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I think of Will,
A special boy I know
Who, when I met him first
Hid behind his father’s leg
And wailed when cars went by
Afraid in ways we didn’t understand
And there he is today
Singing for his class
Filling the schoolyard and his
Father’s heart with music.

And Adam
I think about the time
I stood beside him in the dim-lit room
Looking at the Star-Spangled Banner
He told me things the docent didn’t know
Amazing tourists in the way
Another special boy
Confounded scholars in Jerusalem
Troubling His mother’s heart

I think of Max
Who wouldn’t speak
And always read the floor
And wondered when
I’d hear his voice
And there he is, sixteen
Walking, determined, to the bus stop.
I honk as I drive by and he waves

They seem so far away
The days when I first met them
And the journey has been hard
And the journey isn’t over
And the journey doesn’t end
As every parent knows

So, of course, I want to cry
But when I want to cry
I think of Will, singing

Happy Mothers' Day

The perfect gift! A custom poem for your mom (or wife) by Tarzana Joe. Contact me
at tarzanajoe@hotmail.com for rates and deadlines.

Song of the Calm Candidates

Song of the Calm Conservative

In politics, I’ve always thought
My outlook to be sanguine
I’m never one to hit the streets
With pots and pans a’bang-uine

If I converse with Democrats
I disagree with--slightly
I gently say what’s on my mind
And listen quite politely

In matters of direction
The country has a choice
And though I’d like to sway you
I’ll never raise my voice

But I’ve observed in recent weeks
The left’s progressive rancor
They’ve treated me as shabbily
As an investment banker

Of Democratic tactics
I’ll gladly share my take,
Never stop your enemy
When he’s making a mistake

I find their zeal inspiring
If I may speak the truth
And I’ll adjust my attitude
Inside the voting booth

The moment is upon us
To paraphrase a quote
Now is the time for all good men
To donate, rally, vote

We’ll meet them on the beaches
We’ll fight them in the trenches
From Maine to Colorado
It’s time to clear the benches

I see a brighter future
When men and women rally
To genuine conservatives
Like Broden and Todd Lally

Cooly urge your neighbor
To action just in case he
Hasn't learned of candidates
Like Rooney or Renacci

I have no apprehensions
And feel we cannot fail
If we support quite calmly
Mike Castle and Ben Quayle

Each one can do his portion
The highest to the least man
And make a contribution
To candidates like Eastman

To those still on the sidelines
Watch as the country learns
To toast Speaker Pelosi
By voting for Tim Burns

So when the campaign’s over
And this election’s through
I’ll have serenely done my part
Djou?

Thank you very much, Mister President

I know it sounds unusual
And just a wee bit quirky
But government is giving us
A second slice of Turkey

I’ve never heard such nonsense
All the years that I’ve been living
The President says April
Is the month to have Thanksgiving

He doesn’t say this lightly
Stepping out there on a limb
Sincerely he believes that
We should all be thanking him

I leave it to posterity
For how it wants to rank you
Allow me to enumerate
The ways I’d like to thank you

Thank you, Mr. President
For deficits unending
And thank you, Mr. President
For all the condescending

For bleeding unemployment
And no remedy to staunch it
A brand new rocket capsule
And no rocket ship to launch it

Thank you for the way, sir
That my IRA is tanking
And thank you for the job that
You’re about to do to banking

Thank you for the health care bill
And all its thousand pages
I expect Americans
Will be thanking you for ages

For all of this I thank you
And for more I can’t remember
But most of all I thank you
For the Second of November

(c) 2010 by Tarzana Joe

Song of the College Grad 2010

Early in my college days
The future looked fantastic
Preparing for a long career
In aluminum or plastic

But then quite unexpectedly
I felt my interest veering
Toward the fields of chemical
Or nuclear engineering

With each class I enrolled in
I saw a brand new chance
To make myself a household name
In banking or finance

But despite my youth and intellect
Financial firms are firing
And if I want a salary
Well, the government is hiring

I had myself an interview
And say this with some pride
I could be working with the agency
That makes certain…
Your shoelaces are tied

For all across America
Our infrastructure’s crumbling
And we won’t make any headway
Until we all stop stumbling

The data I assemble
Will tell the Congress whether
They should pass a bill to ban
Shoelaces altogether

But if the guy that’s hiring
Thinks my resume needs burnishing
I’ll intern with the Golden State’s
Bureau of Home Furnishing

I hear the pay is good there
Inspecting chairs and tables
And fining folks who cut off
Mattress and upholstery labels


Yes, I can’t wait to graduate
Later in this year
And start my helpful and productive
Government Career

(c) Tarzana Joe 2010

This week's poem!!!!

