The cities are shaking with the rumble of traffic
It seems like half the birds are missing toes
The sunbeam on her face makes her look seraphic
Laying amongst the bedsheets, wearing no clothes.
It’s a cold water flat and the sink’s always dripping
The winter sun’s horizontal, weak, and cold
There’s snow on the sidewalks, people are slipping,
And it seems that, long ago, the city’s heart was sold.
Then he turns her head, and he kisses her lips
She wraps her arms around him, sees his eyes above;
She spreads her legs and lifts her hips,
And in the cold and lonely city, they fall to making love.
A short time later, and already they’re both old and grey.
That’s just the way time goes, just the way life is.
They grew together and grew their own way
Till not even they knew what was hers and what was his.
Because on that day, all those years ago, they traded hearts.
He gave her his, and she gave him hers,
And he said, “Life is made of new beginnings and old parts,
But what I have you can have, and what is mine is yours.”
And she took what he had, and she gave herself to him.
They gave each other everything; nothing did they save,
Sharing the thoughtful moment, and the slightest whim,
Until there was nothing they could give, that they hadn’t already gave.
In the pond, between brown trout and rock dove,
Spawns the short-lived mayfly,
Who, like brief life and yet briefer love,
Exists for a revolution and then does die.
Between the head of the path and its end,
Whether it be hard stone or soft dirt,
Whether it lies straight or climbs and bends,
In life, in love, there is pain, and there is hurt.
We are mayflies, alive for but a brief time,
Inhabitants together of these strange parts;
Why, then, should we give our prime
To anything but what is dearest to our hearts?
George Seurat – A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
The Fleet Girl
There once was a girl with no feet
Who nevertheless was really quite fleet
She raced an arrogant man
Who sneered as he ran
Until he lost by a foot in the street!
The Girl Who Did Handstands
There once was a girl with no hands
Who nevertheless loved doing handstands
She’d stand on the stumps of her wrists
As if they were fists
And wave her legs in the air for her fans!
The Blind Man Who Saw Through Lies
There once was a man with no eyes
Who nevertheless saw very well through most lies
Whether the lies were subtle or bald
And whether they soothed or appalled
Before the blind man they had no disguise.
Under the naphtha torch’s light lie tailings of ore.
Shadows flicker on a collapsed mine shaft
Which fell one night like a melancholy piano score
On men whose lungs tore each time they laughed.
And here the mercury man’s shop stands on mud.
His skin’s peeling off. His ankles are deathly thin.
He washes gold in a mercury-filled pan of wood
Then sets that metal in fire to burn away its silver skin.
What will become of him?
He will work for little, until he dies.
He will lie, cold and grim,
Amid the gold that draws our eyes.
On an autumn morning, chill and fair,
early snow slicks Istanbul’s cobblestones,
baklava scents the Bosphorus air,
and caressing lovers lie as bare as bones.
Leafless branches reticulate the Charles Bridge,
while wind knots the old square’s fog;
crows stare balefully from Saint Vitus’ ridge,
and lovers vanish in the shadows of Prague.
One spring day in the serried Balkans,
where the granite rises in a sagittate spine,
amidst meadows and wildflowers two lovers lie talking,
deaf to the world in the midst of that chine.
Each lover’s story is like a scene in an arras,
woven by hand from Kabul to Paris,
in the dells, the cities, and the lands in between,
where time doesn’t matter in the weave of the scene.
I write a lot of poems and short stories, and I can’t remember them all. The Prison was one that I found recently. Usually, finding a poem will bring back a memory. Not so with The Prison. I had no recollection at all of writing it.
First I Googled The Prison to make sure that it wasn’t a poem that I’d liked which someone else had written. It turned out not to be someone else’s poem. It turned out to be mine. As I hunted, I found drafts of The Prison on my computer. I had indeed composed this poem fifteen years ago, and I had just forgotten about it completely.
When I found the drafts, I remembered what I was doing at the time. I was in college, and I had been reading Graham Greene’s The Power and theGlory and thinking of his famous character, the Whisky Priest. Around that same time, I was also interested in the crisis in Burma (which is how Myanmar was called back then), and thinking of the Whisky Priest and the Burmese Crisis together led me to this poem.
It’s a rhyming poem that talks about how a prisoner and his jailer wait in the sloughs of inactivity.
Barb wire at Darul Aman Palace, 2009. Afghanistan.
