In some fields none deny,
Russian masters still loom high.
If popularity is the test
one artist stands above the rest.
The caps of the world, we reverently doff
to the great Mikhail Kalashnikov.

Suppose a government could be
other than a travesty.
Suppose that it could really plan
for the betterment of man.
Suppose we managed to fulfill
our promises to spread good will.
Suppose that we would always find
that no one had been left behind.
Suppose a system was devised
that never could be compromised.
Suppose you just shut up because
it never will and never was.

The fossils run out, as the school children know;
we should have stopped pumping a long time ago.
It means being poorer; the masses would howl.
We acted judiciously, threw in the towel,
deciding it's better we simply pretend,
and do better now and implode at the end.
The rich of our country our leaders beseech
to do as they're bidding and money is speech,
and not being stupid, they're certain to note
it's best to buy leaders who won't rock the boat,
and they pay their henchmen to bleat and emote
so the salt of the Earth is informed how to vote.
Where once we had college so kids could aim high
we now have a system for bleeding them dry
and maybe you've noticed despite how you voted,
your workload increased and your income eroded.
When government fails to do what it should,
sooner or later the warlords look good
as you already know if you're down in the hood,
and now that it's failed it shouldn't surprise
we've come to the point where the demagogues rise,
and we on Thanksgiving have gratefully thanked
to live on a carpet that's yet to be yanked.

Let population grow too great
and morals have an awful fate.
When there's more value being dead
morality's turned on its head,
for then the moral thing to do
is **** the man who's just like you.
When is that dreadful day, you ask?
Today. Put on your killing mask.
The burden bears too great a curse?
Okay, we'll **** the planet first.

The walrus used to find it nice
to spend their summers on the ice
but not so nice this year they felt,
as all the ice contrived to melt,
and they were forced to reconvene
on land with no space in between,
to loll and fight and contemplate
the broader question of their fate,
but none among them made the link
that people put them on the brink,
and those their fate depended on
stifled yet another yawn.

I don't think the swamp gas was really that thick.
That light in the sky moved a little bit quick;
First it was here and then there and then gone.
I heard that we had some strange marks on the lawn.
Your phone just kept ringing; you left, I supposed.
The film in your camera over-exposed.
Your smile come morning was slightly askew;
I think you had aliens messing with you.
They're small and they're big-eyed and wrongly maligned;
their only intent is to help humankind.
They never release any testable facts.
They like to perform some strange ****** acts.
It's standard procedure for you to disrobe
and then they do something they call the space probe.
You always recover from things that they do;
I'd sure like to get me an alien, too,
but I think they closed shop and they locked the front door.
The aliens don't seem to come anymore.

Hey, it's the stone age; living's our job.
We're always busy, no spare time to rob.
I'm huntin' and daddin', you're farmin' and mommin';
don't need no stinking interests in common.

No one knew better; it seemed pretty swell,
cruising around in the suds with one cell.
Then someone discovered your chances accrue
if you can transition from one cell to two
and so we evolved the next three billion years,
grew livers and baby fat, dimples and ears,
and made up some gods who we worshiped a lot,
so they thought us special and gave us top spot.
Now the plants are all named and the system is gamed
and the animals tamed and the communists blamed
and the resources claimed and our passions inflamed.
In a myriad ways we're as rich as king Tut
and it's all quite fantastically wonderful. But ...

Things down past Flagstaff got nasty, no doubt,
more heat coming in than was getting back out.
It was maybe the 20th year of the drought;
valley fever came in, pretty much won that bout.
Gas prices went north, cooling systems went south;
things go **** up, you get down in the mouth.
Finally, unable to take any more
they pointed it north, ended up at our door.
We're already full; not a thing we could do;
fed them a meal, took a woman or two,
told lies about work up in Kalamazoo.

