lonesome

A lonesome cowboy rides a lonesome trail Out on the prairie he don't get no mail At night he listens to the cold winds wail A lonesome cowboy rides a lonesome trail A lonesome cowboy likes to fuss and fight When he gets to town on Saturday night A sweet little filly would make everything right But he only gets to fuss and fight A lonesome cowboy puts his foot on the rail And drinks whiskey as raw as an old rusty nail He's got sparks in his brain and a burr in his tail That poor lonesome cowboy with his foot on the rail The lonesome cowboy, he ain't got a friend He rides down the trail till it comes to an end In death's yawning doorway, no message to send That old lonesome cowboy, who hasn't a friend Say, who will remember the cowboy's last ride Not the trail boss, or bartender, fit to be tied Not the cook with his wagon, or the dude with his bride That poor lonesome cowboy, who has nothing to hide One tree on the skyline, the trail turns to sand The pistol and lariat fall from his hand On the breeze there's a song, though there ain't no brass band At sunset's last ribbon, when the trail turns to sand

this was printed in skylark, a little magazine from quebec, around 1991

ten to say when

a darwinist named dan was left without a plan when a creationist named coralie rejected his paleolithic plea to make him the happiest man i dreamed i saw appolonius of tyana sitting on a park bench peeling a banana as i tremblingly asked him the meaning of life he cut it in slices with a boy scout knife and wrapped it in a red bandana if eusebius came back to earth and saw the new cosmos giving birth would he still be liable to write the bible or would the effort not be worth? a neanderthal named number nine pondered the legacy of einstein he couldn't get the hang of the big bang so he tipped back a jug of wine harold smith couldn't say hello without mentioning his love for annette funicello he recalled her so often that nothing could soften the boredom his fellows felt for the fellow a psychoanalyst named rudd thought all his patients were his buds he declined to charge them fees but only asked them please to join him in slurping some suds a secretary named sue to her boss was loyal and true when he laid her off she coughed one cough and dropped one tear on her shoe an orangutan named otto drank some booze and got blotto he fell asleep and dreamed he was picking flowers by a stream by our lady of primates' grotto a yeti named youngblood was walking in the mud he heard helicopter blades so he quickly moved to the shade he thought civilization was a dud a limericist named lou had nothing better to do than search all cultures and climes for possible triple rhymes and never looked at the sky of blue

farewell to a titan

years ago when i was really bored i would speculate on the most famous persons ever defined as: the persons seen "live" by the most people for the most hours and i concluded that johnny carson was number one and therefore ed mcmahon was number two yes, ed mcmahon out of tens of billions the second most famous person who ever lived! but time passes and gods look up from their mountains to see newer gods on higher mountains as hank aaron and barry bonds passed babe ruth so oprah and jay leno and dr phil passed johnny and ed goodbye ed thanks for the joy you brought to hundreds of millions for thousands of hours the media say your last days were unhappy but what do they know who have never looked down from the mountain?

minimalism, part 2

mom i can't talk now it's important not to me but it's really important (dial tone) that looks easy why don't you try it? i can't be bothered did anyone ever tell you - what? forget it joe woke up it was morning he had to go to work he went to work he was late nobody noticed my neck hurts - - - - - - - - - did you hear me? i heard you my neck hurts so? what about that twenty? what twenty? the twenty you were going to lend me i was going to lend you twenty? yeah when? joshua look at the clown aaaaaaaaaaaaah! he's a funny clown aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! come on joshua be good aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! she left you, huh? yeah is that good or bad? i don't know have another drink you buying? bert woke up he had fallen asleep at his desk the office was empty the gang had gone to lunch he wasn't a member of the gang he checked his messages this is fun yeah i think i've had enough though right too much of a good thing you know? i hear you

minimalism, part 1

yo, billy joey what's up? nothing much see you take it easy peggy walked down the street she came to an intersection she pressed the button the walk light came on she crossed the street she kept walking rick, can i see you a for a minute? sure have a seat you're letting me go, aren't you? yes i was expecting it carol jones! excuse me? aren't you carol jones? who are you? betty harrison, don't you remember me? no that was a good sandwich, mom i'm glad you liked it can i have another one? why don't you make it yourself? make it myself! yes, the bread and stuff are right over there the third race what about it? who do you like? i haven't decided i have i haven't

picnic

junior got his first job at woolworths after school sis had a new boy friend who had never been in jail even once to celebrate we went on a picnic and invited grandpa and grandma and uncle fred and aunt annabelle grandpa and grandma were hard to tell apart and often spoke in unison mom thought it was sweet i thought it was weird so did sis and her boy friend mom made egg salad sandwiches and tuna salad sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies they were pretty good aunt annabelle brought a lemon pie uncle fred brought cigars but dad didn't want one so he gave two to grandpa dad made some pitiful jokes about ants at picnics but there weren't any ants no beer? these were the last words from sis' new boy friend junior wandered off by himself i brought my new portable tv grandpa and grandma were impressed we watched the news khruschev was marrying sophia loren that's funny said grandpa and grandma together we didn't know khruschev was marrying sophia loren it's my new invention i told them it's called programming this all happened fifty years ago mom and dad, grandpa and grandma, aunt fred and aunt annabelle, and sis and junior are all dead now and i never got a dime for my invention but i'm not bitter i'm just happy to be alive

