with the rhyming words

Ancient history is legend.
Guarantors protect your money.
Try some sugar on your oatmeal.
If your tastes don't run to honey.
city-states pay for protection.
Dirty Dingus Magee settles.
Take a walk along the nature trail.
Be careful with the nettles.
Play a fiddle.
Use more feeling.
Tuco lived to see tomorrow.
Midnight Cowboy had a girlfriend.
Her name was Brenda Vaccaro.
Dynasties can last for decades.
No need to hold your breath.
The zebra's stripes don't lie.
Turn round the corner--don't fear death.
Poseidon holds the trident.
A gambler juggles dice.
i smoked and ate some dinner.
The guy told me it was rice.
Alfalfa sprouts for supper.
Some cherries for dessert.
Goliath tried to kill David.
As always, the truth hurt.

who really

In the nineteen-eighties they had music.
Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, Corey Hart, Cyndi Lauper, the Pogues, the Bangles, etc.
How, or why, did Ronald Reagan manage with all of this going on?
Dez Dickerson jumped the Prince ship, seems it was due to the loveless eroticism, typified by the Nelson/Melvoin/Coleman smash 'raspberry beret.'
It was a long time ago.
But who really ruled the 1980s?
a) Madonna
b) Prince
c) Corey Hart
d) Cyndi Lauper
e) Michael Jackson
f)  Shane MacGowan

Kita's Aunt Martha

at the Asian noodle-type restaurant.
Loudmouth is eating, across from trophy girl.
Yells at waitress to bring check.
Yells about something else.
Who knows?
Another day, might have nudged Martha, said, "Isn't that guy obnoxious. Who is his date?"
Martha handled it.
"He's sitting there high on the hog with Ms. Kewpie Doll (sic)," said Martha.
Taken care of!

with the car and traffic

so...a poor impulse type would have gone ballistic on the car horn.

boy

these pretzels? making me thirsty

'found text'

THE END AND THE BEGINNING
translated by J. Trzeciak
written by Wislawa Szymborska

'After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.
Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.
Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.
Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.
We'll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.
Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.
From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.
Those who knew what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.
In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.'

enemies, public and private

The One About Chuck D

In July 1990 at the P.E. show.
He made a speech about the groups of people in America, a big list.
Mentioned the mentally ill.
Somehow I knew he was right, but I didn't share it with anyone.
Scared of Peter Gabriel's 'Lead a Normal Life,' maybe.
Then, at the December 1990 P.E. show.
It was his gutsy from-the-hip speech about what a disaster President Bush and his looming Gulf War were.
I KNEW that was right.
Got kicked off the street by the cops after the riot, but you know what?
He was right.