First of all I think it's an appropriate song for these times.
Kind of semi-tragic bittersweet beauty goes on
Caused, I think, by just the people
I've griped about - countercultures, youth,
revolution, the cult of the hippie
and I think that's good
that we're getting a taste
of a bro-ken-heart-ed mel-o-dy
I remember I felt so bluesy
and sad when I listened to
when it first came out
when I was going through a hippie stage
as an adolescent -
Cheerios - honey - tea - coffee with Mom for breakfast - sunflower seeds,
a small pigtail, an earring, bell bottom
blue jeans - I had my mother hem 'em up for me
Oh, well, anyway, yeah, Sassy
Sarah Vaughn and her song
This generation just might be sarcastic
if they sing along and blurt it
out in their dialogue.
It could be that I'm fancying

JuJu fruit
probably cause
I think
they won't make me toot
but more than that
I like the texture
and variety
so it makes me a fixture
at the movies
so I can move in high society
This one's just as silly
and semi-meaningless
as a number
of others I've written
recently
but I reiterate
as the song goes
by the Gallery
"Little things mean a lot".

Some people try to get
next to me I suppose
but I believe in compliments
not trying to get on a person's
nerves
to make friends with them or to make love to them
That's why I like
Dennis Edwards at the mic
telling the listener
he can't get next to them
probably
because he thinks, but I hope not, he's a fem.
I can't next to you
as in the out of the blue
and whistle a happy tune
just so I won't
fume about it

Underwood
If I could I would -
what, make love to her?
no, rhyme something with Underwood
besides could and would
nice pegs
and in nice legs
pretty face
as in mitch and lace
to me
you see
talented as in a career
we know all the rest!

Like when my best friend
signed a 1049 (volunteering on a form) for Vietnam
rather than volunteering out loud
like he was giving in to the paper tigers
lifers
when mother and father both died,
when my wife scolded me when
we were going together for having
kinda like a girlfriend
at a summer job on Cape Cod
when James Brown died
when a black car here
at the Danville VA more or less
so seemed to me
to be accusing me of racism
at the beauty of patriotism
I've noticed periodically in my life.

"I'll get by as long as I have you"
"Willow weep for me"
Time after time"
Boney Marone
Yeah Mike Barone too
and yeah the song a lot from Runaround Sue

Raspy voiced
human ****
so they think
not the women
but unabiding fake Christians
the kind some of us Muslims want to omit
so we hear who "Christians" who speak all
sorts of complicated sophistications
everywhere
God will punish them
for being sacrilegious
so says the Koran?
For your eyes only
belong to the greyness
of a multitude of eyes
staring at
or basking in glory
son
to be anointed though, too?

Marvin, have you heard
Gato Barbieri's Latin Lady?
The other Marvin I like to think
was a friend of mine, even.
Gato Barbieri's Latin Lady reminds me
of the futile melancholy of Dylan's Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.
The first thing I can think of to
satisfy my thirst for the Latin woman
is to get Asterid Gilbert's Greatest Hits
J. Lo on Shades of Blue - Sunday Night
yes intrigues me in spite of negative
publicity her love life seems to get her
as if she's suddenly plastic
Zero Vibes Little Latin Lupe Lupe get on
star quality and quantity of
recorded music but oh those Latin women -
to be continued maybe in my memoirs no less -
in I might have a son Charles Cobert, Jr
I fathered by a priceless to me
Puerto Rican women in a Times Square
brothel although I might never know for sure.
Little Latin Lupe Lupe
I bet the unisex was founded down there.

Precede from the Presidio,
Pride and Prejudice on the rocks,
Letterman looms
with its men of rock.
Presume
the promiscuous
but don't let me bleed
from lashing out
because of a typical
impression if mine
of San Francisco as a tot
****** isn't it
******* off the public ***
or being in a twit, worried about Travis Tritt
All is actually well though
at last in San Francisco
where the Doggy Dinner
Hot Dog Stand chain
is probably still in existence
although I haven't been
to Frisco in a long, ling time.
If you're not in a stir
about the place
you probably won't see
people wiping snot
from their noses
or popping no-doses
or worried about nine to five
Yeah Jacqueline Susan as a hair.

