There are loves that are inseparable,
loves that never leave.
Loves that can define us
This much I do believe.
I remember well my own first “love”.
A Love I brought to bed.
I brought along a flashlight too
To discern the words Love said.
When all my family was asleep
from my pillow I’d retrieve
My treasure from the Library
And I’d begin to read.
That was my first chapter book,
A mystery, I recall.
Of all the words I’ve read or writ
It was the start of all.
I like to find that book again
and hold in one more time.-
and in the touch and smell of it
Recall a simpler time.

I'd like to slip quietly away from Life;
Peacefully in my sleep would be best,
that's for sure.

No doctor pounding on my lifeless chest;
demanding of me an unwanted encore.

I seek no grand Finale.
I require no clamoring crowds.

No, for me, just a bare and empty stage,
with one less spear carrier among the  dramatist personae.
One not remembered once you turn the page.

In certain lights she may appear
An apparition dressed in white.
At other times she’s like a mist;
bitingly cold on hot humid nights.

This is the room where Rachel died;
A young bride strangled by her groom.
He then committed suicide-
having guaranteed her doom.

His soul was dragged away to Hell;
He chokes forever in sulfurous fumes.
For his Bride, a different fate;
She bides forever in Rachel’s room.

Up at the head of the stairs is her room.
You may enter in daylight.
At dusk we hear her piteous screams.
No living soul dares spend the night

A canister of tear gas was lying on the ground.
In my dumb incomprehension, I first heard the rifles sound.
Then there were screams and curses; weeping and lament.
There were bodies lying silent, bleeding out on the pavement.

Our protest wasn’t peaceful although “Peace” was on our signs.
We had thrown rocks at the guardsmen; they responded now in kind.
Tensions had escalated and passion outraced sense.
The crackle of the rifle fire ended the suspense.

Now I am an old man; we’ve moved on to other wars.
To that wall of names in Washington I’d like to add four more.
The rain has washed their blood away. The memories fade with time.
The old guard has passed; now all that is left is the enormity of their crime.

Love is a gift freely given,
Without chance of recall.
Those who expect otherwise
Have never loved at all.

He was thought to be a genius by those who knew him best.
His output was prodigious; himself a source of infinite jest.
He was said to be obsessed by one who would not be his wife.
He was suffering from depression on the day he took his life.

There is no cure for sadness or the shadows that pursue.
Medication only does so much when sunny days turn blue.
His essays and his stories had garnered much acclaim,
And once you’d read his novel you would not forget his name.

So one day in early fall; rope tied around his throat,
David used his exit strategy from a life devoid of hope.
That is how she found him; suspended from the stairs.
Swinging softly like a pendulum, there, beyond the help of prayers.

Eric  Schneiderman misses the days
When Whites were supreme in this land.
He abused his poor lover for her dark skin,
and pretended she was his to command.

"Call me Master!" he said, as he slapped her around.
He beat her to make her obey.
There were several "Dead soldiers" strewn on the floor.
Eric is a mean drunk, folks say.

Now in disgrace, he resigns his high post.
Poor Eric is down and Forlorn.
Based on the accounts of amounts that he drank
I'm amazed he could even perform.