Rats Live On No Evil Star

If any of you are still out there coming to this site, I'm sure it would make Paula happy.  I haven't posted here for over a year..but oh, I still miss her so....the grief has maybe changed, but it will never go away.
I haven't done very well in my quest to get her more published, but haven't given up.
In the meantime, I put out a new album...it has settings of  two of Paula's poems, those being To An Angel, and How to Clean A Sewer (in a piece called Windfall Lemons). And: Rebecca Shrimpton extracted a song from Paula's writing on these blog about the loss of a dear friend. From these House of Toast post: http://paulashouseoftoast.blogspot.com/2013/08/aftermathematician.html

This is the disc....the art work on the front (and the back) is, of course Paula's...

ttps://darrellkatzandthejcaorchestra.hearnow.com/rats-live-on-no-evil-star

This is the first song I've ever written the lyrics to, my rant about Fred Phelps, who you may have read about in Paula's post: http://paulashouseoftoast.blogspot.com/2005/08/fuck-you-fred-phelps.html

The Red Dog Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozgwdtu5hQI

How To Clean A Sewer

Paula Tatarunis 

There lie the rinds of things,

there in the shadows,

the indigestibles

that shamed the tongue.

The wind that howls through

that matter horn;

the dervish fire hose;

the cold and smothering clods;

the snakeroots piercing

the clotted gourd  

to god soul truth love hope heal heart--

there is no fix

but in ash-scour and the scent

of windfall lemons 

from the grove of the last 

dream before you wake.


To An Angel

Paula Tatarunis

Neither arch- or seraph-, 

far too old for cherub, 

more drone than anything,

you punch the guard clock 

of your night watch,

pushing the allowance

of fatigue and indifference,

and haul your yellowing

half-stripped scapulae 

unflappable behind you

and over me. 

Red Sea

Lyrics from the writings of Paula Tatarunis (adapted by Rebecca Shrimpton)

Music by Rebecca Shrimpton  and Darrell Katz

My latest gig nearly did me in

I’m squatting over the embers of myself

Ember and ashes

In the midst, the phone call comes

A stranger reporting a death

I was on a list to call in the event of

And the red, red sea parts for a moment

Then crashes down redder yet

The horse and the rider are swept into

The sea of someone else’s dream

The man I called the Reverend was a Marxist,

An angrily lapsed Catholic,

A man caught between his roots and aspirations

He was my first lover

We were misfit clinging to misfit

Clinging for years then drifting apart.

And the red, red sea parts for a moment

Then crashes down redder yet

He was a grace which like all graces

Was utterly undeserved

Years passed,

The Reverend reappeared

He’d had a hard life, brutal and cruel

But there was more

He’d had a vision of tall, white beings

Radiating love

In the anguish of Being

He’d found JOY, JOY

After he died, I had a dream:

The Rev left a message we’d meet

For a game of Twister

I looked up and there he was

Wearing Ray Bans

Walking away

My broken guardian angel

And the red, red sea parts for a moment

Then crashes down redder yet

He was a grace which like all graces

Was utterly undeserved

May the earthly wind

And the heavenly stars

Sing you to sleep

My old friend