Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Cemetery

I don't mind a stroll through cemeteries, not at all;

They're lush and green in summer and delightful in the Fall.

In winter they are bracing and provide much open space;

In springtime they abound in Mother Nature's gentle grace.

People do not walk their dogs across such hallowed ground,

So I never have to face down any rabid hound.

Thomas Gray was right to think they're peaceful and serene;

No one's hawking popcorn or cold soda with caffeine.

The lawns are tended carefully and maybe an old friend

Will have a splendid stone set up from money I did lend.

The people that you meet there do not come for any lark;

They do not act like nincompoops at some amusement park.

The weary world is distant and ambition is restrained,

Though death remains a stranger that I do not want explained.

I never dwell on what's beneath my footsteps as I trod;

Cuz I am with the living while they are with their God.

It's nice to have a place to go that's always circumspect;

A spot that's cared for tenderly when all the world is wrecked.

Just to set the record straight – it helps to be quite wary –

No matter how I look today my visit's temporary!



Windows Live: Friends get your Flickr, Yelp, and Digg updates when they e-mail you.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Bridge

Bridge is not a game I play or understand at all;

People with a deck of cards who have a quiet brawl.

There's partners and a dummy and an animated bid,

and staring at each other with the cold eyes of a squid.

They open with the bidding and the double and the pass

And have no inclination for some chips or social glass.

When the auction's over they begin by taking tricks,

While underneath the table there are several stealthy kicks.

There's undertricks and over overtricks and topsy-turvy scoring

And strategies by Goren that are really quite deploring.

They're trumping one another and finessing like a cad;

The table's heating up as if it were a launching pad.

So when the game is finished friendships often are relinquished

And married couples have seen their quaint partnerships extinguished.

Gimme checkers any day, or Scrabble or Parcheesi;

I'm not playing Hamlet, I just wanna take it easy!



Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Moby Dick

As the bitter winter gales creep through the stone and brick

I settle in to once again try reading Moby Dick.

In college I was told this book was greatest in the land

And reading it my intellect would suddenly expand.

I'm always up for something that will stimulate my brain

And keep it from just twirling round like some mute weathervane .

"Call me Ishmael" it begins; so far so good, I say.

The book continues with a ship that sails on Christmas day.

Captain Ahab is the man who brings aboard a crew

Whose job description is "one whale, relentlessly pursue".

This Ahab guy is not the type I'd want as supervisor;

He acts like God and Moses and has manners like the Kaiser.

Struck by lightening, with a leg chewed off by that pale whale,

The Captain's hold on common sense is really pretty frail.

There's cannibals and storms at sea and good exciting stuff,

But then the metaphysics makes the sailing pretty rough.

Melville throws in gobs of thoughts on life and death and such

And I begin to yearn for chips from bags marked as Old Dutch.

When the prose turns muddy with profound philosophy

I wonder what I'm missing on my little old TV.

But still I soldier on through chapters full of dialogue

That I suspect poor Melville wrote while drinking too much grog.

I'm halfway through the book when I do give up with a sigh;

His prose gives me a headache, is my only alibi.

And so the big thick book I put back in the cardboard box

Where it sits with chess pieces and mismatched woolen socks.

To assuage my conscience I will watch the movie version

Where Richard Basehart takes us on a nautical excursion

And Mr. Peck, the movie star, plays Captain Ahab well,

Madder than a hatter on the ocean's ceaseless swell.

I guess I will not widen my horizons for today

As I wonder if Pat Sajac uses a toupee.



Windows Live Hotmail: Your friends can get your Facebook updates, right from Hotmail®.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Skinny

The leopard cannot change its' spots.

The hide of a rhino is tough.

A snake can slough off its' old skin.

Chihuahuas go 'round in the buff.

The beasts are much smarter by far

Than we, the superior race.

They care not what color their skin

Nor put cold cream upon their face.

Cosmetics are sure for the birds.

The unvarnished truth is the best.

Perhaps if we were polka-dot

We'd give the whole skin thing a rest.

 



Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you're up to on Facebook.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Thanksgiving

Mama cooks the turkey.

Papa carves the bird.

Grandma sets the table.

Grandpa is absurd.

Brother watches TV.

Sister's on the phone.

Auntie wants possession

Of the warm wishbone.

Uncle likes potatoes;

He hoards the gravy boat.

Nephew has a sweet tooth,

And craves a root beer float.

Cousin wants to say grace.

In-laws form a clique.

Niece says that cranberries

Will make her awful sick.

The flowers on the table

Are wax and start to melt.

All the men wish they could

Unbuckle their pants belt.

Dishes in the kitchen

Are dirty and ignored.

The old folks nod off dozing ---

The youngsters are all bored.

The football game beginning

Revives festivities.

Desert has been forgotten –

There's only frozen peas!

Someone goes for ice cream,

To loud shouts of 'hurray!'

Next year from the deli

We'll have Thanksgiving Day.



Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you're up to on Facebook.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Bah Humbug!

 Scrooge reformed kept Christmas well, of this we have been told.

He carved a splendid turkey and was open with his gold.

No beggar from his door was turned, no reveler reviled;

The iron winter evenings at his home were all beguiled

With festive songs and dancing and a bowl of red ripe punch.

At work he gave Bob Cratchit leave to dawdle over lunch.

Old Scrooge was now a merry soul; his bank in London town

Reflected his munificence and loaned, with nothing down.

His miser's heart was dead and gone, and generosity

Made him want to share his wealth with all the bourgeoisie.

They flooded in to float a loan for homes and boats and carts;

For brewer's yeast and all the latest maritime sea charts.

'Collateral' was not a word that Scrooge let pass his lips;

He treated all his customers to plates of fish and chips.

