Holy Child Parish had seen better days
in the century recently closed.
The passage of time and societal change
had emptied out each wooden row.
The caretaker moved, a little bit slow;
The empty church echoed each step.
There! From the manger; a weak little cry:
A sound he would not soon forget.
A babe in the manager, a live baby boy;
A towel was his swaddling clothes.
His mother had left him, believing him safe.
Safe as anyplace else she supposed.
The school nurse was sent for, to care for the child
who was otherwise healthy, just cold.
Parishioners called him a miracle baby;
found asleep in the crib of the Lord.
The Press soon descended, the media Magi,
to give homage like Pilgrims of old.
On tape and in print the good news went out.
The story was told and retold




It made people smile, for the times now are grim
and good news has been in short supply.
They’ve named the boy John, for the prophet of old;
In the wilderness hear one voice cry.

When I was young there were great songs played on the radio.
We had fine librettists then that made the lyrics flow.
Now their pens seem out of ink and when they stage a show
They only play the songs you know from forty years ago.
I guess being young and hungry is essential now as then;
But, being fat and happy, they cannot begin again.
Here and there I catch a tune I haven’t heard before.
But the business is disrupted and they’ve closed the Record Store
True, Adele lends her voice to grief, loss and depression.
Otherwise its Taylor Swift and her musical confessions.
The boomer bards grow silent and what does this portend?
I begin to wonder if I’ll ever hear their like again.

The season is a marathon and that one, more than most.
The travel was exhausting with two trips out to the coast.
Mickey was the favored son to wear Ruth’s home run Crown
But a ****** abscess in his thigh had taken Mantle down.

Roger Maris was exhausted if the truth were to be told.
He raced Ruth’s ghost all summer; now the air was turning cold.
With the **** down with an injury, the tension only grew,
as the calendar turned another page and at bats dwindled too.

No pitcher wished to be the one to yield that needed hit,
even if it would be marked down with an asterisk.
The count ran two and “OH’ with Barber in the catbird seat
Tracy Stallard toed the rubber as the catcher called for heat.

Some moments are forever, though, sadly, far too few.
Roger turned upon the ball; towards right field it flew.
It landed in the lower deck as Roger rounded third
It proved to be the winning run as the Yankees blanked the Birds.

I have the photo on my wall as Roger dropped the bat;
the consummate professional, no showboating or act.
He defined grace under pressure; he showed what must be done.

The shadows reach out towards the mound when you hit Sixty-One.

The Bells of Notre Dame called out “Come fill my Center Hall”
“Come Catholic, Muslim, Hindu and Jew; Come with no faith at all”
The Mothers of the Murdered came, united in their grief.
For bullets and I.E.D’s cannot sort us by belief.
One woman in a hijab had come here from Verdun.
Like the Protestant beside her, She had lost her only son.
Both were strangers to this place, Unfamiliar with the prayers
But, having no place else to go; They found some comfort there.
The Highborn and the famous came with those of low estate
Some came here to find peace of Soul; to put an end to hate.
Some sought shelter from the world; to find sanctuary.
But the figure on the Cross proclaims we all face Calvary.
We all face the same sentence; all perish in the end.
We know this evil must be stopped but know not how or when.
The Bells of Notre Dame call out
“Let us begin again.”

Il est VALIDATION dans la Ville des Lumières
Alors que le bilan de ces attaques sont évaluées.
Au ****, je l'entends encore sons rudes des sirènes
Comme notre corps d'ambulanciers est aux abois
Ils vont me hanter dans le sommeil, tous ces jeunes visages morts,
que je chasse ceux qui ont commis ces crimes.
Il est trois heures du matin et ma tête crie pour le café;
La caféine me aide quand je suis privé de sommeil.

La puanteur de -fer sang ne peut pas être échappé
Il est trempé dans les chaises à cushioned-
Je prends en bas de la déclaration de celui qui survived-
Ce soir, cette bonne fortune était rare.
Il fait le mort et a vécu, avec la mort tout autour,
dans ce théâtre de la mort et le désespoir.
"Ils ont massacré les otages, un à la fois,
leur but était de tuer tout le monde ".
"Ils ont assassiné mon amant, ils ont assassiné mon ami,
Je regardais mort, gisant dans leur sang trempé ".

Some say the opposite of Love is Hate;
That blazing hot antipathy is true Love’s stablemate.
Yet I cannot suppose that true for both Love and Hate
Give significance to the object of their passion or their scorn.
Thus they are more alike than we suppose;
In visage they are cousins, just wearing different robes.
No. Indifference is the opposite of Love.
Love warms Love’s object and holds it near and dear.
Indifference is an icy death that anyone would fear.
No touch , no glance, no loving words; This signifies Love is done.
Like a comet outward bound, banished by the Sun.
Banished from your light and warmth, I am become no one.

The bricks and sidewalks still remain though every other thing has changed.
Our City teetered on collapse as pimps and prostitutes worked Times Square.
That long hot summer of Seventy five, ere Disneyfication happened there.
When fear ruled these streets and crime rode the subway trains.

The bricks and sidewalks still remain though every other thing has changed.
Fun City’s last mayor had packed and left, the sad faced accountant now held the reins.
Along the Bowery vacant eyed drunks panhandled passersby for change
And squeegee men collected tolls on all the bridges.

The bricks and sidewalks still remain though every other thing has changed.
Working and Middle class New Yorkers fled the mounting crime and social strain
Open enrollment disrupted schools as educational standards went down the drain
And FALN placed a bomb in Fraunces Tavern.

The bricks and sidewalks still remain though every other thing has changed.
Then real estate sold for a song; there were so many vacant lots.
Fires up in the Bronx had consumed whole City blocks.
That year the Yankees played their games in Queens.

The bricks and sidewalks still remain though every other thing has changed.
Gerald Ford told the City to drop dead when Beame went to him hat in hand.
Midnight cowboys plied their trade, strangers in a stranger land.
In Yonkers, a deranged young man was taking cues from a black dog.

