great "buckets of rain" by Bob Dylan cover

Ironwood and Ocotillo

It’s a major intersection of streets

named after a cactus and a tree,

both of which are native to the area.

I think most would agree 

the names were selected appropriately.

See, when I drive on Ironwood,

I think of ironwood, ironwood trees,

and when I drive on Ocotillo,

I think of ocotillo, ocotillo cactus,

living things that once dug their roots

down deep into the earth, sprouted up,

pressed up, grew up into the thickness 

of summer, waiting like disciples 

for the arrival of rain, fighting for survival, 

fighting for every inch of root, branch, thorn,

living and breathing and singing their song

until those construction crews came along.

Ironwood.  Ocotillo.  Let us remember 

the vegetation that had to die

just so all of us could drive by.

But I’m not an environmentalist.

I got a wife and kids and a car and a commute

and I gotta drive on Ironwood and Ocotillo

to get to my job every day, 30 miles away.

Yeah, that’s right, I get in my car,

step on the gas, drive real far,

and I'm happy with things the way they are.  

funny video for star wars fans

And To Teach Them Their Proper Places, God Put Smiles Upon Their Faces

Sitting in a lobby,

waiting to meet somebody,

somebody large and unknown, 

I suddenly started doodling

chaotic squiggles, zig-zags, lines,

simple organisms without spines,

jiggling and spreading all over the place

but really going nowhere.

I tapped my pencil three times and

eyeballs popped up in a blank space.

A small circle appeared, signifying a nose,

and now I draw a line, a mouth, curved into a smile.

I pause to peer into the black-dot eyes.

Despite their roughness, their disproportionate size,

those eyes look desperately toward the skies

and catch a blurry vision of me.  

Now he speaks: “Thank you 

for drawing my eyes, so I may behold you, my Maker.

Finally I see the One Who Wields Both Pen and Paper!”

Next he says, “I’m bored. And you drew me all wrong.

I would have preferred non-existence!”

There’s nothing I can say to him now, and anyhow,

I’m busy breathing life into the nostrils

of a million more faces, placing smiles on their lips. 

This is my attempt to communicate,
to place in them something innate,

to say that Joy is their natural state.

The Day Before the Sabbath

I started hacking at the weeds in the front yard

but it was hot out, and the work was hard,

so after about ten minutes, I quit,

and walked inside my nice cool house to sit

in my favorite chair and watch the TV.

The sounds and pictures washed over me

for hours and hours, many, many hours,

until at last I surrendered all my powers

of perseverance.  I’m OK with that.  It’s Saturday.

I don’t have to earn a living today,

I don’t care what my neighbors say,

or even the president of the H.O.A.

Next there’s gonna be a show about monkeys

and I wanna watch that show about monkeys 

and come to think of it, I never did know

why it was such a sin to let the weeds grow.

Such Clear Eyes

I am the sole possessor of the secret key
that fits into the keyhole in the cage of the
golden goose that produces golden eggs,
so to speak. What this means precisely
remains to be seen, but this is clear:
that passed down through the ages,
passed down through a fairy tale, which
seemed innocent, which seemed benign-
which is exactly the type of conduit one
would want to secure such a message,
so that the dispersement is complete
and the concealment is unexpurgated-
Ah! The trickery! The trickery of it!
And the beauty! For now I see with such
clear eyes the shape of the key in my mind.
Yes! Within Jack and the Beanstalk-
do not laugh- do not break the spell-
is the Truth that verily, verily, I, the man
you behold standing before you, am he
who has been chosen, foreordained,
consecrated by angelic hands in an invisible
realm, unbeknownst to the clamoring masses
of every day who run about shopping
for buzz-buzz-buzzing electronic devices
in their decaying tabernacles of clay! Yes!
I am the sole possessor, in this last generation,
of the secret key that fits into the keyhole
in the cage of the golden goose that
produces golden eggs!