Many are hamster-wheel humans
So punch-drunk from assuming
They know the way things work.
The wealthy urged them to elect jerks
To run this country into the ground
And turn it into the worst place around.
It’s a sad tale, a ***** of a story
Where those with guts, don’t get glory.

It’s a horror story, like in scary flicks
Where when men in suits get their kicks
Imprisoning brown people and kids
And laughing about the bad they did.
Afterward, they say others are to blame
But make no attempt to hide their game.
They put thousands in jail and charge them
And sing out loud their lying anthems.

They say fake news is the real McCoy
But, the real news they say is a ploy
Honest people want to stop the plunder
That, up ’til now, they kept hidden under.
But now it’s in the open meant to appease
Ignorant white people that are hard to please.
They want whites in power, think that’s nifty,
No wonder they elect only those who are shifty.

Too many quit learning in school, after ABC,
And they have no use for the land of the free.
They liked how it was in eighteen hundreds
With slaves, inhumanity to those they plundered.
They got up in arms when a black man won
And the class war was once again begun.
The very rich told lies to change the rules
People began to act openly like rapacious fools.
This is the country of which we were once proud.
It’s right now being destroyed by the elite crowd.

Yesterday and tomorrow
All in a memorable row
Happiness and sorrow
Always a few more to go.
Laughter and sadness
Marching through time.
Dealing out character
Each of us must find.

Lovers and some losers
Each kind had their say.
Whatever they did to us
Made us who we are today.
We all had to learn about
The liars and the thieves.
We taught ourselves not
To do what makes us grieve.

We learned to reward ourselves
For living and getting strong
Even when our history has
Gone quite suddenly wrong.
We are the ones who count
And must add up the score.
So, we are the wones who know
What our life has been for.

Whining does so little good
And makes others turn away.
It’s up to us to find the words
We need to hear and say.
So we do what we can in life
And deal with what we’re given
And learn we can't have it all
Wrapped up in a pretty ribbon.

(Nasally)
Ya say ya wanna look good?
Ya say ya wanna look young?
Ya say ya wanna take on the world again?
(clap)
Tell ya what I’m gonna do!
The secret is not in any little bottle.
No sir! Not a bit of it!
Step right over, friend.
I’m gonna tell ya the secret that works!
The Golden Key. The Fountain of Truth.
Yessiree bob! The Blessed Path. The open door!

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?
Do you pop out at parties?
Are you unpoopular?
(clap)
Do people turn off lights and hide when you come by?
Do some people refuse to return your calls?
Do you find yourself alone most of the time?
Are you under threat of being fired?
Are you sick of forgetting where you parked?
Do you wake up in the morning or come to?
Tell ya what I’m gonna do.
Step over here, friend.
I’ll give you the secret.
(There ya go, and when you get there, there ya are!)

Part of the problem is the solution.
You are drinking a solution that lies.
It says everything will be okay, if you drink.
Drink more. Yessirreebob! Recognize it?
(clap)
You take a drink or two after work and then…
It’s morning, you remember nothing, then
The whole shebang starts all over again.
You started out inviting people over
But, they used up your ***** and dope.
And there you were staggering
Down to the store to buy more
Struggling to write your name on the check.
But, what the heck. You were popular
But no more. All that is left is the store.

So, ya say ya wanna get better, fast?
Don’t put the cork in the bottle.
Throw the bottle away. Don’t buy more.
That’s the real score, the secret.
(clap)
You can’t have it both ways.
Either you wanna get better and live
Or you will keep on trying to give up
Without surrendering. It’s amazing.
You’ll feel like crap for a while
But you do now, and never smile.
(clap)
So, that’s the way it gets done.
It happens to everyone who wants
To get off the merry-go-round
And settle down to living, and smiling.
After you quit the daily drinking bit.

Nobody marching toward us
Their guns making us die.
No tanks are come clanking
No bombers in the sky.
But our Congress and generals
When oil or bases seem needed;
We appear armed and threatening
Peace and love talk not heeded.

No country has attacked us
With troops and lethal artillery.
But our leaders expect us to
Go open up their arteries
And **** their women and children
And laugh while they all die
And we are expected to do this
And never think to ask why.

It’s almost like big companies
Were sad when WW2 ended
So they started attacking countries
We really should have befriended.
We let Russia have free reign
To **** and ****** and steal
Almost as if their aggression
Wasn’t really true or even real.

