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Dan Short
Untitled Poem Compilation
posted 6/9/07 by Dan Short
Alaska,
I ask ya
have you ever seen
fish teaming rivers
and tundra turned green
hard men who shiver pursuing gold dreams
and a sky of wonders few humans have seen
a midnight dancing twilight flashing silver gleams
a daylight lasting all night from horizontal beams
a sunrise and sunset a hand wont fit between.
Jobs, oil, fish, the biggest of bear
caribou, king crab, bald eagles thrive there
bureaucratic bastards are pleasantly rare
but wide open spaces surround everywhere
Alaska, I task ya, just look to the sky
the Dipper is bound to be passing you by
The Dipper is calling you, bidding you fly
to stand upon the God head
at the answer to why.
and the oceans rough and green
the coldest killing machine
the constant sailor fiend.
holds us in her arms
powerless beneath her charms
calling to the shore
“come young man, I need more.”
then a crash
and a slip
and a slide
another fisherman goes down to die.
Imbalance in your chemicals is why you are depressed,
so pay the bill and take the pill and put your mind to rest.
that way you can make it through your very next day.
cause otherwise your open eyes
would see a better way.
feelings are just chemicals like thoughts inside your head.
the doctor didn’t tell you that when he put you to bed.
your life’s a mess and your depressed from choices you have led.
being something you could love is difficult it’s true.
you would have to help people who are no help to you;
you would have to do what’s right when none are watching too;
you would have to live like death means explanation due.
but forget it all, it doesn’t matter, screw who you can screw
and don’t forget to stuff the pill down little Timmy too.
his bouncing round is childish and it’s annoying you.
Wake up you pompous Jackass, WAKE UP what must I do!
dancing by the moon
dancing like a loon
romance and then we spoon
but I’ll never be the groom
from a glance across the room
started a prance into this doom
contorted to a goon
concerned about the groom
a life can end so soon
when it starts within a womb
that never wanted it to plume
because she’d have to tell the groom
so we planned parenthood
deciding that we should
deciding it was good
$569 and then they would
$569 not childhood
Bakers yeast will make the feast that we stole from Islam
Oil and toil and blood will boil and blame it on Sadaam
Gas makes go you all this know and without it we quit
So load the gun or pay the fund either’s a throat you’ve slit.
19 men made 4 planes full of American lives forfeit
no guns or bombs just box cutters and eye’s full of true grit
not balls enough to step up tough cause “what if I got hit?”
died bellies plain with yellow stain John Wayne would have a fit
Where’s Bin Laden we’ve forgotten and we did it quick
he’s gone away and took his pay and you paid all of it.
Taxes done and death for one makes you a patriot
we’re red ’n blue we’re me ’n you we’re 1234ing hypocrites.
Now at a button there is nothing they can’t know or do
the brave new world is here unfurled and freedom got the screw
great men here live with fear and cowards are in blue.
so if you’re meek and have a beak then Uncle Sam wants you.
Eat unfamiliar mushrooms and you’ll find
the world is brightly colored and sublime.
You’ll walk with more rhythm than you’ve known,
and hear that every color has its tone.
God might come right down and talk to you,
Or you might spend and hour in your shoe.
Cause one side makes you smaller and one large.
One side makes you Homer and one Marge.
In Tokyo they sell them at the store
so you’ll appreciate the orient much more.
I recommend you take them once or twice
Cause nothing you have felt will feel that nice.
Dancing will be easy, you’ll not fear
Cause the whole world is dancing just beyond the mirror.
If you're two faced and I stab you in the back shouldn't you have seen it coming?
You can have everything / that there is in this world
freedom’s free for you / and so are pretty girls
there is nothing that your friends won’t do for you
politicians are good /and you can trust ‘em too
no one ever lies / especially your mom
no one ever cries / except at sad songs
no one ever dies / we always carry on
Santa Claus is real / he cares for Christian boys
Santa Claus is real / he hears their every noise
He’s down at the parade/ (BonMacy) selling all the joys
of real Christmas spirit and its walls of corporate toys
good men go to college / bad men go to jail
life is full of meaning and the woods are full of quail
Muslims are the terrorists / the NSA is not
things are getting better / even when they’re not
things are getting better and nobody should be shot
money’s most important / it’s worth more than your friends
you always need more money / you always need to spend
money’s most important / it’s how to pick your job
your not under control no your not a worthless slob
violence is always wrong / nothing’s worth a fight
conform conform conform / bow down to the might
cause if our civilized nation / makes you hate your plight
your the one who's wrong if those taxes haven't been filed right
TV makes you smarter / shows you what to buy
Set your [rear] on the couch and never ask why.
