Dogged Rhymers

Doggerel sages earn no wages,

no health benefits.
Maybe fill three hundred pages.
All the news that shits.
We are like the olde town criers,
rhyming in the night.
He would say we all are liars.
Fake news, just not right.
But someone has to sing the song
of our great country’s fall.
It’s a dirge, which does seem wrong,
called “Up against the wall.”
We climbed this hill, then took that pill,
then all went psychedelic.
The one percent went for the kill.
Our world became a relic.
Oh yes, there’s still folks on the street.
Some cough. Some wear a mask.
It’s not the sound of happy feet.
What’s wrong? Don’t even ask.
The dead are swept away in trucks,
some headed to mass graves.
We, to a man, agree this sucks.
We don’t think Jesus saves.
And as the air grows quiet,
thick with viral deadly spores,
the mass, too sick to riot,
waits for their end, locked indoors.

Yahrzeit

Two years ago today, my mother died.

I’m glad she did not have to see this end.
When her mind fled somewhere deep inside,
she still thought the world was her best friend.
She remembered talking to the birds,
planting flowers, dancing in the night.
For this life, I don’t think she’d find words.
She’d prefer old memories to fright.
When she told me how she was forgetting,
happy to let some things slip away,
she explained it as some kind of vetting,
making room for things beyond today.
Just to watch the robins from her small room,
building nests inside her only tree,
she had not a notion of doom or gloom.
Looking back, that’s quite all right with me.

Dope Opera

Trump’s fireside chats

are driving me bats.
A lumbering leech eyeing docs.
He’s probably wearing red underwear
and black with a toe hole silk socks.
He nods and he squints like the inkling he had
is rapidly trickling away.
He knows in a minute he could look real bad,
unless he finds something to say.
His handlers creep up behind him.
His blood pressure’s right off the charts.
They might have to tether or bind him,
or subdue with medical darts.
Before he goes off on a blue bunny rant
or swears love to evil portenders,
they’ll give him a jolt that assures that he cant.
And now for a word from our vendors.

Kite on the Highway

Been drivin’ all night with a thorn in my side.
Been drivin’ all night with a thorn in my side.
Looked over at the passenger side
and Jesus had died.
What would we do now, I got him too drunk at the dance.
Tried to get him to waltz but he hovered ‘bove the ground in a trance.
The only time that it was fine was when the rowdy fellows yelled for wine.
And then the place was flooded with Merlot as if by happenstance.
I told him I was blitzed at ten, he said, “I’m crucified.”
The bouncer said an hour later he’d looked like he’d died.
“Here, put him on this cross and we can move him through the back outside.”
Now out here in the desert, I’m just hangin’ him like a kite.
Now out here in the desert, I’m just hangin’ him like a kite.
It sure’ll dry him out
but it just does not seem right.

Worse Than The Problem

In three weeks, we can work while we are sick.

Or so says mister bungle, our head prick.
Don’t worry ’bout the spread,
we don’t want business dead.
So let it kill the weak, like Mitt or Mick.
You’ll walk into a store that’s full of germs.
No coughing while inside. Those are the terms.
Your hairdresser, say, may look three shades of gray,
and croak, “we’ve got a special now on perms.”
Or maybe you need certain kinds of juices.
You jump onto a tram filled with papooses.
Then go in to a shop that’s filled with COVID pop,
and decorated, ceiling down, with nooses.
Oh look, the market’s surging back ahead.
They’re bidding on the bodies of the dead.
Before a carcass swells, they make quite fine hotels,
not fancy, just a bodybag-like bed.
And, back on top are gasoline and oil.
It’s best to burn a corpse and not to boil.
The theatre is back on, but don’t go to the john.
Afraid what’s in there might the third act spoil.
‘Normal’ life will brim with the excitement.
Down the road there will be an indictment.
We knew we should have hidden,
but did as we were bidden.
A barren planet was his mad entitlement.

Beastly Times

My thinking cap’s been on a nap,

or else I think of dying.
I get up like a normal chap,
then back to bed go, sighing.
I really hate to watch the news,
though nothing else is on.
Most every day I’ve got the blues,
and now I can’t blame Don.
It’s come to where my mind goes bare
and hunts conspiracy,
like it’s a vapor released where
those live who disagree.
We need statistics on the trends
on who gets sick and who stays well.
If those untouched are his friends,
then we’re inside a living hell.
Could this be a plot
to simply cancel all elections?
Let the liberals rot
while offering his friends protections?
Could it be he’d kill the world
consolidating power?
And maybe his pal Vlad unfurled
this deadly dream so dour.
It could be they’ll rule the ravaged earth
from west to east.
Perhaps they were destined from their birth.
Marks of the Beast.

Sanders Kernel

Drop out, Bernie. It’s too late.

Get some social distance.
Your ideas have to wait.
Build up your resistance.
If the world survives this test,
you might run again.
So your platform was the best,
but you couldn’t win.
If you run at eighty-three,
they’ll call you insane,
the only candidate around
who recalls The Maine.
Your young base will keep their pace,
perhaps repair our schism.
In four years our saving grace
might be socialism.
Free school for the living,
health care for the masses.
Government that’s warm and giving,
not like present asses.
Quarantine and watch the scene
as Trump and Biden battle.
Pray that gods will intervene
and we won’t die like cattle.
In four years, we’ll know the score.
You’ll survive to change the core.
Live so life goes on once more.
Vote for Bernie, twenty-four.

