Stand Against Shame

Live in the light

Dream in the darkness

Believe in the right

And, shut out cold starkness

Revel in blind goodness

Repel all that is bad

Always move forward

And, never act sad

Complete what is broken

Don’t change what is whole

Repeat the unspoken

Climb out of your hole

Be friend to all people

Don’t live in the past

Fly down from the steeple

The die is NOT cast

Stand tall in the wind

With your head in the sky

Open ears to the din

Is the best way to fly

Billy Radd

Asheville

Chasing the Void

When you've been around long enough, you'll eventually understand that you'll never know everything, you'll never experience everything, you'll never see, taste, smell, or feel everything because the concept of "everything" is one big false hope. But, that's OK, because, after a while, you forget about that and just go with the flow, try to stay in the grove, and realize that there is no beginning nor end, only "now" (as everything as it gets) and "not now" - The Void (as nothing as it gets). So, chasing "everything" makes as much sense as chasing The Void - it doesn't.

Billy Radd
Asheville

When Peace?

There is no way to peace; peace is the way."

Mahatma Gandhi, May 8, 1937

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, he’s on top

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, swims a lot

He transmits on all the wave links but receives on only one

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, he’s on top

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, roams The Void

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, can’t avoid

The prayers of all his faithful, who know he is The One

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, roams The Void

With flippers always moving, his shell is hard like rock

Floyd knows we all are sinners, he’s keeper of The Clock

You mock him at your peril, he doesn’t need old priests

You’ll never, ever see him swim up lonely darkened streets

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, he is The One

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle don’t need no gun

His eyes, they are all seeing, his ears, they hear your heart

Floyd the Cosmic Turtle, he’s The One

Billy Radd
Asheville

The Way of Mistakes

Nature makes no mistakes, ever,

for judgement is only the realm of humans.

Animals never go down the wrong path,

for all paths lead somewhere.

Fish never get lost as they swim the waters

as part of the great chain of life.

Trees know their way as they reach for the sun

with their roots seeking water.

The smallest speck and the largest galaxy

unerringly dance in evolving unstable perfection.

Make no mistake about it.

Only humans define good and bad, left and right,

benefit and detriment.

Evil and righteousness are equally meaningless.

Nature moves always, all ways in perfect equity

while we decide to define justice, love and right, 

or prejudice, hate and wrong.

In this way we place ourselves outside nature.

This is our biggest mistake.

Billy Radd

Asheville

The Seed of Artistry

From where does the inspiration of an artist grow?

Some creative seed planted in the forming brain in a mother’s womb?

Does it ride the first morning light peeping through a nursery window?

Is it in the lonely sound of the cold wind of a passing storm,

or the first rain drop to kiss a newborn’s warm face?

Or,

Does it naturally exist in each person’s mind as a condition of being alive,

but is either allowed to wither from disuse or abuse,

discouraged by the constant neglect of others to recognize its existence

or

encouraged with love, attention, opportunity, and conscious nurturing?

Look into the face of an infant.  

Answers lie in the potential of innocence found 

and the eternal opportunity of elders to facilitate emerging art there.

Billy Radd

Asheville

The Moment Critique

Notice the texture, the subtile depth of an edge

the perfect color of the spaces between

where nothing exists

except the potential of an instant

to evolve into what was not

ever before.

Billy Radd

Asheville