Rest Then

This is a repeat from last year. Because it is the last day of the month, the last day of the poetry challenge; because I worked a 9 hour day and am fending off an evil bacteria that seems to be attacking my sinuses; because it is a Saturday night and I must give up the ghost and head for the hay; because my poetry nickel is spent...I present a poem some missed in last year's posting. Thanks for reading.



Rest Then

Your hands with all their sadness,
Cradled in your lap,
Have long toiled honestly your entire life;
It’s time to rest then.

You pushed with mighty strength,
Expelled from your body
An entire human being with an uncontrolled destiny;
So you can rest then.

Your legs pumped with relentless vigor,
Drawn from unknown depths
And the victory is yours now;
You can rest then.

Your heart sang like the thrush,
A sacred melody of love until your very bones
Ached with joy;
It’s your turn to rest then.

You fought the unknown enemy
In darkness seared with only blinding light.
Weariness takes you in its arms
And you can rest then.

You gave,
And found the resources to give more.
You never relented and encouraged others to go on
Take time to rest then.

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The Headlines

Today is the second to the last day of the PAD challenge. Thank you to everyone who has read my poems this month. I’ll be posting again in July for the River of Stones (very short poems that reflect the doings of the day.)

April 29, 2011

Write a poem using today’s headlines as a prompt.


Butterflies passed through Alabama yesterday
Elsewhere wedding veils were being prepared
And subjects slept on pavement
With beds left cold
The sun rose in the morning
A tornado with two minutes warning
Left wings shred
And a prince was wed
More people died
In faraway Iran
Football fans booed
Crowds listened to Ryan’s plan
Someplace the weather was good.
Some babies struggle to survive
While one proves birth in doubt
Astronauts don colorful suits
Prepare for a blast
A blind sea lion seeks residence
Two convictions rest on evidence
Rape victims request peace at last.

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Espérame

Today's prompt is to write a poem while pretending to translate from another language. Since I have the choice whether to follow the prompt or post a different creation of my own, I have chosen to give you Espérame, a poem actually written in a different language. I won't pretend I have perfect Spanish skills either.


Espérame
Ti, la magica en mi selva
Ti, las mensajes en los nubes
Ti, los cuchicheos en el viento
Ti, el dulce en el beso
Espérame
Ti, la promesa en mis sueños
Ti, mis canciones en la noche
Ti, la risa en la lluvia, la risa grande, la risa pequeña
Espérame, espérame
Ti, la fuerza en mi mar
Ti, el champaña en mi cabeza
Ti, la miel en mi luna
Ti, el amor que se queda en mi alma
Ti, ti, ti…
Espérame….

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NO

Write a poem using your least favorite word.











No.
No, you can’t.
No, that’s not possible.
No. That’s just not the way it is.
No. We are closed.
No. I don’t have the money.
No. You can’t win.
No parking.
No talking.
No shoes, no shirt, no service.
No, you’re too late.
No…you’re too early.
No, there’s not enough.
No, you can’t go.
No, you can’t stay.
No. You can’t come.
No. You must go.
No dogs allowed.
No children allowed.
No smoking.
No, it’s too short.
No…it’s not short enough.
No. You can’t have it.
No show.
No mercy.
No, it’s not yours.
No, it’s mine.
No way out.
No dice.
No shit.
No, it’s too dark.
No. It’s not dark enough.
No noise.
No doubt.
No excuses.
No girls.
No boys.
No reservations.
No wind.
No rain.
No…you’re wrong.
No. It’s not right.
No, that’s incorrect.
No, you must be mistaken.
No, that’s your perception.
No, I don’t see it that way.
No one.
No nonsense.
No, it’s done.
No. It’s not finished.
No.
No. No. No.
No.

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January 26, 2011

I was supposed to use spam from my junk mail to write a poem today but I don’t have any…(“greetings of said porphyry unicorn proposal” from “Honor Hornwoofter” was part of the suggestion.)
Instead I decided to go back to exactly three months ago and a stone that I wrote on that day, which never got in to the River of Stones (knowing how way leads on to way...) I started to turn it into a longer poem and then realized que es como es. (It is what it is.)


Jan 26

It was a bus ride
Through clouds of dust
You
Out of nowhere


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Riddle Poem

The prompt for Monday April 25 is to write a Riddle Poem. Let me know if you can figure out what the answer is. Thanks for reading.








