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It Goes Without Saying

What we have is so fantastic

All we really need is branding
As to what was said or promised
There was some misunderstanding

Well, you may have thought you heard it

And you might think that you read it
But allow me to assure you
I never ever said it

And if somebody here wrote it

Then we all told him to spike it
I never ever spoke it
Or any sentence like it

I’ve a ready gift for language

And sometimes get rather glib
But I never made a promise
Or at worst, it’s just a fib

What I tell you in the future
You can certify and bond it
As to what I said beforehand
I suggest you get beyond it

There are some of you who get it

As I always knew you would
We use any means we have to
To achieve a greater good

And the message that’s essential

Deep in every word I’ve spoken
In the making of an omelet
There are eggs that must be broken

So from here on, no more surprises

Since I promise and decree it
Now that sort of should assure you
And I kind of guarantee it.

In the Aftermath

We need more men like them

We need more women too
Who in a time of crisis
Do what we all should do
I listen to the host
And think it can’t be true
The people that we lost
Were people that we knew

The man who taught at church

Or shoveled out your walk
The lady at the corner
Who just loved to stop and talk

That woman from IT

Who also did some clerk-ing
The guy who really loved his work
And never did stop working

I only want a hint

Or peek into The Plan
Oh, why is it so hard to be
A Boston Bruins fan?

The crimes against our friends

Are numerous and mounting
Where will we find another soul
So good at bluebird counting

And thinking of his children

I don’t think I can take it
It’s like I got the phone call
Saying, “Marty didn’t make it.”

And then our teacher Mike

Why did he have to die
Remember him whenever
Someone hollers “Semper Fi”

Well, now I’m off to work

I’ll see you both tonight
Before I go please hold me
Hold me Hold me tight.

I Love Smokey Bear

Some say the spirit lingers

And its impact never ends
Provided that it’s cherished
In the memory of friends

The first thing that the maintenance of memories is good for
We keep alive the principles the dear departed stood for

He set a fine example

For our children everywhere
He showed how great disasters
Are prevented with great care

How what we count as precious

Are a set of basic rules
And much can be accomplished
With a set of simple tools

But now I fear his legacy

Is lost and left behind
The evidence of influence
Is thin and hard to find

And those who should be loyal
To his work and his advices
Seem to have abandoned him
In this the present crisis

In fact they seem to take
Almost opposite perspectives
And claim, when they are challenged
“We’re just following directives.”
 
From a group whose mascot
Preached a basic self-reliance
Confronted with vindictiveness
I hoped for some defiance

If he could see his Ranger Ricks

Behaving in this way
I just can’t help but wondering
What would Smokey Say?

I guess it’s up to us
To frame his legacy in stars
Recalling that he said
Responsibility is ours

So when you hear the spin
That comes from followers and liars
Remember
ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT
Government  overreach
Massive regulation
Constitutional ignorance
Obamacare
and
FOREST FIRES

As Said by Hugh Hewitt

Hugh Hewitt, on the government

This bit of wisdom spun

That which it does, you don’t miss much

The rest, it can’t get done

Despite the crisis and the wars

The government has shut its doors

For Washington’s elite and brightest

Don’t have a clue, no, not the slightest

Yes, this might mean a bit of trouble

For those inside the beltway bubble

Who’s going to tell those guys the news

They’ll have to shine their own damn shoes

And even the most skilled debater

Must learn to work the elevator

Those White House staffers, flaks and pets

Are locked out just like World War vets

The threat to Fed employees sure could elevate and widen

When we wise up that most are as essential as Joe Biden

So March! Protest! And raise the fuss.

The Tea Party’s done this to us

Until those guys are put to rout

Look what we have to do without

No crazy schemes and regulation

No brand new reams of legislation

No new decrees by any czar

No listening to N.P.R.

No one will be twisting bolts

On any brand new Chevy volts

And here’s a set back worth repeating

The First Lady won’t be tweeting

So many hardships I could cry

I DON’T KNOW HOW WE WILL GET BY

Let’s try

Green Jobs and Spam

Obamacare.
Obamacare
I do not like Obamacare

Obamacare is what we need

Obamacare….

Says Harry Reid, “You'd love it if you had the facts

Even with that stupid tax.

You will like it here and there

You will love Obamacare.”

"Would you like it for your lung?

Would you like it for your tongue?”

Not for my lung

Not for my tongue
I do not like it here or there
I do not want Obamacare

"Would you use it for your guts?

Would you use it for your cuts?"

