Perched on the rooftop
like birds on a telephone wire.
The smoke fills our lungs
and escapes, dancing in the wind.
The moments we've shared
won't ever die in my mind.
They'll stay there on endless repeat,
where we'll stay young forever.
Wherever life takes us, no matter where,
We'll always be there.
My friends will never die.

Blotched botched
word failures spewing forth
from defective machinery
subtracted from
popularity conquests
showing youngbloods
how to write up
this tragedy thing right
Mouthless voiceless
shapeless formless
avoidance and mockery
creeping like carbon monoxide admissions scrawled out
in digitized assault
and crying out
What kind of democracy is this?
What kind of freedom is this?
When torn from those clutched
analytical political land mines
I have to ask  
Before revolutionary words are mistaken and reduced
to stripped inspirational drivel
adorning office drone strike stationery
What makes you think
your
words can hurt someone
who wants to ******
themself
daily?

The first night we met
You showed me your guitar collection
- an impressive one -
And we played Get Together by The Youngbloods
-You on a gorgeous 12-string electric,
And me on some other guitar, I don’t remember-
for my parents and their friends and your wife Robin. Singing in harmony.
You were much better at guitar than me.

You offered me *** that night,
And I said no thanks
Not trying to be a *****.
I knew that your hips and back caused you pain and that Vicodin and red wine were a part of your diet.
But you got high anyway
And we talked about guitars.

When you came to see me play
You sang from the audience.
“A Little Help From My Friends,” I think, and
when I sang Hallelujah at the end of the night you cried, saying it was the most beautiful thing you’d every heard.
The next day, at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you wandered through the exhibits in reverent awe,
A cane lighting your way like a candle.

I know it hurt to walk that much
But you were determined to see all of it;
I left.
Having seen it before.
“I was on the HBO special in 2020” I told you, puffed like a rooster.
And you said that you would watch;
That I have what it takes.

“He was a big fan of yours,”
My father likes to say, like I don’t know.
A person always knows.
Your reworked Gibson a fresh addition to my own growing collection; who could pass up an SG?
Sold for nothing and only because I liked it that first night.

And now you’re gone and your wife is undone and I am so angry with you.
I wonder, would you have listened to me?
Had I reasoned with you about your health problems
The increased risk
The pros and cons?

And maybe it was your time
But maybe if you had fortified yourself against the devil you knew
By taking on the devil you didn’t
We would have had time
For one last duet.

I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the lord, but you don’t really care for music do you? It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing hallelujah.

Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

and let the youngbloods take the reins
infusing our promised land with hope.

You done good for America,
serving as laudatory President
from 2020 to the present
Vice President from 2009 to 2017,
and in the United States Senate
from 1973 until 2009.

The nation teeters on the brink of chaos
legions of legendary nasty
and not so shortish belligerent brutes
aping capering, galloping,
hollering on their figurative high horses
egging, fomenting, instigating,
jimmying, kick/jumpstarting, kindling tinder
activating spark to explode in a reign of terror
decking the hallowed halls with blitzkrieg
videre licet philanthropic donations

courtesy gazillion billionaires
from Wall Street to Silicon Valley
trumpeting their Republican choice
cymbal eyes zing, drumming,
fluting with sax and violins,
whether former president number forty five
loses or clinches what promises
to be a hotly contested election
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
marking the end of the world as we know.

Though no bleeding heart liberal
yours truly vouchsafes
being die hard landlubber
ardently embracing social progressivism
chalked up to a Unitarian upbringing
and parents who would not tolerate
a conservative proponent
of any right wing controversial issues -
just kidding, but in retrospect

a heavily skewed leftist tack
did not disallow opportunities
to spar with intelligent repartee
particularly with father -
Boyce Brandon Harris,
a strongly (read dominantly) opinionated
Democrat, whose willfully voiced notions
set the precedent concerning
what side of an issue would be acceptable.

He passed away October 7th 2020
and would be appalled at current political events
besetting the United States of America
and may even possibly take pen to paper
to sketch an intelligent blurb, drawing,
funny highly jaded literary novelty,
applauding your storied achievements.

Quite frightening the strong lurch toward autocracy,
great probability linkedin to ruthless demagogue,
a machiavellian agent provocateur
one foo fighting beastie boy barbarian, and totalitarian
dead set to eradicate closest approximation
of egalitarian and humanitarian realization
witnessed with starts and fits of enlightenment
and inexcusable decimation,
humiliation, liquidation, and pacification
of peoples dissimilar to ancestors,

who came to Turtle Island
(a name for Earth or North America,
used by some American Indigenous peoples,
as well as by some Indigenous rights activists)
from northern Europe, especially England,
and who were formerly considered
to have a lot of power and influence
nevertheless wrought a continent
associated with the land of the free,
and the home of the brave

serving as a beacon for possibility of lofty ideals
to attain salutary manifestation within the realm
spanning from the mountains to the prairies
to the oceans white with foam
encompassing diverse topography
from sea to shining sea
spurred courtesy ignominious manifest destiny
nevertheless anchored by
Constitution of the United States
a cherished living and breathing document.

In April 2023, the Heritage Foundation
published the 920-page Mandate,
written by hundreds of conservatives,
most prominently former Trump administration officials.

