The Nursing Home

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Be it ever so humble,
wher'er you may roam,
when you're sick and you're old,
you must play "Nursing Home".
Your sons and your daughters
have no place to stash
an elderly nuisance
without lots of cash.
So you go to a place
that smells deep of Lysol,
where the staff's barely trained
and they don't care at all.
And if your mind's weak
and your body is frail
you're treated much worse
than a convict in jail.
You're tied to a wheelchair
or maybe a bed.
They don't change your diaper --
let's pray you get fed.
And if the staff's lively
and in a good mood,
they may play some jokes
in the dark that are lewd.
So when I grow senile
it's my only wish
to be dropped overboard
to be food for the fish.
 
Tim Torkildson
St Anthony  MN

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Internet Security

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Internet security
is broken past repair.
Cybercrooks can get you
with their overseas malware.
Open up a window
from a source you do not know,
suddenly your PC
gets an eerie zombie glow.
Botnets are attacking
with their worms and tons of spam;
the world wide web is rotten,
overripe for any scam.
Luddites had the right idea;
I'll follow their example.
I will take myself offline,
my monitor I'll trample.
I'll go back mailing letters,
conduct business by phone call.
So harness up my buggy
and hand me down my old plaid shawl!

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Zimbabwe

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Free gravesites in Zimbabwe
for the victims of disease;
a dainty way the widows
and the orphans all to please.
Raw sewage runs in rivers
past the mansion and the hut.
You better not drink water
or fall down and get a cut.
The infrastructure disappeared
inside Mugabe's gate.
What makes us think the USA
can't have the same dim fate?

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The Movie Usher

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Here's a job that don't exist
since many years ago --
the usher who would pamper you
at every movie show.
This brave young man, he plowed the dark
with only one flashlight,
in his pillbox cap, and coat
of many buttons bright.
He took your ticket, guided you
right to your numbered seat,
dusted off the popcorn
and made sure that it was neat.
He kept a wary eye out
for the deadheads without ticket,
and the fiends with cigarette --
he told them where to flick it.
No one now to guide your steps,
to tell the talkers: "Cease!"
You could slip and break your neck
alone on popcorn grease.
The usher at the movie show;
he kept the crowds quite docile.
The fact that I remember him
makes me an aged fossil.

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Cargill

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Somewhere off in India
a hungry child succumbs
to a life, or living death,
of fighting dogs for crumbs.
In Cargill's ritzy offices
a dividend is born
from bursting fields around the globe
of wheat and soy and corn.
In subSahara Africa
a family scratches ground
devoid of every nutriet,
too weak to make a sound.
If you have the money Cargill
phosphates will deliver,
enough so you can fertilize
then dump some in the river.
Rain forests are vanishing
down to the last lush leaf,
making way for pigs and goats
and lots of marbled beef.
So Cargill fattens livestock
and will bring it to our door,
as we read of famine
in some place they call Darfur.
Abundance and bleak scarcity
existing side by side --
And Cargill sends a splendid card
to wish us good Yuletide.

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Grape Jam

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Explaining our economy
you'd need a diagram
that looks like monkeys walking
through a jar of spilled grape jam.
The squiggles there would represent
the monetary loop;
these hash marks are debentures
and that there is monkey poop.
The Dow Jones average would appear
like jam thrown on a wall --
the bond market would be a smear
where some dumb ape did crawl.
And if the whole thing looks insane
and makes you pretty cranky,
help yourself to all that jam
to throw at Ben Bernanke.

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The Sears Roebuck Catalogue

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Sears Roebuck had a catalogue
they sent out in December.
Memory plays tricks on me
but THAT I do remember.
To gaze upon its pages now
you never could have guessed
the kind of hope and ecstasy
its photographs expressed.
With toys and games and chocolate drops
and sleds and pop-up books,
ping pong tables, dinosaurs,
fine rods and reels and hooks.
A wonderland it was to me
though I knew all the time
the folks would do their shopping
only at the Five & Dime.
But every boy should have his dreams,
no matter how remote,
to help him push away the clouds
and over mountains float.

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Candles

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What's the deal with candles?
Everybody keeps a few
in a kitchen cabinet
in case a storm blows through.
But -- hoo boy! -- take a look today
around the old home place
and you'll find one everywhere
twinkling in your face.
The living room is loaded
with 'em stinking up the air
in barberry and citron
and vanilla or green pear.
The bathroom's got one burning
and the dining room's ablaze;
in their little glasses
they produce a perfumed haze.
The reason for this nuisance
is that we are slowly drifting
towards a nation of such sloth
that candles we are gifting.
Birthday, anniversary,
or some romantic joy --
people giving candles
are a common, lazy ploy.
Try and give me candles
as and gift and you will find
how it feels when beeswax
is crammed up your cheap behind!

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Al Franken

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There was an old comic named Franken
who wanted to reach Senate rankin'.
He did not talk soft.
Big schtick held aloft,
on voter fraud he now is bankin'.
 

