"She's the Prune in My Salad."
(a 'baby boomer's' ballad)
Our days start so sweet.
What could be as nice as
a big "Denny's" breakfast
--at low senior prices?
With wild abandon
we eat spuds, eggs, and bacon--
and, gulp cups of hot coffee
til wrinkled hands are shakin'.
We trowel butter on toast
and smother it with jellies.
Then waddle out smiling,
holding hands and our bellies.
It's golf this morning,
a 10:30 tee.
At the third green,
we've both got to pee.
In the lunch buffet
I'm writing this ballad.
I'm so moved that I call it:
"She's the prune in my salad."
A matinée movie,
with popcorn in my lap.
There's a tear in her eye.
I'm having a nap.
Our candlelight dinner,
my love's eyes are aglow.
But, we fumble for forks
cause our night vision's low.
We don't do pub crawls,
nor midnight creeping.
Heck, by 10:30,
we both are sleeping.
Nights snuggled together,
so blissfully pass--
a symphony of whistles,
snorts and gas.
I'm told it is
a universal truth:
We all will yearn
to recapture youth.
But I don't lament
my life fading into fall.
For these days with her,
are the best days of all.
SenescentSun
The World is Worse Without the Verse.
Ancestral fish came with a tide.
They brought a beat that’s deep inside.
We find that beat in poetry
With simple rhyme and simile.
Later Australopithecus
Began the march that became us.
As little hairy feet bent grass
Our birth beat’s borne us from the past.
Good bye in Anglo Saxon tongue
or fancy Gallic “au revoir”
to verse poet police have sung…
But I beseech you break their law.
Since verse began until right now
Upon pulpit, behind the plow
Our simple rhymes and similes
Are what we’ve loved for centuries.
The world within us has not changed
We like our verse neatly arranged.
But now they say you should reject
Our verse before it takes affect.
Ignore those snobs who tell themselves
The rhyme is past--best left on shelves.
Open those books; meet lines of measure
You’ll swim in seas of well-timed treasure.
Ambiguous bards with attitudes
Who think that smart, means closed and rude.
They’re just a pack of pompous twits
That Anglo Saxons called nit wits.
Who is it thinks their poems fun?
So few that do under our sun.
Yet still their wrath must students fear
Who write the rhymes that please the ear.
Like royalty aloof and smug
They’ve swept our rhymes under the rug.
But as they reign each of them knows
They’re kings and queens without their clothes?
Just batter down their barricade
And into verse begin to wade.
Don’t let these academic boors
Nail shut imagination’s doors.
Though what’s out there is in our mind
The beat is real and deep inside.
We’re each a world and worlds apart.
But in-our-verse we share one heart.
You’ll see sea shores; squeeze bar room belles,
Hear jungle drums; smell death row cells.
You’re lulled until you feel within.
The very pulse that they felt then.
Academies will some day say
The measured verse again’s okay.
And open minds will then allow
The poets blocked and black-balled now.
Like children playing with new toys,
The world will know the endless joys
Of measured, rhythmic, rhyming verse
That when without, our world was worse.
Rick Van Weelden
Simple Rhyme and Simile
“Had I but world enough and time,”
Attacks on rhyme would be no crime.
For years we all had so much fun
But now they say that rhyme’s all Donne.
I like a rhyme that lulls my mind.
And leads me down a lighter path,
Away from life—my fading light—
Where darkness looms to equal Plath.
I’m not a fellow who will bellow
About the hollow in his heart.
Nor drum the drama, “childhood trauma!”
The day I passed a classroom fart.
Illegal drugs or stranger’s hugs
Are not my cup of tea you see.
To take me from my life’s despair
It’s simple rhyme and simile.
“I dwell in possibility.”
That modern writers know the rules.
And imagism Does eclipse
The fun we had with rhyming tools.
But must all poet’s dancing feet
Be cast in gray and cold concrete?
In “January Morning’s” pool?
Must we toss every rhyming jewel?
Why fault the poet’s rhythmic rhyme
That gives some soul a happy time?
The best of “Guest” aids brains in pain,
And starts the “…stir…[of]...roots with…rain.”
Like butterflies brought with the breeze
and cliché rustling of the leaves.
There’s beauty in simplicity
like simple rhyme and simile.
Rick Van Weelden
Sleeping with the Alligator
A battery of sweat missiles mottle the bed or
Burst upon her bare strawberry jam back.
Streams stagger down creek beds of white skin.
With clogged pores leave a film of fear and dirt.
