Here's a would you rather
straight from the slaughter house.
Would you rather be hung
from a rope,
and have your throat slit,
or would you rather
have a drill pierce your skull?
We are human, not heifer,
but the fact still remains
would you rather a quick death,
or be left to suffer?
Personally I would choose hung.
I really wouldn't mind
being hung.

Bo Goodin Reddy was a friend o' mine
Gargled in the morning with turpentine !
Ate catfish and drank moonshine ,
Worked like a mule on the old rail line !
Bo yanked a heifer 'outta Whitewash Creek ,
He could whup a black bear with a hickory switch !
Played five card stud till the cows came home ,
Shot a pine cone off a tree at a hundred yards                                                      Man could grab a rattler before the snake could blink ,    
Bo was more man than a man could think !

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
   I will teach you in my verse
   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
   Just compare heart, hear and heard,
   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
   Made has not the sound of bade,
   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
   But be careful how you speak,
   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
   Woven, oven, how and low,
   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
   This phonetic labyrinth
   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
   Blood and flood are not like food,
   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
   Discount, viscount, load and broad,
   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
   Would it tally with my rhyme
   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
   You'll envelop lists, I hope,
   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
   We say hallowed, but allowed,
   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
   Petal, penal, and canal,
   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
   But it is not hard to tell
   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
   *****, ***** and possess,
   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
   Making, it is sad but true,
   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
   Mind! Meandering but mean,
   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
   Prison, bison, treasure trove,
   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
   Evil, devil, mezzotint,
   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
   Funny rhymes to unicorn,
   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
   No. Yet Froude compared with proud
   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
   But you're not supposed to say
   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
   Episodes, antipodes,
   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
   Rather say in accents pure:
   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
   Say then these phonetic gems:
   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
   With and forthwith, one has voice,
   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
   Job, Job, blossom, *****, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

****** does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and *****,
Next omit, which differs from it
   Bona fide, alibi
   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
   Rally with ally; yea, ye,
   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
   Never guess-it is not safe,
   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
   Face, but preface, then grimace,
   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
   With the sound of saw and sauce;
   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
   Respite, spite, consent, resent.
   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
   Monkey, donkey, clerk and ****,
   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
   Once, but *****, toll, doll, but roll,
   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
   Won't it make you lose your wits
   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
   Islington, and Isle of Wight,
   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
   Finally, which rhymes with enough,
   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

"One day, you'll grow up
And you'll make a lot of friends
Or maybe you won't
Maybe you'll just have a few tight buddies
But if anyone tries to change you
you don't need them
You're amazing the way you are"
I told her

She looked up at me
With large, doeful eyes
Nuzzled me and mooed as if to say
"I'm not sure what you just said
But I think I understood it"
As I rubbed her head and ears

At least I can give life advice to a Jersey heifer
Before my program ends and I go back home

To my kids,
There is so much you do not understand in your skins. I could give you some kind of divine download, fill that thing between your ears with everything there is to know but then what choice would you have to live free as I intended you to live? I gave you the earth and everything in it. I created you in My image that you see with your eyes " male and female as partners " not slave and master, and that part of you inside that you don’t see, deep in you, its that part that knows Me, your soul and spirit. It’s that place we connect. I surrounded you with everything you needed. And before you freak out, all you vegans, I created the animals and I killed the first ones so you would be warm and covered when you chose to walk without Me covering you. Clothes were totally optional. You had Me, you picked heifer…still scratchin’ my imaginary beard over that one. You chose… Sure, I had angels in full body gear standing around " but I wanted you because I love you. I want your companionship. I want your intimacy. I don’t want your laundry list of “He’p me GAWT, but if it’s the only thing you can give, I won’t turn you away. If only I could get past your religion, your doctrine, your fears where you could believe Me, all the crap you put each other through would simply be unimportant. Some of you scurry around and scream about me and my Old Testament, bad ***, flood the planet judgment and you totally skip the part about how I sent someone to you, just like you, a real human with real blood and real tears to stand in for all the stupid stuff you’ll ever do or have done. It was so simple, one death, one sacrifice and we’re all clean but you have to work it and manipulated it and qualify it until denominations and gurus and Oprah and Chopra have your minds so twisted you couldn’t see Me for who I Am if I sat on a unicorn, clothed myself in grape leaves, and led the Macy’s Parade. Don’t you get it? I’m not mad at you. I don’t hate you. I am Love and I am incapable of hating you. EVER. All I ever wanted is for you to simply love Me back. You gotta trust Me. You can’t look at earthquakes and floods and famine and the rise and fall of the dollar bill as punishment from Me. All this stuff is temporary, except you, and Me. We are Forever. This planet isn’t your Paradise, kids. It’s just your training ground. I have amazing plans for you. And the sooner you grasp that, the sooner you stop swallowing the pills and the cheap thrills and stressing over the bills, and wringing your hands over “My will” the better off you’ll be. Oh, and as long as I’m monologuing, get off the backs of my worshippers. I’m perfect. You aren’t. I’d rather have you getting together in my name and singing and dancing, Kids your praise, when you just abandon your petty egos and party before me, it makes my heart swell with all the pride a Father could have. I’d rather see you do that " with the mistakes and the fussing " than each one of you alone under a tree somewhere barking about our “relationship” or watching the church channel 24/7 and calling it “comin’ ta Jeezus. I created you to work together in my name. Don’t freak out so much about the name of the building or the color of the wafers, or the drums and piercings. I will know if you love me. Quit running, quit hiding, quit comparing yourself to somebody else, quit blaming everyone else for your own mistakes when you never ask me to help you deal… Quit asking me to “fix somebody else” because if they like the thought of being critter fritters for eternity then that’s their choice to make, not yours. I do not impede on your free will. I won’t impede on anyone else’s free will. You can’t earn it. I don’t give out gold stars for good behavior. You either respond in love, or you don’t. The only thing I crave is that you get it, really get it. I love you. Always have, always will. You can’t do anything, you can’t **** enough, you can’t lie enough, you can’t destroy enough, you can go straight to Hell if you want, but I am everywhere…even in Hell…I’m with you. Of course, it will be your choice if you want to refrain, you know? See? Once you lock in your answer, you don’t get to phone a friend…You have a choice even I don’t have, me the almighty, the limitless with a limitation…you can choose to love…For me? It’s not an option…because I AM LOVE.

