The men of Massachusetts were falling back in disarray
They had held their line for hours on this hot and humid day.
Nathan Allen bore the tricolor when they were ordered to withdraw
But he turned and charged the rebel line because of what he saw.
The regimental banner had fallen to the clay
The rebels too had eyed the prize and they were on their way.
The bullets sang their song of death as from his friend’s dead hands
He bore the colors back to where his unit made their stand.
The honor of the regiment was wrapped up in their banner
To Nathaniel Allan, more than his life, that mattered.
He was cited for his courage; all had seen what he had done.
Upon his grave they placed a star, the honor that he won.

So sad, to see these empty chairs, where, just the day before,
Our brave young aviators sat looking like the gods of war.
They won a famous victory, our wing commander said,
But when a flyer dies in combat we never see them dead.

The planes they flew were obsolete; they never had a chance
The Zero is more maneuverable, so deadly and so fast.
Let no man doubt their courage as they pressed on their attack
in the sure and certain knowledge that they weren’t coming back.

We render one last service as we pack up our friend’s gear;
the pitiful remainders of their lives of twenty years.
Their absence? a reminder of the costs of victory.
Our friends?- forever on patrol, somewhere out at sea.

Now there are none left, none who commanded the stage.
Kennedy, Khrushchev and Fidel; history has turned the page.
Revolution ran hot in his blood, and for that his countrymen paid.

Cuba was once a prosperous land, rich earth and a favorable clime.
The mob was entrenched in Havana hotels and singers performed for their dime.
Resentment and envy in the hearts of the poor convinced young Fidel it was time.

In Cuba today their cars all can do sixty, years I mean, not MPG.
Physicians and nurses all earn less than cabbies, what use is a college degree?
The poor are still poor; they just have a new master. Only now they are even less free.

Fidel was a man with a secular faith; in fact was a prophet of gloom.
We plotted to **** him with exploding cigars but the dammed things failed to go “boom”
I still can remember tense days one October and the sense of impending doom.

Socialism is great- until the money runs out, as old Maggie Thatcher opined.
When Russia collapsed, Cuba imploded, and Che has been dead a long time.
Today Fidel burns, perhaps some will mourn; others will think it Divine.

After all the crowds had gone, we came to the Rotunda where
Our murdered President lay in state, resting in his coffin there.
We shuffled in with our winds and woods to play a requiem for him.
Leonard Bernstein, with his grey tousled mane, motioned that we should begin.
Our fingers danced upon the strings as wood winds sounded sad and low.
In Life he loved to hear us play and we had loved him too you know.
Notes flowed in the November air, up to heaven for all we know,
Music taking the place of prayer; for many of us its long been so..
We’ve played before Thousands in New York and in concert halls around the world,
But this night we played just for him,

for Massachusetts favorite son.

We played Mahler’s requiem

for an audience of one.

My hands are spotted, marked with age.
I feel the cold more keenly now.
I have seen some good friends pass.
I’ve lost at love but kept my vow.
I’ve seen beloved parents’ dead
and held their bodies in my arms.
I’ve watched as youth and beauty fled
from the mirror before my eyes.
Yet through it all I’ve no regrets,
No thoughts that it’s been wasted time.
Hearts will break but they will mend.
Those hearts that don’t are most unkind.
Those who do have had good teachers
Though never one as good as mine.

My grandfather never lived to see Bryant and Rizzo play.
The Cubs won last back in 0- eight which was before his day.
His lifelong love of baseball he passed on down to me    
I took up his forlorn cause as mine each time I watched them play.      
For sixty seven summers    I have watched Cubs come and go;
seen good team fade in summer’s heat, adding to our goat- cursed woe.
I’ve seen them jinxed by black cats in the summer of sixty nine.
Watched Bartman wreck our changes;, what will it be this time?
Now they looked nearly down and out; shut out by the Tribes’ fine Corps
But they got up off the canvas and began to hit and score.
The Series now was tied at three, could my heroes count to four?
Our manager’s moves were questionable; I don’t care what you say.
He shouldn’t have taken Hendricks out (and let Baez swing away)
I sat through anxious innings and through the rain delay.
That’s when this old agnostic got down on his knees to pray.
They won it Eight to seven, Bryant made the final play.
My heart is filled with a nameless joy as Someday is today!