Brrr
As the ice drops drop
from gutters,
as I make my way
along
on my missions.
It's so cold
sometimes;
I just don't know how
to bundle up right
how I got the chills
especially
when I don't know
what to do or where to go
when I first get the shivers
from the brrr cold.
There are all sorts or nuances
to being out in the cold
that drive me to
frustration,
drive me batty really,
like how the temperature
drops suddenly at duck and rises barely at dawn
how little drops people
in behavior
are spawned
how you just can't even yawn
and wait to see
on the road a fawn
Oh well that's
probably not scratching
the surface
in everything
apparently
but that's life
best I can do
on how to deal with the cold.

When-when-I-fall-in-love.
I'm in love now
exclamation point
this is a kinda jazz song-poem
could take over for a
and turn into a country song
I wrote called I'm In Love Now.
When-when-I-fall-in-love
it-it-will-be-forever.
(Maybe Mel Torme would sing it if he's
still alive.)
Now and again
I'll subscribe to Jazz Time
and Diane Scherer will sing
forever
when
when
when you smile at me

It's time for cleansing
by writing
the mechanics of which
seem immaterial.
But my frustration
with man's inhumanity to man
The ineptness it leads to, doesn't,
and the ludicrousness that
I feel in my own self
as I see myself
mirrored in them
tells me
there's a bottomless
pit
of criticisms
lying within me
such that
I'm a typical bellyacher.
I wish I'd cut it out
and after that not look for
flaws in others
especially cruelty to dogs,
children, and elderly women.
I'm as guilty as the next guy.
In other words, life
is fascinating.
Why not the adventure
of it lead to you
question from
that which you pay.

A beast is me
At least I'm me.
Beauty petrifies
me,
saddens me greatly
except for beautiful women
and imagining them wanting me.
Hence beauty and a beast.
There's no feast
in store
for me
I bet
as I get set
to eat the meat
off my bones
just to hook that beautiful woman
I'm such a beast.
We shall see
what we shall see
about
"the beast"
as some black guys
who've been
in prison
say I'm called here.
I heard why I am the beast.
I'm oversexed
domineering,
licentious,
in people's scope.
I even break the heavy
and I'm ultra
unpopular
near as I can tell!

Go ahead toil with the soil.
Let things come to a boil.
Boil an egg for all I care.
Just release the oil
into a giant spill in the
middle
of Texas!

You cross seas
just to have a meeting over tea.
As for me
I'd rather get what I can Seize
and sneeze
at the latest Tastie Freeze

In the past
glamour enamored
Sander Vanocur
should be put in the slammer
for lack of it
but I guess he's got candor
enough to lank her,
the lady of his dreams
as in a return to the soft drink Teem
** hum this topic
it's so myopic
I'll have to out and recopy it.

Sanchez and Frazier sound like keys
Tate and Judge got me on my knees
Though
They know so much about Tree's blow
Five o'clock high
And Greg Bird is hitting now
into the sky
The spring training
what with late afternoon day games,
not reminding me of a veteran
remains
and even Mason Williams
could be used
even if Aaron Hicks
blows a fuse,
there.
All is fair...

My beautiful women in pictures.
It's making me feel like
I am about to have a seizure,
they even make me feel
like this is my harem
and I'm a man of leisure
They might carom
they don'y even remind me
of Buster Narum
and with a crayon
I could tell how they'd feel in rayon.

Oh the freight train is here
Call me dear.
Pass me another beer,
There's a beer man here.
Nothing to fear.
March Madness is sadness
to me,
just like the predilections
are at the ballpark.
Oh waking up to a
train changing tracks.
All the hype.
That's my gripe.
Nothing to fight
or take light.
The madness sadness
changes to gladness
The predilections
change to a hark.
The tracks are a die
that's cast
and everything is reconciled.

