My Altar is a table set upon a naked stage.
While waiting for the memorial to begin
I watch from the wings as students and alumni
In clots of twos and threes come shuffling in.

Poor Mary lived just nineteen years.
A dark depression did her in.
She was my student, I knew her well;
These tears I shed are genuine.

Ours is not an age of Faith;
Our thoughts and prayers are platitudes.
I look out  upon the faces of her friends
who’ve forgotten the beatitudes.

Her body rests in the cold hard ground,
interred two weeks ago today.
Some claim she is an angel now.
So I do hope but who can say?

What then can I say to salve these souls
who have forgotten  how to pray?
What cold comfort is my funereal black
on this bitter grey December day?

Her youth and beauty have been overthrown;
Persephone has been by Pluto wed.
How wise he was, the poet, who observed
The folly of being comforted.

I was then but middle-aged, established in my world.
She was a young ingenue, a lithe and lovely girl.
she knew about the ring I wore, the promise it contained,
but we were both the worse for drink and passions were inflamed.
I should have left here at her door, my lusts I should have tamed.

Her perfume was enticing, unlike what my Lucy wore.
I stepped back to admire when her chemise hit the floor.
To hold a warm girl in my arms; to kiss those lips of flame.
I felt my youth restored to me when she whispered my name.

Her mystic rose was delicate; its subtle nectar sweet.
She raised her hips to meet my lips, the conquest was complete.
We both were lost in pleasure, her fingers urged me on.
We surrendered to our yearnings, all inhibitions gone.

Some say that Hell is a fiery pit with fierce unquenchable flames.
Others say its lined with ice and  the cold drives you insane.
For me Hell was a woman scorned and a co-respondent named.
I was crucified in the press; such is the cost of fame.

I am older, wiser now. I never touch a drop.
See, if you never drink the first no one need tell you stop.
I  have been a fool for Love but I will not pretend
that I don't miss her passionate kiss I'll never have again.

Golden haired and handsome, Joe seemed to have it all.
He’d won a PAC 8 championship just that previous Fall.
Surely the Heisman would be his; another prize to win.
He started strongly, at least at first, but would falter at the end.

Joe Roth had Melanoma and it ravaged skin and bone,
It was a lonely battle, the hardest fight he’d known.
Joe Roth was a gamer who would strap his helmet on
and go out on the gridiron though his strength was nearly gone.
He knew that he would not grow old, or play the game for pay.
In this final autumn of his life he merely wished to play.

. Despite fatigue and nausea he still made every start,
Until his game clock ran out on an overburdened heart.
There’s a moment when the cheering stops, when a man feels most alone;
blind-sided by a tackle while checking down against the zone.

When game clock seconds tick away and the outcomes not in doubt
Joe stood tall in the pocket even when it was a rout.
He gave the game the best he had, then it was his  time to go.
He was an All- American, and no ordinary Joe

We were down in the province of Basra, Iraq
For reasons not precisely clear.
Our objective that day was a Shia run town;
A town named Sari Mi Dyr.
The road to the town was a minefield of sorts
It was *****-trapped with I.E.D.’s.
Still it was the constant sniping that caused
the bulk of our casualties.
The day was as hot as a woman’s scorn
when the last of her tears have dried.
I’ll remember this road to Sari Mi Dyr
On which so many good friends have died.
The day was near spent when command showed some sense;
We heard our choppers draw near.
They aborted the mission and extracted my men
From that hellhole called Sari Mi Dyr.
I’m writing my after action report,
and trying to hold back a tear;
When I think of the good men and women who died
On the road to Sari Mi Dyr.

If he prefers a bitter brew and takes his coffee black
You my friend had best beware; you ought to watch your back!
A scientific survey says that of all people on the street;
those who prefer the bitter to the sweet,
have psychopathic tendencies revealed by what they eat.
If he loves eating Brussel sprouts, but passes on the butter
He might be the sadistic type with issues about mother.
If he takes his coffee black but eschews the use of sugar.
It’s a good predictive marker that your colleague is meshugah.
So pay attention to the habits of your most near and dear,
because their choice of what to eat makes their intentions clear.

What images swirl through the dying mind
of a man who’s been peppered with shot?
Does life pass in review, as some have claimed true?
Is he judged and found wanting? Then what?


Or does he embrace and take leave of this place
as life’s’ blood empties out of his veins.
Is the thought of her face the one instance of Grace
When only a moment remains.

I held a rose without a thorn,
I say with certainty.
Every other rose has thorns;
every one save she.
There are other kinds of rose:
Long stemmed, hybrid, tea.
Still it was the thornless rose
that I kept close to me.
Perhaps I held a bit too tight
and her love began to wane
Sadly, I relaxed my grasp,
vainly hoping she'd remain.
We parted as the best of friends
as she got up from my bed.
I looked down, dumbly,
at my hands
and wondered why they bled.