Rubber Monster Toys and Pork and Beans

Jack wrote this blog entry in February, 2006. Poem from 2002.

A few days ago before I got started talking about tribal environmental matters and other issues that are none of my business something happened here that’s been on my mind since.

Another blogger who once might have become a friend asked me in a PM why he’s so filled with anger.

Now that I’ve demonstrated I’m not immune to that commodity, I’m posting this as the best answer I have.

This is dedicated to you.  You know who you are:

 

 

Rubber Monster Toys and Pork and Beans

You don’t remember twisting

On the knobs though you might try

You don’t remember turning up

The color and the contrast

So the only thing you see

Is black and shades of gray

But you did and it is

You’d remember

If you just look

In the mirror

The set is all arranged

You’ve gathered up the props

You’ve scribbled out a script

(Got a force-field to protect you

Like the Starfish Enterprise

From escaping while you sneer)

About the suckers and the fools

Who cannot see can’t comprehend

The whole mad reality

Is useless and it’s slipping

Down the drain

While you curse about the stupid

That surrounds you

As you sink

So you don’t have to look

Into the mirror.

Bite the bullet eat the bullet

Live your life or end it

But get off the stinking fence

When your back’s against the wall

And your abdomen’s distended

Filled with rubber monster toys

And pork and beans

If you can’t stand the heat

Leave the kitchen

(There’s nothing in the rule-book

Says you gotta quit your bitching

But it might help

It might help

When it comes to surviving

It’s the little things sometimes

That just might help. )

This rabble rousing nonsense

Is a snare

Not a way to get away

The problems of those other fools

Aren’t yours they aren’t your business

Utopian dreams

Are a way to break the mirror

When what you need’s that mirror

To escape

Turn out the lights

Turn around

Take a long deep breath

And cross the room

Close your eyes

Reach out

Feel the knobs

Turn them back

Half a turn

Have a beer

Take a leak

And while you’re there

Take a long look in the mirror

From Poems of the New Old West

Copyright©2002, Jack Purcell