Just These Three Items...

                      Feelin' like a million bucks...

Most days I sit around hoping three things:


1) My cat will not only reveal that it can talk, but is actually a hyper-intelligent alien come to Earth to guide me through life - and is also a very, very funny comedian.


2) A violent electrical storm will pass through Lakewood and a bolt of lightning will strike the bags of grass seed, fertilizer and weed killer stacked on the side of my house, resulting in a potent concoction that, once spread over the lawn, turns that patchy, brown & yellow mess into a lush and beautiful carpet of green that never fades, scares the hardiest weeds away, and requires absolutely zero maintenance.


3) King Soopers will see the sense in having a bachelor food aisle and save me the hassle of having to walk all over the damn store to pick up my essentials.

The Maniacs Attack

Historical and curtural entities replacing the vinegar
A multitude of smaller squeaky sock monkeys
Feasting on the chili-pepper based condiments
Left behind by the guy who got his throat slit

Checking on the temperature using cinnabar
Herbert Edwin and Billy Seward were talented junkies
Churning out that Kerouac stream of consciousness
At the Six Gallery reading in a tailored double knit

Innovative psychedelic assemblage of kitchenware
Words stirred together like a manifestation of Scorsese
Hedrick painted while the band played on autonomous
Dancing Christmas trees from beer cans and spit

Musicians of the world drinking from the cuspidor
Glazes of lemon, basalmic vinagrette with the cream cheese
Raised in poverty like Brautigan and all those alcoholics
Electroconvulsive siezures induced when he was deemed unfit

Wearing emotions instead of clothes for the inquisitor 
Too young to be a boomer and too old to be an X (like Kesey) 
Never believing in a creed or symbolics
Falling together like Meighan and Vacarro bit by bit

On Occasion Floating Above The Clouds

 
                                                             Got a huge crush on the world
                                                                                                Been flirting with it for years
             Want to spend every waking moment in it's glorious embrace
                                   Spring afternoons and Summer full moons
                                                                     Autumn leave gatherings and Winter mornings
                                         The limit on minutes in a day
                                                                   Makes it difficult for me to get my fill
                         Even sleeping I'm dreaming of walking through it's trees
     With rays of sunshine dancing through the branches
                                                         Cool breezes cascading across my face
                         Damp grass underneath my feet 
                                                               Makes everyday feel like a million Valentines
                                         From a million secret admirers
         It's just this big blue and green globe though
                                                     Nothing but a rock speeding through space
                         Never knowing how much it has me glowing 
                                                                 And no way for me to tell

Good Ol' Ollie Bergstrom

Gustavus never saw the grasses of Dawson wave

He never imagined all that energy wasted on a rain dance

His city was built to protect the sea traders

The ships of Keiller never knew the plains

The children lay beneath rusting wrought iron crosses

Their parents friends with an agent for the U.P.

Who came in advance to build sod houses for workers

Easy terms no down payment finance

Get them from Sweden with promises of freedom 

Promise them 160 and a plow

The railroad needed labor

And everyone needed a second chance

Make a fence of barbed wire, make a sculpture too

Robert Henri had to change how he signed his work

When his father shot Pearson in the pasture

But underneath the paint he was a Cozad

All of those Swedes

Settling along the 100th meridian

Left the Baltic coast behind
No longer beholden to the arms of Gastrikland 

The World Is A Beautiful Place, Now Shut Up And Enjoy It

You are not required to be a social person
You are not required to be happy


But why not?
Why not enjoy the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, the warm caress of the sun?
It's your life go live it.


Seventh Heaven, Paradise, the Garden of Eden
Yours for the making


Things, can and will be awesome
When you least expect it the sun will shine and flowers will blossom


There may come a time when you don't feel a consummate desire for the one you're with
And you'll want to move on
It'll be on you now to be the heartbreaker


That's just how it goes
You need to learn to let go...really let go



It happens you know, someone finds someone they perceive as better and dumps the other.
Everybody gets to feel embarrassed, gets to feel humiliated
That's just how it goes...learn to let it go.



Remember when you thought you were fat, ugly, stupid
And then discovered that you were none of those things


Can you remember when it felt like the worst of times
That cat curled up in your lap can't
And neither does the dog playing with that stick


There will be people you like who do not like you
And you will struggle to understand
Just let it go....really let it go


Get out there and find a karaoke bar
Sing
This is your life and it could be starting over every minute, day and night
You don't have to win every race to be a winner in this place
Living your life in fear is not living
Stop taking all that crap and start giving


Seven billion people on this rock but only one of you
Find a way to enjoy everything you do


Make the choices that you want to live with
Refuse to allow past issues or mistakes to define you
You can move past and beyond any and everything that is dragging you down


Free to live your life and be happy
Refuse to be miserable


It may cost you a few of your friends when you decide to be you but you'll never miss them


Try to be rational, try to be kind


Learn the truth about yourself.
What you really are, what you really like, what you really know
Learn to accept knowing the truth about yourself
Find others who comfortably accept the truth about yourself
There's no point in trying to force the people around you to accept the truth about yourself
Go out and find people that just simply are comfortable with that truth


It takes some serious brass to get to the point where you are truly who you are most comfortable being, and are truly living the life you actually want to live. Most people can't do it.


But you must, if you want to be happy.


So you've been wronged in the past, hey that's all part of the procees, accept it and move on.
So you've been wrong in the past, hey that's all part of the process, accept it and move on.


If you are not harming yourself, other people, or taking advantage of anyone
That truth will indeed set you free.


Do you need to be charming, funny and well dressed?
Do you need to be somebody you saw on TV or in a movie?


No, you don't. You need to be you.


Learn to let go...really let go.

The Other Side of Other Sides

                                             

Glazed and listening to the Happy Mondays
She swore the light had changed from red to green
He said the last thing he remembered was a blue Chevrolet
Then nothing but a loud noise like a broken washing machine


Her hands grabbed for the large bag of dope
That had been on the dash and was now flying through the air
He didn't remember the road being such a steep slope
There were little bits of glass mixed with the blood in his hair


Everyone was saying it could have been worse
Can't see a silver lining when your eyes are closed with bruises
An ambulance ride is a million times better than a ride in a hearse
Loads of bullshit about another door opens when one door closes


She rocked back and forth in the wheelchair as she stared
He ran his hand along the stub of an elbow where his left arm used to be
Hard to think they'd been lucky, hard to think they'd been spared
Hard to look at each other and believe they'd been shown mercy


Friday was supposed to be fun everybody was feeling great
Fifteen minutes on the road without a cop in sight
Making good time not a chance they'd be home late
There's nobody coming, screw that light

Cardboard For Dinner

                                   Along Colorado State Route 8 Near Meeker 2011


Can there be anything really, that has the generic taste of nothing
                                                                                      Plain yogurt (there is such a flavor) tastes like...plain?
     Critical of hippies, angry at the world, call yourself Jello
Make me hungry at the show
                                                                          Phone it in on Sunday night when the listenership is flagging
                   Aromatic molecules in the interstellar medium
Inhibited by the thymidylate synthase
                   The message you forgot to erase
                                                                          A vast empty space, well, empty except for all the sand
Doesn't require much in the way of floodplain management
The regatta was canceled when the boats failed to show
                                                                          They all got lost turning right at Gaudi's Cathedral
                      High-rise office parks now built as palaces
In the pine-barrens of New Jersey
                        Where gaudi is now a religion unto itself
                                                                           And the classics are all kept on the lowest shelf