Iron Poet

[Capstone]

My brother asked me, "What the hell?";
my sister claimed to "give a dang";
our father rang the dinner bell,
then mother served the pork maringue...​

Circumcision is criminal.

 

[freedombecki]

what would life be like
if crime were circumcised out
would perfection peak​

riparian
rusticate
revenant​

 

[Capstone]

The only kind of banking worth a damn
involves the banks that are riparian,
where George and Benjamin and Abraham
could fish as revenants of paper men...

and reminisce together on the shore
away from troubled times they fought to end,
to sadly have their faces evermore
disgraced on little notes to save and spend...

and keep the urban masses well in check,
to free the wealthy few to rusticate
at distances prescribed to save their necks
when paper money's fin'ly seen as bait.​

Cap and trade.

 

[Capstone]

Earth's polar icecaps on the move
from south to north and west to east
are out to trade and thus to prove
the pull of that celestial beast...

unseen by most in retrograde
and sharply tilted orbit's course
that brings it back to where it's made
so many rounds of deadly force...

that pierced the known ecliptic plane
in line with cataclysms past...
and threatens life on Earth again
as perigee approaches fast.​

...with forked tongue.

 

[Impenitent]

"Half-Breed Chief"

There was once a leader of a great nation
In the face of obstruction and dire tribulation
A blight had befallen the land and growing darker
The burden and challenge of Comanche Chief Quannah Parker

Comancheria was enduring destruction of its herds of buffalo and horses
A losing war of attrition with incompassionate enemy forces
A plan to despoil their land, starving the Comanche without relief
This falling squarely on the shoulders of a half-breed Indian Chief

Quannah, the leader of this Indian band
The son of Peta Nocona and captured Cynthia Ann
Yes, Cynthia was taken from her family of thieves and demons
To be adopted by a tribe of human beings

Cynthia was rescued by searchers at the Pease River fork
She had forgotten her mother tongue, and died of a broken heart
Forbidden to return to a life deemed inferior
While son Quannah was learning the ways of the warrior

In visions of the future, and witnessing first hand
Quannah knew what was in store for his Indian band
This fiercest warrior chose to make his final stand
Nurturing assimilation into a civilization on Indian land

With a foothold in both white and Indian society
Proved an able ambassador to each, with impeccable propriety
Demonstrating the Indians to be men of peace and integrity
Contrasting the white man's history of contempt and zealotry

What lessons can we draw from the life of this man?
Who stood for peace and understanding while being overran
Perhaps not the amount of paint on the warrior's face
But the capacity of the heart to be the master race

Tear down wall

 

[Capstone]

A solitary tear ran down her face
and dropped to trickle down the inner wall
she scaled to peer into that sacred place -
surrounded, isolated, standing tall,

the man the woman wanted to explore
would not allow her to descend within
the prison he designed without a door
or windows with no iron bars therein.

And so she left a droplet at his feet
before she turned away to climb back down,
to leave her lesser half as incomplete
as life behind the wall he'd always found.​

Not as [it] seems.

 

[Impenitent]

Clarence Spoke in Court Today
(Pearl Jam)

At home
Watching pictures
Of crotch shots
With him on top
Legs raised in a V
Kicking away the ladder of opportunity

The Yalie's gave too much attention
To the fact he was Affirmative Action
King Clarence the wicked
Ruled his world

Clarence spoke in court today
Clarence spoke in court today

Clearly I remember
Mocking his accent
Seemed a mindless twit
But we unleashed a lion
Clenched his fists
As he blamed Thurgood for his standing

How could I forget
He was against voting rights
My jaw dropped wide open
Just like the day
Like the day I heard

He showed he was more right
Than his white classmates
He would have more wealth and might
King Clarence had no legacy
But he ruled his world

Clarence spoke in court today
Clarence spoke in court today

Try to forget this...
Try to erase this...
From the courtroom




Chicken every pot

 

[Capstone]

Which bike I'd use that summer day I knew
(my brand-new midnight Diamondback would do) -
to boldly play the game of chicken I'd
summarily been coldly challenged to...

by bullies out to steal the new kid's pride,
because to flinch and turn and not collide
would only mean that I had "chickened-out"
in front of every other kid outside.

