Before the civil war came
It was an assurance to slaves.
And then Lincoln freed them.
Now he is long in his grave.
Yet so many of us are still
Hoping for better times now.
We slave and we save but
We still don’t know just how.

What’s up there in the sky?
I want to know that, and why
Need we wait until time goes by
And why can’t someone try
To tell me there is more than dew
And why there’s nothing we can do
To get that delicious piece of pie
Now and not in the great by and bye?

I’m not asking why the sky is blue,
I know that and much more too.
I’m just questioning why the rich
Keep getting richer, not me and you,
And exactly what we all must do
To reverse an ugly, constant drain
Of those with little but not wealthy.
That can’t be a healthy kind of strain.

Yet here we are, century after century
Then when we go to church they tell us
To pray to the sky, to some invisible guy
And the rich tell themselves we are jealous.
They raise the prices so we can’t buy much
Then they create wars to totally scare us,
But when they need some cannon fodder
They definitely never will spare us.

It’s easy to cheat if people help them;
They know most of us are too silly
Most of us will blame the wrong thing
And not see them cheating ***** nilly.
They know we will go back to magazines
Vote just the way their daddies said.
They ignore what all the headlines mean.
Just like that, peace and freedom are dead.

Contentment has a different kind of sound
To everyone who has ever witnessed it.
It fills the heart and settles the mind
And baffles those who have dismissed it.
Those canting people that cackled at us
Scowling, “Give up, it’ll never work.”
We smiled and continued our courtship
Not thinkng them a bunch of jerks.

We carried on, celebrating our successes
And learning from our many mistakes
And in time we began to see quite well
This is just what love and life takes.
We made our plans and changed them
When things didn’t go the right way.
And step by step, and inch by inch
We became who we are today.

Now we have sounds we make to each other
Less words, more loving noises we utter,
Salutations cobbled together over the years
Some remolded nicknames we often mutter
Glad we have walls around, roof above, and
Sounds made upon our leaving or returning,
And all is well here in our home of love
A message that the home fire is still burning.

A visitor might ask us, and have before
What did he say, or maybe, what did you?
I could explain the habits of our years
But no need. I heard and of course, I knew.
We often use the telescope of contentment
And look backward to where the sounds began
To watch them change through time and space
And become what they became over the span.

Pastor Peter always had
A loving smile on his face
That hid the thoughts in his mind
And often saved him from disgrace.
He stood up in the pulpit
And looked right in place.
He coddled the congregation
With a tear during Amazing Grace.

They called him a man of God;
And assumed he was on the level.
He spent mornings with Jesus
And evenings with the devil.
A perfect place to hide his sins
Smiling down from the pulpit.
All peace and serenity he seemed.
Who would ever have guessed it?

One would think the ladies would
Be wise enough not to permit
Their daughters to stay afterward
As if he was some sainted hermit
And they were visiting a cave
High on a distant mountain trail
Not leaving them alone, just him
And a far too trusting frail.

But there never seemed to be
An end to superstitious fools
Who gladly made their offspring
Unwittingly one of Satan’s tools.
That is the way it goes sometimes
When people trust in the image
Of what they want to believe
Regardless of the final damage.

Hokum, poke ‘em
Fill ‘em full of lies.
Hokus pokus,
Tricking the unwise!
Hinkum dinkum,
Hear the trickster shout!
Joke seen; smokescreen,
Never will find out!

Two, four, six, eight
Stand up and holler
If you think Republican’ts
Should wear a shock collar.
Every time they bark a lie
They get it in the neck.
Maybe then the Democrats
Could fix the D.C. wreck.

Olly, olly, oxen fee
They’ll hang us from the Liberty Tree.
Huff and puff and blow them off
What a perfect thing to see.
If you want to hurt them
I’m sure it would be funny
If every time they lie
They loose most of their money.

Let’s all shout it together
Neener, neener, neener!
Check the Congressional ledger,
The Republicrooks of today?
None were ever meaner.
Isn’t it time we tell them
Nanny, nanny, boo boo?
After all, there’s no debate
They stuck us all in doodoo.

He’s got wrinkles instead of pimples,
That’s the way the story goes.
He’s outgrown growing
Except for his nose.
His memory works fine for things
That happened years ago
But what he ate yesterday
He doesn’t seem to know.

He used to sing and dance a bit
And now he just walks
For a couple of miles a day,
As he passes by folks
He stops and talks.
He catches up on how they are
And what is new with them.
But for what they said
His memory grows dim.

It’s not important to store the tales
They tell him of their lives
Of children’s accomplishments
And the health of their wives.
The important thing to him is more
To not be alone that day.
He passes time and smiles,
And enjoys life that way.

His hair has gone almost to white,
Without nearly as much pep,
His voice has gotten reedy
There’s a halt to his step.
But he has time for people and life
And he still writes his stories
That he tells to his friends
Who care to hear his glories.

I looked into your eyes
And I saw our tomorrow.
I couldn’t think of yesterday,
Of lost dreams or sorrow.
I could barely let myself
Believe for that moment
That there can be an end
For loneliness and torment.

It all seemed a fine fantasy
In which time stands still;
When I left my lonely street
And stood with you on a hill.
There was no rain or sirens
Just two people in an embrace,
And I was for sure that I was
Lost in your wonderful face.

Something happened then
Many of my dreams came true.
And every one of those dreams
Seemed to be there in you
I never took a moment to say
To myself, "Go slow, take care!"
I just wanted to soak this in
And suddenly I didn’t care.

I wanted to let all my hopes
Take me over and control me.
Not caring that there was no
Fairy Godmother to bankroll me.
I was on my own, and lost
In a dream that was coming true.
There was me, myself and I
And nobody else but you.

This could have gone so wrong
And this would be a threnody,
A dirge, a sad song of me;
A nearly Shakespearian tragedy.
Instead I played it just right.
I knew a good thing when it showed.
It’s been you and I ever since.
It was The Love Train I rode.

Our Congresspeople get rich
No matter how much you *****.
They do it again and again
Because fools voted them in.
You can’t make them stop
Because we don’t have a cop
That works for our side in DC.
We can’t call this the land of the Free.

It’s the land of gouge and overcharge;
Of money laundering crooks at large,
Calling themselves patriots and stealing.
There seems to be no thieving ceiling.
Rave and threaten and lie about it
There seems to be no doubt about it.
We are in the clutches of the greedy
Who fashion themselves as the needy.

And like some Middle Eastern nuts
They are constantly showing their butts.
They commit their crimes daily
Then go about almost gaily
Pointing at the victims they harmed
And claiming the poor are armed
Then trying to take away our rights.
They’re the people that rob us at night.

Yes, they are the crooks and now
They don’t even have to explain how
Because a third of our voters are dolts
Who have no concept of the nuts and bolts
Of the complex offices that lead us.
We’re in the hands of jerks that bleed us.
Once this nation was something great.
I hope we fix this before it’s too late.

They don't know the bubbleheads the ones
They don’t really know what they’ve done
Is a simple matter once we dissect it.
And what they really need to do about it.
They wring their hands as they are *******,
And neurotically grab at an attitude;
Then blame anybody else for their misery.
It’s a frightening case of mistaken identity.