I remember when I walked the Earth
in the days before I died.
When ***** chancellor ****** rose,
after the Reichstag fire.

I remember a November night
with a million shards of glass.
I never felt more all alone,
that night my lover passed.

After that, I had no rights,
I was forced to bear this sign:
A pink Triangle swatch of cloth,
by this I was defined.

I remember some with David's star
would look down their nose at me.
We were under the same sentence-
had not our deaths all been decreed?

I remember when I walked the Earth
in the days before I died.
Before mein Fuhrer dug for me
my grave up in the sky.

Our house this night is full of life,
both kids up in their rooms.
We're safe and warm from the harrowing storm
with its lightening streaks and booms.
Yet soon I know, both have to go,
to school, to work, to life.
Then this will be an empty nest
with just me and my wife.


How do birds feel, when, freshly fledged,
their young depart forever.
Do they sing more somberly
when the chicks are not together?
We're creatures of habit, like those birds
I see when we're in the park.
I'll catch myself gazing up the stairs
when both their rooms are dark.

Their eyes locked glances at the club
and both knew that, very soon,
their horizontal Mambo starts
back in his suite of rooms.
A hot, slow dance,
One night's romance,
a glass ( or two) of wine.
He's first ballot Hall of Fame
and she is very fine.
Avoiding Paparazzi
they slip out a back door
The famous baseball player
and the girl called Belle Dejour

Night after Night,
Day after Day,
He declaimed the words
he'd been given to say.

His costumes selected,
Each cue prearranged,
Little freedom of movement
Just a pawn in the game.

Each move blocked and taped.
The audience roared
at the droll repartee
he had heard oft before.

His understudy waits,
like all of his kind.
For the day he would falter
and be left behind

Beatrice and Benedict
time after time
No chance in a million
of forgetting his lines.

The town of Fukushima
is a place where few will go.
Since the reactor breached
containment
it has a sad, unhealthy glow.
The mice and bees and butterflies
Did not make their escape
High radiation levels
lead to DNA mistakes
The butterflies have shrunken wings
and other gross defects.
The high incidence of mutations
has Leipidopterists perplexed.
When they talk among themselves,
as they do from time to time,
Some blame evolution,
Some Intelligent Design.

She had her side,
he had his.
Stuck in the middle
were their two kids.
No blows were struck
No hits were scored.
Just needs and wants
that went ignored.
She's a gossip,
He's a bore,
whatever did they marry for?
Not much chance of common ground
when loneliness for two is found.
Some find each other though wedding bells
Many others just lose themselves.

The bar was closed,
the dawn approached
like a grey and threatening sea.
He placed two glasses on the bar
one for him, one for me.

Black Bush shimmered in each glass
golden in half light
We proposed a toast to you
thirty years ago tonight.

That day We'd brought you to the church
and the graveyard just beyond.
Larger than life you always loomed
hard to believe you're gone.


They say that when a father dies
a boy becomes a man.
If it didn't happen right away
I hope you'll understand.

I'll never hear your voice again
or share a hug and kiss.
I'm drinking to remember
It was such a night as this.

When the rivers dry up
And don’t run towards the sea.
When the last of the seed corn
has died.
We may find fiscal hedging
Has all been in vain.
Is there something else we might have tried?

In the warm stagnant water
By the thousands, fish die.
The worst die off I ever did see.
Its funny how there is no shortage of flies-
I can’t say the same for the bees.

We look to the soil to sustain us on Earth
As we poison and plunder the sea.
In the Amazon, companies plunder and burn,
****** the earth’s forestry.

When the last crop has failed
And the rivers run dry
And we can’t catch a thing in the sea
The stewards of earth will be called to account
And will learn you can’t eat currency.





