There’s a troubling trend in the land of the “Free”.
Many things go unspoken; they’re just not “P.C.”
Crimes are committed and no one is shocked
when they go unpunished and lips remained locked.
To speak truth to power is to risk mockery.
You’ll be labelled a racist; that’s just not “P.C.”
So much as gone wrong In the land of the “Free”
It would bore you to list the whole sad Litany.
If ever you wondered just what you would do
In a time when great evil was threatening you?
You need no longer wonder. You didn’t stand tall.
On the sad road to silence you said nothing at all.

These empty rooms
devoid of life,
behind a bookcase
in the hall.
This was, for a time,
our home
while the Germans
held the Dutch in thrall.
My wife since dead from huger,
my daughters in a common grave.
I, Otto Frank, the sole survivor.
Is there no one I can save?
Annelise, my dearest daughter,
Miep Gies gave me your book.
The Germans cast it on the floor
without a second look.
Here in your words I find
perhaps not all of you has died.
Here in print your words may speak
for all who suffered, all who cried.
Its small comfort for an old man,
broken, ready for the grave,
but my girl might be a symbol
for all those we could not save.

Your King and Country need you, men.
Kitchener, glaring in full kit.
Khaki is the color of the day
and everyone must do their bit.
A mighty Empire girds for war
yet unprepared to bleed and die.
Then bands still played patriotic airs;
We cheered them as they marched away.
Belle France’s fields were soon entrenched;
protected with barbed wire fence.
A generation sent to war
will lie forever beneath those fields.
This was the cost too few foresaw
of this war to end all wars.
A cost paid many times since then;
paid in young lives by bad old men.

Think of it as a thirst for Truth
That can’t be quenched by dry Vermouth.
Those souls  who in the bottle find
a sauce of solace for troubled minds.

Because I can conceive of wine,
Somewhere there grows a fruitful vine.
Existence made certain by concept possible-
an essential premise Ontological.

From the grapes sweet nectar flows
To please the palate and charm the nose.
Its mysteries bring blurred speech and vision
At bottle’s bottom they find religion...

Some seek their Truth on distant peaks
From Fakirs dressed in linen sheets.
Some in bare ruined choirs dwell
With thoughts of Heaven spiced with Hell.  

Still others have declared wine evil
An attitude I find Medieval
Their wine grapes meet a sadder fate
reduced to raisins on a plate.

From Vine to press, from field to glass
A boon companion to Life’s repast.
Red or White, no cause for Schism
A sommelier hears your catechism.

Ten years have passed, Ten, to the day,
Since Cancer took her breath away.
We survivors, left forlorn,
consoled each other as we mourned.
That day a Father lost his child
and was never after seen to smile.
Faith was tested on that day
as each in turn would kneel to pray.
Time, inexorable in its way,
sought to efface our tears away,
as snow and rain and biting wind
efface letters incused in stone.
Time has failed, we can’t forget
the loss of our beloved Jeanette.
We who survive, recall the day,
It’s stifling heat, the lack of air.
The horror of that ringing phone
That brought the tragic news to home.
Ten years have passed, Ten years she’s gone.
Ten years we’ve had to soldier on.
This day we pause to think of then
And weep for all that might have been.

They were scattered, here and there.
Some were in pieces, some intact.
Some were strapped into the wreckage;
Others lay upon their backs.
These were staring, sightless, at the sky;
That place from whence they came-
They had been headed on vacation
when a missile struck their plane.
The Western World roars outrage
and Dutch folk weep their tears.
“Give us back our children
that your hatred scattered here.”
“The world is filled with churlish men;
Who stole our children’s years.
The innocents have been slaughtered
But no Savior yet appears.”