I've hit rock bottom
Once or twice
Been to the moon and back
Lived on the thinnest ice
I've gathered some scars
And I've talked to the stars
Spent some time behind bars

I have paid a due or two

I ran for my life
From an angry Moose
I looked up the proper number of
Twists in a noose
I turned the tables on a hungry bear
I've climbed the mountains and breathed the rarefied air

I have paid a due or two

I've had my long dark nights of the soul
I've seen the pieces, and I've seen the whole
I've pushed a boulder up the same hill many times
Just to watch it roll back down, so, once again,
I make that climb
I've written riddles, hymns(riffs) , blog entries, and rhymes

I have paid a due or two

They wear big-*** antlers
That make you say "Oh deer!"
They got an attitude
That jolts them to fully charge...
But they don't get LODGED in your throat.

The international fraternity
Of the Moose Lodge,
Unfolding a new chapter each day!
A fraternity that works together,
A family that comes together.

A night of karaoke
At the Moose Lodge
Will make you forget
Your rough week ever happened

Charity of Moose, Moose Haven,
Conventions,
Many ways to be involved,
But only one moose to choose!

Just be the **** ****** you desire
Just be their icon, diva, vogue, inspire!
Just shake that money-making waffle tale
And put it up for every market sale
Or be the coffee squirrel on the wheels
Just give me mochas, lattes – those the deals!
Don’t be so easy cheesy, take a shot!
You drink at Hortons’, baby? You are hot!
Don’t feel like ******, squirrel? Be the moose!
Hang out at Lake Louise with Branta goose
Just grab a Molson and then chill it out
Now, isn’t that what Canada’s about?
Just be polite today and I won’t bite
Just say you’re sorry when you are not right
Just be the polar teddy, be the loon
We’ll love you all the way from Earth to Moon

Timmy Ray, poor boy from Kentucky.
Football scholarship.
Degree in Business Administration.
Respectable job, bored.
Enlists with best friend in Marines as a macho trip.
Vietnam, what a crock.
This ain’t football. And it ain’t fair.
Schemes to get out,
ignores an order to go out on patrol,
******* mission, but the friend goes,
gets shot up bad.
Timmy Ray runs out to help the friend, is shot.
It’s all blood and mud, man, blood and mud.
Friend paralyzed, Timmy Ray okay.
Court-martial for Timmy Ray, discharge.
The friend takes an overdose.
“No moral here,” Timmy Ray says. “My
war story. That’s all.”

Timmy Ray makes sculptures, big metal things.
No people.
“The human body’s been done,” he says.
Downtown Detroit in front of an office
he welds a pile of globes,
names it “Love” so he’ll get paid
but he says it’s really “Moose Brain.”
These days, Timmy Ray’s hand
trembles. He volunteers at a suicide
hot line. No moral there,
either. Moose brain.

The surface of the water at Garrett Lake
is a ballroom floor, the bluest of hardwoods.
Hiding itself within its leafy forest green walls, which
if looked upon closely, one would swear you can see the woods.
We blazed a trail past a fallen trunk,
presumably lightning struck
whose roots had twisted
into the shape of a moose
fallen to sleep or endure breathe no more,
past the row of trees split
by the trail. One side
Life, the other death.
We found our way to an elder pine
who wanted to be a pier
and dove down so we could
sit upon him, no longer on land,
legs dangling like a chandelier above the ballroom.

Don't ever mess with a moose
a half ton of meat on the loose
they demolish your truck
and they don't give a ****
don't ever mess with a moose

Cynthia Pauline Jones 2012

A gray hippopotamus lived in a zoo
At the end of the Tropical Line,
Harry the Hippo lived next to the loo
Right by the Northern confines.
With his wide toothy smile,
And his great double chin,
He greeted his neighbors
With a great hippo grin...
Made friends with the deer,
Made friends with an owl,
Avoided the white scowling bear,
Avoided the family of wolves,
(He'd heard they liked to eat meat).
Decided to friend a great, walloping moose,
A challenge, his neighbor seemed rather elite.
Tall and severe with a beard on his chin,
He stood like a tree on his heavy brown hooves,
And branches of antlers stood heavy and grim.

"I see we are neighbors,"said Harry the Hippo,
"Name's Harry," he said with a grin,
"Since it looks like we'll be here a while, ya' know,
I figure we ought to be friends!"

"Bull" Moose only chewed a bit more on his cud,
Burped in the gray hippo's face,
Turned his wide antlers for well and for good...
He spurned the whole hippo race.

But Harry had patience,
Had nowhere to go,
So he waited a week and a month and a day
For Otto the Moose to come 'round,
And he did! And now the two of 'em play.

Our Harry's advice to you is be nice,
And after a while, it comes true....
The balkiest neighbors will have to think twice
And fall into friendship with you.

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