Frank Zappa and The Cloud-Guy

Herewith, one of my favorite quotes about religion from one of my favorite nonconformists:

If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.

~Frank Zappa

Poem #6-2011 (Wellsboro)

Wellsboro

We used to wander the summer streets at night
our parents convinced we were having
a sleepover above Joe's garage
(or in Tommy's backyard)
which indeed is where we slept - eventually

Joe's parents would check on us toward "bedtime"
We would act dutifully sleepy or adolescently annoyed
to get them to leave without suspicion
After waiting the appropriate amount of time
we quietly slithered away down dimlit streets,
dressed in black and stealthily (or so we thought)
keeping to the shadows

In those innocent days, the grocery stores
had their baked goods and fruits
delivered in the middle of the night and left outside
- with no security at all!
We learned the delivery times
and we learned that they packed the sweeter offerings
(like Ring Dings, Yodels, and Twinkies)
under the neatly arranged loaves of bread

Watermelons were always fair game

One night another band of brigands
left a trail of rinds right to our encampment
(we always thought it was on purpose)
When we returned from our own foray
Sergeant Wilcox was waiting for us
Granted, we were guilty, but it was still an injustice
and I never could stand watermelon after that

Once we hatched a scheme to break into the huge empty
haunted mansion on the corner by the town park
But we never followed through on that one
Tommy returned one night
from a solo mission,
huge red stop sign in one hand and crescent wrench in the other
While we were duly impressed with his bravery,
I don't remember what he did with it

Fortunately, somewhere inside our quasi-delinquent brains
lurked enough common sense to distinguish
between youthful tomfoolery and true crime
We never even thought about stealing a car
but in retrospect I'm glad I never read
about Neal Cassady until much later in life

Forty-five years later
I sometimes walk around the house after dark,
pretending I'm someplace I shouldn't be
The memories of comrades-in-arms
executing precision raids
come flooding back and, for a brief moment,
I forget I'm an old man:
I am that fearless young marauder
thumbing his nose at rules,
living dangerously, taking risks
in the seductive midnight hours
when proper folks are asleep in bed

Even the sickly smell of watermelon
is a welcome tribute to a simpler time
when desperate friends rallied around a common cause
for no other reason than the thrill of adventure

What happened to our resolve?

Poem #5-2011

"Don't use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry."

So Kerouac said
Once again an explanation
from the past of the future
Which is now
Which is always

Electrical vibrations
evaporate forever
into that place
whence they came

But a poem!
A hand-penned
(or typed on a manual)
poem communicates
fully
intimately

Patiently

Poem #4-2011

A Poem for “Governor” Paul LePage
by Rick Dale and Crystal Bond

To our petulant pompously presumptuous postulant potentate
Who perniciously proposes Presidential perdition
Who prevented poetic participation in his political pomp
Whose predecessor now appears profusely polished
Who prattles about his plutocratic pursuits
Who prefers people press lips to his portly posterior
Who pines to poison preschoolers with plastic
Who perpetuates patriarchy
Who pilfers paintings to piss off the populace, then plays in paradise
Who proffers preferential privileges for the presently prosperous

Pardon my peevishness
But I pray and plead:
Promptly part from your political position
Please!

Poem #3-2011

What to say?
What to do?
How to make sense
of so much
at once?
Heartache swells.
Suffering shall
not subside
without a fight.
Please,
helplessness,
do not paralyze
us with your
icy grip.
The Buddhist monk
says, "Surrender."
I slay him
dead by his first teacher.
Onward.
To Wisconsin, Ohio, Libya,
and too many other places -
some known, many not.
More powerful than an
army's march said Hugo.
I hope that's true.

Poem #2-2011

In our culture
we hear
"He was thinking with the wrong head"
to explain a misguided dalliance

Men know that is a lie

In the warm shower -
even with the slippery advantage
of lavish suds -
there is no reaction
to the most knowing self-touch
unless the mind engages first

The penis is simply an emissary
awaiting instructions

Like most things
It starts and ends with the mind

Poem #1-2011

Who is to say?
Placeholder? Maybe.
Or perhaps it's a big
bony fist right up your ass
and you don't even know it

Right reverence
is owed.
Your snarky blathering
reveals all

When someone steps up,
and you do not,
sit back
and
shut the fuck up

There will be a next time