Description

When you understand how a person thinks, speaks, acts, and sees the world, you feel like you know that person.

This is true whether you have spent time with them, or if you have spent time with them through the magic of modern media.

Television, radio, and social media can be used to make sure that people know about you, or they can be used to make people feel like they know you.

I have written a 4-stanza poem from the perspective of 3 different personalities.

The story arc is the same for all 3 poems.

The 4-verse, 4 stanza structure is the same.

The rhyming conventions are very similar.

The only real difference is that these short poems reveal the hearts of 3 different people; their perspectives, their attitudes, their personalities.

My partner Gene Naftulyev directed the singers who turned these poems into blues songs.

You can read the song lyrics in the text of the Monday Morning Memo, or you can listen to the songs in the audio version of the memo.

These are the words to the first poem, and the song that was created from it:

The faster I go, the more I fall behind.

The map is fading in my mind.

Landmarks are not where they were before.

And cars don’t stop at red lights anymore.

I don’t want to be unkind and

Make innocent people feel maligned

But are all the gas pedals nailed to the floor?

Why don’t cars stop at red lights anymore?

Are these people colorblind?

Are their panties in a bind?

Are we fighting in a war?

Why don’t we stop at red lights anymore?

Is there an evil mastermind

Who is making us feel that we are falling behind?

Perhaps we can dangle him in an intersection

And see if he gets a new sense of direction.

© Roy H. Williams
Oct. 18, 2025

The singer of this song seems to be lamenting the loss of leisure. We perceive that he is troubled by the spiraling tyranny of the merely urgent. He doesn’t want to be unkind. His questions about the red-light runners being “colorblind,” or “having their panties in a bind” reveals a comedic wit. We sympathize with him. We agree with him. We like him.

Now let’s tell that same story two more times using exactly the same structure, rhyming scheme, and storytelling devices. The only difference between that first poem and the next two poems will be the differing perspectives of the storytellers.

I do not pretend to be a counselor-at-law,

Or a judge, or a jury from Arkansas,

But my heart does whisper this probing question:

“When did people stop stopping at intersections?”

We heard the words of Moses and foresaw

That we would need to be a nation of Laws.

But Moses did not give us “The 10 Suggestions.”

So why did people stop stopping at intersections?

Do you have a tragic flaw?

Do you look good in-the-raw?

If you want resurrection,

You need to start stopping at intersections.

Do you want sex appeal that makes ice thaw?

Do you want people to look at you with awe?

Do you want to achieve absolute perfection?

Just hit your brakes at the next intersection.

© Roy H. Williams, Oct 20, 2025

That singer has a slightly more antagonistic attitude. His references to Moses and the Law reveal him to be more legalistic than the first singer. His additional comments about “counselor-at-law,” “nation of laws,” “resurrection” and “perfection” reveal the kind of black-and-white clarity that can result from a strict religious upbringing. We cannot be certain of these things, but we suspect them.