Just then I saw the rusty 'beat-about'
my freckled opposition pedaled out
and showed me how much more I had to lose
between my legs, to fill my heart with doubt.

That's when I knew I had to quickly choose
between the precious things I stood to bruise --
my pride seemed suddenly more apt to heal
than twisted spokes and broken metal screws.

Of course, in line with my Achilles' Heel,
I stirred the pot within by how I'd feel,
then overpaid to buy some cheap respect
from those to whom I'd prove my *spirit's* steel.​

[You could always] buy another bike...

 

[theliq]

Clarence Spoke in Court Today
(Pearl Jam)

At home
Watching pictures
Of crotch shots
With him on top
Legs raised in a V
Kicking away the ladder of opportunity

The Yalie's gave too much attention
To the fact he was Affirmative Action
King Clarence the wicked
Ruled his world

Clarence spoke in court today
Clarence spoke in court today

Clearly I remember
Mocking his accent
Seemed a mindless twit
But we unleashed a lion
Clenched his fists
As he blamed Thurgood for his standing

How could I forget
He was against voting rights
My jaw dropped wide open
Just like the day
Like the day I heard

He showed he was more right
Than his white classmates
He would have more wealth and might
King Clarence had no legacy
But he ruled his world

Clarence spoke in court today
Clarence spoke in court today

Try to forget this...
Try to erase this...
From the courtroom




Chicken every pot

Slight discrepancy....Verse One,line 5.....Should read..."WEARING HER ANKLES AS HER EAR RINGS"

just sayin,steve

 

[Impenitent]

Creep Alley

(to the tune of Mama's and Papa's Creeque Alley)

Mitt and Rick Perry were gettin' kinda scary
With big donors would leave the others behind
Huntsman and Pawlenty ,not really gettin' any
Seemed a little disinclined

As predicted, still conflicted, maybe sex addicted, Herman had to cut out
Pokemon couldn't really explain why
Threw his support to Newt
But still saw Mitt on the sly

Gingrich, Santorum. and Bachmann
All looked like the same plan
But how would Ron Paul play
Michele , lookin' like a moron, vain and spacey
In the home of John Wayne Gacy, clowned the upset of the day

Old Newt, new Newt, you can't believe an empty suit
But buy my book anyway!
Sweet young Callista, met her playing Twister
Made his patriotism rise in an odd way

Perry surged ahead like the cat who ate the canary,
But got instead, a niggerhead to carry
"Oopsy daisy, I'm a producer not a lazy, and 2 out 3 ain't bad"
And nobody's got a treasure trove except Karl Rove

Lookin' for old words, cold words, especially the code words
Values voters couldn't shake-up that mindset
Busted, disgusted, said they can't be trusted
Huntsman rode his bike into the sunset one day
And nobody's got a treasure trove except Karl Rove

Debate, berate, gotta be au fait
Who would you pick for a running mate
Gingrich had an epiphany, but left it with Tiffany
His days of credit are limited, anyway

When it's over, Santorum's babbling like a loon
While Newt plans his escape to the moon
Invoking Carl Sagan instead of Ronnie Reagan , wishes he had the etch-a-sketch
Mitt makes a center switch, either a priest or a pagan, not sure which

Big tent/small tent, money pays all rent at the end of the day
The rigging very plain, the neo's had to have it their way
Invent intent, crossroads money well spent
Right brain/left brain, always time to retrain the man from Bain

Adelson got in on the ground floor,
But Gingrich talked out, lost out, finally had to drop out
Sheldon, you could always buy another whore to swap out
So he jumped in that treasure trove with Karl Rove



Surviving the Autopsy

 

[Capstone]

Surviving the Autopsy

Tough imagery. Too dark to indulge, at least for me.

