Way down South where they once grew cotton
Old times there must be forgotten
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

In this very year of the Sesquicentennial
Hatred blooms as a hardy perennial.
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

Don’t want to be in Dixie Today! Today!
In Dixie land a white young man
caused nine to die in Dixie.
For shame, for shame, ashamed down South in Dixie.
For shame, for shame, ashamed down South in Dixie.

When tempers flare and times are trying
The “stars and bars” should not be flying
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

In the very town the rebellion started
“Things must change!” say the Progressive minded
Go away, Go away, Go away Dixie land.



The Great grand kin of rebellious brothers
Have voted to strike down the colors
Look away, Look away, Look away Dixie land.

If this gets further out of hand
The “Dixie” cup will soon be banned!
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

Way down South where they once grew cotton
Old times there must be forgotten
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

I remember the flowers you wore in your hair
when you were my bride at nineteen.
Their bright colors kept all the dark clouds at bay
Or at least so it seemed then to me.

And their fragrance so rare drove some boys to despair
on the day that you married with me.
Your sweet song of youth left no need for a proof
Of how happy together we’d be.

I remember the flowers you held in your hands
On our tenth anniversary day;
Their bright colors kept all the dark clouds at bay
Or at least so it seemed then to me.

And their fragrance so rare drove some men to despair
to think that your hand wasn’t free.
The red blush of your lips as you turned for a kiss
Said no man was more happy than me.

I remember the rosary they placed in your hands
On the day that Death took you, I keened.
It seemed but a moment since you were my bride
And I was a groom of nineteen

All the flowers so rare that they piled on you bier
Both my sisters said they were lovely
I scarcely saw colors with eyes filled with tears
And the blooms held no fragrance for me.

I tend now the flowers that grow by your stone
Their fragrance reminds me of you.
I long for the day the Lord calls me away
And I’ll be reunited with you

I’ll admit that it was different, and something of a strain
When our troupe was performing “Hamlet: for the criminally insane.
It was some do gooder’s notion to expose them to the arts.
and I saw that they accepted it when boys played women’s parts.
Some Prisoners thought the ghost was real and they were sore afraid
Their minds could not distinguish it was just a role I played.
Each line meant to gain a laugh fell silent with that group,
But as the death toll mounted, they thought that was a hoot.
They were the strangest audience, those prisoners out there
When Hamlet mused on suicide, they’d hoped he’d end it there.
Poison, ******, suicide; they were thoroughly entertained!
To thunderous applause we bore Prince Hamlet from the stage.
The warden was so gratified the Bard was loved by all
That we’re performing Titus Andronicus for the prisoners this Fall.

A Pall of Civic Sorrow shrouded Charleston like a mist;
Nine bronze coffins in the church nave waiting to be blessed.
Anger would be natural, doesn’t violence beget more?
Is forgiveness even possible? Many were unsure.
The congregation gathered to pray and understand
in the place the murders happened; a church built by freedmen’s hands.

As they prayed about forgiveness, one shrill voice disagreed.
It cursed the “white man’s Jesus” and all those who bend the knee.
Stop praying to your “*****’s god” and burn the city down;
all those fine homes of brick and wood that stand in Charleston town.

With Faith comes understanding, wisdom denied to the proud.
There will be no wave of violence here, the congregation vowed.
Lord Jesus was not Black or White; his was a brown tanned hide.
He was in chains and felt the lash on the very day he died.

Love is neither slave nor free, as it appears to me.
It is with Love we live and breathe and have true dignity.
So let the White and Black join hands across the Charleston span;
Then we will not be White or Black but each Americans.

I am not a butterfly, their beauty I do not possess.
I am but a humble moth, but His creature nonetheless.
On this sultry summer's eve, for reasons I can only guess.
I'm captivated by the glow; your open flame has me impressed.
I'm like a bit of cosmic dust from the outer darkness come.
drawn inexorably to my doom, seduced  towards the fiery Sun.
I'm fascinated by your glow; see how you flicker and shift shapes!
Ever closer I draw near, Thought I fear it a mistake.
Beautiful the reds and golds, like a veiled dancer
you entice me on
I flare up like a dying star, you scarcely notice I have gone.

It always starts with a Woman;
a woman with skin like sweet milk chocolate.
A woman with a voice like warm honey on a cold dark night
And brown eyes in which a man might comfortably lose his soul.

