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  A toddler with a hammer, it’s true/Can do less damage to you/Than elected men/Meeting again/Planning to do something new

  Strange bedfellows politics makes/(I guess they do what it takes)/For kitten and skunk/Can share the same bunk/Made up of voters’ mistakes

  Send me money, rich brothers/And some votes, poor mothers/You know my career’s/Managing fears/And saving each, of course from the others

  Politics: a set of acts/With which our leader distracts/He plays out each scene/Trying not to look mean/Ignoring, of course, all the facts

  The commons with rancor is rife/Loud with partisan strife/Oh, if I could/Prorogue I would/Someone’s political life.

  Politicians are bred/To think one election ahead/A statesman, less clever/Is planning, however/For the next generation instead

  The world by rulers is marred/So many nations scarred/Yes, any damn fool/Can manage to rule/It’s learning to govern that’s hard

  A good liberal you’ll make/Of the high ground partake/Your ethics can soar/So long as your/Own interests aren’t at stake

  Socialists, it’s funny/Are by nature sunny/Along the miles/Giving out smiles/With other people’s money

  “Give us our rights,” they say/But if you did one day/What a pain!/They’d complain/Now we’re taking away their wrongs

  ****

  Love

  False promises often are told/About fires just growing cold/But this I say/I found out one day/The cruelest lies are in silence unfold

  One day I’m sure that I’ll/Look back and say with a smile/Love did not, I’ve found/Make the world go round/But, ah, it did make the trip worthwhile

  As the seed comes out of the bloom/And we run to death from the womb/Try to remember/Our fire and ember/For Earth, without love, is a tomb.

  We’re in love, it’s true/But love’s attraction, not glue/So keep in mind/I think you’re divine/But love needs its spaces too

  Humanity’s own badness/Generates love and sadness/So call out the band/Give us a hand/For love’s cosmological madness

  Now the party’s done/The room’s left with – one/Please don’t be/Sorry for me/Because now I can see the sun

  “I never missed the water,” you cry/“Till the well ran dry”/I never knew/I’d miss you/Until you said goodbye

  When your heart has healed at last/Just shrug, “it’s been a blast”/For a mill, you’ll find/Cannot grind/With water that is past

  Oh, the people you have worn/Since the day you were born/Going your way/Is like licking, they say/Honey off a thorn

  Feeling a little forlorn?/Can’t live with yourself this morn?/You got caught/You should have thought/Of all this before you were born

  About what you want to do/Silence means consent, it’s true/But, you see/It could just be/That no one’s listening to you

  ****

  Deep Thoughts

  Sometimes just a bit too deep....

  I find those reprehensible/Who are just too sensible/About God above/Or the limits of love/And anything just immensible

  When the world gets all mailaisy/I’m glad I don’t know I’m crazy/‘Cause sanity goes out/At one’s first doubt/And the brain, all mayonnaisy

  If your heart is sore/And getting up’s a chore/Tomorrow’s outside/A brand-new ride/And every new day is a door

  You know, I’m not all that bad/Basically a carefree lad/Really, I’m good/But misunderstood/Just… eccentric a tad

  Be careful of words that you choose/A lie makes for speedy news/Barely hurled/It’s round the world/While truth is still tying its shoes

  A discovery? We should soar/But often it goes into war/The devil’s got it/Went out and bought it/Before science decides what it’s for

  They rant, fume, fuss/Refuse to even discuss/But destiny, I say/Isn’t laid out that way/Nor is our duty set out for us

  Some people are never exact/Live in a matter of opinion, not fact/Approach them and nod/Pretend you’re just awed/That, sir, is what is called tact

  It ain’t no disgrace/To fall on your face/You might find/In the next frame of mind/That the ground is your natural place

  It chills to the bone:/With faith flown,/And fallen from grace/We’re left to face/Meaningless alone

  Every bar’s deep in chains/The enemy, our very brains/But the more we drink/The less we sink/Into ashes of the day’s remains

  I’d be consistent, you know/If I didn’t want to grow/And was as ignorant today/In every way/As I was a year ago

  Others saw apples fall, not fly/To the earth, not sky/They saw it fall/But of all/Only Newton asked why

  With hope of redemption slim/Humanity approaches the brim/I hope I can/Laugh at man/To keep from crying for him

  The world make my heart ache/With more beauty than I can take/Sometimes I wonder/Was man a blunder/Nature’s only mistake?