Let Appraisers be consulted; Let the sages have their say-
Surely somebody can tell me the true value of one day.
I’m asking for the value of one spinning of this globe;
What’s the cash surrender value of the hours that unfold?
Is it worth its weight in sunshine, in deep breaths and loving glances;
This treasure trove of hours, all disguised as second chances?
The seconds are fine grains of gold; the minutes slip away,
Our memories the only store of value for one day.
We are like ruined millionaires, who, idle in our play,
were possessors of a fortune, but then ****** it all away.
I ask the value of one day; pleased don’t think me glib or clever,
But it appreciates tremendously –when you do not have forever.

John Charles Buckley with his one man crew
set sail for Boston on the ocean blue.
With a makeshift sail and with favorable winds
they left Ireland behind and their journey begins.
Our cockleshell heroes soon lost sight of shore.
Not even a gull could they see anymore.
The days passed by slowly as they worked, side by side,
Slaves to the wind and the whims of the tide.
The Atlantic holds terrors,I cannot deny;
icebergs and fearful waves twenty feet high.
One starless night as they battled a squall
they were tossed like a cork with each waves rise and fall.
Sunburned and hungry, they started to drift
and their sense of time passing had started to slip
when they spotted a seabird, a sure sign of shore:
The harbor of Boston- their next port of call.
Their small wooden rowboat with the sail ripped and torn
was ******* to the dockside that September morn.
Heroes or Fools? I'll let you split the difference.
Theirs the smallest boat that had traveled the distance

Butterfly kisses upon my lids aroused me from my slumber.
A spectacle of vibrant hues confounded me with wonder.
The Horizon shimmered with summer’s heat
As Psyche herself darted, to and fro, in moments beyond number.
Away, away, she flew away; beyond my grasp and reach.
Never to return no matter how much I might beseech.
That summer, too, has quickly fled. The air is growing colder.
I feel her loss most keenly now and nevermore will I hold her.
But, sometimes, late at night, when in the manner of repose;
I imagine she lies next to me, her eyes being also closed.

“To the Glory of God, and in grateful commemoration of His servants, Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, Prelates of the Church of England, who near this spot yielded their bodies to be burned, bearing witness to the sacred truths which they had affirmed and maintained against the errors of the Church of Rome, and rejoicing that to them it was given not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for His sake; this monument was erected by public subscription in the year of our Lord God, MDCCCXLI.”


“ ‘Be of good cheer, Ridley; and play the man. We shall this day, by God’s grace, light up such a candle in England, as, I trust, will never be put out.’”- Hugh Latimer.




Just outside Balliol, upon Magdalene street,
There’s a cross made of stone you can see at your feet.
It’s where Ridley and Latimer were burnt at the stake
For that which they held dear; beliefs they would not forsake.
They were Bishops of London and Worcester in life;
now bound by cruel chains to keep them upright.
The guards piled on *******, the fuel for the flames
while Ridley and Latimer called on the Lord’s name.
Martyrs or heretics? I’ll let others decide.
But the crowd was impressed by how bravely they died.
Latimer reached out embracing the flames
and was soon called to glory with an end to his pain.
For Ridley a death that was slow and obscene;.
On his side the wood that they used was still green.
His feet and legs roasted while he suffered in pain
held fast to the stake by the cruel iron chain.
His temporal agony raged on and on
Til the flames reached his face and poor Ridley was gone.


Queen Mary reigned briefly, yet ere she was done,
Many souls suffered death in fire and blood.
England, once Catholic, embraced a new faith.
The Romish persuasion at last was replaced.
Their candle burned brightly, a glorious flame,
and continued to shine as Elizabeth reigned.

It’s fortunate the rain had ceased early this warm November day.
I glance at my watch: 12:27; “Lancer” and “Lace” are on their way.
I see Lee in his ******’s perch. I still wonder if he’ll get this done.
I stand on the grassy knoll. Beneath my jacket, I touch my gun.
We must not fail; the King must die. I am the insurance it will be done.
A shot is fired from up above. “Lancer” grabs his throat and chest
and Camelot becomes undone.

The second bullet finds its mark And “Lace” is spattered with brains and blood.
The crowd is gripped with sudden fear. Here and there they start to run
Some woman screams “They’ve murdered him”.
I secretly smile for we have won.
I make my way to the phone booth there inside the Dallas Barbecue.
I call Ruby at his club. “Jack, I have one more job for you.”

His calloused hands caressed the wood that, shortly, he would plane.
The carpenter was on his knees examining the grain.
The Romans wanted cross beams and the carpenter knew why:
Upon this tree the rebel, Jesus, would be crucified.

He’d never heard the rabbi speak to the admiring crowds.
He thought himself too practical to go in search of God.
In the temple he made sacrifice; he conformed and he complied.
He’d seen too many mad for God and noted how they’d died.

The carpenter thought it was a shame; this wood too good you see.
It’s a tragic waste of good timber to make a hanging tree.
Still the money came in handy as good wine was still not free.
Galled wine would be served in a sponge to this man from Galilee.

The crowd called for Barabbas when this Jesus was condemned.
He shuddered as he thought of the cruel way this life would end.
There is no dignity he could see in a death upon a cross;
mocked by the onlookers while his women wailed his loss.

The Roman paid him coin and slaves bore the beam away.
The sad procession passed his shop later that same day.
The Rabbi wore a crown of thorns, fashioned from the jujube,
and there, upon his shoulders. He bore the hanging tree.

