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TRIP TRAP
By Steve Plonk

Trip trap
I'm flipping my flap,
I'm rapping my rap,
I'm running my tongue around
I gotta get the speile said
Before folks all leave town...

They say that you are responsible
For everything you do or say
But I wasn't responsible for the
Day I was born
Or the first haircut I was shorn...

I wasn't responsible for my Grandpa
Dying way back in World War One
I wasn't responsible for the color of my
Skin or eyes or the hair I can grow on my chin
I wasn't responsible for my genetic makeup
Or the family I was born within...

I wasn't responsible for the blizzard we had
Nor when the sun rose to 110
So is it nature or nurture my fairweather friends?
May we prevent every accident we ever were in?
What is it that makes sense of living
When we know we are interdepend?

How many angels may dance on a pin?
How does our speech affect enemies or friends?
Do we have all the answers to make amends?
Do we have strong enough will to stop all wars?
Are we responsible for the air we breathe?
Are we responsible for when we are coming and
When we do leave?
What is it we really believe?
What is responsibility when the lava explodes or
The earthquake strikes, or when the cars crash
Or we fall off our bikes? Many things are beyond
Our control and many things are not to our likes,
What good is responsibility when the tsunami hits?
God has the ultimate response, my friends...
So I keep my ears out for the message which God sends...
Keep an ear to the rail and you may hear the train coming,
But don't keep the ear to the rail too long or you'll get run down,
So keep your ears on when the train comes to town.
Don't pick up a snake that you know is a copperhead,
Because it is certain that it might bite and you might be dead...
God has the ultimate response, my friends...
So I also keep my ears out for the message God sends...

Author's Note: This poem was also submitted under a slightly different
format to Litkicks.com's "Action Poetry" on Feb. 28, 2012

Wake up America! It is time for all folks to come to the aid
of the Democratic Party. Send your contributions for a
better America.

i'm not here to vote, but i love your poem, steve

I have just received a message from God
She told me to move to West Virginia
and join a church that believes in snake handling

yes it is not my fault I was born a Jew.

Funny thing Steve how much I love you as a poet friend
and how much I need to take it to the limit

Some got dam body needs to send the "Democrat Party" a message.

Have you noticed how they have stolen the language right out from under the "Democratic Party"

I think Obama should wear an American Flag pin in one lapel, and a dollar sign on the other. Let's get down to serious business folks.

I enjoyed your poem a lot steve. I would not have felt inspired to jam with it if I had not liked it so much.

I like that word God a lot, also god, Gods, gods,, as long as I can say it I know it is not what it is. So I am skeptical of messages from God. These days I have copped out to the non-word G d. I know you are a kind and gentle man, I could see that when I was ranting and raving about the archives on litkicks. So I think I know what you mean when you use the word God, or I think I do, it is what I spell G d, because I want to disassociate myself from the God of the Republican party.

please pardon the puppet show.
as you can see I have not forgot about the word God yet.

Thanks Judih, short timer, & tarbaby. I sometimes wonder if we're all in G-d's
puppet show. I think we should "render under G-d the things which are G-d's
and unto caesar (Obama) the things that keep the government running. All the
public must be taxed. There are taxes in every country. But, tea party, don't
force the government to "throw the baby out with the bath water"!

I support teachers and government workers. I support the unions which help them. I support the teamsters and the railroad workers... I support using tax money to fix docks, roads & bridges, railroads, tithes to fix churches & temples, public assistance to the veterans, disabled, and poor widows and widowers. Certain aid is needed for the welfare of this country and across the world. For the Lord's sake, fix the locks in the canals that service our barge and shipping systems! Our gifts & taxes go to great things. Why is that so hard for the tea
party to realize? Republicans & Democrats must stand up to the tea party and
vote them out in 2012. Otherwise, if charity is needed, the churches & temples
will need to take up the slack. See link by Woody Guthrie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfq5b1bppJQ

It's a hard road we're travelling on and many more hills to climb...
We will keep agitating and "fighting the good fight," to make more gentle
this world we live in. We need more happy and gentle warriors.
Yes, I think Obama should "display the flag on one lapel and the dollar sign
on the other."

