The **** Cheneys of the world
Start the wars but the young guys
Laid off from the paper mill fight
And die in them.

For Brian

Yeah the pay’s okay, but it’s five long days
Of hard, ****** work plus, maybe
Another half day, then it’s off to the bar
On a Saturday night to get completely blotto
And try and forget the whole lousy week.
Maybe you get in a stupid fight
Or pass out or whatever, anyway
You wake up with cotton-mouth
And a terrible hangover.

Your high school sweetheart, who lied
To you about birth control
So that now she’s a stay-at-home mom
With two kids for you to support,
Is already up and out of bed
But she’s cranky. You groan and mope
Around, spend the day doing
Household chores or watching the tube
While the kids make a racket,
The clock ticking down all the while.

Come Sunday night, if the wife’s
In a generous mood, you might get
Lucky but don’t count on it if it isn’t
Your birthday or a special occasion
And in bed, before you drift off,
It’s all you can do to hold back the tears
Because this what you have to look forward
To for the next thirty or forty years
Unless you fall off a ladder first
Or have a heart attack.

No wonder you’re four times
As likely to unalive yourself
As someone in the general population.

I don’t want what you want,
Don’t know what you want,
Don’t think, to want or not to want,
Don’t think, what it is to want,
Don’t think, what it is to not want,
Don’t think, why it is you want what
You want, whatever it is you want,
Don’t think, what all this wanting
Is about and come to the conclusion

That no, I don’t know what you want
And, frankly, don’t care.

There’s a kind of power
In the beauty of a flower
And there’s fun
In the glory of the sun
When you look up in the sky
It’s only human to ask why
But, if the lawn, green,
Is pretty as you’ve ever seen
Why not smile?
Why not be happy?

That’ll be $5.99 please.

I wanted to see the world
With fresh eyes so I had
A scientist clone me a new pair

A surgeon remove the old pair
And connected the new pair

It was a delicate operation
And it took weeks to recover

But when I could finally see clearly
Again, everything looked the same

It would be cool
To be a rhyming fool
To rhyme sappy
With happy
To rhyme hullabaloo
With Picachu
To rhyme resurrect
With circumspect
To rhyme yellow
With mellow
To rhyme dirigible  
With incorrigible
To rhyme hellacious
With salacious
To rhyme Jocasta
With pasta
To rhyme moon
With buffoon

And best of all
To make the call
To rhyme maybe
With baby

Then salute the purple cow
In the audience and take a bow

Behold the expendable character
Who’s death is designed to help establish
The putative high stakes of the show.

Cue Walter, a homicidal monster.
Little nuance here. Sneering, lecherous,
He’s due a satisfyingly violent demise.

And there’s absolutely no danger
In giving him one.