the mountain and the monkey

once there was a mountain that never went anywhere a monkey often passed it by and sometimes stopped and stared why do you look at me so rude the mountain would complain though you laugh and point your finger you will never feel my pain i am only a monkey the monkey said with a straight face i see you are a mighty mountain and have put me in my proper place i do not like your attitude and suspect sarcasm in it a tear trickled the mountain’s face an awkward silence lasted a minute very well, the monkey said if you are not satisfied i suggest you crawl under the wide blue sky or otherwise run and hide with that the monkey took his leave and frolicked across the earth the mountain stayed right where he was because he was cursed from birth

old johnson

i was standing on the corner when i heard my bulldog bark i turned and saw old johnson he was standing in the dark me and him went back a ways with nothing good between us him and his buddy jackson rode me like a couple of hyenas what had i done to him lately to make him look so foul suddenly he stepped from the alley with a most menacing scowl who are you and your bulldog he asked with a slippery smile to invade my territory with your simpering whimpering guile >I do not know your uncle I ianswered with a frown but I have every right to see the show when i choose to come to town be that as it may, he smirked but the cards have all been dealt and you may be astonished when they are turned up on the felt i scorned his imputations and whistled for my dog but long will i remember what emerged then from the fog oh you who walk the cobbled streets and lounge in doorways dim beware of old man johnson beware , beware of him! there are those who deal with devils or pray to angels bright but beware of those like johnson who shine their shoes at night the fog swirled all around me as he faded from my view but i would not bake his biscuits and neither, i think, should you

waiting for the light to turn green

the great void spins and spins and spins and spins who shall say where the void ends and where it begins? i had more than enough to drink and before i had time to think i accosted a stranger in the street but he pushed me aside without missing a beat the question of the void is easy to avoid if you really put your mind to it you can get through it >that is what i wanted to say but the stranger went on his way with my words unappreciated because they had never been stated how many strangers have you pushed aside as you wander through this world so wide they might have given you food for thought then again, maybe not i am waiting for the light to turn green it’s the loneliest light i have ever seen the walls of the steeet close in maybe i will go for a swim

no bail

the mayor would not go my bail so i am here to tell my tale and will not let it rest until i have done my best roses are red, elephants are gray everybody should have their say flowers bloom in howling blizzards human beings are all really lizards violets are blue, champagne is bubbly old philosophers faces are stubbly if you never learn to stay out of the rain you will get wet, again and again grass is green, hay is yellow my old dog sam was a jolly good fellow he scratched the surface of the earth and played the fool for all he was worth noses are purple, mud is brown every time i go to town folks gather round and call me names but my mama loved me all the same old man mose is mighty rich he carries an old curved hickory switch the devil gave him as a gift when mose stopped one night and gave him a lift just a feller walking down the road with a cat, a rattlesnake, and a toad the rain was falling, the sky was dark and he had to find noah’s ark someone must give us all a ride or we will be fit to be tied to the tree from which old mother eve picked an apple, i do believe such is the substance of my verse stranger, i ask you, which is worse a man who will offer you a drink or one who always stops and thinks?

opportunity

i thought i heard sheriff john brown say this is quality stuff and he had been around a long time and knew when enough was enough and so i could not believe my ears when he commended me thus and felt as if i were struck by lightning or hit by a greyhound bus but then i looked around and to my dismay found he was talking to sad sam smith who had come in the door with all the creatures i had known in my years all alone on the mountaintop before it all came to a stop i thought i heard sam smith say as they led me away they gave him every opportunity is it our fault he didn’t want to be free? and shirley the waitress said he should have stayed in bed whenever you walk out the door the lions and the oceans roar

late at night

as the rain rattled on the roof sidney greenstreet offered proof to the officer at the station of his sincere reformation as the detective waked away rosalind russell heard him say these hoodlums before dawn will lay lifeless on the lawn cary grant had another plan it was to confront the man who had designed the whole frame and say he knew his real name but adolphe menjou would never know who made the last phone call and left the message on the wall after poor claude rains went to such pains to include the younger generation in his address to the nation

lines

all you lonely hermits dreaming of endless highways the road is empty listen to the rain and roll over and go back to sleep at the end of the road there is only another lonely room another empty shack