Go over in one's mind.
Back up and go over.
Make arrangements in the mind.
Back up and correct.
Take not of
the wonders of a computerized mind  -
I'm just being facetious there, and
for that matter the wonders
of a schizoid mind - I'm just
being facetious again.
The best I can do
for my own thing
is counting sheep
and I, of course
got that off of others.

Brooms
made room for me
to hear a tune
and remember Daniel Boone
King of the Road by Roger Miller
where he says
2 hours of pushing broom
made me think to
write of a simple, mundane
thing like the broom to me at least
and how the broom could
be a best friend of mine
as for a seeking out work
pushing it
Enough said?

From Beyonce's blood that flows
to Brandy's flush face that glows
to J. Lo's fresh flesh
to Joy Bryant's, for example, self-dignity
that talk about the pulse
that refreshes
that same fountain
of Reality's Child
and a "cool chick"
reeks of a blood type
dealing in chocolate code
of the mind
and cherry coke of the ***
such that
Lana Turner
would turn over in her grave
if she knew of
a new breed of female *** symbols
harking back to her, Gable,
Heyworth, Bacall, and Hepburn.

That was a scenic route
enough to tout
now about
something on James Bouton
and the movie 3 Coins
in the Fountain
though.
Wo Wo kicks kicks
Illinois might sign Quinn
Nottingham
That character here at the VA -
Packingham
Would turn over in his grave,
at the home of the brave
T-shirt
and how not to fight
with Squirt
Smith
As in that's the man and the myth.
This poem might be insane
but just to talk of the game would
have been insane

They say I'm all talk and
no action.
I'm gonna keep on loving you.
Change
Chains.

A voice like velvet,
believe it or not,
revolver like Jesse Belvin
He knows just what is a shot
Harsh actually might be his sound
but sure he's got his feet right on the ground.
His material might not be great
but you know he keeps in mind people
that typically rate
like Bonnie Raitt.
The beat's nice.
Nothing to worry about
being enticed
though
it lets you know he's cold
as in ultra cool
and to me
nobody's fool

I played Cowboys
I also played infantry
so that says something
even fancied having
a tiny bit of cowboy
in me
Riding a bucking bronco
and not being
thrown off -
no it wasn't at a "dude" ranch,
or was it
and like I say I had my cowboy
outfit in the third grade
and got so good
at horseback riding
for all intents and purposes
but of the women
who might sense something
va va voom
whew
I deserve some attention

And then there's Don Riddles,
Clint Eastwood,
"A-Rod",
Rod Sterling, if he's still alive
and James Brown of course did
Usually they're dark
but blondes like Carrie Underwood
do and Mamie Van Buren did
Eve Arbor did
Johnny Carson did
and of course Casey Stengel did.

*Charles Sturies

Or was it the fourth.
my thirst to be an artist was
upended there
but I still try to do pure impressionistic,
faintly descriptive sketches
and still want to do watercolor landscapes
I was, though, in my element 5 or so years ago
doing sketches of famous people
and writing a small poem next to them on the same page
on the suggestion of my sister Nancy.
Great art dumbfounds me, it's so majestic
and especially complicated next to mine.
I still want to work with clay
and always wanted to be a sculpture
The French impressionists are my favorite
followed by classical great architecture
and the renaissance art.
I do like detail when it's somebody else doing it
but not when it's me
at least lately.
With my kind of glossing over things,
I'll never be remembered.
For sure Andy Warhol will.

*Charles Sturies

The Flying Illini again
Nichols, Morgan, Tinks, Black,
go up and sometimes come down with it -
Will Groce's job be saved?
Even Lucas, Hill, Abrams, and TCL at guard
can get up there.
Rebounding has definitely
improved for the Illini
over the years
and means so much
It even seems to me to help their free throwing.
The Illini have long been a ******
in rebounding
not so this year
Hear ye, hear ye
The Illinois big men will be.