I hope someone else takes a swing at it, though.

 

[Impenitent]

"Autopsy"

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
Carl Sagan



A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That Party used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But Watergate made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his embittered bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the Republican Party died
So

Bye, bye to the party of Ike
Abe and Teddy are already
telling tricky Dick to take a hike
Go get Ford and Reagan,
The Bush boys and Carl Sagan
We're buryin' what we're losin'
But we're carryin' on the delusion
Power and stupidity could win some races
But won't someday blow up in our faces
Then we'll say, that was the day,
The Republican Party died

Would you write the book of Mises
Or the theory of Two Santa Clauses
If Frank Luntz tells you so?
Would you repair the broken souls
Of widows of heros who screamed
"let's roll?"
And can you say "personal responsibility" real slow?

I knew you'd overreach again
Because you elected Ronnie Reagan
Sure enough you made it rough
You said unions didn't have the stuff
You sold crack to the blacks in the ghetto
To pay for your contra army peccadillo
I thought the world would scream
Then Ollie took one for the team
And I started singin'

Bye, bye to the party of Ike
Abe and Teddy are already
telling Bonzo to take a hike
Go get Willie Horton and Lee Atwater
They're won't lead us to slaughter
We're buryin' what we're losin'
But we're carryin' on the delusion
Power and stupidity could win some races
But won't someday blow up in our faces
Then we'll say, that was the day,
The Republican Party died

Going' for the royal flush
You installed George HW Bush
and a new leader, name of Rush
And immediately began to gush
About the thousand points of light
But his VP was a fright
His knowledge of contras came to light
Seems he hadn't been forthright
So you went to war with Iraq to distract
And while we read his lips
Clinton threatened to eclipse
And Perot saw to this
The day the party died
And we were singing

Bye, bye to the party of Ike
Abe and Teddy are already
telling HW to take a hike
Go get Karl Rove and Ollie North
To announce that henceforth
We're buryin' what we're losin'
But we're carryin' on the delusion
Power and stupidity could win some races
But won't someday blow up in our faces
Then we'll say, that was the day,
The Republican Party died

Then, for eight years you were on your own
And moss grows fat on a rolling stone
But, that's not how it turned out to be
You bought 20th Century Fox
In every home, the Republican Party in a box
And you hired any Goldilocks
To spread the news
Then you brought Kenny Starr
A hitman from afar and presto, there you are
The dress had a sizzle
But eventually it fizzled
Newt shut down too soon
And made escape to the moon
He left us before the part
Where we were singing in the dark

Bye, bye to the party of Ike
Abe and Teddy are already
Telling Newt to take a hike
Go get Dick Armey and Tom Delay
They'll believe it when you say
We're buryin' what we're losin''
But we're carryin' on the delusion
Power and stupidity could win some races
But won't someday blow up in our faces
Then we'll say, that was the day,
The Republican Party died

When he sang for the PM and queen
In a coat he borrowed from John Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh and while the PM was praying at the tower grounds*
The Jester slipped him ten billion pounds
The courtroom was adjourned
The fixed intelligence was returned
And while the Jester read a book on Napoleon
The Dixie Chicks pontificated on the podium
And over our shoulders went the sodium
The day the Republican Party died
We were singin'

Bye, bye to the party of Ike
Abe and Teddy are already
Telling Cheney to take a hike
Go get Curveball and Colin Powell
They'll believe it when you howl
We're buryin' what we're losin'
But we're carryin' on the delusion
Power and stupidity could win some races
But won't someday blow up in our faces
Then we'll say, that was the day,
The Republican Party died

Send in the clowns to a mortgage meltdown
Vegas looks like a modern ghost town
Like us, a losing streak and falling fast
But our travail has a solution at last
The ship of state is setting sail
And taking with it, the too big to fail
Golden parachutes for the chosen few
But forbidden fruit to me and you
Do you recall what we cried
The day the Republican Party died