I watched a show by Richard Dawkins,
(I love my atheistic squawkin's)
and he observed how we've improved
the more religion's been removed.
Now, there's no greater fan than me
of love and peace and harmony
but soon these thoughts will just seem trippy
like skinheads listening to a hippy,
'cause he got old and he forgot
the little fact we overshot
and he forgot that life grows cheap
at times the clover isn't deep.
Such harmony will never do
with ten to feed and food for two
and bigotry's more suited for
survival in the resource war.
The dark ages, we find, are not
renowned for gentleness of thought;
your attitudes may shift, perhaps;
recall the war; recall the ****,
and dogma helps you stay the course.
Religion's coming back in force.

Numbers are weird; I'm telling you friend;
they start here at zero and go without end
and if that means one thing, one thing at all,
it's no number is big and all numbers are small.
Take the number of atoms in Yellowstone Park,
exponentiate that every tick of a quark
'til the neutrons decay and the photons go dark
and you've still got no number; it's not big at all;
as I told you before, every number is small,
but invert the numbers and don't flip your wig;
discounting zero, all numbers are big.

You're always evolving for what you are doing,
like big burger eating and bad TV viewing,
inheritance wasting and CO2 spewing
and world undoing and logic eschewing
and though we've been at it for just a short bit
it seems we've already achieved a good fit,
but what we're now sowing we soon will be reaping
and then we'll commence with the read 'em and weeping
and start to evolve for new habits we're keeping
like alley-cat roasting and cold-culvert sleeping
and valuable snatching and cholera catching
and have-a-rough-patching and brain-come-unlatching
and so for a while we will be in a bind
'til the traits of the species become redefined
and the tastes of your offspring begin realigning
with boiled rat dining and garbage pit mining.

Someone's moving in next door.
We liked it how it was before.
You've got a gal; you've got a bed.
Your eyes roll back inside your head.
Suddenly there's three instead.
We're on a binge; we're on a roll.
It's all beyond a man's control.
What was a trickle's now a roar.
We've now become what we abhor.
We hope the neighbors understand.
You can't withstand so much demand.
We need the dough; we sold the land.
A man begins to think about
moving on and moving out.
Look around. You might still get
a place that isn't ruined, yet.
We don't much like it anymore.
Someone's moving in next door.

Back at Stanford, set me see,
maybe 1993,
psychologists with good intent
designed a bold experiment,
to recreate and view unmarred
relationships of man and guard.
Whatever college lads applied
they'd simply randomly divide.
The major theme: It's just some kids,
one group that does, one group that bids.
The guards in aviator glasses
patrolled the halls, now cleared of classes.
The prisoners got rough-cut dresses
and buckets where they made their messes.
Before an hour has accrued
they choose to strip a classmate ****.
Some kids are easy to control;
they take the others to the hole.
When reason fails to do the trick
a guard slips up and swings his stick.
Some cons decide it must be true;
they try escape and almost do
and this is just day number two.
A kid want out. He makes his pleas
and claims he has a strange disease.
Some more want out. They do what's right,
confess to everything in sight.
They break it up on just day six
while doing camel ******* tricks.
I hope you have a better plan
than just to trust your fellow man.

Mention eugenics, you'll empty the room;
People assume you're the prophet of doom.
This time, before it's a total rout,
wait a second, hear me out.
Here is where, if you listen to me
in a few generations, humans could be.
Sad brown eyes, golden hair,
happy sleeping anywhere.
Great disposition.  Wonderfully nice.
Great white teeth, a breeze to de-lice.
We'd all love nature, swimming like beavers
once we've evolved into Golden Retrievers.

We are the humans; we are the gods;
we and the planet are slightly at odds.
The first point of business, to no one's surprise,
is tweak our genetics so nobody dies.
We'll mine all the clathrates from under the seas
and heat up the planet by thirty degrees.
You can't have a sink if you don't have a source;
we're gonna mine all of the asteroids, of course.
If our conservation continues so deft,
we might have a couple of animals left.
We'll savor the fruits of the trip that we're on.
The great southern pole will have excellent lawn,
and we'll tune or brains for perpetual bliss
and robots will whisper that's nothing's amiss.