rich man contracts for stratotankers
suitcases of dollars to barbados
we got to cut entitlements
cause we ain't entitled

i was talking to a snowbird from canada
they all some here to do tai chi
i says to the one guy
i know why master moy came to canada
he said, "these people have some sense"
not like those dumbass manipulated americans

ah well it's also cold as hell
i could live underground in calgary
until i went stir crazy
and froze my lungs
puffing ice breath

at least in toronto
you don't have to worry about
how little we pay farmworkers for picking tomatoes
at breakneck speed

yeah i think we are in for another bout of disillusionment
i heard one guy say that all the liberal bills nixon passed
like OSHA were all written by Nader too bad he's Lebanese
he might make a good american

plonkey likes trains
everybody in chatanooga likes the choo chooo

i was down and out in so many places
it's easy to be on the lamb in st pete

Jimboloco, Ralph Nader is a Lebanese-American who was born in Winsted, Connecticut. He's as American as you or me. He's a great champion of the environment, a safe work place, and of the independent businessman. I'm really glad you mentioned him in regard to OSHA and so on...

Dubya made Nixon look like a liberal. Glad Dubya is out of there...I feel we need to re-elect Obama. Heck, Dubya made his own Dad look like a liberal. (Reagan, of course, was a "die in the wool " conservative but was able to negotiate with both sides of the aisle. I really disliked Reagan, even so.)

However, even if Obama is a progressive, I like Obama. Obama doesn't think in a box. I am worried about the tea party attacking unions, and especially teachers and public employees. Perhaps, we can educate the tea party and they will see their errors in judgement. Even Nixon, who wasn't my favorite politician, listened to the other side of the aisle and his own party moderates when it came to the environment.

I am happy, Jimboloco, that you are back in circulation. I hope everything
is going a little more "swimmingly" for you and yours. As for me, my back
is out of commission and I am wearing a suspender brace. Argh! Onward!

one of the best poems i've read by you.... really good stuff!

Thanks for that, Doreen. I think I've a few more diamonds in the rough,
if other folks take the time to read them.

"TRIP trap, part 2"

By Steve Plonk

Time twists like a speeding screw
God has the screwdriver,
I am just a little ant
Who keeps time on a watch
I'm just a swatch on
Destiny's pimple--
World also spins and I feel so simple
Because I know not what they do,
Those who are the movers and shakers,
Certainly are warriors and not quakers,
But all in good time, don't you know it's true,
Because we all are part of
An interconnected stew,
Which permeates all history
Break dancing through the mystery
Of what is going down
So let's play the clown/

We come here from far & near
Type upon these forums
What is clear one day may
We beholding the world itself in sway,
Cause we're all little ants upon this big anthill,
Other societies have anthills of their own
Extending the metaphor to the Nth degree...

What in the blaze of azaleas am I trying to say?
I'm saying that what we do here may last
Until next year and beyond,
Like a fern's potent frond,
We spread our spores of ideas beyond
Present time and space & may, if destiny shines
On us help out the larger human race,
We ant people, we miniscules, also are read
By presidents when getting ready for bed...

A rant of all rants, a speile for all speiles,
Where are you pea beneath the shells?
We in a shell game and Earth itself maybe the pea,
In a larger universal trick of the hand,
So we pray that those in the know
Will read what I say here and understand...
This rant has a great point,
That we are not the only ones reading in this joint...
Zounds! Am I speaking out of bounds?
Is the quick starting to stick?
Does the room start to spin,
I am you and you are her and I am him...
Where does all this end & start to begin?
In the beguine? In the market place scene?

Who are we anyway? Just a cog in a wheel?
A seer with much zeal? Who dreams into the reel?
That movie that goes on in each of our heads...
Before we call it quits and head for our final beds?
May G-d be truly with us this month and may
Those who hold the shells take pity on the peas,
The ants in the anthills and our big anthill...
What is it in this phantasm that I truly see?
Just to "simply be"?

Author's Note: The above poem was submitted to Litkicks.com's "Action Poetry"
on Jan. 24, 2012, just before midnight.