The fallen leaves of red and gold await me and my rake.
As I am in a reflective mood, they’ll simply have to wait.
I am in my sixties now, my body feels the cold.
I know I am no longer young, yet I do not feel that old.
I admire nature’s bold broad strokes; these brightly colored leaves.
(I would enjoy them twice as much if I didn’t have to clean)
Soon I’ll have them raked and bagged for the garbage man to take.
We used to burn them in years gone by, but that was a mistake.
I remember, as a child, jumping in the leafy mounds.
They yelled at me, my parents, but I suspect that they had grounds.
Now in the autumn of my life, on this crisp October morn,
My life’s choices have all been made and all my children born.
Time, surely I must yet have time to sing the song of life.
It’s time now to enjoy our quiet house, just me and my wife.
A time when I’ll compose my verse, time to taste the wine.
Yet who among us can be sure they’re not on borrowed time.
Should I fall, prematurely, like these leaves of gold and red,
I hope all I have loved in life speak kindly of the dead.

Jeudi, 21 Février, 1788, NYC

Il a été dit que la science progresse un décès à la fois. Pour Jeune Docteur Richard Bayley, professeur aspirant des études anatomiques, ce fut littéralement le cas. Il avait besoin d'un approvisionnement constant de cadavres récemment décédés pour ses recherches, et ce fut la raison pour laquelle il était là, la négociation avec les trois voleurs de corps dans le sous-sol de l'hôpital de New York.
"Il ya une jeune femme, Margaret La Stella, décédé jeudi dernier, et qui repose dans le complot de sa famille dans le cimetière de l'église de la Trinité." Ceci est le corps, je dois, pour ma recherche, et je suis prêt à payer le taux en vigueur pour vos services. "
Quel improbable trio étaient ces hommes debout avec lui. Leur chef, James, était un géant d'un homme robuste, près de six pieds de haut, ses deux compagnons étaient des nains par comparaison, à peine cinq pieds chacun. "Rafe ici est un bon pour crocheter les serrures sur les portes de fer et Alfie est rapide avec une pelle en bois. Il les ressuscite dans une hâte: «Je vais pousser le corps dans une brouette et de vous rencontrer de retour ici pour livrer la marchandise et récupérer notre argent. Vous aurez à payer un peu plus que vous le feriez pour un pauvre ou un nègre ".
Il était une négociation rapide et le docteur assez rapidement convenu à son prix, laissant James à se demander si il aurait dû demander plus. Eh bien, une bonne affaire est une bonne affaire, et une médaille d'or chacun Guinée était bon salaire pour un travail obscur de la nuit.
Ils défilaient sur puis, laissant le jeune Richard à ses pensées. Bientôt, très bientôt, il serait de nouveau afficher Margaret. Bientôt son corps allait abandonner ses secrets pour lui et il serait apprendre la mort avait pris celle qui avait été si belle et si jeune. Il n'y avait rien à faire pour lui maintenant, sauf à attendre. Il est assis avec une tasse de thé et a tenté de se distraire avec le journal du soir.
Body Snatchers, ou Resurrectionists, comme ils préfèrent être appelés, sont en mauvaise réputation en cette année de notre Seigneur 1788. gens souhaitent en général tourner un oeil aveugle quand le corps de certains pauvre a fini sur la table de dissection. Un bien faire femme blanche avec une famille était généralement prévu pour se reposer tranquillement. Encore James et ses deux petits complices connaissaient leur entreprise et vous faire le travail rapide de celui-ci sur cette nuit.
James arrêta son cheval et le chariot bien en deçà de la Trinité, ne voulant pas porter trop d'attention à eux. Il serait monter la garde à la porte du cimetière avec une brouette tandis que ses deux complices petits glissa à l'intérieur et fixés au corps.
Trinity Church cimetière était à côté du site de l'ancienne église qui avait brûlé dans le grand incendie de New York du 76 '. Le doyen actuel de l'église avait accumulé des fonds destinés à la construction d'un second, plus grandiose église de la Trinité, mais encore la construction avait pas encore commencé. L'absence de l'église physique devrait signifier pas de gardien et un cimetière qui serait totalement déserte sur une nuit la mi-hiver froid. Avec seulement une lune décroissante pour l'éclairage, les trois hommes étaient dépendants de lanternes à main qui ont donné peu de lumière et à côté de pas de chaleur lorsque les vents du sud de Manhattan serraient à la gorge comme un spectre vengeur.
"Et c'est parti. Rafe se rendre au travail cueillette de la serrure, tandis que je l'aide avec Alfe la bêche et les couvertures. "
«Je vais avoir besoin d'une longueur de corde, trop mate, à nouer autour du corps et le faire glisser le long de la tombe."
Ils ont été surpris par le cri plaintif d'un grand corbeau noir qui a été perché sur la porte du cimetière de fer et qui semblait être en regardant leurs activités avec curiosité et méfiance.
«Je dois la porte ouverte, allez, Alfe, je ne veux pas être là plus longtemps que je le dois."
James regarda les deux hommes petits happés leurs lanternes et des outils et ont disparu dans les ombres du cimetière de Trinity.
Ils ont trouvé la tombe récemment fini de la fille La Stella rapidement, et Alfe commencé tout de suite avec sa pelle de bois pour creuser le cercueil de son lieu de repos temporaire. Il a travaillé tranquillement, mais ses travaux ne vont pas complètement inaperçu.
"Mate, Prêtez-moi un coup de main et nous allons la faire sortir d'ici. Jetez la corde ".
Rafe a fait comme il a été soumissionné. Il a également ouvert sa lanterne et l'agita en un signal à James que le travail était presque terminé. James n'a cependant pas été le seul qui a vu le signal.
Comme le corps a été exhumé une lueur d'or attira l'attention de Alfe. Je t avais un anneau sur les cadavres quitté l'annulaire.
Grave voler était considéré comme une infraction plus grave que trafic de cadavres, mais sûrement pas l'un allait remarquer petit anneau d'or disparu. Quoi qu'il en soit ce corps allait retrouver tell disséqué et articulé, il avait entendu on fait bouillir la chair de l'os de fournir un squelette complet pour l'étude. Personne ne les payait pas assez d'argent à son retour ici quand le bon docteur avait fini avec son travail.

