BITS AND BYTES 1

Time goes by in the blink of an eye. We die without asking why. Life's over before we know it. Little's left behind to show it. A short stay at a mortuary, A brief obituary. A stone above a patch of earth. Is that all that life is worth?
* * *
Armageddon's gonna get 'em if we let 'em. War ain't glory. It's gory. Awe and wonder. Bombs and blunder. Six feet under. End of story.

WE WALLOW IN HOLLOW WORDS

We, the hopeless look to our president to present a way out of a predicament that has sent our nation in a spin that should have never been and we are forced to wallow in his hollow words. Words that once had meaning become demeaning when they are spilled from soiled lips, designed to put us in the grips of patriotic glory. Instead, they tell an ugly story of blood and gory sugar-coated with an implication all is well in our threatened nation.

Did he, who made democracy an hypocrisy, think his cliches, his praise for soldiers dying or already dead in their graves, would convince Them and Us the way to save freedom is to fight and die in a war based on a lie he hoped the world would buy that an attack was necessary to force our adversary to change its Allah Be Praised ways?

Quit now and let this newborn so-called democratic state choose its fate before it's too late and insurgents surge across this land of sand and oil, we tried to command with resulting failure and turmoil. Give Iraq back to Iraq. Sack the president who precipitated the attack.

LAME DUCK, DUMB CLUCK

George Bush, the dumb cluck Lame Duck is stuck in a no-win situation. If it only affected the disrespected, belatedly rejected unelected/selected president, I'd just say "So what," and let that be that.

But the Dubya mess has caused too much stress and distress for our nation and dampened the expectation of what was and should and still could be. So what he does or doesn't do affects the lives of you and me and every lover of democracy.

This spendthrift got a gift from Bill and couldn't wait until he took control to dig the hole he and we are in. He claimed political capital that "I intend to spend." In the end he frittered it away and that's OK. But some dumb thing might go his way and then there'd be hell to pay. And the devil, George, would get his way.

The way things go, for all we know, this political show could turn on a dime and the perpetrator of the crime would come up smelling like roses to a lot of stuck up. stuffed up noses. For now, we're glad the dumb cluck lame duck is down on his luck. But in this nip and tuck political game we play things still could go the other way. So let's just recall where he spent it all and hope that the hack won't get it back.

His opposition to stem cell didn't sell and his push for judges hasn't gone well, but who can tell? His bid to reshape social security into a Wall Street money tree at the expense of seniors just like you and me could send us down the one way road to bankruptcy.

Admittedly, Dubya's war is going great guns, but the arms and ammunition, the bombs that send thousands to perdition are in the hands of the insurgency. Meanwhile, in line with George's style, our boys still die and even he, the terrorist of democracy, cannot justify just why.

Bush has no credibility. His gang is plagued by improbability and instability. George never had the ability to fill the bill he won illegally. We have had enough of Bush's bluff. Shouldn't America get off its duff, get tough and---I and millions more beseech---impeach the son of a Bush!

KNOW WHAT'S WHAT BEFORE YOU SWAT!

When you swat a fly or give it a shot of spray or kill it in some other way, will it cry out in agony, beg for mercy, then go to that place in space where all bugs meet their maker without the aid of an undertaker?

Before you wage your anti-fly war, stop and think that in a wink you may be doing in a sister, brother, dad or mother or some other member of the fly's family.

How can you look at something light as a feather and tell whether it was a groom that zoomed round your room or a blushing bride with some of your egg inside its belly enjoying a crumb of your toast and jelly or seeking a snack before flying back to her nest where three hundred newborn flies wait, each hoping to be the first to quench its thirst at the breast of this household pest?

Does the fly you have in your sights have a fear of flying and does it wear tights when it goes swimmin' with wimmen flies in the middle of the night? You never know the fly you meet on your vacation might be the
reincarnation, in some special situation, of one of your relations. It might even become your wife in a future life.

So you had better know what's what before you swat!

THE HEROES CAME HOME

Johnny came home and Jerry came home and Tommy came home but will never be the same. Johnny limped home on a crutch, Jerry marched home on a cane. Tommy looks fine but he's incurably insane. All three remain luckier than those who were slain. Or are they?

Bobbie returned with medals on his chest but can't pin them on. Both arms are gone and he can't remember why he won. Was it the time he faced unafraid an enemy brigade and killed a few and they killed some too and when it was through there was nothing to do but cry for the dead and mourn for the few they knew and wished the fighting was through.

The general flew down from his hometown and passed medals around like they were candy. How grand he looked, all spitpolish and clean and strangely obscene with liquor on his breath rewarding those who faced death to turn the stalemate war around. Now the hero general could call the Pentagon and say "I and my boys have won a significant victory today for all humanity."

