Tuesday, August 30, 2005

BITS AND BYTES 2

For what it's worth, is it worth it? Bombs fall. Is that all life's about? One way in. One way out.
* * *

War's an invitation to devastation. An end to civilization as we know it. Don't blow it.
* * *

Be wary of war. It's contrary to humanity, an insanity the sane can't abide, Decide the affirmative alternative: Brotherhood. Everybody should.
* * *

Greed makes the rules. War provides the tools. We're damn fools.
* * *

Is mankind kind or does does it change its mind at the drop of a hat? Can anybody tell me that?
* * *

A GI's cry: "Teach me how to kill, I will. But you didn't teach me how to die.Why?"

BESSIE'S BIG BOOBS

Bessie was blessed, it's attest,
With the world's largest breast.
The dead boobs refused to lie still on her chest
The mortician tried often
To close up her coffin,
But her bosoms rose up in protest.
So they put her to sleep
In a grave twelve feet deep,
Her buxom bazooms fully exposed.
When the world starts to shake
Is it an earthquake?
No, it's Bessie's boobs, it's supposed.

HANDYMAN

Sam, Sam the handyman, with a hammer and saw and a piece of wood was damn good at doing what he did. He could be trusted to fix what's busted. repair a chair, a broken door, a drawer, a tile a floor, a roof with a hole that's been leaking for a week, a cracked sugarbowl, a vase or a vaz, what ever it was and what you call it and he can even make new a whatchamacallit, a tricky doohickey, dad's doodad. a thingamajig, grandma's wig, stitches in a witch's britches or anything else that itches, a swinging gate at Watergate, a room in a tomb or a big bang boom, expand the womb of who knows whom, a blooming rose who's a friend Edgar Allen Poe or any pro who knows his prose. See Sam, Sam the handyman, damn he's good!

Handyman001

Saturday, August 27, 2005

JIHAD STRIKES OUT

AHMED VOWED EARLY in his life, before he'd taken a wife and had a son, there was one thing he must to do to fulfill the will of Allah, to prove his dedication to Islam. One word said it best: Jihad!

His wife knew what he must do, but she wished it was not true. She feared the day he'd kiss her and their son good-bye and he would die, a belt of exploded dynamite strapped to his chest. When that day came, she would pray, "Please God. No more Jihad."

Ahmed was not a stupid man. He was well schooled in Western ways. He knew about the U. S. A., its praise for Israel, its hatred of Islam. He said in English, which he once spurned, then realized he must learn, "I don't give a damn what Americans say. I'm a soldier of Islam."

Sheba prayed to the Western God who loved both the Arab and the Jew, "Bring my husband back to me." Ahmed knew his wife's loyalty was true even though he heard her pray aloud one night when she thought him fast asleep, On the will of Allah they disagreed. He forgave her for he knew her devotion to him was greater than for the creator of their ancestry.

TONIGHT AHMED WAS in the land his people hated but he could understand. They loved their family just as he and sought to be free of religious hypocrisy. Americans would not die for such a cause. They said, "We have laws. We will change if things get out of hand."

He thought of Sheba and their son and tried to blot this from his memory. He prayed: "Allah, understand my doubt. Help me out." But Allah did not reply.

AHMED LAY AWAKE till morning light. Got up, got dressed, checked his belt and strapped it tight beneath his garment and went to Yankee Stadium. He took his seat behind first base and waited patiently. It was the last inning, last game of the series. The visitors were winning by one run. Soon it would be done. Yanks at bat. One out. A single, Then out two. The Yankee slugger came up to the plate. Strike one! Strike two! Ahmed knew what he must do. When the crowd stood up to cheer or rushed to go he would press the button and cry: "Yankee Die! Jihad! Jihad!" and send the infidels to their God.

The crowd grew tense. Ahmed sensed his time had come. With a crack of the bat it did. The crowd roared. The ball soared. Headed high above the center field wall. It would all over now. A homer to live in baseball history.
Suddenly, a bird passed by. The ball and bird met in the sky. The ball fell. It landed on the border between foul and fair territory. But not to worry. It's a homer, absolutely. Umpires all agree. Yanks two. Visitors one. The Yankees won. But the opposition cried Foul! They said: "We protest. We'll test the ruling in the courts."

AMID THE FURORE OF the crowd, Ahmed cried out loud. "Yankee die! Jihad! Jihad!" He pushed the button, heard a click, nothing more. His cry could not be heard above the roar. Yet, one man heard Ahmed. "You said, 'Yankee drop dead'? He swung, struck Ahmed who fell and hit his head. "Is he dead?" someone said. "Drunk or on some kind of junk. Who cares! We won!"

Ahmed groggily awoke. His head was spinning. "Just one more inning?" he cried. He pressed the button. Click! Someone tore open his shirt and saw the belt and dynamite, cried out in fright, then called the cops. Ahmed feared he would be caught. He ripped off the belt and shoved it beneath his seat. And Ahmed fled.

THE HOMERUN dispute went to court. What would it be? A hit. a foul? It must be ruled legally. "Our decision is based on a Section Two of a ruling in 1892, blah, blah., blah, the court droned on..." What did it say? In short, the court found in favor of neither team. That play must be replayed.

The date was set. That momentous moment came. The two sides took the field just as they were when the outcome was appealed. Both teams steeled for the pitch. A crack of the bat Again the ball seemed headed over the wall. It soared high above the crowd. Both sides held their breath. This was a matter of life and death.

The outfielder saw the ball in flight, kept it in sight. It was high enough to clear the wall. He leaped, his gloved-hand reached beyond belief. There was a thud. He caught the ball. A shudder spread throughout the crowd. It was the most sensational catch there ever was. A silent pause. Then pandemonium and mad applause.

Who made the pitch? Who hit the ball? Who made the catch? It's no mystery. You won't find it in history. Because this tale is pure fantasy.

LEGEND IS AHMED defected to the West, confessed. Charges were dropped as courts are prone to do. But this much may be true. Ahmed became an American. And a rabid Yankee fan.

TO A WASTED LIFE

In this crypt, tightly lipped
And not missed by the living,
Six feet deep an sound asleep
Lies Abraham McGiving.
Quite unknown and so alone
Nobody comes a mourning.
Not a tear shed at his bier,
No flowered wreath adorning.
Born, he cried, grew old and died,
A life without much meaning.
Work and rest and second best.
So little intervening.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

OBITUARY TO LIFE

It happened in the early spring
That all the birds refused to sing
And all the squirrels left the trees
And there were no buzzing bees
To wile away the daylight hours
Pollinating fruits and flowers.
The cloudless skies dried up and so
There was no rain for things to grow.
And beneath a blazing sun
Bugs and weeds died one by one.
Fear gripped the helpless population.
Had Nature taken a vacation?
Or, even worse, the people cried,
Had life committed suicide?

Monday, August 22, 2005

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.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

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!

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

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.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

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,

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

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.

turtle

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

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!