He rides his black steed through the countryside
and whenever he stops a mortal man dies.
He’s the Angel of Death and worthy of dread;
dressed all in black and lacking a head.
In his left hand is a spine that he’ll use as a whip.
In his right hand a scythe that will cut to the quick.
If you chance to observe him you may be struck blind
and still think yourself lucky that he left you behind.
If he pulls on the reins and he finds you outdoors
Your heart will stop dead and will beat nevermore.
There are buckets of blood where the Dullahan rides.
On all Hallows Eve you had best be inside.

It is, for some, a brief vacation from the world of work for pay.
For a child awaiting Christmas it seems an eternity.
For a patient sent to hospice, their prognosis being bleak,
The sum of their tomorrows may amount to just one week.

For them there will be opiates to help manage their pain
All chemotherapy will  stop, for it has been in vain.
Like vandals bent on pillage, Cancer cells their havoc wreak.
Fear yields now to acceptance in the sure knowledge of defeat.

We all face this same sentence, this same curtain call awaits;
though some may drift off during  sleep, which seems a kinder fate.
Appreciate the time you have and give each day its due.
We once had all the world and time but now our days are few.

They briefly loved who sheltered here; the beautiful Sarah and her cousin Will.
They fled the City to this place in England’s north wild rolling hills.
Her husband had neglected her, visiting stables and not her bed.
By that wild summer of Sixty- eight their estrangement had come to a head.
To this old country house she fled; to linger in her Lover’s arms.
Their close sanguinity proved no bar; she gladly yielded to his charms.
They summered here and oft were seen, together, on the Lover’s walk.
A place where blackthorn trees entwine; but you know how people love to talk.
He left her then, alone, with child, as coloured leaves began to fall.
Divorced, disgraced, abandoned thus; She sheltered in another’s home.
This famous beauty with Stuart blood there would raise her child alone.

Such is the history of this place; their romance played out in these halls.
Their scandalous adultery was consummated within these walls.
Modern beauties visit still and stroll with beaus the Lover’s walk-
A place where blackthorn trees entwine and old ghosts whisper in the dark.

They sit straight in a row, like jackdaws on a line;
three women, garbed  in black, on uncomfortable metal  chairs.
They speak in low murmuring voices.
Their eyes are fixed upon the burnished Bronze casket
at the front of the chapel.
The casket that contains
All that remains
of the cancer riddled ruin of a man.
Their eyes are downcast, their ankles tightly crossed.
They have come to console their sister for her loss.
She is one of them now; she has joined in their number.
Indifferent wives make excellent widows.

The weather is perfect for flying today;
seventy degrees, hardly a cloud in the sky.
I stowed my carry-on in the overhead bin.
I am glad our 747 is only half full,
perhaps I will be able to sleep on the plane.
I am due in Rome tomorrow .
There is a growing problem in our parishes and schools.
Men of the cloth engaged in unspeakable acts.
The Curia must be alerted.
The diocese has turned a blind eye to these problem priests
Moving them from parish to parish
Ignoring the harm they perpetrate against the innocents.
I will not be silent.
I watch a young family take their seats in the row across from mine.
I hope the baby is not going to cry all the way across the Ocean.
The smiling Blonde stewardess begins our preflight safety check:
“Welcome to Trans World Airlines Flight 800 to Rome via Paris”

Some time ago, I planted a sapling,
a non-fruiting pear tree,
in the back garden of my home.
I planted it to take the place
Of an older tree lost in a storm.
I have watched it wax
As I have waned.
I know someday it will give its shade
To others of my kind
Who are to me unknown.

From their farms and their villages, they answered the call;
of King and of Country, to the great game of war.
They drilled and they practiced to work as a team,
then were shipped to the Somme, July, Nineteen sixteen.

A film of their training was made to be shown
to their sisters and mothers and lovers back home.
It was screened one time only, to standing acclaim,
for the unwitting widows who carried their names.

Like ripe wheat at the harvest felled by the scythe,
the chums led the assault and half paid with their life.
Lincolnshire wept when the casualties were read.
That first day at the Somme saw twenty Thousand dead.

Those that returned to their village or farm
Thereafter oft woke from their sleep in alarm.
They were changed men and broken, who returned from the fray,
and who bore their survivor guilt to their own dying day.

