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When life’s got you bogged in the trenches,
Beaten senseless by dandies and wenches,
Keep high in mind should you feel low in soul
The fact that la vie est drôle!

La vie est drôle, my friend, my friend –
La vie est drôle, my friend.
Passed down through the ages
Via fools professed sages:
La vie est toujours drôle!

When a sprite spits you smack in the face
‘Pon confessing your love for her grace,
Avoid depression’s dipole dragging down a dark hole –
Embrace her! La vie est drôle!

La vie est drôle, my boy, my boy –
La vie est drôle, my boy.
And should she call for you dead,
Just stroke her sweet head:
La vie est toujours drôle!

When you miss that promotion you seek
Since men chart girls’ futures as bleak,
Raise high the flagpole, signal bra-burning goal:
Revolución! La vie est drôle!

La vie est drôle, my lass, my lass –
La vie est drôle, my lass.
Dost your knife and fork pine
For chauvinist swine?
La vie est toujours drôle!

See Big Brother tax all that you earn
For pernicious programs openly spurned?
Why work for payroll wasted on Nympho-control?
Retire at forty! La vie est drôle!

La vie est drôle, my child, my child –
La vie est drôle, my child.
Watch the bread for your house
Spoil the slug and his louse:
La vie est toujours drôle!

When life slowly winds to Fate’s end
And you feel your will breaking its bend,
Before Death has stole to hark his bell’s toll:
Jack-in-the-Coffin! La vie est drôle.

La vie est drôle, my dear, my dear –
La vie est drôle, my dear.
If three things are certain,
They are death, taxes, and
La vie est toujours drôle!

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Oh Lady Fate the Pastry Chef!
Bake us a pie if you can –
I’ve an appetite for Destiny
And I’ve brought my ravenous friends.
Your lovely pasties have a knack:
To make five tastes from one –
But whether or not they are divine
We cannot decide upon.

My friend Optimist puts her focus
On the crispy ruffles of crust;
Whether the middle is cooked or not –
She’s been satisfied enough.
On she goes and eats the rest
Expecting last bites like the first
And, if they’re not, she’ll think they are
Since it all could be much worse.

My rival Pessimist hates the pie
As soon as the oven is open;
Yet every moan he makes for cake
Is delivered with a grin.
Picking glumly at the slice,
Wishing it was more
Despite the gripes a thicker piece
Triples from before.

My sister Realist cares not for pies
But will give it a go anyway
Because she said she would at first
And our drive took five and fifty.
With all our eyes glued on her
She’ll shovel bite after bite
Never telling it’s hard to chew
(Complaining hurts her pride).

My brother Pragmatist gobbles it all
For the nutritional value in store –
If asked whether he thinks its good
He’ll have to eat lots more.
Then we’ll wait to see his waist –
If it has grown in size
He’ll swear off pastries altogether,
Leaving us to exercise.

And I, Christian, am simply blessed
To share with friends your pie;
When the filling fits the foiled mold –
When it’s moist or dry –
When it bursts with flavors rich
Or when my gut still yearns –
I’m grateful for what’s promised: pies.
Then laud the best returns.

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Oh, I am the lonely Jazz-Man,
Bowing hard most every day;
The Sax, Trombone, and Trumpet
Won’t persuade these folks to stay,
But still I heave my utmost
To try and earn their applause –
Yet the conversation spurs hesitation
And my award is an awkward pause.

I am a Martyred Musician,
A prophet on the stage.
The skill I had in younger years
Has grown untuned with age.
I used to love my instrument,
But now can’t stand its sight
‘Cause my huff-and-puff don’t amount to snuff
Or sympathy for my plight.

Oh, I am the ragged Blues Boy,
Playing toot-toot on my horn.
The only pleasure left in life
I find jerking off to porn.
Every hour I see chairs filled up
As full as my jar of tips,
Which is to say, in a kinder way,
This is a House of Drips.

I stand, the begotten Swing King,
A heartthrob come to pass.
The dough I once made naturally
I make half to bust my ass.
My serenades all are old hat,
My riffs far past their prime –
So here I sing, playing my own heart strings
As I weep my deafened rhyme.

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I am gifted on the piano
So you might say –
A seasoned musician, a talented virtuoso
With miraculous fingers –
But, you must understand, I’m actually no pianist at all
But a painter.
These keys are my palette, their notes my paint,
And the colors parade as I plink, never faint,
Always vibrant when dancing
Sewing the backs of my eyelids
With threads that defy description in
Otherworldly patterns and godly shades
Until my eyes burst open
And hues wash across the crowd
As an expertly knit blanket of sound –
Then, my mind is lost
In this synesthesiac ecstacy –
Weaving on my bench I knit a cosmos
Where eye and ear are one
And the audience is myself, but multiplied,
Varied as an A from an A-flat and an F from an E-sharp
Or Green from White and Purple from Violet –
Round and round, schizophrenic critics we, bobbing to that musical canvas,
My nimble fingers leading the conductor’s paintbrush
Which also happens to be myself, playing a guitar
Bound by boar-hair bristles
That produce a soft, powerful vibration
To clash with the business of the piano
keys
As drums bounce for one side, then the other,
Miniature canvases that control their own beats with their own
pedal
Designed to speed up the painting, not prolong the sound,
Thus enhancing the chaos rather than driving it to frustration
Until TING!