The club was cold; not much of a club really;
A drafty old barn of a building somewhere in Arkansas
A big barrel half filled with Kerosene was lit to heat the hall.
The Young black folk of the town were gathered around

Young B.B. King was playing the blues, on a guitar with no name.
That was when the fight broke out on the dance floor.
two strong men doing battle over a woman who worked at the club.
It always starts with a woman.

Punches were exchanged; in the melee someone kicked over that barrel
And fire, like a river, roared across the floor.
Everybody started to run for the only open exit.
B.B. King ran too, until he recalled he had forgotten his guitar.

She was nothing special except for the man who played her
The man who coaxed sweet sad sounds from every catgut string.
King wasn’t a rich man and that guitar was his meal ticket
So he raced back through the flames.

Just as he retrieved his guitar, the building began
Its slow sad collapse into ash and embers
He barely escaped with his life and his guitar.

Standing outside in the cold night
Looking on the ruins of what had been a good paying gig.
That was when he met Lucille;
She was the barmaid with the sweet milk chocolate skin
And a voice like warm honey on a cold dark night;
Those two men had just fought and died over
a pleasure that neither would ever possess.

That was when B.B. King christened that old beat up guitar
“Lucille”:
To remind him of this night he almost died.
to remind him never to do something that stupid again.
Like I was saying, it always starts with a woman.

The reenactor looked a little warm in his woolen Union blues.
A forage cap perched on his head; spit and polished were his shoes.
He waited for the group to settle down, then gave his practiced speech
about how Sickles lost his leg in an orchard ripe with peach.
The air was still and warm as when, there, on the second day,
Sickles’ insubordination caused the Union lines to fray.
The great grandsons of the North and South were gathered here around.
The heirs of slaves and immigrants stood upon  the sacred ground.
We were not far from the spot Abe gave his famous speech;
where neat spaced rows of honored dead have learned to keep the peace.
Yet the hatreds of the past run deep, the events in Baltimore
Make me wonder if they died in vain; the soldiers from that war.

I'm in a special chamber which deadens every sound,
I began to grow more anxious with no decibels around.
I've spent my life connected, on the web and on the phone.
to be cut off without a dial tone; I've seldom felt this all alone.
I am lost, without a signal, uneasy in my skin.
I'm wanting to be anywhere except the place I'm in.
Was it like this for my mother? she lived stone deaf for years.
I was foolish to think blindness worse than deafness in my fears.
There are places were a body floats without the sense of touch.
The tests' subjects hallucinate,I wouldn't like that much.
Noise is fun, noise is good, I need noise, it appears,
to distract me from those whispered truths I do not wish to hear.

This time the French have gone too far! This will not stand, you hear!
The makers of “Méthode Champenoise” are suing Miller beer.
For years their spies have regularly infiltrated in the States,
suing all who dare mislabel bubbly made from grapes.
(We cannot call the sparkling wines produced on our own shores
“champagne” according to long, well established, laws.)
Fines and penalties are paid for breaking those mandates
Although to me it seems to be a case of sour grapes.
Today their spy was shopping for a piece of camembert
When he spied a Miller ad for “the champagne of bottled beers”
“Sacre Bleu” the Frenchman cried! “what sacrilege is here?.”
How dare these “Millers” to compare our drink with bottled beer.
They seized the product off the shelf to (ahem) do some testing.
I hear it knocked Jacques on his *** but he claims he’s just resting.

Sitting by the fireside and gazing at the flames,
a crystal glass of sherry in my hand,
My thoughts drift back, to a different time and place
when I was still a boy, not yet a man.

I remember you were patient when I did not understand
math problems that came easily to you.
I remember stories read to me before the lights went out.
You shared your love of books; I love them too.

I remember when I made you proud, in ways that children do
I remember, with some sadness, times I disappointed you.
Sometimes I'll use a turn of phrase when speaking to my child
and realize that my words are both your substance and your style.

I will not see your like again, here, in this vale of tears.
but I remember that you loved me; that sustains me through the years.
and when this fire burns to ash, as it is wont to do,
they'll bear me to the sacred place, returning me  to you.

In the bowels of a prison, in a tomb of concrete, for twenty three hours a day-
The “Teflon Don” was alone all that time, free only to scream, curse, or pray.
To seek refuge in madness most men would resort, but that was not John Gotti’s way.
He was chained when he showered; by the guards he called cowards,
he saw the Sun seldom these days.

