Verses Serious

He wasn’t too much
He wasn’t too little
Had a normal amount
At the ends and the middle

The sun is shining, robins sing
It cannot be too far from spring
When hope displaces dark despair
I love that more than anything

Make merry every single day
And you will chase the blues away
But if you choose instead to mope
There really isn’t any hope

A wonderful person I know
Is spending today all aglow
Having come to the Earth
This day with their birth

(published in Plants and Poetry)

Tiny mushrooms pushing through
Soil that’s all around you

We want to live forever but
We’re limited, you see
From a stop watch that is wired into
Our biology

I had self doubts, late yesterday
A crisis existential
Am I for real or might I be
A dream, inconsequential?

Like a teenage kid in a red hot rod
Your muffler’s loud and stinks, by God

You push a pedal, give it gas

Now Daniel, though I know your name
I don’t know you, but just the same
I write for you this science verse
I hope that it is not the worst

A flower in
A forest grew
Its color no one
Ever knew

“Pray for me,” the man declared
“I’m having surgery and I’m scared”

I asked him what a prayer could do

The look in your eyes
Vacant, bereft
As if there is
No person left

In COVID times
Of troubling norms
The soldiers wear
Different uniforms

When this Covid thing is over
Some things I’m gonna do
Like walking down a sidewalk
Without avoiding you

What is the crazy love affair
In prose today that's penned
By writers who compose it with
Exclamation points at the end

(written in the early stages of COVID)

The doors are locked and knobs are wiped
Overdue emails are getting typed

You have no mask upon your face
Inside this very public place
Perhaps you can’t afford a mask?
I’d give you one, if you would ask

So it is graduation day
A time that once seemed far away
Now after this hip hip hooray
It’s time to do your thing

Trails get blazed
Paths get followed
Cattle graze
Piggies wallow

Now I lay me down to sleep
With religious thoughts awake I keep

God gets credit for all that haps

Question things that you get told
Never waver. Never fold
Don’t get left out in the cold
Just question

There is joy
There is love
There is beauty up above

Humans went and conquered Earth
Killing most of the species here
With no animals left to point guns at
Everybody now lives in fear

So you had unprotected sex, oh did ya?
And now have a very bad case of chlamydia?

When will you learn, you oafish lout?

In a little house in Illinois
Sitting on a hill
I spent my youth til 17
My head’s there still

They say tomorrow never comes
But it also never goes
The carrot on the stick positioned
Just before your nose

Just looking around confused, it’s true
Traveling on the same time machine as you

This thing is crazy in regards to riding

That science is true
While doubters spin it
Has nothing to do
With believing in it

I dove into my consciousness
And landed on my head
The truth that I desired just
Gave me surprise instead

Everything’s in cycles
That no one defeats
But why is it just awfulness
That history repeats?

Summer is the season that
I eagerly await, for sure
There’s time off from my job, it’s clear
But work I must endure

Her, smiling at the camera

Perfect teeth
Perfect face

They stuck a needle in my arm
Protecting me from viral harm

Its tiny little RNA

Wallowing in emotion
The poet bemoans fate
Revealing it for everyone
“Cathartic,” they say. Great (?!?)

There is no infinite
There is no forever
No absolute answers
No constant, no never

When climbing the mountain of success
Remember as you seek
A slope has many marvels
That are not found on the peak

A truly insightful person
Rarely gets into a bind
Because they don’t fight to change the world
When they just need to change their mind

Racism is a system
Unholy and unsacred
That removes the need to know someone
In order to engage in hatred

It now is long past New Year’s eve
The time when many folks believe
Better things lie ahead

Here’s some advice
That I was told
“You need to stop playing”
“Before you get old”

In times of peace, sons bury fathers
When their time on Earth is done
When war occurs, the opposite’s true
Fathers bury their sons

A company needed a worker
For which many folks did apply
After sorting through all applications
The boss settled on one young guy

Youth is a time
In the knowledge biz
Where you don’t need to learn
Cuz you know all there is

Peacock feathers
To the world
Look rather plain
Until unfurled

God’s on his way to becoming myth
So easy to deduce
It’s happened many times before
Perhaps you’ve heard of Zeus?

