Every couple 'a years or so
Our family reunites
It takes a couple 'a years or so
To recover from the fights

A family like our'n
Doesn't party like most do
Ours gets a little out of hand
That's why we have so few

It's a redneck family reunion
everybody has a grand old time
eating grandma's cooking
and drinking grandpas shine
You never go home hungry
If you make it home at all
You go home bruised and battered
And you surely had a ball

There's daisy dukes and forty Lukes
They're racing trucks and burning rubber
There's jugs of moonshine everywhere
And at least a hundred bubbas

There's a smoker fired for the food
the size of two large trucks
It hold 4 cows, and fourteen pigs
And at least a hundred ducks

It's a redneck family reunion
everybody has a grand old time
eating grandma's cooking
and drinking grandpas shine
You never go home hungry
If you make it home at all
You go home bruised and battered
And you surely had a ball

There's pickled this and pickled that
And things you just can't swallow
That used to live down in the swamp
Way back there in the hollow

There's at least ten shotgun weddings there
And the groom might be rail roaded
But, the wedding isn't legal
If the shotgun isn't loaded

It's a redneck family reunion
everybody has a grand old time
eating grandma's cooking
and drinking grandpas shine
You never go home hungry
If you make it home at all
You go home bruised and battered
And you surely had a ball

There's greased up pigs and muddy runts
And at least ten bobby sues
and when they all get greased up
You can't tell which is who

There's horseshoe pits for tossing shoes
And games of every sort
Most of them aren't legal
And would get you into court

It's a redneck family reunion
everybody has a grand old time
eating grandma's cooking
and drinking grandpas shine
You never go home hungry
If you make it home at all
You go home bruised and battered
And you surely had a ball

But, it's the way we like it
Drinking shine and acting out
Tossing things that aren't tied down
And wrassling about

There's music there of just one kind
It's country and that matters
Any other sort of sound
Sets the crowd off like mad hatters

It's a redneck family reunion
everybody has a grand old time
eating grandma's cooking
and drinking grandpas shine
You never go home hungry
If you make it home at all
You go home bruised and battered
And you surely had a ball

There's always someone who's so drunk
And it's normally the preacher
Last year we married him off
To the back up first grade teacher

There's Chevy trucks of every kind
And one covered in sod
Mary Lou showed her tattoo
"Jeff Foxworthy is my God"

It's the best time of the year for us
And it's sad when it must end
but, you gotta haul your *** away
When the cops come round that bend

It's a redneck family reunion
everybody has a grand old time
eating grandma's cooking
and drinking grandpas shine
You never go home hungry
If you make it home at all
You go home bruised and battered
And you surely had a ball

Some introductory 'food' for thought...

"When people say they prefer organic food, what they often seem to mean is they don't want their food tainted with pesticides and their meat shot full of hormones or antibiotics. Many object to the way a few companies - Monsanto is the most famous of them - control so many of the seeds we grow."
  - Michael Specter

"My grandfather used to say that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer"
  - Brenda Schoepp

"Economically, many folks don't feel they can afford organic. While this may be true in some cases, I think more often than not it's a question of priority. I feel it's one of the most important areas of concern ecologically, because the petrochemical giants - DuPont, Monsanto - make huge money by poisoning us."
  - Woody Harrelson


Who is Monsanto?
Monsanto is a Chemicals/Pharmaceutical/Agriculture company that was established in 1901 in the United States, and over the last century has occupied a particularly interesting and questionable history that has within recent times took to the global scale, growing into a multinational corporation, well nigh on the complete monopolisation of the Agriculture industry whilst having established connections to the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. They are less well known for their creation of Agent Orange, of which they claimed had no harmful effects on the human body, which was utilised very predominantly during the Vietnam War by the U.S. military as a defoliant, however, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths by poisoning, and has now led to an epidemic of birth deformities in the regions of use. Monsanto experienced more involvement in war through their involvement in the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the creation of the first nuclear bombs to be tested on Japanese civilian populations. They also have a background in their production of PCB's (Polychlorinated biphenyls) which once again, had the negative human and environmental effects ignored and misrepresented hitherto 1977 when they were banned, however, was not before many fresh water supplies and the air had been contaminated and was a known carcinogen in humans, along with other health damages. There was then of course their production of DDT's in the post war period that was advertised as a 'wonder-chemical' to be used in agricultural pesticides. However, it was later uncovered that its spraying caused a high percentage of food breakdown in crop and in humans caused breast cancer, male infertility, miscarriage, developmental delay and nervous system/liver damage. They even tested the effects of radioactive Iron on 829 pregnant women in a bizarre experiment. Having no shortage of scandalous and often at times frequenting blatantly corrupt behaviour on their dubious track record, with an abundance of data and study arising in protest of the company's use of dangerous chemicals and genetic modifications in food, it is surely best to question the activity and history of this company.