“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money.” –Native American proverb

If we had never done the deed
and soiled the sheets together,
Lesbia we might have had
a love that lasts forever.
Instead, you lay back, wantonly,
inviting me to sin.
Our cries and whispers mingled
as I spent myself within.
Lust comes with an expiration date
and I was cast aside;
Some other noble Roman
now mounts my favorite ride.
Caesar too, will come and go ;
Veni, Vidi, Vici.
Some label you promiscuous
your morals are thought dicey.
Yet you're not indiscriminate
in choosing your next partner;
The distinction is that you lie down
and do not stoop to conquer.

The President says there is
no better party
than the party his happens to be.
I am dazed and confused
with parochial views
of those " know better" folks in D.C.

He gave us "healthcare"
"It's no tax, this I swear"
But the Court said a tax it must be.
It hires an army of I.R.S. men
to perform fiscal prostectomies.

In my city and state
one can't  go off half cocked
They frown on us having a gun.
The outlaws don't care
They're all well armed, I swear.
The rest of us call 9-1-1.

The President says there is
no better party
than the party his happens to be.
I am dazed and confused
with parochial views
of those " know better" folks in D.C..

They take from the workers
to feed those who don't
and call it a democracy
Combined with inflation
and forced confiscation
the buck ain't what it used to be.

The President says there is
no better party
than the party his happens to be.
He'll spend half a billion
in ads on T.V.
to say he knows better than me.

sunset in oahu by ginkguygagoogank



The Sun sank in the Waters off Oahu
as the old man raised the cordial to his lips.
The perfumed air was just as he remembered,
The sky was golden with the sun's last kiss.

He recalled that day they'd climbed up Diamond Head
and imagined red ball zeros in the sky.
Looking down on Ford's Island in the harbor,
imagining grim scenes from time gone by.

The restaurant was much as he remembered
when first they'd dined here fifty years ago.
It had been a special anniversary,
Still vivid in his memory, ever so.

He thought of something funny he could tell her,
an incipient smile was forming on his lips,
but his dear lost love would never get to share it-
he dined alone with the memory of her kiss.

Once upon a time
in a nasty little war
Cromwell came to Ireland
like a blight upon our shore.

He waged war upon my people
in a genocidal style
but some revisionists might argue
he was merciful and mild.

At Drogheda he killed thousands,
what a slaughter that place saw,
at the hands of "Christian" soldiers-
surely righteous was their cause.

Then, when the war was over
and all our blood was spent
the Gaels, who used to own the land,
all wound up paying rent

" To Hell or Connacht" is a phrase
sound biters did invent
I don't know if he uttered it
but its surely what he meant!

Jessica lay quiet on the floor
as images still flickered on the screen
One of a dozen murdered in their prime
when the silver screen became a ****** scene.

Just last month she had narrowly escaped
a shooter loose in a Toronto Mall.
As in the movie"final Destination"
Death came back to pay another call.

We never know the moment or the hour
when we'll be called to render our account.
Arbitrary fate selects the victims
from both doubters and the hopefully devout.

Parents still wait anxious by the phone
for any word about their children's fate.
Ten dead at least lie scattered in the aisles
The ****** harvest of a madman's hate.

The starters' pistol sounded once
and sneakered feet churn up the clay-
Fame and fortune they pursue
Four hundred meters ahead, gold, lay.

Muscles strain and lungs may burn
inspired by Olympic fire
Faster, Higher, Stronger, yes-
The Motto does serve to inspire.

The race is run and some excel
Others just happy they took part.
Those fastest, on the podium stand,
to hear their anthem, hand on heart.

Obama has a different dream:
He'd make those Medals Lead, Tin and Clay
If no man makes his own success
why give the precious stuff away?

Never mind the countless dawns
they rose to run in rain or heat.
The weights they lifted in the gym.
How hard they trained on blistered feet.

If no man makes his own success
and government is the source of all
Explain to me, Barrack Hussein,
How did the Soviet Union fall?

When I was young and callow
and could run for twenty miles
I met a woman, Karen,
both sophisticate and kind.

We met while on vacation,
I was her junior by five years.
Her eyes a vivid, limpid blue-
marred recently by tears.