Don’t you ever ask why you don’t ask why?
side effects included pain
going insane
a constant struggle constantly in vain
~Warning label from cupid’s arrow
I crave a laudanum-laced phantom;
possess me from the past..
your "runic rhyme"- thumping,
your time clump clump clumping
beat out within me bumping
take this heart and mind.
fill me with your something
lust to feel you trumping
lament a life unkind!
Oh Dear inspiration
create once more creation
clang again the bell!
Descend from heaven
rise from hell.
thrill me one more time.
OPERANT CONDITIONING
Skinner taught a pigeon how to hammer at a dot
hundred thousand in a row and didn’t give it squat
look me in the eye and say the pigeon’s who he taught
look me in the eye and say a pigeon you are not
all your life you pound away to piss within your pot
All your time will fade away into the things you bought
funny part is you have done the things you thought you ought
freedom love and happiness are what you’d say you’ve sought.
Peak of the Season
engine's coughing oil
coolant reaching boil
2 weeks since I felt soil
cause the fish are here.
Openings twice a day
pull in by hand and wither away
but we're making pay
on candy bars and cigarettes.
Aluminum foil in a roll
hit one quick then back at the goal
100'000 lbs or no fun wet hole
but they're coming in one by one.
Fall Chum Season 2006
posted 12/20/06 by Dan Short
Ok, so I'd taken off for Ballard, Wa. from Montana at around 10 pm on a Saturday night and along the way my transmission started acting up. I noticed the problem first in Coeur d'Alene when it stalled pulling out of a Holiday. By the time I gassed up in George the truck stalled immediately if it was going less than 10mph. I finally got it gassed and rolling again by revving the engine and throwing it in drive and managed not to stop from there through Seattle down Mercer and up 15th before reaching the Fisherman's Terminal north of Seattle. I parked the truck on the pier, grabbed my things and passed out on nets aboard the F/V Anita. Paul, Joe, Rick, and Rygel showed up a few hours later and we went fishing.
Seining is a different game then I'm used to as a gillnetter. The most significant change was that as the hundreds of blood red jellies caught in the net ran though the block 6' above my head the roller would disintegrate them and then rain red clumps of pain. If any part of the juice contacted skin an intense burn would proceed for 45 minutes after the stringy crap was wiped off which usually can't happen until after the net was aboard and the skiff secured. Apparently a fun game is to not tell the new guy about this and then watch him squirm as it gets in his eyes and on his wrists and all through his long red hair.
We caught around 27000 lbs of Chum's that first day which numbed the sting of the jelly fish considerably because at %12 of $.60/lbs I made $1944 my first day -"expenses." I stayed on the boat for most of the month even though we only went fishing a few more times for a few more thousand pounds and the skipper settled me out at $1700.
Paul knew I wanted work so he set me up with the gillnetter his son Carl worked for. A friend :) gave me a ride from Ballard to Everett where I was told the F/V Evergreen was docked. I walked the guest pier where he was supposed to be but at midnight he wasn't there. She and I drove to the Palace Inn, drawn by their $29.99 single sign, and ended up paying $45.99 for the barest, most cigarette burnt room I've ever seen. After some seedy hotel mischief and a few hours sleep we were back at the pier and eventually found the boat after several phone calls with Carl, the 19-year-old newbie, "I see a sign." "We're over by some covered docks. Oh oh, we're next to a seiner."