What chemical poisons are being used?
Some of you are probably aware as to the fact that within many food products today there are various chemicals being used in modification, cultivation and in processing, many of which are harmful, often deadly to the human body and to the ecosystem. So harmful in fact that in cultivation workers are required to wear bio-hazard suits and due to the toxicity of the area in farming these GM crops, are required to ***** signs in the surrounding area warning of the danger.

So one chemical that has been pushed into foods and drink by Monsanto since the early 20th Century is Saccharin, an artificial sweetener made from coal tar which is used predominantly in Soda, Coke and processed foods, and is 700 times sweeter than sugar. In 1907 when Saccharin was first investigated by the USDA it was quoted as,"a coal tar product totally devoid of food value and extremely injurious to health" , and by the 1970's, when the chemical began to garner greater use, the FDA attempted to ban its use in products after discovering it causes cancers (particularly bladder cancer) in animals and humans, however, today is still used as an artificial sweetener, and between 1973-1994 the National Cancer Institute saw a 10% increase in bladder cancers.

Monsanto are also responsible for the pushing of another artificial sweetener onto the market to be consumed by humans, that being Aspartame, even more harmful than Saccharin, and since being used in Coke, particularly Diet Coke, since 1983, the rest of industry followed suit. When melted down at 30°C into its liquid form in use for soft drinks, it become far deadlier than in its powdered state. It was found that it caused tumours and holes in the brains of rats and is more addictive than crack *******. After a multitude of independent scientific studies arose in protest of the use of Aspartame, Monsanto bribed the National Cancer Institute to produce fabricated data. Here are some of the know side effects of Aspartame consumption in humans according to the US Food and Drug Administration:

• mania  
• blindness
• joint-pain
• fatigue
• weight-gain
• chest-pain
• coma
• insomnia
• numbness
• depression
• tinnitus
• weakness
• spasms
• irritability
• nausea
• deafness
• memory-loss
• rashes
• dizziness
• headaches
• seizures
• anxiety
• palpitations
• fainting
• cramps
• diarrhoea
• panic
• burning in the mouth
• diabetes
• MS
• lupus
• epilepsy
• Parkinson’s
• tumours
• miscarriage
• infertility
• fibromyalgia
• infant death
• Alzheimer’s

As is quite evident, Aspartame not only lacks any nutritional value, it also can have grave effects on humans when consumed. In fact, over 80% of complaints made to the FDA concern Aspartame and is now used in over 5000 products, yet facts are still being misrepresented and as primary producers of Aspartame such as Monsanto produce false data to cover their tracks.


How is their monopoly being secured?
Monsanto within recent decades has somewhat become the archetype of corruption and corporatism, devoting many millions to Government lobbying in order to maintain its hegemony over agriculture, its use of harmful chemicals and to maintain restrictions of food labelling of GM products. In fact, the company seems to have a revolving door between itself and Government now, one example being the FDAs Arthur Hull resigning due to controversy and going straight to an employee at Monsanto as a Public Relations representative. This means that the FDA, the central official force against the use and proliferation of harmful products is in bed with Monsanto, the main proliferator.

Another creation Monsanto have pushed into pastoral agriculture is their Synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone which is a genetic modification of the E-coli virus to be used in dairy products and cows. And in order to make sure this product is pushed onto farmers, Monsanto sues any that do not use it with teams of lawyers. They also, in a far more cunning and destructive method, are able to and have destroyed other, natural crop cultivation by the use of their Genetically Modified crops themselves. What they have done is modified their crops in order that they self pollinate, and that bees that come into contact with their crops are killed, causing mass hive collapses, which then means any natural crop in surrounding farms die off due to a lack of bees to pollinate them, forcing them to join the monopoly of Monsanto's GM supply.