The dreaming alligator, rolls, twirls, and whirls.
He tries to tear a piece of flesh from his past.
Palms out, fish belly arms and claws frame eyes,
Eyes shut tight that trap him inside himself.
Teeth gnash; the sheet flashes, splashes in the air,
Then pours over the bed and drapes their dreams
With a now still, yet still rumpled, Rippled surface
they can never seem to smooth over.
Rick Van Weelden
(a 'baby boomer's' ballad)
Our days start so sweet.
What could be as nice as
a big "Denny's" breakfast
--at low senior prices?
With wild abandon
we eat spuds, eggs, and bacon--
and, gulp cups of hot coffee
til wrinkled hands are shakin'.
We trowel butter on toast
and smother it with jellies.
Then waddle out smiling,
holding hands and our bellies.
It's golf this morning,
a 10:30 tee.
At the third green,
we've both got to pee.
In the lunch buffet
I'm writing this ballad.
I'm so moved that I call it:
"She's the prune in my salad."
A matinée movie,
with popcorn in my lap.
There's a tear in her eye.
I'm having a nap.
Our candlelight dinner,
my love's eyes are aglow.
But, we fumble for forks
cause our night vision's low.
We don't do pub crawls,
nor midnight creeping.
Heck, by 10:30,
we both are sleeping.
Nights snuggled together,
so blissfully pass--
a symphony of whistles,
snorts and gas.
I'm told it is
a universal truth:
We all will yearn
to recapture youth.
But I don't lament
my life fading into fall.
For these days with her,
are the best days of all.
SenescentSun
The World is Worse Without the Verse.
Ancestral fish came with a tide.
They brought a beat that’s deep inside.
We find that beat in poetry
With simple rhyme and simile.
Later Australopithecus
Began the march that became us.
As little hairy feet bent grass
Our birth beat’s borne us from the past.
Good bye in Anglo Saxon tongue
or fancy Gallic “au revoir”
to verse poet police have sung…
But I beseech you break their law.
Since verse began until right now
Upon pulpit, behind the plow
Our simple rhymes and similes
Are what we’ve loved for centuries.
The world within us has not changed
We like our verse neatly arranged.
But now they say you should reject
Our verse before it takes affect.
Ignore those snobs who tell themselves
The rhyme is past--best left on shelves.
Open those books; meet lines of measure
You’ll swim in seas of well-timed treasure.
Ambiguous bards with attitudes
Who think that smart, means closed and rude.
They’re just a pack of pompous twits
That Anglo Saxons called nit wits.
Who is it thinks their poems fun?
So few that do under our sun.
Yet still their wrath must students fear
Who write the rhymes that please the ear.
Like royalty aloof and smug
They’ve swept our rhymes under the rug.
But as they reign each of them knows
They’re kings and queens without their clothes?
Just batter down their barricade
And into verse begin to wade.
Don’t let these academic boors
Nail shut imagination’s doors.
Though what’s out there is in our mind
The beat is real and deep inside.
We’re each a world and worlds apart.
But in-our-verse we share one heart.
You’ll see sea shores; squeeze bar room belles,
Hear jungle drums; smell death row cells.
You’re lulled until you feel within.
The very pulse that they felt then.
Academies will some day say
The measured verse again’s okay.
And open minds will then allow
The poets blocked and black-balled now.
Like children playing with new toys,
The world will know the endless joys
Of measured, rhythmic, rhyming verse
That when without, our world was worse.
Rick Van Weelden
Simple Rhyme and Simile
“Had I but world enough and time,”
Attacks on rhyme would be no crime.
For years we all had so much fun
But now they say that rhyme’s all Donne.
I like a rhyme that lulls my mind.
And leads me down a lighter path,
Away from life—my fading light—
Where darkness looms to equal Plath.
I’m not a fellow who will bellow
About the hollow in his heart.
Nor drum the drama, “childhood trauma!”
The day I passed a classroom fart.
Illegal drugs or stranger’s hugs
Are not my cup of tea you see.
To take me from my life’s despair
It’s simple rhyme and simile.
“I dwell in possibility.”
That modern writers know the rules.
And imagism Does eclipse
The fun we had with rhyming tools.
But must all poet’s dancing feet
Be cast in gray and cold concrete?
In “January Morning’s” pool?
Must we toss every rhyming jewel?
Why fault the poet’s rhythmic rhyme
That gives some soul a happy time?
The best of “Guest” aids brains in pain,
And starts the “…stir…[of]...roots with…rain.”