Not for my guts

Not for my cuts
Harry Reid you drive me nuts

"Would you just, for this and that
Would you use it for your cat?"

For my cat?

Not even that!
Not for my lung not for my tongue
Not for my cuts not for my guts
I would not use it here or there
I do not like Obamacare
This is program we don’t need
I do not like you, Harry Reid

"You do not like it
So you say
So how about a brief delay?"
 
A brief delay
The heck you say

"And if, somehow, you curry favor

We can offer you a waiver"

But if it’s great, the way you say it

Hope can you want us to delay it?

"Why, with so many dis-affected

None of my friends get re-elected."

 

Oh, Harry Reid you are so clever

Why don’t we put it off…forever?

Ship of State?

Sail on thou ship of state sail on...
It seems to me you're drifting
Perhaps there's no one left on board
To do the heavy lifting

And if that ship of state breaks down

We’d better get a loan-er

Or else they’ll need to find someone

To play the part of Jonah

Alas, this mighty ship of state
Has proven to be crew-less
I guess, of course, that's apropos
Because the captain's clueless

Seeing likely outcomes
They know his course is reckless
And spotting not a single "feck"
Know likewise that it's feckless

But if you don’t agree then tell me why

The world is willin’
To put their trust in someone
Who resembles a Bond Villain?

And yet the fate of millions

Before we count to ten
Rests upon the efforts
And the skills of these two men

Can they get all this organized

And manage to agree
When one man ran communities
And one the K.G.B.?

Still, I remain an optimist

And I retain my hope
But in this situation
I’m counting on the Pope

Breakfast of Doubt

A question has been plaguing me
So much, I can’t ignore it
Do I oppose “whatever”
Just because Obama’s for it?

I struggle with my attitude
And strive for self-awareness
Because I know my President
Deserves a little fairness

I wish that I were certain

But talk is only talk
If Mitt were in the White House
Then would I be a Hawk?

Would I have listened closely
And say John Kerry sold me
As I was quick to credit
All that Colin Powell told me?

And then an answer hit me

One I suspect is true
The trouble that I’m having
Is really déjà vu

The rattling of sabers

The clumsy road to war
I haven’t lived forever
But I’ve seen all this before

Perhaps I’m far more troubled

That I believed the claim
That THIS administration’s
Not for doing things the same

They told us we should never move

Without United Nations
So why is our Ambassador
On serial vacations?

If every nation understands

Their acts were grim and brutal
Propose a resolution
Even if you think it’s futile

Person’ly I think it would be

Groovy, cool and neato
To bring the world to witness
How the Russians use their veto

Perhaps you missed that lecture

In your Poly Science class
You can work the world on climate change
But not on Poison Gas!?

So…it’s not some regulation

Or this or that appointment
Our failure to do better
Is  my source of disappointment

Hope and Change Revisited

I feel like such a dope
I thought it was the hope
Just like the pundits told us
Our aspirations sold us
But clearly, truth to tell
Hope’s a thing ALL politicians sell

So as involved persuasion

Hope was only part of the equation

And in this double feature

Change is quite a different creature
Now even on vacation
The leader of our nation
Is starting to perceive
Change is somewhat harder to achieve
As scientist all say
An object that’s at rest tends to stay that way
Plus when the dust is cleared
Hope is always welcome
Change is often feared
Sure I want a brand new phone
But I’ll stay in my comfort zone
And seeing what’s occurred
Change has been delayed, waived and deferred
With laws subject to erasure
Change may come…but slower than a glacier
And though the goal was laudable
It’s taking more than hope
To make health care affordable

Words for Thought

A bunch of busy bodies
Have been making much ado
Wondering if Egypt has been
Going through a coup

Setting stunning standards

For deceit and obfuscations
The folks at State determined
Not to make determinations

Auditing the briefing then

The take-away is this
A coup is not a coup
The way a kiss is just a kiss

Of course upon reflection

I now understand completely
A rose is not a rose
And called a fish would smell as sweetly

Folks who study rhetoric

Have rarely seen the same
Backwards bending over
Since Cuomo spoke at Notre Dame

He said to run for office

In the states or jurisdictions
Every Catholic candidate
Should give up their convictions

If you're without convictions, sir

Then pray, consider silence

Or you’ll be saying terrorists
Are plotting workplace violence

Is zeal for wealth and power

So intense and so compelling
They can't show us the poke
Or pig within that they'll be selling?

I don’t ask much of politics

But beg for one thing mainly
Is there a politician who
For once can say things plainly?

