Why Halloween is Better

Posted on October 31, 2014 by admin

The calendar luxuriates

In otherwise prosaic dates

Imposing unfunded mandates

That every thinking person hates

Although it offers lots to eat

Thanksgiving is always replete

With flocks of kin that bore and bleat

And all your substance do deplete

Despite conventional pretense

The Christmas holiday presents

A month of ruinous expense

That profits you with indigence

New Year’s Eve is tailor-made

For trying on a new lamp shade

And drinking till your liver’s flayed

And mental functions all degrade

To woo your lovely Valentine

Requires a sturdy credit line

With which to win a concubine

Whom you’ll discover isn’t thine

July the Fourth is quite a lark

A-broil all day in swarming park

And when at last it comes full dark

Enjoy ten minutes’ flash and bark

On Labor Day the working Joe

Cannot laze on the patio

But toils from dawn to night-shadow

On chores around the old chateau

Is there no rite, no holiday

That doesn’t make a person pay

For tired and oversold cliche

With cash and care and brute decay?

Indeed, October’s dying wheeze

Exhales bone-chilling jubilees

Igniting spectral entities

With mad delights the blood to freeze

No kinfolk call upon this night

When spirits stalk the autumn blight

Shut up your drafty manor tight

And steep in solitary fright!

The season’s black heart can’t be found

On merchant’s shelf in commerce drowned

It rises up from frosted ground

An ancient daemon freshly crowned

Though leering creatures haunt your door

Remember, you, the antique lore

And banish them, as done of yore

With dainties from your pantry-store

Thirsting vampires, blood-thirst keen!

Creeping shades and skeletons lean!

It costs ye’ naught to make the scene

Upon the Eve of Halloween

Student Loan Crisis Explained

Posted on July 20, 2014 by admin

A posh and privileged life he saw

Expounding on the points of law

Assuming Duke’s tuition could be met

Alas! The ivied halls he sought

Could not by common folk be bought

Without pre-emptive social safety net

He confidently went online

Low-interest loans flowed there like wine

A boon afloat on public subsidies

With other peoples’ cash he got

A first-class sheepskin, piping hot

And started banking hefty legal fees

A happy man he should have been

Instead he started wailing when

The thoughtless lender mentioned his arrears

‘An outrage, this!’ he told the press

‘The terms I signed will leave me less

Affluent than a portion of my peers!’

‘You see, the mortgage I can get

While burdened by this unjust debt

Does not befit a person of my class

Where colleagues can luxuriate

Behind a stately enclave gate

Suburban doldrums are my sorry pass’

‘Strike down this inequality!

This fiscal criminality!

Restore me to the station that’s my due

In this great land, this sin can’t stand

Expunge this foul three hundred grand!

You know that I would do the same for you’

She craved a calling medical

Well-compensated, vertical

and set her sights on Stanford in the fall

It cost ten-fold state school amounts

Too rich for middle-class accounts!

Wherever would she find the wherewithal?

With but a word to Sallie Mae

Tuition bills just went away

A bounty guaranteed by Uncle Sam

Diploma tightly in her grip

She took a research fellowship

And bought a shiny Lexus for the glam

But if her dreams had all come true

That sweet success was tinged with blue

Each time she got a hated invoice page

‘I’ve worked so hard to reach this crown

And now they want to pull me down

By bleeding me of fair and honest wage!’

‘With every month’s loan payment sent

I must neglect retirement

Delay long-nurtured plans for idleness

The interest I’m depending on

To fund a villa on St. John

Is not accruing with sufficient zest’

‘Those piles of dough I freely took?

Just numbers in a ledger book!

Let dry accountants balance them at will

Call off your bloodhounds, Sallie Mae

And let a grateful nation pay

This fine physician’s fancy college bill’

O pity you, these victims who

Do owe their rosy prospects to

Plain working stiffs who live from check to check

If they cannot have parity

With everyone of like degree

American ideals are naught but dreck

If paying back the dough you owe

Is well and good for Average Joe

Who’ll own the minivan in four more years

The products of diploma mills

Prefer a better class of bills

Can’t you let them off the hook, poor dears?

Yes times are tough in Palestine

Detroit is mostly fit for swine

The deficit grows larger by the day

But if we don’t at once atone

To those we’ve wronged by student loan

The crisis won’t shut up and go away

Love Conniption

Posted on February 11, 2014 by admin

O Well of Beauty! Eye of Light!
I beg you, tell me what I might
Upon the Feast of Valentine
Present to you, to make you mine
From my heart to your own

O Gallant Knight, O Gentle Soul
Your money cannot make me whole
The only gift I ask of you
Is all your love, so pure and true
Give that, and that alone

A fool I am, that I might try
Your honest favors so to buy
With vulgar baubles, pretty lies
When there behind your azure eyes
Such selfless spirit dwells

We two are joined, My Champion
By bonds that will outlast the sun
No worldly good seems good to me
My only food and drink are thee
All else my heart repels

And yet, My Love, my Waking Dream
As token of my deep esteem
I am resolved to here remand
This box of chocolates in my hand
A Walmart multi-pack!