I love you, I love you
I hate you in the morning
You love me, you love me
But never give warning when
It’s a kick, it’s a kiss
It’s a kiss, it’s a kick
And the ride, and the danger
The thrill, the contentment
The rose and the thorn
The pain and resentment
You arrive with a pop
And leave with a thud
You twist my words
You mess with my blood
Sometimes you’re a brut
At times I’m a lady
Sometimes we’re in love
Other times we’re just lazy.
The law can get after you
Your alias betrays you
Illegal or lawful
You make me crazy


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Easter's Posting

Easter Sunday, the challenge is to write an autobiographical poem.






With my belly full of restless child
I paid the closest attention to
Rose as she held my hands, palms
up, gazed from my face to the lines and creases
and back again.
Spoke of visions of cowboys and sailors,
called my life a circus in three rings and said
“you rely on your children too much.”
She later, when asked, corrected this wording to say
“dote. devote. give. too. much.”
I was 26 then
and weeks later would birth my first planned child
one of the only things I planned in my life.
How could this little gypsy lady,
wizened, wrinkled, rasping,
have known?
and I would discount one and then another;
end up here in some other springtime
still full of wonder.
Still surprised.

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Bouts-rimes Sonnet

Today’s prompt is to write a bouts-rimes. The bouts-rimes is a sort of poetic parlor game: you write a poem using the rhyming end words from another poem. They’re usually done with sonnets in English. So today I challenge you to write a bouts-rimes sonnet, using the end words from either K. Silem Mohammad’s poem You White White Teatime Teen, which was itself constructed anagrammatically from Shakespeare’s The Silken Tent. My end words are: rage, doom, age, tomb , sighs, breast, thighs, west, mad, blues, plaid, shoes, fail, mail



My skin betrays me in its apathetic rage
While I face my future with a sense of doom
I cannot deny although I detest my age,
I’ll hold beyond arm’s length the sight of tomb;
Though witness conceited youth with heaving sighs
And those I nurtured at now withered breast,
Weary sit with elbows propped on tired thighs;
Watch while autumn sun drops in the west.
Some think and perhaps are right that I am mad
But I think suffer from a simple case of blues;
Cast away all things laced, buttoned and plaid,
Shuffle to meet you in my orthopedic shoes.
Make one thing clear, Ponce de Leon must not fail
To send me drops of elixir in the mail.

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Double Dactyl

The double-dactyl is a short verse form invented by the American poets Anthony Hecht and John Hollander in 1966. The poem consists of one sentence containing forty-four syllables that are distributed over eight lines and fall into two four-line stanzas. The first three lines of each stanza are dactylic dimeter; the last one is a choriamb. The two stanzas end with a masculine rhyme on the last syllable of the choriamb. The final feature of the form is found in line six of the poem: a single, six-syllable word which is a double-dactyl. Most start with Hiddledy-Piggledy, but there are some variations.

Higgledy-Piggledy
The arrogant Donald
Threw his hat in the
Political briar
Be aware that Trump
Egomaniacal
Has tossed hairline into
The line of fire.
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My Cento

This was a lot harder than I thought it would be and took me more than a day, so now I’m behind, when I thought I’d just caught up.
The prompt was a Cento, which is a poem composed entirely of lines from other poems. Danielle Pafunda tweeted the lines all day yesterday. The poem doesn’t need to be long and there is a grand prize for contestants at Academy of American Poets. I’ll let you know if I won! (Don’t anybody hold their breath. The competition will be stiff.)


My Cento


Someone stands and weeps in the glass telephone theater.
I’m drunk.
I stand on the porch in my bathrobe,
Implicit with stars in active orbit;
Let silence drill its hole.
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A Ghazal to Love

Write a Ghazal (an ancient poetry form from Persia)
Five to fifteen couplets; first couplet ends with same word, both lines; 2nd line of succeeding lines include word; include author’s name or veiled reference in the last couplet. Ghazals are traditionally passionate and erotic.






I suppose to me, you would speak of things like burning embers of love.
And I have heard you in stark moonlight sing; you sing of love.

Made for black corners and churches and empty streets and hidden cafés and lagoons
Where things are dark as pitch and no one knows our love.

You. Plunge amongst broad, dense, dripping jungle growth and leave me standing alone,
To return with armfuls of bountiful fruits, a declaration of your love.

Your sweet fingers touched my lips and I kissed your hands before you used them to wave farewell
Standing in the road, looking back where I peered through secret veils; you sang to the world, of our love.

What was truthfully being said, sung, trilled, whistled, warbled, hummed?
Did it matter anymore? This thing called love?

