My Pa used to always say:
"Son, life is like a game of cards,"
"Don't cheat, until no one's lookin',"
"Don't spit, in front of company,"
"Don't ever Pee, in a wind storm,"
And absolutely, positively, no matter WHAT,"
"Hey Boy, hand me another Blatz!"
"Don't ever, EVER, defecate where you eat!"
"Or is it where you work? Or was it sleep?"
"Hell, I don't know, I've soiled drawers in all three."
"After THAT, My Progeny, the world's your oyster!"
"SHUCK IT, SUCK IT, AND CHUCK IT!"
I know you can groove
but I wanna see you
dance
i wanna see you dance
I wanna see you dance
Dance
Dance
Dance for me.....
---------------------------------------
It all depends
and those who
so evers
and whats going on
and who's deemed clever
taken in account to
the calender
your plans and mine
and to what
each prefers
it al depends
it all depends
Giving consideration
to your cumstance
I'm opened to agreeing
dancers need preparation
lyrics need beleiving
it all depends
how the music takes it's
groove
whether they wanna shuck
and jive
or the people wanna
party and groove
it all depends
it just all depends
shoo be doo whop bop
skit doo be dooy
ah uh ooh we
doo be do be
shoo be doo woop woop
ah doo we doo we
ah doo we do ah
ah shoo be doo we
It all depends
in such consideration
what are we doing
what are saying
what's the rules
to what obligations
it all depends
it just all depends
They were all out standing in their field
with an ass or two and a few moose
along with a stray Canadian goose
when someone let the Appaloosas loose
not a welcome sight nor pretty view
while the moose who cud did slowly chew
the well-trained colt did not bolt
or even buck to shuck us
the goose didn't give a honk or hoot
but the asses kicked up such a ruckus
and if mushrooms you have half a mind
to seek (not the magic kind of stalk)
be aware take care of where you walk
as there by the end of the week let me remind
the field was knee-deep if not chock-a-block
with what the livestock left behind
.
i found hern
yes I did
sprouting
from the pretty uv thuh
prairie
cross thuh creek
and to i
hern grant'd mine
look see
and hern pluperfect wuz
and still
iz
she found mine
yes she did
we argue 'bout it
just for
shuck and jive
but 'twuz 'cross thuh
creek
and i did peek
'bout mine duke's digits
worth
i smiled
and ya knowz thuh
poet...
i shuck and jive'd her
'til her clothez
well
y'all knowz
Red cones on the blacktop
August is a burning blanket.
Dusty crows perch on long dead armadillos.
The Chevys' air-con
chokes up a warm blow.
A Navaho in Ohio has phoned.
he needs to talk about his dead wife.
He will have cold beers.
I have my own beers
but go anyway.
The evening is electric and neon,
city roads growl like wounded samurai.
If I were a hermit crab
I would shuck this scorched world off
my sweating back.
All I really want right now
is to sleep naked on a mortuary slab
as cold Atlantic waves
undress my skin and bones.
Not dead – just revived enough
to be a friend of a friend
to the newly departed
and still cooling.
oh much of what we know, do and see
has to do with our birth locality
you won’t know how to shuck corn in any way
unless born in Nebraska, Illinois or Ioway
Born in a forest, we are not awed by a tree
which could make your heart leap in New York City
Midwesterners could not ride well in a subway
unless you could teach them city skills in one lone day
oh much of what we know, do and see
has to do with our birth locality
we might be hicks, but we do well in sticks
whereas city slickers would be confused by our tricks.
the steady light of a white votive candle
reflected and amplified in highly polished brass
symbolises devotion
talents never to be hidden under a bushel
but the secular world isn’t privy to magnitude
of the delinquency some are at great lengths to hide
very tendentious opinions defended
though harsh magnifying glass of consequence
held up to each and every regrettable past act
beware of the dogs
countenance in commiseration with the terror
that was struck in the quaking hearts by Black Shuck
sequenced scorch marks from its claws in evidence
when the church door was struck open by thunder
in fear we repent our moral lapses and expiate our folly in tears
We'd go tenting away from city lights;
friends, living on the cutting edge of wow.
