Skip to content
Paltry Sum

Paltry Sum

Detroit Richards

  • The Paltry Sum
  • Send me a note
  • Detroit Richards: Writer Biography
  • Poems
  • Writing the Present
  • Writing the Past
  • Music and Reviews
  • San Francisco Days
Writing the Present by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 21, 2021

If the leaves had memories.

I wonder if trees have memories, if rocks and mountains record life as it passes them by? I wonder if the stones and the mud and the dust and the flowers, if the eagles and the vultures remember us? I wonder if some nameless face in a gas station ever thinks about that woman who […]

More
Music and Reviews by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 21, 2021March 22, 2021

Going over Jordan tonight

Since I spent a day on the road in my memories, driving through the mid west in a broke-down camper, with my family intact, and still some bones of a dream unbroken, there is nothing else to play the night out. Rhiannon Giddens is the founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, one of the most […]

More
Everything by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 21, 2021June 5, 2021

Pelican Rapids, Lightning Lake, Purple Martins and Pot Plants by the Lake

We stayed at the motel that night, and the night after. I slept through the night, curled next to Billy, the kids sharing a bed, got up, had another shower. And another. And another. I turned on the TV and put up with the glares and watched travel channel mindlessness, pawn shops, hot rods, Guy […]

More
Music and Reviews by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 21, 2021March 21, 2021

Punk rock’s wreckless daughter…

I don’t like Tom Waits, I can’t stand Nick Cave unless you get me high enough to tolerate the Birthday Party, I don’t enjoy Mark Lanegan, and I never really fell in love with Rowland S Howard. I will listen to the White Stripes as long as we are on a freeway, but not otherwise, […]

More
Everything by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 21, 2021March 22, 2021

To Minnesota. A whole lotta nothing…

As you go down from my beloved Medora, it becomes quickly apparent that the painted rocks, the hilly landscape of the little town where Teddy Roosevelt tried to make a success of ranching, is not going to last. This is not Montana with it’s skies and Rocky Mountain passes, and huckleberry bushes, this is not […]

More
Music and Reviews by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 21, 2021March 21, 2021

Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain

I’m on a real Miles Davis kick right now. I haven’t been so excited about things I haven’t heard before since, well Marquee Moon was heading home for the record store in a white plastic bag with the infinitely talented Tom Verlaine on the front cover looking like Keith Richards junkier brother. I never understood […]

More
Writing the Present by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 21, 2021March 21, 2021

Fright Club

Evening “wellness checks” happen every night, staff basically come round and check that you and everyone else in the shelter are still alive. Whoever is on duty makes sure you are ok, then off they go. I make sure I am still in my day clothes, have a mask handy, and don’t leave them waiting. […]

More
Music and Reviews by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 20, 2021March 21, 2021

It’s Always Night-Time in Times Square

In my head Times Square exists in perpetual night. It doesn’t exist otherwise. It just springs into life at 9pm, with its lights and its hurry, and it’s bustle, the faces and the scenes and the dingy cafes and tourist scene hustle. Many years ago, I met Billy there, he was carrying a guitar, I […]

More
Music and Reviews by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 20, 2021March 20, 2021

The Not So Real Indian, The Real Deal and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere…right?

It always made me uncomfortable how the teeny bopper mags of the late ’60s tried to sell Neil as “Neil the Indian” when allegedly Neil has no native blood at all, a schtick, a pose, a sympathy at best. Magazines like Teen Screen and Teenset generally referred to him as “Neil the Indian”. In The […]

More
Poems by The Paltry Sum: Detroit RichardsMarch 20, 2021March 20, 2021

It Ain’t You

Going on down the road, Your hand inside my soul Your thoughts in my brain Your gypsy rags on my back Your scars tied in an Old kit bag Nothing is real and Nothing is right Nothing is the same Not even the same old game Of razors on pristine flesh Needles digging new holes […]

More

Posts navigation

Prev Page 1 … Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 … Page 92 Next
  • Cart
  • Checkout
  • Detroit Richards: Writer Biography
  • My account
  • Send me a note
  • Shop
  • The Paltry Sum
Paltry Sum
Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Gema.
 

Loading Comments...