In China nobody retires/they cannot find any new hires/so elderly staff/do not often laugh/as their pension plan now expires.
The Fed's in cahoots with Wall Street/so rich people get all the meat/The rest of us dine/on leftover brine/ and sorghum with cold Cream of Wheat.
Hamburgers are history/according to most GOP/Biden's conniving/to start us all shriving/confessing we'd rather have brie.
Some people are willing to use toxic bleach/instead of a simple vaccine/People won't listen to reason at all/their sanity seems mighty lean/We're better off rounding the scammers all up/and putting them in quarantine.
Ticks that carry Lyme disease/are at the beach, on bush and trees/You can't escape the little critters/ubiquitous as apple fritters/As if the Covid weren't enough/the outdoors grows more rough and tough!
Climate change has come to France/their vineyards do not stand a chance/the grapes are frozen or dried out/which makes the vintners scream and shout/Wine is going to perdition/It's almost like old Prohibition!
When they mess with you online/pouring on raw turpentine/pay a charge that's pretty big/to remove each deadly dig/it's a scam, of course; you see/the same who diss collect your fee.
Thailand wants its tourists back/cuz the country cash does lack/but the covid virus rules/closing bars and beach and schools/Land of Smiles and durian/you won't catch this Missourian.
Children shouldn't have to fret/they'll lose their home because of debt/When parents cannot make ends meet/the children now will get cold feet/What a sorry country we/have built upon democracy.
The mushroom is an ugly growth/to eat one raw I am quite loath/Even when organic grown/I let the champignons alone/In a can, and over steak/a bite or two I just might take/But plants that lack all chlorophyll/will never have my whole goodwill.
Charity begins at home/so do not be a slouch/fill your pockets with spare change/and sit upon my couch.
Putin is a cagey guy/the patience of the world he'll try/but when he gets close to the brink/he has himself another think/and pulls back just enough to brag/he's put no one in body bag.
In Iowa lawmakers say/run down people any day/long as they are demonstrators/(cuz we don't need agitators)/It's getting so a picket sign/puts you on firing line.
Study laughter all you want/It will leave you tart and gaunt/Only madmen have the key/to the world's hilarity/Clowns and comics celebrate/only when they detonate/Academics, please refrain/from picking at the jester's brain!
Biden is planning upheaval/of policies now medieval/Electric jalopies/and fields of wild poppies/granting the earth a reprieval.
What do you call some large bowls/of curious deadly black holes?/Such groupings, or worse/in our universe/could maybe be called 'fumaroles.'
Dead soldiers don't care if a stone/carries their name all alone/They've gone to a place/where creed or their race/have long since been all overthrown.
You have the right to record/police action single or horde/When done with your cell/like a bat out of hell/run, though it's all aboveboard.
If you are an outdoors-type Brit/you'll find bathrooms still closed a bit/If you need to go/just bring your own hoe/to compost that nice pile of . . .
Bring in the robots to feed/millions who fresh produce need/Old Farmer Brown/can just sit around/and push buttons to plant his seed.
By 2050 backers say/insurance rates much hob will play/as global warming inundates/coastal towns and fries farm states/Underwriters all agree/their fees will pass infinity.
In middle age I rarely slept/as a career I madly kept/and now my hair is white and sparse/while sanity I cannot parse/Oh woe is I, senility/begins to creep right up on me/Is it because I banished sleep/that my brain now is cassareep?/How ironic; now I nap/all day long without a gap.
Are paper towels a poison pill/filling up each new landfill?/Or a handy cleanup tool/absorbing every greasy pool?/Either way, can we survive/if and when supplies take five?/Still . . . if you want to save some jack/you're better off with flour sack.
One morning as a child
at the breakfast table
my dad told me:
"You eat like a monkey."
That's why, telescoping back in
on myself,
I am so immersed in food.
What else does a monkey have to do
all day up in a tree?
I ate a gobbet of beef today.
Peruvian beef swimming in
cilantro sauce.
With rice and beans.
In a dull dark dream place.
It was not really a place to eat,
but a place to dream.
I don't know how they stay in business.
In the six years I've lived in this neighborhood
I've never seen that place crowded.
They must spin straw into gold.
Or fix parking tickets.
In my food dream I was
sailing a gravy boat, full of
brown gravy of silken texture.
We ran aground and the tanker leaked
gravy all over things like ice cream
and radishes.
The environmentalists were up in arms,
so I slipped them some fried yucca
for hush money.
Then drank my Inca Cola,
which tastes like bubble gum.
I was chewing on dreams.
And when I woke up I had
finished my plate,
all except one piece of fried yucca.
That stuff sticks in my craw
like the Ever Given.
I left the waitress a one dollar tip.
And Amy's H & R Block business card.
Now that she's moving to Omaha.
To live with the monkeys.
If you are a dissident/and the rules you've slightly bent/lawmakers and GOP/dump you in the hole quickly/America is like Hong Kong/and that, my friends, is very wrong.
Old King Coal is a merry old soul/as difficult as arms control/We want him gone, but here he comes/beating on those carbon drums/There's too much money still at stake/so Mother Earth keeps this headache/But someday she may rise in wrath/and act more like a psychopath.
Putin likes to boast and brag/how he'll surely shoot and scrag/any country fool enough/to give Russia any guff/He's got guns and big tanks, too/and he'll gladly mess witch you/on the street or in the hood/(though mostly his strength is plywood.)
I have fed too many people for free.
I'm was tired; burned out; grown weary of
the perfunctory 'thanks' and lack
of eye contact.
So I'll quit doing public service meals
and start to lunch out.
I went to a Thai place to have drunken noodles.
There's no alcohol in them, but they wobble
on your fork.
Thai restaurants are famous for their slow
service. But the slower the service, the
better the food.
So it didn't bug me too much when it took
a half hour for my noodles to arrive.
the other tables while I ate.
People much younger than me, in white shirts and
blouses, with tattoos on their arms,
were talking about IPO's and
turnover rates --
not about the beautiful spring
day outside or how good the food
tasted.
And it came to me again; that I'm not
part of the modern human race anymore.
I am a relic.
I looked in the mirror
in the Men's Room and saw a pudgy old
geezer in a wide brimmed straw hat with
his pants held up by suspenders --
who yearns to talk about his collection
of Archie comics when he was a kid
and the awfulness of his mother's
tuna casserole on Friday nights.
Tomorrow I'll make the old ladies
vegetable turkey soup in my slow cooker.
At least they don't have any tattoos.
