Procedure procedes
And election validates deeds.
When crime is legal,
When procedure is not crime
When the people at the top
Ignore the law,
And the law does not apply

They never stopped to ask why.
So, when crime is legal
And law without order
Masks order without law
Nobody knows what he saw,
And people die
And some of them cry,
How did the crime get by?

Don Knipschield
7/13/2009

I keep a red rose, just one.
Because roses wilt in the sun.
So I write with roses faux
And it sits in the vase just so.
And  it keeps there well,
The petals never fall.
My fake rose stands,
In a fake Ming vase,
Elegant in its pretense,
And lacks real scents.
That is how I get through events,
A reminder of a rose,
A reminder of another age,
A reference for the written page.
Don Knipschield
7/17/2009

“Hold on there,” she said.
“While I answer the phone.
You can offer me money,
But I’m talking honey.
For what you buy,
But I’m talking to this guy.
I am not going to sell,
I’m answering this bell.
I’m on the phone until I’m done,
That’s all about me hon.
So if you want to buy,
You’ll have to go get high
Or find a fish to fry.
Cause, honey, I’m talking here,
So  you just go get a beer.”
So next week the store goes under
And everyone just wonder,
Why did the sales stop?
At the little Mom and Pop?
Don Knipschield

I  know why
I know why the Mona Lisa never smiles.
I know why the painting is classic.
I know why there is no expression.
Images of Women
never express emotion .
The ideal woman has no personality!
Full self-control was the image.
Ruling the stormy passions of life
Conquering all the tumult of the sexes in passion
When all the evils churn,
The ideal woman is like an urn.
She’s cool and classy and aloof.
Mona List is sure proof.
Don Knipschield

We have so much hatred,
We have so much anger,
We have so much bile
Religion makes it less vile.
Like sugar in the dough.
Religion eases the cost
Of the gold coffin.
Religion makes the price
Of the disk feel better.
Religion makes control so easy.
God must be invoked,
Even if wisdom is choked..

Don Knipschield

Close my coffin slowly,
I have a final poem to recite.
Close my coffin slowly
I will have another word.
Close my coffin slowly
As I say farewell.
Burn my coffin quickly,
Scatter my ashes well,
Read my poems widely,
And get me out of Hell.

Don Knipschield
6/15/09
I was going to archive this poem and leave it until my next illness.
But with everyone in a memorial mood, I thought perhaps other poets would see themselves here. DHK

No one here
Had ever spilled the beer.
They carried it in glasses,
They carried it in jugs,
They carried it in pitchers,
They held it in the air.
But no one here had ever
Had ever spilled the beer.
And Tony he just sat there
He sat there at the bar,
And Tony spilled the beer there.
It traveled down the bar,
And across the way,
Nacho dammed the flow.
And then it had nowhere to go
The bar is dry now,
But Tony holds his head low.
Tony spilled the beer.
And Tony spilled the beer,
And Tony spilled the beer.
No one here had ever spilled the beer,
But Tony spilled the beer.
Don Knipschield.
6/19/2009

The funniest event of recent media memory was when the Jackson family sent the media trucks out to Neverland Ranch for the public viewing of the singer’s body and then announced that the event would be held in downtown Los Angeles.
I am not feeling well, to paraphrase an ancient Chinese poet. I am suffering from a bad case of poetry. I’ll get back into my rhythms sometime tomorrow.
I sometime wrute  jokes in my poetry space because the Café needs a little humor. So my readers know my jokes by the numbers. And I have decided it is time to use material that was funny in former presentations. But I am  here including just the joke numbers  to save time and space and to  prevent people from laughing on company time. The ones which get the best laughs are numbered 899, 889, 854, 858, 849, and 794. The latter caused people in Chicago to laugh and laugh for half an hour.

It is the naysayer behind the gate,
The watcher of ideas and words
Who denies the right to express,
The freedom to transgress.
Words that could have meaning,
Words that register street life,
Become phrases of casual employ.
You have to say child
When you wanted to say boy.
You have say them or they
When you wanted to say he.
You wanted to write a purple phrase
And you lost your reader in a haze.
No, they don’t censor anymore,
They just leave you anchored at the shore.
Don Knipschield
6/30/2009

You Wasted the Day
You didn’t see me once.
You didn’t speak.
We didn’t see each other.

You wasted your day.
I do not want to waste the day
So I have to call and say,
It is now a much better day.

Don Knipschield 6/28/2009