Aid Bill

Just when you thought this pandemic was too much to hack,

the latest news to hackle blues is “Bill O’Reilly’s Back !”
On the internet, he’s pimping some stock guru’s scam.
Grab the wealth and fuck mass health is part of this flim flam.
Send in all your money and you’ll even get Bill’s book,
the one about his white house chum. A crook writes of a crook.
And in the package deal you’ll get the blueprint to great wealth.
I’d save your bucks from these sick fucks and put them toward your health.

Going Fishing

Steve Minnowchin is gonna throw some money in,

so you can origami while sequestered.
A thousand paper cranes will not relieve the pains.
Though it might help with boredom that has festered.
For now it’s just green paper, there’s nothing left to buy.
You might as well use it as toiletry.
You could make a funky money suit like David Byrne’s,
so mourners can think, “Funny man, was he.”
Maybe you can pay off roving gangs looking for food,
or buy a gun from someone in an alley.
You can smoke a dollar bill when you get in the mood,
relax and sing the love theme from “Death Valley.”
You can paper bathroom walls with twenty dollar bills
or lounge inside a bathtub full of dimes.
Money coming through the mail may cure a couple ills,
but, ultimately, it will lead to crimes.
Where we gonna go, with our big bucks in tow?
The shelves are empty in most every store.
Maybe you can buy hooch from a dealer in skid row
and lay out drunk for three weeks on your floor.
So, thank you, Steve Minnowchin, for your ultimate concern,
but your stimulus is less than stimulating.
We’re watching out our windows for the whole damn town to burn,
while our mailboxes sit, mouths open, waiting.

Faux Seuss

O what has become of the Truffula trees
that swayed in the cool summer breeze?
The Lorax has fled, the Once-ler is dead,
because of a deadly disease.
In the Grickle grass there lay the Brown Bar-ba-loots,
not a sound of their hoots, they were dead-ass galoots.
Because of new laws, they’d no Truffula fruits,
and now decomposed in their furry red boots.
No Humming-Fish hummed in the scummed-over pond.
No spell would revive them, no magical wand.
Some said all would change if the Lorax came back.
But that dude is hiding, he can’t save you, Jack.
The trees have been felled and the birds are no more.
Not even the poor Swomee-Swans know the score.
If only they’d listened and stayed more inside,
with great social distance, they might not have died.
The Lorax had warned us. He spoke for the trees.
And now we are all mostly dead from disease.
So, kids, mind your parents and stay out of school.
It’s better to still be alive and a fool.
When earth has subsumed all your technologies,
may the cool summer breeze rustle Truffula trees.

Mule Train 19

What I see in my head is a mule train for the dead

and the dying crying out along the road.
Some near-dead jump aboard, they want to see the lord,
without the strength to handle their big load.
All roads lead to the sea, a quarantined country;
we’re trapped within the land where we were born.
No Germans, now, but germs, completely different terms,
and now we are defeated and forlorn.
One day in time there will be a revival,
a new race who somehow mastered survival.
Some hid in airless tombs or found some sterile rooms.
Perhaps there was a commune way up north.
The old world’s gone away, swept out by viral blooms.
And from the cave the new world ventures forth.

A-Men

Now we all shall die in homes entombed.

While lawns at Mar-a-Lago are still groomed.
Ivanka makes designer purses,
unavailable to nurses.
Those who’d save us do so at their risk.
This is even worse than stop-and-frisk.
Three weeks we should stay inside,
getting news of those who’ve died.
This is truly genuine March madness.
Only betting numbers are on sadness.
No more movies, sports or closing nights.
Older folks in toilet paper fights.
Families getting last gas fills,
ready to head to the hills.
Running market aisles like ferrets,
scrambling for lettuce, carrots.
Only parties are on Skype.
They would seem a desperate type.
In this home, the cats are kings.
They’ll eat us when we get wings.

Mayday Pray Day

It’s a national day of prayer,

declared by King Fuckwad.
But the virus doesn’t care.
It can’t be killed by god.
While we’re on our knees,
praying to a vapor,
and trying not to sneeze,
we still need toilet paper.
And as we ask for spirit help
to keep us from the dead,
we’d be better off on Yelp,
looking to buy bread.
Pray to Yahwe. Pray to Christ.
Beg the Lord of Karma.
Pray a vaccine is low-priced
by the gods of pharma.
Pray for rapture. Pray for rain.
Keep your social distance.
Pray that you don’t die in pain.
At the king’s insistence.
All your praying may distract
from just who is at fault,
King Fuckwad, who was slow to act,
sealed in his germ-free vault.
Pray, pray, he’ll say, from your t.v.,
the lord will surely listen.
But in our sick reality,
it’s certain god is missin’.

Tested

Nazi drug addicts have brought us to this point of contemplation.

