When Spies Run Free
Last Days
Workin’ for the FBI
Senators’ Delight
Party
Becoming Sixty-Four
Renegades in Jail
Joe’s Movie
Look into Depths of Things
When Spies Run Free
When spies run free, then why not me
Across the NSA?
I can record the campaign plans
Of billionaires with cares
The other side will not collide
Because we will assure their loss
I share the best intel with zest
When spies run free.
When spies run free, why not thee?
Uranium will glow
I will enrich my family
Pay to play in my prime
Run with the wind across the sea
And trade your country’s best
To reach the zone where it’s been stolen
When spies run free.
When spies run free, then history
May lay our secrets bare
Such theft can be a mockery
Of patriots called
To share their lights in planet nights
Men have no friends in treachery
The conscience gnaws despite the cause
When spies run free.
~Day
Last Days
The homeless in America are cold
While Senators lean back in their sleek cars;
Abusive nightmares haunt the children’s nights
As parents huddle drunk in dingy bars.
The Dollar is adored from coast to coast
While prophets are attacked (or worse) ignored;
T.V. delights in violence and sex
As its consumers stay smug, drugged and bored.
As Chastity’s regarded as a curse,
Fidelity’s assailed on every side;
With easy money couples get divorced
As if the Lord, who hates all sin, has died.
The leaders lose their sight of Christ’s tall cross
And masses stumble under weights of sins;
The Trivial is worshiped at new shrines
And Lucifer cannot conceal his grin.
Men trample rights of widows and the poor,
Few hear the silent screams of those unborn
Who are aborted–murdered by the wolves
Who howl, “Rejoice!” when all who know should mourn.
The prophet Daniel said in the Last Days
Man’s knowledge will increase, and yet Saint Paul
Declared that knowledge puffs man up, and that
It’s love, which never fails, that’s over all.
For God so loved the world he gave his Son,
And an eternal life belongs to you
If you believe in Christ, the one God sent,
The Root of David who makes all things new.
The stone has rolled and Jesus is alive,
He will return as Judge of goats and sheep;
Now is the time to pray, the Day is near,
For those who labor in the Lord will reap.
~Day Williams
Workin’ for the FBI
Tell me a tale, you go to jail
You give me guff, you’ll see who’s tough
You get me pissed, you’re on the list
When you are killed, I am fulfilled
I’m workin’ for the FBI
I’m a law enforcement guy
You lie to me, you won’t be free,
Don’t call me out, I’ve got big clout
You “patriots” are monkey butts
You “citizens” are firing pins
I’m workin’ for the FBI
I’m a law enforcement guy
Embarrass us, we’ll fight and fuss
That Finicum was overcome
A cowboy hero was one big zero.
Don’t mess with fate, dude, we shoot straight
I’m workin’ for the FBI
I’m a law enforcement guy
You want the law? That’s us, McGraw
We’ll find pretexts if we are vexed
We lost some texts while having sex
And we’re perplexed below our necks
I’m workin’ for the FBI
I’m a law enforcement guy
You’ll go to jail and have no bail
We’ll hide your file with you’re in trial
You’ll never budge, we own the judge
So we can say she’ll go our way
I’m workin’ for the FBI
I’m a law enforcement guy
We want your guns, don’t fight us, son
We know the route, we’ll stage a shoot
You’ll walk and run to take the guns
So we’ll have power and you will cower
~Day Williams
Senators’ Delight
If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
~Mt. 18:6
Before the vote, they drink and gloat,
Strong men on basement chairs;
They make the boys provide their joy,
And toast their love affairs
With blood and gore and sex-slave whores.
They chortle at forced sex,
The power pushes through their pores;
They crack the children’s necks.
The children’s pain excites their brains,
The world at their command:
They’re at the top and each new crop
Delights their ancient glands.
They can excuse each act they do
With clever rationales
As they abuse, pervert, subdue
The powerless with pals.
They smugly own the Nowhere Zone
Where consciences are seared;
With double face they win their race,
Their words and might revered.
With wealth untold, their acts are bold
(Protected from above);
They have beguiled your missing child,
That boy, that girl, you love.
