THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

Don’t vote because you have to Don’t vote because you to need to Don’t vote because it is your civil duty. Vote because you love America the way you Love your babies Your dogs Your closest friends Your Mom Your Dad And everyone else who keeps your feet Steady on the ground Vote because a man has attacked Everything that the flag stands for And burned it all to the ground Vote because despite its devastation You know it’s still there Like your God Or your heartbeat Or your dreams Or the wishes that have yet To come true But still might. Vote because you will stand in Harm’s way To protect the innocent The good The least powerful The everyday Jane and Joe Vote because from the time You were a child You pledged allegiance And you asked not what your country Could do for you But what you could do for your country Vote because people Men and women Lose life and limb every single day To make sure that your freedoms Are protected and guaranteed Vote to right the wrongs That evil men have wrou

After a life spent repairing a heart   that has ruptured as often as a field of oil rigs in the dust bowl heat of the  summertime blues Autumn has finally arrived in  the form of a  gunslinger of some years who has just emerged from the billowing clouds Like a Texas cowboy with rusted spurs and low-slung belt past the platform of twirling parasols that from space must surely look like daffodils As he heads for his high noon showdown  At the mission  which stands in judgment  at the crossroads of tree lined Main Street whose leaves,  as red as Malbec cling to their branches like desperatos who quietly sing the verses of scripture  and wait  just like he does for the signal from the angels  to fall and return to the dust with their boots on.

I wish Sinatra was still here to sing about the lonely hearts in the wee small hours of the morning. I wish John Lennon was still here, to sing about romance and the rights of the common man. I wish Robin was still here to make my heart laugh and my soul quiver. I wish Ruth was still here to keep the hopes of women alive. I wish John Lewis was still here to be a good kind of bad. I wish my mom was still here so I could say, “I understand now.” I wish my dad was still here, to teach me more about rooting for the little guy. And I wish I didn’t have to wish to make good things come true and good people come through. But the good news is that all these wonderful people and more: the lawmakers and the lawbreakers,  the merrymakers and the heartbreakers Will never forsake me Because they are as indelible as the wind As warm as the sun As powerful as the snow And as challenging as the moon That as far as I know Despite our unimaginable distance  will never leave me.