Many years ago I told my Friend Ed the
Ex librarian a riddle I had heard-A man walks
for fifteen minutes to the East and then fifteen
North plants a flag goes back to his starting place
Changes his direction and travels West fifteen
Minutes then turn North and in few minutes he is
Back at the flag.  Where is he ?  I asked  Ed, a true
Scholar.  He pondered.looked puzzled and said I
Don't Know-Where?  I told him the flag was at the
North pole. He pondered too deep for me and said:
"There must be Another Place!" I knew he meant
Another reality.  The wonder The Wonder that it
Might be so and maybe so much better than this
Veil of tears it seems we know.  Last night  I was
There.  I woke up in my dream it was a somewhat
Desolate place, a tract near a city that once had been
Flat but ****** terrain over grown with  old brush
Dumped and growing.  A breeze was blowing when
First I saw it a she floating in the air-gamboling to
And fro-  I watched amazed and deciphered that I
Was watching an old worn garment carried about
By the wind.  It came to earth and I examined it and
So it was a thin bi of cloth.  I threw it is a pile of brush
Where it disappeared to my immediate regret because
I knew I had seen something quite marvelous and too
Odd to be ignored .  I put a stick into the pile and poked
For the cloth.  It immediately rose up but now it was two
pieces; a lamb that turned colors and frolicked delightfully
At my  very feet.  I turned to my anonymous friend and
Said even if we are only seeing dance of rags.  It surely
Has taken a goodly time for them to become such wind
Nymphs.  And is it not an augury that this is the time that
Childish dreams will soon be realized=maybe Peace is
About to come.  Is even now Immanent.  I think now of
Dickens: It was the best of times; the worst time.... A time
Like all times"- Magic is so interwove  into the ordinary
That one ner does see it until one wakes up in his dreams
A mysterious stranger at his side where another place. is
A place in the heart where the little king and i always reside
It is always about to be.  It is Now and nothing more...

Charlie says it is only a thought if mind
Ed say it is a long long  time, A book.
You are reading and never finish. Charlie
Says but you only live moment to moment.
Still they can be welded  into a chain of memory
Ed says.  And so it goes back and forth-two
Sides of a coin-more perfect yet
the circle of the I Ching with its S line
Down the middle dividing the light from
Dark; and each half contain the merest point
Of the other.  My two friends knew each other
Before I knew them.  Ed introduced me Charlie
In a hot dog place in Berkeley in the early 70s.
It seems my memory is a refutation that it is but
A Thought of mind-I know it has been a long
Long time this memory and so many others but
There is always the times in between-The blessed
Darkness after life's crucifixions when I would
Say it is done; It is finished. Peace and Amen to
All lost loves=family friiedns.  I go to a  Place .  
If God in His goodness wills it perhaps there we
Shall meet again and if not there is this endless...
This changeless thought of mind-this eternity
And always either way ... Still I am on the way..

Little Liss kissed my lips
So chaste and ....
Sweet  It pierced my heart
Where she always lives
Now she is all grown up
But on those lips she be-
Quated a gift-A secret . I
know its been said before:
"The past is not over its not
Even past".  He spoke of I
Think of  a time and place but
It was of a forever Love  and a
Truth that does not die but lives
On in in memories that return in
Dreams that are real as heaven
A place you will always be when
You get there like  " Last Stop:
'Willough... Be!'"...

(Some Place between Westport and Fairfield)


With attribution to Wm Faulkner and  The Twilight Zone by my
fellow Antiocian Rod S,

For Liss

The boy who cried fire too many times
When there was no fire got the reputation
Of a Liar so when he cried :No firre ! No
Fire! there was a terrible hysteria that in
Fact there was a Fire consuming the land
Panic everywhere as the fear spread.
It is really quite simple.  If Pavlov called
Out ; Chow! Chow! and there was never
Food the dogs would soon the Word  food

Believe was a lie and  would stop believing the
Man even when he told the Truth.  What is the
Truth in the liar' s .mouth?  The understanding of
Trtuth Is always  the hallowed breath of reputation.





The Bull in the china shop pleaded he was really
Only an elephant.  They would not listen and
cried curses down as he was forced to leave the
shambles.  Shame Shame They called!  Go!  Go!

But  to the pedestrians and street urchins it was
A
Glorious show and so it was long remembered.
Even revered as a great masquerade of  this life
Wherein all the world is a stage and the play is
The thing.  All that's left to us though it be the
Fall
Of Rome we are glad we were there Now to tell the
Tale  about the way we were in our youth.
Are we not all but poor players who strut and
Fret our hour upon the stage and then are heard
No More....So knave or king take your bow. All
We can  now say   say to you is you made the show
We  who loved the show   must love you too at the
End of time...

With Love to my son and daughter

What could account for the problem
Of making life so complex that an
Average man   is not able with a normal
Amount of diligence to  successfully be
Able to navigate the routine challenges
Of life.  Is it not perversity; ignorance
Some combination of the above- to drive
A man mad with needless complexities
That serve no purpose except the vain
Glory of the riddler who would not
Have us discover  that he is  naked.
Beneath his imagined cleverness -is a
Fool  who will not enter the House of
Lord till he will be led by a little child.

There is no good reason that things should be so bad.  
Bad  andSo I let the starry eyed child be my guide.
the wise and learned men who write great treatises no one
Can understand  should confess as much and not mislead.but
Rather  than admit that  they know not.  They are proud that they
Can deceive though will carry their erudite  heavy tombs to the
Grave They say wemust listen to them  so they can make it better.
They scrawl there letters in the sand of an eternal shore that erases
All.  



Again there is no good reason things must be so bad .No child
Should be blamed for Adams Sin it is beaten into them by threat
From all the worthy shamans Let them all go go pound  sand but
They will not go easy.  Speak!   Will we not crucify?  Its been
Done before you know?   No I do not know and neither do you.
But if its so its wrong.  Where were you when God made ius all
Heaven and earth If you were any where near Him you were
A starry eyed child who knew  He would call you back and
Never let you roam too far This was a knowledge worth living
For.  There is no good reason to  pretend we know why so much
Evil is  In fact a little child leadeth me even now out of  the dark
Dungeon of despair that i wrongly called Adam's other place.
There really is only One place  it is here and it belongs to God
The child knows it is loved; know where love is there is no  evil
Good is the truth The Truth is good and that is all you need to
Know