After I read excerpts of Project 2025,
courtesy news worthy publications
such as Mother Jones, The Nation,
The Week, and TIME Magazine
my intimation jump/kick started
to make a general conclusion
that said tome of a door stopper
cast dark foreboding shadows
hinting the outer limits
of many important legislative milestones

promulgated for the benefit of society,
especially post American Civil War
granted then revolutionary smart
transformations from isolationist
essentially incorporating xenophobia into  
broad-mindedness suddenly
on the figurative chopping
if former president Trump  
garners the majority of votes,
whereby he would set in motion

looming monstrous nightmare outlined
in above titled manifesto
would spell gloom and doom
not only across the contiguous United States,
plus Alaska, but affect
western civilization in general
resurrecting the ghost of despotism
eviscerating the guts of the unique experiment
in government courtesy founding fathers
(though no doubt significant women

played an important role
helping to bring into fruition
mandates and female dates
resulting in our raison d'être
to pursue vocations to allow, enable, and provide
free market enterprise an economy
where the market determines prices,
products, and services rather than the government.
Free enterprise focuses on the private sector,
private investment, private risk taking,
private innovation, etc.

Laissez faire represents the other side of the coin,
the absence of government interference
in the private sector, especially in matters
of trade-policy (the historical origin of the term).

(and cries out long day's journey into night,
no...not for Eugene O'Neill),
but rather being distributed
in their respective bins at Wegmans
Under the Elms

Dressed up in our Sunday finery,
(which attire frankly looks no different
than the clothes we wear on any other occasion,
nevertheless we try our level best
with steely mettle,
we haul gull *** to said location
in a concerted effort
to be romantic on those singular occasions
looking into the eyes of each other
and blowing a kiss
to the once upon a time fair maiden,
who caught mine heart and soul
immediately breaking free and clear
of reverie, and getting
back to the grubby business at hand
as we hurriedly distribute reusable materials
into their respective bins,
so we can commence shopping for food,
which dual purpose outing
(us old married couple codgers
feign being youngbloods in love)
subsequently came to be hashtagged
"A night on the town,"
(which title - after doing a Google search
unknowingly identical to
Rod Stewart's seventh album, released in 1976)
located at 600 Commerce Drive Providence
Town Center Collegeville, PA 19426‎.

The missus (once upon a time
and in a former incarnation
repurposed as a paper shredder,
thus I continually remind myself
not to put fingers of mine
anywhere near her teeth),
nevertheless counts herself
as a diehard advocate of recycling,
especially pulpy flesh
and goes the extra green mile, or two, or three...
to make her contribution
to ecological beneficence,
and within which eco conscious upbringing
our two daughters (now grown
and livingsocial on their own)
free and clear of birth parents
whose mien mean marred psyches
etched indelible opportunistic ugly yelp review.

Because the weather got so darned
(please feel free to substitute
your favorite expletive) cold,
(compard to six months,
when I bemoaned the polar opposite
weather related lament),
we stashed bulging bags
of empty metal cans,
plastic containers and empty bags,
glass bell jars, paper, et cetera
in our (actually mine)
2020 white Hyundai Elantra
leaving neither little room
for a driver, passenger, hitchhiker,
nor a corpse to get stuffed in the trunk,
which would pose an inconvenient truth
to a hypothetical lifeless body.

We promised ourselves
(girl scout's honor in my case,
and boy scout's honor courtesy the missus)
come the first warm day,
the above listed materials
will fill up the appropriate bins at Wegmans,
cause the facility where we reside
(Highland Manor Apartments -
managed by Crooks and Quade)
does not deal with materials
that can be repurposed.

Thus the reason without rhyme why
the five year old aforementioned automobile
strongly resembles the vehicle
ideal for junkyard dogs
on Sanford and Son's -
one of the countless sitcoms -
first episode aired January 14th, 1972
produced by Norman Lear,
which essentially follows the premise
where junk dealer Fred Sanford -
a older man of color
runs roughshod over
his son and partner, Lamont,
in a groundbreaking situation comedy.

Fred's money making schemes
routinely backfire, and he does
just about anything to get out of working --
up to and including faking a heart attack.

Aside from the father figure character
being rude, sarcastic, outspoken,
overtly prejudiced,
and pretty **** nasty
to his friends and family,
and other than outstanding belligerent traits,
the older man makes for a fine companion.

Additionally, the spouse used to save
compostable material in the freezer,
(and come the warmer months,
when spring announced
courtesy twittering songbirds
and light buds
barely peeking thru the cold earth
she will do the same)
buzzfeed leftover food -
to animals James Herriot would smile
on as All Creatures Great and Small,
All Things Bright and Beautiful,
All Things Wise and Wonderful,
plus various and sundry other book titles
paying homage to dear animals,
who populate and take refuge
within the strip of sum mall woodland
barely edible in the first place
that got blessedly
co-opted courtesy mold.

Actually most times the wife
who does patchke
(to fuss or mess around
in an inefficient or inexpert way)
surprisingly enough the I married
not quite three decades ago
does manage to hit upon
a flavorful cause célèbre
to be a Michelin success
earning the maximum number of stars
plus she starred and got showcased on
Top Chef Amateurs.