Red Tin Noodles

We have killed magnificent people
and mounted their heads on walls.
We have extinguished entire species
and dropped monster bombs on enemies.
We have kept the serfs under control,
but they are restless and grumbling.
We have drugged and raped our planet.
We have made icons of warriors
and martyrs of men of peace.
These stains are the prison tattoos
of our body politic, the most dangerous
gang in the world.

Don’t make fun of the boy with a gun.
He hangs about the bazaar every day,
rescuing abused American Girl dolls,
that he takes home for target practice.
Sometimes he whispers secret verses
into their cold hard ears.
At school he is afforded a respectful distance.
He once wrote an essay about painkillers.
He’s not allowed in gym because of loafers.
In his dreams he’s always riding horses.
Even now he sleeps, at peace,
beneath a Snoopy quilt.

There’s a portal in the midway
that’s leaking secret gasses.
Extinct birds in the center lane
are taking language classes.
While coronets are exorcised
and passed out to the masses,
the list of devastations
can be read with x-ray glasses.
There’s a pedal in the dance hall
that controls the singer’s motions,
a buzz about the school of doubt
that drones across the oceans.
A subtle breeze that aims to please
is packaged into potions.
But rediscovered photographs
preclude all escape notions.

A grid of was/saw.
A map of state/etats.
A circle of gas/sag.
The world is mad/dam.

No fox in the hole. Ecological hunting
has trimmed the fur from this vale.
Vague bones kicked up by marchers
are collected by the children as toys.
Manufactured sound has disappeared.
Question marks of smoke
punctuate the sullen distance.
Food is whatever is in the mouth.
The hard times forecast rumble
in the belly of a beast unleashed
by dire misunderstanding.
Somewhere there is an oasis
of healing and imagination.
But right now it’s just carcasses and sand.

Why’s the hot seat so damned cold?
Why’s the new world seem so old?
If politics are bought and sold,
where’s the truth we’re told we hold?
What’s the purpose of elections
when the money makes selections?
If the system needs corrections,
who will insure our protections?
Question marks proliferate
in a country once called great,
suffering now greed and hate.
Answers must be our mandate.

Burning photographs does not destroy the past.
Our history is etched inside the bone.
The smoking world outside our eyes was never made to last.
The song of time gone by is just a moan.
That black cloud on the mountain will circle for us soon.
The pattern of the storm has been revealed.
For every day we look away, there disappears a moon.
Our eyes are closed. Our fate is likely sealed.

Leg pain in the upright bass.
Back ache of the sax.
Flat feet tap the odd drum beat.
Grooves engraved in wax.
Jazz is music’s elder statesman,
dizzy possibilities,
history’s record of the great men
seeking out skeleton keys.

Mitt just took a shit upon the Donald.
Made him look more clownish than poor Ronald.
The stormin’ Mormon’s dump made Drumpf look like a chump.
In fact, the dude has been Rosie O’Donnelled!

Back from the dead,
he landed on his head,
and from his mouth words bled:
"There’s nothing to be said."
He’d walked into the light,
prepared to be contrite,
but when the light turned red,
he came back home instead.

I hope you’re not too angry
that I shaved your old fur coat.
The protesters got to me.
Fur is murder, it seems.
So I’ve disguised the dog
as your arthritic uncle
and let the cat know
we’ll no longer be needing his services.
I’ve buried baby’s teddies
as a symbolic gesture,
and donated your questionable
fuzzy bedroom slippers
to some conscienceless charity.
Fur is murder, it seems.
I hope I haven’t gone too far.

Pickled desperadoes
litter the Andes
like mileposts, way stations,
altitude markers.
Two grams gets you this high.
Four grams gets you dead.
Above, the peaks beckon
like cocaine sundaes.
But in the cliffside towns,
where whiskey’s served
in boxes, men will kill you
for a gold tooth,
for your new boots,
or just for fun.
A Peruvian shoeshine
means you’ve been found
socks up, polished off.

In a whirlwind of lead,
I fled inside my head,
imagined myself dead,
and met the devil.
His horns were pointy red;
"Your soul is mine," he said.
I wished I was in bed.
That’s on the level.
He’s the pencil dust devil,
a voice like Aaron Neville.
He whips his pointed tail.
I wish I was in jail.
Don’t wanna go to hell.
This isn’t show and tell.
I broke my pencil’s point.
I smoked another joint.
And now I’m drawing God.
He’s got a lovely bod.
I’m through with Beelzebub.
My pencil is a stub.

Quit shaking the scenery, Fuzzy.
Distorted dimensions distress me.
Why is the cow under the moon lowing?
And have the leaves of grass
been mowed and raked?
Eliminate that giant flapping
and pay heed to the rotating crop.
The growth of industry
is laughingly out of proportion.
And shouldn’t the horizon
properly extend to the sky?
Polish the sun a little brighter.
Hide the blasted wiring.
Drop a wild dog or two
into the wasteland.
And do not go gentle past go.
Perhaps this prescription is outdated.
The road least taken
appears to be closed.

If you tell me what you’re missin’, I will tell you what I found.
No one out here seems to listen. There just ain’t no common ground.
Everything the poor man visions, seems the rich man wanna spoil.
Got no hand in the decisions. They just toil until they boil.
Now the melting pot’s spilled over. And the cleanup has begun.
If you’re not upon the A-list, better be prepared to run.
Don’t rely on constitutions. They’re just words that can be changed.
If you offer bold solutions, you just might be called deranged.
There’s a down side to all nations, though they might claim to be free.
You will find that all the leaders are the rich minority.
So if you ain’t got no money, so if you ain’t got no land,
You’d best marry up, my honey, or be buried where you stand.
There’s a dream in certain fictions that they call equality.
But the world is based on frictions, sadly, not on harmony.
If you tell me what you’re after, I will tell you if it’s there.
Please excuse my maddened laughter. It is only ’cause I care.

To make the jump to frog
the mind must polliwog.
Would we could all transform
and ribbit be the norm.

Sore heels slog through
mud-slung meadows.
Vested verities abide
toasted variations.
Slug lines drop and bob
in the print morass.
Plausibility gives pause,
paws at the conscience.
Malignant manipulators
march in a mean parade.
Truth is a trap without bait.
Party decorations never lie.
An ear to the wall hears all.

Soles in suds on the pub floor
as the men all talk of war.
They just heard the radio say
forty bombers on the way.
Drink up, it may be your last.
Enemy approaching fast.
All the family’s underground,
waiting for that siren sound.
But these men prefer to drink
until danger’s on the brink.
War is hell and death is near.
Barkeep, give us one more beer.