We made our first set hardly 2 miles from and in plain view of Everett and not a mile from the million dollar homes dotting Whidbey and Gedney islands. The net went out without a hitch which gave us an hour or so before we really had to do anything. Carl and I went to the Galley (kitchen/livingroom), the Skipper went to the pilothouse, and after about twenty minutes just as we'd gotten to BSing over a cup of tea I hear
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
And so I jump up, but Carl looked over at me as casual as can be and said, "Relax, it's just the skipper shooting seals." And Carl is an honest man because for the rest of that beautiful, clear, calm sun shinny day on the Puget Sound, next to a metropolitan Skip shot seals with a semi auto .223. The shootings didn't bother me much, I like seals, but there really should be a season on the little buggers. What concerned me was the 3 mile max range of a .223 and wether or not this was also illegal to watch. Aside from the occasional shooting the day proceeded about as well as I expected it would when the first mate, Joe, passed me this job, "I wouldn't work for the guy, but he does catch a lot of fish, for a gillnetter."
There wasn't much more than peanut butter and bread to eat. The boat was the dirtiest and most unorganized I've seen. Every rope was about to break, a few did. The Skipper yelled at equipment with the same fire he use on us, same insults, same tone, even the same posture as if to him an engine and pump and a reel and a deck hand were the same thing, but he caught 7600lbs at $.50/lbs for $3800 at 12% which = $456 for me - "expenses." Four hundred of which I got that night plus another $134 a week later after doing cleaning his boat and fixing his nets. I'll never fish with him again.
I ran into Sig "Deadliest Catch" Hanson with a few of the Northwestern's crew on the pier while doing some of that net work and took a break to give him my number, doubt he'll call but best to plant as many seeds as possible. Anyway the chums were run by the end of November and my friend came to rescue me again, so we headed for West Port looking for a job as a greenhorn crabber. I stuck to my theory on pier walking, listen for fights, look for bodies, tip barmaids, buy drinks, talk to old guys that ya meet which got me two really good leads and landed a job crabbing on a clean, reputable, newer boat for January. We celebrated that night and drove back to Montana absolutely stoked and just in time to see my favorite local Missoula band Reverend Slanky rock a full house at the Top Hat.
Now I sit back home and the crabber won't return my calls, and I don't know what I'm going to do about a winter job and I'm still so overwhelmingly proud, honored, and humored to be a commercial fisherman that I just can't stop laughing at myself.
reply posted 01/28/08 by Joan Sheski
Hey Dan Short, bring it on - you're neat & messy good. Thanks for being alive. Joan
Where do they come from Uncle Dan?
posted 1/4/07 by Dan Short
Well you see, three priests of Dionysus met on the crossroads between Athens, Troy, and the Haemus Mountains. Recognizing each others grapevine staffs, they greeted and agreed to camp together for the night. Quickly, wine was handed, and as Blonde the Red Eyes loved to make everyone around her happy, she shared her honeyed muffins made with an anodyne which would render one incapable of tears for a whole day. Troglodyte the Impotent Palm had little interest in the muffins but politely accepted before asking for the very last time,
"How are we to celebrate the pure joy of being alive to which Dionysus calls us?"Nefarious the Detestable, who had been preoccupied guzzling wine and muffins, gave his jaw a decisive wipe before thrusting his jug in the air and belching,
"Anarchy is joy!"
Then, re-inspired by his mantra he ripped a small boy in a cage from his ox cart and began to satisfy his most mammalian urge.
Blonde of Lesbos would have been quite disturbed by this behavior, but she was by now quite incapable of tears. Troglodyte had not eaten his muffin, but human debauchery no longer moved him, so everything continued with an air of near quiet normality.
Blonde had long felt that silence was better with noise, so she ventured an answer to Troglodyte's question."Well, the ladies of my house have always found it best for women to band in hoards, but when the Aegean Fleet attacked Troy, we scattered to become missionaries. Now my sisters are heading throughout the world to build joyful homes near the shore." Blonde had by finish of her story lit a fire, set stools, served more wine, and moistened a sponge, so Troglodyte bit the muffin.
"All my life I've watched men cause pain." He began while glaring over his muffin at the cage. "Hell is other people. The greatest joy is to be far from them."
Nefarious gripped the cage tightly and grunted, "I-am-go-ing-to-Troy-forrrrrrrrrr-WAR!" Then he kicked the cage back in the cart before smacking Troglodyte off his stool and grabbing Blonde's muffin.
Dionysus had been listening through the grapevine and was very pleased. He appeared before his three priests and anointed them with blessings. They all lived long happy lives fulfilling their dreams, but only Nefarious had children and that is why there are so many A-holes Timmy.