It might have been beautiful, and certainly smart
Born with your academics and my poet’s heart.
It might have been witty, pithy and wise;
possessing your nose and my two emerald eyes.

It might have been evil; it may have proved kind;
the first of our brood was the last of our line.
Not that we ever will know, I suppose.
Just idle questions  geneticists might pose

It would have been born with ten fingers and toes
If left, unimpeded, for nine months to grow.
We were both too young, both too unprepared,
This life, unintended, was not to be spared.

Forty winters have passed since that fateful decision.
It was swept from our path with a clinic’s precision.
Now you, too, are gone, and that leaves only me
To mourn for our child not permitted to be.

In Orlando, there’s an emptiness words struggle to convey
As survivors try to comprehend what happened yesterday.
When the music and the laughter stopped, then fear and screams began.
The children of the city died at the hands of a madman.
Sons and Daughters, brothers, sisters; fifty dead in the attack
There is sadness in the City as the rainbows fade to black.


How beautiful that night had been; the dance floor pulsed with life.
Here were youth and beauty on display; not bitterness or strife.
At the bar with cash in hand they drank craft brews on tap.
It was last call for one and all, the D.J. played a Rap
Then sadness in the city as the rainbows fade to black.

Some blame the gun, some blame a Faith, some bluster; others hide.
In Orlando a grey mood prevails where sons and daughters died.
By dawn the sirens stopped their song, but there is no turning back
There is sadness in our Country as the rainbows fade to black.

Look at you in your best blue suit.
Look at you in your power tie.
They’ve given us this last moment all alone,
a final chance to say goodbye.
When last we spoke I had no time.
I was busy on the phone.
I hurried you off to your bed
Where, as Fate had it, you died alone.
You were kind of heart and wise.
I am the child of your old age.
I chide myself for being brusque
just as you exited the stage.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,
one of omission on my part.
Death has stolen the warmth of Love away
And left you with a cold clay heart.

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 *******.

I walked this campus in my youth,
forty years ago today.
The air is sweet from recent rain
here on the quad lawn where we played.

It's changed, of course,
that building is new.
Jefferson Hall is next, they say.
I graduated here in May.
I need not give the year away
I 'll only say it was a time,
like now, of great uncertainty.

I remember you like yesterday,
Your eyes a deep cerulean blue.
Your long and flowing auburn hair.
Those bee stung lips so sweet and true.

On impulse, just then
I tried the door.
Surprised I was when it gave way
I entered in the Bursars room
and heard your voice just down the hall.

For sure, twas you.
I'd know that voice
if all the world should pass away
I made my way towards your voice
anticipating ecstasy.

A joyful union there awaits
to hold you once more in my arms
life beyond death to be united
with you so many years since gone.

I entered then into the room
in hopes that she I loved was there.
This was the place where we first met
a place where, sadly, none appeared.

A wistful smile, a final glance
from your poor poet of Romance.
too much a dreamer, most would say,
as I closed the door to yesterday

Its Mother’s day today and flowers, in their bright array,
are popular gifts to give to Mom on this her special day.
While they still thrive the air is sweet; redolent of both rain and Sun.
Eventually their beauty fades though a Mother’s beauty never does.
They are a small enough return for the gift of a Mother’s love.
They are symbol and remembrance too, for those whose Mothers rest in peace.
In their petals, soft like her cheek, lurk remembered fragrances
Stirring memories which make us weep

When I was a child of five I bought a flower for my mom.
It was a fragile little thing but I was glad that she seemed charmed.
The years of our shared lives flew fast, like decades of her rosary.
She is resting now beside my Dad; for now and all eternity.
Some photographs and books are all I have of what she left to me.
Imagine how I felt today when I found this in her breviary-
Pressed petals of that long dead rose; a cherished gift from her young son.
It made a grown man weep for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

The snow was blowing among the trees. In large wet flakes it tumbled down.
My captain turned, as if to speak, but from his lips there came no sound.
A red rose bloomed there on his chest -staining dark the Wehrmacht grey.
I looked in horror as he pitched face forward to the ground.
“******” I yelled and ducked for cover. The copse of trees echoed the sound.