Upon the Earth, your time’s not bought
You only get to rent it
And when the lease is up, my friend
No way you can extend it

When priceless things
Get bought

And unthinkable things

If you cannot count your blessings
Here is a thought for you
It’s usually cuz there’s too many
And not because there’s too few

Pillaging gelato and souvenir stands
Clutching t-shirts in their hands
This is the part of vacation, I guess
Some people like the best

The path that’s gonna make us great
Cannot be paved with words of hate

If it is true our course is shifting

Here are my thoughts. I’ve organized them
In hopes someone will super size them
North town, south town, east town, west
Just what will make Corvallis best?

To some, that man’s invisible
But him I clearly see
He only is invisible
When it comes to the GDP

Here lies a dog
His name was Bruce
I often saw him
Running loose

The truth has just been laid to rest
At the end of an illness long
The folks in power its passing blessed
The rest knew it was wrong

Remember . . . .

When magic was real
And reality was realer?

So Mr. Z has gone away
And won’t be coming back
He died of something yesterday
Perhaps a heart attack

The red-hot Mustang loudly squealed
Too loud to be ignored
A teen-age mind behind the wheel
Had its gas pedal floored

The stranger came
A refugee
One single aim
Sanctuary

A corporation went bankrupt
It was a big event
A corporate raider came in and
The money all got spent

“Float like a butterfly”
“Sting like a bee”
Those were the words
Of Muhammed Ali

Mary had a little LAN
It’s traffic very slow
The cause? The FCC has banned
Neutrality, you know

You take from the Earth everything
But give nothing in return
Dirtying the air and water too
And forests all get burned

My buddy Stan
Is living life
He’s had his kids
He loves his wife

(Someone on Facebook challenged people to tell “Once was more than enough” stories. This was my take on it.)

In school as just a youngster
My teacher - rather gruff

Is life a dream of consciousness
Of entities up high?
Who go to sleep when we’re awake
Then rise when bedtime’s nigh?

(For a friend who enjoyed crossword puzzles. Her name is embedded in the verse)

Love joined with a spirit
On the day that you were born. A

You think you’re smoking when you’re smoking
Sucking on that ciggie
Envisioning Greta Garbo
The classic look of Twiggy

What’s the price of prosperity?
The answer is very strange
You pay for it with money
And get back climate change

You’re a woman we heard roar
Who just could not be ignored
And whose ballad was an anthem for all time
Nothing like it e’er before

Ecosystems end
In piles of trashes

Financial worlds end

When Rosa Parks made such a fuss
She had no problem with the bus

And Gandhi wasn’t being rude

They say that time is money
But what if it were love?
Or joy or kindness or charity
Or all of the above?

A disadvantage of getting old
Is watching once again
Mistakes of the past as they unfold
But having no power o’er them

Smallpox isn’t stopped with essential oils
And tetanus can’t be beat with organic soils
Rabies will kill despite the auras one sees
And cleansing and purging will not cure disease

I’m not a rock
I’m not an island

I’m someone who, as he’s gotten older

Not worrying what others think
Is the greatest freedom of all
For when you care, you hand them power
Of judgment - too short, fat or tall

(with thanks to John Lennon on 9/9/21)

It was 50 years ago today
Mr. Lennon taught the world to say

Belief is a bias
Prejudice to the max
A provider of “truth”
Without any facts

Why is it everyone thinks their god
Is the only one around?
In the written history of humans
There’s 5000 we have found

The America that I once knew
No longer in the public view
Now caters to a favored few

It’s easy to be depressed
At the news on the street
Cuz it seems only the worst parts
Of history repeat

The world is ugly and depressed
It needs more to renew it
Instead of sad sack poets
Adding negativity to it

Scrawny eagle flying high
O’er purple hills and plains
Dinnertime has gone awry
Only scraps remain

The Little Guy died
Late last night
After putting up
A gallant fight

Love is a cliche
That is getting very old
There’s nothing worse than heartbreak
Or so we’re often told

The soldiers fighting modern wars
Have silicon hearts, the generals rich
If you think today is bad, my friend
Tomorrow’s really gonna be a bitch

A toddler with her parents
Will surely feel alone
If when she needs attention most
Their gaze is at a phone

A gloomy fact
Sad to discover
Hope is a tool
That allows one to suffer

In regards to
Patriotic matters
The harder a flag's waved
The more it tatters

There goes another drama queen
For whom a poem provides the means
For venting teenage spleen

No snowflake makes an avalanche
No water drop a flood
And there is many a corpuscle
Inside a spot of blood

