PATRIOT ACT
There are thousands now
coming back from Iraq
one legged and deaf and blind
dragging the dead they left behind
Yet they speak so well
of those who sent them to that hell
That they are true patriots may be a fact
and this is how true patriots act
Or could article one thirty four be the reason
where one critical word and your pension is
gone plus five years in the brig for treason
UNCLE ERNEST
If Uncle Ernie
had not gone off to war before I was four
If he had not loved movies, or sat
in that seat in that theatre when on leave
Where the bomb came through the roof
and through the floor
and killed a few
and then blew up
and killed some more
He’d have been here handsome and bright
helping my father with the ranchers load
and telling stories to my delight
Marrying and making me
cousins in the night
DEATH OF A THERAPIST (FOR JOAN)
“God in his mercy lend her grace”
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Lady of Shalot
Even the camel
eater of straw
Cannot always reach
the one on his back
If we had been able to see
if she had been able to ask
Who would not have taken
a handful
to add to their lighter task
KENDRA
When the natives of this land
suffered a death such as this
they knew how to grieve
They felt it to the depths of their being
and cut deep into their arms and legs
that they might reach deeper
Today my great friends
I reach and bleed with you
Written for my cousin Kenny and his wife Betty on the tragic loss of their eighteen year old daughter
BUD McKAGUE
You can’t take it with you
they all say
And I believed it
till today
But that was gold
and crowns and
worldly glories
Bud beat those odds
he took his stories
(Bud, who knew and could tell more stories than anyone collapsed and died last year shortly after getting a standing ovation at Pincher Creek)
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Collateral damage
is the disease of the day
and the greatest cause of dyin
is just gettin in the way
Yes people are dyin who have no say
people all dyin just from gettin in the way
In Palestine it’s Arafat
that they’re all aiming at
And the bombers of Allah
want Sharon to be gone
Refugee camps and ice cream shops
the bombin and the dying just never stops
and nobody’s factions own up to their actions
so it’s all reactions to reactions to reactions
with all the weapons piled on one side
and the other side reduced to suicide
Bush wants Hussein
Hussein wants the bomb
And half a million children die
who can’t spell embargo and don’t know why
Carpet bombers killing in wave after wave
while Bin Laden sits still safe in his cave
more Afghanis dead than in both towers
doesn’t impress the press or the powers
Children in uniform may be innocent too
killed in you don’t join, what would you do
Big business and the army
have screwed the world brown
but they’re not the ones dying
when the towers go down
Yes collateral damage
is the disease of the day
and the greatest cause of dyin
is still just gettin in the way
The feds had weapons that gave off sparks
And now Waco is full of Joan of Arcs
A crime that leads to Oklahoma City
and day care there was far from pretty
Yes an epidemic is under way, and a lot of
little children with nothing to say
dyin of the disease of just
gettin in the way
TERRORISTS
The Eleventh of September
A day the world should long remember
Pillars of democracy brought to the ground
Innocent thousands dead all around
New York, New York, you say
I was still thinking of Chile
I was still thinking
of Nineteen Seventy Three
CHERNOBYL
Nature breaking free of science
floats its angry cloud to Red Square
Science in self defense – seeds the clouds
A gentle rain falls with the deadly ash
No one is harmed, if you don’t count
trees and peasants
THREE STRIKES
My sportswriter friend has Alzheimer’s now
and I wonder what happens
behind that bright brow
When we were kids, he was the guy
who knew each homer and pop fly
and every player’s RBI
Grew up to travel with the pros
what he didn’t know, why nobody knows
And now soggy brained he tromps
through sub sequitorial swamps
the mind once quick as cats
drowning among the stats
SEVEN YEARS
Lovers and true friends
are mirrors where we see
the better parts of you and me
Death
the mirror breaker
these reflections interrupt
And many there are who choose
to follow the sparkling shards
before the seven years is up