His mind oft would drift back to better days at the Bergin hunt and fish-
Playing cards with friends and cronies who indulged his every wish..
He recalled how he rose to be Don; it was a blood drenched throne,
but, unlike his predecessor, he would die slowly and alone

Cancer took his lower jaw; he gummed what food he ate.
Four grey walls surrounded him, the door an iron gate.
His tumor soon metastasized; that death was imminent was plain.
Although John Gotti was in agony he took nothing for the pain.

He would not chance a mental lapse, a confession overheard.
He would not give the ******* that; he would not say a word.
He died choking on his own blood, his corpse lay still and cold.
It was then, and only then, the Feds released their hold

Lillian Caine was the young lady’s name.
She was a romantic at heart.
She was painfully thin with a wart on her chin,
and stood tall at the end of the line.
Little Jim Coke was a short little bloke,
A cherub like smile his chief charm
He soon won her heart, they were seldom apart,
They looked like a “10” arm in arm.
Lillian thought they were destined to wed;
Her dear little Jim thought the same.
When they wed they became,
by their hyphenated last name,
Mr. & Mrs. Coke-Caine

A beautiful smile and flawless skin; Youth is a gift, we’ve all been told.
Your sparkling eyes, your jet black hair are blessings of nature to behold.
Your gentle temper and modest dress do both enhance your loveliness.
You’re “picture perfect” so strike a pose for images do not grow old.
Still, the dance of Time won’t end for these pretty ladies from ** Chi Minh
until Time robs them of this and more. I’ve seen that thief steal youth before.

Twelve years; has it been as long as that?
I’m conscious of the grey that streaks my hair.
She, however, seems just as I remember
As the day before that day she wasn’t there.
There are no ties that bind me to this woman.
There are no banns that tie her to this man.
This was, of course, an accidental meeting.
Her leaving cut me far too deep to care.
Yet her eyes search mine as if to question
If an ember in the ashes smolders there

The bearded man in the forager’s cap rode in on little sorrel that night.
Lee had called a council of war to game plan for the coming fight.
The Northern aggressors were on the move but they might be vulnerable on their right.
It was a bold audacious plan to divide in the face of the foe.
The Calvary screen was key to the scheme to find where best to strike the blow.
The battle would be called Lee’s masterpiece; ******’s men broke and they fled.
but the battle would also be Jackson’s last; in just a few days he’d be dead..
In the dark of May second, men rode the plank road, Jackson rode at their head
Did they ignore the Sentry’s challenge? Or did the sentry mishear what they said?
They took Jackson arm, the saw-blade did sing, but alas it was to no avail
He crossed over the river to rest neath the shade of the trees in the hero’s vale

Keep us out of the ballpark.
Keep fans out so no crowd.
Instead Steal Doritos and grab free beers
There's no stretch in the seventh
cause nobody's here!
Oh it's loot, loot, loot from the storefronts
If we get caught its a shame!
and its one, two, three cops knocked out
at the old brawl game.

Keep us out of the ballpark
ban the fans from the stands
The vendors laid off cause there's nobody here
he's out of a job cause no one's buying beer
Oh its loot, loot, loot from the storefronts-
that Freddie Grey's dead -it's a shame
and it's one, two, three cops knocked out
at the old brawl game

When police were called it was too late, he could not be revived
Peter Cronkite, just twenty two, had committed suicide.
He was a natural athlete, handsome and well bred.
He fell victim to the demons that were screaming in his head.
His whole life lay before him: he’d been dealt a decent hand.
He chose a common grave instead- for reasons we can’t understand.
In life we all make choices and young Cronkite has made his,
As Grandpa Walter often said: “And that’s the way it is..”

The silver mustang was aflame, her pilot young, gallant.
They were spiraling towards the steeple in the village of Les Ventes.
With his last strength, that dying man pulled hard upon the stick
and willed the plane beyond the town out where the woods were thick.
He may well have already died before his plane hit down.
The flames shot high up in the air and scorched the fertile ground.
The villagers all recognized his act had spared their lives.
They honored he who died so that his memory survived.
His name is on a village street and flowers are piled high
Upon the grave where Billy slept when he tumbled from the sky.
His wife of six weeks never knew, til now, how Billy died,
but, ever faithful, she remained, no one else’s bride.
Fair France bears faded wounds of war, wounds she cannot hide.
Les Ventes recalls a hero’s death and warms his love with pride.