Consequences by Tarzana Joe

We long have heard that poet’s tale
A kingdom lost for want of nail
The lesson that should give us pause is
We can’t foresee disasters’ causes
An insect wing that stirs the breeze
Can bring a planet to its knees
Thus the threat of last week’s vote is
Something we will hardly notice

A somewhat pale and sober man
Won’t pay the tax. Won’t get the tan
And feeling down and somewhat palid
Won’t think his hopes for love are valid
And never speak what’s in his heart
And watch his dreamed-of wife depart
Because he skipped that tanning bed
His DNA and hers didn’t wed
And on a dark and dreary morn
The second Einstein won’t be born

What other cause for consternation
Is buried in this legislation?

The greatest of potential groaners
Is facing chefs and café owners
For every choice that’s on their menu
In each and every eating venue
Yes, every dish, sautéed or roasted
Must have its health statistics posted
Exactly as the law advises
Precisely based on portion sizes
And if the law’s enforced this way
It means the death of the buffet

Where government prescribes the meat
But surely not, “All you can eat”

Oppressive bill! And so rewardless
To make the future Smorgasbordless

It must be scrapped
It can’t be mended
Or with a whimper
All is ended
From consequences unintended.

Can't I?

Some folks are very grateful for
The country that we’ve got
But others see a better way
And often dream, “Why not?”

For you see there are the lucky
While some others are bedeviled
We idealists see a method
For these outcomes to be leveled

Yes, some are very spindly
While others are quite fat
To balance this disparity
We pass a law for that

And some folks are unhappy
All across our teeming nation
We ought to perk their spirits
With a little legislation

And some men harbor prejudice
Deny it, but it’s true
I think that we can fix that
With just a law, or two

Some folks are very ugly
While, unfairly, some are pretty
To rectify this outrage
Well, we’ll fix it in committee

Why, we’re just a single rollcall
From a lifetime of Utopia
A chance to share the blessings
Of our cousins in Europia

And those who would oppose us
Oh, you’re mad as many hatters
Trying to convince us
That the Constitution matters

This future is a struggle
But you know it’s worth a try
Just like Speaker Pelosi
I can DEEM, can’t I?

What a Week !!!

It started out with evening gowns
That couldn’t get much tackier
But who’d have thought this week that was
Could possibly get wackier

Pelosi spoke a sentence so absurd
She couldn’t spin it
She said we had to pass that bill
To find out what was in it

I’m sure that if we lift the lid
We’re in for certain shocks
As we unleash the furies
Lurcking in Obama’s box

The Chief of Staff sat nakedly
Upon the seat of power
Say what you will that sounds to me
To be “abuse of shower”

The Middle East remains at peace
Despite Joe Biden’s mission
While back at home the Feds conspired
To put an end to fishin’

Across the land a billion cars
Have gas and brakes gone faulty
And in New York they want to put
A ban on food that’s salty

And here’s a suit that puts the word
Absurdity to shame
Lindsay Lohan filed an action
To recover her good name

And yet another incident
Among this week’s delights
12 Democrats stood firmly
In defense of unborn rights

And if you don’t believe me when
I say this week was odd
Those wise Ninth Circuit justices
Permitted ‘under God”.