The day they die, no angels cry
To see them fall below,
As sulfur fire won’t quench desire,
They burn in lava flows.
~Day Williams
Party
The hostess sells her paintings, thirty bills
Apiece, to pay divorce attorney’s fees;
Sammy swallows two hundred fifty pills
And drinks green tea for immortality,
And Nancy Narcissist preens in front of
Seven antique mirrors while the Vid Man
Records her every gesture in self-love
To make a monument for her mad fans.
High heels, big wheels, dark deals, sharp steals,
Stakeout is two doors down,
Rough drugs, bad thugs, warm hugs, good bugs,
This party’s goin’ down.
Psycho Sal checks the bathroom medicines,
Hot Pants the Supermodel checks for lint
On Stocktrader Tom’s sleeve; he drinks and grins
At Sallie’s dirty jokes (she’s worth a mint)
As she plays the latest music, knows the words
To every track and turns her back to Jack,
Who winks at her across a couch and bores
His editor, who suffers heart attacks.
High heels, big wheels, dark deals, sharp steals,
Stakeout is two doors down,
Rough drugs, bad thugs, warm hugs, good bugs,
This party’s goin’ down.
The Scientologist concocts a tale
To keep her on the tabloid covers; strange
Professor Vaughn has cut his penis off,
Tells students that the President’s deranged.
A kitchen pair play spoons to backwoods tunes,
Tuxedo Tom has tickets for the show,
Front-row seats for an aging pop tycoon
Who sells him his fresh drugs from Mexico.
High heels, big wheels, dark deals, sharp steals,
Stakeout is two doors down,
Rough drugs, bad thugs, warm hugs, good bugs,
This party’s goin’ down.
The rapper spills a drink and mops it up
With Cover Girl’s fur coat, her belt, her lace;
The late-night host slips her a mickey, licks
Her ear and cheek, and keeps a poker face.
The rising starlet bats her eyelashes
At the producer who has lost his wife–
A plane crash in the Andes–she lunges fast
At him as he derides the right to life.
High heels, big wheels, dark deals, sharp steals,
Stakeout is two doors down,
Rough drugs, bad thugs, warm hugs, good bugs,
This party’s goin’ down.
She checks her cell and pops a pill, she stops
To reapply her lipstick, blush, and rouge
While Greenwich Village painter-man talks shop
About his triptych featured in the Louvre.
The Gender Studies major wants her X
To be a Y, so she has joined a cult
Where chromosomes are curdled by swan necks
In Psilocybin syrup for results.
High heels, big wheels, dark deals, sharp steals,
Stakeout is two doors down,
Rough drugs, bad thugs, warm hugs, good bugs,
This party’s goin’ down.
The upstairs bedrooms brew with body heat,
And no one talks about the campaign man
Who lured two girls downstairs with bags of sweets
And stories how he fought the Ku Klux Klan.
Behind the banister the nightgown kids
Sneak peeks at smoke and drinks and tailored clothes
‘Til Mom shoos them upstairs to watch their vids
Of princesses who would not decompose.
High heels, big wheels, dark deals, sharp steals,
Stakeout is two doors down,
Rough drugs, bad thugs, warm hugs, good bugs,
This party’s goin’ down.
The anti-fascist who derailed a train
Announces that the honored guest has come
With spells to share her Spirit-Cooking pain,
To make the babies squirm and squall in tubs,
To drink for power the adrenochrome,
To hypnotize with lights and chants and codes.
“With eyes wide shut start fires to chomp down homes,
Destroy the Old, bring in what will corrode.”
High heels, big wheels, dark deals, sharp steals
Stakeout is two doors down,
Rough drugs, bad thugs, warm hugs, good bugs
This party’s goin’ down.
~Day Williams
Becoming Sixty-Four
I’m coming up
On sixty-four
I’ll need a cane
To walk the floor
I’ll rise to pee
Ten times a night
Sometimes I’ll see
The food I bite
My bald pate shines
From porch to shed
A baseball cap
Will hide my head
I will employ
More doctors than
The wrinkles in
My swollen hands
I’ll check obits
If I’m not there
I’ll wander ‘round
In underwear
I’ll sport new teeth,
New hips, new hair,
I’ll have no job,
I’ll have no cares
‘Cept when I drift
Around the block
I’ll stop to pick
Up colored rocks
And trudge with cane
To First and Vine
And ask myself,
“Which house is mine?”
