Irony and Fate
Irony is a bitch, with little thought
While Fate a future carefully brought
As Irony cackles in our head
Reminding us of what we once said
Fate whispers of a future time
A future fair, and of synoptic rhyme
For Fate is a lady of balance and grace
While Irony is wild with smirking face
Fate has a twin that may intertwine
Thus finding company as they align
While Irony remains lonely, bitter and cold
As it seems, from stories that’ve been told
The Bear
He’s looking around, slinking
Always hungry, always thinking
Of a way in, and what he’ll find
For our house is big, but our mind
Is lazy and our attention to the locks
And alarms are as miss-matched socks
So varied and so many ways into our life
He tells another story, a way to cause us strife
Undermining our faith and belief, of what we know
So that in our house, in our minds it starts to snow
And it is we who hibernate, we who give in
To a stinking ugly bear living with us again
As we slumber and dream of past images of glory
While believing in a wretched, bear-given story
We are now as weak as goldilocks, quietly asleep
In what has become his house,
…. for we gave in, without a fight, without a peep
The Contest
Sports beautifully have winners and losers
Complete with joy of winning and sorrow of loss
Borne by the efforts and passions of competitors
Living within the bounds and rules of the game
We who play, those who coach, and spectate
All know that there is no perpetual winner
And we root for the underdog to perform
As if to rise, as Phoenix from ashes of defeat
We cheer performance, but are moved by feats
Of sportsmanship, that show the humanity
Of this game of life, and camaraderie of contestants
And we boo the ones who cheat us of this experience,
We despise and ban the ones that bring hate
And violence that represents the worst of us
Because we don’t want to see, this worst of us in us.
Sports shaped our psyche as Nation
It is how we first defeated the notion of Nazi
Superiority, and replaced it with American
Determination in 1936, giving us a lesson
In resolve, in how to win…. we love these stories.
We love who we were then and can be today.
We carry that notion of fairness into our contests
Of a political nature, and we know ideas matter
We know discourse is necessary, we cannot be
Divided, though they may try.
We can not be cheated of fairness
We are all playing in a game with rules we agreed
So very many years ago.
We are protecting the democratic principles
We are supporting each other because we
Know that we need each other.
Without players there is no grand contest,
Without compassion there is no democracy.
We must seek understanding and empathy
As we are part of the greatest sport ever.
When it is over, let us congratulate and shake each others hands!
This is One Way Mister
I’m only going one way
I cannot go back I say
Until I go forward or around
If that is a way to be found
In a world of happiness and dreams
In life’s complicated streams
Can you believe in tomorrow’s ever
Changing possibilities or maybe never
It seems too outrageous to hope for,
Yet in its time it will knock on our door
As tomorrows always and sometimes seem never do
But this tomorrow means hope for me and you
If ill gotten reason left us today
Leaving us only one more way
To open this door to tomorrow
To embrace an enlightened morrow
Thunder and Rain
The thunder and rain this morning
Play a symphony of sound,
Bringing life-force water to earth,
Fostering growth of trees,
Grass and flowers for the sake of
Beauty of the land for just us
And too, for the bees that coexist
In a dance of fertilization and honey
It is a beautiful world in all its seasons,
In all its climes and all its glory!
Labor Day 2020
Union Job
I was just a kid really,
But a union job was big-time,
You had to know someone.
I didn’t realize that at the time,
The environment was frightening,
But the money was good.
They show you the ropes in a moment
Where to punch in, what happens if you don’t
That is, punch-in or out.
They show you the break area
Picnic tables on concrete with a few vending machines
God-awful coffee, that I learned to drink to stay up the first night.
They show you the bathrooms
I still have nightmares
Having to go, and there are no non-filthy ones available.
Dude I started with got the paint line
Sounded scarier than what I got.
I worked the warehouse, loading trucks
With aluminum siding of all types
In long boxes picked from cavernous warehouse.
Put on long carts, pulled by way too fast fork lifts
Driven by crazy people that feared nothing.
The carts were backed into tractor-trailers
We unloaded as fast as we could, never fast enough.
The eye loops for the hooks on the trailers
Bruised our shins, the old guys had disfigured legs
The young guys limped until they became more nimble.
Hands dried out from the cardboard and cracked.
The dust and dark and dingy trucks had woad flooring.
They had holes sometimes. but we filled them with boxes anyway.
Lunch was a half-hour, they had it timed, perfect
Two beers and a ground-round from local bar.