She was on the rebound
from an instance of heart break.
I was young and willing
and,to be honest, a mistake.

It was a thrill to take her hand
and be invited in
I watched her undress slowly
so our passion could begin.

We did not get much sleep at all
though I'll not kiss and tell.
I will say for her recent loss
I stood in very well.

When I awoke next morning
She had dressed and gone away.
I never saw her face again
or spoke about our play.

We loved for one night only
when we wrestled in the sheets..
How bittersweet came morning
with no chance of a repeat.

She was scarcely twenty one
on the day the Reaper came.
A writer of great promise;
Toru Dutt was her name.

Bengali was her native tongue,
but only just her first.
She had conversed in German,
written French and English verse.

Now she lay silent, dressed in white
in the company of flowers.
A shame it was a funeral pyre
and not her wedding bower.

Her sister, overcome with grief,
Her Parents both the same.
Her sad eyed father lit the torch
and consigned her to the flames.

How quickly did those flames consume
the girl who lived to write.
Her dust was carried on the winds
from the sacrificial site.

The beauty of her verse endures
and will preserve her name.
That's all that could be salvaged
of the maiden from the flames.

The sun was just about to set
when I happened on the scene:
A small and well kept garden
scented with Magnolia trees.
Someone had placed a wooden bench
beside a whispering pond.
I never knew this gem was here
In New York, most green is gone.
There were seasonals and perennials
competing for my senses.
A most welcome distraction
from my dark and somber penses.
So little time remained before
the light would fade away
and their beauty and their brilliance
would be shadowed, dark ,and grey.

I thought about my childhood home
and the fruit trees that once grew there.
of the flowers and the vegetables
cultivated with my parents' care.

Concrete now covers every inch
of my remembered home.
They put a housing project
where, upon a time, I roamed.
I felt a sudden pang of loss,
fought back a foolish tear.
Here, in another's garden,
I had travelled back the years.

Sweet Lesbia, hold me in your arms,
give me kisses without ceasing.
Your husband fights in Caesar's cause
and is no challenge in deceiving.
Your smooth white shoulders,beautiful,
that never see the Sun.
They are a feast for this poets' eyes
when your stola comes undone.
Beneath your tunica intima
are sweet ******* that fed your child.
I hope you'll bare them to my lips
in just a little while.
The shadows of the autumn Sun
creep clear across the room.
but Lesbia's sweet smile is enough
to brighten up the gloom.
Great Pompey has been put to rout,
Caesar claims the curule chair.
Outside the World has gone to Hades
Not that this poet cares.
For Lesbia is world enough
to treasure and explore.
If more were of my frame of mind
what need had men for war?

They had waited on blankets, in cars,
to view the Chrysanthemum stars.
Instead of a pyrotechnic display,
The authorities sent them away.
A brief blast of frightening power
consumed at once many a flower.
It appears a computer malfunction
was the cause of the mini eruption.
The engineered boom had gone bust.
Makes you wonder- now who can you trust?


In the desert that night 'neath the stars
Jupiter, Venus and Mars
put on their free, nightly, display.
People on blankets, in cars
very seldom look up to the stars.
There a bowlful of wonder and light
goes sight unseen most every night.
The gift of a child's sense of wonder
goes unwrapped by these mortals down under.

We entered in the hospice room
where Mother lay alone.
By the scourge of this last illness
she'd been reduced to skin and bone.
Now at peace from suffering,
Her visage fairly shone.
The well worn beads
clasped in her hand
had helped her journey home.

"Now and at the Hour.."
a fragment of a childhood prayer.
Now and the hour
were joined together
in She for whom I cared.

From the time the boy could stand
his Dad had brought him on the Seven.
To see the Mets they both would go,
before he'd even learned to throw.

All through his childhood and past his teens.
They'd entrain to their field of dreams.
Their Mets found many ways to lose-
most years they had godawful teams.