Était-ce juste imagination- de Alfe ou fait froid main morte des cadavres lui semblent se battre pour l'anneau avant qu'il arracha libre. Immédiatement, cependant, toutes les pensées de l'or est devenu secondary- il y avait des problèmes en cours de réalisation
"Vous là, montrez-moi vos mains!" Il y avait un garde dans les motifs de la chancellerie, un peu de malchance qu'ils avaient pas compté sur. Rafe, pas un héros, sa réaction immédiate a été de tourner et courir. Il lâcha la corde et le corps de la jeune fille se laissa retomber dans le trou, près de piégeage Alfe dans une étreinte indésirables.
Alfe bondit de la tombe ouverte et renversé le grand mince tombe garde qui semblait un peu plus d'un squelette lui-même. Il a entendu le crieur public dans la distance la sonnette d'alarme. Alfe a abandonné toute idée de récupérer le corps de la jeune fille et avait l'intention d'évasion. Comme il sauta de la porte, il pouvait entendre la garde frénétiquement essayant de charger son fusil. Alfe besoin de plus de distance. Il a dû se rendre à James à la porte.

Un fusil à âme lisse est une arme la plus fiable et à beaucoup plus que 100 verges pour atteindre un succès était plus de chance que d'habileté. Alfe entendit à peine la décharge de l'arme, mais la douleur dans son dos était difficile à ignorer. James l'a attrapé avant qu'il ne tombe, mais il est vite devenu évident pour les deux que Alfe ne fallut pas longtemps pour ce monde.
James et Rafe ont travaillé rapidement pour obtenir Alfe dans la brouette et le roue de l'écart. Le gardien tentait de recharger mais la distance et l'obscurité devenait leur ami. Il ne serait pas obtenir un deuxième coup avant qu'ils ont fait à la voiture.
Pour le docteur Bayley il semblait que les Resurrectionists étaient de retour plus tôt que prévu il, mais le corps dans la couverture était pas le corps qu'il avait prévu de recevoir.

«Il y avait un garde posté à la chancellerie en face du cimetière. Il faut avoir vu l'un de nos lanternes et est sorti pour enquêter. Il descendit un coup à nous pauvres Alfe obtenu dans le dos. "
Richard regarda par-dessus le corps de Alfe, le nouveau sujet du Royaume des morts. «Combien voulez-vous pour ce corps?" Ils ont conclu rapidement leur affaire, James ne fait pas tout à fait aussi bien qu'il aurait pour le corps de la jeune femme, mais divisées deux façons il serait suffisant pour obtenir de lui un endroit pour dormir et nourriture et la boisson en plus. Alfe allait être un homme difficile à remplacer, mais il y avait beaucoup d'hommes durs bas près des docks qui feraient le travail et ne pas trop parler aux mauvaises personnes.
Il pensait qu'il ne serait pas bientôt d'accord pour ouvrir la tombe d'un dame. Les corps des pauvres ne sont pas si étroitement participé.

Bientôt Docteur Bayley avait le corps d'Alfe déshabillé et lavé et prêt sur la table. Dans sa vie relativement brève ce corps avait rarement eu assez à manger et trop de gin à boire. Les dents qui lui restaient étaient jauni et il y avait des signes de maladie des gencives. Richard était sur le point de faire la première incision dans la poitrine quand il a remarqué une lueur d'or dans la main droite crispée.

Il était un anneau; il était la même bague qu'il avait donné sa Margaret quelques semaines avant. Juste quelques semaines avant la mort l'avait prise de lui. Il ne savait pas qu'elle avait été enterré avec lui. Richard a tenu le petit anneau dans sa main et a commencé à pleurer amèrement, dans la connaissance cruelle qu'il ne reverrait jamais son visage, pas dans cette vie ou la prochaine.

There was only one question on their final exam.
“Are you a Christian?” The perturbed man inquired.
The Buddhists were wounded, the Muslims were spared.
To deny Christ; so easy, to bear witness; so hard,
What would they answer; those about to meet God?
Would they lie to be “saved”? or lie down in the sod.
Nine souls were dispatched with a shot to the head,
before police shot their interrogator dead.
Nine people bore witness to the Cross at their death.
They wouldn’t deny Him with their final breath.
American Martyrs bore Him witness, you see.
If you took this exam what would your answer be?

The room was dark at midday when Yogi breathed his last.
His brain, now starved for oxygen, went searching through his past.
Did he recall the shores of France back when he was nineteen?
Or think upon those rings he’d won with those great 50’s teams?
Dying, his mind searched frantically, jumping from place to place
Here was Larsen’s perfect game where he jumped and they embraced.
There was that heated argument when Robinson stole home.
Then the pain and anger when Steinbrenner sent him home.
Yet as these memories dissolved within his dying mind,
He finally found the peace he sought; his Carmen, good and kind.
He took her hand and they embraced on the shore of a moonlit sea.
Yogi’s gone. Now the future isn’t what it used to be.

I lay down on my childhood bed with a bottle, half empty, in my hand.
I raised my pistol to my temple; feeling lost, hopelessly dammed.
I flicked the safety off my forty five and took a pull from my Jim Beam.
I was ready to be a sad statistic, another tortured Ex- Marine.

I pulled the trigger, this much I know. What happened next, I can surmise.
I passed out from the alcohol, the pistol jammed; I didn’t die.

My friend had died at his own hand, just one of six from my old team.
We’re tortured by the ghosts of war; in flashbacks I can hear the screams.
We buried my friend yesterday. The flag was folded and Taps was played.
A detail fired blank salutes as his family wept and his mother prayed.
I bowed my head and turned to go; His mother stayed me with her hand.
“I hope you will not be tempted- to do the thing your brothers do.”
She pressed a spent brass casing into my open hand.
I looked down, dumbly, in surprise.
“I know you are a soul at risk.” I’ve seen that look in my son’s eyes.”
“If only I’d known how to help; only too late do we grow wise.”
She made me promise, then and there, that I’d not put my mother through
the anguish and the agony that other keening mothers knew.
.
Today I face another day; the journey will be hard, I know.
I poured the bottle down the drain, and turned to face my shadow foe.

