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Daily Lyric: JERSEY COLORS

Updated: Apr 2

I wanna talk to you a little bit about the Jersey colors


They come oozing

out of the liquid atmosphere swirling

clinging to the fronts of the buildings

in the early morning

like the thick mist in the seven mile beach swamps

immense intense and totally without sense.


In the spring they howl in orbit

around your head in full regalia

in the fall they turn and descend

in a last-gasp bacchanalia

in the summer and winter they lie dormant

propelled into position

by power chord transition

waiting as by tradition

for the equinox’s punch.


The greens and blues

they come in two by twos

the pinks reds and violets

break majority’s silence

and the yellows they find you

they sneak up behind you

then burst in your face and blind you

with a sunglare schizophrenia.

On the heights by the seaside

they bombard you relentlessly

cresting and pointing

in garish miscellany

to the tune of cacophony

multiplying millennially

fueled hormonally

in sunbeaten libidinous

hysteria.


In the eroded splendor

of more northerly havens

they sedately glide

in muted cadence

like the beach poets’ voices

in resigned complacence

whispering from between

the boardwalk cracks.


Sometimes they haunt the sky

over the ornate peninsula they fly

sometimes in the summer they rise

recharged, engaged, and energized

in brilliant pink refractions

psychedelic reactions

and opposite attractions

between breaks in the suburban camouflage.

But on every clear day

you can see them dawning

into the inverted arena vaulting

twisting, turning, and somersaulting

with a force so vivid and undeniable.


And with the onset

of ethereal evenings

when they’ve completed their carousing

cavorting and careening

they slip out of the exhausted stratosphere

and as lightning to the ground

they find their way down

to the last of the towns

where bygone senses of amusement and merriment

remain and still reign.


Caged in glass and empowered by neon

they whirl and suspend

in centrifugal madness

bouncing back from placid surfaces

they twirl and blend

in splendor and grandness

Roaring and deafening

enticing and menacing

seductive and beckoning

to all who dare:

Approach and then enter

suck the flames from the embers

be engulfed, then surrender

abandon your cares

Don’t ask or inquire

give in to desire

with the multihued fire

you will become one

But strap in and squeeze tight

and stay in the fight

you’ll be spun out in the night

fulfilled and lacking for none.


©2023 The Hesh Inc.

JC swirl
Caged in glass and empowered by neon they whirl and suspend in centrifugal madness

This lyric is a poem inspired by the views I took in when exploring the Jersey Shore immediately after moving there in 1990: an early sunrise over Deal Lake, peeking through the trees of leafy Interlaken; the kaleidoscopic explosion of merchandise in the various boardwalk shops; the interior rivers, like the Mullica and Cheesequake, winding through high reeds and marshes; the Ocean Drive meandering among the back bays and southern shore towns; the sunset at Sunset Beach near Cape May Point; and the whirling neon of amusement park rides at night. The music is a bluesy, psychedelic mashup of the Doors' "Texas Radio," Whitesnake's "Love Man," and Roy Buchanan's "I'm A Ram." If it doesn't make sense, it will when I finally record it for one of my subsequent Soul In Exile excursions.

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