Strike Up The Band
Strike! Strike!
Strike up the Band!
If you're brown
please beware
If you’re black
watch your back
If you’re yellow
dive for cover
If you’re red
you’re already dead
Strike! Strike!
Strike up the Band!
They’re coming to take us away!
They’re coming to take us away!
Raise high the flag
Raise high those stars and stripes
We’re Christians and Hindus
Muslims and Jews
We work, we sing, we dance
We play in parks
On Sundays after church
We’re neighbors
We’re lovers
We’re builders, cowboys
waiters, and cooks
We’re hot dog vendors
and ice cream peddlers
We hoe your fields
and pick your fruit.
We drive your trucks
and plow your fields
We cut your meat
and herd your cows
You wonder the price
You wonder the vice
It’s time to De-Ice
Rid us of these lice?
Strike! Strike!
Strike up the Band!
They came and took us away
away
away
away to Guantanamo
TRUMP SAYS ALL IS GRAND
IF YOU DO NOT LIKE POUND SAND
NOW STRIKE UP THE BAND
There are dreams, unsought dreams, dreams fulfilled;
Why cherry pick - adventure is knocking at the door.
—by Poet
My Dream Within A Dream
they marched back into my life
was this the afterlife
the family of his wife
this was not his fantasy life
but that was a smile on his wife
to go forth from safe place called home
across ocean’s deep, I did roam
a dream to kick up foam
make a family of our own
be fruitful with seeds sown
and to grow a backbone
but still I missed my mom and dad
before I had writing pad
a Navy adventure I had
unsought dream that I had
putting your hand in God’s hand
hear music, strike up the band
where you put your feet is God’s land
a steady flow of dreams
He heard my heart song, it seems
long time before that, poetry -
a window, by the sea
wearing a Renaissance blouse
before I had a spouse
for true blue lit up my lighthouse
Five-and-Ten, a ‘Mom-and-Pop’
just down the road
Ye olde-fashioned ice cream shoppe
Round the corner a little bit
an old barber’s pole
Enjoy the flavor of candy-cane wit
Near the station, a musty news-stand
superman comics, Cuban cigars
Circus announcements, strike up the band
All these things: Why, they still exist!
~ etched in memories of indelible mist
I'm going home to
Belize of my birth
Beat the drums
My fathers fashioned
Honk the horns
My brothers firmly hold
Strike up the band,
All a we da one.
I am home!
Not alone
You, me, everybody,
We make up this land
Generations strong
By the almighty sea,
East of our Belize.
*
So, come what may, I will still fly my flag
I am proud to call myself an American,
In spite of all her bizarre foibles and faults
Crooked politicians and their shenanigans.
So, come what may, I will still fly my flag
Divisive as the issues are, I’ll take a stand,
And salute for the Star-Spangled Banner
When the musicians strike up the band.
So, come what may, I will still fly my flag
If times aren’t quite as I’d like them to be,
I believe in those basic values we expound
What living in the U.S.A. still means to me.
So, come what may, I will still fly my flag
My impassioned heart swells with pride,
When I see waving the red, white, and blue
I get a tingling feeling down deep inside.
So, come what may, I will still fly my flag
By fate I could have been born in Afghanistan,
Struggling to keep myself and family alive
So, I am thankful I was born an American!
Written July 1, 2022
New Moon
What, a new moon? We're getting a new moon?
You say it will be arriving soon?
Will it be as shiny and bright
As the other with its glistening light?
Oh, how positively grand
The lads and lassies will strike up the band
And all the neighbors will be standing by
To watch it approaching in the sky.
Of course, the sky will be dark for a while
For the moon must travel many a mile
But soon we'll see its distant beams
Just as we imagined in our dreams.
New Moon was known in ancient tradition
Studied by wise men of erudition
But being unwise, all I want to know
Is where oh where do the old moons go?
Molly Moore
We go to war
to acquire more
Land
We go to war
to protect our investment
the Oil 'neat the sand
We go to war
to depose your 'evil leader'
strike up the band
We go to war
because we're right and you're wrong
about internet broadband
We go to war
because your country is corrupt, impure
as your dark-colored hands...
So, many will die
wives and mothers will cry
the world will shrug and sigh
commentators will ask Why...
Whatever the reason
There's no way to 'ease in'
So many will die ~
Can't war just be banned
must strike up the band
when you want to understand
do at my command
Jim Horn
At a hospital in the United States
When someone beats the virus fates
They play “Here comes the Sun”
A Beatles standard grandly done
The words hold a meaning for those
Struck down by the Covid 19 who rose
Why wouldn’t you strike up the band
Praising the sun when it shines for you again.
© Paul Warren Poetry
My daughter's ideas strange as could be
A moonscape wedding demanded from me
Would Lunar sites open June twenty-three
I checked with NASA; it wasn't to be
What now? said my daughter, awash in tears
Reliving some of her very worst fears
Earthbound doesn't cut it, she pleaded so
I had to think fast, but what did I know
Despair to my left. Disgrace on my right
I sat there a-thinking, all the long night...
Morning dawned bright, solution's clarity
A space station wedding, so easy to see
Rejoicing's at hand -- let's strike up the band
We blast off tonight, from warm desert sands
The guests had all left; the band had stopped playing
No more witty remarks, no more 'As I was saying'
Decorations strewn casually on the floor here and there
Half-filled glasses of champagne's stale odor downstairs
We looked at each other; we managed to smile
Surrounded by emptiness, crusted dishes in piles
Our heads still a-buzz from the night's gay repartee
These aches in our joints, souvenirs of exuberant glee
Turn back the hands of the clock, O you Guardians of Night
Nevermore burst forth rays of the dawn of morn's light
Play the music forever; let the champagne flow upstream
Perpetuate laughter, delicacies dainty, and dreams
For memories dim, as events recede in Time's sands
When the party is over, who will strike up the band
June 24, 2019
After the Party Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Anthony Slausin
Stand up to the gale
You know you cannot fail
Tall and strong
All along
Strike up the band
The win will be as planned
Don’t cry
You’ll get by.
© Paul Warren Poetry
A cacophony of sounds, all jumbled together
Random notes, dissonance everywhere
Violin bows saw the air lazily, effortlessly
Then furiously, chins pressed hard to instruments
Flautists' lips wistfully poised above the holes
In a flash, diving deep into spritely melodies
Trombonists' brass bars sliding outward, then back inward
Deep tones scale upward, peak, descend again
Trumpeters' cheeks bulge outward, double-chins aflame
Beet-red faces, fingers marching, horns tootling
Cymbals clang and clash! Drums beat and boom!
Clarinets clamor... A cello... An oboe... The conductor's in slow-mo.
All this, prelude to a performance quite grand
To the concert forthcoming -- Strike up the band!
Where life can seem half empty
In a sandbox missing sand
In this land of plenty
It is still full of demands
You can follow along the playbook
Do the best you can
But it's hard to fight what's not right
When you're a fighter with no hands
You can star in your own movie
Play the highlights of your life
Show it on the big screen
A sensation over night
But when it all is said and done
I'm sure that you will find
It's really hard to convince anyone
When you're an actor with no lines
You can strike up the band
With Rock and Roll the pleasure cruise
Have the upper hand
In everything you do
Find the perfect song
Make all of the right moves
But it's hard to get the crowd to sing out loud
When you're a singer out of tune
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