When Whitman wrote his "Leaves of Grass"
he was a man before his time.
Just ten years - the span of his career-
before he wrote his final line.
He never asked to have the gift
he could not un-see what he saw.
His sensibilities were formed
in the crucible of civil war.
He wrote beautifully of loss
in words that he was proud to sign.
Now I too know how he felt
as he approached the finish line

“I thought you said that they would come. “Ray said it with a sigh.
Outside the ballpark Chaos reigned as another city died.
At Camden Yards a game was played; no fans were let inside.
Terry sadly eyed the scene and fought the urge to cry.
For baseball represents the best that America could be,
until hatred triumphed teamwork, forging chains of misery.
The inner harbor is in flames and they’ll not soon subside
The bitter angels of our nature ruled as another city died.
In time the final out was made and the players left the field.
The home team lost, no save was made

And no one’s wounds were healed.

Once, back in the day, when you were still teens,
I won the decathlon, a pole vaulting fiend.
On bright orange boxes my face could be seen.
It seemed like I was living the American dream.

Yet my role as a hero was all just a pose.
I never felt comfortable wearing men’s clothes.
I longed for the feel of lace upon skin.
I just didn’t belong in the body I’m in.

I longed to be pretty, I needed a change-
with money no object that could be arranged.
Hormonal treatments would help my ***** blossom
They made my skin soft and they rounded my bottom.

Now in stockings and gingham I’m making the scene,
The thing I’ve most wanted since I was a teen.
Those parts that defined me- now surgically gone,
I just don’t know whether to scratch or to yawn.

The old man, grey, bespectacled, with difficulty, rose from his chair.
If he’d come to plead for mercy, I doubt he’d find it here.
He struggled to stand steady with his Zimmer walking frame
As he gave his testimony we all felt his sense of shame.

“I was there when all this happened; I saw the smoke rise to the sky.
I saw the piles of ashes that were once like you and I.
I counted stolen valuables; Money, watches, gold.
I dared not speak objection. I did as I was told.”

He asked for a glass of water; this much he did receive.
He testified an hour without asking for reprieve.
He spoke about those distant days we see in black and white.
Of a Germany destroyed by debt and burning for a fight.
He then was young and good with numbers
He was the bookkeeper of Auschwitz;
He can’t un-see all he did see.

Although he never shot a girl or stabbed a sleeping child,
He’d tallied up their worldly goods to add them to the pile.
When the Russians over-ran the camp, he and the others fled.
They left behind warehouses full of the possessions of the dead.
The Jury must deliberate about what punishment is due
For this ninety year old **** who kept track of baby shoes.

“Sweet Kiss” was the horse and Frank Hayes was his rider,
Both destined this day to gain fame.
Frank was a stable boy on his first stake horse;
The horse too was a novice, but game.
This pairing went off at 20-1, but was well worth the risk of a “fiver”.
Sweet Kiss won the race and the bettors were stunned
for his jockey fell off, a cadaver.
Frank suffered a heart attack on the last turn
and the horse was the only survivor.
Frank Hayes, undefeated, was interred in his silks.
“Sweet Kiss”, undefeated, retired.
Jockeys are short but have memories long-
None were willing to be her next rider.

This cave held secrets, of that he was sure.
It was filled with ages of debris.
Already they had found the bones
of two australopithecines.
He squatted near the latest find,
A flake of stone, stone that had been worked
long before **** sapiens’ time;
when our precursors walked the Earth.
He felt the stones weight in his hand,
Cool to the touch, the well-made blade,
Sharp enough to skin a deer-
a treasured heirloom from this grave.
His mind wandered, in the cool dark of the cave,
to think of those who worked this stone.
They were driven from the Eden of the trees
and struggled to survive on the grassy plain.
In a night without fires’ comforting glow;
In a night full of sounds; roars whispers and groans.
He grasped the stone tool tighter still
He had never felt so all alone.
Then he was rescued from all such thoughts
By the vibrating call of his I phone.

Wilmer McLean had seen war in the flesh;
Near Bull Run he had purchased a farm.
When rebellion broke out, Stonewall Jackson came up
Causing Wilmer distress and alarm

So McLean sold his farm, moved his kin far from harm;
-kept them safe to the very last day.
Until Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant
chose his parlor for the end of the Fray.


