Thirteen steps up the gallows
The first step I think of loved ones at home
All the fond memories they hold for me
As I take the second step alone

Third step I have a guard wipe
A lonely teardrop from my eye
It's not for myself I cry
But for those I leave behind

Four, five, and six I gain composer
Step number seven I lose it all
I wish I had learned from my past mistakes
How far and fast a man can fall

Step number eight is where I call out
In a barely audible voice
I hope those that are listening will listen to reason
Learn from me and don't make this choice

Steps nine and ten I break down again
As guards grab me from both sides
Helping me up step eleven
At twelve I say I'm alright

When I do step onto thirteen
I take it all in stride
Stepping up onto the platform
Leaving number thirteen behind

Now all that stands between me and my destiny
Are the thirteen knots on the hangman's noose
No need to count, I know that they're there
I only count what I'm about to lose

Woody Guthrie
Came along when
A poor man barely survived

We are now faced
With the same place
Wishing Woody was still alive

Woody Guthrie
He would write of
The heavy thumb of the government

And how we need to
Scream at the sky blue
Till we change views
Is what Woody meant

Woody Guthrie
The voice of a nation
Tired and aching
Needing to be heard

Now I hang on
To every phrase in every song
Every dot that comes along
In every word

If Woody were alive today
Wonder what he would say
At the state of our decay
In what he sees

Would he shake his head
Cause we've made our on bed
Perhaps he's better dead
Woody Guthrie rest in peace

Poor Man says...
If I had money
Then I would be free...

Rich Man says...
If I had more money
Then more money is what I'd need...

Poor Man says...
If I had a Mansion
Then who could want for more...

Rich Man says...
I have three Mansions
I'm working on my fourth...

Poor Man says...
I'd have all these friends
I'd shower them with much...

Rich Man says...
I have friends
But don't know who to trust...

Poor Man says...
With my money
I would buy happiness...

Rich Man says...
When the money arrived
Is when the happiness left...

I like to buy different magazines
And bring them to my home
Cut out all the faces
And replace them with my own

I always look so happy
In other peoples lives
I can be the best of husbands
Along side the best of wives

It all depends on my mood
On any given day
I could be hang gliding in the South Pacific
Or hiking the hills of Mandalay

On a beach in Florida
With perfect kids flying a kite
At a Hollywood premier
My face on any star I like

I used to lead a boring life
As I sat around at home
Now pasting my face in different magazines
I go and do anything I want

I just purchased NASA monthly
Dare I go to the moon
If they picture two astronauts together
You know I'd go with you

There's this island magazine I've been saving
From a travel agency
Can't wait to paste my face out swimming
In the bluest of the bluest seas

I'll flip through all the pages
Till I come up with the perfect tan
On top of the perfect body
Then I will be the perfect man

It's not always fun and games
I do have a serious side
When I paste my face onto orphans or the homeless
Then wet the pages as I cry

There's so many different things I do
Depends on the mood and the magazine
What peaks my interest at the store that day
And who it is I'd like to be

They made an elephant paint,
              using reward and punishment, method
marvelously created paintings!
                that success made world headlines!!
*******, yet another folly of human creation,
                 let me tell you the truth, kept hidden.
Angry for not getting coconut fronts,
              generously supplied in other occasions,
the elephant just pretended the brush was palm front substitute,
                the paint kept  in front, to him was dung to play with.
          The shapes of his hunger turned  to accidental art,
it wasn't his fault,  poor guy, his canvas cries out!

The little one is excited, on this prospect,
imagines herself as a fortune hunter,
sifting through the thickets of poem trees.

Her teacher has promised to give one credit each,
when ripened to ten , will gift any kid a chocolate fudge
with peanut butter frosting, if they could bring fine metaphors
unharmed and wanting to fly, on their wordy wings
for the teacher to examine and find it fits
and pronounce it passed 'the healthy metaphor test'.

"What if the other kids too set their eyes on
iridescent metaphors I woo and net?"
she asks with a mix of innocence
and a kind of poetic worry  in her little eyes.