Cowboy Poetry: Never Done Nothing

Well this is my first (and probably only) attempt at cowboy poetry.

Never Done Nothing

I've never done nothing that my spirit couldn't kill
If you starve your conscience slowly you can get along quite well.

You see before he does it to you you got to do the other fellow
Cause he thinks that what he's dealin' with's an ordinary man
But to him I'll be as careless as a devil out of hell.

You folks pretend you're somethin' better but I know it's all a sham:
God knows there's nothin' colder than a banker that you owe
Yeah they call it civilization but what it means is empty hands.

You can cry out loud for mercy but it's somethin' they don't know
It's enough to make you burn and shout and curse out God and moan
And that's the long and short of why I walk a killer's road.

Ode to He that Sits Behind my Seat

Obviously from a recent trip on an airplane.

Ode to He that Sits Behind my Seat

My dear sir, I regret I seem
To be the cause of your troubles;
If I could I'd reassure you
But I can't be damned to tell you
The seat is broken.
It won't stay upright.
But then again, I have every right
To lean as I please.
I'm of two minds about it;
So you can stew - push as you will -
I'll just ignore you.

Storing up Inspiration

Another one from the Powwow rain date.

Storing up Inspiration

I said well, we're not writing today
And tom said time to store up inspiration!
I've had ten years of it (I thought but didn't say)
a lesser man would have drowned in it
bent his back and broken in it
the kind of inspiration that makes you
Bite off your arm to escape it -

But hey, there are all kinds of inspiration
I guess.

Alice the Goddess

It's been a weird few weeks... took me a while to get back on it. I've had some of these written for a while but couldn't find the time to polish 'em up.

Alice the Goddess

Alice the goddess
twirls in her dance,
dares us to catch her,
accepting the earth,
circles the crowd
threads the scene together -
and then
Robin lost a necklace
And
Alice found it.
I said
Alice, make a miracle happen.
There are no miracles, she said.

Separation

There's a thread of sense
Just out of reach -
If I could grasp it
I could unravel it, make us separate from what
Has separated us.

Supreme Leader

(Result of a writing exercise in which we thought about what our first decree would be if we became leader of the world. Kind of silly, I guess.
Speaking of which, can you guess which word I had to look up?)

Supreme Leader

As the world's first united leader,
All powerful mighty high plenipotentiary,
Prepare yourselves, people of the world,
To receive my first decree:

All currency will be replaced with
Pictures of me.

A unit of this currency will be
Called the Awesome, or Awe for short.
(Debasing, defacing, destroying this currency
Will make one eligible for the highest penalty -
Take great care in actually using it!)

The value of a good or service
Will henceforward be determined by me
Depending on how Awesome I think it to be.

Of course, I'm a busy leader (the busiest!)
And in this task I'll require some assistance.
All hipsters assemble; I'll judge your value first,
And those I declare are dressed best (or worst)
Will become the first High Judges of Fashion in history
(the rest, unfortunately, will die in obscurity).

These incorruptible arbiters
Of truth, beauty, and how Awesome things are
Will roam the land, at my command,
Judging your works, near and far.

No longer will you wonder
If you're getting what you're worth -
From now on, by supreme decree
You will get just what you deserve.

Can't Sleep

Luckily I worked on a few poems today (polished them up).

Here's the first - we're starting with the saddest one, I guess. Sorry 'bout that.

------------------------------------------

Every move is artificial, every gesture
Learned from film, glass eyes set in
Plastic skin.
Recorded speeches to sound realistic,
Practiced signals to move, and bend,
Adjust the head, and look as if it
Understands. But it doesn't - and never will.
Knock, shout, scream, yell
There's no one here.