I’m all for freedom of speech for everyone
Without pardoning you for things you’ve done.
Here’s something you don’t get to say to me
You don’t get to tell me I may not disagree!
You who plan constant genocide and invasion
Make pacifists like myself rise to the occasion.
We refuse to authorize you buying a warship.
You act as if that word is very like worship!

Too many scary cowards setting precedences.
In your overstuffed, gadget-filled residences.
You’re issuing orders to send youths to die.
Since you’re not going, why bother to ask why?
Some bribe-taking elite snobs in costly suits
Tell you to send kids overseas in combat boots.
If you rebuke them they bring out the dramatics.
Their reason is their bookkeeper’s mathematics.

In the USA, we waged war after disastrous war
And few of us asked why, and what is it for?
We invaded people’s lands and destroyed it
And there never was a reason to deploy it
An international revenue generating machine
****** thousands on both sides, nice and clean.
Then demand we buy coffee, seven bucks a cup,
If we think of objecting, you want us to shut up.

After all, it’s just one more war, wrapped up to go.
What’s a two or three million dead people or so?
The point it, there’s a bottom line to adhere to
So what it affects or kills someone near you?
Don’t be unpatriotic and ***** with fate.
Genocide is lucrative and an  American trait.
Just look what we did to the natives here.
Read that story. What we’re doing is clear.

The Psychedelic Deli
Is sometimes in an alley.
It can seem accidental,
Some of it experimental
All completely experiential.

There is no shop, no store
You must have a friend
If you really want to score.
Everyone is different
Under new management.

Let me make this clear;
Anything you want,
Everything you want is here.
From champagne to beer
All the time, every year.

You can send out for *****
And have nothing to lose.
Only just all your money,
But you may think that funny
Once you’re getting chummy.

So mostly bring your own
And don’t drink it alone
Because it’s best to share
That’s true just everywhere
If you have the grace to care.

The Psychedelic Deli
May sell wares ***** nilly
They’ll charge you indecently
As stuff they made just recently
Must be paid for immediately.

They have this and that
And if you pass the hat
You’ll go on a trip with no ticket.
You surely don’t want to miss it.
But there’s always a bit more to it.

So, you better be up to it
Because many more blew it
And ended like a fish on their belly,
Their minds about as stable as jelly,
Shopping at the Psychedelic Deli.

Hello, Mister. God, or is it Miss, or Missus,
Don’t rush down to smother me with kisses.
Why listen to pleas and heartfelt prayers?
There must be something better elsewhere.
Somebody you can help that has better words.
The kind of holy roller crap we have always heard.

Maybe I can take a class and learn to speak
In Latin or Farsi or go get dunked in a creek.
Maybe I can buy black clothes and a collar
Or stand on a busy corner downtown and holler.
I’d even be willing to suffer in a golden palace
And only drink blessed wine from a silver chalice.
I’d gladly have a television show and do healing.
I’ll gladly lift my arms, overact looking at the ceiling.

I can practice celibacy and ignore my own crotch
I am sure I can. You just sit on a a cloud and watch.
I’m sure I can do laying on of hands quite well.
I can chant and sing and save people from hell.
I’m not too bad to look at and clean up good.
I’m perfectly ready to be a holy person if you would
Just cast your divine magic glance in my direction
And notice the piety and depth of my genuflection.

I have been told of the sparrow’s fall you see
That you’re to be revered on holidays regularly.
When babies die, and any pitiful sinless soul
We are told we are to accept it is part of your role
To take a life, or give disease as it’s all your plan.
That your love and your grace is greater than man
And therefore we must must not question you
And just accept all of the miracles that you do.

My hope is that, if I do it all perfectly some day
You’ll take our earthly pain and suffering away.
No, not mine. I’m being fairly lucky in my life.
I mean the pain of every husband and every wife
And every single person, of any age and station
And choice of worship, in every town and nation.
People at games and parties and battlefronts all
Keep praying for your help. Mr. God, get on the ball!

When starting out,
We need no steps
Because we cannot walk;
We use our voices
To state our need
Even before we can talk.

Then, walking, a treasure,
Running, equal measure;
Learning to risk falling down.
Standing up, being tall
Taking stock of it all,
And amazedly looking around.

Watching others too;
What they went through
As they do the things they do
Does it’s duty to teach
Everyone they reach,
And we learn to love what’s new.

We sometimes stumble.
It's no good to grumble
We improve with each new step
Some of us in the middle
Never win the gold medal,
But, somehow we all take the trip.

When running days are gone
We keep on moving on.
When age has slowed our step.
At the end, lying down,
Making helpless sounds;
No step needed for the last trip.

Big Donald Stuckup
Always such a **** up
When it comes to limelight
He’s totally a **** up.
Big Donald Stuckup
Wants everything his way.
Claims he’s a slim youth
He can’t tell the truth.

Big Donald Stuckup
As honest as his hair
Likes other people’s money
Doesn’t like to share.
Big Donald Stuckup
Can’t keep his mouth shut.
Goes on Twitter frequently
Babbles incoherently.