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The Coaster

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The coaster is a social grace
I never learned to try out,
and so my tables all have rings
that never really dry out.
And when I put a glass down
it does stick as smooth as silk;
that means I've done no crying
over spilling of the milk.
In fact the glasses stick so well
that now I am a-startin'
to forgo all that folderol
and drink straight from the carton.

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Our Ally

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Pakistan breeds terrorists
like dogs develop fleas --
seems there's always room to grow
a few more Jihadees.
Government is negligent
and doesn't seem to care
if their young men fool with guns
or blow up in the air.
Guess there's not a lot to do
in dirt-poor Pakistan;
if cholera don't kill you
then the politics sure can.
The farmers and small merchants
cannot make an honest buck;
the Army gets the money.
Everybody else?  Tough luck!
So why not be a terrorist?
At least the pay is sure --
you get to go to Paradise
and play with virgins pure.
With Pakistan our ally
we have very little hope
of getting off the treacherous
and deadly slippery slope.

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Big Fat Magazines

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Magazines grow thicker
with each issue that I get;
with "Special Advertising
Sections", to my sore regret.
Once there was an elegant
and oh so svelte New Yorker;
now it's padded out into
a coarse and bloated porker.
I never read that garbage,
the page numbers it confounds
so the article I've started
suddenly is out of bounds.
It is not upon the back page
nor the pages inbetween.
Subscription cards are all I find;
their number is obscene.
Like baseball, magazines should be
encouraged to detect
all bulking-up material,
which they will then eject.
Maybe then I can complete
an article I've started
instead of playing Moses
 with the sea of ads I've parted.

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Black Friday

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A man died on Long Island
and his name was hard to say;
an accident you'd call it,
since he just got in the way
of shoppers on the rampage
when the day was at its start.
Trampled underfoot, he died,
while temping for Walmart.
Heads are shaking everywhere
but no one stops their shopping,
not as long are prices are
continually dropping.
The man died for consumers,
so we ought to take a pause
to think of his blood sacrifice
for dear old Santa Claus.

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Peyton Place

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Remember back when "Peyton Place"
created such a stir?
The censors tried to banish it.
The preachers cried "Impure!"
Everyone its contents
did abjure and then deride
(while keeping it in paperback
discretely at bedside.)
Since then our moral standards
have receded quite a bit.
Today adults don't read it
cuz it's strictly Children's Lit.

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Season's Greetings

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I'll be home for Christmas;
I can't afford to go
anywhere that's warmer
and lacks a foot of snow.
The radio is blaring
those shop-worn Xmas tunes,
shriveling my goodwill
into a heap of prunes.
I'm getting awful tired
of all those silver bells,
crooning about sleigh rides
my ear drums greatly swells.
Rudolph, take your red nose
and stick it you-know-where;
Frosty, I've a blow torch
to part your snowy hair.
Yodeling of Santa
won't make me a good boy,
not when it's repeated
in volumes that annoy.
Elvis singing carols
is not much of a treat;
I am now allergic
to the Nutcracker Suite.
Christmas would be better,
the Season would be bright,
if we had less clamor
and much more Silent Night.

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The Fruitcake

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Fruitcakes are a marvel
of the baker's mystic art;
full of so much candied fruit,
they never fall apart.
Instead they harden with the years
into a solid brick
that no one ever slices;
all you do is take a lick.
They're passed down in a family
like some damaged DNA --
a dirty little secret
on this happy Holiday.
Should ever you recieve one
do not panic but be quick
to soak it in hard liquor
and insert a candle wick.
Then put it in the attic
'til the next Fourth of July,
when carefully you light it
and bright fireworks let fly.

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Saving Spree

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Black Friday when you're shopping
remember that the stores
have even fewer scruples
than cruising back-street whores.
For every sale they offer,
for every Red Tag price,
you're paying at the double
or maybe even thrice.
They'll say returns are easy
if you're not satisfied.
If you believe their twaddle,
your brains are fluffed & dried.
So stay home, watching football,
or grab a DVD.
Surprise yourself by going
on a saving spree.
 

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The More Things Change . . .

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Take another loan out.
Get another credit card.
The Feds will reassure you
that it isn't very hard.
They're bailing out the banks
that want you staying deep in debt.
The thought of thrift or savings
is viewed as financial threat.
Debtors make good citizens,
so spend more than you earn . . .
doesn't that sound like a tale
composed by old Jules Verne?

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Spike Jones

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There used to be Bing Crosby,
Perry Como, and their clones.
But if you wanted song unique
you had to hear Spike Jones.
A hepcat with a chainsaw,
he would mow down the Top Ten,
then play a set of 'Chopsticks'
on the chimes of staid Big Ben.
His trombones squirted water
and his french horns were kazoos.
And what he did to classics
made Stokowski blow a fuse!
He took each note and twisted
it into a pretzel shape.
He took all stuffy music
and did crush it like a grape.
This maniac did flourish
when the zoot suit was in style;
the generation after
was reduced to Gomer Pyle.
So when the grandkids tease you
for your lack of comic view,
just sit back and remember
you had Spike's "Cocktails for Two".

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Nantucket

---

"Nantucket", when used in a verse,
will always draw snickers, or worse --
the obvious mind
does think it's a kind
of prelude for some horrid curse.

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