Your Abba....

The bar squats at the bend in the road where Mill becomes Burden,
Walls somewhat recently painted,
Roof re-shingled ostensibly within memory
A derelict stockade on a front line where cowboy and Indian alike
Have each thought better of standing their ground,
Now defended by a few solitary souls,
Veterans of the days when the place hummed with those
Who’d finished shifts at Troy-Bilt or the Freihofer bakery
(Places either long gone or in the hospice stage,
The bar itself not profitable in any sense of the word,
Opening each afternoon for no palpable reason
Save some madness of inertia)
And who had not moved in with children in Latham or Malta,
Or gone to some frowzy, weedy southern trailer park
Sweating and sweltering through ninety-degree dawns
In Sarasota or St. Pete.
One corner of the building still bears a neon sign
Which sternly announces Ladies Entrance
Though, as the resident wits are fond of noting
Ain’t been no lady on the premises ‘n a month of Sundays,
But, on this particular evening, there is one of that gender
Haphazardly arranging herself on a stool
In search of a compromise between physical comfort
And simply remaining somewhat upright.
She is there in the company of a squat, *****-handed man
Who sits beside her, leering and yakking away
As he signals the bored and ancient bartender
For a couple more Buddy long-necks
(She cannot remember his name—Clyde, Clete,
In any case she’ll assign him an identity later.)
Their acquaintance is of a recent nature,
His end of the deal a burger at the diner on First Street
And a drink or two or three here
(There is a return on his investment, implicit and fully understood,
Though she has not—in her mind, anyway—reached such a point
As it needs to spelled out in plain English.)
She clutches, tightly though surreptitiously as possible,
For she occupies a social stratum
Where placing a death grip on something
Marks it as valuable, putting a bulls-eye
On object and owner as well,
A purse, a three-hundred dollar Coach bag
Bestowed on her by some gum-chomping Russell Sage undergrad
In a random, futile, wholly absurd gesture
(This was some time ago, and the bag, once a fiery crimson
Has faded and the fine leather has creased and mottled
Until it now appears to be a miniature strawberry heifer on a strap)
Though she would note that she was a family of some substance,
Having once attended a fine all-girls school
Where she became engaged
To a professor in the Fine Arts department
(It is unclear whether it was Smith or Bryn Mawr
Or, perhaps, Sarah Lawrence, if anywhere at all,
Her suitors and specters
All but indistinguishable from one another.)
All that, however, is clearly a matter of was;
Her will be is a less fanciful thing,
A measured yet inevitable and precipitous slide
into transactions less palatable
Exchanged for comforts colder than such as she settles for now
(But perhaps not—there is a persistent, palpable pain in her side
Accompanied by a noticeable swelling; Probably benign,
The nurse practitioner had noted at the free clinic,
But she occupied that societal niche
Where further, if unheroic, measures
Were unlikely to be forthcoming.)
In any case, she and her paramour pro tempore
Will call it a night, she pinning her bag to her side
As she instinctively swivels her head to and fro
To ensure no one is seeking to relieve her of her prize possession
(Though its contents are meager—a few dollars in change,
A sweater, a change of underwear,
The whole blessedly insubstantial,
As it is likely she could shoulder any additional load.)

Tossing back tequila shots
To burn on down to blackened thoughts
Why am I unable to cast aside my old emotions?