I'm half asleep and here's my goal.
I think I'm gonna take a poll.
One leg doesn't say a peep;
the other says it's half asleep.
One arm says "I'm folded, bud,
and I could use a little blood."
One ear wouldn't mind a hat;
the other feels pretty flat.
My Mohawk still won't look that great
with one side flat, the other straight,
One side is hot, the other cold.
The poll is done. Okay I rolled.

I wasn't there; I didn't see,
but here's the tale as told to me:
A load of buddies concert bound,
four reefers smoked, 2 quarts near downed.
One raised a quart to drink the last
just as a cop went driving past;
he spoke some words up to the sky
and soon a naked man walked by.
The cop thought quick, said "***". They got.
So what's the verdict? God or not?

We heard it said since before there was time,
let the punishment fit the crime,
so if you do a crime of limited scope,
we'll hang you up with a limited rope.

It's surely incumbent on us to move faster
to try and prevent an impending disaster.
Widespread destruction is surely illicit
but those of high morals are fully complicit.
One ponders a path where production's pervasive;
our product promotion has grown too persuasive;
our gadgets and gizmos distinctly delight us;
the path of our passage lies deep in detritus.
We now find ourselves in a sad situation,
defiant of logic despite education.
One might think a culture of waste so permissive
might foster a climate of doubt more divisive,
but we, in confusion, prefer the illusion
that comes from the fusion of greed and delusion.
The outside observer could be quite confused
to see our surroundings severely abused,
but being objective, it it isn't that pleasant
observing the future consumed by the present,
so we have a culture that's deeply diseased
and live, for the most part, quite pleasantly pleased.

I was home in my culvert; you know the one, friend;
saw a hungry Canadian face at each end.
Good thing I thought they might turn up the heat;
the snares that I set ****** them up by the feet.
Now, at long last, we've got something to eat
if you don't mind the taste of Canadian meat.

A party runs on more than wills
'cause someone has to pay the bills.
They quibble over guns and health,
but rich men get to reap the wealth,
so this year's choice was not that hard;
we voted for the wildcard,
a TV star, though quite obtuse,
a madman with his cannons loose;
we chose the psychopathic ham
in hopes to dynamite the dam.

Yellowstone is, so I've heard,
St. Helens times ten to the third,
The pressure needs to be relieved
and hence the plan that I've conceived:
We'll nuke it just a little bit
and pop it like a giant zit,
in so doing letting go
a minor pyroclastic flow
and smoking out East Idaho
for maybe fifty years or so
but for some reason I don't know
enthusiasm's rather low.

We're a bunch of frogs in a giant ***
with the slightest clue it's getting hot
and the presidential choice we've got:
One is a current giant cog
with the same old tired horse to flog
who joined the fight with the other dog
who's  psychopathic demagogue
and neither understands the game
but they think they do and they both proclaim
that they're the best to fan the flame
so we'll get to boil just the same
and it's not an easy choice to make
which poison pill is best to take.

We worked 2 long
             2 try 2 feel
    we're well 2 do.
             It got 2 real.
    Our banks 2 big,
               2 big 2 fail,
        and none 2 blame,
                  2 go 2 jail.
          An Earth 2 rich
           with fuel 2 burn.
               2 much 2 waste,
               no time 2 learn.
                    2 late 2 act,
                   2 hard 2 know
                 the way 2 get
                 the flow 2 slow.
                      Intent 2 help
                   can lead 2 hell.
                   Our way 2 live's
                    not gone 2 well.
                We've gone 2 far.
                  We'll learn 2 say
               what wrecks 2 morrow
                             rules 2 day.
                      Nowhere 2 run,
                         the cost 2 steep,
                          no time 2 heal,
                     the wound 2 deep.

