by Rick Young | Jul 15, 2021 | Poem
Our circus is bedeviled by old age.
An elephant fell dead while up on stage.
The dancing bears all have a limp.
A poor kid got slapped by our chimp.
Our giraffe’s cut back to decaf.
His neck is often at half staff.
The tiger’s never burning bright.
He won’t get up until twilight.
The snakes are fed rat protein shakes.
The parrot apes soon’s he awakes.
The horses are all donkeys painted white.
All headed for that fourth ring, out of sight.
by Rick Young | Jul 12, 2021 | Poem
Send the rich to space.
It’s their kind of place.
No vile madding crowd.
No critics allowed.
Billionaires in flight,
passing in the night.
Screw the earth and taxes.
They’re the new cash axis.
Those who have the deepest pockets
can return to upgrade rockets.
Grab some friends to flush out crew.
Crazy what the moneyed do.
See that light up by the dipper?
That’s Jeff Bezos, feeling chipper.
And the one that’s going slower?
Richard Branson, flying lower.
Elon Musk in Tesla X
says he’ll soon achieve apex.
Bill Gates better get one made,
or he’ll miss the space parade.
Walton family’s time draws near:
Walmart in the stratosphere.
Princes, dukes and shahs will fly
in the fast lanes of their sky.
Rumors have the monarchy
transported to Mars to see
if it would be too much hassle
to erect a big red castle.
Eventually, there’ll come the mob.
Collection is their proven job.
Protection from space disaster.
Payback by godfather’s blaster.
We, the meek, watch all unfold
from our gravity foothold,
working, always, for spare change,
watching, shocked, life rearrange.
Climate and war have no place
for elites in outer space.
And for those who have the bling:
colonies on Saturn’s ring.
Astronauts with silver spoons
buying up some bargain moons.
Those stranded on this big rock
wait now for an aftershock.
by Rick Young | Jul 4, 2021 | Poem
Low sodium and sugar free.
The two important facts for me.
No candies, cookies, cake, ice cream.
I’m stuck in a starvation dream.
No Mars, no Mounds, no Almond Joy.
Three Musketeers have lost this boy.
No devil dogs, Yoohoo or Coke.
It’s all a tasteless, funless joke.
My kingdom for potato chips!
But nay! No salt must pass these lips.
A pretzel would be tantalizing.
But there is no salt disguising.
All my thoughts of salted corn,
lifetime favorite, now food porn.
Pepper is the only spice
that I’ve not been warned of thrice.
Salt and sugar, S & S,
got me in this heartbeat mess.
Now I’m on the cutting edge,
out here on the isle of veg.
Raw foods, nothing boxed or canned.
Microwave meals mostly banned.
Plain old water, pure fruit juice.
Diet soda’s cutting loose.
Chemicals try hard to sweeten.
But you don’t know what you’re eatin’.
Taste bud life is now a bore,
since I’ve turned a herbivore.
I might as well chew fingernails.
And sometimes do, when all else fails.
by Rick Young | Jul 3, 2021 | Poem
My heart is like an engine that just runs on stolen gas.
Doc says the result’s from years of eating like an ass.
I’ve quit the drink and cut way back on both sugar and salt.
Cuts the appetite when faced with cauliflower malt.
Fat free and low sodium are now my current curses.
Don’t wanna eat nothin’ that will send me back to nurses.
In five day’s I’m scheduled for an echocardiogram.
Had one just two weeks ago, but I don’t give a damn.
Life is now remarked by time I spend with the machines.
Next in line, a heart stress tester, Don’t know what that means.
They pull all the strings now and I must do what docs say.
Eating wrong could mean swan song: my only choice, obey.
So, yogurt, fruits and uncooked vegetables are now a snack.
I remember hospital and don’t want to go back.
Hard to give up booze, desserts and chips for protein drinks.
While getting old is difficult, the alternative stinks.
by Rick Young | Jun 30, 2021 | Poem
This wouldn’t have to happen if we raked our forest floors.
Now the Oregon/Cal border’s only good for cooking smores.
Fire waves and furnace heat are bouts of climate change.
It ‘s irony but adds a new light to ‘home on the range.’
And this time the inferno’s booked for a cross-country tour,
with temps well past one hundred, really too much to endure.
In the west, thirty five cities set temperature highs.
Portland scored a one-sixteen. Now that was a surprise.
Climate change affects the jet stream. We’re told that’s the reason.
Who knows how bad things will get in this year’s wildfire season?
And, if one thinks Canada’s a cooler place to be,
they just hit a record one-eighteen up in BC.
Rolling blackouts result from need of A/C and fan.
They’ve already happened two straight days now in Spokane.
We’ve still got two months of summer hot spots to endure.
Climate change has gone deranged. We’re hurtin’. That’s for sure.