A Poem of Miracles

I didn’t believe in miracles
The Red Sea never parted
And Joshua didn’t stop the sun
Oh, please don’t get me started
Noah never floated
And Jonah did no sinking
And anyone who said they did…
I’d ask what they were drinking

But recent happy outcomes
Both sudden and sublime
Have caused this sorry skeptic
To think a second time
There’s been a realignment
This week while I’ve been nappin’
The stars are shining brighter
And anything can happen

Although I’m growing older
My glove-hand will get quicker
Those thin grey hairs upon my head
Will darken and grow thicker
The pages in my diary
Will humble Warren Beatty
And playing from the blue tees
This duffer will break eighty

Yes, wondrous things can come to pass
That haven’t in a while
Al Gore admits it’s all a hoax
And Harry Reid will smile
The White House, in a few short years
Will have a brand new tenant
And sometime in this century
The Tribe will win a pennant.

A smile of satisfaction
Has just replaced my frown
For this and other miracles
I thank you Mr. Brown

The Future is Mine by Tarzana Joe

I wish that all those Mayan guys

Had been a lot less cryptic

So I could make precise-er plans

For times apocalyptic



Their P.D.A.s were made of stone

And should have had the power

To tell me more than just the year

Likewise, the day and hour



Considering the many things

The Mayan prophet teaches

I'd like to know to what extent

This cataclysm reaches



But nowadays I tend to doubt

Such certainty exists

For prophesies (like health care bills)

Are shrouded in the mists



So here's what I propose to do

Despite what they predict

And when you hear it you'll agree

I've got the future licked



I'll summer in Nebraska

Where I know the weather's great

And then I'll spend my winters

In the southern Sunshine State



And when I need a respite I'll

Abandon my cabana

And take a cruise to the bayous

Of sweet Louisiana



And though I'm not real talented

Or even very skilled

I'll join a labor union or

Perhaps the Writers' Guild



Although I haven't read the bill

According to the scholars

If I do this, the Democrats

Owe me...a BILLION DOLLARS

A Poem for Glen From Texas

A Poem for Glen from Texas

Let’s get this Rodeo going
Just listen to that crowd
They’re ready. They’re ready.
The bull riders are finally finished
Now, put me on a bronk
And start the clock

Let’s get this rodeo going
I know I hit the dust the last time
And the time before
But that don’t matter now.
Today I’m ready to ride

Are the clowns back from their cigarette break?
And their town hall meetings
You can always count on the clowns
And I’m getting tired of sitting in this chute

So throw open the gate and let’s get this rodeo going
The crowd is restless and so is the horse
Wait a second. Wait a second
OK now
I’ve got my grip again
There was a time I thought I’d never get back on
But here I am
And sooner than I thought
Sooner than I could
Sooner than I hoped

That’s the rodeo
One day you’re down
The next day you’re back
So we never stop or think about the bruises
And we always count on the clowns

So let’s get this rodeo going. Now

Thanks Al Gore

2010
by Tarzana Joe

When near next November’s nigh
A mad majority disappears
In spotless sun

Taxes rise
As realization settles
On a seething city
Thin alliances dissolve

Approval ratings glide down
Facts feature failure for the future
A hard fall comes
Quickly

Then signs are raised
Slogans shouted
For the nation’s celebration

One term Blue Dogs take their leave
Unmourned
Bekins readies their vans

The people have found their voice
Bells ring
The city on the hill shines again

The poet cries
The moment of decision has arrived
The checkbook and the voting booth
Here are your tools.

Angry Poem

Growl
By Tarzana Joe with a limited borrowing from Allen Ginsberg

They say that every Inuit
Knows a thousand words for snow
What we need in Washington
Is forty-one for NO

No
No!
No more rhyme
No more meter
Now I howl

I have seen the “best minds” of a generation destroyed by madness
Who passed through Universities hallucinating
Who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers
Who were expelled from the academies for publishing obscene odes

Who made it through all this and somehow got to Washington
To Dream up Medicare for Juniors and Enron Economics
No
We can hand over our music to these men but not our souls
Let them have the newspapers
We will keep our radio and our freedoms

For a bunch who built their orthodox on choice
They sure forgot that word when it comes to
Pacemakers
Hips
Shoulders
And eyelids
I may only have one kidney but its mine
No
We will not let them tax our wind or
Tell us where to put our thermostats
No
We will not let these unshaven underwear shuddering
Peyote politicians tell us how to live
Or when to die