He sat as the only prisoner beneath the low hanging ceiling with a drip
in the humid cell with the small barred window that looked into the jungle,
and he looked in at the captain who struck a match for the cigarette between his lips
while outside the rain splashed into the ferns and the dense vines’ tangles.
The captain was leaning back in his chair, and he was playing solitaire
with a pack of dog-eared cards as a ceiling fan spun slowly overhead
like a child pushing against a mountain, for the fan could not move the heavy air,
while the rain poured down in drops as big as grapes and as heavy as lead.
The prisoner knew that in this prison there was no time or meaning to life
that the thing to do was to survive with as little pain as one could manage,
and the captain coughed after he exhaled and set the matchstick near his knife
then set his chair down and laid his elbows on the table, rickety with age.
The captain turned over his card, and the prisoner watched with interest
for there was nothing to do in the monotony except to stare,
like living in the doldrums on the sea, and it seemed killing time was best
so the prisoner watched as the captain leaned back again in his chair.
The captain studied his cards, and he took the cigarette out and exhaled.
The smoke drifted up to the ceiling fan, and the fan dispersed the smoke,
then the captain laced his fingers behind his head, for his interest had failed,
and the prisoner glanced down and fingered his shoelace, which was broke.
Then the prisoner knew the electricity went out because the fan slowed and stopped,
but there was no change in the captain, so the prisoner lay back on his bed
and listened to the dull music of water as the rain continued to drop;
there was no wind, and there were no thoughts in the prisoner’s head.
Far in the distance came the deep whoomping sound of a mortar being fired,
so the prisoner lifted his head, and he glanced at the captain
but the captain hadn’t moved; he either hadn’t heard or was just too tired,
and the prisoner glanced around gloomily at the cell he was trapped in.
It was made of stone and cement and contained a toilet, a sink, and a bed.
The bed was a mattress without box springs, sheets, or pillows,
and on that mattress the prisoner lay again, his hands beneath his head
and considered briefly, without contrition, the paths that he once chose.
Six months ago, a white woman had entered the prison, and the captain stood straight,
and the prisoner spoke in his broken English to make the woman smile,
and after the translator interviewed him, the prisoner knew she had come too late,
for the prisoner felt her presence not as a warmth but as a kind of wicked trial.
And it used to be that on Fridays, the captain would serve them both coffee.
The captain would sit next to his cell and hand the coffee through the bars,
sometimes they would play cards and even talk in a way that was almost free
and the prisoner learned that his jailer, too, was a prisoner of the long hours.
Now the captain leaned back in his chair with his eyes shut, and the prisoner slept,
and there were no sounds except the steady drumming of the rain.
Whoever fired the mortar did not fire it again, and the peace was kept,
and the electricity returned, so the fan began to turn again,
then the captain opened his eyes, he lit another cigarette with a match,
and he shook the match’s flame out with a few flicks of his wrist
and the captain considered the loneliness of his official watch
and put out of his mind those chances that he had always missed.
I’ve begun work on a murder mystery and industrial espionage novel. Accordingly, the old cerebrum is tracking toward the cloak-and-dagger.
Two Scornful Armies
Two scornful armies embrace in cataclysm
With death to grace their nihilism,
Like frosted roses on a cake
Like two hearts coupled just to break:
War’s inferno blurs in disinterest’s dulling prism.
The Architects of Espionage
The dour architects of espionage
With greedy eyes doth sabotage
Their own lightless souls
Their own kingdoms of coal
And raise in their place a palatial mirage.
A Spy
What qualities are inborn in a spy?
A treacherous hand, a furtive eye.
Men of gnomic aspirations,
Fertile libidos, splashy libations,
But most: a fool’s insistence to die.
The Cigarettes were a hard core band full of righteous punks and rage,
The singer supported anarchy and sang it out on stage;
Lily was the drummer girl, a saucy lass in black,
She wore a fishnet pair of slacks, her thong rose out the back.
Jimmy was the trumpeter, always barefoot when he played,
Smoking reefers in the club and forever getting laid.
Molly was the bassist, she was a poet in her soul,
Writing chords and lyrics about Hell and money and control.
The city board of Farmington, a town conservative and straight
Booked The Cigarettes unwittingly for their Annual Harvest Fête,
When October came around the leaves turned orange and black,
The pumpkins ripened on their vines, the hay was heaped in stacks
Mrs. Trot put on a dress, her corset, stockings, and her hat,
And toodled out with Mr. Trot who was wearing his cravat.