So soon it was his time to go.
Children grow and Time flies they say-
His son now has his place downtown
A few short miles and a world away.

Opening day is a magical land
That once more found them in the stands
Cheering loud, their voices hoarse,
as their team booked yet another loss.

After the excitement of the game
waiting on the platform for their trains
The two men hugged with obvious affection,
then entrained in opposite directions.

Everyman had many friends,
and the Sheilas loved his looks.
He spent his days at football,
with not much time for books.

Everyman in the prime of life
was a wonder to behold.
Was any man more full of life?
Could any be so bold?

Everyman came to the day
where he lost a step in speed.
His mates had settled, mostly down,
or sold their souls to greed.

The game moved on to younger lads,
left everyman behind
He, of course, remained a fan
consigned to the sideline.

Everyman began to fail,
old concussions took their toll.
He'd enter a room full of friends
and couldn't name a soul

Everyman, now in a "home",
awaits his morning tea.
Sometimes a stranger visits-
a member of his family.

Everyman sits in shadows now.
The world goes on without.
His strength and wits deserted him
and he never was devout.

Everyman begins to die
with a murmur, not a shout
Nurse Deeds stays to hold his hand
till the light of life goes out.

His lying lips nuzzled her nape
as his hands caressed each breast.
Although the Law might deem it ' ****"
at seduction, he was best.

She turned and gave her lips to him,
a man whose heart was hollow.
Her schoolgirl skirt dropped to the floor
where, shortly, all would follow.

Each pearl button was undone;
her lovely ******* exposed to view.
soon thereafter, deep inside her,
proclaiming love he knew untrue.

Was it pride of first possession
that brought him to this place?
Surely other men had noticed
this nymphs figure and her face.

To pluck a rose before it blooms
is acting out of season
To take love that you cannot  give
is close akin to treason

“Beautiful” she said;
And none can her gainsay.
The poetess who spoke,
then, in quiet, passed away.
Cossetted within her husband’s arms,
frail and small in death’s repose,
Never again would she put pen to paper.
No more sonnets would her art compose.
Her illnesses had dogged her all her life.
Only morphine kept the pain at bay.
It also gave to her a heightened sense
of the beauty of mundane reality.
How vividly did her expressive eyes
Put words to thoughts and thoughts to
printed page.
She was the wild enthusiast of life,
whose poetry was the spirit of the age.

The Vessel was a thing of clay.
the sort you use, then throw away.
It was worth little, of itself,
but that vessel was filled with Love.
It poured out Love upon the Living
Free and selfless was its giving.
When at last the clay was dry,
it was the vessels time to die.
It shattered on the sands of time,
now half a lifetime gone from mine.
The vessel was my Dad you see-
and by his gifts I was set free.
I wept the day he met his end-
will I ever see his like again?
God willing on a higher plane
I'll get to call again his name.,
but if my journey ends in dust,
he taught me how as all men must.

His pressure was mounting
along with his weight.
He got into training
a little bit late.

In the grey light of morning
He'd be seen on the street.
sweating it out
on sneaker clad feet.

He sparred with his partners.
with few in the stands.
Then pummel the light bag
with lightening fast hands.

The fight date was approaching
and no one in the State
gave him much of a chance
of escaping his fate.

The champ was unbeaten.
He ground his foes down.
They'd be down, looking up
at the Champ looking down.

How then to cope
with an unbeatable foe?
This cup would not pass
even if he wished it so.

He was not getting younger,
This was his last shot.
Would he be one more challenger
that history forgot?

He was no timid soul,
avoiding the chance.
He'd go down swinging.
No regrets, he would dance.

He stepped into the ring
and they stood toe to toe
They touched gloved hands together
When the bell rings, you go.

He was small for a Marine,
The dying boy there in the bed.
Three times he'd fought off cancer
but now, inside his head,
a serious infection
would claim his life instead.