They say that every Inuit
Knows a thousand words for snow
What we need in Washington
Is forty-one for NO

Thanksgiving Poem 2009

Thanksgiving 2009
By Tarzana Joe

While thanking God this week for all our blessings is the norm
I say we should be thankful for the calm and for the storm
For the things that seem a hazard, when we think about them longer
Are somehow, by the will of God, designed to make us stronger
And so, I'm doubly grateful for the blessings and the curses
And humbly I acknowledge both my good and better verses
I thank Him for the grace that pumps the heart that keeps me living
And all the things I’ve done in life—I thank him for forgiving
The hand of God has fashioned this broad universe of beauty
And thanking him for all of it--is our pleasure and our duty
But more than for creation—for the rose and for the lotus
We ought to thank Him most for all the things we’ve yet to notice.

This week's Health Care poem

Twilight of the Senate
© 2009 by Tarzana Joe

At fashions of Parisians
Americans would gape
While we all totaled tea leaves
The French enjoyed the grape
So back during Prohibition
Sophie Tucker sang this song
Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong

Our intellects look Eastward
For their guidance, wouldn’t you?
Europe’s given us so much
Like World War One, and Two
And they expect that you’ll agree
While marching with the throng
A hundred million Socialists can’t be wrong

And so we turn to Europe
From whence we once seceded
Whenever we want hope and change
Or fresh ideas are needed
If you like the health care they have
Then you’ll follow right along
The European Union can’t be wrong

Unnecessary mammograms
The system’s sure to strain
And all those colonoscopies
Are really just a pain
Disconnect your C-pap
You’ll sleep right through the night
Two-hundred twenty Congresspersons must be right

So what if our survival rates
Are always at the highest
Those numbers are just numbers
And the scientists just biased
Is your life and liberty really worth the fight?
Sixty US Senators must be right

On Saturday, at Twilight
Those Senators go forth
They’re also looking Eastward
Or maybe to the North
Where you can’t get an appointment
And the waiting lists are long
Well, ten million dead Canadians can’t be wrong

Another Health Care Poem, Oy!

The cork's been popped
The bubble burst
The leaky ship has sailed
Pelosi's Health proposal
Has finally been unveiled

It's better than the last one
It fixes all that's wrong
It must be twice as potent
Because the thing is twice as long

Of course, it reads like fiction
That Nancy's quite a plotter
She wraps the whole thing up in 20 pages less than all of
Harry Potter

That Bible on my bureau?
The work of countless sages
Its wisdom is contained in less than 1900
Pages

She fills the presentation
With paradox sublime
She spends 900 billion but it doesn't cost a
Dime

That's nonsense and its bunkum
And put in plainest prose
This transparent grab for power is
The Emperor's New Clothes

There's nothing there that's useful
There's nothing there that's wise
The only thing it covers is a multitude of
Lies

OK, it boosts employment
With each patient, an employer
Cause every office visit will require its own
Lawyer

I'll leave it to the pundits
To filter through and sift it
The darn thing is so massive it's a wonder they can
Lift it

The cork's been popped
The bubbles burst
The leaky ship has sailed
Pelosi's Health proposal
Has finally been unveiled
(c) 2009 by Tarzana Joe

Bad Calls

Bad Calls
© 2009 by Tarzana Joe

Some teams, they get the garlands
And some teams get their lumps
And those that take the losses
Often blame it on the umps

Unless I’m quite mistaken
This, more than former Falls
Has seen a certain surplus
Of quite questionable calls

The fans in Minnesota
They all quote Shakespeare there
Like Macbeth, they know
That fair is foul and foul is fair

And down in Athens, Georgia
They sure know who to blame
A penalty that never was
Just cost their Dawgs a game

Oh! Just like Justice
Refs are blind!
The cloth of Fairness ravels
Manny never takes a strike
And Kobe never travels

I say this most sincerely
My friends, my fans, my brothers
While all bad calls are awful
Some sure are worse than others