That night it was Three Cheers for Victory and free beer for all as the blood dried up and sank in foreign soil.

Like thousands of others, all brothers in war, they are now far removed from the killing. The statistics lists GIs who took risks and were cited posthumously for bravery, But they'll soon be forgotten in this rotten war where death's a waste and appalling. And the killing goes on as the man in the White House, unwilling to call it quits, keeps stalling.

Week in, week out enough lives are snuffed out to fill a mall town population. And still it goes on as our Commander in Chief, beyond all belief, continues his well earned vacation.

DEAR DUBYA:

Ya wonder why I lubya. I lub the way ya flub ya words and how ya squint your eyes and look as wise as a constipated hoot owl in disguise, how ya misconfabulate the tax rate of the super rich and super poor and misconfiggerate when you're not sure which is which and what is what and why is why and how ya lie with that sincere sneer that tells the world ya ain't here but are back in Texas drinking beer.

I lubya dedication to our nation by taking a long, long vacation at your Texas ranch without any anch in your panch to save licorthy and hoomannity and all that bluff stuff we have too much of enough and need more of less, more or less.

I lubya for how ya play at being president and promising things ya have no intent of dechoplivering and start shivering and quivering when ya say "I'm givering ya a choice, my way or else."

But most I like the way ya boast about the costa war---or is it a piece of peace?---and how we and they are dying, literally, to be a democopocrisy where ya can cheat and steal and feel free to ask for more of less and less of more and a discount at the discount store.

Wal-mart, thou art part and parcel of this, the land of fliberty-jiberty liberty.

May it always be thus. If the parking lot is full, take a bus.

DEATH OF DEMOCRACY

Blood ink is smeared across the page spelling out these days of rage as pain rains down on trembling earth and drains the land of joy and mirth. When harlots of hypocrisy demand the death of democracy and no one cares and prayers are met by minds immune, out of tune with decency, we submit unwittingly to impotent incompetence. It makes no sense. We, once free, have succumbed to this insanity. Losers win and winners lose. Why did we choose? Why did we buy the pie in the sky that sealed our fate. IS IT TOO LATE?

TO WRITE IS MY RITE

Most kids played "Hide and Seek" o "Kick the Can" week after week and didn't switch to other games like kissing dames. That came later when they were older and bolder and found out to kiss a miss was more fun and stirred those itches in their britches. I didn't know what I was missing by not kissing girls who'd wiggle and giggle and shut their eyes and pucker up as guys would give them a peck on the neck or nose but not on those waiting lips. But that's the way it goes the first time, I guess.a girl says "Yes."

I didn't go for schoolyard games and kissing dames was not my thing. Kids called me a ding-a-ling but as soon as I knew what words could do to write became my sacred rite. A little verse at first. I marveled how my lines would rhyme most of the time. I showed my poems to mom who'd say, "You were meant to have this talent. Where you got it, I don't know. But don't let it go. Let it grow. One day you'll know why this gift did not pass you by."

Let it be said from eight 'till eighty-two words that swirl in my head have told me what to do. Sometimes my rhymes are a mystery even to me. But write I must. This is my trust. I've dreamt of success but settled for less. Fame is not my game. I write because it's what I do. If you like it, lucky you. If you don't, take a hike, ride your bike, do what you like but let me be. Just let me be Me,

HOW DID THE SMIRK BEGIN

George's smirk really is a piece of work. Where did it come from? How could anything so dumb become his signature style. Not a smile, not a frown, not a smug looking down on everyone, not even a trace of a clown face which is surprising for a rising idiot who has been out of it since he found out there was a place where everybody else was in. Maybe that's when the sneer did begin.

You don't just wake up one morning and look in the mirror and look at yourself and say, "What do I have up here? It's not my cheek, it's not my chin, it's not my ear, left or right. They always have been queer. My eyes have always been squint and flinty. I fear I'll have to go to Dr. Schmear and ask him what I have up here.

Dr. Schmeare said: "Oh dear. Oh dear. I fear you appear to have the beginning of a chronic sneer."

"Are you sure? Is there a cure?" Dubya asked and squinted his eyes.

To his surprise, the doctor said: "And what's this in your head? Beside a brain I think is there. It's not your hair. It must be a...

"A squint?" asked George.

"Yes, that is it. A squint. Hmm, that and a sneer. They go together. But tell me, Mr, Bush, what kind of work do you do?"

"I'm the president," Dubya replied.

"Sorry. I thought his name was Gore. He's the one everyone voted for."

"That's true. But the Supreme Court voted for me and that's how I won the presidency."