Pre-ordered and consumed in heartburn inducing rapidity.
We worked the night-shift – usually about 14 to 16 hours.
Overtime pay was what everyone wanted.
I’d team up with Jimmy sometimes, he was 4 years older than me
That made him an old-man… he sang in a band on weekends.
We would sing together while picking in the warehouse
House of the rising sun… seemed oddly applicable.
I learned to smoke cheap cigars, because that’s what everyone did
Cigars or cigarettes .. but when you are loading, cigarettes slowed you down… Cigars burned the inside of your bicep when you were lifting boxes over your head.
Monster of a guy was second in state arm-wrestling.
Naturally I challenged him, my knuckles were bruised hitting the picnic table top… didn’t do that again.
You get along, or they get you out.
Two fights and you’re fired.
First fight gets you a week off without pay.
To get rid of someone, even these guys thought was dangerous
Two people picked fights with him over a few week period…
We all pitched in to pay for the week off with pay for each pugilist
I feared being asked to fight someone… I was happy to pay my share.
It was a world and a community all its own.
The pay was good, but they went on strike anyway.
The factory moved away, and I went to school and found other summer jobs… yearning for an education and a future.
In the Fall
In the fall of our existence
The trees creak in the wind
Giving in, providing no resistance
To failings and faults within
And without our limitations
No matter how we pretend
We are but poor imitations
Of who were back then
When there was spring in the air
And summer played in time
When we never seemed to care
Win or lose, we’d never mind
Just get up and do it over and over again
Never think it might be the last
Before fall intrudes, and winter sets in
As a cold and disabling blast
So we’ll bundle up, and enjoy once more
The memories of a simpler past
When it seemed we were young evermore.
Book 3, Self-Published
I used self-publishing saving much
But with no review, edit or such
It is there perfect, never trampled, pristine
Like powdered snow, that’s never been seen
Not a single comment, not a single buy
No publisher, no editor, no-one but I
To blame, and no value yet, not a single star
In a way it is absolutely perfect thus far
Nothing but a feeling of completion for the third-time
Of my passionate thoughts and occasioned rhyme
Vigilante Horror
Some will praise a vigilante
Some will see him as a hero
Some will oil and load their guns
Some will fail to mourn the death of protesters
Many will view this is just another part of the landscape
But ever more will see this as a horror
More will fear a white supremacy movement
More will question why police ignore an armed 17 year-old
More will mourn the death of protesters
More will see this as a sad corruption of a 17 year-old
More will see this as Trump’s dystopian America
More will pray for peace
Let’s hope for an answer
It is necessary to fearlessly face reality, while maintaining hope!
I couldn’t get a song out of my head for several days… I find it nostalgic and haunting, written by Steven Goodman and made famous by Arlo Guthrie, called “The City of New Orleans”… for me it was as if the train was calling on America to think again about who we are and what it all means as we pass our five hundred miles of life. How we see each other and how we see the world we are leaving for others. The first verse I left the same, except Mr. Goodman described passing towns with no name, instead of trains as Mr. Guthrie recorded the song. The second verse is largely my fabricated notion of what a world we are in the afternoon of our lives. How we see others, how judgmental we can become, and how we should see rather the simple joy of kids that ask the engineer to blow his horn. The last verse, I changed from “Dealin’ cards with the old men in the club car… Penny a point ain’t no one keepin’ score” to reflect our current form of distraction, our smart phones, and I try to bring into the thought the memory again of being young and the joy of rocking babes to sleep. As we fade into our evenings of life what are we leaving for our grandsons and granddaughters… our dreams.
Good Morning America, How are you?
Riding on the City of New Orleans
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields
Passin’ towns that have no names
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles
Good afternoon America, how are you?
Don’t you know me, I’m your native son
I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans
I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
And where were you
When the City of New Orleans came rumbling by
When all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still hadn’t heard the news
A train can have the disappearing railroad blues
Don’t you recognize your native son
Why do you think you have to judge anyone
When they just would like you to listen to what they said
After-all they pledged a sacred allegiance just as you did
And those that came after with desire to be as one
With us in heart, sharing the dream of a native son
Regardless where they came from or where they were born
And the engineer waves and gives a blast of the horn
From his perch sitting way up high on the train
For children in their yards pulling an imaginary chain
Good evening America, how are you?
Don’t you know me, I’m your native son
I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans
I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done