The ocean roared like a charging animal and deafened us and jumbled our perceptions
As we strained to understand the gibberish of what we claimed were words of love.

How long do we pay the wages of sin? The perils of a journey of passion,
Our flight to elevated stations where we interpreted our declared love.

Sing the song of memory that whispers and bellows Jodyne to the heavens, to the clouds,
To the sun and the moon, in dark or light, day and night, of whom you love.


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What Was That I Heard?

Today’s challenge is to write a poem inspired by something you’ve overheard.








It was her perception
But I can tell you it was a lie
This is what I think you thought you heard
She perceived one thing and you the other
And in the middle lies the truth
Lies the truth, you say?
Indeed, her truth lies.
Perhaps you didn’t hear what you thought I said.
But I did hear quite well…
You said what you perceived she thought
Or was it what she thought you perceived you said?

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BLUE

The bright Ferris wheel glinting
Against the blue, blue sky
And you caught my eye
Coming at us in your blue bibby overalls
And though I’m happy for your company
It always makes me a little blue
I s’pose it does the same to you


The prompt was to write an incantatory color poem. I worked with this one in my head all day but what I really did was go see Joyce Carol Oates this evening so my day was a little shorter than usual. What a thrill to listen to her talk.

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Everett Ruess

The prompt for today is to write a portrait poem. I’ve posted Everett Ruess for the third year. The Ruess family accepted the DNA results proving the remains thought to be Everett were in fact another body but for some time it was exciting to think Everett had been found. The search continues.


Everett Ruess


Everett Ruess was found last year;
Seventy-five years after he went
Missing.
It has been concluded that
Everett found death
(Not at all what he was looking for)
At the hands of youthful Utes,
Whose luck would be to find
A white man and two mules
In the high desert, traveling with no other company but
Lofty ideals.
Everett was
Seeking gentleness,
Detaching himself from
An absolutely perfect life
(Or so some might think).
Everett wanted simply to be immersed in beauty
(Or so he said).
Everett Ruess lay dead,
At the age of twenty,
Buried by a stranger.
His saddle settled on a ledge
Above his head
For seventy-five years;
Killed for
Having gone too far alone.



Ruess was raised in Los Angeles and moved to San Francisco during the Depression. He tried to make a living with his art — cutting wood block prints and writing poetry. But even as artists like Ansel Adams and Maynard Dixon reached out to him, Ruess turned his back on city life. It drained him and left him uninspired causing him to ride off alone into the Utah wilderness, never to return.
"The beauty of this country is becoming a part of me," he once wrote in a letter, while on a trek. "I feel more detached from life and somehow gentler. I have good friends here, but no one understands why I am here and what I do. I've gone too far alone."

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Recombination

The prompt is to "do an erasure or, if you like, recombination. In this case using a paragraph from Annie Dillard’s book, The Writing Life."


Recombination

“I pulled down the curtains. When I leaned over the typewriter, sparks burnt round holes in my shirt, and fire singed a sleeve. I dragged the rug away from the sparks. In the kitchen I filled a bucket with water and returned to the erupting typewriter. The typewriter did not seem to be flying apart, only erupting. On my face and hands I felt the heat from the caldera. The yellow fire made a fast, roaring noise. The typewriter itself made rumbling, grinding noise; the table pitched. Nothing seemed to require my bucket of water. The table surface was ruined, of course, but not aflame. After twenty minutes or so, the eruption subsided.”

I took the concept and changed fire for ice, developing further the idea from yesterday’s prompt.


“I pulled down the curtains. When I leaned over the typewriter, icicles emerged from my armpits, cascading down my sleeves, my fingers dripping onto the keys. I dragged the cat away from the flood. In the bathroom I found gauze and to wrap around my blisters and fend off the frostbite. I returned to the frozen typewriter. The typewriter did not seem to be flying apart, only erupting in splinters and shards of ice. On my face and hands I felt the chill from the iceberg, so intense, as if to burn. It made a fast, roaring noise. The typewriter itself made rumbling, grinding noises; the table pitched. Nothing seemed to require the gauze; no blisters appeared, my skin remained the color of normal flesh. The table surface was ruined, of course, but the water on the floor subsided and completely disappeared. The cat slept. After twenty minutes or so, the eruption subsided.”

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Summer

The prompt, to summarize: write a poem in the form of a complaint about something that is good





Summer

Not a season but a pastime.
Your father thinks it is a verb;
And for me, someone who
Personally defines wait
In a separate classification,
The time will be perceived
In a different way
And end on a different day...