Also, before the aerial spraying aluminium and barium into the skies began in 1998, that has seen a rise in the content of aluminium particles per/cm from near 0 to 30,000 in many areas, Monsanto patented crops that are resistant to soil with such high concentrations, meaning they now have legal ownership over crops, whereas the natural produce may be ungrowable in a number of places where the spraying concentration is high. On a side not, the spraying of aluminium into the sky since 1998 has also caused a massive spike in Alzheimer disease and lung cancers, rising from the tens of thousands to the millions of cases per year.

To Conclude, Monsanto has recently made a very big merger deal with the Pharmaceutical company Bayer, the ones who produced Zyklon-B for the **** extermination chambers. Sure sounds like some safe operations.


- an essay by JDH

Wrong not, sweet empress of my heart,
  The merit of true passion,
With thinking that he feels no smart,
  That sues for no compassion.

Silence in love bewrays more woe
  Than words, though ne’er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
  May challenge double pity.

Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
  My true, though secret passion;
He smarteth most that hides his smart,
  And sues for no compassion.

Court has commenced
Everyone is in court and the Jury is all set to begin
Grandmas Lawyer’s is ready
Santa is representing himself holding steady
The Judge has entered the court and the proceedings give begin in the gravel
Grandma is on the witness stand and sworn in
The Prosecutor asked Grandma to identify Santa in the room, and she points on the right
Grandma gives her testimony on what happened on the day in question
I had Egg Nog with a touch of Alcohol for the Winter cold for warmth before going out
Grandma explained as she walking, she was caught by surprise and run over by Santa’s Reindeers and Sleigh
The Prosecutor then responds to Grandma that she wasn’t alert in her right mind
Grandma’s Lawyer responds with an outburst bullying the witness
Judge responds with over ruled
The Prosecutor asks Grandma, Did you hear any jingle or bells in warning?
Grandma abruptly responded with NO
The Prosecutor then responds with, Grandma, I hope you don’t mind me calling you that, “You said you had Egg Nog with Alcohol to keep warm
If you were drinking that meant you were probably unstable
Where were you going?
Grandma stated, I was going to the store to pick up food and Soda’s for the Family get together on Christmas
The Prosecutor reminded that there were no witnesses and just you in the circumstance
You wasn’t sober, have no idea into whether you were run over by Santa’s Reindeers or a car
The Hospital records indicate that you were in fact intoxicated
There is no evidence that proves Santa and his Reindeer are at fault
It is now Santa’s turn to question Grandma
Do you have any personal feelings against Santa?
Grandma abruptly suggested, NO
Your remarks seem to state, that you are the one in question
Intoxication
Santa stated, I don’t drink, and always remain sober at all times
The shoe now is on the other foot
The Judge asks the Jury to deliberate their verdict
The Jury made their verdict as Santa and his Reindeers are innocent
There was no doubt because of strong evidence
Grandma needs to understand to be sob er and alert when going out
At the moment, appraisal from everyone in the court, but of course, Grandma was upset with the verdict
Grandma has a Drinking bout
Santa was cleared of all charges
Judge’s Gravel
Court Adjoined

prefer celery to carrots
light scrunch over an orange hard crack,
straw red over berries bluest,
coffee over tea,
skies white clouded
over
all clear, unadulterated uni-tone,
blondes, brunettes, redheads,
even pink or blue haired,
well, ain't going there
(wink wink,
too smart for that...)

but that's just me

colors viral virulent  over manhattan grey~black,
a good Pinot over a glass of Jack,
beach and sea undefined
over lake delimited, outlined bounded,
ocean caught fresh over farm raised,
city slick over country sweet,
striped bass over monk,
tuna bests salmon,
but both miso coated please...

Italian Indian Ethiopian
Sushi and occasionally Chinese,
all grand,
but my kosher deli and dogs, pickles,
yellow mustard ball parked,
tops them all
especially when serving
all-you-can-eat
over tasting portions...

but that's just me

right over left,
naked better than ****,
polite over rude,
Rembrandt tops Vermeer,
but his light nonethess,
extra over ordinarie...