Poems I Haven't Posted

Let’s Make a Deal

 

All around the Capitol

Work is being done
To ferret out the truth
And to locate that smoking gun

They’re looking at those bureaucrats

Who silently have served
In hopes that those who scorned the law
Might get what they deserved

If all this has you feeling

Kind of justice-y or kharma-ry
It’s tough to find a single gun
When looking in an armory

The obvious is hard to spot

Consider if you please
That oft repeated adage of
The forest and the trees

There’s truth in that old wisdom

But I’ll put it somewhat newer
It’s tough to see malarkey
When you’re swimming through a sewer

With all the Lois Lernering

And the shoddy Eric Holdering
There is no single smoking gun
The whole darn town is smoldering

But what has me most troubled

Every follicle’s gone grey for it
Crimes have been committed
But no one’s gonna pay for it

Congressmen are shouting

That attention must be paid
But somewhere in a conference room
Deals are being made

I say this very sadly

But I hope it will be quoted
Silence can be purchased
When the guilty are promoted

It’s a pretty practice

That goes right on back to royalty
When baronets and dukedoms
Were a way to garner loyalty

A title is a title

And I guess that should suffice
For Her Ladyship, Ms. Jarrett
And the Countess Susan Rice.

Alphabet Soup

The IRS

Is in a mess
The EPA
Should go away
And I suggest that OSHA
Should be shipped to Nova Scotia

The FBI

Has a black eye
The SSA and DOJ
Don’t seem to know the time of day
And ditto for the CIA

But, you wouldn’t know

And couldn’t guess
If you tuned into CBS
Now, certainly there is no plot
They’re covering these scandals—not
You’d think around these stories all the news hounds
Would be hovering
But it’s the work of Taylor Swift
That Steve Croft has been covering

The FCC

It seems to me
Couldn’t organize a spelling bee
And I won’t eat at a buffet
That’s served up by the FDA
And 2 + 2
I’ll have you know
Is well beyond the CBO

The obvious conclusion

Should make everybody ill at ease
The government has power
Far beyond its capabilities
And power unabated
Always seems to have a way
To slowly but quite surely
Lead the powerful astray

And so I think it’s liable

With hand upon the bi-able
That someday soon the POTUS
Will be tried before the SCOTUS
But the Media…won’t notice

June Gloom

My eyesight has been going

And my hearing’s out of tune
Two things that I commemorate
Every single June

And with each year that passes

I move more like cold molasses

There’s nothing in my closet anymore

That even fits me
The only saves I’m making
Happen when the puck just hits me

My train of thought is popping

Like an old victrola skips
And when I reach the putting green
I find I’ve got the yips.

 The graceful glades of memory

Seem more to me like thickets
And when I climb a stairway
My kneecaps chirp like crickets

My days are full of whining

And my nights are wet with tears
The only hair that’s growing
Is the hair that’s in my ears

The path I took to get here
With cold regret is littered
But still I have to smile
When alternative’s considered

There’s music and there’s beauty
There’s Chablis and guacamole
Hey, you there with a hockey team
Call if you need a goalie

The kid is off to college
It appears I’ll have some free time
Hey, you there at the golf course
What’s it look like for a tee time?

Amen dictu mirabile

My marriage just gets stronger
Hey, you there with that stop watch
Let me run a little longer

For Martin

When I was 8

And far away
Approaching my Communion Day
I’d rush to get my homework done
Then run outside to have some fun
The screen door crashed, I’d yell, “Good-bye.”
My mom didn’t even turn an eye
She’d call out after I was gone,
“Come home when the street lights come on.”

If there was time before the dark

I’d take my bike to Crocheron Park
Where swings and slides and monkey bars
Became my rocket ship to Mars
With Bruce and Ray and Jim and Bill
We’d race our bikes down Crocheron Hill

It was a rush

And quite a thrill
I wish that kids could do that still

For in the world that we’ve devised

No kids can play unsupervised
No one is safe from shrill alarms
Not even in their mothers’ arms
 
I saw the pictures of the boy
Another parent’s pride and joy
That toothless smile was quite a beaut
And proud in his Communion suit
How does he fit into the plan
This little Boston Bruins fan?
A sweet boy as those pictures show you
Martin, we’ll never get to know you

My son is 18, he’s not 8

The world I give him is not great
This prayer I pray with every letter
May his generation

Make it better.

That Sinking Feeling

The greatest fear we face each day
Is dealing with “not knowing”
Which one of us would board a bus
Unsure of where it’s going?

