Lotsa Poems
Be the change you wish to see in the world
Be the change you wish to see
Be the change you wish
Be the change
Be
I
AM
THE
NEXT
WOMAN
P E R S O N
W R I T I N G
T H I N K I N G
P O S T I N G
M A K I N G
D O I N G
H E R E
NOW
AM
I
All I want
Believe you me
Can be derived
During this poem
Everything will be clear
For you to see
Going forward
Have a little patience
I just want to tell you
Just what I came to say
Killing me softly
Laughing all the way
Many come to see
Nothing that’s too deep
Open your ears
Perhaps I’ll explain
Quite the long poem
Right up my alley
Starting with A
Then all the rest
Under my watch
Was the lone key
Xite unseen
You wouldn’t believe
Zoolander.
The old poet
was edgy and sincere in his youth
was a vegetarian wanderer
Now complains about kids these days
His generation already opposed a war
This new crop of protesters bore him
He already said ABC, man
So why bother with DEF?
Kids these days….
The ballad of fruit salad
is a sweet and citrus tune
sung by cowboy cooks
under the orange moon
They sing of lonesome fruit
that might be good in pie
But when it’s in fruit salad
no one will even try
The ballad of fruit salad
for the fruit that’s left behind
a tribute to the grapefruit
scooped lovingly from its rind
They sing of pomegranates
that no one understands
those complex and selfless fruits
rejected by cowhands
Oh the ballad of fruit salad
is a sad and juicy song
For nothing could be sadder
than when fruit does not belong
My mustache keeps me company, on the hot and dusty trails
It’s my mustache keeps me company, riding the lonesome rails
My mustache feels no jealousy, my mustache don’t keep score
It laughs at all my jokes, never thinks that I’m a bore
My mustache is my confidant, my one and only friend
My mustache keeps me company, ’til the bitter end
Remember when we were going to do a political radio show and then when we were going to start a whole pirate radio station?
Remember when that frequency opened up and we were going to start our own TV channel?
Remember the cooperative restaurant idea? The starch bar, the breakfast club, the muffin shop?
Remember when we were going to start that all ages club?
One by one, pathways slip away into the distance.
One by one, things that can be, can’t be.
I remember that great documentary we were going to make about your grandfather in Korea.
Your grandmother didn’t like my ethnicity. We shouldn’t have told her we were a couple.
We should have finished making that zine
that local punk rock compilation record
the 1–900 recreational drug information hotline
I was going to be a professional cartoonist
a radio commentator
an astronomer
an animator for NASA
go to film school
open an art gallery and name it after Janeane Garafalo so she would have to come and meet us
the performance art installation exploring the line between art and pornography
the record label
the fake heavy metal band
the fake country band
the fake Christian Rock band
They say everything happens for a reason
But what if nothing happens? Is that for a reason too?
I am almost finished with that tape for the kids. But nobody plays tapes anymore, and the kids are all grown up.
I am going to write those books, edit that epic travel video… 20 years in the making. Will anybody care if I actually finish it?
I still have to shoot that full length movie… I haven’t told her that she’s in it yet, I haven’t actually met her in person, but she’s perfect for the part.
It’s all on my list… that I copied from the previous list, that came from list, after list, after list. 30 years of the same list.
We were going to start that band. I guess it’s too late, since you have kids and live on the other side of the country.
I know it’s too late to interview Joey Ramone for my unwritten Ramones book. It would have been a great interview. It would have been a great book. I guess I have to take that one off my list.
I should have put writing this poem on a list, then I would have accomplished something.