Here's how it is; this poem is mine;
I'm going to take some time and whine.
Of all the things life could have stored
I'm the guy with the sandwich board
'cause it doesn't take a man that clever
to see that we can't grow forever,
and though all people aren't agreed
it's clear to me where things will lead,
so when is the time that a man stand tall
if not when our wars will soon seen small?
So I made the choice to join the throng
of the sayers of doom, 'most always wrong
and have gained myself some small renown
as the sideshow act of the crying clown.

We're trying to decide how our leadership's placed
so we can do something that all have embraced.
We thought of a pole or a tree or a post,
but just a few folk would enjoy it at most.
A head on a stick is to some people's taste,
though it seems that the body's a bit of a waste,
but I was suggesting an alternate route,
on the overpass, say, on the morning commute,
so that folks have to swerve or they're hitting a boot
and revel as one at the crop of strange fruit.

The black man's searching for a job,
but the black man's made to **** and rob.
This side of town is the black man's rez
and the judges do what ALEC says
and they know he'll just be back again
so they give the mandatory ten.
Where's the sunny kid that the world likes?
Well, we've got drug laws and we've got three strikes
and he learns right quick that he better plead;
if you lose in court, then you're never freed,
so he's in another world of hurt,
he's a felon now 'til he's in the dirt
and it won't be soon that he's seen again,
making Walmart slacks in a private pen.
He's a slave again, and he's off the street,
and by other names smells just as sweet.

It's Memorial Day and I guess we should pay
respects to the fellows who got in war's way
and hope that they felt as they felt their light fade
content with the actions and choices they'd made
and hope they believed as they drew their last air
they'd paid a good price, that the deal was fair,
that they died for a place they can see past the fame,
where every man counts and they all count the same,
a place where there's freedom, respect and fair play,
regardless of station each man has his say,
for something that's lasting, something that's real.
I'm not sure we held up our end of the deal.

Spoiled sick by doctor Spock,
the self-appointed baby doc -
psychology he just invented
decreed that they should be contented.
Did education, nearly free,
evoke some reciprocity?
Their children's education loan -
they'll get to pay it on their own.
The resource base that they'd inherit -
they chose to use it not to share it.
Their heads can't fathom simple facts -
what made us great was higher tax.
They know it's better not to share.
They won't be killing medicare.
They're satisfied with what they've got.
The infrastructure's left to rot.
The goal they're trying to fulfill:
to pass the kids their every bill.
Baby boomers, as you see,
have sociopathology.
Our ruination - all it took:
some good intentions and a book.

Fred and I at the top of the Empire State
had a sudden notion we both rate as great.
Grab the moment, commit to the leap,
take the obvious shortcut, save wear on the feet.
We looked at that gravity field immense,
glanced at each other, ducked under the fence.
Now Fred's a great scientist, one of the bestest,
and he's shown he works under heat like asbestos.
We're both sure he'll find a good way to arrest us.
For now it's great soaring, not feeling Earth's tug
looking in windows and watching eyes bug.
It's the greatest of fun. I can't wait for more.
I just got a wink from the forty-third floor.
I turn my neck and look over at Fred,
he must have it now, he's scratching his head.

I thought it best to keep in touch
with why the old aren't paid as much.
At first I didn't think it cool
one making more straight out of school
but firstly it's a better bet
the old will die upon the set.
Your parts, of course, have had their fun;
they'll fail someday; it just takes one.
It's not the most auspicious sign
when you began your long decline
before computers came on line
and bosses ought to hear alarms
when Uncle Sam extends his arms
'cause motivation hits the red
when someone else will buy the bread.
There's reasons that the old make less;
my salary makes sense, I guess,
and now as if to prove the point
I've got an urge to leave the joint.

Went on a bike ride, sort of long;
a turn we took was sort of wrong.
Got sort of lost; we paid the price;
my water didn't quite suffice.
I plunged my face down in the cold,
the way we did in days of old,
just hoping that my luck would hold,
so alien it sort of seemed
like something that I might have dreamed,
back in the days I loved the best,
like milk from mother nature's breast,
when I was young and life was fun
and killing Earth had just begun.