On the way they met the Smiths who ran the local mill,
They were dressed in modest best, as humble as a hill.
The evening started very fair, with meats and fruits and pie,
There was cider in the goblets and a pretty autumn sky,
And then the band began to play, you could hear them from a mile:
A pounding drum, an ominous hum, the locals lost their smiles,
Then on the stage a screaming rage, as the singer yowled and croaked,
The sun went down, the lights came on, the fires flared and smoked!
The locals of Farmington were first transformed by fear,
And then they caught the wind of it and began to lend an ear!
“This band is fuckin rockin!” shrieked Mrs. Trot and threw the horns,
“Yeah, this is how we celebrate the reaper and the corn!”
And soon enough the town of Farmington said to Hell with our respect!
And threw themselves into a night of drink and dance and sex!
And every year thereafter… the townsfolk booked The Cigarettes!
There are many things that go bump in the night:
Monsters and coal stoves can cause us some fright.
There are creaky old floors and loose attic fans,
Leaves in the wind, and tumbling garbage cans.
But sometimes you’re sleeping and a missile will roar,
Like those over England in the Second World War.
And that, my darling, is when I’ll come for you,
When the night is stygian, colored deep black and dark blue,
You’ll see, my friend, by the light of a bomb,
My grin broad and lethal, my eyes full of calm,
And I’ll crook a green finger for you to come here,
And when you reach my side, then it’s Death for you, dear.
For that is my name, my ancient job, my old trade,
I’m the one who waits by the road in the glade,
I’m the one who whispers your one and true name,
The one who ignores both your money and fame,
I’m the one to watch out for, by town or by cave,
I’m the one to spirit you along to your grave.
The Disappearance of a Cat is a sestina. My dictionary defines a sestina as “a poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet, all stanzas having the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern, and with all six words appearing in the closing three-line envoi.”
The Disappearance of a Cat was written at a time when I was listening to a lot of David Bowie, and it was written with him (especially Ziggy Stardust) in mind. It’s about a rock star, a cat, who chooses to disappear from fame.
Red curtains billowed open for that cat;
he waltzed onto the hardwood, so loaded,
his mouth slightly ajar, green eyes sparkling,
luring us into his act—a spider
deftly beckoning, weaving to music
of his own creation, dreamy and gold.
A costume hallucinogenic and gold,
he broke out with a well hung air, that cat
mortified the wild crowds, overloaded
as we were with his glitter and sparkling
hair. He played implications of Spider
and Cherry Wolves, lost in his own music…
*****
Is it madness? the press asked, Your music? Tell us, how do the things you touch turn gold?
He shrugged, slunk away like a peevish cat,
but turned, It’s all in how you get loaded— swig the right juice, you’ll be loved, sparkling; if not, you’ll be trite, clichéd, a spider.
And there’s nothing so lethal as spiders, save snakes, executives, and flat music- but every new enigma is choice gold.
We all dug his edgy airs, his cool-cat
Oscar Wilde imitations, stacked and loaded
as they were in packages, all sparkling
and convenient, quickly shipped to sparkling
masses and to the corporate spiders.
And everyone bought his life, his music,
his t-shirt. His album went silver, gold,
platinum; Rolling Stone begged for that cat
to pose, provocative and well loaded.
Vulgar, he said. Not a chance. But, loaded
and stoned, his agent dragged him in, sparkling
as wine, and spread him out on a spider
divan with eight purple arms, swank music
regaling him throughout. And royal gold
sashes were draped across the kingly cat.
*****
One day he found nothing more in music-
each grain of gold vanished, nothing sparkling
left. And he disappeared with it, that cat.
The Pied Piper of Hamlin
There once was a man with a pipe
With pants of a kaleidoscope type
When the mayor reneged
He played a cruel gigue
And left the townsfolk to gripe.
Two Adventurous Friends
There once were two young friends
To whom adventure did always attend,
They lived a wild life,
Walked the edge of a knife,
And hoped the days would never end.
War
Shine, shine oh bitter light
Upon the soldier battle-bright
Through rocket’s array
And ghastly fray
Thy light the tracery of our night.
I’m sick today, my throat is red;
I’m sick today, I’ll stay in bed.
