grateful to be dead

it's about time to ask the question,
trying to understand my next life lesson
before the night gets too dark and cold and damn,
i can't remember who i was or who i am.
so, there's plenty of fear and nerves and grief;
i can't seem to get enough relief,
flipping through and turning each page
while reading about the days of constant rage
with young blood on the school room floor.
well, no uniform needed to fight the next war?
but, hey, there's the national song!
i wonder if those lyrics are simply wrong?
i'm getting so old,
feeling tired and bought and sold,
walking away from the bull without a fight:
tell me what is it we all agree is right?
i'm dancing wearing pearls with a drink in hand,
grateful to be dead, listening to that passing band.
this glass half full that i'm holding high
it's filled with tears; i'm no longer wondering why.
just one more for the broken road.
my head stays high while my back is bowed!
it's about time to ask the question,
trying to understand my next life lesson
before the night gets too dark and cold and damn,
i can't remember who i was or who i am.

when you're not here

baby,
when you're not here
my head's just not thinking clear
'cause i'm spending all my down time
wishing you were near
and dear,
here comes the night
how can i feel alright
out walking my thin dog
when it all feels like a thick fog
and i can't see without a torch:
are you waiting on your front porch?
baby,
when you're not here
my head's just not thinking clear
'cause i'm spending all my down time
wishing you were near
and dear,
here comes that song
and it took much too long
it's the one about you
when you're wondering what to do
and the story goes that we met
the winners of a romance bet
baby,
when you're not here
my head's just not thinking clear
'cause i'm spending all my down time
wishing you were near
and dear,
here comes the night
how can i feel alright
out walking my thin dog
when it all feels like a thick fog
and i can't see without a torch:
are you waiting on your front porch?

the girl with the deep brown eyes

the girl with the deep brown eyes
filled with wonder
and surprise
she sang to me
and set me free
on a walk into the deepest wood
i was her big bad wolf
she was my little Red Riding Hood
her basket filled with sweet treats
we walked together down the leafy streets
hand in hand out into the town
she kept me up and i kept her down
our secrets like an open book
we turned the page for another look
the girl with the deep brown eyes
filled with wonder
and surprise
she sang to me
and set me free.

"Brave New World," whispered Huxley

"Brave New World,"
whispered Aldous Huxley
when the president went golfing
under a clear blue Florida sky
with the foreign wife carrying his junk
and a bottle of fancy dye
for his orange hair;
he used a net,
(somewhat like a devout Mennonite woman
with her fancy mustache
that she tried to conceal from the adoring crowds
gathered on the steps of a Christian mega-church
hoping for a sight of baby Jesus
heading to the back nine)
to scoop his balls from the rough,
tickling,
placing them in a more advantageous position on the fairway.
across the pond
beyond his driver's range
there was a rumored chemical attack
that wasn't due to an expired box of hair coloring
or a missed putt on the 18th green
or a recent attempt to hide an old affair with a young porn actress;
no, an actual barrel bomb dropped from the clear blue sky
onto a suburban street of eastern Damascus, Syria
and if very young children happened to be playing in a pile of their broken dreams
or busted stones, or watching a skinny bird pick through rubble for a crumb of food,
while noxious fumes of chlorine
sought out noses
pried open lips
groped lungs
invaded throats
well,
that would be too damn bad
assumed the adults who planned the attack,
piloted the military helicopter,
assembled the bomb,
and the men who gave the order to launch,
because they would expect a pleasant evening
surrounded by pleasant family,
amazingly untroubled by disturbing visions or nightmares
or threats of demotion or stories of demolition,
imagining themselves playing golf with the President,
whatever President,
regardless of his country of origin,
applause greeting their every easy step to the waiting clubhouse.
"Brave New World,"
whispered Aldous Huxley,
as everyone swallowed their pill.

no hair covering my eyes.

i wasn't Sampson by any stretch
being too small and young
and without a full and flowing head of hair,
but still my dad grabbed me,
hippie as i was,
forced me into his car
and drove off
headed straight to his favorite
perhaps only
barber
and there i was given no choice about cut
or trim or color
i was told to sit in the chair
and thought that i was lucky it wasn't
electric
and then again that
i didn't have to wear a dunce hat
like i once did in second grade,
oh, i remembered Miss Barnes,
all right, and how i was forced to go to the
front of the class
to the blackboard
where i found her piece of chalk,
that was the only piece i was thinking of
in second grade,
before writing "i will not..."
and i can't remember exactly what was
my awful transgression
or perhaps i was simply being a willful boy
as we did often try to be
but i wrote
over and over
top down
bottom up
in a sort of white scrawl
on her hard green surface
until she was satisfied
and i was tired
and the stool in a corner of the
old classroom
waited for me
and i sat on it
while she placed the
dunce hat on my little head
which had short hair
and now my father was trying to
imagine what i must have looked like in
second grade with the buzzed flat top,
a bit of wax to the stiff front hairs
so they stood ram rod straight to the sky
but i was no longer in elementary school
now being 21 years old and a freshman in college
yet he had his way
as i looked around for the stool
and the chalk and Miss Barnes,
who i heard had moved to Japan
married to some guy with short hair
and my father cast a big shadow
in the barber shop
from which it was hard to see the light,
even with no hair covering my eyes,
and i felt small
in the big swivel chair
with the red faux leather seat.