Cowboy Pants

Cowboy pants daddy take a stroll or a tram ride or

just hang out on the corner and check out for yourself

what mailmen salesmen masons herbalists dog handlers

short order chefs basket weavers rabbis waitresses

banjo players bankers brain surgeons duck breeders

opera singers unisex hairdressers second hand car

dealers milk maids part time typists minor princes

funeral directors ex-presidents voodoo doctors

rice planters Tibetan monks pin table manufacturers gold

dealers hangmen scrap merchants ballet dancers band

leaders belly dancers elevator operators got on their

legs daddy coal sacks daddy that is what no kidding

cotton twill serge a bunch of smart guys de Nimes

invented way back to make a real tough sack for

shifting coal that wouldn't fall apart after a week some

time later an even smarter Jew from Buttenheim living

in the States figured he'd make into pants that won't

fall apart on the Arizona trail denims daddy jeans is a

derivative of Genoa which is where some smart Italians

figured they could turn coal sacks into pants but

weren't smart enough to figure out a set of rivets

keeps a pair of pants together at the crutch better than

a row of stitching it took a smart Latvian called Jacob

Davis to figure that one thus and thereby earning his

boss Levi Strauss an annual revenue of four thousand

three hundred and three billion bucks world wide okay

so you want a pair of hand tailored 12oz light cream

wool slacks to look smart at a buffet lunch forget it

daddy all they sell now is a cut up coal sack riveted

into pants for cowboys.

 

 

List

 

This is a list of big time classic composers who would 

have been better they worked at another job say a 

short order chef at Eddie's All Nite Eat Inn or in the 

drapery department of a big store or on a pig farm 

anything but composing number one is Tchaikovsky 

who who wrote tunes for hoofers dressed as swans 

number two is Mahler who was tortured and wanted 

to be Wagner who is after number three Vivaldi whose 

one big hit is named after a pizza number four is Liszt 

who was the Liberace of his day but without the silver 

candelabra and smile number five is Wagner who hated 

Jews and brevity in that order number six is anyone 

called Strauss in particular Richard who was a Nazi not 

to be confused with Charles Strouse who wrote Annie 

and is a genuine genius when it come to writing tunes 

number seven is Benjamin Britten who ran away in the 

war number eight is Beethoven's Fifth number nine is 

Beethoven's Ninth number ten is Rodrigo and his 

concerto everyone spells wrong to get off this list you 

got to compose a tune they don't play in elevators or 

all day on your favourite Classic Radio Station or down 

the telephone while you are holding or brings back 

memories of a Touching Moment like your first big 

romance and even that is not enough believe me and it 

is no good getting a new agent you got to be born 

already off this list to get off this list and nothing you 

can do once you are born will change that.

  

 

The Somme

 

The Somme is down the road an hour in the car summer

is the best time to go when the days are long and there's

a warm wind blowing across the fields and through the

scrubland and clumpy bits of forest and the corn is ripe

usually and poppies everywhere bushes dot places they

dug trenches and there are sweet smells that come from

the wild flowers and not as many birds as you might think

but you see a lot of butterflies and you walk up from the

road and climb stone steps to the headstones and the

flags fluttering and the clouds moving peacefully in the

warm wind and it is silent and no one comes you are

there in the warm wind and the silence in summer

August is good even as early as April great fields of flat

white stones and the silence and the empty wind and the

sound grass makes and corn makes when the wind blows

it and the names are there on the stones and roses grow

from the earth under the stones and the ages of those

under the earth in these memorials that are stone and

silent and the flags flutter and the flags of carved stone

stay still and peaceful and there are yellow headed weeds

and purple thistles and pink clover and all kinds of wild

flowers growing in the cut lawns above the earth where

the men are buried with names and the number they

were given and the regiments and companies they joined

and the date they were born and died and the place they

were born if it was known and if not known only to God

and later after a long time you drive back in the soft

afternoon sun and the high blue skies in less than an hour

you are already near the coast and there are plenty of

birds seagulls starlings all kinds and big white ferry ships

in the distance that look like they are quite still in the

gentle evening haze and you can see where they came in

from the north and the road they marched down singing

 

to the Somme