"Yes, yes. I digress. What I can say, medically. Your ears, your sneers, your squint, and I suspect, your lack of intellect, should serve you well, Your squint and sneer will make man fear that you are here. So just pay your fee and get the hell out of here. You're scaring me."

DEFINE INSANITY

What is insanity? Can you tell me? Does it lie somewhere between the living and the dead? Is it confined to the head? To the mind? Is insanity an empty stare? A life confined to a chair seeing things that just aren't there?

Is insanity a shrinking room? A stinking gloom? A spinning, grinning face of fury? Is insanity a well-stacked jury that ignores your tale and sends you to a jail of mental bars? Is insanity the wars which rage within the mind? Is insanity blind or is it a clarity the sane never see? Is insanity sanity at its best? Is insanity the final test, the quest for truth, eternal youth?

Can the sane explain insanity? Can the sighted know what the blind can see? Who can explain the secret torment of the insane brain? Who can say and who will know and what will the answers mean to someone caught betwixt and between in a world gone
mad and a war gone bad?

There are no ifs, no ands, no buts. If you're nuts you're nuts.

Turtle

This turtle, through each foolish act
Is quite a nervous wreck.
He's never learned the use of tact
And keeps sticking out his neck.

IS GOD STILL ON OUR SIDE?

The killers of the universe cry and curse those who deny their concept of the deity. They have no shame or dignity and kill and maim and defame humanity in His name. And by His silence, He accepts the blame. Is it all the same whether the good live or die and billions ask Him why and He does not reply?

Has this master maker of miracles lost His holy power in our hour of need? The whole world bleeds and He does not intercede. And it goes on and on. Day by day. in every unbelievable and inconceivable way, they slay and what has God to say?

The seas run red. The fields are littered with the dead. What price sacrifice will suffice their crave to kill the good and brave to enslave those who would be free? Is it not time for God to rise above the horde who live by the sword and let His word be heard? He must renew the trust we had in Him.

It's not enough to simply pray that the evil will go away. That has been tried and tried and yet, the good have died and the evil hide behind His name. Can the world abide much more of this? Something's very much amiss. Is God still on our side? Or, God forbid, has our God died?

THE POLITICAL GAME

Politics is a shell game, a kiss and don't tell game, a blame game, a phony claim game always the same game and It ain't a tame game. Here is how it's played: invade, persuade, degrade. Don't tell outright lies. Just shade the truth to disguise what what you say implies. The strategy: Shame the name, never call a spade a spade.

It's down and dirty, wordy, wordy, designed to malign he/she or she/he, so you can rob and hobnob with the slobs of party louses and seduce each other's spouses.

It's a money-money lottery, a money tree and the guys who tell the biggest lies win first prize, financed by the cook-the-book crooks of corporate greed. That's all they need to win the race. Dollar bills set the pace.

It's unclean, obscene, but green is the grease that runs the machine that makes the deals and keeps the wheels of industry spinning. winning every inning from the beginning. All bets are off, the fix is in. It's not a question who wins the election, but who passes the collection plate to those who signed the IOUs and the time has come to pay the dues.

Here's the irony: Democracy is a fraud but it can't fall. In the final analysis, nations that sink into paralysis are those that build fancy palaces for kings and queens and corrupt machines who live in the lap of luxury while their subjects live in abject poverty. The downtrodden look at the corrupt capitalist democracies and say that's what we want to be. It's not the best, but it's better than all the rest. Just look at what our system's wrought. Look at everything we've got. And look at all the cars in the Wal-mart parking lot.

WIGGLING WIFE

My wife she had a wiggle in her walk when we were wed. And this did impress me as a very special prize. When a woman wiggles to and fro, it has been said, there's more behind the wiggle than is seen by naked eyes.

I wooed this wiggling woman with all those wondrous charms and covered her with kisses and caressed her head to toe. she could not resist me as I held her in my arms. We were wed for worse those many years ago

Her wiggle's turned to waddle. her swish has turned to sway and my hugs and kisses grow fewer with each dawn, but now we have a daughter who grows more like mom each day. She has the wiggle mother knew. Tradition marches on!

A DAY TO REMEMBER

It was on a tour, the kind I'm sure you're familiar with, aboard an outdated, dilapidated train, passing through a plain, uninspired terrain in Italy, as look-alike as a Kansas countryside. Just another boring ride.

Where we were headed didn't matter. The steady clatter of the wheels on ancient rails. It never fails, the tour guide was young and hardly spoke our tongue. She came from some place we never knew. She was sweet, but she was dumb.

With engine roaring, most of the tourists snoring and two teen-agers playing boring rock-and-roll on their erratic, static radio, a baby cryingand a mother trying to soothe her child with a mild foreign lullaby and the temperature soaring in this un-airconditioned mode of transportation, my vacation had become just one long frustration.