Don't expect as things unfold
that you'll do better hoarding gold
You're only safe while you don't squeak
and when some's spent you've let it leak
and soon you'll learn that trade is brisk
in others to assume the risk
and they'll show up and they'll propose
to cut off all your children's toes
until you're ready to expose
and that's the root of my belief
that wealth will only bring you grief
and why you're wiser, I believe,
to learn the skills to loot and thieve.

Democracy, however hip,
let mental midgets steer the ship.
Forgive me if I'm sounding shrill;
denial's one more way to ****.
You start to see the way things are —
another hottest June so far ...
Forget the things you thought were norms;
'cause now it's drought between the storms.
To where we'll go — no man's that smart;
we sorta tore the thing apart;
we're on a sea without a chart.
We used to gaze up at the stars
and dream of sending men to mars;
we sort of did it, I suppose;
we're on a planet no one knows.

Livestock, we are all agreed,
are species changed to fill a need.
The rich folks live where living's great -
in giant homes behind a gate,
where folks are destined to succeed
and very seldom interbreed,
where media (they own it all)
pervades the thoughts beyond the wall,
bombarding us with words designed
to leave our interests undermined,
assuring that our minds are swerved
in ways that leave our betters served.
Some girls are told to take the reins
and have few kids if they have brains
'til little trace of brain remains
while women of another sort
are taught it's evil to abort.
One ought to ask what value's bought
when smart is culled and dumb is not;
we've simply moved to fill the niche
of being cattle for the rich.

Let's speak for a moment of Timmy McVeigh.
Clinton proclaimed him a coward. No way.
A coward ain't putting his life  on the line
'cause government ain't the ideal design.
Quite a courageous and capable sort,
he blew up a building and cut some lives short.
He wanted to get our attention. He did -
to hear his agenda and do as he bid.
It seems like we heard him; he's one of the ones
for trading assistance for freedom and guns.
Perhaps if I bombed you, you'd hear what I say,
but I ain't no hero like Timmy McVeigh.

We're past the election, the strangest one yet,
like a whole country suffering from oxygen debt.
The first was the woman, the one with the name
that says your next helping is more of the same.
The other, just horrid, and toxic for sure,
though sometimes it's Drano that cleans out the sewer.
We heard their opinions and pondered their stands;
Benghazi's Emailer lost out to Small Hands.
But that's in the past; we're surviving the blow.
We've got a new president running the show.
So, let's get behind him. Yeah, go Putin go!

When I saw you baby, my heart skipped a beat;
I thought that a clot caused a valve to unseat.
Though I felt lightheaded I didn't much care;
I just figured space didn't curve so much there.
My heart was aglow; my ***** were afire;
I thought I might need to adjust my attire.
My knees started buckling; my jaw line went slack
as if my nutrition had suffered a lack,
but then I felt blood was beginning to course
a message I took as a sign to endorse
the concept around was the way we should horse,
but I suffered whiplash from spinning about
and I looked too closely and you knocked me out
and though I've recovered, inspection reveals
something that day left me head over heels.

Perhaps it's best we're dumb, and so
won't anticipate the blow.
Perhaps it's really just a kindness
that we have such a streak of blindness,
that we're so steeped in our denial
our faces never lose their smile,
remaining cloaked in joviality,
a full divorce from all reality,
and good our mood is so subdued;
we might be rude if we were clued.
Perhaps it's good we've been so lulled
and live our lives with senses dulled.
Perhaps it serves a higher purpose
that some brain sucker seemed to slurp us
and then quite strangely took the pains
to fill our heads with bovine brains.
Perhaps it's best we're still deceived
without the concept yet conceived
of billions dead, the rest bereaved
and though our race will soon be routed
we still don't know a thing about it.
It could be best; although I doubt it.