Big Donald Stuckup
He doesn’t understand
If you think lying is fun
Soon you’ll run off everyone.
Big Donald Stuckup
Has no class at all.
He thinks his golden *****
Make him look less shoddy.

Did you ever have a dream
Of your perfect love, then find it?
I have not, but go ahead and tell me.
I won’t mind it.
Did you end up cuddling and
Falling for each other?
I ended up heartbroken each time
And living with my brother.

Did you go on walks by streams
And kiss at sundown?
Good for you. I took a full time job
Working as a fast food clown.
Do you two have a song you chose
That reminds you of joy?
I have a jack-in-the-box I wind up
A favorite childhood toy.

The main point seems to me to be
Relationships are not for everyone
Otherwise for me my joy in life
Should already have begun.
I guess it’s good that I chose for me
A hobby of monster puzzles
With crazy, greatly detailed pictures
And plenty of soda to guzzle.

I accept that I am not the kind
To attract my lifelong love.
Some people just automatically
Meet and fit like a glove.
I base that assumption on myself
And what I have been through.
It never has happened before
So, why now? What’s new?

I look into the mirror
And what do I see?
A wizened old man
Looking back at me.
How did this happen
How did he get here?
Wasn’t I a young man
Not more than last year?

Where did the lines come from
The wrinkles and the spots?
I used to have some gray hair
Now I seem to have lots.
And am I not shorter now
Than I had seemed before?
Now my vision seems too fuzzy
To successfully ignore.

I made a mocking muscle
By bending my arm to see.
What became of my bicep?
It looks small and sort of puny.
I decided to see it all, so
I stepped a bit back and felt
A roundness, an expanse,
A pudgy fullness at my belt.

This comes from not being
A slave to my own mirror.
If I had been watching myself
My image might be clearer.
I might have seen before now
This aging, doddering old fool.
But I only looked when I had to.
Lack of boastfulness was the rule.

So I now I am a camera trick
Played by a mischievous director
Who slipped this aging body past
My doddering old **** detector.
Now it remains for me to accept
What I have long since become,
And admit that I can no longer be
As I have for decades been: numb.

I write my poems
Then post them online
For all the world to see
And I never noticed that I
Am writing the tale of me.
I never felt a moment's fear
That some would read here
Any kind of indictment
Or make hurtful judgment,
Though some have before.
Even those I don’t ignore.

I am weaving piecemeal
A  harlequin coat of words
That, when they are heard,
Tell you more than asking
More than admitting aloud
Under oath to an eager crowd
Of prosecutors and accusers
And those who support me
Waiting in their seats, hoping
I won’t quit telling, revealing
The tale of a man who rhymes.
It is nearly my only crime.

Please accept, it is only humming,
Something you may do at work;
Me jerking a pen and scribbling.
Don’t bother with quibbling
Because that is what it is,
Doodling, noodling, muttering
But doing it on paper, lettering
Making tuneless music from me
So others can see and happily
Decide to keep it or share it.
I don’t care. It matters not to me.
I give my literary gifts freely.

I am such a child, green and unproud,
Wanting to lie here and watch clouds;
See them become huge people’s faces
And traces form into beaches and streams,
Living all sorts of happy waking dreams
In those puffy forests above my eyes.
The skies talk to me of love and cries
That I should be happy here and stay
Not run away, postpone for another day
Decisions and ambitions and ideas
To revel instead in what a joy this is;
This Eden, this fairyland, this heaven.

I am not selfish in my desire, this fire,
That joyhood; that girlhood and boyhood
Will remain as strong, and as soothing
Smoothing down the ruffles of time.
It can’t be a punishable adult crime
That we drift away, on some days
And ignore the tooting of horns.
They weren’t there when we were born.
There were no parking tickets for us
The school sent the big yellow bus
We didn’t have to wait on the street
Rain and snow on our heads and feet.

To me, it is a gift a wonder and a treat
That we can give up our office seat
And retreat to some park or sweet  plain
And once again go back to when this,
Life as sky and earth, again gives birth
To contentment and security for each
And teaches that it’s not beyond reach.
We can return to good places in our soul.
That should be our own permanent goal.
We can see the beauty of the country
In our own county or our own village
And celebrate the majesty of the image
Of being under the clouds, carefree
To make them what we want them to be.

You had the children
So you are responsible.
Make your weak excuses;
Character is discernible.
We can look at behavior
Of even a grown adult
To see bad parenting
And what is the result.

A child must have approval
And some loving discipline
To prepare them for the quirks
Of this tricky life they’re in.
They must believe they can
Grow up wise and succeed.
Along with love and discipline
Approval is also a need.

We can’t let television
And hired baby sitters be
The be-all of their rearing.
They all have to learn to see
Their parents really love them
And they have parental respect.
This message cannot arrive
If they are raised by neglect.

If they learn nothing of heritage
And their own family pride
What message can they convey
When they are alone outside?
Will they learn only to care
For themselves and what the get?
After all, there won’t be much of
Family life for them to forget.

And for those of you who fear
Your child won’t think you a buddy
That is not what the kid needs.
He can get that from anybody.
And he or she will because
They never will have learned
That life offers far too many
Bridges selfishness can burn.