The baddest of the bad ones
If I may share my views
Is one the White House braintrust made
To battle with Fox News

Every day they protest
In words both crass and callow
Whining makes the whiner look
Poor and weak and shallow

Sun Tzu told his master
Know when you begin
Never fight a war
That gains you nothing if you win

Take a moment’s measure
Use that mighty brain
Even if you conquer
Tell me what you think you’d gain

Yes, even if you triumphed
And a network lay destroyed
Drudge and Breitbart—Hugh and I
Would quickly fill the void

So focus on YOUR message
Think WHAT and WHY and HOW
And that’s the lesson you could learn
From good old Chariman Mao

Night After Night

Night after Night
By Tarzana Joe

Each and every Autumn
Defying rhyme or reason
The folks who run the networks
Announce a new Fall Season

They promise innovation
And shows with fresh perspective
But all that they deliver
Is another cheap detective

And starting this September
The promos proudly shriek
A popular performer
Is on five nights a week

Now how can I express this
With words approaching tact?
This kind of saturation
Is such a tired act

Of course the public loves him
Likewise, of him I sing
But overdoses come from
Too much of a good thing

I know he’s top banana
The Leader of the Pack
But every single time I look
He’s right there staring back

Some nights I’d like a ballgame
Or scintillating drama
But all the networks give me…
Is President Obama

On Monday, he's on Letterman
And Sunday, Meet the Press
Thursday, he’ll be sewing
Heidi Klum’s new runway dress

He’s going on Survivor
And Jeopardy and then
He’s starring with Joe Biden
On One and a Half Men

To headline “Law and Order”
I hear he has a “go-see”
On Dancing with the Stars
He’s dancing with Pelosi

If I were his advisor
I’d tell him if I could
Enough of you is plenty
Too much is just no good.
(c) 2009 Tarzana Joe

For Mark

4 Questions

Spring will never come again
No April without pain
Each April the Emancipator's
Slain

Mothers, will there ever
Be a Sunday in December
When your sons will not
Remember Remember

November never passes
Until I shed a tear
Year after Year after Year

And never in September
Will I look into the sky
Unless I ask the question
Why Why Why Why

(c) 2009 Tarzana Joe

The Pledge

I PLEDGE to be of service to my community
I PLEDGE to oppose anything that threatens the earth
I PLEDGE to fight the unseen terrorism of plastic water bottles
I PLEDGE to support the right of convicted terrorists to die comfortably In their own beds
I PLEDGE (if I am an Average American) to cheerfully pay as taxes to my government everything I earn from January 1 to April 13
I PLEDGE to donate everything else I have to Charley Rangel
I PLEDGE to look the other way when supporters of Euthanasia, legal standing for animals in our courts, tax cheats and 9/11 Truthers are appointed to top White House jobs without Congressional approval
I PLEDGE to stand side by side with the International Community and ignore North Korea and Iran and attack Honduras if asked
I PLEDGE to buy Government Motors cars once they start making them in China
I PLEDGE never to impose upon this administration the subtle bigotry of high expectations

And when my bones are weary
And useless to this nation
I PLEDGE my all to help decrease the surplus population

I PLEDGE to thee, Obama
But if some questions linger
In proof of my deep loyalty
I’ll bite off my own finger

And in the fields of fairness
I pledge to be a weeder
I pledge to be of service
To our Beloved Leader

Keep Tarzana Joe Conservative

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Poetry Pod-Cast

I Would Shop at Whole Foods (if I could afford it)

I don't know John Mackey from Adam Sandler. He may have committed as many crimes as John Edwards. The last checker who swiped my Paypal at Whole Foods had more metal sticking out of her than the dart board at my local pub. But a man has a right to his opinions. The outcry of the t-shirt left to John MacKey's Wall Street op-ed on Health Reform is amazing, overdone, ridiculous, and misguided. I shop at Whole Foods when I am flush with cash...and that means rarely. However, I think I'm going to buy a chuck of Brie or a hunk of dark chocholate or a bottle of bacteria for my intestines from the good people at Whole Foods. It will cost me, but it's one line I want to cross.