Scribble away.
Murmur away.
Play Scrabble again
and forget to go out and play.
The nighttime's the right time
So says James Brown,
but anytime is the right time
as long as you believe
in what you say.

*Charles Sturies

Our blackness is our power.
The difference we make
is what we do hour by hour
and what we deem our take.
Look we're beauty
in and out.
To be black
is what we'll shout.
We may not look it
but what we got we took it.
From MLK to Caleb Day,
Fro Eva to Gary,
We'll take our place
even on the Staten Island Ferry.

*Charles Sturies

Nicholas Tremulis, Wade Hayes,
two of my favorite singles but rather
obscure next to Paul McCartney
and Stevie Wonder.
Louis Lucas and Ronnie Levick,
rather obscure Bandstanders compared
to Kenny and Arlene and Justin and Bob.
Joe Mota and Ed Perry,
two obscure Illini compared
to **** Butkus and Johnny "Red" Kirk
Loren Tate and Bob Rasmussen,
two Champaign-Urbana New Gazette
sports writers not very known
compared to nationally based sports writers **** Shoop and **** Young
Obscurity vs. fame -
Is it necessary?
Just like
poverty vs. wealth -
Is that necessary?
I just wish we all could be wealthy and famous!

*Charles Sturies

Design it.
but refine it.
From drafting class
in junior high with the protractor
I have always
longed for progress
in architecture.
A harking back to medieval styles
(along with an old fashioned look in big cars)
in the seventies depressed me
but how I know
that Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. is
still respected
and the STate Farm Center
is a marvel.
There has been progress
just as much as individual success
so that the Parthenon
and the Colosseum
and the Agricole
and Agraharam
deposit on us
a new found lust
for the glory that was Greece
and that grandeur that was Rome.

*Charles Sturies

Microcosms
of one day ventured
2 days gained
the scientific leap of faith
involved in the test tube generation
distills any desire
certain people have
for a little spirituality
in their life.
Although science's progress marches on.
The thirst for something intangible
become more intense in some of us
and more ignored by certain slightly plastic academicians.
Let's don't dehumanize ourselves anymore
by things a frying ourselves though as I call it
****-lysis, (at the ***-sembly hall, for example)
and making a mockery of mankind.
Otherwise another Christ will emerge
There'll be another ***** and Gomorrah
and the hands of time will
be set back 2000 years

*Charles Sturies

******* rainy days and rainy nights
get me down.
I love a rainy night.
I love a rainy day.

*Charles Sturies

I like to read
and write
and contemplate drinking an
extra glass of water since
I get so thirsty on liquid restriction
Sometimes I do drink one
but just one cup
I also like to daydream about
smoking again- I thought
it was so much fun.
If I'm going off grounds
with one of my caregivers
I like to buy
a juicy CD or two,
pick up a Hip Hop Weekly,
and go to a really action movie
like Vin Diesel or
Liam Neeson stuff
or else go to a nice
restaurant in my opinion
and have a nice
full meal for me.
In spite of being
a bit portly I'm
only a nibbler.
If it's Saturday
I like to get back on
the ward to watch
Fredrick Whitfield on CNN
and an Illinois basketball
or football game or a Yankee game
If it's a weekday
and since I don't
particularly like
weekday daytime TV
except for the Harry Connick Jr
show a little and the
musical segment on
Ellen DeGeneres
I'll listen to the "fresh"
CD or CDs,
Change into more comfortable clothes
(I do this usually after I go out)
and relax for snack time
I like to do things on a
lazy day just for what I
find as a peaceful contrast
otherwise it's napping,
listening to CDs and
watching CNN with sound
off as I can hear CDs
and watch pro football
if it's a fall Sunday