Somewhere out there he awaits; the Devil’s son, the cunning foe.
He’s stalked our party for three days yet leaves no footprints in the snow.
I served in France in Forty –one; before   these Russians were our foes.
I shiver but it’s not from fear; it’s just that we lack winter clothes.
I motion briskly with my right hand, I think the shooter must be there
my corporal nods and starts to move; perhaps he can outflank this man.

My soul is black for I’ve done some things;
  for which I once would have been ashamed.
I saw the Jewess try to shield her babe
as I placed them in a common grave.

This man out there, a warrior; he risks his life upon command.
He is clever, this one, he waits his chance.
Either its him or me that’s dammed.
The drifting snowflakes hide his breath.
But He’s still out there this I know.

My Captain lies still upon the earth
and is slowly covered by the snow.

We are soldiers who risk our lives.
We sacrifice for the Fatherland.
We dream of a woman and a warm bed
Never of Death’s cold clammy hand

My men cry out, the fox is flushed
The ****** has at last been found.

It’s true what they say of the bullet that kills you;
I never even heard the sound.

This is not a Love song

It was never meant to be.

Two hearts so very different

were bound to break eventually.



Only leave me with the memory

Of the day we kissed goodbye

Perhaps not much for me to live on

But please forgive me if I try.



This is not a Love song

It was never meant to be.

Two hearts so very different

were doomed to fail eventually.



I am not a poet,

I can barely hold a tune

Still, I vividly remember

Lying breathless in your room.

  

This is not a Love song

It was never meant to be.

Two hearts so very different

were bound to break eventually.



So leave me with a memory

Of the day we said goodbye

Maybe someday I’ll stop loving you

But it will be the day I die.

The water had risen to just below the brim and
cracks were observed along the poured concrete rim.
For days now such troubling signs had appeared;
The Dam Keeper had expressed concerns, then been told not to fear.
The Chief engineer had come up and opined
that the mighty Dam’s walls would stand all tests of time.

Down there in the valley with the last of the light
The ranchers and their families bedded down for the night.
Their ignorance was bliss for no one foresaw
That flood waters obey an immutable law.

The Saint Francis Dam in the San Francisquito Valley
Was about to give way. There’d be no time to dally.
At three minutes to midnight came an unearthly sound;
Twelve Billion gallons of water knocked the dam down.

Bodies and boulders, stone structures and trees
Formed a wave of destruction that raced for the sea
A mighty Tsunami; a hundred feet high
All those in its way were those destined to die.

Man, in his hubris, seems always to feel
That he is the master to whom Nature must yield.
Yet, in reality, we are helpless and small;
Overcome by flood waters we are nothing at all.

Mulholland, the department head shouldered the blame.
Bravely I think- Who today would do the same?
The ruins of Saint Francis Dam still stand to remind us
That our works are ephemeral; Nature reclaims our dust.

Our land’s infrastructure is in need of repair.
We must not wait for more cracks to appear.
The innocent suffer if we fail to heed this call.
Its three minutes to midnight for us one and all.

Sickles' corps had broken; the Rebels had them on the run.
Hancock foresaw disaster; perhaps a worse one than Bull Run
How could he plug the gap in the line and rally men to stand?
"What Regiment is this? " he asked of Colville, in command.
The First Minnesota volunteers- they were sorely undermanned.


They were Lincoln's first volunteers, staunch Union men in Blue
Hancock ordered them to charge; a death sentence, they knew.
With bayonets fixed they made their charge outnumbered twelve to Two.

The Rebel regiments were shocked, disbelieving what they saw;
The company sized regiment who'd come through three years of war.
Canister ripped through their lines; there was no time to weep.
Five minutes Hancock needed; for that long their grief would keep.


This field knows many heroes; so many fought and bled.
But let us pause and honor these brave Minnesota dead.
They bought time for the General; the Union held the Ridge.
We might not have a country had they not done what they did.

This day is cold and dry, more March than April.
The wind, from the North, howls mean and low.
I'm here to pay my last respects
to a teacher I knew long ago.

He taught with a passion for all things French
I was an indifferent student though
We both loved music, he could really play
I wonder now what became of his piano.

The school where he taught and I attended
was taken over many years ago.
Of all my teachers very few remain
Even some alums have been laid low.