My body’s sore, I don’t feel right
I sweated through the endless night.
I’m sick today, I think I’ll die.
I’m sick today, this is goodbye.
I feel all achey, my head’s not straight.
My body’s stopped, my brain is late.
Thanks for the Get Wells and your smiling face;
I need no soup; I’m a hopeless case.
Thank heaven for my pillow, and thank heaven for bed,
I’ll lay in mine until I am dead.
Then you can put me in the coffin,
And lower me down,
My friends will weep,
When I’m in the ground
Where I’ll be amongst the spiders and ticks,
The worms and beetles and… Oh! I am sick.
Bleh.
The Williams host a fine dinner party, but a monster shows up uninvited, wearing a tuxedo and monocle.
A fine party was thrown at the Williams’ home,
And the guests they all wore their best.
Lily had come with her hair in a bun,
A tennis bracelet, and a brooch at her breast.
And Cindy’s diamonds did shine,
While her emeralds looked fine,
And the gentlemen wore cuff links and vests.
But of all the attendees who came,
One was not quite the same—
He stood out from the rest of the crowd.
He wore a suit (that is true),
And he had polished his shoes—
But it wasn’t his clothes that stood out…
He was a good nine feet tall,
And nearly as wide as the hall…
With a face like a tyrannosaur!
He was mottled and scaly,
His white eyes glimmered palely,
And on his sharp teeth were remnants of gore!
Mrs. Williams she said,
“Now I may be misled…”
(Here she gave her husband a forward shove)
“But you should tell him, my love,
That although we’re delighted,
This fellow has not been invited,
And this party is just not for him.
And if he’s aggrieved,
Well, firmly ask him to leave,
And tell him we’re sorry, but there’s been a mistake.”
So Mr. Williams approached the stranger and said,
“Good evening, my name is Fred,
But then Fred stopped himself there…
Because the monster gave a menacing glare,
And Fred’s heart dropped in his chest for a mile
Before he steadied himself and put on a diffident smile.
“Ahem! My friend!” Fred began again,
As he puffed his chest and sucked his gut in,
“Well, I see that you have six arms!
And that’s just one of your charms—
For at the end of your arms there are claws,
And razor sharp teeth in your crocodile jaws!”
At that the monster gave a broad grin,
That creased his pebbly skin.
Then the monster looked through his monocle,
That made his eye seem maniacal,
And he took his top hat off his head.
And wouldn’t you know it,
But there were two antennae and so it,
Seemed he had already heard everything that Mrs. Williams had said.
The monster said, “I hope you won’t fret,
If I’m not ready to leave just quite yet,
Because the reason I’ve come,
Is to feast upon some
Of the guests whom I have just met!”
Then the monster flexed his great chest,
And the muscles burst out of his vest
Revealing skin that was like a dinosaur’s!
There was screaming and wailing amidst his terrible roar,
As the monster broke from his formal wear,
He commenced to rip and to tear
The doors from the walls
The ceilings and halls,
And to destroy everything that was in sight
He ate up Mrs. Williams,
And her diamonds worth millions,
And then he disappeared into the night.
When the dust cleared from the raid
And all the guests stood afraid
One man stood up and began to proclaim,
“Well, Mrs. Williams she was a fine host,
And so I propose a fine toast,
Of her finest and Frenchest champagne!”
And so the glasses were raised
And the revelers continued on in their ways,
Drinking and dancing that night.
For it’s better to stay up,
Through the small hours and sup,
Than to try to sleep while you’re frozen with fright!
Two skateboarders ate a pizza pie
While switch smithing at Hollywood High.
They got switch feebles; they got nollie tres;
They got onions and tomatoes and peppers for days…
Chris was wearing black, and Lux was wearing pink,
Chris he had the piercings, and Lux he had the ink…
Chris he frontside flipped it, laid down a Muska hammer,
The cops showed up, and they hauled them to the slammer.
Well, the pizza it got lonely, it was chillin in the box,
It stood up on its crust, said, “I feel as burly as an ox!”
The pizza looked around through its pepperoni eyes,
And the folks who saw it standing up were taken by surprise!
The pizza took a handful of melted mozzarella
And styled it like the haircut of one very sick fella—
At the tip of its slice was a cheese mohawk,
And the pizza swaggered and it staggered down the L.A. block.!
The pizza gave a knuckle bump of crushed red pepper
To the homeys and the players, the pimps and high steppers!