Cody Green was only twelve.
All his life he'd loved the Corps.
They made him a navigator,
The insignia he wore.
An honorary soldier
A marine in time of war.

The crises was upon him.
He would not win this fight
A fellow member of the Corps
Stood honor guard all night

There would be a flag draped coffin
for this member of the Corps.
Cody Green, a Young Marine
A Marine in time of war..

The Pedicab drivers of Gotham all say
You should ignore a "Whale Hail"
because it just doesn't pay.
The city is hilly and
to pedal gets tough
when your passengers are,
shall we say, overstuffed.

Two tubby tourists out on the town
between them they weighed about
Eight Hundred Pounds.
They had wiped out the Sushi
at an all you can eat.
Much too lazy to walk
on their overstressed feet.

They hailed for a Pedicab
of which there's a multitude
Thats the sole explanation
for accepting their pulchritude.

Their ride started slowly,
but pleasant enough.
But then came a hill
and the going got rough.

He groaned and he struggled
as he trucked up the road,
but not even juiced Armstrong
could handle this load.

With two tubby tourists
ensconced in the back.
He slowed to a crawl
then stalled in his tracks.

Something had to give
with those two in the rear
The cab then turned turtle
chucking him in the air.

The two tubby tourist
were down on their backs
Their driver unconscious
and two tires flat.

An Ambulance came
and gave him first aide
The two tourists rolled off
and he never got paid.

If we banned too large colas
and sixty ounce beers
could we hope that these
land whales
might,one day, disappear?

Until then its risky
to pick such fares up
unless in a limo
or a truck thats Ram tough

The Miss-Director was beaming with pride
as he came to escort me inside.
"Come along, these are perilous times,
there is much ugly truth we must hide."
"Herr Goebbels was our school's inspiration.
Joe McCarthy taught here till he died.
Charlie Rangel is among our directors.
Our Grads over nations preside."
"We recruit each years class from young children
who display a disdain for the truth."
"We start with a class on tall stories,
progressing to fibs and untruths."
"By the time they are teens they are ready
to leave little white lies behind."
"They engage in deceit and deception.
These skills help them rob people blind."
"With our Grad course in prevarication
They misdirect and deflect with the great."
"Obama was born in Hawaii,
his foes say he was birthed out of state."
"When Bill Clinton was caught in that perjury
I nearly went out of my mind."
"If only he'd paid more attention in Class
and less to some coed's behind."

We had come to a massive rotunda
The Pantheon of all untruth.
Holograms of Stalin and Churchill
told whoppers in an endless loop.
There were quotes from
the World's Great Religions
inscribed on the sides of the wall.
A Left wing devoted to Lenin.
A right wing like a Munich beer hall.

" The sheeple must never be told
that a place like this even exists."

" You can count on me not to inform them."
I said, without moving my lips.

In my mind's eye
I can see her;
Her dark hair now silver grey,
He smooth child's cheek
now wrinkled
by the light of many days.

Such days as those
she never saw.
Informed upon
and dammed.
Anne Frank lies in
a common grave,
No tombstone bears her name.

Imagine, in a better world,
if her family had survived.
Somewhere, in anonymity,
she might still be alive.

He'd broken hearts, he made girls cry
to him twas all the same.
He was, you see, a player,
and "love" his favorite game.
It helped that he was handsome
in a rakish sort of way.
When lovers turned the talk to "Love"
He'd get himself away.
Until one day he met his match;
a colleen with a fiery mane.
Blue eyed and fair,with quite a pair,
Her wit drove him insane.
The knave of hearts was *******
by the mere mention of her name.
Thereafter nothing seemed the same
as back when it had been a game.

These empty rooms
devoid of life,
behind a bookcase
in the hall.
This was, for a time,
our home
while the Germans
held the Dutch in thrall.
My wife since dead from hunger,
my daughters in a common grave.
I, Otto Frank, the sole survivor.
Is there no one I can save?
Annelise, my dearest daughter,
Miep Gies gave me your book.
The Germans cast it on the floor
without a second look.
Here in your words I find
that not all of you has died.
Here your words may speak
for all who suffered, all who cried.
Its small comfort for an old man,
broken, ready for the grave,
but my girl might be a symbol
for all those we could not save.

