Captain Jack

Preface: I don’t know whether this should be called a poem or not. It looks and feels like a short story, but it sounds poemish to me. I think at this point in the development of English poetry, the line between poetry and prose has been blurred enough to allow for this kind of thing. Whatever you want to call it, here it is for your enjoyment (or scorn, depending on your evaluation).

Cap’n jack said
Tote it back son. Pistols tend to make worse intentions out of bad ones, and if you’ve a mind to recline as an old man, you need to learn to turn your “quit” knob from cain’t to can

And don’t let your right hand get dressed with the left, cause when they get together and reach into that cleft, and produce that useless piece of iron and steel, that bloods up in your bony hands — that you think is gonna wheel and deal and reel you in a big bull shark dose of bein’ a man — you’ll come to understand, that livin’ by the sword is for the dead, and don’t pay buffalo pennies on the fool or his head, cause the devil squares debt on a double-down, dig-a-hole installment plan.

But before you even have a chance to do the math on how much wrath you’ve got the tend for, your thin-poor fingers’ll squeeze on that Remington and send forth the wages of sin and what you’re in for, won’t be but The Death.

But not The Death you’re thinkin’ about cause I cain’t die but once. Naw, you’ll be workin’ that graveyard shift yourself, dyin’ on your own dime, cause every time you think your wretched mind is gonna let you skip the play-it-again rewind, it just flat out won’t.

You’ll pay your nights with quick lime and sour wine, fool-and-king-sleepin’ on a pauper’s galvanized crown. You’ll bleed the sweat of travail and wail until you’ve gnashed and gnawed and ground your teeth to powder, and opened up a fresh hell of outer darkness and since you know you cain’t harken it back up, you’ll curse the sun ever time it goes down.

But worse’n that, if you ever do get free
of wheel-haulin’ around that dirty done, one ton barrel of bitter-weed dreams, you’ll turn and wish’t you hadn’t. Cause if you think about it for just a minute, that barrel’s got your soul spilt in it, and soon as you tip ‘n tump it over, you’ll pour me and it both out in the yard, and you’ll be standin’ there wonderin’ when you ever begun to be a buzzard, leavin’ what’s left of the dead to face the sun, while you forget ‘n fly off, vomitin’ what you cain’t carry.

So tote that joker back to whatever kind of hole you got it from, and tell that crook what took your money and then some, that you’ll take the bills in a paper sack, and he can take that three pound, ten ounce metal baby boy right back to his daddy the devil, what sired ‘im. And since I’m perty tired ‘n thirsty from all this preachin’, you might as well reach into that sack when you get back, and buy us a beer, one for you, and two for Jack.

The Second Hand Bandit

You think you know about Boley Searls?
You think you know about The Second Hand Bandit?


Well, you better un-think ever’ thang you ever forgot to thought about, and start rethinkin’, or thinkin’ real hard about how high up into high noon you’re willing to go, cause Boley ain’t no school boy, nor skinny Sambo, nor mustang doppelganger.


People, he’s a jerrymand’rin’ jingo, and he don’t give a dead-blamed dollar whether you’re a darlin’ or a soiled dove, he’s gonna sport three spurs on his left boot, and you better just hope he don’t dance a whiskey whip and spitoon with it.


He’ll eat that Stetson for breakfast and before you send for your sidekick, you’ll be sewed up in a Comanche choke hold so tight, it’ll take right at seven grown men to untie you, and then they’ll have to un-mend the ground on boot hill and heave you in.


I’ve heard tell he’ll rob you, not just blind but Bible-blind — so blind it’ll take a bona fide wonder workin’ sign to fix. You won’t even have the clothes that ain’t on your back. You’ll have to borrow two pairs of britches just to not be butt naked.


And if you thought you were through with the trials and tribulations, Boley does a duster-double. He backs back into your bedroom and un-bandits ever’ thang right where it was before, so he can purloin all your play-perttys a second time.


But it’s best not to ask questions about Boley — the less you know the better. And if you’re thinkin’ to law-out that outlaw by callin’ the sheriff, better to cinch a saddle and ride on that hide until you get shed of that notion.



If you don’t you’ll be wishin’ you’da drowned that curiosity cat in fire water and Wednesday-night-wine, ’cause The Second Hand Bandit’s liable to beat you into a No-vember bunkhouse so fast, you’ll be plannin’ a Yes-vember break out before Billy Bankrole gets back with the bread.


And if that don’t make no sense — if you tried on this story and it don’t fit — it’s because Boley’s done snatched a lasso ’round all the sense, and run off with it.

End of Hiatus – Two Legged Truths

Apparently it has been 5 years since the last Two Weevils post. This is really only of interest to readers which, I’m fairly certain only consist of me and sometimes my mom; but to any others who might accidentally stumble upon this post because you Googled “lesser of two evils,” and scrolled to the 79th page of results, this will be a restarting of a project I have set aside for a few years.

I plan to switch the format some, or at least add a new feature. Until now this blog was dedicated to word play, which afflicts me at all hours of the day. But I’ve recently tried to direct my creative efforts toward something meaningful, by writing poetry, and I plan to start compling them here, alongside the puns.

Below is a light hearted example, but I have more work to come that is a little less silly.