"Obama Got Osama Penny Haiku"
By Steve Plonk

(a)
Hour's getting near eight,
Another time i tried to be provocative,
I wished Osama bin-Laden would:
Go to hell in a tin pie plate--
Got immediately published in "Bog-Gob"
Speaking poetic talkative,
Trying to not get too crockative...
***
(b)
Bin-Laden, who lived by the saber,
Gets taken out by "special ops" caper,
Which succeeded in getting Osama
Going to hell in a shroud,
Off an aircraft carrier,
As folks lately take up the chant,
Say it out LOUD:
"Obama got Osama!",
To four-four time,
During an Armed Forces parade...
"They wrapped Osama in clean white sheet,
Throwed him down in the darkened deep..."
***
(c)
A courier got Osama made--
Seals had to shoot the messenger, too...
They didn't miss Osama in Abbottabad either,
Because he beat up people he didn't like
(In that Pakistani town) that got too close to
His bodacious million dollar compound on their bike...
Seals wrapped Osama in a clean white sheet,
Throwed him down to "Davy Jones Locker"--
Now Satan uses Bin-Laden's head to play soccer...
***
(d)
Old Osama's going through Satan's heavy
Metal detector, as goes a cartoon hector...
Critics of my bluster should remember,
That 9/11 victims had no shields
When jet planes were used as a vector,
For mass destruction on a scale unknown,
For terrorists acting out on their own...
My first thought was that revenge was sweet,
Avenging the death of an acquaintance,
Was quite an amazing feat...
Obama got Osama,
Succeeding in quite a "special ops" drama!
Praised be! Says this old pesky flea...

Also see this series in Poetry Forum, under my thread, "Part 2, More Penny Haiku", Page 2, on that thread. Thanks for reading...

I just found these again while looking for something else, I forgot what,

Did I say how much I enjoyed reading them,


The Big Picture, such a thrill to see it, I seen so many factories, so many cans and bottles marching down assembly lines, warehouses mile after isle of consumer products stacked to the ceiling, the cereal isles at local market, all this stuff, and I said it is all good, we need this. We are all consumers,
yes it is good I suppose,

but I never thought about God much when I was travelling around the country delivering freight, mostly I thought about man.

Except for nights away from it all parked on some back road in the desert under a sky full of stars, I felt it, I felt G d.

I just cant spellit
I wish I could remember what I was looking for when I found this
sorry steve
another ramble another user id

Still Trucking, your ramble is just fine...I'm pleased you like these "Trip Trap" rants.

GET YOUR MIND IN GEAR
By Steve Plonk

Get your mind in gear,
When you go go go,
Get your survival box,
Flow with your go go go
Wake up with the clocks
Take an extra pair of underwear & socks,
Giddy yap & go to see the show show show,
***
Honey, they’re camping out on
The courthouse lawn,
It’s gonna be a long time
Before they’ll be moving along—
So get a glimpse of the spectacle,
With your rose colored glasses,
We gotta tax the rich to save
The middle classes—
Jump up, jump back ,
Get the gravy train back on track,
Which no longer has a caboose,
Hanging on the back…
Don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue,
What it is that the bigwigs think
When they do…
They’ve been closing grocery stores
Around our old factory town,
Even though the economy
Supposedly is coming back around,
I don’t know why there are no
Passenger trains through here,
But I hope that they’ll bring
Them back thru , one of these years,
***
The mulligan stew is ready & boiled,
Many are in soup kitchens ‘cause
They no longer toil,
Hurry up & get the stew before it spoils…
The Democrats will get us out of this mess,
They’ve done it once before,
But it’s been seventy years or more,
Let’s see them once again
Open prosperity’s door…
***
Stick the china pig,
Dance an Irish jig,
Put the veggies on to boil
Let’s all get back to our toil…
Put away some good bread dough,
Flowing again with your go go go…
Don’t you know know know,
Water in the river does flow flow flow
Takes us on down stream,
We got to get out of the “Great Recession”,
Before we start to scream,
Wake up America, from this bad dream…
***
Get spankedelic on the republican party,
Whom all they know to do is borrow & party hearty,
They claim to never see to tax,
But they ain’t got the facts, you see,
They haven’t listened to you & me…
Can’t you see see see…
Alley oop oop, Alley oop, oop…
We need a leg up up up,
Bed for our head, food for our sup,
So let’s tell the GOPhers that we’ve had enough,
Life is tough, tough , tough…
When the rich pay less tax than their chauffeurs…
We’ve said enough, ‘nuff, ‘nuff—
So away we go go go….
Mind is back in gear...

See reprise in my Artlog Flying Horse Cafe: http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=168&t=26279