Little Larry came in using a wet puppy as an umbrella
He’s starving, he loves me, he is such a good fella
Where did you find him? He smells like wet dog
Behind Brewster’s woodshed, next to their hog
He is hungry, maybe starving, he needs a new home.
His mother said he also needs a bath and a comb.
We have to keep him, Little Larry argued, he followed me home.
In your arms, above your head? Asked his big brother Rome.
Nicola was naughty,
She wasn’t very nice,
She bit her mother,
And ate her white mice,
But Nicola’s brothers knew,
Exactly what to do,
They took her to the woodshed,
And sawed her in two.
"Who done did that?"
My dad had to know
I pointed at sister
Said, "She has to go!"
Dad wasn't impressed
Told me, "You get undressed!"
As off to the woodshed
We two did go ...
Once there, bottom bare
I thought fast, though voice weak
"Hey, dad. It's nearly Christmas ~
How 'bout we turn the other cheek?"
There's a tiger in the woodshed.
Safe and dark it lies,
Watching the night with
Brown and yellow liquid eyes.
The sleeper nestles in his bed,
The tiger kept outside.
No sudden urge will raise its head;
No dark horse will he ride!
The night goes on, and on again
As some nights tend to do,
Moon presiding on the scene,
Lone owl calling, "Who?"
But restless in his dreaming
And dreaming of his sin,
At last the dreamer goes
And takes the tiger in.
Pallor of a country worn
The woodshed all forsaken
With God our freedoms were assured
By governments we're taken
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
President Harry S Truman
(to a blues riff)
You're a blood red girl
You're a blood red girl
You're a blood red girl, you're a woodshed girl,
You're a good good girl.
You're a good good girl
You're a good good girl
You're a blood red girl, you're a woodshed girl
You're a good good girl.
You're a bloodshed girl
You're a bloodshed girl
You're a spit-curl girl, roller derby girl
You're a good good girl.
EARTH DAY 2021
Buy it a hat it’s going bald.
Today I bought DIRT….
top soil (allegedly)
sealed in plastic,
sold by the bag.
It claims to be infused
with microorganisms
and other good stuff.
Grandma Kelley used to tell us
“you’ll eat a peck of dirt before you die”
“go outside and play, get some good clean dirt on yourself”
We even made mud pies….
and tasted them.
CELEBRATE “EARTH” DAY
Take a walk….take a breath…
and thank “MOTHER EARTH”
for not taking us all out to the woodshed.
John G. Lawless
4/22/2021
They got a dog and all was well
But the cat came after, straight from the bowels of
Well….
The dog had been generous with her time.
The cat took no prisoners.
Thought she was fine.
Cat put up her nose at their meager attempts to feed.
She was prissy and snarly and had a tad bit of greed.
They were intimidated by the cat who threw out the dog.
He ran to the woodshed and snuggled up with the hog.
She’s taken over the house, the husband complained to his wife.
You are just jealous, she said.
Get a life.
Winter warms me.
It’s not the fire
or the quiet cat on lap.
It’s certainly not,
the harried, hurried holidays.
The shroud of
same-making snow
(the compost pile is the car;
the tree stump is the berry bush;
the woodshed is the forsythia patch)
is how echoes come to rest.
The words of seasons go
unfollowed by commentary.
ou c
Sounds no longer b n e.
A thought leads not to thought.
Wet boots,
tea mug warm in palm,
sun so low,
the song of snow
(sung sans echo),
is the cessation meditation
sought by seekers
all long year.
Malaise is a Feeling like Trump
Malaise is just feeling; you're feeling it too?
So many seem troubled, don't know what to do.
But knee-jerk reactors can't pass any test,
Their movements (more spasm) refuse to divest,
Of any advantage they think will serve self,
AND DAMMED if they'll listen to Science's Elf.
To "People of LIE," other's lives are a joke,
If you fear tomorrow, they'll buy you this coke,
It's always the other guy's fault don't you see,
Trump's plan for the future is, "Worry 'bout me!"
He makes fun of people who need to work hard,
And spoiled brat (he is) loves to squat in your yard.
If your child was Donald, you think you'd have pride,
Or 'woodshed' this pervert and blister his hide?
His evil's so childlike, "You hear what he's done?"
You might be amused if he were not your son!