Remember this
With your last breath
Living is
The cause of death

If people smile when you arrive
And are saddened when you leave
Be happy for the wonderfulness
You have achieved

An empty life
Is what you find
When a corpse is all
That’s left behind

Democracy’s
Power balance
No bullets
Just ballots

Before women’s suffrage
Never fail
It was completely
Vote by male

Every single fascist
From Hitler to the Shah
Did not respect the law as king
Instead, the king was law

Beauty is not forever
It’s only nature’s kiss
So sadly we remember
Flowers wither, thorns persist

Life is a fairy tale
With love and pain and laughter
Except not necessarily
Happily ever after

Youth dies early
Aging lives on
Until the big stop sign
Says you can’t go on

Be careful, children
Or you will see
You’ve become people
You don’t want to be

You’ve left
I weep
Bereft
Can’t sleep

Fight darkness with light
Wrongness with right
No matter the consequence
Fight

If belief had any power at all
We never would have learned to fly
And way up there above us
Zeus would rule the sky

Hope is a tiny voice you hear
In the middle of a storm
Reminding that evening weather
Disappears by morn

Gods are dying
Left and right
Much as one
Expects they might

I’m finding getting older
Is really not much fun
There’s aches and pains and memory loss
Common to everyone

It’s good to be back to Illinois
My home when I was just a boy
The years have rapidly slipped by
When I spent time at Unity High

She told herself she was
“Living the dream”
But today it comes
In a different scheme

Fighting battles every minute
A way of life with no joy in it
If it’s happiness you wish to move toward
You must drop your sword

Please launch my hourglass
Into outer space
So its sands will stop their falling
And I can stay in this place

He said to his friend
“God’s got a plan”
“A plan in store for me”

So his friend smacked him

Experience, they say’s a great teacher
But I’m not so upbeat
If that is true, please tell me why
History continues to repeat

We learn to talk
And how to read
And how to walk
And how to feed

Why do TV sports fans need
Announcers to say what they see?
When they can see for themselves what happens
On their big screen TVs

They say you can see
The “magic of Christmas”
In children’s eyes

When engaging in conformity
I hear it’s true
That everyone loves you
But you

I was fighting an uphill battle
But after a while, I stopped
Cuz I realized that if I won
I would be on top

The cost of living keeps rising
Raising prices to the max
But not as bad as monetary wealth
With shortened lifespans and heart attacks

For winter, a sick bird
Down in mouth
Oriented self
And then flu south

What is capitalism?
One rule of thumb -
Its obsession with
Income over outcome

Stacks of dusty World War II Life magazines
Tin soldier toys, recollections, and dreams

Equality’s just math, you see
No matter how it’s branded
And so it’s very clear to me
Why some don’t understand it

Wealth is weird
No denying it
Some say, it’s money
But you can’t buy it

If I lived in Commercial Land
It would be really great
I’d drive the only car on the road
And have yummy food on my plate

Love is not a simple thing
And everybody knows
It involves a paired perspective
With four eyes nearly closed

A lot of farms
A little town
Rural charm
All around

Working forty years did I
Sweating, fretting, scraping by
Major stress
Minor success

So many interesting personas
There are in the world, I find
Making me wonder if sanity
Is just a socially acceptable state of mind

New world people
Young and old
Guardians
Of the land

Our good friend Jerry’s gone away
And we shall miss him every day
It’s thanks to him that we now know
How much good can fit in a soul

Before the world came to your door
And begged to be let in
You were a son and brother
With a very toothy grin

In a time of cruelty and inhumanity
It’s easily understood
If you really want to be different
Be good

Dear Ellen:

Not much new ‘round here, I’d say
I took a long walk yesterday
Thinking about the season

Greenery
Scenery
Machinery
Obscenery

Life without honey we could master
Though many it would displease
But it would be a real disaster
Without honeybees

A man arose one night to speak
Decrying problems of the world
To him, the outlook very bleak
A message he unfurled

I grew up in a ghost town that still exists
If that makes any sense at all
When everybody stayed at home
It was two hundred people small

It is said that a child
Is the father of the man
Ah, but what if the child
Doesn’t follow such a plan?

With no address, no bank
You can’t handle pay
So begging for money’s
The only way

I remember Sanka coffee
In cans of metal
And to go to the store
On your bike, you’d pedal

O Malta, I’m coming back
To twinkling stars and moon
Mdina, Valletta, Tarxien
And the azure Blue Lagoon

In our lifetimes
It may sadly be a thing
That one day we will talk about
The last robin of spring

A fire cannot burn forever
Because it destroys what feeds it
Just like a negative attitude
And so I ask, who needs it?