From Fort Sumter’s surrender to Appomattox Court House
Through five Aprils, ****** war had held sway,
It began in his back yard, ended up in his parlor
From fate he could not get away.

Michael O’Rahilly was leading the charge, a hopelessly wasteful foray.
The English were waiting behind barricades as the Gaels made their desperate play.
Rifles at the ready; they charged up Moore Street, the O’Rahilly leading the way.
Like paper consumed by a flickering flame, their manpower melted away.
O’Rahilly lay dying, but the British just laughed, no aid would they give to the foe.
The cobblestones reeked of the blood on the street as the bodies were laid in a row.
Heroes perhaps have a touch of the poet, a dram of unreason besides,
but everyone knows of the charge of O’Rahilly; Everyone knows how he died.
It was, he well knew, a magnificent gesture, the English be dammed and despised.
He lingered, tis said, for nineteen long hours, immortal or not, he expired.

A comfortable rocking chair, a woven shawl upon his lap,
Lincoln sat in the Presidential box with trouble lurking at his back.
His guard had a terrible thirst-which he quenched at the neighboring bar.
The war was over after all-Who expected an attack?

Booth stealthily climbed the stairs, with ****** on his mind.
John Wilkes spotted his prey, through a hole he had drilled in the door.
The South must be avenged! He would salvage Southern pride.
He unloaded his derringer in Lincoln’s head; the last Union dead of the war.

Clara Harris was screaming in terror, as Booth slashed her Beau to the bone.
“Sic Semper Tryrannis:” Booth shouted, announcing the deed he had done
Booth’s spur caught on the star spangled bunting as he vaulted toward the stage.
Booth limped across to the door- His leg broken, bad luck for a man on the run.

It raged across five Aprils, killed 600,000 sons,
but now, there was a chance for peace, if Johnston wanted one.
Some urged a guerrilla war, a game of hit and run,
but Johnston saw a suffering South and knew this must be done.
He called a truce with Sherman to surrender his command.
In truth, I think he would have rather shook the Devil’s hand.
The defeated kept their horses, and were paroled back to their homes.
This land once more united, its prior sins atoned.
For every drop of blood that had been spilled by blow or lash
had been matched, drop for drop, in every ****** clash.
On the ninth of April 65’ Rebels tore their battle flags
and little strips of colored cloth were given to each man.
The flags were not surrendered to become the spoils of war.
They fraternized with men they would have killed the day before.
Now all who had survived the war, all but one, would live.
Good Friday night would claim the last that Lincoln had to give.

In our small town of Hixton, Wisconsin,
The future looked decidedly grim.
Population was down to four hundred
And we all thought its best days had been.
We’re a small town North West of Milwaukee
where U.S Thirteen passes by.
Here the median age is past forty,
with less than one girl for each guy.
The town fathers were in a quandary;
scratching their heads and their chins.
Half the houses were vacant and boarded;
Just a trickle of tax coming in..
“Our churches are bare ruined choirs,
Our young finish school and they leave.
The town as we know it is dying,
There’s only one chance of reprieve!”
Some thought it an outlandish suggestion.
It offended all those who believe.
“The renaming of Hixton, Wisconsin
must be done with all possible speed.”
“Desperate times demand desperate measures;
This is the last card I have up my sleeve.”

It was done as our Mayor suggested
and, as hoped for, the new blood poured in.
Our post mark is much in demand now;
Since we began living in “Sin”

At Seventeen, a girl might buy a dress and look towards her prom;
music and dancing through the night with a Beau upon her arm.
At Seventeen the night might end in a gentle tender kiss
As couples watch the Sun rise as it gives the waves the slip.
At Seventeen, a girl might think of college and career.
She might listen to loud music and maybe sneak a beer.


For a victim of progeria, life holds no such charms;
At Seventeen, her time is short, too soon she will be gone.
At Seventeen, in human terms, this girl was ninety-five;
every day a battle in the struggle to survive.
Like a comet burning brightly coming too close to the Sun
Hayley, wiser than her years, burned brightly and was done.

There once was a man who drew lines in the sand
daring Bashar Al-Assad to cross.
When “the Lion” so dared he was so unprepared
our man looked like the back of a horse.
Now the same man says he’ll stare down Iran
There’s no need for advice and consent.
John Kerry, his proxy, the Ketchup Queen’s mate,
Ignores deadlines that he never meant
He’ll bargain some more til he sells out the store
The Jews, our lone allies, be dammed.
When the I.C.B M.S rain with bombs they’ll obtain
Tel Aviv will melt into the sand
Then we’ll all learn the true cost of “Peace in Our time”
with the murderous thugs from Iran.