Are these fat-free? Or sugarless?
How could you cause me such distress?
I’m starting a new diet soon
You’ll blow me up like a balloon!
You’d better take them back

Forgive my thoughtlessness, My Pet
Your body issues to forget
Please take instead, so bright and gay
This red and rosy nose bouquet
Each bloom a joyful psalm

So now I have to find a vase
And sacrifice my counter space?
I mean, who really wants or needs
A bunch of bug-infested weeds?
Your flowers are a bomb.

What madness was it, made me think
To burden you with Nature’s stink?
Perhaps you’d be more keen about
A nice romantic dinner out
At Jardin d’Amore

Do you suggest I should dress up
And in the garlicked darkness sup
From swarthy, sneering Frenchmen’s trays
On snails and flaccid crudités?
Oh, what a crashing bore!

Please don’t be angry, Angel’s Breath
I’d rather die a thousand deaths
Than suffer you an instant’s pique
Would ruby earrings – magnifique!
Win back the smile I crave?

In case you missed it, Philistine
My true birth stone is tourmaline
And this is not a Jared box!
You might as well have brought me rocks
You stupid, selfish knave

That sharp rebuke is justly earned
Those taudry trinkets rightly spurned
But will you let me, Guiding Star
Seek redemption junto al mar
With five nights in Cancun?

And broil my white and creamy hide
In scorching sun and salty tide?
Or would you see me leathery?
Good grief! Whatever did I see
In such a dull buffoon?

Alas, My Dove, a cad I be!
To court a Princess boorishly
More insult I will not impress
With this new Lexus LES
I beg your pardon, please

Pray hold the phone, sweet Honey-Pants!

You are my life, my sustenance

Your lips my food, your breath my wine

The only touch I crave is thine

And now I’ll take those keys

Because Gratitude Matters

Posted on December 19, 2013 by admin

Come closer, children, give an ear
A tale is told this time of year
About good Christians full of cheer
Which I will tell apace

Be still and hush and take a seat
Down here beside my slippered feet
And learn why always, ‘ere you eat
To say a word of grace

The Barrows were a Godly crew
Right and righteous, true and blue
They occupied the foremost pew
Each Sunday without fail

At Christmas-tide they hit their stride
Gath’ring near from far and wide
And in their father’s house abide
The newborn King to hail

‘Twas not so very long ago
a-trudging through the crunchy snow
The Barrows came to table so
To eat their Christmas feast

Candied yam, stuffing, dinner roll
Potato drifts, both mashed and whole
Savory green-bean casserole
Cinnamon apple juice

The sideboard groaned with toothsome fare
And gleaming silver dinnerware
And basted with surpassing care
A jolly Christmas goose

Despite the bounty on both flanks
The Barrows in their pious ranks
Forgot to offer words of thanks
For reasons not pursued

They had no sooner taken seats
Than reached for greens and meats and sweets
Pled little Tim “Let’s first entreat!”
But none were in the mood

As Grandpa rose to carve the bird
Abundant helpings seemed assured
When of a sudden there was heard
A yummy crackling sound

The goose lay squirming on its plate
An entrée oddly animate
Imbued with a malicious hate
For all the Barrows ‘round

On drumsticks baked a golden brown
It first brought luckless Grandpa down
Ripped out the throat beneath his frown
Then leapt for Aunt Lenore

Her pretty face in ribbons fell
Her piquant giblets pureed well
More quickly than the eye could tell
Her dress was soaked in gore

It ate the heart of Uncle Phil
Filleted his wife with vicious will
When Cousin Buck went through the mill
His guts oozed out like clay

And thus it went, around the room
Each Barrow meeting bloody doom
The sav’ry fowl a savage broom
Their lives to sweep away

An age it seemed to little Tim
His cup of terror filled to brim
And shiv’ring in his every limb
As kith and kin were flayed

At last an awful silence fell
As loud as any funeral bell
And Tim surveyed the festive hell
Upon the table laid

Aunt Effy was a total loss
Eye-sockets stuffed with cran’bry sauce
Her braided hair now dental floss
Her tongue was in her ear

Brother Jubel was coarsely ground
The carving knife stood from his crown
In rich brown gravy he was drown
A horror without peer

On every side Tim’s family
Lay sliced and diced most expertly
The Barrow Clan, except for he
Had sung its last Noel

Lo! there upon its polished tin
Reclined the goose who’d orphaned him
Still crispy outside, moist within
Waiting the supper bell

Its vengeful angel having fled
And cleansing anger put to bed
The lethal bird was simply dead
And seasoned to a tee

Tim clasped his hands and bowed to pray
“Lord, bless this dinner, anyway”
And that made everything okay
A simple courtesy

He seized a drumstick, tore it loose
Pulled up a chair, parked his caboose
“If none of you is having goose
I guess that’s more for me!”