The girls smelled its fine aroma on the September breeze,
Said, “I want all of that, without the calories!”
Well the slice kept on walkin Highland Avenue
Said, “I’ll stop and Dave and Buster’s, and there I’ll grab a brew.”
So he waltzed on in to the restaurant,
And a fellow looking down said, “This is what I want!”
Then he picked up and ate the slice of funky pizza.
Here are three limericks–dark, grim, and surprising–to enrich your Sunday.
The Bright Butterfly
There once was a bright butterfly,
Who made cheerful the air of the sky,
Three wicked children of kings,
Tore off its fair wings,
Though not even they could ever say why.
The Pennsylvanian-Era Pig
There once was an archaeological dig
On which they found a Pennsylvanian pig
They said How bizarre! This pig is too early by far!
So they baked it and ate it with figs!
The Violent Boy
There once was a violent boy
Who thought the world was only his toy
He began every fight,
And made girls weep from his spite,
And he grew into an old man with no joy.
This poem tells of the repellent (but true) origins of the wax that Madame Tussauds uses in its wax museum’s sculptures.
Madame Tussauds has kept a revolting secret for years—
They harvest their wax from children’s ears!
Now, I’m sorry if the truth has jellied your knees.
It’s disgusting, I know.
But that is why Madame Tussaud’s must go
To such lengths to say their wax comes from bees!
Now, the waxman will sneak into a child’s room,
With a silver speculum and a small spoon,
While the child lies deep in sweet dreams.
This waxman will creep very near,
Insert the instrument deep in the ear,
Then spoon the wax out as if it were cream!
When Tussauds first get the wax,
It is as gold-brown as flax,
And they must store it well out of the light.
So they hide it deep in dark caves,
And far underground in fake graves,
So the wax stays in endless night!
And by the time Tussauds brings the wax out,
It has become as treacly as grout,
And they must pour it into enormous glass jars.
Here the stuff sits,
As wax sculptors spoon out small bits
To make their models of stars!
This is a poem about Tim, a baby tiger at the zoo, whose stripes all fall off when he rubs against his water trough.
Tim the Tiger was born at the zoo,
With a trait that caused a hullabaloo:
When the cat rubbed against his water trough,
Every one of his stripes fell off!
And the baby tiger was left all orange.
The stripes lay like leaves on the ground,
Fluttering in the wind, with rustling sounds.
So the zoo director said to glue the stripes back on,
In the depths of night, before the dawn,
So the baby tiger wouldn’t be all orange.
Well the night that night was a deep, dark black,
When the keepers re-adhered the stripes to Tim’s back.
And the baby cub thought it a very fine game,
Because they petted and stroked him and said his name.
For the baby tiger never knew that he was all orange.
So the keepers worked by Orion’s dull shine,
And, finishing, found they’d made an odd design!
For without the aid of their trusted sight,
They’d glued the stripes from left to right!
And they’d left Tim’s tail completely orange.
Well the people came to the zoo next day,
And they admired the very stylish way,
Tim the Tiger seemed to stand
With his stripes in a horizontal band,
And a tail that was entirely orange.
And although the zoo director was raging mad,
The keepers they were not too sad,
For they said, “Well, if he thinks that Tim has caused a stink—
Just wait till he discovers that our penguin’s pink!”
And over time the stripes fell off, and Tim was left all orange.
Here are three strange and funny limericks. One about two young lovers, another about a group of “Pizzanistas,” and a third about a green iguana who smokes marijuana.
Two Young Lovers
There once were two young lovers
Who disappeared each night under covers
They’d reappear at the dawn
With all the night gone
And wonder whether she’d be a mother.
Rebel Pizzanistas
There once were some rebel Pizzanistas
Who were as zealous as the Sandinistas
These rebels put their pepperoni instead
On the underside of the bread,
And called themselves pizza artistas!
The Green Iguana
There once was a green iguana
Who loved to smoke marijuana
When he smiled his lips curled,
When he smoked the smoke furled,
And he lived in a state of nirvana.
Yellow was feeling sunny,
Blue was feeling blue,
And although Red was being quarrelsome,
Yellow told him to come too,
To a midday picnic party
In a field beside a wood,
One day when the sun was shining
And the temperature felt good.
Well, Blue asked his two neighbors,
The colors Purple and Green,
If they would like to come too,
To the pleasant picnic on the green.
