The path I tread is difficult, the grade, in places, steep.
Condemned by the gods, I follow it without surcease or sleep.
I push my rock before me like a slave beneath the lash.
My sentence is forever and this is my fated task.

My hands are callused from hard work maneuvering the stone.
I do my work in silence; my thoughts are still my own.
The gods will not hear me complain as I struggle to gain traction.
I am not weak and will not give those ******* satisfaction.

The stone moves as my muscles strain to roll it towards the height
The stars are very beautiful and I’m working by their light.
At last the apex is achieved, a feat of strength and will.
Once more I hear Dis snickering as the stone rolls down the hill.

I take a breath to clear my lungs and then proceed below.
My stone waits on me patiently for yet another go.
Well, I am game if you are game-my unspoken reply.
We resume our pas- de- deux beneath the cold uncaring sky

“Cigarette? “ He held out his pack.
“Sure”, I said.” I don’t see any harm in it now.”
My recent foe, now friend, was dressed in Wehrmacht Grey.
I wore Khaki as I had in life, stained in the front around the heart.
His coal black helmet bore proof of his fatal blow.
Other than being dead we were both none the worse for wear.
We watched without passion the play before us:
the waves of boys in Khaki Green, breaking against the Atlantic wall.
Such Courage was shown on both sides this day.
I confess I had felt only fear. Terror as bullets tore into my heart.
My new friend felt the same. We were both glad our deaths were quick.
The alternative was here upon display.
Soon we must head above, or below, as the gods decide.
But we had decided for just a while to stay
And watch the action on this Longest Day

My secret flame has kindly eyes that I have learned to trust.
Let the world praise Nefertiti but remember she is dust.
No, she is not beautiful in the way the world decides.
Yes, my heart is on fire when I behold her with these eyes.
She is my muse, my Touchstone, my constant evening star.
She is ever on my mind, though often from afar.
Keep Helen with her thousand ships, such beauty is but vain.
A poet is much better off who has a secret flame.

Once he floated; now he stumbles, he struggles for each breath.
It’s like the rumble in the jungle but Ali has little left.
His opponent is relentless, stalking him around the ring.
Is it Liston? Is it Foreman? Who has come to box the king?
Judging from the foe’s ferocity – is the specter Smoking Joe?
Ali does his best to counter his opponent’s crushing blows.
His eyes are nearly swollen shut, but the boxer never cries.
Who thought that Death would come for him in this macabre disguise?
He tries to dance but falters; feeling weakness in his knees.
He feels the K.O. coming as he’s succumbing by degrees.
Ali tumbles to the canvas, he hears the count begin.
but in the bout with Death you never hear the man count "Ten"

You would think him a villain; you would call him a thief
But he would just shrug and say “We all have to eat.”
On the Petersburg siege lines, he’d just made a score;
A rusted old bayonet used in our Civil War.

There are scores of collectors who would pay a good price.
They wouldn’t ask questions, they wouldn’t think twice.
He cared nothing for the History of the Blue and the Grey.
Only for the money the collector would pay.

The Sun was descending when he left from the Park
He bought some Tequila, to drink in the dark.
in a third rate motel that didn’t leave the lights on.
By three the next morning the Tequila was gone.

The thief had bad dreams, in his ***** induced sleep.
of a specter in gray at his bed near his feet:.
The ghost of a drummer from that long ago war.
The thief shook with fear at the visage he saw.

The blade he had stolen was now in the Ghost’s hands.
The ghost grimly eyed him with the soul of one dammed.
The blade shattered his ribs and ripped him apart.
As darkness descended it tore open his heart..

The medical examiner was called the next day.
A horrified maid found the body, they say.
His room had been locked. He’d bled out on the ground
The hall cameras showed nothing; no weapon was found

Sara and Stephen were of a marked race,
living at the wrong time, and in the wrong place.
When ****** took power, they eased each other’s fears.
“Germany is civilized, It can’t happen here.”

When the Chancellor railed against gypsies and Jews
“ He’s just playing politics” was their commonsense view.
Yet hatred took root; the brown shirts had free run
And the voters had cause to rue what they had done.

****** came for their guns and they meekly complied.
Few then thought to resist the strong onrushing tide.
“The Police will protect us, Sara, my dear.”
“This is Beethoven’s birthplace; it can’t happen here.”

Those were very hard times, the worst we ever saw.
Rich Jews were resented for the furs that they wore.
“They cost us the war, they are traitors, it’s clear.”
“Sara, don’t worry, it can’t happen here.”

The foes of this Chancellor disappeared in the night
And he started to speak of a thousand year *****.
He censored the newspapers; both Left and Right.
And glass littered the streets one November night.

With Hindenburg dead, who was there left to stand?
Who had will to resist that warped little man?
Perves wore Triangles, Juden wore stars
Both lost their rights under Germany’s laws.

Sara and Stephen were loaded, like freight,
on a train bound for Dachau by command of the State.”
I’m sure we’ll be freed, Sara, my dear.”
We’re a civilized race, this can’t happen here.”

Stephen worked as a slave but at least stayed alive.
He was freed by the Russians in May, Forty five.
Sara, his wife, had a far crueler fate;
She was sent to the showers by the ****’s mandate.

Back in Berlin, Stephen saw with his own eyes
that the “Thousand year *****” was a tissue of lies
First pillaged by brown shirts, then bombed in the war
Stephen thought” This isn’t home anymore.”

Now Stephen is old, living here in the States.
He looks with dismay at these two candidates.
It seems like a nightmare he lived through before.
A crisis is coming and there will be war.

It used to be the task of Moms to ***** train young ***** and Janes.
The government had other work; such as procuring tanks and planes.
These days the STATE has grown so large that they alone must run the show
The President, by Royal decree, demands we let his people go.

Though Male and Female God created; that either-or -ness now seems dated.
Learned scholars have explained how **** might think herself a Jane,
providing Kaitlyn, once named Bruce, with a ready-made excuse.
Conservatives rail, but what’s the use?

He She or It? Are you confused about which bathroom you should use?
In former days it was the done thing to use the room that matched your fun thing
Now delicate Psyches are rubbed raw as their gender issues they explore.



Once more the forces of the law are brought to bear on Segregation;
now its stools, not schools, which are the cause for intervention.
Yes, women have their Privacy rights- when it comes to procreation.
All else must now be sacrificed to the vision of a much changed nation.

When Adam and Eve think they’re Ada and Steve
Let them *** where they want or the State is aggrieved.
Adolescence is just such a jumble these days;
What with male lesbians, trannies and gays.
The young must find it most confusing
about which bathroom they should be using.
In New York City, if you so please,
You won’t be arrested if found using our trees.

Obama started with such high hopes.
I voted for him but now I’m bitter,
That the Presidency of hope and change
is winding up here in the *******.