mcradloff Poetry (529)

Slip Sliding Away
Slip Sliding Away
You know the farther your destination
The more you're slip sliding away
I am a man
I drive to a small town
The road wears a snow and ice covered sheet like a thorny crown
I said Platteville
I live in fear
The wind is so overpowering I'm afraid I will disappear
slip sliding away
I said a good day ain't got no snow
A bad day is when there's snow and ice and wind
And think of accidents that might have been
You know the farther your destination the more you're slip sliding away

I saw this movie
Its name was Frozen
It really scared me you see
It is about the job I work
The worst thing you could do
Is leave someone up on the chairlift after you close
I think that it is a slacker job
Unless you work at the bottom
Those guys really earn their pay
I sit at the top and eat junk food all day
We get free pop, free cocoa too
I make 8.25 an hour
7.20 an hour after taxes
I spend 9 bucks in gas to get there
70 miles of driving that takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes
This is the best part of this job
I love to listen to music
Lady Gaga, 80's music, Black Eyed Peas
Did you see them on the SuperBowl?
So if you want to see a good movie to scare you good
See Frozen
Then go skiing right afterward!

I saw them play in the Super Bowl 35 years ago in 1986
They even had a song "The Superbowl Shuffle"
The Bears were a lot of fun that year
The Fridge
Jim McMahon
Walter Payton
And their head coach Mike Ditka
The only team they lost to in 1985 was the Dolphins
So they play against the New Orleans Saints at 3:40 PM on Sunday
If I get lucky, they will eventually play the Green Bay Packers
Like they did in 2011
And the Packers will win
But if the Bears win
I'll root for them in Super Bowl LV (55)

I heard in a song by INXS
Look at the faces
Listen to the bells
It's hard to believe we need a place call Hell
There are many hells on this planet
The hells that are created in our schools
The hells created by poor pay to our workers
The hells created by our government fueled by power and greed
And the hells created for our elderly in nursing homes
My definition of a home is place where you feel love
A place where you feel safety
A place with good food and drink
By that definition we should call these places nursing houses
They have walls
They have roofs
But do they have the other things I just mentioned?

Thank you Santa for the many gifts you have given me over the years
Wonder and joy
From you being able to fly around the world in one night
Giving presents to everyone
Back when I was little you only had about four billion people
Now it's over seven billion
I guess you have to eat the cookies a lot faster
You were nice to Rudolph when you made him your lead reindeer
You keep an eye on me so I will be nice and not naughty
Thanks for stretch Armstrong, though he didn't last long when I pulled him apart
Thanks for Evel Knievel and his powered motorcycle
So I could pretend to jump the Grand Canyon and not really break my bones
Thanks for Darth Vader's TIE Advanced x1 starfighter and doll
So I could pretend to choke people with my mind
And blow up planets with the Death Star that was about 75 miles in diameter
Thanks for eating my mom's cookies because she is a great baker
And thanks for not quitting, so other children can experience the joy I had
And have!
Thanks Santa!

Saturn and Jupiter were close together
So close they were over top of each other this last week
I had clouds, so I missed out on that
I did see it the next day
They are separated by 456 million miles
Those distances are hard to imagine
Like the distances between my family members
We used to have 25, yesterday was 5
Coronavirus had something to do with it
Not buying gifts for everyone was more prevalent in the outcome though
I did get twenty dollars which I bought a History and Day of Calendar
I also got some gremlins from Betty Jane Candies
Pecans, caramel, and chocolate

We had our first real Christmas snow today and yesterday
I should have gone out and made something out of it
I made a snowman back in November
I made a Rudolph pumpkin carving on December 1
I etched it so when you put a light inside it glows orange-red
Around Rudolph
It should stop snowing around one in the afternoon
In a snowstorm dumping five inches on 2,000 square miles
Which is about the size of Grant and Iowa County, Wisconsin
There are 5 quintillion snowflakes
That's a 5 followed by 18 zeros.
A cubic foot of snow contain about one billion crystals
If you watch The Grinch Who Stole Christmas(Jim Carrey)
It takes place on a very small part of a snow crystal
Other movies with snow and ice
Frozen, where Elsa can create ice and Olaf from her majic
Frosty the Snowman who comes to life with a hat and then a kiss from Crystal
Groundhog Day where Phil knows it's tomorrow by the snow on the ground
The Shining where Jack is frozen in the cold hedge maze
And The Thing where an alien preys on people in the snowy Antarctica

Sending out my yearly Christmas cards
One to my landlord
One to my godmother who is 98
Send one to my mom who is 13 miles from me
Sister, aunt, brother
California, New York City, Wisconsin, Illinois
I see only two of these people
All the rest I only get in touch by facebook or just the card
Mine this year is the same as last year
Snoopy decorating the Christmas tree

I went to my Mom's for Thanksgiving
I was surprised to see my great niece and nephew Lexi and Hayden there
Lexi just got her drivers license and borrowed her Mom's car
I did not know if we were going to have a meal at home or at McDonald's
We had no meal together last year
So this year I just went over and found out
If I had did that for Christmas I would have had room in my stomach for ham
But I went to China Buffet instead
Inspired by the movie A Christmas Story
We had ham, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie
I don't know what next year will bring
Will Mom be in a home?
Will my nephew Shane be homeless?
But at least we got together

I get three weeks of vacation every year
I can roll over up to three more weeks if I want to
I have thus far only rolled over two days
Because I need a break from the sea of inhumanity
So yesterday I took a day away from the madness
I went to Dubuque, Iowa and went to the Kennedy Mall
I bought a Christmas Vacation ornament with Clark Griswold
He is holding a chainsaw
When you press the button it says a quote from the movie
"Hey Griswold, where do you think you're gonna put a tree that big?"
Bend over and I'll show you
I have two other from National Lampoon's Vacation
One with the family singing the Marty Moose song
And one with Marty Moose telling the Griswolds that they're closed for repairs
I also bought some Rap Snacks at Spencers Gifts
And a DVD from Best Buy
Now I have good snacks, good movies that don't freeze up and an ornament
I hope your day was as good or better!

Breakout!
When explanations make no sense
When every answers wrong
You're fighting with lost confidence
All expectations gone
The time has come to get infected
Go to a barbeque, don't hestitate
Breakout!
Don't stop to ask
Go ahead and take off your mask
You've got to find a way
Get infected today
Breakout!!
Some people stop at nothing
To be sure that you have nothing
They close down the restaurants, close down the stores, wipe out the jobs
Breakout!

The winter of my childhood were
long, long seasons. We lived in
three places - the school, the church
and the skating rink - but our real life
was on the skating rink

(Shows a kid on a toboggan sleigh riding
A kid and an adult ice skating and
Four kids playing hockey
With a snow flake and a pine forest
In the background