No hot water New Year's Day
in the building where I stay.
Dishes washed still full of grease;
how I'd like to break the lease.
But it's subsidized, you see --
All hail Social Security!
Lakes and hills, but mountains none.
Not mystery, but grouse and sun.
The limitless view of a sky undone.
Silos keep the land so prone
like conquerors now all alone.
My childhood was thus loosely sown.
I wondered at the silent trees.
The resonance of bumblebees.
But nothing brought me to my knees.
Until tornadic winds began
and to the cellar we all ran,
hiding under mom's caftan.
At last the thunder does not roll,
and, despite snapped 'lectric pole,
the wet green grass makes me feel whole.
So back to careless ways I dashed;
no distant peaks make me abashed.
A woodland Viking, rude mustached!
I want a new cadence;
the last one's too broke.
It started out solid,
but turned into smoke.
(My voice so refurbished
still tells the same joke.)
I slept, but thought I was awake;
until the Lord my slumber brake.
His words and spirit did arouse
me from my heedless sinful drowse.
Now my waking hours brim
with tenderness that comes from him.
There's leftovers aplenty from Xmas Day extant/I nibble on them so much I feel like a gas plant/Another choc'late orange? A slice of Gouda cheese?/Throw out that turkey dressing -- and dump the eggnog, please!
I shopped at Sears when just a boy/ to get a bike or mitt or toy/and when a suit became a must/they sold me one that didn't rust/Dependable, I always thought/I can't explain their creeping rot/But since I'm so opinionated/I'll say it's hubris accumulated.
In England sugar, fat, and salt/will soon come to a screeching halt/The Brits have taken up the cry/"Eat that stuff and you will die!"/Good luck with that, when fish & chips/means more to them than scholarships.
People keep me in their prayers/or send me cute teddy bears/No one thinks to send me cash/when my health begins to crash/Money cannot cure disease/but it softens ev'ry sneeze.
The well need no physician,
but that is not my case;
although I say devotions,
I droop at rapid pace.
My body now reminds me
how fleeting life can be,
when a wee small virus
doth make a wreck of me!
The government likes telling me just what I ought to eat/according to their experts it is watercress and beet/any other foodstuff is adulterated scree/let's talk about it over lunch down at the KFC.
I think that I shall never see/another big screen loud movie/that super hero derring-do/is streaming now on pay-per-view/It's just as well; I hate mayhem/and get my kicks with TCM.
I like vetoes, yes I do/they tell Trump what he can do/with his egotistic hype/no wonder all his tweets are tripe!
I saw the quail hurry down the alley
from my patio window.
They brought the smell of cedar.
Of lively powdery blue berries
that turned brown and cracked
when I gently placed them
in my riven ceramic bowl.
I collected them off the cedar
on my long walks to and from.
Hearing the quail's faltering cry.
With the sunset dragging down
the mountains into dust at my feet.
Where the quail go is no concern of mine.
But I feel sorry they must hurry.
What can a quail have that is worth
hurrying to? says I --
a man sitting in a faded recliner who
is done hurrying to anything.
When I was younger I did more
hurrying away from than hurrying to.
Straying from rather than headed to.
And my friends and the wife of my
youth know this well
and they want to talk and talk and talk
about it with me.
The intermeddlers.
They would take a snail out of
its shell to improve its life.
Their helping hand pinches.
Their breath is stale and self righteous.
Strafing my comfort zone.
Please go away, Yenta.
Leave me trace my dreams
with Pixy Stix.
Lookit, Ma -- I'm driving fast/with no hands a-steerin'/these new cars are super smart/there's no use a-fearin'/I can text or talk or nap/there'll be no collision/heck, I might as well sit back/watching television!
When you have a lot of tykes/better travel on some bikes/fam'ly vans are overpriced/what they charge is more a heist/take it from a man with kids/I oughta have been raising squids!
The digital yuan is now here to stay/making it easy for Chinese to pay/for chopsticks and moon cakes and pickled bai cai/now they'll be eating the whole livelong day/belly aches soon will disable them all/then Uncle Sam can watch Xi Jinping fall.