But punishment's needed (or exile to Mars)?
Insane kill their parents, for Russian five stars!
Brian Johnston
March 20, 2018
Postcards of a ghetto life,
facts of being black
It's a common assumption in the hood
that you know how to talk smack
Lay the whip of indignation
smack dab on a hater's back
Twist the insult in deeper,
than give the whip another crack
If somebody tries to low rate you,
even try to talk about your family too
Well, in that case,
you gotta do what you gotta do
Take 'em out back to the verbal woodshed,
and teach them a thing or two
When you're talking smack,
you gotta be witty, you gotta be cool
Talking smack is an art form
that you don't learn in no charm school
Listen up, kids: talking smack don't have no rules
Nobody's off limit,
no one is too good that they can't be put down
Points are awarded
when you turn a smug smile into a frown
The best smack talkers got class,
that's just the way it's always been
They leave a door open, a dignified way out ...
so an enemy could one day be a friend
But don't get beside yourself,
and get to talking trash
Making me
have to smack talk you around again
Tell me you comprehend
Don't press that button
that'll make me go lingo loco
Please don't press send
Staring up to the star lit sky
wondering why
time seems like
it is standing still
my heart is playing violins
every interval
dying crossed my mind
I vaguely recall any fear of it
never seriously considered
what I be leaving behind
always taken out
to the woodshed
by those closest to me
how long am I gonna stand
with my head in the sand
good self question
does it really heal
this self reflection
the orchestra of grief has past
it took five years
for the sad song to pass
before the melody set in
a sweet rhapsody was let in
while a solo harmonica
plays softly in the background
allowing inviting emotions...
…MORNING TIME
Every morning at four, I hear the slamming of the woodshed door.
The rattle of the poker and the smell of wood smoke, wafting through the air.
It rolls its way up the stair to where I am sleeping there.
The smell of homemade bread, toasting on the large black kitchen stove,
With coffee perking.
There’s honey and home churned butter, oatmeal hot, and brown sugar sweet.
Milk is ready to be strained and put in large steel milk pails.
Auntie’s in her Kitchen but has Uncle George to meet.
Now done with my breakfast and out the door, I run.
Up in the battered rusty truck, truck I jump, and so does good, old Shep.
It’s off to Grandfather’s farm we roll.
The sun is coming up on Brett Road, and smiles across the family farmland.
I see my Grandpa Billy and Great Grandpa Rufus comes with a limp
Outa’ the chicken coop, with brown eggs in a basket, as the cat’s wrap around his feet.
He comes up to greet with a large toothless grin and great bear hands he grabs and hugs me, His little JoAnne.
We are a jelly jar full of pencils new in town.
From Europe we came heads up, points down.
No fancy names, we shared the same woodshed
and thanked Welches jelly for this practical bed.
Lead was a number four and fatter than all.
Trim number twos, we all awaiting the call.
Writing and erasing, sometimes we paid
For frivolous writing the humans had made.
The sharpest point in the jar was funny ole Lead.
His weftage was smooth but his family all now dead.
Lead became smaller and smaller and in time
was nothing but a stub, when #2s were in their prime
It's unfair to be held back once you know our point of view
to trash cans we go for no reason with no expectation to sue.
Till one day we snap and die from being tossed
A point without a pencil, life is colder than frost
My granny was only twelve years old
When she got her first tattoo
She was kind of a rebellious child
Back in nineteen twenty-two
She hid that thing for a little while
'Til her daddy finally got wise
He took that girl to the woodshed
With murder in both of his eyes
He asked that girl, "What did you do,
Don't you know that's gotta be a sin?"
"Now look what you've done to your body,
Has your mama seen your skin?"
Now my granny was a stubborn child
She didn't listen to a word he said
She didn't hide the one she had
But she got three more instead
Now as my granny got older, so did her skin
And her ink was droopy and sad
You'd think that woman would feel remorse
But I think she was almost glad
Now the art sunk down to her elbows
As it wobbled to and fro
The butterfly tats would take to flight
Everywhere Granny would go
Now another tat was a bloodshot eye
But now it was always winking
On the other arm was a battleship
But of course that thing was sinking
Well that's the story of my granny's art
She lived to be a hundred and two
The day she died it said "Rest in peace"
Not the gravestone, her last tattoo
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