We don’t smoke Marijuana
We don’t take our trips of LSD
We like to just live right here
Where the air’s fresh and life is free
We don’t make lovin’ to make a party
We don’t need to get with to get some fun
We just prefer to hold each other’s hands
And go fishing in the sun
We don’t go round bare-chested
We don’t wear skimpy clothes
Roman sandals are a nada
Leather boots are still à la mode
We don’t need to go out getting drunk
Here even Squares can have a ball
Going to the shops is still an event
White lightning’s still the biggest thrill of all
Down here football’s the roughest sport
Long, shaggy hair definitely won’t be seen
A large patch of open land is our campus
And Kids down here respect the village dean
So please forgive me if I don’t understand
Forgive me if I feel a little out of place
I’m just proud to be an Oakie from
Down there we slow the pace.
Yes I’m just an Oakie from Muskogee
Yes I’m proud to be an Oakie from Muskogee

You are the worst kind of monster.
Not the kind that hides under the bed,
Or in the closet,
Or even in the dark.

Because you did not hide.
You lived in my neighborhood,
In the daylight.

Unsuspecting.          Watching.           Stalking.

You watched us for weeks,
Two ten year old girls.
Cataloged every step we took.
Ignorance and innocence blinded us from you,
And our lives were beautiful.
Until you decided to take one.

Ending.          Ruining.          Stealing.

When the news broke,
You hid.
But you did not hide your tracks.
And they found you.
And I was told the truth,
Shes never coming home from that walk.
You stole more than a girl that day.

You stole her innocence,
Her virginity,
And her chance to grow up.
You stole her entire life,
And that was not yours to take.

The court charged you with second degree ******.
But who cares what that really means.
All I know is you will spend the rest of your life
In this cell.
At least it is better than no life at all.

Rotting.          Pacing.          Thinking.

There were crimes you made that day,
That you will never be charged with.
You took more than one life on
March 28th, 2006.
For you have taken my life too.
My innocence.
My happiness.
And my sanity.
And that was not yours to take.

I have not been alive since I was ten years old.
Another life you stole,
But one that you cannot be punished for.
For I am

Rotting.          Pacing.          Thinking.

Over that day too.
I relive those moments every day.
And what gave you the right
To take our lives?

You are the worst kind of monster.
You did not come from a horror movie,
But you do reside in my nightmares.

Some people say I’m sheltered
And perhaps that is so
But if that means watching slugs
To shelter I’ll happily go
That’s the way it is in Muskogee
It’s a trip to go and get the news
And the biggest scandal of all
Is when Mr. Scott blew the local fuse.
We just sit and watch the world go by
We still raise the old Union Jack
We still don’t know about foreign policy
We just think I can’t be too late getting back
Got to get the washing in
Got to put the food on the fire
Got to get in from the rain
Livin’ free is our only desire
And to go down to the freehouse
To have a tipple of ale
We know alot about the weather
What to look for in thunder and hail
We just cherish these  honest values
We just know no more can be done
When the dark sets in
And we start at the rise of the sun
It’s quiet but it’s nice
The last untapped reserve
Free to do as you wish
The Internet don’t get on your nerves
You just talk to your neighbour
When you want to know
What the sport was last week
And he’d say off to the shop I’ll go
Come back two hours later
With not much really to say
Other than about the chicken he strung
And that ‘rain stopped play’
Being an Oakie from Muskogee
That’s all you had to chew on
You sat and stewed over a brew
Until the rain was gone
Then you were back out and
Sure enough you’d get a laugh
As two old coots tried in vain
To back a tractor down a path.
I here people talking bad
Sayingthe way things ought to be
But life here is good
If they would only come and see
You don’t get no emails
You don’t get no one bossing you
The last place where you can be free
And do what you want to do.

I say do what you want to do!

*From An Oakie

(Happy 150th, Canada!)


Canada Day -  Just One?

With love from an ‘umble Yank

But every day is Canada Day!

The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada

The Muskogee never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, complete
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada

Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway

Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest

The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?

To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada

Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”

Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read

The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada

A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada

Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not -
Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!

i wish i could put my fist
through this wretched city,
march straight down Monroe
to the capitol building—
that flaccid, *******, hideous tower
looming like the tomb of god
over Tallahassee.

this bastion of neoliberalism
sits in the heart of a red state.
escalating rent and gentrification
go hand-in-hand on occupied Muskogee lands.
statues commemorating genocidal colonizers
defended by neo-Confederate bootlickers
keep watch over Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
everywhere you look in this college town
you’ll find indigeneity reduced to a mascot.

so let’s introduce a little anarchy.
we’ll clash with riot cops
armed with tire-irons and Molotovs.
occupy the academy, transform the cafeteria
into a people’s kitchen. teach freely
on Landis Green. come, dance
with abandon and reclaim these tired streets
from those beset on our alienation.

Canada Day?  Just One?

With love from an ‘umble Yank

But every day is Canada Day!

The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada

The Muskogee 1 never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, completing
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada

Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway

Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest

The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?

To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada

Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”

Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read

The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada

A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada

Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not –

Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!

Caught a moonbeam to Muskogee with a dark angel
Where it started, it's hard to know. Maybe I was a traveller
hitching a ride on an ideology maybe I was trying to find my space,
then she was there and we were sharing space

She was all anodyne and icicles with a presence magnetic and
manner so soothing,
she allowed me to forget
from where I had never
                                          come
                 ­                                  from

And from our first tryst
she was careful to explain that
it is never the shadow bringing the light.
This, of course, illuminated nothing

I was hooked, however, on her ominous banter
Lack of curves, and cubist edges
Hooked and ready for processing:
In her presence, I allowed myself to feel

That I was such a pretty thing
while she kept me under wing...
kept me as her play thing, and
this I allowed for much to long

With her I felt
but could not see
thus I paid the price for wading
into the shallow end of identity

We journeyed through the desert
for a thousand years while I satisfied
my thirst with a state of dementia and
was rewarded with emptiness for doing the time

This infatuation transformed my youth into
disenchanted wisdom and I finally understood that
It’s never the shadow that brings the light
Which for some reason, illuminated everything

Once you know that
you can find freedom in addiction,
wealth in poverty, purity in excess,
then step by step, ferociously

you can find peace
at the top of the mountain
while losing your identity
and finding your self

The line - I never promised you a rose garden
and with me finishing it I added "at all"
The line - I'm here for the party - and me even
though they didn't put under my name in the high
school yearbook, "Where's the party" like a
hoody dropout buddy of mine got!
The line - Take her she's all I got - I added
"she's more than enough"
The line - I'm just an Okie from Muskogee with
my addition "obviously"
The line - Jambalaya crawfish pie - my addition
"sounds good to me even"
The line - Smoky Mountain Rain - I add on
"when it rains, it pours, of course, but when
I'm around it comes down in torrents."
The line - When my baby loves me -my add on
"when, though, I think".
That's all for now.