We looked around and made them,
Those evil old warlike excuses,
That some country threatened freedom
And we pretended they weren’t ruses.
We attacked Korea and Vietnam
We were just supposed to observe
That they were yellow people there
And think they got what they deserved.

We didn’t stop there, as Reagan took
A duly elected leader and put him in jail.
If any country did that to our country
The conservatives would howl and rail.
Then the Bushes tried their best to take
Iraq to steal their oil and punish them
And created an era of stronger hatred
And anti-American outrage and mayhem.

No foreign country has attacked America;
So, the point bears repeating once again.
We need to stop acting like bullies here
And start acting like decent statesmen
And women who have the bigger picture;
The growth of peace in our battered world
So, other countries will not take their guns
And shoot our flag when it’s unfurled.

I’ve reached that age where I dodder
And when I forget becomes fodder
For impatience and often abuse.
I apologize but it’s seldom any use.
I have learned to smile and tip my hat
As I am now the oldster I once laughed at.
My face tells a story with every wrinkle
And it now takes me longer to ******.
I have to get up two or three times a night
Which means my kidneys aren’t working right.

Getting up from a chair is a three part thing
And I can’t do it without some moaning.
I’m very glad for a thing called remote control
Because it’s a saving grace for growing old.
I moved the coffee maker closer to my chair
So I don’t have to walk so far over there.
I’m thinking of swapping my end table in a smidge
To replace it with a my own personal mini-fridge.
That will save me even more trips over and back
By loading it with sodas and some clever snacks.

Now just in case some might think I’m *******,
I’m not, it’s just that my habits are now switching.
It another phase of living life, is all it means
Like switching to Sansabelt slacks instead of jeans.
I had plenty of fun when I was young and foolish
So, there is no sense of anyone getting ghoulish.
I’m full to the brim with carefully gathered memories
And a scant few of them could be called miseries.
Mostly I have been pretty much a happy kid
And now enjoy the wisdom from all I did.

My world today is upside down
When truth is lies and cheating;
When the country is run by a clown
Who wants to be beyond defeating.
When robbing the poor is fun
For those who don’t need money.
When taking sick people’s insurance
To the wealthy is something funny.

The world is thinking with it’s ****
If looking back to Nazis is correct.
We have the burden to protest this,
We have a society we must protect.
Some are badly uneducated now
Because we have lowered the bar
On what we teach our children today.
Yes, we have sunk down that far.

As a people, we don’t seem to care
About who is making our laws now.
The law is full of massive restrictions
But most of us have no idea just how.
How did they get there, these rules
That support the rich and corporations?
When did we become this leviathan
Of criminals running our fine nation?

So, what can we do, short of revolution?
Do we all march in the streets and strike?
Do we stop buying cars and houses
And go to work every day on a bike?
Do we boycott spending money at all
Until the crooks are cleared away?
And how do we tell good from bad
In the way things are slanted today?

We all must speak and write and demand
Of the current representatives elected
To look to the precedents we have had
Upon which our great country was erected.
We founded this country on equality
And promised freedom for us all.
We have the burden to see to it
That our government answers that call.

I was hoping for sunshine
Instead you brought me rain.
I thought it would be all pleasure
But it ended up causing pain.
I wish you’d sung me love songs
That fell on my ears like psalms
Instead you turned away from me
And I had nothing in my palms.

I wanted to assuage my heart
That I would not be alone
But I seem to be a person who
Disgusts you to the bone.
I’ll never understand how you
Could turn from hot to icy cold
Somehow the love you felt at first
Quite suddenly got too old.

You no longer gently smiled at me.
And you found my jokes unfunny.
We began to live in cloudy skies
That never quite turned to sunny.
We both had misjudged the other
And things went south from there;
Made a wrong turn at Albuquerque
And I think I know just where.

It started when you realized
I’m not good at one-month stands.
You looked up and looked around
To see who else was at hand.
And since there are always those
Who date based on a guy’s looks
You became all hot and bothered
And I became one for the books.

One more notch on your pistol
A face to avoid on meeting.
One more victim of your game
That deserves no kind of greeting.
The good side of this story is
I am no longer under your spell.
I am going to move onward now
And let you sashay to hell.