Potholes, An “epic” song inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost by Paul Esch

Potholes, An “epic” song inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost by Paul Esch

I performed the following song live in studio for Joe Soucheray and Matthew "Rookie" Michalski on the Garage Logic Show from KSTP 1500 in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1997.

Potholes got you down?  Hear the recording at https://soundcloud.com/paul-g-esch

Sing Muse,
How heroes fought that day
To rescue from the canyon gray
Dear Mulciber* my Chevrolet.
‘Boding heavens were dark that date,
Perhaps to fatefully indicate
The pothole peril that did wait.
Cursing, yelling, honking hard,
Homeward sped this weary bard
Along St. Peter’s Boulevard.
When into cavern car and all,
Plunging headlong in the fall
I bounced out like a basketball.
O Guilty Gully! O Ravenous Rut!
Whose jaws, this Spring, the crews will shut,
I am the more unfortunate.
But plummeting into Tartarus deep,
Mulciber I can not keep.
He lies at bottom, a hideous heap.
Hook and ladder, hoist and crane,
Too short to draw him from the bane.
Throw flowers, O ye funeral train.

 *Mulciber, known by the Greeks as Hephaesus, by the Romans as Vulcan, was the smithy god whose workshop was in the depths of a volcanic mountain. Milton wrote that he was thrown from heaven,
“By angry Jove, sheer o’er the crystal battlements: from morn to noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day; and with the setting sun dropped from the zenith like a falling star, on Lemnos, th’ Aegean Isle. Paradise Lost, BK I

©1985, 1997 Paul Esch. All Rights Reserved. 651-501-7979

The Paul Esch Band performs 20-25 shows every year.  If you appreciate live acoustic music click here PaulEschMusic.com for our event calendar and more information.