Mr. E Tour

Here's a 24-based parody with the Yeah Yeah Song:

If you could bite someone’s neck and then spit it right back
Would you do it? (Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)
If you could chop off a head and then put it in a sack
Would you do it? (Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)
And so you work for CTU so what then would you do

When you’re Jack Bauer
When you’re Jack Bauer
When you’re Jack Bauer
What would you do?

If you could tell the president where the terrorists just went
Would you do it? (No no no no no no no)
If you knew all the rules that are followed by the fools
Would you do it? (No no no no no no)
Are you crazy?
You’re a very dangerous man who does exactly what he wants
Because you work for CTU so what then would you do

When you’re Jack Bauer
When you’re Jack Bauer
When you’re Jack Bauer
What would you do?

Love in Common Tongue

Love in common tongue is slurred –
Sloppy spoken, lazy heard –
To describe a football team,
Shade of blue, or whipping cream.
So to show the Love I mean
I use four other words.

First word I say Charity
And you think of poverty.
But I speak of sacrifice
That does not consider price –
Give the depth so raise to heights
Those not blessed as we.

Then Compassion like a fire
But not lit by base desire
But by gentle yearning spark
Moving through each inward part
Reaching out to others hearts
And no return required.

Empathy is love made real
So to feel as others feel –
Sorrow and a joy to share,
Burdens and a cross to bear,
Walk a mile the road to where
The Christ’s hands are revealed.

Grace is how we suffer long
Not approving what is wrong
But accepting those who fell,
Those who never will excel,
Where forgiveness is a well
Quenching thirsty throngs.

So it is with Charity,
Compassion, and Empathy,
And with Grace that I will find
What great Love this man defined
Who I honor with these lines –
The Love my Dad showed me.

Day of a Day
for Arthur Elias

What a day of a day
What a night of a night
When the darkness of death
Breathes its breath on the light

What an end of a friend
What a birth to be born
Will we wait with suspense
Or pretense for the morn?

Soon says the silent whispers
Deep though the sorrow seems
Clear cry the sons and sister
Slow, very slow, cease the dreams

What a man among men
What an artist of Art
What a life lived like love,
Only love, can impart

What a legacy left
What a choice we must choose
Would we walk where he lead
Or instead would we lose?

Fear finds our hearts emboldened
Faith fills our feeble mind
Hope has a heaven golden
Full, very full, we will find

What a day of a day
What a night of a night
When the darkness of doubt
Loses out to the light

Reflection

In my reflection time doesn’t creep
It leaps
One week – crow’s feet
One day – turn gray
One hour – Who is he?

I live from recall to recall
Not now to now
Graduation gown
Wedding vow
A Christmas card slide show

I alight on the tree of my life
Flit from the branch of spring
To the branch of summer
Then the branch of fall
I do not notice the winter coming

Until the first snowfall

Whole

Find a place that’s safe to settle down
Find a song that sings to your soul
Then when demons wake to take a piece of you
You’ll still be whole

Find a laugh, a craft to call your own
Find a voice, rejoice in the plan
Then when troubles block and knock your certitude
You still can stand

And if compete – defeat possesses you
And when the game of blame obsesses you
And still the spear of fear oppresses you
Where can you turn?

And so a blast of past remembering
Ignites the flame of shame that’s slumbering
And fires the fist – the list of numbering
What you must burn.

Find someone to run the race with you
Find a verse that nurses your heart
Then when comes the clout of doubt to clobber you
You’ll dodge that dart

Find a place that’s safe to settle down
Find a song that sings to your soul
Then when demons wake to take a piece of you
You’ll still be whole

Ecclesiastes 9-11
Thoughts of why bad things happen and why we care

I have seen this one thing under the sun
The race is not won
By swiftest to run
The war won’t belong
To only the strong
The feast won’t arise
To those who are wise
The ones who are smart
Don’t get the best part
The favor’s not earned
To those who have learned
But time and chance comes to every one

Why suffer burdens now under the sun?
There is not a one
Knows when life is done
And just like a fish
In nets of anguish
And like a bird fair
Entrapped in a snare
And tender the hart
Felled by the foul dart
So are we entwined
By these cruel times
When time and chance comes to every one

What can we have done here under the sun?
Absorbed in our fun
Or die for each one
Enough that we prayed
And penitence made
To give from excess
Or give to excess
We swallow our pride
Let love be the guide
Our time we will share
Take chances to care
For time and chance comes to every one

Song of the Siren

You make a bad mistake
You play the total fake
These choices that you make
Just might make you

You slight a longtime friend
Relations at an end
You take another bend
Where it takes you

You'll never know what the day will bring
You'll never gain regretting anything
You'll never feel the ties that sever
Saying never
Weighing ev'rything

Don't make such a fuss
That's what ev'rybody does
Common passages
That's what ev'rybody does
Don't be scared because
That's what ev'rybody does
You're like one of us
That's what ev'rybody does

You compromise a bit
And shovel some old shit
Your self-appointed pit
Hasn't lost you

Your reputation's thin
Trash out, so trash comes in
The treasure that you spend
Might just cost you

You'll always be the one who's justified
You'll always be the same fool deep inside
You'll always have familiar hallways
Skewed in small ways
View it all as pride

So don't make such a fuss
That's what ev'rybody does
Common passages
That's what ev'rybody does
Don't be scared because
That's what ev'rybody does
You're like one of us
That's what ev'rybody does

In Dependence

We have a country so noble and free
Striving to do what is right
But we cannot claim to be always correct
We sometimes stray from the light

Sometimes our leaders don’t tell us the truth
Sometimes they conquer the poor
It’s times like these that we stand up and say
We shall not go down to war

We will not kneel to a flag or a land
We serve the one risen Lord
We pledge allegiance to Jesus the King
We will not go down to war

Our independence does not make us smart
Our might does not make us right
All of our wealth can not buy back the dead
We cannot hold back the night

So what do we do with the time we are here?
What will endure past this shore?
We praise our God & we spread the good news
But we do not go down to war

We do not kneel to a flag or a land
We serve the one risen Lord
We pledge allegiance to Jesus the King
We will not go down to war

So think of when Daniel was standing alone
When others knelt to the king
One can be right among ten thousand wrong
Numbers don’t count for a thing

So we stand and say what we know to be right
We cannot do any more
We love this country and that’s why we pray
We will not go down to war

We can not kneel to a flag or a land
We serve the one risen Lord
We pledge allegiance to Jesus the King
We will not go down to war