  A little learning they’ve got?/That’s a problem – not!/Nor dangerous be/To you and me/Unless they think it’s a lot

  After the pigs have flown/One little truth be known/It’s easier to be mad/With every other lad/Than to be sane alone

  I toss the newspaper down/Throw it to the ground/It gives me the blues/For this dismal news/A forest to pulp was ground

  Life is not as we planned it/We’re unable to command it/Please forgive it/Because forward we live it/But backwards we understand it

  There’s many a lie today/Meant to lead us astray/The big ones enthral/But the biggest of all/Is the one that goes, “They say”

  Maybe it’ll do no good/But I’ll warn you as I should/There’s no bigger lie/You’re likely to buy/Than a truth misunderstood

  Against mankind’s legions arrayed/Mama nature isn’t afraid/Foolish, we/For she/To be commanded must be obeyed

  No man an island?/Consider me a highland/Linked to others/Sisters, brothers/Who live just below myland

  Life, after all, is stone/Destination – bone/No braver man/Could be, than/In facing meaninglessness alone

  Good behavior, that’s huge/Or so they tell each stooge/Go along for the ride/You’ll learn to hide/In mediocrity’s last refuge

  Some guys get suicidal/Just finding themselves idle/It takes a strong horse/To find his own course/When free of the bit and the bridle

  Unstrap that bomb, and sit/Your belief isn’t (you twit)/Necessarily true/Just because you/Are willing to die for it.

  Memory’s a strange old hag’s/Collection of perfumed bags/Tossing away/Good food each day/And hoarding some coloured rags

  People, our government, forsooth/Would rather conceal the truth/Haunted they/Every day/By the spectre of the voting booth

  A minority needs courage, it’s true/To tackle the things they do/But on the way/Let me say/The majority needs tolerance, too

  When I surrender my soul/And get dumped into a hole/Please say/What I did in my day/Was a bridge, not a goal

  The world’s a comedy today/To those who think (they say)/But a tragedy real/To those who feel/For a world gone astray

  Gonna lie? Make it good/Out of gold, not wood/Make it seem/More like a dream/Than anyone thought you could

  Maybe you’re getting wise/When you finally realize/TV’s not food, /More like half-chewed/Bubble gum for the eyes

  He is truly wise/Who can rest his eyes/On the morning news/Without getting the blues/And reading between the lies

  Sometimes science gets wings/When somebody suddenly flings/Aside the obscure/The expected, the sure/To study some “obvious” thing

  You’re consistent? How strange/To avoid the Idea Exchange/The foolish, thee/And the dead make three/Whose opinions never change

  Read the manual, learn the rules/We don’t want to look like fools/Alas, now I believe/That finally we’ve/Become the tools of our tools

  ****

  More Deep Thoughts

  A committee’s an acquired taste/Nothing gets done in haste/Minutes they keep/By those not asleep/It’s the hours they waste

  It’s a kind of a pity/That in no park or city/Did anyone elect/To erect/A monument to a committee

>   Getting “long in the truth”/Drinking too much vermouth/Sometimes you do/What’s worst for you/To bear the weight of the truth

  First thing a ruler must do:/To his country be true/Don’t take any/Crap from the many/And protect the rights of the few

  Journalism today/Has somewhat gone astray/It’s all wailing and thugs/And blood on the rugs/And heroes with feet made of clay

  The truth about computers lurks/It wasn’t really made for jerks/Facts overriding/They’re providing/Worldwide jobs for clerks

  Rejecting truths clearly shown/And lessons carved into stone/People are naïve/And choose to believe/That which is least known

  I guess you’ve had your say/Rambling and ranting away/But your point of view/Many not be true/Just because it’s useful today

  Gather rosebuds while ye may/Time’s flying away/You’ll find in sorrow/That’s gone tomorrow/The flower that blooms today

  People get sillier still/They fall for every shill/What bothers, old chap/Isn’t the credibility gap/But rather the gullibility fill

  Those who get what they pursue/Don’t just say, they do./Dictionaries read/That ‘succeed”/Means “to follow through”

  From a freight car, it’s true/A poor guy’ll take a thing or two/But give him an MBA/And maybe someday/He’ll steal the railway too

  I keep an open mind/But it’s difficult, I find/People who see it’s open/Are always hopin’/To toss their garbage in