Two Legged Truths

Uncle David told some tales,
He taled of things to hear.
Like pheas-o-larkish meadow-ants
Who fly with feathered ears

Of fabled fools who drowned a fish
And felled a tree upright
Who fled the moon by light of day
And feared the sun at night

He told of olded widows swimming
Past the southern pole
And rowing steamers seven leagues
While eating all the coal

He said he buried France beneath
An inch of coco beans
Then swept up every single one
With vacuum limousines

I used to think that Dave had put
The truth up on two legs,
But now I realize those lies
are real as Robin’s eggs

Once You Pop…

While visiting his mother’s sister and her husband, Keat and Morris Dekhart, John challenged them both to a Pringles eating contest. After one round, John had eaten 9, and Uncle Morris 16, and the lady, 1. Morris pushed back from the table and said to his nephew, “Well boy, looks like we can’t eat just one, so Aunt Keat just won.”

I found this scratched on the hand dryer of a convenience store bathroom. Mixed in with the gang tags and phone numbers for a variety of services, sat this little gem.

Above The Fruited Plain: Vandals Bolster American Sentiment

Lincoln, NE – A new fad has taken root in the graveyard enthusiast community; tired old headstones are getting a facelift.  Volunteers with a local group are sneaking into cemeteries all over the city in the dead of night to paint the monuments with bright colors and add cheerful decorations.

“We just feel that the grey monolith has run its course.” says Lemonn Gentworth, president of Graveyard Rejuvenators International: Midwest, otherwise known as GRIM.  “There’s no reason people looking at a cemetery should ever be reminded of death, and nothing says “death” like ugly grey rocks sticking up out of the ground.  With a little paint and maybe some tasteful dolphin figurines, cemeteries might become a place so removed from the awful stigma of death that you could host a toddler’s birthday party, or have a badminton tourney, or sell puppies to homeless people, or whatever.  The possibilities are really endless.”   To date, Gentworth and his volunteers have “colorfied” (the official GRIM term) about 100 graves in and around Lincoln, with plans to move on about 250 more.

While it should be noted that these activities are viewed as vandalism under the law (punishable by death in North Korea) and there has been some outcry from concerned citizens.  Local resident Jarvis Wayne II voiced his concerns on the back porch of his humble farmhouse on the outskirts of town, overlooking his neighbor’s fields, and the family graveyard that lies just beyond the white picket fence.  “Well I was actually pretty shocked at first.”  he said. “I just woke up one morning and saw all of my ancestors had a coat of yellow paint on the headstones.  I called my preacher just to make sure you know, there wasn’t anything untoward about it, you know with the dead and all that.  And then I called the hospital to make sure they would tell those ambulance helicopter pilots that I did not have a landing pad in my back yard, what with the yellow and all.  After that, the more I thought about it, I guess it was really OK.  I think Grandpa Jarvis might even have liked it, you know with the yellow and all.”

Despite the controversy, one would be hard pressed to recreate a more idyllic scene of Americana .  A salt-o-the-earth midwesterner, sipping tea on his porch, the sun setting on the horizon, illuminating the Amber Graves of Wayne.

What Do When Rain?

A Tale of Two Randy’s

Randy was the captain of a pirate ship, just like his father, Randy Sr. had been, before he retired.  In his younger days, Sr. could buckle those swashes with the best of them, but now he prefered to rest in his waning years, giving the family business to the new Cap’n Randy.  The old captain had always wanted to learn how to bake, and now with Jr. on the high seas, he had plenty of time to pursue his hobbies.

On a particular day, Young Randy eyed a storm brewing.  This would not be the day that the good ship Sandwich Wednesday turned to a mass of broken timber, to drift for a few hundred years, acquiring “authenticity,” only to be turned into a coffee table by a hipster carpenter and sold for $9,000.  No sir, not today!  He started shouting orders to the crew, “Avast ye lads, [do this nautical thing], [do that nautical thing], and fer Davey Jones’s sake, batten down them hatches!”

Little did he know, that his father was facing a crisis of equal magnitude at that very moment.  Old Randy had spent all day baking cookies, and there were pans cooling all over the kitchen.  Just as he was closing the oven for the last time of the day, he saw it.  A small black cloud was moving quickly across an open field, and toward his kitchen.  Such a sight would strike fear into the heart of the saltiest of sea dogs.  “Flies ho!” he yelled, and falling back into his old captain’s habits, he began to bark our orders, though only to himself.  “Look lively now mate, look lively.  We ain’t loosin’ these macaroons to no flies today me hearties, nay not a one!  Aye, Grab the tricorn!  Grab the derby!  Grab the fedora and the deerstalker even!  Fer the love o’ booty lad, hatten down them batches!”

It’s for the Birds

The most obvious fact in the world of avian politics, is the eternal rivalry between Mocking Birds and Robins.

On a particular day, one philosophizing young mocking bird was musing on the laws of nature, teetering on the edge of becoming a vegan.  Looking down at a worm, he wondered what right he had to take the life of another living creature.  Letting his thoughts wander outside his mind and into the open air, he suddenly cried out, “To kill, or not to kill?  That is the question.”

As it happened, a member of the robin press corpse was nearby, and heard exactly what he needed to hear.  The next day, every red-breasted reader of the daily, who was sure that most mockingbirds would just as soon peck out the eyes of a robin as look at them, had their suspicions confirmed by the headline, right there at the breakfast table.

“I knew it Martha.  I knew it!  It’s just like I’ve always said, you can’t trust’em.  They sing the song they think you wanna hear, but you never can know what song they’re really singin’.  All yous gotta do is catch one off guard and this is what you’ll hear.  It’s right here Martha, plain as the beak on my face!”

The sensationalized paraphrase included a little punctuational levity that tried to better understand what that ne’er do well really meant.

“To kill or not?  To kill!” – A Mockingbird.

Wiring Diagram Joke