Pastoral Blues

The cook and the henchman
Have gone home for the day
‘Cause the dikes have all busted
And the town’s washed away

And the tiny tin soldier
He lost his new gun
To a misfit beheader
Who’d only begun

To remove all the noggins
The Mayor approved
And the governor confirmed
Before the scaffold was moved

To the town’s city center
Where the pizza is free
And the women wear hulas
And the men all drink tea

And the children behave
Like they did in the day
And the old folks throw peanuts
At the circus they say

Isn’t half as bizarre
As it was in Oh-Two
When the lions ate taffy
And giraffes ran the zoo.

It’s a dark day indeed,
The sun will stay hid,
The stars are declining
To say what they did

With their sparkle this evening
I guess it hardly seem worth it
To shine for likes of
Cinderella and Miss Moffit.

And the trees all bent backward
For the right to decide
Which leaves will fall first
And on whose lawn they’ll reside.

And the river is damming
Itself for the fall
The beavers are sunken
In a bog by the wall

And the ocean won’t listen
To the hush of the sea
And the bluebird insists
It’s either you or it’s me

And the seagull is circling
And the crow has returned,
And the buzzard is waiting,
The house has been burned.

And the milk has gone sour
And the cream has gone gray,
I can’t stick around
‘Til the end of the day.

There’s a farm in Wyoming
With untouched topsoil,
I’ll head for the sky now
Before the kettles all boil.

The Good Man

If a good man is a wood man
Then could man or even should man -
In the peace that always follows -
Look to the understood man,
And bother asking, "Why?"

No, no man is his own land,
And no hand stays in dry sand,
It is cancelled by the wind,
In the peace that always follows.

Superhero Blues

An army of loners
Assembled at dawn
To release all the pigeons
The generals had won

At a fairground in Memphis
Where the pies are all free
And the strongmen all serve
Burnt toast with High Tea.

But the meddling kids
Let the Boogie Man go,
And the Phantom of the Opera
Is late for the show.

It’s a little known fact
That Batman and Robin
Belong to a men’s club
That race with toboggans

And if Superman loses
His cape and his tie
He’ll fold up his S
And head for the skies

Where Green Goblin and Bogie
Can smoke all they want
And discuss all the losers
Like Descartes and Kant

And Iron Man wishes
His wardrobe had verve;
He’d propose to his girlfriend
When he saved up the nerve.

Oh, I read all the papers
And the news isn’t good,
The bad guys are fearless,
And the cops have all stood

With their hats in their hands
And their guns in their socks;
They’re done with the law,
They’re investing in stocks.

But I try not to worry—
It never does any good.
I’ll sit by the fire,
Until I run out of wood.