*Charles Sturies

The predictability of certain females
**** blossoms, ins and outs.
State social climbing potential woman -
lying obnoxious males - the types of women
they go ******* over
Certain people in the helping professions
who seem prone to be cliche uttering
Hardhats even though they might have
gotten their degrees from a liberal university
or whatever.
Sensing which people especially females
if you're a guy who might be interested
in you before you have had your first big talk
to, in most cases, and break the ice
since once is usually interested in them back.
Sensing who back scratched (you "do" me, I'll "do" you)
A-kissers, apple polishers and so on are if you're at all
military, or come from a military family
where you're really exposed to that member of the military.
Suspecting sudden outbursts of grief
coming on from a relative who doesn't appreciate
anything tragic whatsoever
but I'm saying maybe is
sensing the angry last man syndrome in
certain males
Knowing when to say "Well, don't get all hostile,"
with your arms outstretched
when somebody is about to scold you about something
starts within you.

Drea De Mattea
Kathy Matea
See they're both in entertainment
Michael Jordan
Morton Downey
Get it both of their opinions are respected
Seymour Gross the decadent businessman with his two sons -
Greg and Seymour, Jr. Get it - Seymour
Someone put of Mad Magazine's Greg
and Ex-Chicago Cubs player- (He got famous at it.)
decadence, I mean, and Junior Gross -
We're all getting really tired of real decadent types
like his father and Greg. - I'm just being facetious about
the bloodline connection. What, are they both adopted and just
copies of it?
And Seymour's morals are especially refreshing
compared to his faults.
Loretta Lynn
Brenda Lee
Two gifted singers
Eisenhower and MacArthur
2 great West painters
etc., etc.,
You get the picture.

Yes I know I make
trite lists about what
I think are my dislikes
and for revenge other people make lists
of my kinds of
halitosis and BO,
etc!

Cheer up, Cupid,
Cheer up, Cherub,
You may think you're a perfect angel,
but you're just a stupid cupid.

Amy Adams,
Arctic Animals,
Sai sea animals
from the anals of Troy,
to dawn's early burn
comes letters from Burns1
and the tip of a candle
to Alfred North
and Norma Jean
Jog on , Rafer

Sun a long
Sun a watch, you see.
Those ******* berries
will give you a charge
even though your name might not be Cary
or you think you're Larry
or you have nothing left
to do but tarry.
So this isn't scary
Practically everybody
secretly prays to the ****** Mary
or whose cary
and tarry?
What is Cris?1
Some monster gin phizz.

Sanchez and Frazier sound like keys
Tate and Judge got me on my knees
Though
They know so much about Torre’s blow
Five ‘o clock high
And Greg Bird is hitting one
into the sky
This spring training
what with late afternoon day games,
not reminding me of veteran
remains
and even Mason Williams
could be used
even if Aaron Hicks
blows a fuse,
there.
All is fair . . .

My beautiful women in pictures.
It’s making me feel like
I am about to have a seizure,
They even make me feel
like this is my harem
And I’m a man of leisure
They might carom
they don’t even remind me
of Buster Narum
and with a crayon
I could tell how they’d
feel in rayon.

The early morning network news alerts me to possible big stories.
The morning local news with its periodic weather reports helps me with
my flurry
of early morning chores.
As the day evolves  I might want to tune in Maury for more of what I can,  this quest for glory.
CNN is mixed in
and then at 3 here in Central Illinois on comes Harry Connick Jr.
leading me into the content of the evening news.
Then there's no more blues
tuning in the exciting dramas
that deal in anything from Karma
to the pursuit of the study
of man existing in larva.
A key sporting event
might be on
that is guaranteed not to
make you yawn.
Late night news sprouts its yarns
and comes late night talk
to turn me on to anything
from the barn
to yarn.
Oh  "the magic" of TV to me.