The triangle.
The three points of our complex,
Our all-encompassing,
Our contradicting waves,
Broken down to simplistic harmony –
Silencer of everything with its calming shade of clear.

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The guitar
Is a difficult instrument;
A seasoned guitarist can strum
And pluck
And pick,
Coaxing each nylon organ
Its metallic voice:
Resonant, tinny twang.

Yet,
When they open
Their bristly lips to sing
To moan
To drone,
The rasp that stumbles out
Spoils the diligent work
Of the stringent strings.

It is blasphemous,
Hearing such strained whining
Passed off as expertise
As vocal control
As musicality,
An emotionless, mindless wheeze
Ejaculating empty words of complaint.

The guitar
Is a difficult instrument;
Those who master its hollow frame
Its fretted neck
Its stinging spine,
Will find the throat, tongue, diaphragm
Instruments more difficult to master.

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How do you do? Don’t you think
the weather is fine, it could be better –
But yesterday was worse – By the
way, did you hear about Susan
and her husband? It was a long
time coming, yet it came
all the same and I believe
she could have avoided, it’s her
own damn fault, the way she acted…
I always say “think twice, ask thrice”
and people always ask me what it means –
Do you know what it means? It means…
You know I’ll tell you about it
later because I want to ask how is
your wife? I’m only asking since
I saw her the other day and said to myself
“You know she doesn’t look too well,”
so is she well? You know, when I don’t
feel well I find a good night’s sleep is
the best remedy – but how can one get
sleep when there’s so much to talk
about and things to do and people to –
See, I just don’t have enough time –
Speaking of which, I am meeting a
friend so I have to be going – it was good
talking to you!
Goodbye.

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I plan to throw a feast!
A marvelous, magnanimous feast!
Green beans, pie, and hams galore
Seasoned with spices and sauces and so much more –
Pile those dishes high off the floor!
Come one, come all,
Come short, come tall
To dine in my hall.

Didn’t you hear my call?
The rumbling warmth of my call?
Caviar, cabbage, and potpourri,
Every species of fish you could see in the sea
And every scrumptious morsel is absolutely free!
Come sober, come stoned,
Come paired, come lone,
To dine in my home

I must call off the feast.
My ambitious, delicious feast.
Every person I could possibly ask
Held up a visage, their protective masks,
Hurrying along towards some unforeseen task.
No one came, no one cared,
All this food – I just stared
As I waited to dine with my guests.

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There they go, the Russians –
Dancing
Racing
Squatting on their haunches
And clopping down the street!
With a swig of vodka,
They’re offa!
Wowza!
Butts skidding the sidewalk
While kicking up the heat –
I once asked a Russian Racer how he did it
And was told it was easy as raz and dva and tree –
Instead of explaining the steps and how he got there,
He laughed, then crouched down,
Then danced across the street!
The Russians, they like racing –
Though I know not why this way –
But day and night they like to play
By kicking to the beat!
I’ve raced with them since often
And now think I know why
They race so unconventionally:
Because they think their brand’s unique
Even when I’m in the line
Which, perhaps, makes me Russian.
So now I dance and stomp and steer
With folded arms and widened stance
And join this Russian romp!
Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!

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It happened then
I dug through
My dark basement
In the afternoon
An ancient gramophone
Caught me eye
And held it
Some vinyls lay
Abandoned in sheets
I placed one
Upon the gramophone
“Eye of the Tiger”
It screeched loudly
Disk was fine
I tried again
“September”
It got caught
Though the record
Was not scratched
The next played
A modern hit
“Rolling in the Deep”
The machine clawed
At the surface
The disk broke
My last attempt
“Brown-Eyed Girl”
The tuning swell
The control sublime
I listen contentedly
For hours there
But the gramophone
Seems to play
For itself alone
Remembering distant memories
And nothing else
Would it play.

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In a hallway, sitting crossed,
I find my thoughts a little lost
For in the rooms on either side
Galavants the peace denied:
On my left, a hormoned beat
Pursued by clumsy thumping feet –
Though there’s no tune here for the trance
Techno-pop whips out its dance,
Crippling beasts in heated crowd
As they pant for well-endowed
Rhythms bend them, forward thrust
Until their eardrums almost bust.
On my right, a sweet serenade
By soloist’s skilled promenade;
Cradling cello tenderly,
Coaxing moaning melody,
Jerking bow between tightened strings:
Soft then strong, that rumbling feeling
Until the instrument’s climax
And Cellist’s muscles tense, relax.
One side grinds my nerves for less,
The other pines my heart for more;
Stuck between, neither redress
Tainting once-silent reservoir.

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