If Love has made a fool of me is it not ever so?
To be Love’s Fool is more the rule than exception; This I know.
Those eyes, those lips, each stolen kiss bestowed upon your jester
makes my being a fool for Love not much of a disaster.
In Spring, a young man’s thoughts are of Love and not of the hereafter.
I’m drunk upon the sight of you, besotted by your laughter.

Once his kind were ubiquitous; Men and their ponies herding live beef
from the prairies of Kansas and Texas to the slaughterhouses North East
It was a hard life, but good, nights out under the stars; amusing themselves with a song.
There was beans and good coffee shared at the fire; The prairie wind blew sweet and long.
Then the trains came and life wasn’t the same and the cowboys all faded away.
Old Tex was the last of that vanishing breed; He’d tell me tall tales of those days
when he and his crew battled rustlers and snakes to see the herd safe to their doom.
His skin was like leather from the wind and the sun; his big hands arthritic and gnarled.
A roll your own cigarette drooped from his lips and his speech sounded more like a snarl.
Tex passed on last night, a blessing they say, to die in his sleep with no pain.
No churchyard for Tex, he will rest ‘neath the sod just out beyond the old grange
He was the last of a vanishing breed; a man to his quarter horse wed.
The land that he loved will keep changing above, but the wind and the stars never change.

There is nothing to be done, nothing anyone can say
that will salve old Pedro’s heartache and take his grief away.
Three generations of his girls died in the tragic crash.
Their tickets all read “Dusseldorf” but they all died in France.
The old man sits dejected with his head hid in his hands.
A senseless act has claimed their lives, this much he understands.
A church bell tolls the call to prayer in Barcelona Spain.
They pray for all the victims of a pilot gone insane.
He forms their names upon his lips. It is a soundless cry.
His loved ones fell to earth they say out of a clear blue sky.

In Sandy Springs stands a mansion, but not for very long.
The trees, grown great, will share its fate, soon all will be gone.
“its progress!” say the town fathers; a new subdivision tract.
To preservationists it’s a tragedy; mark the calendar in black.
A massive Tudor mansion, an edifice so grand-
At fifteen thousand square feet it could house a massive clan.
Too soon the wood will splinter and the stone and stucco part.
The walls will be imploded as the demolition starts.
The wrecking ball will smash stained glass that Tiffany supplied.
You will almost hear the timbers shriek as the vandals work inside.
The stately home of Thomas Glenn was once Atlanta’s pride.
It was finished in the tragic year of Nineteen twenty nine.
He passed away soon after, the family moved away.
Now empty, its’ clocks all stopped, it waits its’ judgement day.
We men of mortal flesh all know how quick we pass away.
Our achievements soon forgotten, our honors made of clay.
We build great homes to house our kin; this hall was built to last.
Yet “progress” is inexorable and this; a relic from the past.

When the painter first entered the room
He’d noted the walls drab and bare.
It appeared an unpromising canvas
and he had little time left to spare.
So forgive if he audibly sighed
as he spread out his drop cloths and paint.
His knees ache when he climbs on his ladder;
His swearing would trouble a Saint.
Still he made the best use of the light.
Sure his efforts would please and surprise;
The ceiling made a virginal white
And the walls the same green as her eyes.
It was dusk as he finished his task
and gathered his brushes and cans.
He’d have loved to see her reaction
when she’d witness the work of his hands.

I will never forget the sound
of their bodies as they hit the ground.
How the gutter ran red with their blood
when no other escape could be found.

Our ladders were too short, you see-
They were eight floors from the ground.
All these young factory girls
like bundles of rags falling down.

I will always remember the screams
Of one girl with flames in her hair
who appeared at a window one moment,
then in the next , wasn’t there.

I walked through the ashes soon after
trying to make sense of things.
We counted three dozen more victims
and discovered a number of rings.

It started here on the eighth floor;
a stray ash from a last cigarette.
There was plenty of fuel for the fire
That this city will never forget.