And gaze up at the stars on summer nights,
connecting with the universe somehow.
The world was our oyster we'd shuck for pearls,
leaving our fortunes in the hands of fate.
But when we started fighting over girls
our forever friendship morphed into hate.
We drifted apart and said no goodbyes;
but that was then; this is now; we have changed.
We're no longer those hormone-driven guys,
and I believe that we both got short-changed.
We've lost too much time already, my friend;
for fractured friendships don't have to end.
Spent Treasure
Julius Caesar desired Brittania
not its tin for soldiers weaponry
but for an island strung with pearls
the rarest and most prized of gems
he would face the channel storms
Caesar’s lust for jewels and gold
with captives sent to plunder banks
shuck icy rivers’ mussel stores
and freeze for gods of vanity
to secure the emperor's fame
a cuirass made of British pearls
he laid on Venus Genetrix
ancestor of the Julian line
holy mother of the Roman state
could tempt a queen into his bed
reserved for the nobility alone
set within crown jewels to come
adornment for Elizabethan gowns
protected now so few remain
it’s rare to find a pearl or humble shell.
The vulgar obtain
degrees in sophistication,
the sophisticated study vulgarity.
Mice dress like men,
and rats lead the wolves.
No one is happy with their lot,
that allotment given, or taken away,
that political lottery that none win.
Can we shed our skins, like serpents
shuck this old-time corrupted living,
rinse away the sludge of
an untold history?
The bells no longer ring
in small town churches,
where the average
meet
to understand our
showboating American God.
Razzamatazz glitters on,
illuminating the homeless
as they shop for gold teeth,
for it is good to smile and shine,
when left behind,
under the cold,
cold, floodlight of fame and infamy.
It was the kind of heated up August that fried toads
My sisters and I sneaked off to the riverbank
Don’t get wet! Our mother warned us
We emerged ourselves into the cool water
The only animal around was a robin
But we jumped in fully clothed anyway
Knowing by the time we returned home
We would be completely dry
This feels like heaven! My oldest sister said
Corn isn’t going to shuck itself! The baby chimed in
We laughed at our silliness, loving being sisters
Glorying in the relief we had found on this hundred-degree day.
Miles past the nightstand
over the plastic water bottle.
the Ambien pill dispenser
and the soul-bruised eye shades,
an arrhythmic clock
ticks like a bombed-out tank.
Of course there is the lampshade
(that lighthouse for the luminescent krill
of submerged consciousness)
that seems attached to my skin
whenever body parts want to cut ties
with a mattresses concave reality.
Secreted like a drugged shark
in the shallow recesses of a snaring drawer
a snubby barrel with six mad prayers
snugs up against a snoring bible.
The raven iridescence
of night-cats prowl a life leaking bed;
occasionally they look up
their eyes shining
as they search for an alien presence.
On its four arthritic legs the nightstand
watches;
its tour of duty still patrolling a far off
conflict of doubt and faith.
Time to turn over the hull of being,
upright any surface
with a legibly printed label,
then haul that address back in
from the far side of an arm’s reach.
Time to shuck whatever shell
still rolls unopened in the surf
of the tossed and blanketed.
corny valentine, you are my favorite said hawk.
lend me an ear, honey, but do not stalk
shuck on down to Iowegian town
give me a wave, a smile, not a frown
corny valentine, you are so neat
with your rounded kernels, ever so sweet.
Recalibrate, rededicate, remotivate
Life calls on us to demonstrate
that we will not quit, give up, or surrender
not become down-and-out dead-enders
So suck it up, stand erect, take the bull by the horn
at the crack of dawn, milk the cow, shuck that corn
The hourglass becomes resplendently empty
As the sand flows through with their kempty
Grains, dry as a corn shuck, flow
Seemingly they know
Time's reduced
Woe!
Earth lost boost
It's feeling the throe
Of miseries which will show
Drawing to close times where there's plenty
The hourglass becomes resplendently empty
Made up form: Andaree
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