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A Sonnet for Cristina

The prompt for today is "write a sonnet" and I have used this photo with permission from my friend, Cristina, who is currently living in Rio de Janeiro. The richness of this image could have inspired a lot of different emotions but Romeo got stuck in my damn head and wouldn't go away. This is where we ended up. I hope you like it, Cristina.

A Sonnet for Cristina

Where are you, Romeo? Answer your damn phone!
My amigas told me to not take a chance,
Warned me I’d find myself dressed up and all alone
Waiting for some handsome body to take me to the dance.

Still, I made a plan to wear this dress, all pink and peach,
Scent behind my ears, shine on my fingers and toes,
Sparkles all over and new blush on my cheeks,
My hair tied up in rows and rows of satin bows.

I’m a beautiful woman and you’re just another guy
Lucky to have the likes of me decorate your arm.
I won’t even bother when I see you to ask why;
Won’t fall for your lies and irresistible charm.

I’m hanging up forever on you, boring Romeo…
Where’s that other boy’s number? I’m calling Alfonso!

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Hale Bopp

Write a Five Minute Poem. Use a timer.
Of the suggestions, I used “comet.”
(This was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I want to go back and edit but can't do that until May!) lol



Hale Bopp

Remember the night
We sat on the long ragged terrace
Stared out at the darkening sky
Your wife
My husband
There we were waiting for Hale Bopp
What happens when comets appear?

As it emerged in the blackness
We spoke of awesome things

And counted stars…


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Class Photo

Spend a few moments examining an old photograph—a found image, a photo from childhood, an iconic shot from history—and give it a title. Then put the photo aside and write a poem using this title.






Class Photo

How I came to be in the middle of the front row I’m not sure
Of Second Grade on a sunny day,
Which must have been a Tuesday
Because there,
see all those Brownies?
Carl Johannsen isn’t in the picture because he spent
that year
in a wheelchair, with polio.
Carl turned up years later in the same Mexican town
I lived in
But I never saw him there and only heard about his troubles with the law.
Two little Indian boys were just like me, my daddy told me;
They came from different tribes and
my skin was lighter
because of my Danish mama.
Miss Eaton was a homely old maid, who was mean and unhappy and
Like others of her ilk, lived a lonely and misled life.
The year after that was when Bobby Morgan would
poke me in the arm with a ballpoint,
leaving a tattoo that remains to this day. In this photo
he smirks at the camera, as if he was planning that deed.
David Thorsett killed himself when he was fifteen…
He couldn’t live with the shame of liking boys better than girls.
When we were in the Second Grade we
didn’t know it was odd when we both wanted to dress in
my mama’s old dresses,
paint lipstick
and
wear lacy hats.
David got me into trouble for saying the
ef word
when we were nine, but we had no idea what it meant
or that it was bad.
Susan was the tallest girl. She lived her life
fully, played a game
I didn’t understand
called Tennis and was able to get by without committing suicide.
The other Sue was the Teacher’s Pet. I hope she’s happy now.
I wonder where some of these little children are
now
but mostly, I don’t really care. I’m glad
the nerds in that class grew up
to make a lot of money and get impressive degrees.

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We Didn't Listen

Prompt for today was to write a one sentence poem of at least 40 lines. Not my favorite kind of prompt but this is a story I've had in my head for awhile and it's a start for getting it written down.





Our daddy told us we didn’t listen
well and I suppose he
was right because he
said to
stay away from
that hen house
but
Johnny Lynn
had a plan
and
we were sure convinced he would not
lead us astray and get
us into any kind
of trouble,
especially
when we had Little
Lissy with us,
who was just a baby compared
to us
older ones, and when we
jumped from
rooftop
to
rooftop
and old Mrs.
Baum called
the cops to tell them what she could see from her kitchen window,
we never realized
what was coming until daddy
stood there
with the officers of
the law,
red lights flashing
through the
trees and a
siren that went
whoop,
whoop
just before they let us go and told us we were too young for a life of crime
and that was the worst case of hiccups
I had ever had,
not to mention
the burn on my memory
that left me
with little
taste for eggs
for ever more.


