Exclamation Points!

So many! So many!

Exclamation points!

So many! So many!

Whole thing’s out of joint!

Edgy!?! Frightened!?! Nervous!?! Scared!?!

Why are there so many there!?!

Jumping out! Boo! Hark!

Surrounding even question marks!?!

Reading it! Mercy me!

Giving me PTSD!

Surely this must stop now! Oh!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

Don’t dare read it in a crowd!

Way too urgent! Way too loud!

And it isn’t getting better!

HEREIN COME THE CAP’TAL LETTERS!

MUCH TOO FREQUENT APPLICATION!

FOR A POEM ‘BOUT PUNCTUATION!

MAKE IT STOP! I’M TELLING MOMMA!

USE A PERIOD! OR COMMA!

NOPE! NO WAY! POETRY!

TURNED INTO CACOPHONY!

YIPES! JINKIES! ZOUNDS! ZOINKS!!

SO MANY! SO MANY!

EXCLAMATION POINTS!

Zoom Teachin'!

 I get up in the morning

Get out of my bed

Another day another ray Of existential dread I open up my laptop Log in and I see Lotsa little sleepy eyes Starin’ back at me I tell them all good morning And that they’re lookin’ cute And other stuff til’ one pipes up And tells me I’m on mute Zoom teaching Zoom teaching The hours by go creepin Am I doing any of this right? Zoom teaching (pause) bites Who can get logged in here? Half the class almost I got bumped out the meeting Now a 5 year old’s the host The internet’s unstable My feed is really glitchy It isn’t hard to see why educators get so... cranky Zoom teaching Zoom teaching So much etiquette we’re breaching This is How we make kids learn and think? Zoom teaching stinks Br. Oh It isn’t all that bad I get to stay home with my wife And i do wish kids had mute buttons On them in real life The coffee maker’s right there So I can fill my cup And I get to wear my sweat pants As Long As I don’t stand up The commute cannot be beat And the schedule’s not too menacing If only I felt like I was Accomplishing anything Zoom teaching Zoom teaching Hear that feedback screechin’ Is any of this worthwhile, who knows Zoom teaching (pause) blows Oops I’m still on mute Oops I didn’t share my screen Oops I did share and that website well it’s borderline obscene Oops the google doc I need’s Behind a firewall Oops I don’t think this is Even my classroom at all Zoom teaching Zoom teaching I’d much rather be on the beachin’ I can’t take this for another week Zoom teachin’ reeks Motivatin’ kids is easy Who would not rather do math On the same device where they Play Roblox and MineCraft? It’s a frustrating or boring Way for time to pass I actually wrote this song while I was technically teachin’ class (True story!) Zoom teaching Zoom teaching Oh please end this I’m beseeching This is why teachers make the big bucks… Zoom teaching sucks (goodnight everybody!)

Illegal Immigrants

Somebody stole my hat

It was a nice one at that

Custom made and signed Truly one of a kind So I found my rich friend I see now and again And when I met him, dread My hat was on his head Thought I’d caught him red-handed That lame hat-stealing bandit. I asked him “did he know Who might’a stolen my chapeau?” He thought of it a while Then looked at me and smiled He said “Oh, yes, your hat! I do know all bout that… It. Was. Illegal immigrants musta been Illegal immigrants One percent of them controls Two thirds of all the world’s wealth I’m told Illegal immigrants musta been Illegal immigrants Ya; know, they run the world Look over there! Squirrel! Illegal immigrants musta been Illegal immigrants Blame them for everything 2 I did not find his story Quite Satisfactory I couldn’t understand This corporate hat stand This silly one-percenter Could have been a my-hat-renter Yet he hadn’t even hid After he’d purloined my lid The crime it seemed so brazen His lying pants emblazoned He was s’posed to be my friend Turns out he’s just a horse’s end But that didn’t bother him He just looked at me grim Said he’d done all he can Then muttered “migrant caravan” Full of... Illegal immigrants musta been Illegal immigrants If it weren’t for their welfare I might give you healthcare Illegal immigrants Had to be illegal immigrants Man it’s such a crock They own 80 percent of all stocks Illegal immigrants musta been Illegal immigrants Blame ‘em for everything! 3 I left the hat with him I knew I couldn’t win Like all other things it went Right on up to the one percent He donned the hat of theft And tipped it to me as he left He threw it on a scrap heap Built of tons of other caps he Very clearly didn’t need A hat-themed monument to greed It filled me so with doubt What was this episode about? It so much hurt my mind That I was robbed by my own kind That even to this day I try to explain it all away Saying, it had to be Illegal Immigrants Maybe it WAS illegal immigrants Them and that George Soros They got it in for us Illegal immigrants I think it ‘was Illegal immigrants Between them and ISIS They caused the mortgage crisis Illegal immigrants musta been Illegal immigrants Blame them for everything

You Got the Right To Love

We got a fine constitution here

In this land of the free

But when it comes to given’ rights

It don’t go far enough for me

Because there are a lot of folks

Who just keep interferin’

With other folks freedom to choose

To whom they are endearing

So I’m proposing an amendment

And I’d be gratified

If you’d get it listened to

And, well, maybe ratified

You have the right… to…

Wed who ya’ want

Bed who ya’ want

Dress how ya’ want

Caress who ya’ want

Touch who ya’ want

Clutch who ya’ want

Choose the groom that you want

Use the bathroom you want

Wear what ya’ want

Be there for who ya’ want

Text who ya’ want

Sex who ya’ want

See who ya’ want and

Be who ya’ want

You got the right to love

I look upon the landscape and I have to say “oh brother”

Don’t we got bigger problems than folks tryin’ to love each other?

Let’s lighten up and smarten up and change the hateful tone

Bein’ free means you are free to leave lovers alone!

I’m tired of this obsession with where everybody pees

‘Cause you got one o’ those or this or that or one o’ these

Outlawing this outlawing that America, what is this?

Exercise your god-given right to mind your own damned bus’ness

Or to not to…