His soul has taken ship for that distant shore.
That distant borne where all are truly equal.
There, in the Democracy of death, they wait
in the hope of being featured in a sequel.


All are actors in this existential drama
each performing our own lines and parts.
Our curtain drop may meet with scant applause,
Love, Perhaps,from other aging hearts.

Three Klicks from the ruins we found him: face down.
Thirsty sand drank his blood which had darkened the ground.
He may once have been handsome, but now there’s no trace-
A large caliber slug exited through his face.
He had been an interpreter in the second Gulf war.
When the Americans left he was needed no more.
There were signs he’d been tortured; burns on his bare chest.
His arms tied behind him; that’s how he'd been left.
He’d been tortured and murdered to settle some score.
Only the dead see the end of this war.

In Brussels the announcement came
to add to their everlasting pain.
Sunday's "March against Fear" has been Postponed
and folks have been told to stay at home.
The reason for this I just learned;
they cancelled due to security concerns.

Let the curse be invoked, let ghosts gibber and moan!
It appears the Bard’s skull is out and on loan.
Although long protected by a malediction dread,
It turns out Shakespeare’s body is missing his head.
Some Victorian fans thought it quite the lark
to make off with his skull; a deed done in the dark.
Alas poor Shakespeare whose works I know well
Your skull now a paperweight where miscreants dwell.
Like Crassus the Roman, you serve as a prop
And your moldering bones are missing their top.
If Poor Yorick had heirs they are under suspicion;
Subject them to torture to obtain their confession.

Seated, secured, awaiting our ride;
Brave on the outside, frightened inside.
The old wooden coaster cranks and it creaks..
It lifts us towards heaven, pushed back in our seats.
The first drop, deceptive, elicits few cries
Then, at a gallop, we’re hurled down from the sky.
Over and under we’re shaken and stirred.
We regret having lunch but we don’t say a word.
I’m glad you’re beside me, my most faithful friend
The ride comes to a stop and we both say “Again!”

For its joys and terrors few rides can compete.
The Rye Dragon Coaster has seldom been beat.
Some are newer; some faster; if you wish you can try
Still, first Loves are special and must not be denied

Her face is the face of an angel, if angels, as such, there be.
Her hair is a crown of platinum gold and she sang her words softly to me.
Her eyes are twin pools of cerulean blue; her lips wear a pink coral hue.
She offered her hand; we embraced in a dance as timeless as Heaven must be.
To possess such a treasure you would sell all you owned, for she is the pearl of great price.
Her Love is a treasure that never will rust; I’ve no need for another’s advice.
My heart’s own desire I held in my arms; we embraced in a passionate kiss.
The power and glory of all the world else is as nothing compared to this.

“Clear the way, boys, clear the way” said Meagher astride his steed.
The fighting sixty- ninth stepped forth, they were not afraid to bleed.
Upon St Marye’s heights Cobb’s Georgians waited, behind a low stone wall.
The lads attacked that stout defense – how senseless was it all.
There were Irish too up on the hill and they saw the Emerald flag.
“Oh God, what a pity! Here come Meagher’s fellows” one Irish rebel said,
But all obeyed the order given; to fill the air with lead.
The sixty-ninth could not reply, they all carried antique stock.
Muskets are no match for rifles at the distance they attacked.
They climbed that rise into a storm of canister and shot
They got as close as 40 yards before their surge was stopped.
Sixteen hundred had started out from the little town below,
They took the fight as far as any of mortal flesh could go.
As darkness fell upon the field there were wounded men and dying.
Some muttered prayers in their foreign tongue, how pitiful their crying.
It was a dark December for the army Burnside led.
Fourteen assaults in all repulsed with eight Thousand Union dead.
With eighty percent casualties Meagher’s boys had it worst of all:
Fewer than three hundred  were left to answer the roll call.

Immediately the oyster felt it, a piece of grit, a source of pain.
The little creature could not expel it; every attempt was in vain.
How to endure this rank discomfort? How to bear it and survive?
The Oyster had but one solution, one thing left for it to try.
Each day the oyster’s own secretions coated that tiny piece of grit
And in the end, when all was done, the oyster made a pearl of it.

When, like me, you lose a parent while still young.
There is this pain you bear inside.
Each day it haunts your waking thoughts
However you might try to hide.
Day by day you seek to cope, though it seems helpless at the first.
A year or more might pass before you feel that you’ve survived the worst.