I’ll drive a car
When I can’t see
Firemen will lift
Me from a tree
I’ll tell about
My childhood pond
While grownups snore
And children yawn
I won’t recall
My childhood friends
Nor they me:
So do lives end.
I’ll mow the lawn
If I have aid:
While you cut grass
I’ll rest in shade
I’ll plant some seeds
And make them grow
Then wipe them out
With rake and hoe
My wife will ask,
“What of those seeds?”
“What seeds?” I’ll say,
“I took out weeds.”
And we’ll relax
On rocking chairs
And talk of days
When I had hair
As crickets chirp
And pigeons coo
I’ll fall asleep
And you will snooze . . .
We’ll whirl and twirl
On golden streets
Where no one cries
And life is sweet.
~Day Williams
Renegades in Jail
By stops and starts the storm arose:
Warm wind, soft rain, light snow.
At first it landed on the clothes
And did not brush the soul.
The storm increased as more awoke
And prayed for God to send
Sterner storms that would pick and poke
Beneath the skin, and end
The reign of renegades who’d gone
Unfazed by rising winds,
Lawbreakers who would wink and don
Cloaks that protected skins.
The wind bit hard, no longer warm,
And crawled inside the heart.
Poor reason perished in the storm,
Bright minds had lost their art
To plant deceit in treachery.
An evil plan recoils
Upon its maker, who won’t see
The traps until he’s foiled.
The wind bit hard, and when the sun
Came out from clouds and shone,
The renegades, their senses stunned,
Were found in cells, alone.
~Day Williams
Joe’s Movie
The local market offered me fresh fruit;
I held a bag of strawberries when Joe,
Film-maker who has never worn a suit,
Asked me to view his latest cut at home.
“This nightmare fogged my mind and followed me,
No matter how I tried to shake it off,
I shot the scenes as best my memory
Conceived it, though I may be growing soft.
Did we win World War II?” he asked his tea
As though I wasn’t there, and slid a disc
Into his player by a Harper Lee
Bird book to which he fixed a paper clip.
“A girl from the north woods gave me this book,”
He said, “when I left Phoenix for her place,
Which had been chaos, but on second look,
A midnight climax spruced up her mad space.”
“How did you feel?” I questioned. “Glad! I . . . Oh,
She made me feel I’d gone through gates to stars,
And we played like Bohemians in a grove,
Like we were space Marines who circled Mars.”
“Why aren’t you with her anymore?” I quizzed.
He caught himself, then wryly said, “Sometimes
You build a burger and make it sizzle . . .
Sometimes it tastes like Ajax dipped in grime.
What I am telling you . . . you understand?”
“No, here’s a coin if you will tell me more.”
And like a pro he said, “She met a man
Who talked of pizza, cheese, and dominoes,
Who salivated over hot dog stands
And went ballistic if the plumbing leaked,
As though he’d kill the man, for cash in hand,
Who caused it, rich or poor, urbane or geek.”
“So they weren’t meant to be?” “He skipped out on
Her; we’ve lost touch since she went to D.C.—
Another missing D.C. girl–foregone
Conclusion if you knew her company.”
“What of this movie you have filmed?” I asked.
“Inception plays among Joint Chiefs of Staff
Where Pentagon commanders wear black masks
Into great halls where spies take polygraphs
As Clockwork Orange chimes in Dulce base
While horrid mutants whimper underground
And robot soldiers run a close-watched race,
Roswell to Sandy Hook to Proving Ground.
Meanwhile, at Jekyll Island, bankers plot— ”
“I’m sorry, but I must go home to see
The missus,” said I, “and our boy, the tot,
Wants me to help him decorate the tree.”
And Joe I never saw again, though he’d
Sent postcards postmarked only with a “Q”:
The locals found his body late one eve
And deputies recovered his canoe.
~Day Williams
Look into depths of things
Change your way of thinking
Look into depths of things
Inside that scrawny boy
May be the makings of a king.
~Day Williams