In form and figure, in sweep and scope,
This is a masterpiece of art.
Its maker, long since returned to dust,
died of a broken heart.
In life his work was “Avaunt- garde”
and never won acclaim.
He passed away at forty three-
Not a penny to his name.
His eyes conceived light differently
than an ordinary man’s.
Street strumpets were rendered beautiful
by his knowing, loving hands.
This piece just sold for millions
and has garnered much acclaim.
(He sold it for a loaf of bread
To one who bought it for the frame,)
It might have made its maker smile
At the irony, in passing,
That what his age deemed worthless
Has brought him fame everlasting

It was windy that night, all those questioned agreed,
when the woman was struck by some falling debris.
It was here on West 12th Street,at the corner of Seventh,
by the condo they’re building on the site of Saint Vincent’s.
A section of plywood had chanced to fall,
driving “Tina” Nguyen head first into a wall.
She fell to the pavement and she struck her head.
They rushed her to Bellevue, but she was already dead.
Was it chance? Was it fate? Was it some Divine plan?
Her death was so random, so hard to understand.
We walk these same streets, so I think you’ll agree
It could have been you. It might have been me.

East River’s calming ebb and flow; we stood and watched from the upper deck.
The band was playing, too loud, below; some rhapsody from Rod Stewart.
Before us the twin towers rose, majestic, on the nearer shore.
We were young, you were beautiful, who could ask for any more?
Time and tide, Love, time and tide, Do you recall the song they played?
We danced as a new year dawned, a new year that has long since strayed.
The party boats still sail those waters, other revelers have staked their claim.
The skyline is quite different now, since those twin towers died in flames.
Only in the view from memory point can I see those towers plain
And recall a love songs sad refrain.

In the arctic wastes where the Inuit tribe hunts caribou and fights to survive,
I have been told since long ago that tribe has fifty words for “snow”
That seemed superfluous to me- Fifty words for one commodity!
If I was born an Eskimo, I’d have fifty words to learn and know

I do most of the shoveling here, my wife and children cheer me on.
The winter lingers long and drear, some days it seems the Sun is gone.
Despite the calendar I greatly fear that blessed spring is nowhere near
Tomorrow, the radio makes clear, we’re expecting six more inches here.

Some snow is like a sugary mist, granulated and sublime,
Quite useless for a snow ball fight, for that you need the packing kind.
The worst is the wet sodden snow, the kind that threatens a heart attack.
It’s difficult to lift and throw; it hurts the arms and strains the back.

I told my wife I now know why they need fifty words for snow.
I have a few choice words I’d add; words the children shouldn’t know.
Those Inuit folk who fight to survive in the land of snow and ice-
Now I too have fifty words for snow, not one of which is nice.

They’re a militant group of foodies of whom we live in constant dread.
They’re not ones to be satisfied with bribes of jam and bread.
They’re like a plague of locusts, descending on Food Mart.
Soon not a Twinkies left alive, just wrappers in the park.
They started out as teenagers staring at an open fridge.
The concept of “leftovers” they view as a sacrilege.
They’ll eat you out of house and home and leave you not a crumb.
You thought your cookie stash was safe, but now you’re feeling numb.
How did we let it get this far? Should the government intervene?
Hear their cry “Aloha Snack-bar” It makes me want to scream

It was a time of slush, snow and icy precipitate
when you and I first ventured out on what may be called a date.
A group of us went bowling, then repaired to the local bar.
Later you dispelled the chill as we snuggled in my car.
It's true that ice was on the ground and it was getting late.
I fell for you, you felt it too. It is a blissful state.
True, it was not a "forever" love; such is granted to but few.
We had love for a brief season in a time of cold and flu.

To prosper is not merely to accumulate more things.
It is more properly understood as the wisdom suffering brings.
A long life is a blessing to those who use each day
To perfect their love of others for we are brothers in a way.
Spock traveled the known quadrant in search of other worlds like ours;
planets at a proper distance from an ordinary star.
Mister Spock now rests in peace, it is logical he would say
That the old yield place to the young, for that is nature’s way.
Still I could wish he’d linger longer in this world of ours
He who first taught me to look up in wonder at the stars.

Too young! Well, yes, isn’t that the way
It seems to us when we hear a friend is gone.
The scythe swept close yet we ourselves remain
to drink our coffee and put on mourning clothes.
We’ll gather in a place we loathe to go.
We will see familiar faces in those folding chairs.
We’ll kneel before a casket made of bronze
And offer an inadequate childhood prayer.
In time, we all come to terms with our grief.
Experience has taught us nature’s way-
Our memories are like sand the tides subsume.
Not gone, exactly, submerged, hid from the light.
to surface like a dream in the dead of night.
Our friend was our companion on this journey,
Good company, a source of strength and humor.
Our paths diverged in a dark stretch of woods.
Our friend has reached the destination sooner.