Time, like that oyster, seeks to heal; to encapsulate loss and regret;.
Tim to heal, Time to grieve, just accept you can’t forget.
So you keep your public face and show that bravely to the World
Until the lacuna in your soul, with Time’s mercy, becomes a pearl.

He seemed the perfect gentleman, his friends and neighbors said
He seemed to dote upon his wife, attending her every need.
They never were seen to quarrel, their cul-de sac agreed.
Like two white swans they seemed to float upon Life’s stormy seas.
But Perhaps all wasn’t perfect; just a show for others’ eyes-
beneath the surface; a furious struggle;. Concealed with a web of lies.

So in their quiet neighborhood; so rich and well-to do.
They acted out contentment so that no one had a clue.
Until the town patrolman came and found her on the floor;
Victim of a crime of passion, stabbed twenty times or more.
Her husband wore pajamas that were stained a crimson red.
“Don’t bother with an ambulance- I made damm sure she’s dead.”
He sat with his morning paper puffing on a cigarette.
and on his face there was no trace of remorse or regret.

I can recall her I first loved when we were in our teens.
We planned to marry way too young; such was our childish dream.
In truth she was too beautiful for one of common clay
With a body like a Goddess, but I fumbled it away.

I recall another summer’s Love, so different in her way.
She was an intellectual who also loved to play.
We picnicked out at planting fields, I still recall our time
I still remember thinking she’s the best I’d ever find.

A dark eyed beauty first I loved, then a strawberry red.
I remember feeling awestruck when she came with me to bed.
Yes, she had another love and kept me on a sting.
Perhaps I tarried there too long but I don’t regret a thing.

Winter melted into spring and brought my next romance;
a lovely little brunette ; you taught me how to dance.
We shared drinks before the fire in a snug little pub I knew.
I’ll admit it wasn’t difficult to fall in love with you

Our relationship was, tempestuous. Perhaps that’s being kind.
Yet, whenever I think of you, I find some cause to smile.
You were different from the others, all the others I have known.
I remember how we treasured stolen moments spent alone

I choose not to apologize for leaving you so sad.
I regret I never said that you’re the best I ever had.

I was surely no Lothario; I was decent in the main.
I remember all who loved me and we did not love in vain.
I recall each name and face and the memories make me glad
But my wife and mother of my child is the best I’ve ever had.

There was a young lady from Cork
Who took up with a bloke from New York.
Their one night of pleasure she always will treasure
as now she's awaiting the stork.

The day of execution loomed
And Valentine awaited.
(Just how he'd roused the Emperor's ire
will always be debated.)
His jailer's daughter loved this man,
so saintly and so kind.
Tis said his prayers restored her sight;
she who had been born blind.
Upon the day he was to die
He heard creation sing
The birds were paired up in their nests
To enjoy the life Love brings.
"Please do not weep, my dearest one,
That I have run out of time.
Remember me in your heart and prayers.
With Love, your Valentine."

He never regained consciousness
In all the hours I sat there.
The only sounds were the monitors’ beeping
And his staccato gasps for air.

Each breathe more labored than the last
as feeble hope turned to despair.
His extremities felt so cold,
as I sat and murmured wordless prayer.

A good life, certainly, and full;
Honor and glory both were there
As that old soldier slipped away
and his last breath rejoined the air.

The day is grey, the clouds hang low, and, in the air, a winter chill.
Upon the beach called Omaha an old soldier stands; a promise to fulfill.
Full Seventy years ago this man, weighted down with gear and kit,
raced across this wet grey sand, and, by some miracle, remained unhit.
Friends who’d survived that longest day, and all the long days after it,
had purchased the bottle held in his hands. As the last man standing
he had charge of it:

His eyes, watery from the wind, Looked at the bottle in his hands:
A Dom Perignon Brut Champagne, the 47’ vintage year.
He thought about his comrades gone. Surely they were heroes all
Who spilled out from the Higgins boats to breach the ***’s Atlantic wall.
He felt the presence of the ghosts, all those who fell upon this shore.
Boys, really, almost all eighteen, who’d died
answering Freedom’s call .

