My Facebook friend does not like Trump,
While I despise Chuck Schumer
We post opposing clever memes,
Insults, innuendoes and rumors.
He’s not a bad soul, I suppose,
(Just terribly one sided)
There’s no convincing him or me
That our opinions are misguided.
I see him daily in my feed
He’s never been “unfriended”
Our “arguments” will continue on
Until one life is ended.
So we agree to disagree
And that with me is fine.
I will not to the choir preach;
That’s the ghetto of the mind.

The table is set and the guests are arriving.
Tom Turkey is brown and your uncle's imbibing.
"Please pass the biscuits." my Aunt Edna said,
while blithely ignoring my drunk cousin Fred.
Don't talk about politics, Religion or Fate.
Don't wear a red hat; keep your eyes on your plate.
You can survive this; I'm certain you will.
Just pile your plate high and eat what you will.
There are six types of cake here and Nutella pie.
If you don't take your statins it is likely you'll die.
But should you survive and avoid your demise
We'll send you home weighed down with three kinds of pie.

You'll have gained fifteen pounds and you're not very tall-
The folks at Weight Watchers are expecting your call.

In every human life there are some aspects of regret:
The chances that we failed to take, the places we will never get.
Now, as we approach the end of our ‘pas de deux’ with time,
I whisper softly in her ear “you were never one of mine.”

Guitar practice was always down in the school basement.
I would show up for practice, my guitar case in hand
And carefully place my sheet music on a metal music stand.
There were just four of us would-be musicians that year.

We dutifully tuned our guitars as our teacher played a single note.
We progressed to practicing our chords, my fingers on each string.
I was a mediocre player; what I liked to do was sing.
I did love the cherry wood scent of my guitar.

That afternoon turned dark in the heart of this fair land.
There was a muffled announcement; then the sound of some girl crying.
“President Kennedy has been shot; they say that he is dying!”
Our class was canceled abruptly, for a reason we understood.

I never went back to Guitar class and I never played again.
For months my guitar waited, patiently, with its sweet scent of cherry wood.
My mother finally persuaded me to sell it; I said that I understood.
Camelot had vanished in the mists, and Johnny would never be good.

We saw the conning tower first,
in the darkness of the deep.
A robotic submersible
Found the boat on its final sweep
Some two hundred and thirty fathoms down
That’s where the crew of the Greyback sleeps.

At the end of February in Forty Four
A chance encounter brought them low.
A Betty from a carrier force
Delivered what proved the fatal blow.
The sea poured in from all around,
Trapped at their stations, the mariners drowned.
No hope of rescue would appear
as each man faced his private fear.

It’s the nature of the silent service,
The danger of their chosen role:
Never to see home port again,
on their eternal last patrol.

When I was one and twenty, my mother said to me:
“Life is short, Dear Son, don’t waste it on frivolities.”
But I was one and twenty; I thought I knew better than she
Funny how none are so blind as those that will not see.

I had good times in college in those days when Love was “free”.
I did a modicum of work and avoided STDs.
I saw some sadness in her eyes when my paper chase was through.
A window closed, though I knew it not when I was twenty-two.

I worked ten years in government, which left me a bit depressed.
I threw away a woman’s Love, Why is anybody’s guess.
My youthful promise dripped away, my greatness was denied.
I entered another decade with a bottle by my side.

When I finally hit bottom; when all else had been tried
I tried the ten-step program in lieu of suicide.
In a drafty old church basement,we sat on creaky wooden chairs
and confessed our self-debasement to the fellow sufferers there.

Last spring, my saintly mother died. I came too late to say:
“Mom, you were so right, I’ve thrown too many years away.”
For Life is short and, now and then, it takes us by surprise
when another window closes on the loved ones in our lives.

(On a railcar siding outside Oswiecim, Poland 12/11/1943)



Our captors did not care that we had nothing left to eat,
No blankets or warm clothing locked in this boxcar with no heat.
My old father’s face was turning grey; his hands and cheeks felt numb.
He needed somehow to get warm or else he would succumb.

Everything we had, they had taken from us, for we were “Untermenschen”.
Our tabernacles are overthrown; A disarmed people couldn't prevent them.
We had no great illusions of what our fate would be:
We would be starved and worked to death for ******’s Germany.

Something in my soul cried out; I cannot reason why.
Somehow I was determined that my father must not die.
I set about to warm him; I massaged his hands and feet.
To keep his life’s blood flowing I knew I must not sleep.

Grey morning dawned; still bitter cold, as sharp as any knife.
Our companions had all froze to death, each yielding up their life
Only we two survived the night to see another dawn.
With some envy, we surveyed our friends who now were dead and gone


Somehow I survived the camps until the Russians came.
Out of all my family, I, alone, remained.
In time I immigrated to this land, a place considered free.
Be vigilant, my children; beware repeating history.