She was found there, by the shoreline, hidden in a plastic bag,
where the ebb and flow of Ocean beat upon Deer Island’s sand.
A little girl, just two years old, in a bright jumper clad
A little beauty beat to death by some brute of a man.

No one could identify the body they had found
so police employed an artist to help them solve the case.
His rendering of “baby Doe” went up all over town.
Soon it was on the internet. “Do you recognize this face?”

They broke the case last Thursday, they finally had her name.
Her Mother and the boyfriend were arrested and arraigned.
Each condemned the other for the ****** of the Babe.
A bronze fawn now commemorates the spot where she was slain.

He was there at her bedside when the light left her eyes.
Speed was essential if her brain were to survive.
Cryogenically frozen, her head stored away,
She awaits resurrection, he longs for the day.

She was taken so young; she was just twenty four,
when her glioblastoma resurfaced once more.
He had made her a promise; he spent all they'd raised
In hopes she’d return to him some far off day.

Science has made great strides in perusing the brain,
In mapping the paths by which personas are made.
In time, with more study, it could be arranged,
for robots to house in their digital brains
the essence of all that his love was and knew.
Could it possibly work? Could a thing become you?

Imagine that reunion some sixty years hence;
when the Love of her life is old, tired and spent.
She will have been digitally remastered;
Her body now perfect, her “skin” alabaster.
She might even her old self resemble,
Provided they have the right parts to assemble.

Would the spark be rekindled? Had the flame ever died?
Could he resume where they left off; his love by his side?
Or would he be like an Alien to the ghost in the machine
having lived long apart while she slept with no dreams.

An Academic (with too much time) deplores our use of him and her.
“These gendered pronouns give offense; to transgenders, they are a slur.”
“So at our University, “Ze” shall stand for “He” or “she”
And when crowds gather now and then, “Zey” shall now be known as “zhem”.”
“Old style pronouns must not be used when the student body is so confused.”
“Gendered bathrooms, were so unkind, now the doors bear equal signs (=)”
We must not judge or interpose when boys dress up in women’s clothes.
Nor should we act with prejudice if Zey decide to make a switch.
For what you may have been at birth may not be what you had in mind;
Hormonal treatments can, in time, make a drab boy look Divine
Though Ze went to an all girl’s school, Zee’s now packing all the tools
With the surgeon’s skill and care you can lose or grow a pair.
“Though Male and Female He created them, surgically we have updated zhem.”

The day was clear, a touch too hot. Summer’s end was drawing near.
Sidewalks vendors were making their pitches, selling their artisanal wares.
That was when I saw my girl, a vision in a pale green dress.
Blood red lips, a fair complexion and long black tresses framed her face.
Where and when could it have been that I had seen her like before?
Thought took me back to Hunter Mountain, late in the summer of Seventy four.
Back then I saw one just like this, a beauty with a special grace
With blood red lips and fair complexion and long dark hair that framed her face.
She wore the tartan of her clan as she competed in the dance.
Pipers played and tenors sang; it was the substance of romance.
A rare beauty, ripe for taking, if one was brave enough to chance….
The memory was broken then, my daughter touched me on the arm.
“There you are Dad, where have you been? I was sent to look for you by Mom.”
We had lingered at the fair, wandering separately among the stalls.
It’s Time now to sit down to our meal and share good wine as darkness falls.

Never underestimate the power of hate
in the mind of a man with a gun.
The signs were all there, and all were ignored,
Until his planned evil was done.

A proud gay black man took a gun in his hand,
and authored his own revelation.
His anger and rage writ in blood on the street
with shell casings as the punctuation.

Two young lives destroyed; another in pain.
They were somebody’s daughter and son.
The cowardly killer then swallowed the barrel
and it ended as it had begun

Gather the ones you love in your arms
For each day may well prove your last one.
For hate, like a hunter, is stalking the land;
Only Fools think this is done.

Half obscured by powder smoke, the long Grey line comes on.
“Double canister and hard shot, pour it on them boys!”
They dress the line and still they come, inexorably, like fate.
We are in need of some support, but will it come too late?
A high wood fence disrupts their charge, like clotting blood they mass.
As many a dying Virginian boy wishes for his cup to pass.
“For Fredericksburg!” “For Fredericksburg!” Alonzo Cushing cried.
We worked our guns and gave them hell for all our friends who’d died.
Our blood is up and still they come, over the parapet.
We are all determined this is as far as they will get.
A breath of air, a cooling drink, a lover’s soft embrace;
Strange things crowd into your mind when in a hellish place.
A company of New Yorkers, coming on the double quick,
Have piled into the Rebel mass where the fighting was most thick.
Back you go, proud Virginians, back over the low stone wall.
Not so many as started out, no longer proud and tall.
A rebel of some prominence sits, dying, near my gun.
He asks for General Hancock, strange to hear that name upon his tongue.
My friend, Alonzo Cushing, lies beside the caisson where
He bleeds profusely from his wounds. He is too far gone to care.
He will not live to see the Sun rise in the East again,
Or live to hear a nation’s thanks for what he did for them.