Although Purple felt too aristocratic
To make an appearance there,
Green accepted quickly,
Because she loves the clean, fresh air.
Orange was feeling warm,
Toasting his feet before the fire,
When the invitation came to him,
To join the other colors on the shire.
But he was feeling too contented
In his old, ancestral home,
Wearing his pumpkin-colored robe,
And reading from a pleasant tome.
So Orange and Purple, they stayed in,
But the others joined Yellow that day,
On an afternoon when the warm wind
Carried the fragrances of dirt and hay.
They spread out a checkered blanket,
Which was checked with red and white,
And Yellow said the blanket made her think
Of her friend who reflected beams of light.
At that, impetuous Red nodded and said,
How he and White had once had a drink,
And Red said that his passion had led
Them to produce the color known as Pink!
Well, the other colors blushed to hear this,
But Red was well known for his lack of tact,
So they each continued in their way on that sunny day,
And let every color be as is their nature to act.
It was noon in the tropics when Lily and Mary squared off
Each on the beach with all their clothes off!
Mary from Dublin, Lily from Perth,
To see who could be the most burnt person on Earth!
The winner would be the one who turned brightest red
From the tips of her toes to the top of her head!
They were the two whitest people that the Isles could find
They’d advanced to The Finals ahead of their kind—
They’d beaten out raven-haired girls with melanin-tinged skin,
And broad shouldered blond men with too much chest hair to win.
Mary had beat out a Russian who was as white as the moon,
But who forfeited as soon as her feet turned maroon!
While Lily had won a very close race,
With a Norweigan who lost due to her freckled face.
Now the Sunburning Championship is followed worldwide
With a million dollar prize purse and the accompanying pride.
The Sunburning Championship has been vied for for years
And its motto for the past hundred has been, “Sun, sweat, and sears.”
The two contestants, Lily and Mary, were not entirely unique
With light hair and blue eyes upon each pasty physique.
Both peeled and both blistered, neither’d ever browned.
But what set them apart was how UV treated them like a ground.
Sunlight seemed to channel right to them, like power through wire,
Then heat their skins inordinately, till you’d swear they’d catch fire.
While Lily was as white as her pretty namesake,
Mary was born like a girl bred to be baked:
She had albinos on each limb of her family tree:
So oddsmakers disfavored Lily at one to three.
Their corners each oiled the girls head to toe,
Slathered them with palm oil and pounds of Crisco.
Now the sun looked down like an unblinking eye
As the girls lay on the Saint Lucian sand and started to fry!
Within the first hour they turned as pink as a shell
Then started to heat up till they became hot as hell.
Soon Mary and Lily each turned vermillion
As they sweated and fried and dreamt of that million.
The fans of the Irish were waving their flags,
Till the Scottish supporters called the Irish, “Scumbags!”
Fights broke out and pints of beer they were spilled
And word spread that a Scotsman had been inadvertently killed.
Yet still the girls sweated and still the girls fried
Burning in misery till they wished they had died.
The sun burnt their foreheads; the sun burnt their eyes;
It burnt up their armpits, and it burnt up their thighs!
The girls started screaming and writhing in pain
While their coaches all shouted, “Don’t give up, or give in to the strain!”
An hour then passed, and then did another.
And in her sunstroke, Mary began to plead for her mother.
The judges looked closely and called a doctor in,
He said, “Can you finish?” Mary murmured, “I think I can win.”
So the doc nodded at the judges for the match to go on
While the girls kept on burning like badly barbequed prawns.
Time kept on passing, and the girls dreamed of the shade
While their skin slowly turned to raspberry marmalade.
When at last the sun set, both girls were burnt raw,
So the judges who checked them declared the contest a draw!
The Scottish fans rioted; the Irish threw stones;
While the girls they just lay there, burnt to the bone.
One day,
Dill and Cole decided to roll
The biggest joint in all of the world.
They thought it’d be funny
To pool all their money
And spend it on all the weed they could buy.
And they thought it’d be a fine joke
To watch their savings go up in smoke
As they blew puffy rings at the sky.
So they bought cartons of papers
For this magnificent caper
And a blowtorch to light the huge thing.
They invited their friends
Who invited their friends
And everyone brought all they could bring.
The people marched in quite happily,
Although not very snappily,
Because punctuality’s never been quite their suit.