Bobette takes her makeup out
To smear upon her skin
Because to Bobette beauty is
Outside and not within

Problems for many
Poor people today
Aren’t existential
They’re residential

One thing to remember
That smart people know
If you want things to come to you
You can’t go with the flow

The problem with the world
Unless I am dreaming
Is way too much mean
And not enough meaning

Absence makes
The heart grow fonder
But exercise
Makes it go longer

A tiny flower
Along with weeds
Just got choked by
By Weed and Feed

It doesn’t fix
It doesn’t heal
No revolving
Not a wheel

I don’t want to be a billionaire
Not attractive to me
Cuz it would result in others
Living in poverty

I love the Earth
Its seas of blue
Rocks of granite
Springtime views

Thanks to relativity,
He doesn’t move through space,
Space moves through him,
In every case

When you shine most brightly
Your brilliant glow
Is reflected by
Everyone you know

Each day is occasion to celebrate
The joy of being alive
Some take this gift for granted
Some struggle to survive

Candace hasn’t got a thing
To wear to happy hour
Arthur lost his N.F.T
And is looking very dour

Seventy years now
Have come and gone
So I’ll take some time here
To go on

When the shine emerging from you
Lights up your neighborhood
You will know for certain
You done good

Every success is a failure
And peace seems like a mayhem
Whenever you’re lying in bed awake
At 2:00 a.m.

With “Song for Us All”
You warmed our hearts
And gave us laughs
With “Dodge Dart”

A pathmaker, a pacesetter
Compassionate and skilled
A gentle man, a gentleman
We’ll miss you Wil

Earth Day has come and gone
But remember it is true
That you need the Earth
A lot more than it needs you

Student protests
Are back galore
The hope is by disturbing the peace
They’ll also disturb the war

If the universe is infinite
I am nothing
If time never ends
My time is nothing

Sitting high up in the sky
God’s a most dishonest guy
Indecisive to the core
On both sides of every war

If in a field of flowers white
You suddenly do not feel right
And wish you had a different light
Here is my advice instead
Be RED

She was absent one day in fourth grade
And now has a bad result
Cuz that’s when they taught kids
How to be an adult

Life is short and you will die
Most likely you won’t know when
So now’s the time to take that chance
Before you run out of them

I’ve finally gotten to the bridge
I said I’d cross when I got to it
And I made a big mistake -
No way that I can do it

Some say “life was simpler then”
Referring to a century ago
But simpler doesn’t mean better
And here is why that is so

Leaves are new upon the trees
The needles clinging on
To branches on which they’ve been set
High above the lawn

Before our great
Democracy falls
Here are some commandments
For the walls

Say, hey kid
Ever hear of Willie Mays?
From back in baseball’s
Glory days?

When things are bad
Don’t complain
Cuz to make a rainbow
You must have rain

We used to dress up for photographs
Freezing time in Kodachrome
Gazing at the sun, asquint
So Grandma could see us at home

I never dream of the future
Only about the past
Of people who once lived here
But their visits never last

Liverpool boys
Instruments in hand
Assembled themselves
Into a band

Social media’s most misnamed
Leading folks to isolation
Interactions are not the same
Plonked down at a workstation

Dancing above us
In blackness of sky
Lights in the heavens
Planets flying by

Frowning lady at the wheel
Awaits the moment when she’ll

Go zero to sixty in something flat
With muffler noise on top of that

I don’t remember my first day
No way

I probably cried
Walking there from home
To that big brick building’s inside

On the day the world ends
People will go to work
Barber, sheriff, grocery clerk

Scorching the Earth - armies and weather
All of us are cursed
The two of them - working together
Couldn’t be worse

“When you stop following your dreams”
“Your dreams start following you”
Came these words from the mouth
Of an old man I knew

The rising tide
To the poor, a quagmire
Their shoreside dwellings flood
As yachts float ever higher

Teachers get paid
Paltry sums
But for almost every one of them
Outcomes are greater than incomes

Items from a German battlefield
Archeologists recently unearthed
Arrowheads and ancient swords
From carnage for what it’s worth

It doesn’t matter
Where you work
Professor or grocery clerk