Swiss over white American,
Gruyere beats goat cheese,
citrus tops apples,
sweet melon my
secret passion,
paprika and oregano,
never ever cilantro,
milk over OJ,
especially, grade A
milk of human kindness,
all flavors

love my poems centered,
(except for this one)
with no sugar added,
but a lot of cream and sweat,
both a necessity, not a luxury,
prefer mesmerizing,
crafting hard, laboring,
me writing, you imbibing,
leaving you oohing and loving
me
because of the appreciation built in
over
ditties that are semisweet
sugar nadas that populate the
easy come easy go away
poem of the day

but that's just me

like myself hard
cause when I melt,
to a child's grin shyest,
laughter silly me provoking
it is ever so better so...
tears, any kind, don't mind
laughing and sorrowing pouring,
let genuine be my only test
speed limit barrier unlimited

sorta saved a street crossing
phone-occupied-woman yesterday,
put my arm across her body
fast hard, unasked
so she wasn't
bicycle crashed,
both looks well received,
the *** and the gratitude,
but latter over former,
if I had to choose,
but I dont

but that's just me

Joanie M. over Judy C.,
Amy over Adele,
Eva Cassidy over all...
Zombies over Beatles,
Blunt over Taylor,
Rhyming Simon over Billy Joel,
no typos over flaring,
glaring no caring...

your poetry over mine,
cause it amazes,
cause mine,
just old familiar crazies,
just runaround Sues from yester pester days,
transcribed for a someday later
future grimacing laugh of
good god did I write that!

but that's just me

wrote quite the many
literary escapades
this morning,
like the yore,
good old days,
when every glance,
remark passing
made me run
to tablet them
in perpetuity ASAP

placed them before you
scattered thither and dither,
like all that jazz notes
running hands over planes geometric,
most just average,
but all there in hopes
you would love me better

but that's just me

sneaking inside you with
a wink, a tink-ering whimsy,
a stupid smile, a wicked sinning
humongous grinning
with a belly laughing,
havoc raising, me crazing,

*but that's just me

You remember the story of Grandma got runover by Santa’s Reindeers
If you don’t know, let me fill you in
Grandma was walking down the street, and as the reindeers were flying and coming down for a landing, Grandma got run over by the Reindeers
But Grandma wasn’t fully alert before the incident
At that time, Grandma had Egg Nog with her added blend of joy
On Boy
She drank according to Grandma’s account in needing warmth from the Wintery winds during the Joyous Holiday Season
That was then
This is now
Grandma is all well now and Sober
But not necessarily in that order
Grandma visited a Lawyer in getting a case to sue Santa’s Reindeers
Now I don’t know if that will damper Santa’s preserver
Nonetheless, the Legal Papers have been served
Grandma wants Santa and his Reindeers to get what they deserve
But Grandma should have been sober
Santa offered Grandma his apology
But Grandma was thinking Mythology
No Court Date has been set
What impact will be the effect?
Does Grandma even have a case, and will it hold up in Court?
How will Santa respond?
We will have to wait and see
Patience is the only key

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

  “San Francisco Sues its Own School District to Reopen Classes”

                                            -Associated­ Press

Student Voices:

“I need help in understanding Don Quixote”
“Karamazov for me,” replies her friend
“For Christmas I received the Q edition
of The Oxford Book of English Verse,” says another

(And the Board exclaims, “The Q edition!? Eeeeeeek!”)

“I’m prepping Latin with our parish priest”
“Well, I’m tackling The Faerie Queene this year”
“I’m writing our class play in iambic hexameter”
“I wish I could read Pushkin in the original Russian”

(And the Board asks, “Pushkin? What’s their team like this season?”)

Student Chorus:

“We’ve got to study harder, everyone agrees
Lest we be as dense as our school’s trustees”

You put a whole new taste to sugar
Those candy commercials couldn't label the sweetness of you
***** Wonka is drinking himself to sleep
Because you're the superior type of candy when I put you into words
I don't sweet talk to get something
I sweet talk cause its honestly true
Your precensce sticks to me like glue
All those books with Mary Sues
Unrealistically describes you
All the food in the fridge is expired
But not my love for you