This was once a Jew’s apartment, here on the Konig Platz.
It must have been magnificent, before we were attacked.
I squat in an apartment whose glories are all past.
The artwork was seized off these walls and the former owner gassed.
Now the copper mansard roof leaks nearly every time it rains;
It’s my only source of water so I’m not one to complain.
My sleep is poor and fitful, as the foe controls the sky.
How long can we endure this siege? How many more must die?
The noise is indescribable; so many allied planes.
We cannot quench the fires; bombs have burst the water mains.
Food is hard to come by, that’s been true ever since spring,
And it’s gotten worse since Russian troops started tightening the ring.
I see old men and boys march out in their tattered Wehrmacht Grey.
They are poorly armed, with just Panzerfausts to keep the Reds at bay.
In a broken shard of mirror, I glimpse what I’ve become;
a scarecrow of a woman; full of fear, no longer young.
To the Russians that won’t matter;My flesh still warm to hold.
They would take their turns at ****** me while I curse and **** their souls.
My husband died at Normandy and I’ve lost our only son.
Now all I need to join them is one bullet and a gun.

Those lovely folks at N.S.A.  love reading your e-mails.
They parse each line in search of crime; the devil’s in the details.
Those Patriots at A T & T are equal to the task
of providing them with access; they’ll do anything they’re asked.
They spy upon the great and small, the poets and the dreamers,
to catch a whiff of nasty plots now being hatched by schemers.
They’ve spied upon Sarkozy and they’ve eavesdropped in on Merkel.
They tapped lines in the U.N. and other diplomatic circles.
Their corporation cronies provide them with full access for no fee;
This makes our spies the envy of the Russian KGB
So when you reach out and touch someone, don’t assume you are alone.
I’m pretty sure big brother is there listening on the phone.

The ugly scar straight down my chest has begun to heal, and the pain is less.
Each week I walk a little more at least back and forth to the corner store.
On hot days I get short of breath and I must be careful to take my rest.
Still, I lucky and can’t complain about a scar and a little pain.
I’m back at home with the ones I love best

All thanks to a gift from a dead man’s chest.

An empty bottle of Mateus couldn’t help me drown my sorrow.
It cannot bring you back to me, and I’ll pay for this tomorrow.
All it has done is render me numb to your parting words and kiss;
a kiss goodbye, no public scene, no angry emphasis.
I had lost at Love before, yet something about today.
I think the finality of it all, drove me to this plebeian rose’.


When the love of your life has walked out of your life
What remains then to do or to say?
I will live work and sleep, pay my debts, keep my peace,
And still love you when I’m old and grey.

It is bounded by the gyre, this sea without a shore.
It once was but a sea of weeds but now there is much more.
Here are plastic bags and cups discarded thoughtlessly.
Refuse from our teeming shores comes here eventually.

In another time and place these waters were deep blue
crystal clean and beautiful as when first Columbus viewed.
Dappled sunshine lit these waves in this sea without a shore
but now it is a garbage dump ( as if we needed more.)

The plastic and the Styrofoam are scarcely changed by time.
they'll still be drifting in the sea when breath is no longer mine.
The salt sting of my bootless tears I've add to the sea,
for all the creatures great and small who drown in Man's debris.

One more big score in a life time of crime,

One more  big heist and he'd retire this time.

His friends were in prison, the others were dead.

Jessie James was in hiding with a price on his head.

Once more in the saddle, take the reins Jessie James

You fought for the South, and your anger remains.

This Earth taught you violence and the lessons  well learned.

The Yankees taught arson when your family farm burned.

He's a cold blooded killer, this preacher's young son,

with no hope of Heaven with the deeds that he's done.

He's a hero to some and a villain to others

This man who robbed trains with  those two Younger brothers

There's a price on your head and Bob Ford's taking aim

as you climb up to straighten your wife's picture frame...

Once more in the saddle take the reins, Jesse James

It was sticky hot and humid in Ferguson that Saturday.
Just another weekend where the little leagues would play.
I was riding unit 25 looking out for petty crime.
My units' radio sputtered to life: "shots fired on Canfield drive."
" Officer in need of assistance"

We just didn't arrive in time.

I recognized the body, my colleague and close friend.
Darren Wilson was shot six times, the last time in the head.
His service piece was missing. The shooter had fled the scene.
I called for a bus and backup and radioed what I had seen.
We then secured the crime scene as it drew a silent crowd.
Detectives looked for any clues and canvased the homes around.
No witness would come forward, either out of fear or dread.
"His new wife is now a widow." my disgusted partner said.
Darren face was badly bruised as he lay there in the sun.
I surmised he'd been assaulted in the struggle for his gun.
The coroner sighed and shook his head at the body on the gurney.
He'd perform an autopsy on my friend before his final journey.

The score was one dead man in blue, his murderer still free.
The streets that night were quiet, as I suspected they would be.
There was no public outcry at the killing that was done.
Blue lives never matter to a town like Ferguson.

Eyes dilate and look distant as Will puffs upon his pipe.
The distinctive scent of Cannabis commends itself tonight.
Each puff makes him mellow and his imagination soars.
He dwells not on the tragedies his future has in store.
He dreams on Fairy Kings and Queens, Young lovers showing pluck.
“What fools these mortals be.” I’ll give that line to Puck
His shrew wife will have none  of it she only scowls and scolds.
“His blood!” Will thinks, she needs a puff of what this clay pipe holds.
He likes it well, this gentle herb that lulleth him to sleep.
He will awaken ravenous and need something to eat.

The sky was so very blue, it was a Thursday, I recall.
Nagasaki had just stirred to life when "Bock's Car" paid us a call.
We were the secondary target, but dark clouds concealed the first.
Thus our city was marked for death when hell  unleashed upon the earth.
The super-fortress shimmered, brilliant silver in sunlight.
I saw one parachute deploy as she turned and banked from sight.
There was a blinding flash of light, then thunder from on high.
" that is strange" I recall that thought "Thunder from a clear blue sky."

James Holmes awaited news of his fate. (Would his madness be held to mitigateHis terrible sin, his awful crimes; Life or Death, How to decide?)
What is Justice for multiple homicides?
He murdered twelve and injured more; Now what would the verdict hold in store?
A lethal injection, A Lover’s pinch, was that the outcome he devoutly wished?
Else he would get the world and time to contemplate his awful crimes.
He’d be Locked away from the world of men; never to be free again.
Haunted by souls he condemned to death; who had cursed him with their dying breath.


