he asks me if i want to play
so i sharpen my knives and prepare to castrate

Blue eyes
Black hair
You cried
I stared
I laughed
You left
Blue eyes
Come back.

The vacant streets get crowded with kids,
Open eyes with curious eyelids,
Watch the older ones play with sticks.

With their dolls, the girls throw their show,
Bragging about the toy with the prettiest bow,
And waiting for their moms to see.

The boys with their "weapons", "shooting" and shouting,
Beating their chest and gracefully scouting,
Waiting for their dads to hear.

The sunset slowly calls them inside,
For the older ones, now comes the time,
To peacefully roam around buildings.

They cry 'cause of heartbreaks,
They hide 'cause of smoke flakes,
Blowing out their mistakes through their mouth.

No kids can sleep now, nor old nor young,
Quietly speaking and as they swung, on a swing,
They looked deeper into the sun going down.

This is an ode for a friend,
Her love for her family has no end,
It's playtime with Grandma for
Her grandsons, "Let's play dinosaurs!"
Good for her, let's clap,
Her living legacy, two little chaps,
I bet they love Grandma heaps,
In their hearts her they'll keep,
Likewise, her family love  has no end,
Here's an ode for you, my friend....

Loud voices in
My head;
Whisperings 'neath
My bed.
The monsters have come out
To play;
Please, let this darkness turn
To day.

I miss those wonder-filled days
When watching clouds was fun,
As well as watching movies
And more than only just one.
Two movies, a serial and a cartoon
Was the Saturday morning fare
With greasy popcorn and sodas
If we could find fifty scents somewhere.

My brothers and I loved picking
Through those illegal dump sites
That lawless neighbors often used,
Near us, in the middle of the night.
Once I found a Buddha statuette
And didn’t know who the guy was.
In Christian America of the fifties
Knowing such things had no cause.

Brother Jim found a tricycle there
Almost completely okay to ride
And Dan found a kind of wood box
With a handful of coins inside.
He got to pay for the movies for us
But Sam didn’t find much at all.
He did manage to slip at the time
And take a pretty hilarious fall.

Maybe it was easier then, those days
For kids to stay so entertained.
The only thing that might spoil our fun
Was if nature chose to make it rain.
Many times our fun was exploring
And rain could make it a weary slog.
It caused some unpleasant journeys
Through some unattractive bogs.

We built go-carts out of some junk
We gathered on our treasure hunts,
But usually they were contraptions
My mother definitely did not want.
Mom was like that, careful with us.
Worry-wart that she was back then
It didn’t stop or really slow down
Us four adventure-minded children.

Go outside after breakfast
Come back for lunch at noon.
Come inside at suppertime
And even then, it was too soon.
Never permitted to be late
We ate dinner at six each day
Eat every bite on our plate.
About the menu we had no say.

We had baking soda submarines
Popular Mechanics magazines
And that was technology back then.
Decoder rings and roller skate keys
Shooting marbles on our knees
And playing crooks and G-men.

Those days we had three channels
On all black and white televisions.
Just the same thirteen inch boxes;
Nothing like 3D or Panavision.
Loved Uncle Miltie and Lucille Ball
And considered Korla Pandit a waste,
But we must be forgiven because
Back then, no one had much taste.

We could spell Kula, Fran and Ollie,
Said words like “gosh”, and “by golly”
And were anxious to see flying cars.
Many movies were in Technicolor
But you always had to take your brother
And he didn’t recognize the stars.

After school we played sandlot ball
Saturday were TV cartoon shows;
Dancing trees with belly buttons
And a local clown with a red nose.
We joined Cubs and Boy Scouts
Had lemonade stands by the street,
Matchbooks in bicycle stokes
And used bottle cap taps for our feet.

It seemed like days were longer then
And summer was slow to come again.
Those were the days when we had fun.
We built our forts and hooked up swings
Kids did all crazy kinds of things
Before these modern times had begun.

When I was a little kid
My friends and I would play
At cowboys and Indians
In the barn with forts of hay.
We crafted guns from sticks
We found about the farm
And though we shot each other
We managed to come to no harm.

Bang, bang, bang! I got you!
No you didn’t, you missed!
The bullet whizzed by me!
You can’t see me in the mist!

Of course, if we were Indians
The same rules held true there.
You never managed to **** us
We never took your hair.
But, we knew we were villains
Because cowboys were king.
We didn’t even question it.
It was that sort of thing.

Bang, bang, bang. I got you!
Cowboys don’t ever cry.
We twist and dodge you redskins
So, don’t even bother to try.

Holding invisible reins, we rode
On our noble painted steeds.
We pretended it was the old West
Here in our playground of weeds.
Some of us had play weapons
Santa had brought to the lucky
But forcing improvisation only
Made us a lot more plucky.

Bang, bang, bang. I shot you.
You ***** lowdown rustler.
Oh, we thought of every dodge.
What young, clever hustlers.

We called it dump country
Tons and tons of junk
Old bicycles and plenty
Of bottles from the drunks.
The legal dump sites
Had not been arranged.
This was now the city,
Things yet to be arranged.

Four little kids, broke ***,
Not much money for toys.
It was the end of the fifties,
Bad times for little boys.
We made our own adventure,
Way before Disneyland.
We left right after breakfast
To us, the whole trip was grand.

We found amazing things
And brought them all home.
I found a gold painted Buddha
Under a kind of glass dome.
Jim found a tricycle there
And cleaned it up real nice.
It was a really good dump site
We went a lot more than twice.

We called it dump country
We had it to ourselves.
Just us four busy bumpkins.
Santa’s ***** little elves.
We found wheels and things
To build our own little cars.
We got cut up a bit sometimes.
I still have one of the scars.

Over in dump country
The one nearest to our place
Sam found a bit of money
One penny with an Indian face.
But what we found there
Added up to a treasure chest.
It sounds silly but they may be
The memories that were best.