  Our world’s not so fine-ean!/Its physics is Einsteinean/Its logic, though?/Wouldn’t you know/Frankensteinean

  I’m glad our knowledge has grown/And for the learning we own/In the end/Less time we spend/Dreading the unknown

  When civilization’s spent/And you wonder why it went/Decline starts now/If they won’t allow/Intelligent discontent

  A world warrior I’ll be/Or a world citizen – see/The moment turns/My heart burns/For the choice is up to me

  Action’s not a mystery/Nor why we get resistory/In the long haul/We are all/Citizens of history

  I’m held in thrall/By the Middle of Nowhere’s call/I’d sooner wake there/In clear air/Than in any city at all

  Curing’s retail/Preventing’s wholesale/No debate:/If we can’t get this straight/Our health system’s gonna fail

  Education’s a race/To teach the right place/Of Man,/Civilization, and/The catastrophes we face

  Define “civilization?” Of course;/I’ll tell you the source/From the beginning/It was the winning/Of persuasion over force

  Civilization advances, I say/(I’ll explain, if I may)/In every war/When you’re/Killed in a brand-new way

  Mankind ascends/In odd trends/From war to beans/We’ve perfected the means/But still confused about ends

  It isn’t the bombs we’ve got/Where you’ll find the rot/Cynicism, confusion/And disillusion/Are a more troublesome lot

  Rules, the law, the court/Don’t sell them short/Civilized, we/If violence be/The means of last resort

  Hey, sisters, brothers/And all you mothers/Although me and you/Are equal, it’s true/Some are more equal than others

  If you’ve got it/Given it or bought it/By far/Chances are/A trucker brought it

  A service economy suffices?/I’ve heard such advices/With factories in weeds/What Canada needs/Are labor-making devices

  Learning comes so slow/It seems there’s little to show/Compulsory, it’s not/But take this thought/Neither is survival, I know

  If we think all the same way/It seems to brighten the day/But when we do/I tell you/Someone’s not thinking today

  A fanatic’s the kind/Who can’t change her mind/It’s strange/But she can’t change/The subject, either, you’ll find.

  Ignore the cheers and laughter/The yells from floor to rafter/Don’t be couth/Just tell the truth/But be sure to leave right after

  Only a coward creeps/Approaching infinite deeps/Go for the toss/You know you can’t cross/A chasm in two leaps

  If revenge is a thirst/And you’re planning the worst/You can do/To you know who -/Just dig two graves first

  Sure, we want to prevail/And to live to tell the tale/But be aware/Failure to prepare/Is preparing to fail

  In a life of roses and thunder/Things splitting your world asunder/Take it all in/With a wide grin/For the beginning of wisdom is wonder

  He was the man of the hour/But now our feelings sour/For the measure of a man/Is no more than/What he does with power

  Truth only distracts/From how life impacts/Yes, truth, I say/Is, in its way/Far more important than facts

  Fact’s one thing, truth’s another/Don’t confuse one with the other/Hey, forsooth/Fact is to truth/Only a cousin, not a brother

  The revolt went without a hitch/Musta satisfied someone’s itch/The rich, for sure/Ended up poor/But the poor somehow never got rich

  Accomplishment’s a clue/When the world measures you/Like gold panning/It takes more than planning/What you’re going to do

  Every day I read/How democracies bleed/Hope, defeated/Their people cheated/By the forces of organized greed

  I watch the news and sigh/So many questions “why”/So don’t think it odd/If I trust in God/But keep my powder dry

  ****

  Not-So-Deep Thoughts

  Gotta stop thinkin' and drinkin' at the same time, I guess.

  I don’t like to blab/But some days I’m a crab/I get mean/And almost obscene/In winter when days become drab

  Watching TV news/Would incline one to the blues/So I turn on an ad/With some guy really glad:/Hey, I have the right to choose!