Soon other banks were taking heed and followed where he led;

They somehow thought it was all right when all their ink ran red.

And for a while it seemed that finance would turn topsy-turvy;

Cuz no one said bad credit was akin to rabid scurvy.

Finally the bubble burst and stocks and bonds deflated

And pension plans were swooning like they had been quite sedated.

Foreclosures blossomed like the rust on shut-up factories

And people wound up living in old boxes under trees.

A scapegoat was demanded and old Scrooge was still at hand;

The government decided he had had the whole thing planned.

Like the name of Ponzi, 'Scrooge' became a deep offense

And everyone did blame him for the loss of pound and pence.

He had to go to Downing Street and beg to be acquitted.

The Cabinet to New South Wales had him quick remitted.

Now Scrooge amidst the dingoes celebrates on Christmas Day.

He carves a roasted platypus for those at his soiree.

Thus we see how goodness can bring on deep complications

When it gives to people nothing but Great Expectations.   

Windows Live: Friends get your Flickr, Yelp, and Digg updates when they e-mail you.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Nobel Prize

Giving presidents the Nobel Prize is not too wise;

You never know what it will do to those unstable guys.

Teddy Roosevelt got one and look what happened there;

He went off shooting lions and other creatures kinda rare.

Jimmy Carter also got the nod from all those Swedes;

Now Saint Jimmy floats around while counting his prayer beads.

Our presidents are better off with scorn and stern abuse;

Otherwise they get to thinking they are mighty Zeus.

It's hard enough to keep them straight and honest all the time;

Nixon said as president his actions were no crime!

They get enough baloney from their cabinet and staff;

Believing just a fraction would make devils howl and laugh.

The only prize they ought to get, from Hollywood & Vine,

Is an Oscar for performing with intense design.



Keep your friends updated— even when you're not signed in.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Shaming of the Shrew

How to start explaining Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew?

A play within a play, with a misogynistic view.

A tinker starts the whole thing off; he's higher than a kite.

He thinks he is a duke attending some big opening night.

The play itself is all about a lady, name of Kate,

Who treats the men around her like a pail of stinking bait.

She must have had a childhood full of dominating males,

Cuz now when she is with them she is harder than brass nails.

The plot is very simple; there's a dowry at stake

For anyone who's 'man' enough her haughtiness to break.

Also there's Bianca, younger sister, kinda cute.

There are some Italian guys who always press their suit.

The father is a dim old bird, a toothless pantaloon.

(If I had all his money you would find me in Cancun!)

Kate must tie the knot before Bianca can be wed,

But who can duck the wicked words she hurls at every head?

Petruchio blows into town; he's looking for some loot,

And doesn't care if getting it makes him a raging brute.

He grabs poor Kate and marries her, although it's more like rape,

And then proceeds to bully her into the 'proper' shape.

The whole thing is a "comedy"; I use the word with care.

I guess five-hundred years ago this kind of stuff seemed fair.

It ends with Kate as mild as mint, as happy as a clam.

If I were that Petruchio, I'd take it on the lam.

Cuz I doubt if Kate remains as gentle as a Hobbit;

I kinda think she's reading up on old Lorena Bobbitt.



Keep your friends updated— even when you're not signed in.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Antony & Cleopatra

Cleo and Mark Antony had quite a love affair;

It even made the brooding Sphinx grin down on them and stare.

But Marky boy went back to Rome and suddenly got hitched;

Cleopatra threw a fit to find out she'd been ditched.

Trumpets blow and armies march and pirates get the axe,

and Pompey hosts a drunken feast where morals grow quite lax.

But Shakespeare won't let Marky go too peaceful to the grave;

He sends him back upon the Nile where he can act the knave.

Octavius is horning in on Marky's little bower,

So Antony prepares  to show his army's mighty power.

Cleopatra promises her fleet to help her sweetie;

But when push comes down to shove they sail off to Tahiti.

Cleo and the love-sick Mark are part of the retreat;

They drown their shame in wine-soaked love, which really ain't discrete.

Another battle, fought on land, shows Antony's a coward;

His own men think he is a clown – an ancient Curly Howard.

His patron, mighty Hercules, deserts him just like that.

Cleopatra toys with him like any common cat.

She pretends to kill herself to bring him back to bed.

So the poor guy offs himself and falls down pretty dead.

Octavius is now the boss, so Cleo starts gyrating;

But he isn't buying it and puts her on "call waiting".

As her power and her gold are loosened from her grasp

She snuggles up just one last time – with quite a lucky asp.

This play is for the ages, that is actually for certain;

But look out for the movie starring Taylor and Rich Burton!



Keep your friends updated— even when you're not signed in.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

balloons

The world is a bubble philosophers say;

Latex expanding for only a day.

Sculpting the air with a futile design.

Twisting and turning is hardly divine.

Clowns in their colors at parties pretend

atmosphere to their will proudly they bend.

We're all of us jesters, who, like a balloon,

Soon become airless and pale as the moon.



Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online.

dogs

In Thailand dogs are everywhere,

Scratching fleas and shedding hair.

Males are never much henpecked;

Copulation runs unchecked.

Puppies in the streets are squashed

As often as my shirt is washed.

Packs of mongrel curs defy

The right-of-way of passersby.

No one owns these wretched beasts,

Living off their garbage feasts.

Buddhists hold all life divine;

Rabid dogs can breed like swine.

How I wish these mutts would cease

Living in the Buddha's peace.



Windows Live Hotmail: Your friends can get your Facebook updates, right from Hotmail®.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Fat Cats

There's leopards and lions and civets

But nothing gives me bigger swivets

Than fat cats who ride

In cars deep and wide

Past people all cooking on trivets.



Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you're up to on Facebook.