Like butterflies brought with the breeze
and cliché rustling of the leaves.
There’s beauty in simplicity
like simple rhyme and simile.
Rick Van Weelden
Sleeping with the Alligator
A battery of sweat missiles mottle the bed or
Burst upon her bare strawberry jam back.
Streams stagger down creek beds of white skin.
With clogged pores leave a film of fear and dirt.
The dreaming alligator, rolls, twirls, and whirls.
He tries to tear a piece of flesh from his past.
Palms out, fish belly arms and claws frame eyes,
Eyes shut tight that trap him inside himself.
Teeth gnash; the sheet flashes, splashes in the air,
Then pours over the bed and drapes their dreams
With a now still, yet still rumpled, Rippled surface
they can never seem to smooth over.
Rick Van Weelden
To The Men Of England To The People of Wisconsin
Men of England, wherefore plough I ask you but to look around
For the lords who lay ye low? And see how liars have you bound.
Wherefore weave with toil and care Republican and democrat
The rich robes your tyrants wear? It’s off our backs they each grow fat.
Wherefore feed and clothe and save, You send them east to do what’s fair
From the cradle to the grave, But soon you see they just don’t care.
Those ungrateful drones who would They have their heels upon your throat
Drain your sweat -- nay, drink your blood? And gorge their selves until they bloat.
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge They sold us out to interest groups
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, They even sacrificed our troops.
That these stingless drones may spoil But now we know their claim of “fix.”
The forced produce of your toil? Was just more corrupt politics.
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, They send our jobs to Mexico
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm? And when we stand to tell them no.
Or what is it ye buy so dear They scream “your racists” in our face
With your pain and with Because they need a power base.
The seed ye sow another reaps; And while we lose all we worked for
T
The wealth ye find another keeps; While employers show us the door
The robes ye weave another wears; These corporations that we served
The arms ye forge another bears. Tell us we got what we deserved.
Sow seed, -- but let no tyrant reap; They squander taxes that we paid
Find wealth, -- let no imposter heap; invest abroad fortunes they’ve made.
Weave robes, -- let not the idle wear; And in the failing schools they run
Forge arms, in your defence to bear. Our kids are told it’s what we’ve done
Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; They monger racial fear and strife
In halls ye deck another dwells. And separate each man and wife.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see And from their tower they will say
The steel ye tempered glance on ye. What ever keeps our wrath at bay.
.
With plough and spade and hoe and loom, It’s time that we, the middle classes.
Trace your grave, and build your tomb, Roll up our sleeves; take off our glasses
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair Wisconsin now has come the hour
England be your sepulchre! To throw these liars off the tower.
Percy Bysshe Shelley Spirit of Shelley
Men of England, wherefore plough I ask you but to look around
For the lords who lay ye low? And see how liars have you bound.
Wherefore weave with toil and care Republican and democrat
The rich robes your tyrants wear? It’s off our backs they each grow fat.
Wherefore feed and clothe and save, You send them east to do what’s fair
From the cradle to the grave, But soon you see they just don’t care.
Those ungrateful drones who would They have their heels upon your throat
Drain your sweat -- nay, drink your blood? And gorge their selves until they bloat.
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge They sold us out to interest groups
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, They even sacrificed our troops.
That these stingless drones may spoil But now we know their claim of “fix.”
The forced produce of your toil? Was just more corrupt politics.
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, They send our jobs to Mexico
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm? And when we stand to tell them no.
Or what is it ye buy so dear They scream “your racists” in our face
With your pain and with Because they need a power base.
The seed ye sow another reaps; And while we lose all we worked for
T
The wealth ye find another keeps; While employers show us the door
The robes ye weave another wears; These corporations that we served
The arms ye forge another bears. Tell us we got what we deserved.
Sow seed, -- but let no tyrant reap; They squander taxes that we paid
Find wealth, -- let no imposter heap; invest abroad fortunes they’ve made.
Weave robes, -- let not the idle wear; And in the failing schools they run
Forge arms, in your defence to bear. Our kids are told it’s what we’ve done
Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; They monger racial fear and strife
In halls ye deck another dwells. And separate each man and wife.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see And from their tower they will say
The steel ye tempered glance on ye. What ever keeps our wrath at bay.
.
With plough and spade and hoe and loom, It’s time that we, the middle classes.
Trace your grave, and build your tomb, Roll up our sleeves; take off our glasses
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair Wisconsin now has come the hour
England be your sepulchre! To throw these liars off the tower.
Percy Bysshe Shelley Spirit of Shelley