there’s no magic words to protect you from the hurt there’s no magic words there’s just a lot of dirt there’s no magic words to cover up the lies there’s no magic words for the empty in their eyes there’s no magic words just try to stay real keep your people close and take the time to heal by Richard W. Bray
unruly, rambunctious, exhausting and wild there’s no greater love than the love of a child boundless, colossal, extending for miles there is no restraining the love of a child needy and hopeful, touching and mild the heaviest burden, the love of a child investing your marrow, refunded in smiles there’s no greater love than the love of a child by Richard W. Bray
You don’t want to rock the boat
You always fall in line
It’s easy to fit in
When you never have a spine
I’ll keep being me
With my kooky company
The nerdy misfit freakshow
And our crazy crackpot crew
The weirdo wacko zany ones
Just doing what we do
Do what other people do
Affirming the consensus
Eliminate what makes you true
Until you lose your senses
I’ll keep being me
With my kooky company
The nerdy misfit freakshow
And our crazy crackpot crew
The weirdo wacko zany ones
Just doing what we do
By Richard W. Bray
From thought and love and rhyme
To frontiers of space and time
From a mosque in Timbuktu
To the Dome of Xanadu
From protecting son and daughter
To industrialized slaughter
From a monkey standing tall
To the beast that wants it all
By Richard W. Bray
Rumble dumble day
Go outside and play
The sun is shining bright
Bask in your delight
Wimble wamble wee
Investigate a tree
Run around till dark
Explore your local park
Dimble damble door
Open up your pores
Listen to the world
It sings to boys and girls
By Richard W. Bray
O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
–Robert Browning, Love Among the Ruins
In a land once ruled by thieves
We walk beneath the trees
Among the fallen leaves
Paths once paved with gravel
Too overgrown for travel
Reveal a world unraveled
Betrayal winks and nods
An empire built of fraud
Amused indifferent gods
Right before their eyes
A world of endless lies
Erupts in bloody skies
A picnic on the glen
With a special friend
Another season ends
by Richard W. Bray
Even a theory requires some facts, Captain
—Commander Spock
Fish gotta swim
Birds gotta fly
A penguin is a fish
There’s an ostrich in the sky
The sky is blue
Cuz it’s jealous of the sea
Doggie says bark
Cuz he’s looking for a tree
Zebra, bongo, tiger
Bumblebee and marlin
Grew some pretty stripes
To dazzle their darlin’
They say a clock’s wise
And time marches on
But as soon as time happens
It’s already gone
The cow never jumped
Higher than the moon
Cows don’t jump at all—
It was a kangaroo
Sometimes I wonder
What’s it all about?
But things are pretty simple
When you figure ‘em out
by Richard W. Bray
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
—Langston Hughes, Theme for English B
8 billion bodies
all collected
life is never
what’s expected
tell yourself
you’re not affected
but everything
is all connected
green and blue
it’s all we got
this lovely living
spinning spot
all condemned to
live the thought—
stuck together
like it or not
stuck together
like it or not
stuck together
like it or not
by Richard W. Bray
have you ever noticed steamed carrots?
they almost stun you into another dimension
and they taste so good
and they come right out of the ground
I wonder if Father Hopkins
ever wrote about steamed carrots
by Richard W. Bray
Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we need of hell
—Emily Dickinson, My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close
I always thought we’d have you
I always knew you cared
I always felt your presence
Your love was everywhere
Suddenly I feel it
Everything is wrong
Nothing’s where it should be
And half the sky is gone
The flowers on the hillside
The birds passing by
Sing to me of your love
In a cosmic lullaby
By Richard W. Bray