And such, my dears, may be the lot
Of all whom breaking bread will not
Thank Providence for what they’ve got
On merry Christmas Day

Now everyone, get on your feet
The table’s set, go take your seat
But if you’re smart, before you eat
You’ll find a word to say

Do Not Go Gentle into that Exchange

Posted on November 8, 2013 by admin

O Captain! What Happened?!

Gazing out upon his realm
He shed a tear of clemency
The ship beneath his stately helm
Was found’ring in
Disparity

Great Lord! went up the plaintive wail
Take pity ‘pon the likes of we!
The healing arts are up for sale,
And we are gripped in
Penury!

The doctors care for naught but gold,
Ignoring our extremity!
Apothecaries have turned cold
Their potions priced
Excessively!

The leech is now a dozen pence
That used to cost ha’penny!
And terminal have grown the rents
On beds at the
Infirmary!

Will not you raise your mighty hand
And with keen sword of just decree
Strike down that avaricious band
And end the reign of
Banditry?

His eyes ignite in righteous fire
His face a mask of empathy
The time of greed will now expire!
You must leave everything
To me!

My subjects need not cringe and bow
For leech and newt and remedy
Nor sell the family milking cow
To pay for plastic
Surgery

The druggists must be brought to heel!
The doctors bridled ruthlessly!
The moneybags my wrath must feel,
And hence foreswear cruel
Usury!

The royal court was roused to act
Advisors pledged on bended knee
The public’s health they made their pact
From greed to set the
People free.

For forty days and forty nights
The quills did scribble fev’rishly
Defying untrod legal heights
To please their sovereign
Majesty

In hoary halls of Parliament
Opponents begged to disagree
Though few’d abide their rude lament
Or countenance such
Villainy

Banks of actuaries spoke
With tables to eternity
And champions of common folk
Demanded blanket
Equity

The counselors had scarce begun
Their obfuscations lawyerly
When special interests joined the fun
A legislative
Jamboree!

The heralds sat on tenterhooks
Predicting easy victory
Said they, Tomorrow’s history books
Will hail the king’s
Sagacity!

Upon a morning bright and fair
An end was made to industry
Anticipation filled the air
The nation waited
Breathlessly

The king addressed the kingdom then
Said he, Good shepherd must I be
and hereby sign, with flowing pen,
This bill to law from
Sea to sea

It was a potent tome, indeed
Encyclopedic, A to Z
Too much, it was, for Man to read
But not too much for
Policy

Within this mammoth document
Resides the answer to your plea
Intoned the conqu’ring President
These pages hold
Security!

Alas, the magic manuscript
Was not as it appeared to be
Slow but sure, the scales were tipped
And rose a great
Disharmony

Among the trusting populace
Suspicion wakened gradually
The parchment fair upon its face
Mandated false
Economy!

Your scheme to tame rampaging costs
Somewhere miscarried grievously!
Our old protections we have lost
New ones compare
Unfavr’ably!

Invoices once paid painfully
Now calculate in agony!
For some, private indemnity
Cannot be had for
Any fee!

Familiar physics, friends of sorts
Would treat us now illegally,
And by way of last resorts
Have only we
Compliancy !

Insult compounding injury
Political efficacy
Allows a glad minority
Exemption with
Impunity!

Despite your smiling guarantee
The future looks like poverty!
O what a brazen treachery
To perpetrate this
Calumny!

The cries were lost upon the king
Who faced the nation tranquilly
I guess I should have read the thing
But pardon your
Effrontery

Among my ministers, it’s true
Are some who disappointed me
They’re not a very clever crew
Deserving of
Antipathy

Take them! Strip them! Bind them fast
Upon your vengeful pillory!
But first look in the mirrored glass
Confront your real
Enemy

You fancied hope, demanded change
And I complied abundantly
So now I find it passing strange
To hear you whining
Bitterly

This plight I long ago defined
In stated ideology
If gentle hand you had in mind
You should have checked my
Pedigree

I do not nurture freedom’s seed
Nor well abide democracy
A king I am in word and deed
Raised up by your
Complacency

It may be true you were misled
My rule may spell catastrophe
But if you must have someone’s head
Remember who
Elected me