Just a little thankfulness here and there is icing on the cake
Just time a lot to spend the moment
can make a person fed
like they're not on the make
or dating a rake
out them till their wake.
Sincerity means of much,
here and there, a thoughtful touch
even if it's getting romantic while
out with them to lunch
or asking your mate
for something to munch
on
or kissing some night here and there
into the dawn.
Honesty is the key,
giving notice to the person asking to see
whether you charge a fee or not
just being interested in little ol' me
Ask if they're gonna let you be
when the time comes
or hate you and tell
you whether or not to sell
yourself on something that you
wouldn't be able to do.
You want though to come and be
as in a pair
and have them make you
think you're part of a stable.
Courage is important
and cleanliness just as important
I've just scratched the surface.

Road Runner is my all-time favorite- I like the song by Junior Walker too.

He, Road Runner, that is , reminds me of mentally ******* friends of mine who always strut around in a huff.

"It"'s a scream.

Bugs Bunny and Mel Blanc (Mel, one of Jack Benny's sidekicks) voice for him - Bugs was frothy with my kind of sarcasm.

Mickey Mouse I thought of as a kind of a put-on for guys that look like that a little who were always cutting up.

I used to get that song Hey Mickie by Toni Basil read piped in loud in my mind, it seemed when it played on the jukebox at that sports bar I used to hang out at.

Yosemite Sam is like some of the severely mentally ill guys on my geriatric psych ward who are really abrupt, loud, and whose bark is bigger than their bite.

McGruff - I wrote a piece about him - he's not of course from a cartoon - but from my yesteryear, who was under the weather, hence the crime wave.

Just like Smokey the Bear, he was a lovable character.
I like King of the Hill and Family Guy at night for yukks.

On Sat morn back in the day I guess when I had enough time I used to get a bit of a kick out of Fat Albert cartoons and the Jackson Five stuff on lonely, for me, Saturday morning to perk me up for the rest of the day.

Back in the old days, they reminded me of figures I knew like them in real life.

Sylvester the Cat, Felix the Cat, Hekyll and Jekyll, Daffty Duck, and Might Mouse tickled my little boy sense of humor.

In comic Books, I was impressed with the sense of humor of Little LuLu.

In the newspaper, Hagar the Barbarian and Beetle Bailey tickled my funny bone a little.

That's all, Folks.

Diamond Dibs
Eccentric to the Chili Peppers
Birdseed Stains on Rock of Gold
Hard Headed Boston Mama
Glass Stains on a Rough-Hewn Mistress
Holy Tomati and Sauce
Westward **
All About "Chuck"
I'll Name You
How Dare You
Icy Breeze on Static Type
It's Hot in Here
and finally
Ghost of a Chance Too

Bird
Mr.T
Cool Breeze
Li'l Shorty
Li'l Jeez
Comrade Punk
Grand Central Junction
Hammer Me
Bledso
Li'l Tarzana
Li'l P.Cool
Let It Bleed Confunction
Gingerbread
That's about all my imagination can gather
without going into
something about Dan Rather
and thinking I'm
badder
than the mystic
in any of the rappers
It'll be up the ladder
to the roof
the next time
I'm in the hood
probably though

*Charles Sturies

My 2 all time favorites, I guess,
are Lash LaRue and Johnny Mack Broome.
I remember seeing them in the Rose Bowl Parade of 1954.
For movie watching, I loved Rex Allen
and had nostalgic flavor for
Randolph Scott movies.
The villainesque type was Robert Ryan.
Autry and Rogers I looked up to
as well as Clayton Moore
who for those of you who don't know
played the TV Lone Ranger.
Lee Van Cleef in High Noon was awesome.
Tom Mix I just saw snatches of him in bits of his westerns,
but that huge hat would do anything for the prestige of a cowboy star.
That about sums up my favorite cowboy
besides the ones on the range,
Ben Johnson, whose autograph I got in a Rodeo popular in California
(I think I've mentioned it before)
and the ones in the rodeo.
You probably though I'd go on about almost a countless number of cowboys.

*Charles Sturies