Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of summer shines;
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade'
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
       So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
       So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Condell, Hemmings, Burbage all
Have had their final curtain call
The boards they trod were burned in flames,
And not one single script remains.
The author, Shakespeare, now bones and dust
as is the fate of all of us.
Yet do not count all as defeat
As we playgoers take our seats
For Shakespeare still retains his fame.
Though all else be gone
His words remain

(sonnet #MMMMMCDXXXII)


How rain's nigh ghastly light haunts vague suspense
Ere darkness yield to after.  In the pale
Note follwing, whiter morsels chase th'exhale
Which moves atwixt these firs as if pretense
Could not decide oer snowbanks' worn intents
And newer puddles thinking of betrayl,
This fragile romance in surreal tones' bail
Lost in the flurry of just whither hence.
I want to ask you what you're doing fer
All we have overnight made me and you
Erm, us and we.  And scared but driving, you're
Not one bit daunted either.  What'd we do?
I've heard of whirlwind stories.  Aren't such poor?
You'd kiss my tear-washed face, and say we knew?

03Feb16

When the hand of his timepiece
reached the top of the hour
Sam pushed the throttle forward.

Engine 138 thundered
out of Blossburg station
like an iron dragon
breathing smoke and steam –
it's whistle shrilling the Tioga valley.

Powered by coal
his train carried coal
to the shops and homes of Elmira
where Sam would press his mother’s hand –
perhaps for the final time.

The wheels, churned iron on iron,
across Pennsylvania farmland
just as yesterday’s wheels
moved his grandfather's oxcart
to their new family spread
alongside the Williamson road.

Newer wheels carry America
to urban landscapes
attracted like electro-magnets
to streetlamps – factories –
five and dime stores –
new crops for a modern age.

Elmira’s silhouette breached the horizon
and Sam pulled the train in on time -
brakes screeching through billowy steam.

His Jenny and his sister’s Sam
had come in a horseless carriage
with Zoe, Ed and Marie -
children now grown at their sides.

They all gathered to Hannah’s bed,
now approaching her final hours.
Soft voices and fragile smiles
cradled the truth beyond telling;

Time, ever advancing
like an ever-turning wheel
holds us all in its circling sway.