ANOTHER APRIL

d'Verse Poets Pub--Imaginary Garden With Real Toads


What is this "growing old gracefully" shit?
Does it mean that you will not bitch
about your aches and pains?
Does it mean you won't wince when
women call you Sir?
And does it mean that you will
no longer be able
to hop up on the table at the dance
and drop your pants?

And if you did 
would they all just snicker
instead of scream?

I like to think of grace
as maintaining my own pace.
Each day the road is filled with
cars
trucks
motor homes
and bulldozers
gunning past me like I'm standing still
just because I'm doing only
ten miles an hour over the speed limit. 
If any of them had been on 
The Hindenburg or
The Titanic
they'd have learned that you 
don't want to always be in 
such a frightful hurry 
to get where you're going to end up.

Another April has come and gone
and I'm in less of a tizzy
more inclined to listen to
music instead of news
rollin' down the road to my man
Jimmy Reed wailing the blues.

So I'll take some time
to take the long way home
and when I run out of pavement
I want the radio to be playing
that same sweet refrain
as I fade into the topaz twilight.

JIMMY REED HIGHWAY

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--d'Verse Poets Pub

Saturday night
and everybody gotta be somewhere
or thinks that they do

I'm okay bein' nowhere

but if I was gonna be somewhere
I'd be rollin' down that Jimmy Reed Highway
take out some insurance
an' let 'er rip

the spirit moves
when you've nothing to lose
barreling full throttle ahead
ignoring all the warning signs
til you crash and burn
that's a tough way to go out
but a helluva ride

when the last person who remembers you dies
so do you
some romantic bullshit maybe
as Brando would say
I'm committing slow suicide
but it's better than the alternative

and the world is screaming
NO NO
we can't be lost 

And Hitler is still waiting
outside the gates of Hell
twiddling his thumbs
they've tightened up their immigration policy
as in some other places

I've played host to The Devil incarnate
masquerading in female form
his favorite disguise
according to Elvis
and my own observation

but love was easy when it was
like a jackhammer penetrating your indifference
like a lumberjack chipping away at your resistance
like a finger on your trigger
like a ditch digging its digger
like Humpty Dumpty humping all the king's horses
like the Queen Mum humping all the king's men
like a congressman with a coke bottle up his ass
like it's so damn funny I forgot to laugh

ah, but those good times
they don't last
and you're just a momentary blip
on the radar screen of existence
headed for that crash landing

no survivors