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Not Just Another Sunday

On this day I would have called my mom and talked about her mother being gone 45 years. My grandmother died on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1966; a day etched in my memory. My mom’s not departed even a year yet. Sometimes it’s like she’s been gone so long but then there’s moments I feel she’s only a phone call away. What a rude awakening in that snap of an instant to realize I’m dreaming. Again. These are times we all go through, who have lost loved ones.
There are birds nesting outside my living room window. Their young ones have arrived and no one would have delighted in this more than my parents, whose property on the island had birdhouses staked and hung, along with hummingbird feeders dripping sugar water. Dad would refill these every morning and when Mom moved to the mainland years after his death, she brought as many of these bird abodes and feeders as she had room for.
Springtime was my mother’s time. She was born in May, as were her sister and a brother and up until last year, Mom delivered flower baskets on May Day. How she ever found time to get everything done will always amaze me. Both Mom and Grandma were brave, beautiful women, took pride in their appearance, brilliant cooks, sharp dressers, willing adventuresses, green thumbs, pioneers, adept seamstresses, clever wordsmiths and lovers of music. I’m so pleased to be their descendent and have wonderful, loving memories.

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Tonight I Can Not Write

This is a repeat of a poem I wrote April 16, 2009. "Find or think of a poem you admire, and write a poem that is a “mirror-image” of it." Although I am not a fan of plagiarizing, this is a fun exercise and if gives me a chance to pay homage to Neruda, one of my favorite poets.


Tonight I Can Not Write

Tonight I can not write what I need to say to you. The words won’t come.

I can not tell you how the sound of the wind clattering in the palms shivers my heart. I can not recall being with you in the sand, under the moon, by the sea.

Tonight and tomorrow I can not write nor can I sing the love songs we sang together secretly – so only we could hear.

Tonight I can not write how your hands wrapped around my soul and your fingers tapped the code of my heart. It is dark now. My heart is dark.

I do not miss you, nor do I yearn for you. I never think of you. My mind is clear. Open.

Tonight I can not write and plead with you in my quiet way to forget me. Forget me. As I have forgotten you.

The music drifts down my street and the notes are the same that never rouse my memory of things that no longer matter.

Tonight I can not write that your face to me is a clear and empty sphere. I do not see you. Nor do I dream of you.

I have forgotten you. Your eyes. Your voice, your touch. I no longer remember you.


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Backwards, Indeed

Today's prompt is to write a poem backwards and use an adage at the beginning (end.) I can't think of a better time to see things backwards.








I hear the cheering in the coliseum
Slavery, by a different name, makes a comeback.
Sesquicentennial of Civil War?
But a wide breach as in a roiling ocean
Soon there will be little middle ground
Nor who even knows how to analyze the message
I can’t figure out who cares anymore
And spinning out of control
With no word from the people
Two houses both alike in lack of dignity
Since when does drama get a deadline?
So get along little dogies
A rolling stone gathers no moss


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MARY BLUEPOCKET

This is by far the hardest poem I've written in awhile. The prompt was to write a nursery rhyme.










Mary Bluepocket went to town
In her mother’s wedding gown
She wore her shoes and a rosebud frown
Poor Mary Bluepocket

Mary was wed on Saturday
Stewart Snail gave her away
She honeymooned on Friday Bay
Poor Mary Bluepocket

Lester Lizard, Mary’s mister
Died of joy when he kissed her
She’s gone to live with her sister
Poor Mary Bluepocket

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CHRISTINA

This, my friends, is a prompt:






Today’s prompt is a bit of a smorgasbord, and reflects the fact that we are at day seven. It asks you to write a poem with seven different phrases, ideas, or just plain old “things” in it. These are:
1)an example of synasthetic metaphor — one that describes one sensory perception using adjectives more naturally suited to a different sense (e.g., “a red noise,” or a “a bitter touch”)
2) a fruit
3) the name (first or last) of someone you knew in school
4) a rhetorical question
5) a direct address to the poem’s audience — “Reader” or “mom” or “Michelle,” or maybe just “You”)
6) a word in a foreign language
7) a reference to a game of chance (darts or pool or the lottery or etc).

My attempt:

CHRISTINA

You wanted to take back your black words
I could tell by how you spun your bike around
And let the others go ahead.
“Are you stupid?”
Your anger was almost lost amongst the apple crates that lined our dusty path.
You took a risk confronting me;
The one they called Monica, the Mountain.
The volume of your voice wasn’t meant for me, but them.
I realized this and
I was stunned.
“Don’t listen to their chisme,” you growled,
Your tongue thick with a mixture of fear and audacity.
I loved you then.

