Thinking all of this time
that I stood next to giants
'til I realized those giants were mad
But what brought me here
was impulsive stupidity
I see now that I have been had
Why seek fame and glory
when those who would give it
are truly a senseless lot?
I'll waste no more time
nor anymore energy
in giving them all that I've got
Theirs is no standard
to which I aspire
I'd sooner bed down with the hogs
For there is more honor
right there in the mud
than among all those rabid dogs
The loonies are now
in charge of the nuthouse
The owner turned over the keys
But I will not beg
nor will I borrow
I'll not even offer a 'please'
I no longer need them
I'll go my own way
Their nakedness has been exposed
There's no getting through
the madness of giants
Their eyes and their minds are all closed
Whose words these are I think I know.
His workshop is a nuthouse though;
He will not like my chortling sneer
That mocks his composition so.
If you, dear reader, think it q-ueer
To smirk and laugh, then stop and fear!
What seems profound when in your mind
On paper lands a new career.
In this ironic twist entwined,
I see my thesis now defined:
If erudite, my scorn is fake;
If mindless bunk, then well-designed.
The logic flows without a break,
But I have sanity at stake,
And droller dreams before I wake,
And droller dreams before I wake.
(With apologies to Robert Frost, author of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”)
with apologies to Yusuf Islam
Now I've been crazy lately
Thinking about the bad things we've done
And I believe it could be
The devil's work has begun.
Oh, crazy train sounding louder
Glide on the crazy train
Crazy train is getting nearer
Take me to the nuthouse again.
Surfing, morphing
Through amorous tidal waves
Thou Babylonian scoundrels
Poisoned, ordained
By the blues-begging rasps
Smelting Earth
Caching together as one
By force and virtue
Yielding life's battalions
Seeking solace, fame or gentle ears
What captures me most
About this glazed nuthouse
Riffs and thieves
Throwing down as NYC
The brackish drama
The ink-still-wet climax
Each protagonist
Twitching, bleeding
Their calligraphy carved from
Medieval, spiteful bent
Their tragedies, comedies
Levitating into series finales
Bubbling, screaming
The concrete-clicking pounce
Propelled by the fear of instant death
Each a Willie
Scribes scratching, staggering
Desperate for terminal legacy
Actors drowning, emitting spasms
Powered by flames and sunshine
You don't get here by mistake
Unless leaving is the answer
The acts, verses and curses
Vary by the levels of lunacy
You're willing to consume
So bark and hark
Who goes there
The parade inside you looms
As the audience
Hush, attentive, sardonic
Mouths gaping
Tongues wagging
To taste your wasted drop.
(10/13/16)
Imagine if today were the anniversary of the day
A phantom, some angel came down here to say
Or more to compel us to change our ways
Stop selling rotten apples from your tray.
To the nuthouse for the laughing stock
After they're bound in a block of wood
Ten paces back, soft apples stuffed with rock
Men's faces cackled as good shots were got.
That apple of God's eye
That in a pool of blood does lie
Humans'll shoot a messenger from upon high
Much quicker than they'll stop to question why.
If you believe all you read in some damned book
To men God apparently foresook
When some banned apple got took
Inside all of you is a seed if you happen to look.
If you nurture and grow, like a parent show
Fill me with Love we'll reach for above
Nature will flow if we leave it alone
An apple's just a tree, wrapped up in a glove.
Now I am sitting alone in this
Funny wagon with my boom box
and minding my own business
along with a bunch of numskulls
who thinks I am a nutcase like them—
What a drag! And they think we are
all going to a Funny Farm where
they take those who go bananas!
But I know better because
I am good and dandy--
One hell of a cockscomb dude!
All I am doing is
bamboozling them for now,
Behaving as if I am one of them—
These dolts, dim-witted blockheads!
But, YOU, who’s reading this,
can vouch for me, won’t ya?
Why? Because you are as cool as I am,
It takes one to know one!
You catching my drift, ain’t ya?
~07/16/15
~"Colloquialism" contest by Laura Leiser
Full moon rises over haunted house
Things move there quiet as a mouse
At the front porch are some pumpkins
Lit as though there’s a soul within
Nothing will come and surely douse
Outside sits a large scarecrow louse
Beaming eyes like a great lighthouse
Bats fly inhaling all the sins
Full moon rises
A graveyard sits near the nuthouse
No skeleton bears shirt like blouse
Cat will scare you out of your skin
Beneath the ancient tree like limbs
Field they came from is a madhouse
Full moon rises
Russell Sivey
His life is now constantly watched
What has he gotten himself into
They locked him away in the nuthouse
All he did was love but he was not loved
She was beautiful he loved her
We spent many evenings together
Had many happy times together
Until it changed his love got into drugs
She bought from dealers
She slept around
There was no more love for him
She eventually found the one for her
Late past midnight at the drive in
he waited and followed them
Back to their place
he entered in the front door
A pistol with a bullit
And end the fellow
Who stole from me
he quickly said
You take my love
I take your life
The police found him
Now he will be watched forever
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