While flecks of darker memories
Pollute the air in front of me
Never would I even wish erasure
Of the thoughts I've spoken

Maybe I'll just keep on clinging
Hum along with heifer's singing
Crowning list of weaknesses
Is failure to let go

Bob my head, alone, in silence
Midnight flight with no co-pilot
Fearful of the landing
Better shout 'Look Out Below'

Just play my music louder
While I stop to burn the flowers
And I shed my old remembrances
Like caterpillar's skin

Shreds of life streak by in flashes,
Must adjust my rose-hued glasses
Rub my tired, dried out eyes
To block the light and look within

Ain't no cracka-*** Russian gone touch MY **** growled Plebeia as she filed her rhinestone-studded fake fingernails to a deadly edge. She rolled her enormous seething mass to the edge of the sofa and glared, like a feral heifer, at the massive TV screen from which Vladimir P. beamed forth like an avatar of Orthodoxy.
Y'all betta shut yo' punk-*** mouth, ***** howled Plebeia.
All y'all Russian girls so **** UGLY Ima hafta *** me some shades so don't hafta SEE dat nasty ****.
Plebeia then gathered her senatorial notes and prepared to present the accusations at the Russian collusion hearings.

Three climb the hill behind the house:
my master with the yearling cow and
me. The dawn-light
glinting sidelong off the heifer's glossy
hide is a memory of the morning star
reflecting its own shadow. As we
walk out past the fence gate posts
into the winter pasture (now in bloom), the gray
grass swells in the fickle breeze.
I hear the sea swells move across the grain
and splash against my side unrhythmically.

The man, who walks with purpose in his stride,
holds limply wood and steel there at his side
or shifts the load to point into the sky.
The quiet beast, chewing, climbs the hill
from sunrise-side toward its falling down.
I guess she thinks this Eden, (this meadowland
unspoiled) and she the sole inheritor
of a paradise of grain.

But here where we can see the earth
stretch out beyond itself, we pause and tie
the yearling cow to some eternal oak.
The dawn-light in crescendo
echoes off her onyx hide. A crimson sky
offsets a gem of silver on the rise. Now
wood and steel rise coldly through
the chilled mid-morning air. Chewing she
stares down at me her sombre bovine stare.
He raises up his single arm and heavily exhales.
Her stare now without object falls
beside the hallowed tree in rippling
peals of thunder that vibrate
through the dew. She lies where she
belongs upon the earth, black
hide and life-blood mingle with the dirt.

Now two descend the hill into the yard.
My master's path is to the barn
to finish what's been done while I
wrack my mind for how
she might have sinned.
I don't think I will climb that hill again.
I don't think I will climb that hill again...

the cowboy was feeling silly
out on the town looking for
a rambunctious bronking filly

his days worked fast
but felt so long
the nights out on the prairie
were hauntingly cold
but feel so lonely 

the dead sounds echoing
the rolling plains 
silent to all derelict movement
mooned eyed critters
creapy crawling about the feet
not the right kind of
slithering serpent, needed for body heat

the sun in all its glorious 
golden hues sibilate a unity in colors 
waking the unforgiving land
hours behind his
crepuscular sunbaked skin
canvassed in leather scars

riding out from the threshold fears 
in the jilted hearts of
the Apache's political affairs
knowing the doted line
has never been the friend
to a chicken scratch man

his side bar thoughts
meant to entertain 
adjacent to moseying the dusty trail
tailgating a herd of heifer ***
thirsty for a tall wide bottomed glass
filled to the top less of a lid
with a slow ***** pour

hiking a short skirt
bridled to prance around
up and down
the patina fantasies
gidding up in a cowboys mind
going bucking wild
burning his brand for stud

HOW NOW RED BALLOON?

The balloon
crossed the road

on its own
cautiously at first

then becoming
a little braver.

There wasn't a human
in sight.

The balloon was
red.

Why did it cross the road?
You would have to ask a chicken.

It made its way
into a nearby field.

just out of reach of
a host of thistles

angry at the invasion
of their territory

A bee followed it
across a ditch

bemused at  such
a  solo flight.

The balloon came to rest
on the back of a huge

black and white
heifer.

And there
it remained

as I passed
and hurried by.

Cow and balloon
as one.

Living on in
my mind

all these 40 years
later.

HOW NOW RED BALLOON?

The balloon
crossed the road

on its own
cautiously at first

then becoming
a little braver.

There wasn't a human
in sight.

The balloon was
red.

Why did it cross the road?
You would have to ask a chicken.

It made its way
into a nearby field.

just out of reach of
a host of thistles

angry at the invasion
of their territory

A bee followed it
across a ditch

bemused at  such
a  solo flight.

The balloon came to rest
on the back of a huge

black and white
heifer.

And there
it remained

as I passed
and hurried by.

Cow and balloon
as one.

Living on in
my mind

all these 40 years
later.