What we did is now done
Where we went is bygone
There is no going back
to that pubescent dawn
What we had is long lost
How we lived oft forsworn
Every living soul cursed
with the gift of being born
What we said is erased
Every minced word thus mute
Leaving only the rife
dying notes of the flute
With but one gasp at hand
When all trances are riven
The last resting hope is
to just be forgiven
I went into male modeling late in my teens
handsome I, strong, plus identically twined
a mentor bade us shave and ready to shoot
then, closely examining our photo readiness
he said, "you've missed a spot Marshall, on
your cheeks, right up here, can't you see it?"
but I couldn't, I didn't recognize the fineness
of the follicles, they were all but invisible to
my uncorrected vision, an eyesight needing
glasses but never getting, and the subtly of
such minuscule bad focus, including inability
to read facial expressions, is the culprit, and
not I, of my unseeing, forsaken, total undoing
Life's so short, and it keeps getting shorter
I loved the one I have, it's the one I ordered
But tics now are dear, needing reclassification
I'm reordering here, these my new declarations
'Tis a very strange thing, both eerie and weird
when something is seen or heard after the act
of dying, moving into the posthumous realms
yet quite enthralling as well, and breathtaking
realizing what is being witnessed can never be
duplicated, and perhaps a dawning comes that
life's all which is allowing us to be creationists
so we'd better carpe diem every single moment
We've never heard of them, because their kudos
lived and died solely in the eras of their lifetimes
yet a writer comes along, yes, a most dear scribe
and plucks these stories from the dry, dead past
wringing subtle glory out from lost and forgotten
bringing timeless clarity back into a here and now
Evenings can be hard for me, they always have
I get weird feelings of being far away and small
like I should be somewhere but not where I am
as if the world's too big and has to many people
and they're all going to someplace I'm not going
and they're all doing the things I cannot be doing
my focus becomes grainy, like a scratched photo
within the picture I'm running late and out of time
I fall into the same routine of my own self-comfort
self medicating with alcohol and drugs, overeating
but I'm sober now, mostly better, yet still can binge
I don't know how it started, and mostly it's stopped
and it sure is true that it's hard for people to change
I've heard a number of folks older than me say
"I don't feel old, I don't feel like I'm old as I am"
sometimes I'd think, "well, you sure do look old"
and now I'm old, but I also don't feel old as I am
which means I'm appearing old to young people
so, I guess it's my turn to be old, knock on wood
Chant the name of The Wholly Scientific Truth
the new religion for this age of human healing
give humble obeisance and big thanks to the
father of The Wholly Scientific Truth, Aristotle
and to each of his disciples, who came after
as all have greatly blessed our burgeoning order
please do remember them well and never forget
Albert Einstein, Issac Newton, Stephen Hawking
Marie Curie, Nicolaus Copernicus, Archimedes
Carl Sagan, Galileo Galilei, and Leonardo da Vinci
The thug in the rug's 'bout a Lil' boy named Paddy
his parents rice poor when along came the Laddie
so up for adaption like them steers sold at auction
and Paddy's new daddy's a big rancher from Austin
All seemed very fine until the day Paddy turned ten
when one of the cowhands who's not a gentlemen
gave the kid a present that'd forever change his life
two gifts of cocaine and one teenaged whore wife
Next came the beers, yes, the youth loved cervezas
and a dozen drunk empties a day donned his mesa
when in the year of thirteen poor Paddy went to rum
his old pal Jesus showed him his firsthand held gun
Well Jesus's wife Lucy had all along serviced El rancho
but with her favorite guy Paddy she decided to only go
this quite angered Jesus and it led to some showdown
where Paddy shot Jesus in a place just outside of town
As almost all patrons in Texas are Anglo-Saxony men
the many rumors of murder and this delinquent Asian
spread fast as does wildfire let loose in high chaparral
when the school's biggest bully next fell to his shrapnel
"Hey, slant-eyed chink!" Tommy Wilkins shouted out
"let's meet after class near the old corral roundabout
right there in the pit of town's secret chicken fight bell
cos I'm sending you back on a junk straight to hell!"
Let's write a children's book
by Doctor Loose as a Goose
do it swell in all giddy poetry
fun like that water wiggle toy
Oh poems are comparatively so easy to write
not like long novels that become longer fights
or essays you know, requiring focus and drive
and stories dear me bringing tears to my eyes
yes poems are by far the lightest literary thing
to pen a great poem, is the stuff of my dreams
The Wikipedia said he'd been sick for some time
but went on ill for awhile before his final demise
then a couple years ago I too felt a loss of health
feeling weak and sometimes dizzily out of sorts
I've been sensing myself gradually getting worse
so it's my turn to go downhill like famous people
except for me there won't be a public explanation