dad

dad had problems but he wasn't a bad guy he could stare at the refrigerator for hours even if there was no beer in it he went to work every day he was a systems engineer but i never saw him engineer a system or knew what a systems engineer was whatever he did it tired him out when junior or sis got arrested he would just nod and get up and open the refrigerator to offer the arresting officers a beer but there was hardly ever any beer in the refrigerator

mom

my mom was a nice lady i really liked her a lot we went for long rides together when it was cool, and when it was hot one day we went for a drive further than we usually went we came to an old gas station its sign was faded and bent there beside the station was an old fashioned general store i had the strangest feeling that i had never been there before inside was an old cooler filled with sasparilla and coke i put my hand in the freezing water and a voice from the shadows spoke "you got to pay up, mister before you put your hand in there" the proprietor lurched like a grizzly from a quivering rocking chair i had never encountered such behavior in all my pristine days the terrible creature glared at me i could not hold his gaze i bought a bottle of ginger ale for mom and a royal crown cola for myself i thought i saw two yellow eyes high up on a dusty shelf the sun was shining like an oil slick on the roof of battered tin though we traveled the whole state over we never went there again

nine to shine

an actor named jackie chan was the ultimate 21st century man he fell out of windows all over the planet on to sidewalks of plastic, glass and granite the whole universe was his fan beauregard, a bobobo had never experienced falling snow the concept of santa claus gave him pause but he concluded, what do i know? a scorpion named stingaree was a fervent fan of bruce lee he imitated all his moves and left the sand in whirling grooves in the desert of mo-ja-ve a tintist named tintoretto laughed and was left alone on a rubber raft after the panic on the titanic left him master of his craft an echinoderm named ed was taking a nap on the ocean bed when some humans disturbed his rest with a series of nuclear tests he wondered, was it something i said? an australopith named al picked some flowers for his best gal when he reached the top of the hill he saw her carried off in the bill of a pterodactyl he thought was his pal a creationist named chuck at the slot machines had little luck he turned to dave, a darwinist who also had a throbbing wrist and asked, can i borrow five bucks? a jellyfish named jermaine liked to stay out in the rain as humans rushed for their cars houses, arenas and bars he absorbed the eternal terrain an expanding universe named grace had half a mind to trace her connections to her siblings but this was dismissed as quibblings as they flew into infinite space

junior

junior wasn't very bright but he was interested interested in everything he stared out the window at school at the cars driving by and the planes in the sky and the big rigs on the highway but what he really liked was helicopters (there weren't too many of them) and blimps (maybe one a year) the teacher would say to the class junior is dreaming again what are you dreaming about junior? and he would answer huh? he never did his homework but went home and worked on model planes and model trains and trucks and cars and helicopters and blimps and sometimes ships and submarines he got the money for these things by working at wendy's and collecting bottles and cans in an old shopping cart junior is all grown up now and loads and unloads trucks at costcos and he goes to pta meetings but his wife does all the talking

sis

sis was the town tramp but she wasn't a bad kid when the police brought her home in the morning they always bought her an ice cream cone the city was ringed with ice cream shops and dairy whip stands too in winter there was dunkin donuts there was no escape the red and blue lights of the police cars blot out the milky way you couldn't see the andromeda galaxy even if the town had outskirts officer stone was a jets fan and wanted to move to oregon officer mcgovern preferred the philadelphia eagles and liked to take his three kids on picnics they stood on the front porch with the fog laughing silently behind them and said, mr and mrs america here is your wandering girl

poem #13

one planet spinning blue words in red sunsets across the continents electrons of words dinosaur trails popsicle icecaps a mosquito is born and dies a chimp chomps a pomegranate a clam is fried a human is fired from mcdonalds in san jose istanbul singapore coffee is poured in starbucks in bogota johannesburg mumbai jackie chan falls out of a window in dallas in lagos in seoul one planet spinning trillions of planets spinning

eight out of the gate

a terrapin named tiberius took nothing very serious his nasty pranks got little thanks and made his fellow creatures delirious a zoologist named zane stayed out in the pouring rain to earn the tentative trust of a curious creature named cust whose existence he could not explain an octopus named ole dwelled in the ole swimmin hole tom and huck and jim dreamed of catching him but never achieved their goal a winged steed named peggy sailed through the air long and leggy a human being named bess was filled with enviousness and decided to eat her veggies a divinity student named mope spent his days smoking dope his concerned next door neighbor an angel with a flaming saber sent a sorrowful letter to the pope a pterodactyl named pete was pretty smooth on his feet whenever he got up to dance all the winged locusts and fire ants rushed shouting out into the street a tyrannosaurus named tex sailed a pirate ship with well-scrubbed decks chasing through endless galaxies because he wasn't hard to please he loved all special effects a brontosaurus named bill left a curious will his favorite niece, an australopith was found convicted of running with humans and hyenas, and got nil