He tore the foil with old gnarled hands; His Arthritis made a chore of this.
Thin wire held the cork in place and was so difficult to untwist.
Once free his placed his thumbs upon the curved underbelly of the cork
The cork shot free across the sand and bubbly foam
chased after it.

He was not a religious man, it seemed impious for him to pray
Though he recalled so many had, that day they bled their lives away.
How best to honor these fallen men? Who had pledged their lives, each to each.
It was then he turned the bottle down and poured the contents
on the beach.


Some would declare it sacrilege to let that vintage go to waste.
The old soldier smiled and felt at peace.
He’d seen the vintage of 26’ poured out in buckets
In this very place..

It was by accident I found it, in a box of odds and ends;
A short eight millimeter film my father made back when.
It’s Grandpa’s house up on the lake. I’d been just three or four.
The flickering images speak to me as from a distant shore.
The people who I knew and loved, who long since have passed on,
were shown as I remembered them from a time long since gone.
It is, of course, a silent reel and the colors fade a bit
but memories fill in the gaps as I remember it.
It was a perfect summer’s day, out fishing on the lake.
I imagine sunshine on my face as I view that scenic take.
My grandpa was a kindly man and, with infinite care,
He taught this headstrong little one about how we should share.
I’ve had my fill of tragedy, life isn’t always kind,.
but I know this made me smile, this serendipitous find.
Soon I must get back to work, resolving Mom’ estate.
But I’ve found a piece of Heaven here; all else will have to wait

Her blood alcohol level was point thirty three
when the trooper pulled over her car.
She had a flat tire and her speaking was slurred
As if she had just drunk a whole Bar.
She was over the limit and half in the bag
So they charged her with a D.U.I.
Yet her case got dismissed and the D.A. was miffed
When she proved she was naturally high.
In seems that some people who munch on French fries
Are host to yeast that is causing them grief, making sure that they never run dry.
For Stella’ own body was churning out brew thus explaining her bloodshot red eyes
(and her sad reputation as a cheap date as well as her poor taste in guys.)
Her babes that she nursed never fussed or complained
For her ******* they were naturally keen.
Kids back in High School all thought Stella was cool
(She was drunk off her *** as a teen.)
She now must watch carefully what she consumes
when she’s out for a night on the town.
She produces Grey Goose with her own gastric juice
So Pasta remains out of bounds.

It came in the mail the other day;
Another rejection! No big deal!.
I have lots of company;
Fellow poets know how I feel.

The dead poets’ society
is filled with those who have known fame.
We scribble in obscurity –
while every schoolkid knows their names.

Typing madly on our notebooks,
Those of us still in the game,
Are longing for some validation:
assurance that our work is not in vain.

Like a dog who’s been mistreated;
kicked to the curb and struck with a cane-
I snarl and snap from my safe corner
and hate the mailman much the same.

My eyes, unblinking, are raised towards the sky.
I’m just a man in an ordinary suit.
Thirteen stairs for me to climb,
Thirteen steps till I wear the noose.
I’ve been condemned for the crimes of others.
This is my sacrificial feast.
My emperor lives and reigns in splendor.
This war ends in a bitter peace.
My loving wife had predeceased me.
I am resigned now to my fate.
As the hemp rope chokes my life out
I hope, my Love, to see your face.
Thirteen steps, I must not trip.
A stumble here would be disgrace.
I face my death with calm and courage.
This day will bring no loss of face.
I was just a man in an ordinary suit
In the wrong seat, at the wrong time,
in the wrong place.

fifty years to the day since she walked down this aisle;
The aisle of this church where he stood with a smile.
The ***** swells now as the ***** swelled then
but the music is played now by a different hand.
The Saints and the angels; they still look the same.
They've been cleaned and restored, each one,frame by frame.

Her matron of honor this time can't attend.
She moved down to Florida when Sandy blew in
The best man back then was her brother in law
but he died in the desert in the first Iraq war.
As she moves to the altar, her grown son has her arm
He is tall like her Father was, but Dad is long gone.

Her love waits at the Altar, dressed in his best clothes
in a bronze colored casket, in eternal repose.
On this anniversary of the day they were wed
this day she will hear a requiem instead.
Then later, instead of the bouquet, she knows
she's going to be tossing a single red rose.

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.

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.