A couple sat in the seat in front of me, trying desperately to be heard above all this noise, plus two small boys banging their toys against the window pane. again and again, was enough to drive the saints insane.

Finally the train came to a screeching stop. It was time for our scheduled lunch. I had a hunch if the tour was bad, of course, the food would be worse. How wrong could I be? We went to this small cafe along the way and the menu was pure gourmet.

The salad greens, the rice and beans, the mushroom puree. the broiled trout in a lightly spiced mysterious way, dish after dish made us wish this meal would never end. We'd never tasted such a blend of delicacies. The home-made wine? Divine! The aperitif? Beyond belief! And all topped off with a fresh baked pie I cannot deny was conceived by angels in the sky.

Before we left, we met the chef, a tiny, wrinkled lady surely way past eighty, her hands thick with flour, her apron painted with gravy stains, who, with grace, took a bow and, one by one, to show how we loved her meal, we held and kissed her and I believe we made her feel special on this otherwise ordinary day.

As we left we heard her say in her modest Italian way, "I thank-a you. You like what I make for you what-a you ate? I appreciate. But, hey! It no big deal."

THE SOURCE

Once intercourse was the only source of creation. Without it there could never have been be a population or civilization. It took sperm and ovaries for gals and guys to fertilize.

The procedure could take place in bed during a romanic rendezvous or on a beach or in a chair or anywhere two decided to do what is a lovers due. It can happen in a sports car or in an SUV or any where parking's free or the meter's filled to capacity. With some it may take more time to come, some less. Premature ejaculation speeds the anticipation and provides greater opportunity for post-penetration exploration.

That was then. This is now. Things somehow are not the same. Ain't it a shame! Today there's no need for an assignation to achieve impregnation. A well chosen frozen sperm has proven to be a good astute substitute for a go-go romeo. And if it's a lady's wish, a quick mix in a petri dish can grant a gal her fondest wish. So what's next? She may even choose the sex.

There are pills to turn couples on, to stimulate the drive, to make the sex act come alive, to add jazz to the jive, You can spend your passion the old fashioned way or seek modern science in defiance of what nature had in mind.

You'll find in the end the results will be the same. A baby's born. It has your name. Lass or lad, you'll be their mother or their dad. And that, no doubt, is what it is all about.

INTELLIGENCE AWAITS

There's intelligence in outer space. It's everywhere, it's every place.
It's not that we don't know. It's just we don't know how and where to
go. We and the stars are playing heavenly hide-and-seek. It may take a
day, a week, a month, a year or many centuries to find what we're
looking for.

There are many places in space where we have never been, each a mere
million or more light years away. That's how God designed it. His
theory: Make it difficult for man to find it. Maybe when they've solved
the riddle they'll have found you just don't fiddle or mix in another
planet's politics.

If we find it will we know it? Once we know it will we blow it? Will
those we meet treat us kindly? Or will they, like we, plunge us
blindly into a galactic holocaust?

BATS AND SPOTS

Since he was blind as a bat he couldn't tell where he was at, but being a bat he didn't mind that,
He was covered with stripes he couldn't wipe off, but he was a zebra and if he had lots of spots he'd be a Dalmatian or some other combination of mix breed mutation. So a zebra he be.

He was a lion, always roarin' but if he was an eagle he'd rather be soarin'. To a lion, soarin' is borin'. To an eagle, roarin' is foreign. A lion climbs trees, an eagle stirs up a breeze. Both do just as they please.

He was a hippo who took a dippo in dirty water with his daughter like he taught her. If he was an albino rhino would he keep his skin clean by taking a bath in a washing machine?

REBIRTH OF DEATH---THE TIME IS NOW

A brush of blood smears swastika streaks on the door of an innocent Jew.
The streets ablaze with malignant mobs who seek God's chosen few.
A cold gray sky of evil clouds stabs icicles in the blue.
A twisting trail of blood is blazed. Such things men often do.
Like lonely echoes lift from lips and propagate in space,
Like summer weeds thrive angrily and spit in nature's face,
Like weaklings turn to supermen behind a gun's embrace,
The venom fangs of slimy snakes infect the human race,
The Bible's words, the Lord's deep truths, the teachings of the wise
Are burned at stakes by angry mobs who see not with their eyes
And spoilers from a long dead past from lonely graves arise.
The freedom man once cherished shrivels up and dies.
The time is now, not yesterday. The haters grow in skill.
The angel of infectious death bids men to do her will.
"Scorch the earth!" the madmen cry. "Catch them all and kill!"
Hate moves ever onward. The men of peace stand still.