Bye, bye to the party of Ike
Abe and Teddy are already
Telling Dubya to take a hike
Go get Geithner and Dimon
They'll agree why the debt was climbin'
We're buryin' what we're losin'
But we're carryin' on the delusion
Power and stupidity could win some races
But won't someday blow up in our faces
Then we'll say, that was the day,
The Republican Party died

Then the traveling circus came to town
Perry Bachman Paul and Cain vying for the crown
Newt, Santorum, and Romney, the last of the clowns
Twas a large and sturdy tent, the rigging very plain
In a big surprise the winner was from Bain
Romney merely explained how he was God sent
To raise and collect rent
From the 47 percent
But the angry white men were nearly all dead
And a large number of us were already well red
And we sang without any dread

Bye, bye to the party of Ike
Abe and Teddy are already
Telling Mitt to take a hike
Go get Ryan and Sununu
They'll agree while the loss was a lulu
We're buryin' what we're losin'
But we're carryin' on the delusion
Power and stupidity could win some races
But won't someday blow up in our faces
Then we'll say, that was the day,
The Republican Party died

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most-
the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost-
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the The Republican Party died

"Not entirely original"

 

[Capstone]

What's Coca Cola Classic,
without knowledge of 'New Coke'?
Why try to fix a recipe
that wasn't ever broke?

To prove that the original
was better all along,
and demonstrate entirely
the ancients were not wrong.​

Nothing to hide.

 

[Impenitent]

"Half-Breed Chief"

There was once a leader of a great nation
In the face of obstruction and dire tribulation
A blight had befallen the land and growing darker
The burden and challenge of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker

Comancheria was enduring destruction of its herds of buffalo and horses
A losing war of attrition with incompassionate enemy forces
A plan to despoil their land, starving the Comanche without relief
This falling squarely on the shoulders of a half-breed Indian Chief

Quanah, the leader of this Indian band
The son of Peta Nocona and captured Cynthia Ann
Yes, Cynthia was taken from her family of thieves and demons
To be adopted by a tribe of human beings

Cynthia was rescued by searchers at the Pease River fork
She had forgotten her mother tongue, and died of a broken heart
Forbidden to return to a life deemed inferior
While son Quanah was learning the ways of the warrior

In visions of the future, and witnessing first hand
Quanah knew what was in store for his Indian band
This fiercest warrior chose to make his final stand
Nurturing assimilation into a civilization on Indian land

With a foothold in both white and Indian society
Proved an able ambassador to each, with impeccable propriety
Demonstrating the Indians to be men of peace and integrity
Contrasting the white man's history of contempt and zealotry

What lessons can we draw from the life of this man?
Who stood for peace and understanding while being overran
Perhaps not the amount of paint on the warrior's face
But the capacity of the heart to be the master race

"Ode to Cynthia Ann Parker"

She and her only daughter
Her precious Prairie Flower
Wrested from Elysium so ardently
Only to be imprisoned for all eternity




Denied their return to the wanderers
Away from these heartless conquerors
Back to the husband and loving father
And to Quanah, Prairie Flower's noble brother

Dreaming of escape from walls that surround her
And cursing the searchers who unwittingly found her
Nadua resolute as Indian, body and soul
While white man's greed and disease takes its toll

From the Rio Grande to the Cimarron is a land of splendor
Comanches defend it, having no word for surrender
Adding up to a fight to the death against the invasion
And death would be the final sum of Nadua's equation

Nothing she fears, but no weapon to hide
Nadua seeks retribution for the Comanche genocide
Unknowingly becoming a martyr for an Indian nation
Cynthia Ann Parker chooses death by starvation

Honor the woman who endured lifetime travails
Honor the woman who in death yet prevails
Honor the woman who was for whites a sacrificed pawn
Honor the woman of an Indian life long foregone


Cynthia Ann Parker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"Farewell to all"

 

[Capstone]

"Farewell" seems so ambiguous to me
a word with more than one thing to convey
and one or two or maybe even three
could represent the thing one wants to say

in spite of what the others want to hear
the truth is ordered such that I must tell
with knowledge of the reasoning to fear
my wishes are that One and All fare well.​

Are you leaving?