The Point of no Return



From a thousand applications, they selected just us few.
The launch window fast approaching, this seemed like a dream come true.
First they launched an orbiter, our link to Earth, our mother,
Then Robots built the base camp, I’ll be sharing with three others.
We face a lengthy trip through Space; I hope someone brings cards,
confined within a shielded space, fighting boredom and the odds.
Solar panels give us light, hydroponics food to eat
Where the drinking water is coming from I prefer not to think.
This is a one way mission, there’s no plan to bring us back.
Just new colonists now and then to bring us all we lack.
I’d hoped to have three girls along that I could judge like Paris.
Instead I’m with two lesbians and a hairy guy named Boris!

A steady gentle rain had fallen throughout the night before.
Morning dawned , grey and dreary, like the butternut they wore.
A.P. Hill was on the march, speeding towards the sound,
the distant sounds of battle, as they marched through Frederick town.

The rebel brain trust harbored hopes that Maryland might secede.
That a hero’s welcome waited for Lee riding in the lead.
But no, the streets were silent, most folks hid inside their homes.
They cheered instead, the boys in blue and cheered for them alone.

The rebels marched down Patrick Street as they sped through Frederick Town.
Then General Hill spied the Stars and Stripes and ordered them struck down.
It was Mary Quantrell who showed the flag, in defiance of the troops.
(Whittier misidentified his heroine in hoops.)

It was Mary, all defiant, who displayed our nation’s flag;
a brave matron of thirty years, no ninety year old hag.
“You may **** me if you must; my life is hardly charmed,
But I will die before I see this banner come to harm.”

Her warning gave the general pause, perhaps in part because.
He had himself once sworn to protect that banner and that cause.
He countermanded, then and there, the order that he gave.
He pressed on to Antietam where the hard pressed Lee was saved.

Mary has no monument, these days, in Frederick town;
No mention on her grave stone how she faced a General down.
There’s no honor in her hometown for this heroine with pluck.
That Barbara Fritchie legend?- Just some poet run amuck.

That day was brutally hot, and the cannon incessantly roared
It was the twenty eighth of June in the third year of the war.
Mary Hays was with her soldier, John, as he fought against the King.
Men would call out “Molly Pitcher” and she brought water from a spring.

The action began badly; Cornwallis pushing back Charles Lee.
Who’d have bet a continental that this would be a victory?
Then Washington brought up fresh troops and held Cornwallis back
Rebel cannon from Hays’ battery stalled Cornwallis’ attack.

John Hays , at his cannon, had succumbed to wounds and heat.
But his gun must not go silent or we would go down to defeat.
That was when Mary Hays decided she would take her husband’s place.
She ran to serve his cannon and kept up the firing pace.
She narrowly avoided death when the Redcoats returned fire
But bravely stood her ground and fought, and a legend was inspired.

Mary Hays survived the war and lived a ripe old age.
She was honored for her service and a State pension was paid.
That day at Monmouth Court House, we proved we could stand and fight.
The British army left the field in the darkness of that night.

My parents passed away last spring. Two weeks apart, it was hard to bear.
She was a cellist, he played violin. Their instruments were old and rare.
Growing up, I’d hear them practice. For practice is the only way
to make effort appear effortless in the first chairs on concert day.
Our house resounded with their music. As I grew, I’d also play.
Our family spoke with strings, not voices.
Then there was silence, when they passed away.

Her Cello was made by Testore; His violin was by Lupot,
both treasures of the Luthier’s art.
I wept to see them gathering dust.
Mute witnesses as Death played his part.

It’s hard for artists nowadays to afford such quality.
hard, as well, for me to sell, to send their instruments away
A friend suggested a better way; to keep my loved ones’ legacy
My colleagues play with them on loan; their borrowed voices speak to me.

O’ let us lay together love
when this World’s cares are past.
My Queen I have had locked away
She was treacherous to the last.
Accept this rose I’ve named for you,
A heirloom hybrid bloom.
I’ll have them carve its like in stone
Upon our honored tomb
So that, my Love, in years to come,
Our children’s children see
How I loved my Rosamund,
How much you’ve meant to me