  Hey my heart was breakin’/Craving eggs and bacon/So I started bitchin’/Now my wife’s in the kitchen/But I wonder what she’s really makin’

  You don’t have to be swift/To know food’s a gift/But, however sweet/You shouldn’t eat/More than you can lift

  She reads then follows your lead/Music, life set the speed/Less than romance/Tango’s more than a dance/Bound together – and freed

  As I get older each day/I’ve changed in one sure way/Happy, to listen, I be/To those, you see/Who don’t have much to say

  Verbal sparring’s my delight/But people just take flight/The reason, you see/Must surely be/That I’m so always right

  Trip on a crack/Go down with a smack/Watch the blue sky/And birdies go by/And enjoy life, down on your back

  Of course I don’t react!/My life has been only an act/You think you see/The mask that is me/It’s not, as a matter of fact

  For five days God made; inspired/Stuff much admired/Peanuts and wine/Turned out fine/But humans –/You don’t do so good when you’re tired

  The way you say, “ah!”/When you take off your bra/Makes me think, honey/We can save money/And cancel that trip to the spa.

  I’d bet my only daughter/There’s not much wetter’n water/It’s good for drinks/Hockey rinks/And a home for the wily otter.

  The meaning of life, my son/When all is said and done/You’ll enjoy it best/And get more rest/When you learn there is none

  Knowing what humanity’s at/I’ve decided that/The more I see/Of how things be/The more I like my cat

  “Money talks; you’ll see”/I cannot disagree/I’ve learned it talks/And also walks/Because it said “Goodbye” to me

  No jumping to conclusions – /That creates illusions,/Keep silent, men/Listen, then/Draw your own confusions!

  Amid craziness and lies/It’s foolish to be wise/Have the guts/To just go nuts/And join the rest of the guys!

  I’ve often thought that/Life would be flat/If we walked around/Not making a sound/With nothing to grumble at

  You, son, can still get fame/Have people remember your name/With a bit of C4/One kilo or more/And someone, of course, to blame

  Following a crazy master/They run a road to disaster/Don’t they know/Even limping slow/On the right road is faster

  No advice I spurn/But consider it in turn/For no-one yet/Have I met/From whom I could not learn

  Ah, madness in spring/Is a fine old thing/Just a bit/Will do it/For commoner or king

  A li
ttle learning, I thought/Often don’t mean squat/But find, I do/A lot of ignorance, too/Ain’t either all that hot

  Folk songs (it’s true)/Will rehabilitate you/If you’re willin’/To hear some Dylan/And a lot of James Gordon too

  My life? I tell ya, kid/Was sorta like a squid/Wearing a paper skin/And learning the violin/In public, while I did

  The tyranny of TV news/Can drive a guy to booze/I find I’m caught/In whatever thought/That they carefully choose

  God bless Edison tonight/If he hadn’t got things right/We’d all be/Watching TV/Only by candlelight

  Retirement – I could go thru/All the things I intended to do…./I thought I’d have time/But now I’m/Busy with nothing to do!

  The advice is over the top/“Hey! Slow down! Stop!”/But by middle age/My advising sage/Is, alas, my doctor, not a cop

  Is that three buxom lasses/Trapped in pure molasses?/Oops, just some trees/Swaying in the breeze.../But I'm glad I found my glasses

  Retirement’s not like a shelf/Where you live like an old garden elf/There’s plenty to do/At least, if you/Can learn to live with yourself

  What’s this year to me?/It’s when I learned to BE/To accept and forgive/Then laugh, love, and live/Like no one could see

  In middle age you’ve got/More lukewarm than hot/You can do as much/Of work and such…/But would rather not

  Money- I could live without it/Ah! Don’t you doubt it/The trouble, you see/Isn’t me/It’s that the world is crazy about it

  ****

  More Not-So-Deep Thoughts

  Computers someday, I’ve read/Will think like a human head/But the danger is real/That someday we’ll/Think like computers instead

  Anchored in nonsense are they/I guess they’re happier that way/Than to make a boat/That might float/On some seas of thought today

  To yourself be true/My son, for if you do/Every man/Will know he can/Put his trust in you

  I look back on the year/Add up each laugh and tear/It wasn’t that bad/Really, I had/Nothing to fear but fear

  O my boss, you’ve/Had the luck to move/To your Incompetence Level/And the Devil/Will be happy to approve

  My boss, that jerk/Loves each management perk/Like setting my goals/With bizarre controls/Making it difficult to work

  Oh, how I dote/On the books I never wrote/Published works/Are just for jerks/And some hungry goat

  I really feel some fear/When I look into the mirr/Or when I go to/My recent photo/I can really use a beer

  I’m not really a smartee/A failure at repartee/The perfect words, you see/Always come to me/Just after I’m a departee