Beware the ugly woman who thirsts for admiration;
She's apt to take up the violin with zeal,
Or keep a parrot as a sign of independence.
Her envious heart makes treacherous her words
To pretty women with their petty self-idolatry.

Did Marie Currie suffer meekly the debutante?
Was "Little Women" a Louisa May ambiguity?
The ugly woman burns monopoly on praise,
Like coals shimmering in a furnace,
A night without neon unthinkable.

Heroic in the face of fate,
nooses cinched about the nape,
ransomed at the city's gate,
sackcloth their adorning drape.

Bearing keys to England's King,
the six against a town compared.
Bad omens that their death may bring,
thus the burghers' lives were spared.

Time alone is the ultimate conqueror.
It wears down great men and empires alike.
So too it withers the wildflower;
all break before Aggressor-Time.

The hot sun burns into my turned back.
I thought I'd taste the asphalt for a while.
A begging thumb moves faster than a running fool,
but the sun has baked the asphalt to my feet.

Every northern town worn down by Aggressor-Time
awaits the final blown of urban renewal;
and pop-art will decorate the city streets,
where Aggressor-Time has chosen to leave a slum.

Still, the taste of asphalt and the smell of gasoline
carry me beyond these thoughts
and I run from Time, that sadist,
a shimmering mirage just down the highway.

Resting at night, there's always a bar
and a girl upon a stool, who'll listen for a drink.
Kiss her, love her, then run with the dawning sun.
Beware!  For Time creeps up on you at night.

Broad expanses are diminished by the asphalt,
so too your memories lurking in the forests.
But that which you left behind awaits you,
Time, like the rings of Saturn, has no end.

Savor your victory Aggressor-Time!
Your pestle has ground down mind and body,
only calcified bone left in the mortar,
that futilely defied your crushing weight.

Seafood stew
A basil, saffron brew
Sea Robin, Congre, Scorpion Fish

Pernod provides a hint of flavor licorice
Vegetables and shellfish help complete the dish

For authentic travel to Marseille
Ambrosia's put in play
Bouillabaisse

My first sense of the aversion raised by Frost,
Walls swelled under, yet, I could not exhaust
The barriers confronted on life's twisted path.
Too enervating loosing one's sole ****** wrath,
I pierce the wall that poets have not crossed
And speak to you, my audience, in verse,
Trusting the directed words that I asperse
Will convey the meaning hoped to impart,
Even more, some verbal beauty from my art,
Into which, fair reader, you elatedly immerse.
Gratified, I, the poet, have but you to thank,
The wall of separation loses one more plank,
Between us communication is not lost,
Better that understanding be dispersed.

We speak and therefore are, Descartes,
Worth much more than gold or any cost.

Flickering in the wind, like a pale candle
left on the windowsill quite by accident,
she lights our world in words
that stutter and stammer,
but never fail to show her uncertain path.
She thrives in ****** exaggeration,
and yet, through our misunderstanding,
the prescience of her thought becomes clear.
There are many, who need
never answer to the title of poet;
you will not find the name Lane amongst them,
for there is much in her madness to draw us in.

I peer behind
a tattered paperback
in hopes to glimpse
her satin lingerie,
praying my laundry's
spin cycle runs
on molasses,
rather than quarters.
Phantom of the Laundromat,
got to get a life!