Life, the jury has decreed, as punishment for his awful deed.


He'll be locked in the prison of his mind; an awful penance is this gift of time.

A Dentist from Weehawken was feeling miserably;
Depressed, down in the mouth, you know how that can be.
Walt thought salt air would do him good and so he went to sea.
He chartered a large fishing boat and paid a hefty fee.
They set a course for Georges Bank where clam and cod abound.
For centuries this place has been a fertile fishing ground.
With bated breath and baited hook, Walter set his line.
He’d catch some rays and have some beers and have a real good time.
But Fate had other plans for him, things took a darker turn.
Those who fish for sport, not food, are beasts as he’d soon learn.
A tug upon his line foretold the battle to take place
It nearly pulled him from his chair and so began the chase.
What monster he had on his line, the dentist didn’t know.
He played the creature skillfully as it thrashed to and fro.
The massive tuna breached the waves and landed with a splat,
It wore coke bottle glasses and a red Greek fishing hat.
Walt, the dentist, looked upon his catch and was aghast
As “Charlie, the Star-Kist tuna, gasped and breathed his last.
The dentist took a “selfie” that was seen the world around.
Charlie, the Tuna with good taste, had been brought to ground.
“Perhaps I’ll mount him on my wall” Walt said thoughtlessly.
Little did he know what this would cost him personally.

These days Walt is in hiding in his Northern Jersey town.
His patients have all left him and he closed his office down.
His car has four slashed tires, there’s graffiti on his walls.
He can’t even go on Facebook, he’s been unfriended by them all.
So if you are a hunter who wants to **** a hippopotamus,
before you shoot be sure to check and see if he's anonymous!

My model is a comely lass whose husband has commissioned me.
Her cheeks are flushed with natural blush, her half smile not quite matronly.
This dress is low cut to reveal the rise and falling of her *******.
Lisa has sat for me before (which allows some familiarity.)
This portrait will adorn her home and celebrates her second child.
I could suggest some jest of mine was the cause that made her smile,
but my medium is the truth and rank deceit is not my style.
My brushstrokes capture the last of her youth;
A half smile to intrigue mankind.

My director and producers names will roll up after mine.
My author will want credit too and His name is next in line.
My supporting cast was fabulous in this game of "Let's pretend"
Now,as the credits start to roll, my "show" has reached the end.
The Play?, alas, a tragedy; the hero had to die.
The Soundtrack? filled with somber notes; this was no lullaby.

I'd love to do a sequel and assure you I'd be back,
but the rushes weren't good enough to make me confident of that.
When the best boy's name appears; he who had the gaffer's back,
The word "Finis" will briefly flash



and all will fade to black.

Nothing lasts forever without ceasing.
For every laugh, somewhere a tear drops down.
When you lose someone your steps feel so uncertain.
No longer do you trust the solid ground.
For so it chances in the lives of men
That day comes when their fathers go before.
The flesh and blood becomes a ghostly presence.
The veil has dropped between them ever more.
When dialogues becomes soliloquies,
The things you meant to say mean that much more
because they will forever stay unspoken
save to his stone in moments spend alone.

I have bad dreams.

They come, unbidden, into my room at night.

They pass through the maze of my alcoholic daze;

They take me back,

Back to a dusty desert road;

Our convoy is headed towards Mosul.

But we never make it there:

The Humvee is upended by an eardrum shattering blast.

I am falling.

I see you are screaming but there is no sound..

Blackness.

I died three times on the medivac copter

But the Corpsman kept bringing me back.

I have bad dreams

In them I see the faces of the dead,

They are the faces of my friends;

My friends, for whom I mourn

Until this heart becomes a stone.

At the Nassau County Medical Center We nurses were put on alert;
A truck hit a small car on the L.I.E. leaving someone in a world of hurt.
Our “John Doe” was being air lifted and we heard the copter drone near.
One look at his face and I knew he was gone from this world of Love and Fear.
Yes, we all knew it was Harry from his unmistakable leonine mane;
The charts had him labeled as “John Doe” but we knew who it was just the same.
The doctors, like heroes, were fighting to bring Harry back from the grave
But his heart had been pierced by a sliver of glass; there was no way that he could be saved.
Had his heart failed him, there on the roadway, or had he been killed in the crash.
I couldn’t feel mad at the trucker who did what he could at the last.
We found a gold watch in his pocket. “Harry F. Chapin” engraved.
A man who had fought to save others but who himself could not save.

Your Randomness amazes me; you are the primal spark.
The Devil’s in the details for those of us who hunt the quark.
The particles accelerate around Cern’s race course track,
Then collide in a burst like fireworks that quickly fades to black.
One cannot really “see “a quark, those infinitesimal little things.
It is by their “works” we know them as they race around our ring.
At times it can be tedious, like counting angels on a pin
But finding basic particles is its own reward, my friend.
It’s hard to wrap your mind around the uncertainty within.
We can either know location or the direction of the spin.
Notions of causation must be checked at the front door
For bi locating particles don’t follow Newton’s laws!

In meadows, rich with clover, I have seen them here before;
those industrious little creatures at their pollinating chore.
Now the land is strangely silent, was Rachel Carson right?
Are we killing all the bumblebees? Have they made their final flight?
There are those who point to climate change as the source of all our pain.
If the bumble bee is dying, it is heat stress that’s to blame.
Others theorize a virus as the cause of their demise;
an illness ravaging the hives and emptying our skies.
I even heard one scientist make the hypothesis
that our overuse of cell phones is the cause of all of this.