 

[Impenitent]

"He Defrauded Me With Science"

What's all the the big commotion
It snowed just yesterday
And the rising of the ocean
Is only dramatic overplay
They're defrauding me with science
Defrauding me with science!
And ignoring simple history

When he's flying his Learjet
Defrauding me with science - Science
They say he's leaving a footprint
Science
Science

But it's all a big promotion
When it snowed just yesterday
And I can see no rising of the ocean
On the weak and old they prey
But he defrauded me with science
He defrauded me with science!
And disregarded simple meteorology

When Gore is flying ever nearer
Defrauding me with science-science
Science
I can see Al Jazeera
Defrauding me with science-science
Science

I thought he had such devotion
But now it seems he's mocking me
He sold out the Arctic Ocean
To pump and dump Current Tv
He defrauded me with science
He defrauded me with science!
And got off on a technicality

Good God Al Gore-
You're pitiful
I don't believe it
There he goes again
He's hidden his dossier
And I must get a FOIA
To see his inner secrets
And his little pet tricks

It's simple harmonic motion
So when it snowed just yesterday
And the rising of the ocean
A cycle repeated every day
Mmm but he defrauded me with science
He defrauded me with science!
And failed in philanthropy

He defrauded me - with science
He defrauded me with


Not quite yet

 

[Impenitent]

"Deserved Rewards"

I'm off to be a singin' cowboy in the movies
With my lariat and requisite white hat
Ropin' the bad guys and all my groupies
Guitar ever in tune and I'm never singin' flat

Impy ridin' across the silver screen
The fairest cowgirls in my arms you'll see
A troubadour buckaroo just like Roy or Gene
And you'll be smilin' when you think of me

I'll be on to my deserved rewards
Far west of the golden prairie sky
Jon, help me with these chords
Up the cloudy draw with sundown nigh

But amid the tumblin' tumbleweeds of El Paso
Ghost riders said "Impy not quite yet"
And snared me away with their lassos
Guitars will be a-strummin' don't you fret

I knew from the herd I had strayed
But I didn't know how far I'd gone wrong
How I wish in your heart I had stayed
Now i can only leave you with this song

I'll be on to my deserved rewards
Far west of the golden prairie sky
Jon, help me with these chords
Up the cloudy draw with sundown nigh


/ok I'm gone

 

[Capstone]

Gone from the O.K. Corral

I've recently been champing at the bit
to clarify exactly where I stand.
And if I've wasted time by some command,
I pride myself on knowing when to quit.

No riding crop will ever fall again
exacerbating injuries still fresh;
no spurs will ever lacerate my flesh
to prompt me at the wills of evil men.

Unbridled and defiant, I resign!
Go find yourselves another working horse.
I'm off to greener pastures, and of course...
no riders will be saddled to my spine.​

Broken back, steel-willed.

 

[freedombecki]

the steely-white gray titmouse who is tufted on his head
with a mighty will of courage landed on my feather bed
and unbroken skitter-scanter
backed with little bitter banter
from my counterpane he in confusion fled​

.​

habitat​

pelagic​

idiopathic​

​

 

[Ropey]

the steely-white gray titmouse who is tufted on his head
with a mighty will of courage landed on my feather bed
and unbroken skitter-scanter
backed with little bitter banter
from my counterpane he in confusion fled​

.​

habitat​

pelagic​

idiopathic​

​

Tough, that one.

When the times are tough, I move to limericks.

A limerick in honor of our last habitat,
That was then and this is sure to be that.
Now that pelagic fish farm has been built,
and you've had a peek up my mental Kilt.
I hope you grow bold, before I get too old,
and fold into doing what it is that I'm told...
...idiopathically shuddering... why am I not cold?


Bargain
Flyer
Fortune