Halloween Poem (Come Take a Trip with Me to Hell)

Come take a trip with me to Hell,
There’s Oh such sights to see;
I’ll bring your spirit while you sleep—
You’ll be quite safe with me.

I’ll show you where the tyrants burn;
We’ll listen to them scream;
We’ll have such fun and, when you wake,
You’ll think it was a dream.

Come take a trip with me to Hell,
You’ll be a second Dante,
And, if you think his visions dull,
For you I’ll up the ante:

We’ll watch the sinners boil in oil,
While all the devils poke ‘em,
And if the fires of Hell die down,
I’ll even let you stoke ‘em.

There’s parricides and patricides—
I’ll teach you to distinguish—
And fratricides and matricides,
In flames they can’t extinguish.

There’s murderers and torturers,
And Hitler’s nephew’s uncle,
And folks who don’t like apple pie,
Or Simon and Garfunkel.

Yes, take a trip with me to hell—
One night will do the trick—
Because your soul belongs to me,
Your loving friend, Old Nick.

A Few More Limericks

I was racing my steed round the Crescent,
When I knocked down a ragged old peasant;
He writhed in the mud,
Then he spat out some blood —
His manners, in short, were unpleasant.


We’ve enacted a strict moratorium
On crackpot proposals for thorium:
If authors submit ‘em,
We’ll simply commit ‘em
To the care of the new sanatorium.


That instrument known as the Dow
Is shortly to reach forty thou.
The masses and I
In unison cry:
“How is it I don’t have a cow?”


Blossoms bloom, we’re in love, and it’s Spring!
How delightful, you’re going to sing!
You’re as sweet as a flower,
Yet I’m suddenly sour
When you say, “And now something by Sting. . .”


I signed in a drunkenly way
With an outfit that tests DNA:
They sent me a kit,
So I sent them some spit—
And now I’m the Lord of Biscay.


King Herod was no great theologist
And even a worse angelologist:
He heard some strange things
About beings with wings,
Then he sent for his court ornithologist.

The One Who Pays the Piper

Oh, golden child, grip tight your silver spoon
And understand this wisdom true and terse:
The one who pays the piper calls the tune

The sage is bought and sold by the buffoon
The mighty pen is servant to the purse
Oh, golden child, grip tight your silver spoon

When Lucifer goes by, the people swoon
The masses are corrupt, the leaders worse
The one who pays the piper calls the tune

Your fortune is an over-stretched balloon
So keep your eyes fixed firmly on that nurse
And, golden child, grip tight your silver spoon

The meek can wait outside and sing Blue Moon
Be glad for what their betters might disburse
The one who pays the piper calls the tune

The traitor is received with a festoon
The honest serve the vile and the perverse
Oh, golden child, grip tight your silver spoon
The one who pays the piper calls the tune

Auto-Archaeology

To uncover the layers of yourself,
You must start calmly.
Survey the area,
Don’t prejudge anything.
Pick a spot,
Then bring in the bulldozer.
Tear off the top.
Carry out the rubble.
Now go to work with the spades.
Dig, dig, dig.
Whatever you find here is of no consequence.
Haul it away.
Only when you are certain that there is nothing left,
That you have reached the original ground,
Come in with the trowel;
Delicately.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
What do you find?
Indiscriminable,
Grimy,
Unpromising,
Blackened,
Stuff.
This is your treasure.
Wash it off carefully,
Polish it up,
Observe it from all angles,
And in all lights,
Not forgetting the infrared.
Behold, something new for once.
So old that it’s new!
Hidden in the midden,
But what does it mean?
Can some hermeneutic of stratigraphy be applied?
Can it be understood?
Or, are we alien to the core,
So deep that we have no affinity with our own wellspring?
Is there any depth to our depth?
Or, are there just infinite layers
Of disposable
Emptiness?

Hunters

The fox is a hunter.
He doesn’t know why.
Hill and valley, grass and stream,
Up and down, and on and through,
Heartbeat, panting,
Aching legs,
Looking for water;
Meat chasing meat
To fuel the rush
Of meat chasing meat.

Man is a hunter of the invisible.
Ideals are his meat,
Ideals that can never be fulfilled.
We catch glimpses,
Pursue in haste,
Into a sunset we never reach,
That sunset unto which we are raised,
Transcendent,
In our dreams.

We hunt the Tudor-red fox,
Of whom we have no need,
Who is not even meat
But only a meaty stand in
For objectives that we have not fleshed out.
But he will do,
Meet for the task.

Man is a hunter.
He doesn’t know why.
On and on,
Hoping to catch a break.
The fox,
The hunt,
The dreams,
All pointless,
And cruel,
But how pleasant
The galloping thuds of the horses' hooves,
The cries of our fellow hunters,
The bracing breeze,
The shimmering waters
Of the sun-splashed streams.

When I Was Young

When I was young,
I wanted to be Leonardo Da Vinci,
But, when I was old,
I became Homer Simpson.
What made the difference?
I took a road less traveled,
The wrong one.

Leonardo:
Built parachutes,
Painted madonnas,
Set the caged birds free.

Homer:
Watched buttons,
Ate donuts,
Juggled job and family.

Leonardo grew old
Seeking patrons in dark castles,
Spinning the fragile plates of art and science,
Thinking himself a failure.

Homer never aged,
Never failed,
Hadn’t the awareness.

So, I shall pass at last
From the futility of Homer to the self-reproach of Leonardo,
Having skipped the wonder years,
Only to catch the disappointing finale.
But, unlike Leonardo,
I’ll at least have donuts.

Words

Human beings,
Like hogs,
Quickly go feral.
It only takes a small threat,
Even an imaginary one.
We must be well-housed,
Fed,
Entertained.
Still, there are no guarantees,
Because, unlike hogs,
We can turn feral spontaneously.
Education is the hitch:
How do you keep the mind open,
Yet also discerning,
When the old are so eager to mislead the young?
Remember the dove and the serpent.

Did someone say serpent?
We become afraid.
We panic.
Decency? Self respect? Joy?
Out the window they go,
For nothing.
Chaos is as close as the next Olympics:
People strung up like hogs,
To resounding applause,
Because of words.