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ANYWAY

Today’s prompt is one of musical ekphrasis. Ekphrastic poetry comments upon or is inspired by another work of art in a different medium. Most people think of it as a poem inspired by a painting or a sculpture. But it could also be music! To that end, I offer you three possible songs to inspire a poem: Ann Peebles’ I Can’t Stand the Rain, Joe Cocker’s cover of The Letter, and Lady Gaga’s countrified version of Born This Way.

THE EMBED IS NOT AVAILABLE BUT YOU CAN WATCH THE VIDEO BY COPYING AND PASTING THIS...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RnjWLVyMps

ANYWAY

It turned out the train was faster than we thought
We had the notion that we would live forever
When in reality, our time was equal to those we rebelled against
And those we embraced, emulated, and often eulogize.
Some disappeared into the labyrinth of life
While others shone like stars
And we wrestle yet
With how to summon peace.

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Sight Unseen

This morning I made the decision to switch from Robert Brewer's PAD to NaPoWriMo. This is my fourth year doing April Poetry Challenge and I truly believe it has been highly influential to my growth as a writer. Please enjoy my first entry to NaPoWriMo. The prompt was to write an OXYMORON and with the combination of hearing Birdnote this morning, I present to you The Robin aka Sight Unseen










Sight Unseen




The robin mistakes my kitchen window for a certain path
All but breaking her neck
Slams into glass,
Not a perfect landing
Nor an ideal flight
What she knows
Is some other robin
Identical to her
(But in fact her own reflection)
Attacked and left her for dead
And so she is committed to
Return again
And again
To challenge this other bird
The same image
(But in fact her own reflection)
A continual duel
In my kitchen garden


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THE LEADER

Soon after I read the prompt this morning, I listened to an interview with a Libyan citizen, lamenting on the fear that Gaddafi continues to slaughter and shows no sign of stepping down. He said “thousands of people are missing and no one knows where they are.” I wanted to write a poem about a singer, or a fisherman, or a cowboy but those words stuck in my mind and I realized this was the "type of person” I was meant to write about.






THE LEADER

“Thousands of people are missing
And no one knows where they are”
If you’re looking for a loved one
Ask the man with a face like a scar

Common life has little meaning
To the man with the large golden ring
Whose interest is focused on massacre
Not on peace that his exit could bring

A ragtag uprising of people
Who want to live life without fear
Mean to take down the leader
Who repeats “I am here. I am here.”

Humanitarian intervention
Is what they are calling assistance
To the fighters who aimed to take Tripoli
And learned the true meaning of resistance

The leader confuses himself with a peacock
His finery a mockery to those
Who go hungry and hide in their houses
It’s a death sentence to choose to oppose.

“Thousands of people are missing
And no one knows where they are”
Stand on your rooftop and cry to the sky
The leader knows where they are


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ERASED

The prompt is to imagine the world without you





ERASED

While your brain and body were being baked
Twelve days deprived of oxygen
I touched and caressed you
Avoiding tubes and monitors
While you erased me
Gone: the day we met, the day we married,
The babies I lost and carried
Parties with shamrocks, elves and hearts plastered on windows
The tree decorated with crowds of neighbors and friends
Football games and trips on our boat
The gifts we gave and poems we wrote
Your world changed as did mine
You forgot seventeen years
And went on without me
As if I never existed
But I remember you.

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Sorry I've Taken So Long to Write

Postcard Poem
This is the prompt: ...write a postcard poem. Make it brief and communicate what it is like where you are. Also, make it personal.

Sorry I've Taken So Long to Write

Sorry I’ve taken so long to write
I barely survived the horrible flight
Thank God for inventing Dramamine
And shots of Jack for in between

Glad you’re not here in paradise
Where I’m afraid of drinks with ice
The bugs are as big as Cadillac’s
I’ve a terrible sunburn on my back

There’s a war going on in a country near
I suppose it won’t be long ‘til it’s here
I’m sure I’ve been cheated several times
Why can’t they just use dollars and dimes?

The language is something I don’t read or speak
They may as well all be spouting Greek
Perhaps that’s the actual tongue they’re using
They seem to find my confusion amusing.

I hope you can read my miniscule scrawl
There’s not enough space on this card for it all
I’ll be home on Sunday at half past eight
Please pick me up and don’t be late!

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The Weather Report’s Been Amended

The Weather Report’s Been Amended

The weather report’s been amended
And it’s going to rain after all
Meaning a slight change of plans
Putting a different dollar amount on the day
I’ll turn on my heel,
Which will face me in the other direction
To go where the day takes me
Bring bus tokens and passports
Make reservations on the moon
What gets me there
Will bring me home again

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