But the folk were all smiles
And of a great many styles
And they brought everything from gummies to fruit!
Lily and Mary
Brought flowers and berries
Because they were two cool hippie girls.
They each wore their sandals
And they lit up some candles
And they prayed for peace throughout the whole world.
A guy who called himself, “King,”
And who could use a washing,
Began to build a low hut.
He said, “We’ll have here our prayers and our rituals,
Our moon-tithes and orbituals,
We’ll need peyote and blood from a cut.”
Wild Tom the Contractor
Showed up with his tractor
To help with lifting the weed.
Bright Jim “The Mad Scorch”
Showed up with an oxy acetylene torch
And dynamite in case of a need.
Well when they laid the weed out
It stretched ten yards just about,
And was as wide as an elephant’s ass!
They laid the weed on the prairie
And all comers felt merry
Contemplating the mass of the grass.
Well ole Dill and ole Cole
As they started to roll
Thought Jim’s dynamite should be a part of a plan.
For what if the joint’s lit
But then suddenly quit?
They’d need it to combust from within!
So ole Dill and ole Cole
Put dynamite in the roll
To be sure that the joint would stay fired.
Then Tom the Contractor
Rolled the joint with his tractor
Till it was as tight as the smokers required.
Then a teen named Colleen
Banged a tambourine
While a drummer, “Dragon,” joined in on some drums.
Tim the firebreather breathed fire,
Brit the slackrope walker walked wire,
And Jake the juggler juggled kiwis and plums.
Then Jim the Mad Scorch
Lit the joint up with his torch
As the festivities reached their climax.
And Dill and ole Cole who’d bought the green stuff
Let all of their friends have the first puff
And watched them all laugh and relax.
When the joint was half smoked
Dill and Cole approached it to toke
And they leaned down together, the two, that great pair.
And just at that moment the dynamite blew
Sending a fireball into the blue
And scorching the guys’ eyebrows and hair!
The blast rocked the whole place
And put surprise on each face
With a concussion each smoker felt to the core!
Then Dill said to Cole, as Cole looked at Dill,
“My man, my man! you look, my man, like a carbonized grill—
Let’s roll another, but next time with more!”
There needs to be a word for laughing at horror
When something’s so awful that you laugh in surprise
And you say, “I know it’s not funny…”
But there’s still a laughing look in your eyes.
Like when you hear of the man who was a quadriplegic for life
Falling down in the kitchen to land on a knife.
He would scream out in pain, but he can’t move his lips!
He’d get off the knife, but he can’t move his hips!
Still he’s not quite dead yet, the very poor dear—
Though he may wish he were, as he’s overtaken with fear—
For in the thin walls of his house, a bad electrical wire
Has found inflammable ground and started a fire!
And as the flames rise up, our victim’s consumed
By smoke and fire that blaze him to his doom.
Whoever it was that said Nature’s so sweet
Has never been chaff, has been only wheat.
But for a man like me who is often the chaff
When cruel tragedy happens, I have to weep as I laugh!
And I know it’s not funny to laugh at these things,
When the blades of life are cutting one’s wings,
And the depths of horror are so profound that you cry
Yet an inapt smile appears near the tear from your eye!
So what can you call it when you are laughing at horror?
It’s not quite “schadenfreude,” and not quite “sadistic;”
It’s certainly not “tasteless,” because that’s too simplistic.
I really believe that we must make a word
For a feeling that each of us has sometimes incurred.
I have no proposals, nor have I quaint dictum,
So, like all of you, I’ll just try to not be a victim.
“Clean” Dean the mighty Marine
Couldn’t tell whom
He’d killed or he’d seen.
He was classified to be in many Black Ops
And his superiors referred to him as one of their “mops,”
Because Dean Ian the Cleaning Machine
Was able to leave no trace at a scene.
A contractor is working?
Now he’s working no more.
Disappeared forever to even a score.
Clean Dean the Careful Marine
Left the place looking like
His hit had never been.
One day Clean Dean left the Marines.
He stopped lifting weights;
He became long and lean.
He got into the horses;
He got into the tracks;
He read books about gardening
And espionage paperbacks.
Clean Dean the mighty Marine
Met a lady one day whose name was Colleen.
They got along smoothly,
And he bought her a ring.
He proposed in the fall,
And they were married in spring.
Clean Dean bought a car for the baby
A safe car with four doors
Because Collen was expecting.
