid 

I'm masochistic, melancholic
And I can't match my sox
I spend my free time 
Inside Skinner's Box

I'm egocentric, schizophrenic
And crazy till the end
I'm on every single page
Of the DSM 

My personality disorder
Is self-actualized 
And my alter ego
Is just one of the guys

My inner child's an old soul
But I'm still Jung at heart
Regression and depression
Haven't stilled my manic heart 

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in If it sounds country, Lyrics | Leave a Comment »

Drowning in resentment on an endless doom scroll

March 17, 2025 

Milton was right 
We make our own hell
You won't find salvation 
In a wishing well

Drowning in resentment on an endless doom scroll
Thinking a mirage was gonna make your life whole

You weren't living a life
You were playing a role
Searching your feed
For a new heart and soul

Drowning in resentment on an endless doom scroll
Thinking a mirage was gonna make your life whole

Leaching off the shadow
Of a fancy façade
Staring into the void
And mistaking it for God

Drowning in resentment on an endless doom scroll
Thinking a mirage was gonna make your life whole

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in If it sounds country, John Milton, Lyrics | Leave a Comment »

Regret and doom and wasted days

March 13, 2025 

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
– T.S. Eliot

Persistent pain in memories
A cup, a couch and you and me
I'd rather howl and sing with trees
Than try and explain

What I said and what I meant 
Tattered talk of betterment
Love was lost or was it spent?
Is anybody sane?

Terrified to close the mouth
Comfort when the words come out
Streams and streamers spit and shout
Alleviate the brain

There's no returning, you and I
Round the moon and by and by
Fog that fills the earth and sky
It leaves a dreary stain

Through the yellow nightmare haze
Regret and doom and wasted days
You can't fool fate in Shakespeare plays
You can't escape the rain

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry, sad songs, T.E. Eliot | Leave a Comment »

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