The farmer stooped and took a scoop of soil into his hands.
It was dry and lifeless, less like topsoil than like sand.
On the far horizon a darkling cloud of dust was seen.
Another year without a crop, the times were worse than lean.
Human beings are full of pride, the sin that caused our fall,
sure that, as populations grew, that we could feed them all.
The forests shrank, the deserts grew, and erosion claimed the soil.
Then the crops began to fail all across the world.
Hunger stalks this once rich land, so many lives erased
So many children dead and gone the shovels can’t keep pace.
Is this the end once prophesied, the apocalypse indeed.
Once the seed corn’s been consumed, hope is a slender reed.

Once, on a Sunday morning, we were 1500 strong.
Then the bombs began to fall and the world we knew was gone.
Our ship, the Arizona, was among the first to sink.
A thousand men, our brothers and friends, perished in a wink.
The war years took too many more, old age has claimed its due.
Now, at this last reunion, we are seven surviving crew.
Old and weak and wheelchair bound, nevertheless we come
to raise a toast to fallen friends long hidden from the Sun.
Our ship became a graveyard on that day in Forty one.
One day we’ll be interred here too when our enlistments done.
With tear filled eyes we drink a toast with vintage dry champagne.
Then pour out a libation so our dead may do the same.

Science tells us that natural selection
plays no small role in our complexion.
Environment too must play its role
in making us white, brown or gold.
Southern whites, whose genes spend time
In hot and sunny southern climes,
may, in the course of generations,
start looking brown to Scandinavians.
While Blacks who live in the Northwest
see dark tones fade, go unexpressed.
In time all hatred based on race
perhaps will prove to  be misplaced.
If whites turn brown and blacks turn pale
for whom would Reverend Sharpton rail?
When mostly Mocha men and women
Drop clothes and prejudice and get to sinning
Our census forms will need fine tuning
when the only box for race is human.

It was back in the winter of Ninety –nine,
the day before Paddy’s on Chicago’s south side,
when a routine traffic stop turned deadly for one;
James Camp was shot in the face with his own gun.
Kevin Dean was the killer, his victim wore blue.
Dean did what he’d previously threatened he’d do.
He was out on probation for attempting such a deed.
On this day he struck and he made a “pig” bleed.
It’s a very fine line we police have to toe;
Act too fast- you’re a bully- Be a corpse if too slow.
There was a fierce struggle and one shot was fired;
Fold a flag for the widow whose Love has expired.
Kevin Dean is in custody, charged with the crime.
This time there’s no bail and he’ll surely do time.
In a Cop bar we sat, nursing grievances and beers.
We’re alone on the streets and we have been for years.
The smell of turned earth and a young widow’s tears,
were fresh in our memory as the next roll call neared.

I came home from your funeral dressed all in my Sunday best.
The shock of losing you is past and now I feel depressed.
Our house is large and empty now and silence roams the halls.
I remember the happier times before I lost it all.

Some weeks have passed and I’ve resolved to sell this place and leave.
I’ll get a small apartment with just space enough to grieve.
Of course that means I’ll have to pack and cast some things away.
That’s how I came across the box saved from our wedding day.

How beautiful was the dress your wore on the night that we were wed
I still can hear the music played when you pretended that I led.
The hand sewn pearls, the lavish lace, your falling auburn curls.
How rich a man this pauper was when you were in my world.

There is a house that haunts my days, a house that infiltrates my dreams.
It is seven stories tall and was not made by human hands.
In this house are many rooms and I can’t catalog them all.
Its chambers reach out to eternity and back towards the fall.
That which the mind can’t comprehend yet can be known by heart;
The sum of all the stars at night would only be a start.

In the last year of Trujillo’s reign, the Dictator decided
to eliminate three sisters and then plausibly deny it.
Patria, Maria and Minerva were the victims of the plot.
Once the three were dead and gone, He‘d make sure folks forgot.
On a lonely country road, they were ambushed by his men.
They forced the sisters off the road. That’s how it began.
The girls must not seem martyrs; Trujillo had made it plain-
nothing quick and merciful, like a bullet to the brain.
The men used bats to knock them down and smashed their faces in
so they could not be recognized by their own next of kin.
They placed the bodies in the car and pushed it off the road.
“The butterflies are free!” they mocked; “Those girls reaped what they sowed.”
In the Dominican Republic, the wheel, if slowly, turned.
Trujillo met a ****** end and freedom was regained.
The truth was slowly brought to light, the murderers were named.
The Maribels were honored and their martyrdom proclaimed.





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