The years passed by,
These Dean could not sweep away.
He lived through the seasons;
He lived through the days.
Clean Dean grew old and found God.
His babies had babies,
And he once thought how odd
It was to grow old,
When he’d been convinced he’d die young.
Clean Dean, however, lived till he was ninety-one,
And before he died, his doctor marveled at him
Said, “It must be good living that has kept you so trim.”
And Clean Dean the Ruthless Marine
Gave not a thought to the horrors that he had seen
To the corpses he’d made or the dark places he’d been,
But said with a smile,
“Doc, what’s fascinating,
Is how the world keeps on turning,
Without taking notice of you
It’s a sphere of green and of white and of blue,
And taken at a distance, like from the nearest star,
We folk are so very tiny, that no one knows who we are.”
And so Clean Dean the Mighty Marine
Died one day and Earth kept revolving,
Persisting in its course as it does for all men,
Going and going as if we’d never been.
I met a fellow in the bar last night
Who thought he was William Tell
Wanted to shoot a beer can off my head
I told him to go to Hell.
But he gave me a look like the last buffalo
Dying out on the plains
So sad and lonely it made me act
Like I had forgotten all of my brains…
The barman told us to take it outside
But I told him that I liked where I was
Sitting in front of that big saloon mirror,
Listening to the neon lights buzz.
I took up a bottle of cold Miller Lite
And I set it on top of my head
But when the fellow stumbled ten paces off
I figured I’d soon end up dead.
He cocked back the hammer on his Colt three fifty-seven
And as I watched the cylinder turn
I froze up with my brain full of spiders,
And my stomach crawling with worms.
He closed one eye, and I saw the gun waving
Not a few inches upwards and down
And I cautiously asked him whether he meant
to shoot up the ceiling or into the ground?
The fellow slurred, “I used to do this when I’d hunt antelope
I’d calculate the angle, the distance, and slope.
I’d never miss then,
I’d put bullets through hearts,
For gunmanship is nothing but poise and practice and smarts,
And I possess each in equal parts!”
He stuck his tongue between his lips
And told me to stand very still
And as the barrel waved before my face
I turned a snake green, and I felt very ill.
The fellow slurred, “Whatcher eyes wide for?
I won’t do you no harm!”
Then he licked his lips and drooled a little spittle,
And then the fucker shot me—right in the arm!
The bullet knocked me back against the bar
And the patrons all screamed and ran
A tequila bottle shattered, my stool fell and clattered,
And I heard a shout of “Goddamn!”
Well I clutched my arm, and I started to stand
When I saw the fellow aiming again
I started a prayer, and I leapt out of there,
Talking fast on my way to, “Amen!”
He fired the gun, and the mirror blew out,
Shards of glass flew all over the place.
I poked my head up over a table
And found him aiming the gun at my face.
So I made myself scarce as the gun fired again
And destroyed a bottle of gin.
“Ceasefire, truce!” I shouted to him,
“The bottle’s broken—you win!
If you want me to tell folks you shot it first try,
By heaven, I’ll put it in song!”
“Can I count on you?” he slurred in a shout,
“I want ’em to know I don’t shoot wrong!”
“You can count on me till the end of your days,
From now until the end of all this!
By the time I’m done talking
The people will say, There goes the man who never once missed!”
“Well, I suppose that’s allright,” the drunk fellow said,
“My friend I’ll take up your word.”
Then he looked all around and he put the gun down,
And he said, “I’m sorry I shot up the bar.
But to see the mirror blow out
And hear folks scream and shout
Well that’s enough to make a man’s day.
And after all no one got hurt, just men being men,
Let me buy you a drink, my new friend.
This’ll all turn out right, the world’ll keep turning,
And we’ll all end the same in the end.”
I said I could use a beer and cigarette,
As I picked myself up off the floor.
“A cig?” he said, “I could shoot the cherry off it, I bet.”
And I took off running—right out the door!
Hey bella how did you sleep?
Did you have dreams or nightmares?
Did the night give you a thought to keep
Or something soothing for your cares?
Hello my beauty how was your day?
I thought about you often beautiful girl
I hope your day went well or at least ok
I know sometimes it’s a very hard world.
Come here my angel come into my arms
I want to hold you and kiss your face
To keep you safe from all the world’s harms
And feel the warmth of your heavenly grace.
