Month: October 2025

Gonna Wanna Rule Somebody (song redux)

by Stephen J Frankenberry6 Comments on Gonna Wanna Rule Somebody (song redux)

Been a while on this one and, truthfully, I just like having a tune to turn to in the midst of monumental stupid when I am headphoning for escape.

Going back to my original post, May of 2024 and to Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” …

Gonna Wanna Rule Somebody

You may be a wished dictator who’s scripting a dream

Of what to do in year 25 with a right’s loyalist team

Who’r mapping out a dire plan where democracy it seems

Is no longer a real player in the grandest of red schemes

.

And you’re gonna wanna rule somebody, yes indeed

And you’re gonna wanna king somebody

It may be those already on the devil’s dark page

Or those forced to take new stage

.

Body vessels are the targets in this new SCOTUS age

The ones who stand up try prevent women in a cage

The ones who had temerity to think body autonomy

But in this new world order legislating you’s the rage

.

Yeah, you’re gonna wanna rule somebody, yes you are

And you’re gonna wanna lord somebody

You’ll make women understand that they just don’t have a say

Instead monitored by state

.

You may be undesirable in this grand U S of A

An invader less than human is all he will have to say

To rile up the base while he drives all you away

The military will be called upon slap down to make point’s sway

.

Yeah, you’re gonna wanna rule somebody, yes you are

You’re gonna wanna lord somebody

You’ll make those who just don’t belong go back to where they’re from

Yeah, you’re gonna wanna king somebody

.

You may be a protester on campus wantin’ say

You hate the inhumanity that you’re seeing day by day

That you’re not an anti this that or even a pro that  

You just hate women and children wearing dead pawn hats

.

But they’re gonna wanna rule somebody, yes indeed

They’re gonna wanna use your naivete

To gain an in ground against hated college elites

They’re gonna wanna rule somebody

.

And you may be example of future disputes

To quell freedom of speech tear it out by the roots

Teach that protest is only what they will agree

You are no patriots like Jan 6 ones who would see

That he gets chance to rule somebody, yes indeed

Gets chance for a new autocracy

That there will be no dissent that doesn’t come with intent

To help him rule somebody

.

You might like use projection to describe your enemies

Accuse them of harboring fascist wills and dreams of tyranny

You’ll even claim reverse discrimination of dear whitey

You’ll say that anti-white feeling can’t happen in this great country

.

And you’re gonna wanna lord somebody, yes you are

And you’re gonna wanna take us back

To a time where white man ruled

And others minded their P’s & Q’s

You’re gonna wanna white everybody

.

You may call yourself disciple of the MAGA ways

Protect yourself on his good side fearful of vengeful days

You may even say that fascism’s not that bad just give it play

As we’ve heard too often now from MAGA’s praying new Trump day

.

Well, you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes it’s him

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil, while the lord sits this one out

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

.

You’re gonna have to serve the orange

You’re gonna have to serve prostrate

You’re gonna have to serve not the lord       

You’re gonna have to serve new devil’s day

Cricket the Cat Poet: Stepping In Tongues And Boo Moons / Boo Blood Moon (poems)

by Stephen J Frankenberry6 Comments on Cricket the Cat Poet: Stepping In Tongues And Boo Moons / Boo Blood Moon (poems)

So the latest in the way of a Quadrille prompt at dVerse Poets is this one that asks for your 44 worder, this time around to include the word “Boo”, a something for a “pre-Halloween hullabaloo”.

Now let me explain what follows.

As I was working on the beginnings of this with an eventual thought coming to mind of current everyday nightmarish “Boo’s”, Cricket, my cat, who you have met here in the Attic before (one of my two, along with Bella, though obviously Cricket the more creative one) thought to get up out of my lap and involve herself in the writing process again with her own stepped thoughts which really are as they look in the first half of this.

All I did was finish it up for her (I think she may have even been offering to help cleanse this a bit with the 8’s after reading a little on the possible significance of 8’s ) and it is still 44 “words”.

Then I got to mine.

//////////////////////////////////////////

Cricket the Cat poet

Stepping in tongues and Boo Moons

“Boo////////////////////////////////////////////////////8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8’”
 said the season

Off/ering to frighten

Ag/ain

But just

corn mazes for fun

        and snuck kisses  

A/nd Halloween h/a21?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”/+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”/+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+?”+
/rmless haunts

But nothing frightens more this season

than

blind mice

and orange taunts

even keyboard cats stepping in tongues

with questions

can’t relieve

//////////////////////////////////////////

Boo Blood Moon

“Boo!” said the season

offering to frighten

you

again

but

just with corn mazes and snuck kisses for fun

and Halloween housed harmless runs  

but nothing to frighten more this season

than orange warning’s  

bellows of demise

with a blood orange Moon to rise

Headstone & The Walk (short fictions)

by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments on Headstone & The Walk (short fictions)

Well, with it being that time of year for these types of stories I thought to revisit a short bit from last year, one I have posted before in a couple of spots and one that started with a dVerse Poets “prosery” prompt from June of 2024 and also to liberally revise the second part to it that, truthfully, I had forgotten I had written …

//////////////////////////////////////////

June 4, 2024

A prosery challenge at dVerse Poets

A very short piece of poetry or flash fiction that tells a story, just one with a limit of 144 words, but, somewhere within your story, includes a line from a poem

Here?

From Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Sleeper”

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye

//////////////////////////////////////////

Headstone

In a graveyard nearing dusk the groundskeeper came upon Death, leaning heavily upon his knot gnarl anguish handled scythe as he knelt at an almost hidden, fallen stone, shunned, just outside the cemetery, alone, at the edge of a large forest. He wept quietly.

“Are you alright old man?”

Death was startled

“What?!” as he tried to stand

“No need. Pay your respects”

“Why don’t you shudder, cold, at the sight of me, cringe, run to escape who I am, maybe to you?”

“I know death. I have been here as long as you have searched … for your mother right? How did you know?”

“I had this inscribed in her stone, I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye hoping she would never see my shame and what I had become and wrought”

The groundskeeper said “Let’s walk my friend” …

//////////////////////////////////////////

Then I thought to continue the story …

//////////////////////////////////////////

October 19, 2024 (revised) October 3, 2025

The Walk

The groundskeeper walked his headstone common with Death alongside.

“I knew her, I was there, she begged me not to, not just yet

I knew him too, he was an ass, he was having an affair and was found out with a jealous bullet … I assisted the trigger

This one wanted to experience the sadness of flying, I gave her a bit of a nudge while the crowd scattered below

He here? He was a case of life unexpectedly cut short … on a Tuesday I think, an unusually busy Tuesday if I remember too

Pointing “That one over there was an unfortunate result of small minds but …

This one was a way back where they marked doors and wore masks… some of those scared even me, I really had my bones full then

And whole sections in the distance there the result of religious fervor …”

“STOP!” as the groundskeeper came to a halt looking directly at and through Death with a chill

“What?” Death paused, shrunk a little, actually, finally frightened

“We’re just walking here, so stop.”

“But? …”

“You know all of them, of course, I, we all are well aware of that. Jobs are jobs. You have yours, though your glibness is wearing me very thin, and you don’t want that, you REALLY do not want that, but I have mine … look to the distance, the Lily fields that surround us here? This is my keep and all that lay in it away from you, at last, but also for all those who come now or have in the past, their memories just wisps scattered to the Lilies, to pay respects or seek absolution, to mourn or even rejoice in some cases, to just be seen or wish to only blend into and under the grass as well or to apologize for being late for someone’s birthday.

To come here, for most of them, is just to sit and wonder and talk to the wind as if their words can be carried, wisped away to other places by it to be heard somewhere in it

That is Angie, talking to her dad

Those are flowers left by Peter who feels better now even though he was an awful son and knows he hastened his father’s death

That is Bart, off to the left, who comes here only because he feels if he doesn’t he will lose whatever semblance of sanity he has left

That’s Michelle, after years away, who feels that wiping off the dust and grime and dirt of time will somehow make everything alright

Then there is Thomas, who I truly feel for, his loss that just destroyed him as that headstone is the last, only, thing he has left in whatever it was that tied him in this, his world. She was, under that stone, the only person that kept him safe in his differences.

Know that your job has consequences”

“But what are we to do?”

“Nothing, we can do nothing, but we can have a little respect. I take comfort in some genuine words spoke at knelt stone, when there are some, when loss is so profound that it brings a tear to even this old groundskeeper’s eye”

“This is what you do?”

“It is, but I don’t fault you for doing what YOU do. Now stand …”

“But I don’t even remember having knelt”

“… use that scythe for balance and stand up from your creaky knees and bony fingers and let’s go over to that corner and to Maribel”

“Maribel? Who … Maribel … is she?”

“No, leave her be, she has time, still has a daughter to come, but she sings, she even extols YOUR virtues”

“Me? MY virtues?”

“She sings of what is done and understands, as do I, though in a lesser chord, as I am no singer, and in such a glorious voice”

“Her loss?”

“It is of no matter, she just comes here, twice a week, sometimes more, to sing of all our losses, just sings along with the trees and the breezes and wisps of what was once of seas and suns and moons that drown and pass and of short lived birds sung in pretty flights above us all through the stones underneath her feet that look out over the hills at this place, all of these places, that are as one as they always have been, are here as intended to be stretching to the Lily’s”

“Oh my, is that heaven?’

“Could be, I don’t know, not sure”

“You said she still has a daughter to come?” Death remarked with a glint.

“STOP!! Were tears for your Mother back there even real?

“Moment of weakness I guess”

“ENOUGH!! You know, my expanse can include you, death can die, if I will it and then cover it in grass and Lily fields in the all encompassing distance, but for you? the Lily’s will wilt. There will be another to fill your shoes, if need be, it just won’t be you, gone at your own bones arrogance”.