The bear just ate the market as part one of a forthcoming compensation.
The virus is like Bernie Sanders, taking down the richest of the rich.
Oh my god, look at this week’s Dow Jones and tell me we’re not in a ditch.
They’ve tossed their sense and sane aside to coast on this swamp’s waterslide.
And now when the tsunami hits, they’re playing with their nasty bits.
The king of vague insults the plague and all the foreign elements who sowed it.
Two weeks ago, it was a hoax and weaker than the flu. He said he knowed it.
And now, caught with his pants down, he is spinning webs of dross in monotone.
He’s empty and he’s evil and he’s now out on dark death’s limb all alone.

Hanks For The Memories

Forrest Gump’s down in the dumps,

got chills, starting to shiver.
Captain Sully, quarantined,
says go jump in the river.
Sheriff Woody feels no goody,
cannot catch his breath.
Jimmy Dugan, from the bench,
feels like he’s caught his death.
Even Mister Rogers
can’t roam through the neighborhood.
And Joe, who fought volcanos,
admits he don’t feel too good.
Scott Turner misses Hooch,
but he would rather see a nurse.
And Josh, the boy who once got “Big,”
now claims he feels much worse.
Sam Baldwin, from Seattle,
says he still has trouble sleeping.
And Charlie Wilson won his war,
but feels the virus creeping.
Even the conductor on the great Polar Express
has cancelled his train run because
he’s feeling quite a mess.
Captain Richard Phillips,
who by pirates was hijacked,
is on a respirator, by COVID-19 attacked.
Chuck Noland, once a “Cast Away,”
now wishes he had stayed that way.
You can’t get virus, none at all,
if your one friend’s a soccer ball.
Lastly, Joe Fox, who’s “Got Mail,”
can’t get to the box, too frail.
Take care of yourself, Tom Hanks.
We love you and offer thanks.
You and Rita, both get well.
You’ve got lots more tales to tell.

Rocky Road

The president will challenge this new virus.

They say he’s got more balls than Miley Cyrus.
He’s hanging out with men who’ve been exposed.
“It can’t touch me,” he claims, and case is closed.
He doesn’t drink Corona, so he thinks he is immune.
He’ll grab that virus, tie it up, pow, zoom, up to the moon.
He’s like a super hero who has not a shred of power.
He wears an orange mask that washes right off in the shower.
But he will climb into the ring with dread COVID-19.
“I like a virus old enough to vote. Know what I mean?”
If he is knocked out in the tenth just like Rocky Balboa,
he’ll quarantine at Bloomberg’s scene, American Samoa.
And as the virus tours our country, proud to be the champ,
he’ll sit in sweats with Playboy pets. “Please wipe my face, I’m damp.”

Maxed Out

Max von Sydow had to die so now we’re in a twist.

Our president’s possessed but we have no exorcist.
Now all the white house beds and lies will have to keep on spinning.
Trump’s got the hair of Linda Blair, but he’s much better sinning.
The bile that spews out of his mouth is not so green and gooey.
But it still stinks like backed-up sinks, vile water filled with hooey.
Who will now play chess with death since Max has lost his game?
Perhaps Sir Jared, whitest knight, will do it for his dame.
And so, The Seventh Seal begins anew in our plagued time.
An exorcist does not exist  inside this house of crime.

Washing Hands

I’m on a self-imposed Trump quarantine.

It seemed his medicine would make me mean.
Just to see his mug would make me get the bug.
So, I’m afraid I’ll have to quit his scene.
I’ll spend more quality time with Mike Pence.
Trump may be a wall, but he’s a fence.
You can see right through him in some light.
Creationism’s knight of all things white.
And, for chuckles, there is always Mick,
exiled, off to Ireland, real quick.
Go hang out with Boris and Macron.
There you can get your quid pro quo on.

D.S.T.

Democratic Saving Time is creeping up upon us,

when we set the clocks ahead four years.
We who lost a lot of sleep aboard the anti-don bus
can now discard our busted hopes and fears.
Waking up the next morn, we’ll remember not the nightmare
which infected months, weeks, days and hours,
casting off the subterfuge and lies so bold and bare,
deliberate misuse of his great powers.
Perhaps when time jumps forward, we’ll restore the reputation
of our country, which was once held in esteem.
Perhaps to his victims we can offer reparation,
and put ourselves back on track for the dream.

Blues Gone Viral

Trump has a hunch about the virus spread.

The sick aren’t really sick and the dead are playing dead.
It’s all a Democratic trick to get inside his head.
They can’t do that, he says, because he’s had it lined with lead.
They’re pumping up the numbers to impair his sure election.
The dead will rise, that’s no surprise, it’s zombie resurrection.
They’ll storm election polls with noses dripping from their face,
and use the virus hoax to try to scare away his base.
“I have a hunch my MAGA people will put up a fight,
they know I am the chosen one. This virus they shall smite.
And good Mike Pence, our plague defense, will keep the numbers low.
The dead will all be buried in his cornfields, row by row.
No virus. No virus. This virus is fake news.
It’s only flu. Boo-hoo. Boo-hoo. You got the fake plague blues.”