For fortune’s cord is never straight

It coils, twists and bends
And so it’s up to poets
To identify the trends

When I announce the path I see

You might think I’ve been drinking
But I conclude our next ordeal
Is clearly global sinking

A bedroom floor’s an open door
A fairway filled with clover
A sidewalk near the Senate
Sees the sinkholes taking over

And oh!  The implications!
And they really are profound
You have no leg to stand on
And can’t even trust the ground

They drop you to the poorhouse

And send your wealth to debtland
When someone from the EPA
Declares the hole a wetland

The soil is getting softer

The crust is clearly cracking
And sure as shoot some institute
Will blame it all on fracking

For me that explanation seems

A little hard to swallow
To put the blame of fraking?
Well, it rings a little hollow

When there’s not much to count on

When every soul is straying
In times like these, uncertainties
May soon lead more to praying

Don’t let such insecurity and doubt

Somehow defeat you
In the words of that old Irish prayer
May the road rise up to greet you.

Truth or Consequences

In times like these
Before you sneeze
The media goes looking
For gals and guys
Cuts victimize
And that’s who Maddow’s booking

Like average Joes

I’ve watched these shows
Those broadcast and those buffered
Awaiting scads
Of Moms and Dads
Who, all this week, have suffered

The long parades

Of teachers’ aides
Afraid of being furloughed
The countryscapes
Of rotting grapes
That never will be Merlot-ed

The crises feared

Have not appeared
I guess we must have licked ‘em
Except for prides
Of White House Guides
Am I the only victim?

My lips are blue

My tongue is too
My sinuses congested
And hungry bugs
Attacked my rugs
My base boards are infested

They’ve slowed the courts
They’ve starched my shorts
There’s no gas for my mower
And chances are
I won’t fly far
My sinkhole’s sinking lower

I like my fork

In roasted pork
If budget cuts get bigger
They’ll be no swine
I’ll have to dine
On Mr. Ed and Trigger

To paraphrase

Judge Stewart’s phrase
You’ll know one when you see one
I’ve never stood
For Victimhood
But I guess I must be one

My vision’s vague

I’ve caught the plague
My boils all are festering
My back is out
I’ve got the gout
All thanks to the sequestering
(by Tarzana Job)

Send an Epistle

When I come home from working

I question, without fail
“How then, was your day dear?”
And “What came in the mail?”

And even back in college

Oh, when the world was wider
I checked my post box daily
If just to feed the spider

Each day with expectations

My weary way, I’d wend
Hoping I would find there
A letter from a friend

And when a note or package

Appeared there without warning
I’d tear the thing apart
Just like a kid on Christmas morning

And still anticipation

In some enduring way
Makes me hope and wonder
“What came for me today?”

For when the words were written

When I couldn’t hear or see
Somehow someone somewhere
Was thinking about me

If bills and pills and notices

Are so anticipated
Think of how, in hunger
Corinthians must have waited.

They came by road or wagon
By stealth beyond detection
Words of Wisdom Comfort Love
Assurance and Direction

And when in Rome or Ephesus

They greeted it’s arriving
It meant the word was growing
And the message was surviving

And if today you think good news
Is seldom ever heard
Take your pen in hand with me
And, gently, spread the word

Redistributing Government

We all just got a lesson
From those folks who make the game work
Have a couple meetings
Then announce you have a framework

They launch a little vessel
Then step back as it goes drifting
Leaving it to someone else
To do the heavy lifting

Start a new bureaucracy
And pass a few more laws
Totally ignoring both
The problem and the cause

The government’s enormous
And its growth just can’t be slowed
Any one that’s tried to
Has been told to hit the road

So if our sober senate’s unprepared to set the tone
I’d like to entertain you with a framework of my own

My plan should get attention for its excellence and rareness
Seeing as it’s based almost entirely on fairness
By reading daily papers you should know it’s not surprising
That just outside the capital, all real estate is rising
It’s only in the beltway loop that unemployment’s rare
And any good Progressive must agree that’s less than fair

Because there’s so much wealth embedded in the institution
I say our central government could use redistribution
My plan is very simple and in it’s essence states
That cabinet departments should be shipped out to the states

All those hefty sal’ries can be moved to your community
Denying the nefarious one target opportunity

Then everyone in Michigan would sure be sitting pretty
If we moved Transportation out there to the Motor City

Commerce to Chicago and Defense should move to Texas
So everyone in Dallas could afford a second Lexus.

It’s not exaggeration and it isn’t any joke
It’s just the only way to fix a government that’s broke
It may seem kind of crazy but this is how I figger’
The one thing that it’s good at…is making itself bigger