Could it be that our usage of glyphosate is to blame;
As GMO spreads on our fields, our crops are not the same.
Monsanto is an Agri-Corp with bought friends in D.C.;
A “friendly Legislature insures profitability.
The F.D.A. is slow to act; Congress drafts obstructive laws.
It seems to me, just possibly, they already know the cause.

My son passed on in 95’; his cause of death was AIDS.
We hadn’t spoken for some years; we were then estranged.
I could not understand the love he had for other men.
Still, I admit my heart was broken that his life was at an end.

Decades passed and I grew grayer, ready for my final bow.
I wish I’d been a better Dad; knowing what I know now.
Then it came, the letter, one he’d written long ago.
A card he’s sent for Father’s day some thirty years ago.

It filled my heart with gladness to read of his love for me.
If he only knew I loved him too. We might have both been free.
Life cannot give him back to me, nor all my tears erase,
Still I pray this was a sign he’s in a better place.

John Paul Satre could have written it; a play about these times.
The Greek banks are closed on Holiday and Greeks all stand in line.
Sixty Euros if you’re lucky, that’s the limit for the day.
The Greeks are running out of Euros, and I’m afraid there’s Hell to pay.
The people have rejected Merkel’s plan to be austere,
And so the leftist government might finish out the year.
Printing Drachmas in the basement has to be their back up plan;
as they make their graceful Grexit may their creditors be dammed.
Will Brussels send the Wehrmacht in to seize crops in the fields?
You can only squeeze an olive once; there’s a limit on the yield.
This isn’t debt that they can pay the pundits have opined.
The can cannot be kicked again, this was the final time.
Italy and Portugal both wait with bated breath;
Along with Spain they want to see what Brussels will do next.
Greece is a small country, one with a pleasant clime.
What happens next is what you’d expect of Dominos in line.

“It’s a great life if you don’t weaken. “My aunt Helen did confide.
She is somewhere north of eighty-four and never someone’s bride.
Her beau died in Korea, died to keep our country free,
“ At least that was the pious pap they tried to sell to me.”
So she lived a solitary life, watching horses round the rail.
She would hang around casinos too, the reason she’s so pale.
“There are no pockets in those things.” She told me at a wake.
“so you won’t catch me sitting home, that’s a big mistake.”
In these later years she might enjoy a second glass of wine.
She is fiercely independent; she is a good friend of mine.
So, if now and then thoughts scatter and she tells a tale again.
I smile and listen patiently. We all get there in the end.

My mother was a little girl when the Western Union man
Put the dreaded telegram in my grandmother’s hand.
It said that my grandfather would not be coming home.
It told her that she’d have to raise my mother all alone.
Grandfather was honored, in death, for his service overseas;
the Medal of Honor, we still have, awarded  posthumously.

We thought that his remains were lost, committed to the sea.
Just one of many thousands who have died to keep us free.
Then recently, I traveled to the island where he died;
A mass grave had been discovered with some brave marines inside.
They found a tattered uniform that dressed grandfather’s bones.
Emotion overwhelmed me as I thought: “He’s coming home.”
In Sante Fe, New Mexico he’ll rest with all his kin.
Guns will fire in salute; they’ll fold a flag for him.
They’ll place it in my mother’s hands; his little girl grown old,
For her hero who died long ago on the Betio atoll.

You departed this life towards the end of July, Thirty four summers gone by.
We speculate that your heart or a stroke was the cause, but we can only surmise.
There were no farewells, no anguished goodbyes; In the middle of dreaming you died.
It was subtle the way angels bore you away; quiet as a wind borne sigh.

It has come to our attention that your License was suspended-
for failing to stop, within lines, for needed punctuation.
Your casual allusions to things and times of yore
Are confusing to the reader, and frankly mark you as a bore.
Your long winded analogies sometimes beggar all belief,
though some here think that your intent is comical relief.
All attempts at alliteration have been something of a dud;
You fall in love with the technique and sound like Elmer Fudd.
Your recent "Ode to Flatulence" using onomatopoeia
was but the latest instance of your verbal diarrhea.
Your metaphors are pitiful and this committee looks askance
at your evident confusion of mere lust with true romance.
Still, we are both kind and merciful (as bureaucrats tend to be) ,
So we'll renew you for another year upon remittance of the fee.

He stared at the words on the paper-
at least a dozen times.
At last he gave a little laugh and said.
“I can’t recall if these are mine.
I recognize a familiar style; a well-worn rhyming scheme.
Perhaps I may have written this back when still a teen.”
Beneath his façade of outward calm, I thought that I espied
a too familiar horror in his bespectacled eyes.
I saw the fear of loss of self, of dignity, of mind.
A brilliant wit now silenced, aware of its decline.
His mind was like a drowning man who panics in the brine;
eluding would be rescuers, going down for the third time.
He handed back the paper and I was too kind to say
that this was the piece of verse he finished yesterday.
Forget me not, It seemed to say. Please don’t leave me behind,
although the better part of me has died before my time.

It was hidden in the attic, they kept it carefully veiled.
To them it was a symbol, to others, just a rag.
Its’ field was all a crimson red, criss- crossed with stripes of blue.
Upon the blue; eleven stars; the confederacy they knew.

In the stars and bars are memories of numerous campaigns.
It was grand-Sire’s battle flag he’d rescued from the flames.
On the battlefields of glory; it’s said something remains,
But, to those ignorant of the past, I fear they are but names.

Some see it as the symbol of the hated KKK
Who used both rope and fire to take blacks’ rights away.
It’s a symbol of white supremacy, lower it they say
How can Black lives matter in the States where it holds sway?

Our country has a checkered past, to all who are not blind.
To our ethnic minorities we have been less than kind.
Yet to be fair, it was white men who fought to break those chains.
No other race in history, so far, can make that claim.

The soldiers bodies are now but dust, disturb not their remains
I don’t wish to repeat the past; I hope you feel the same.
We must not forget their story; a curse on all who try.
Six hundred thousand, Blue and Gray, were quite enough to die.