I'm sure you've observed it, that thing that they say:
Experience tends to just get in the way.
If I'm in the mood for philosophy talks
I don't go to scholars from Stanford or Ox;
I'll turn right around and go down to the docks
and get some philosophy out of the box.
I don't fool around with those **** engineers;
their time was just wasted to study for years.
I just grabbed a fellow out drinking some beers,
said I needed a rig that is spacious, and yet
can climb like a Willys and turn like a Vette.
He said he'd deliver December the third;
if there was a problem I'm sure I'd have heard.
And if I was feeling some pain pretty keen
from down by my liver or maybe my spleen
I'd talk to a fellow I met at the zoo,
say just cut in here, take a minute or two;
if you see a bad liver you'll know what to do,
and soon I'd be frisking around like a goat
and coming November, you know how I'll vote.

Elections serve to shed a light
on mental skill, our sorry plight,
and some may find it rather sad
that half of us are clearly mad,
but don't assume, as some folks do,
this means the others have a clue;
we'd get, the point should not be lost,
the same result if coins were tossed.

Some people living with purpose un-rife
seek to discover the meaning of life,
but I'm pretty sure having meaning assures
there has to be something to which it refers,
and it quickly occurs to a person who thinks
to get to the meaning you follow the links
'til finally you get to the stuff with the fizz
where nothing has meaning and stuff simply is,
where simple existence is fully enough
and things don't need meaning like second-class stuff,
and finding no reference despite looking far
just might mean the end's where you already are.

Your job, of course, is find the means
that works the best to spread your genes
and women choose two different ways:
the man who's great or one who stays
and through the kindness of the state
she's free to choose the man who's great
and thus society is built
on those who look a lot like Wilt.

It starts the day a man's conceived:
Some cells die off and get relieved;
the molecules of which they're made
will interact and be remade;
electron flow is interlaced
and atoms find themselves replaced;
regardless how your plans are laid
your thoughts evolve, your memories fade;
the only thing that's there to stay
is coded in your DNA,
so in the deepest sense it's true:
You are your twin; your twin is you.

Life should be simple, seems like to me,
women and feelings and things you can be,
perhaps a few interesting things you can see,
but sit yourself back and switch on the TV;
little too interesting, seems like to me.

Ask someone clever, a person you trust,
what the country will do when the fossils go bust.
What's that by his ear? A flick of a tail?
"I really don't think that our fuel's gonna fail."
Isn't that brain dust I see by his shoe?
"The market will save us the way that they do."
I hear something chewing. "Our history's laced
with the fact that technology's always replaced."
His answers seen tenuous, nebulous, vague,
as we've come to expect in the brain-borer plague.

I fear that something is amiss;
no ape should reach such age as this.
Mere common sense will tell you so;
an ape should do his job and go.
An ape of substance surely ought
to do what's right and linger not,
so I've adopted gin and such
and undertake to drink too much.

E.O. Wilson, you, no doubt,
know evolution inside out
and evidently you subscribe
to the standard diatribe,
that women, given choice, will think,
and cause their family size to shrink.
Now, I'd predict you'd find a few
who'd somehow still extrude a slew,
and how could any trait be more
easily selected for?
And hence the demographic trend
would rapidly approach its end
and then, as by some cosmic curse,
would tend to shift into reverse.
Of course, I'm some pathetic chap
who never really learned this crap,
and lowly as I am, bow down
before your knowledge and renown,
and blushing for my paltry brain,
beg you humbly to explain.

House on the Mesa

The kind of girl who on each date took
the Kama Sutra and a rate book
might see a mining town to be
financial opportunity.
Whether or not you think that there oughta be,
dough's to be made from the oldest commodity;
if she moves lots of tail and stays out of jail
she can move to the hill when the yuppies all bail.
A change in economy has side effects;
ambitious young fellows may want to change ***.
They best do their manly pro-mining moaning
'fore they start to squeak from de-testosteroning.