At first they were vivid,
Technicolor dreams.
So real you could touch them
and taste them it seemed.
With time all the images
would fade to pastel.
He saw his dreams
for what they were,
as realists often will.
When they turned to black and white
in the cold hard glare of day
He'd prayed then for a dreamless sleep
who needs them anyway.
Then came the darkest night
when all was bare and drear.
He longed then for the dreams of youth,
but none, of course, appeared

The Warden roused them early
on this, their final day.
He marched them out on hobbled feet-
Grey trucks took them away.

Doctors, lawyers, engineers,
All captured in a raid.
German Soldiers had been killed
Reprisals must be made..

Fathers, Husbands, sons all caught
within the **** snare.
Among them was a carpenter
Who bowed his head in prayer.

He’d walk the hills of Rome no more
Nor touch a lover’s cheek.
Here, near the Via Appia
He’d find eternal sleep.

Five by five they entered in
to the foreboding cave.
There they knelt for benediction,
the kind that pistols gave.

The cave became a charnel house
Each man shot in the head.
It reeked of blood and excrement
Flies feasted on the dead.

The carpenter fell once or twice.
Can blood for blood atone? .
His killers coveted his coat
and forced him to disrobe.

By now they had grown sloppy
with drink and hate and fear.
The first shot missed completely
The second grazed his ear.

In seconds live eternities
He said his final prayer:
“Forgive them, Father, even this
done out of hate and fear

several shots rang out just then
each found his noble head
they shot him once more, in his side
to make sure he was dead.


Explosions rocked and sealed the cave
With tons of rock and stone
They didn’t think to post a guard
The grey trucks drove back home.

Each morning I'm awakened
by my annoying little friend.
As long as he has wood
he will be at it once again.
"Woody" has been with me now
for days beyond recall.
A Persistent little Pecker,
the little ****** gives his all.
For a month now he's been tapping
on the tree outside my den.
On weekends its annoying
cause I like to sleep till Ten.
I so wish someone would eat him,
perhaps the neighbor's cat,
and end his constant tapping
by putting paid to that.

It was a dry , sunny day in June.
that fact she would never forget.
It was the day she lost her partner
to a surfeit of regret.

She had taken their little daughter,
the product of donated *****,
to the nearby Hillside Park
and picnic'd on the side of a berm.

Jane had declined to come with them.
Jane was in one of her "moods".
Perhaps she shouldn't have left her,
but she thought Jane just needed to brood.

Jane was her beautiful partner
erratic, mercurial, bright.
Jane, who could light up the heavens
like a bolt from the blue in the night.

They returned to a silent apartment.
It was the stuff of nightmares, not dreams.
A red streak of blood in the bathroom
Her little girl started to scream.

A kind neighbor cared for her daughter
as she spoke to police in a fog.
The M.E.'s van came for the body.
Seeing Jane lifeless was odd.

Tomorrow, she must make arrangements.
She needn't bear this all alone.
It was time that she spoke with Jane's parents.
Softly weeping, she picked up the phone.

Joe Bisquick was driving,
It was late Friday night.
He turned his rig left
when he should have gone right.
Folks say he avoided
a fork in the road.
His rig overturned
And he lost his whole load.
There was hungry Jack Syrup
on the Buttermilk Pike.
It oozed onto the shoulders
Of the road left and right.
All of that Syrup-
Not a pancake in sight!.
Police questioned Butterworth-
Who had motive and cause,
But she was released,
having broken no laws.
Pancake breakfasts were cancelled
In Kentucky the next day
Aunt Jemima made
a clean get away.

I can't say it was what I expected,
(an intimate dinner for two).
When Charlize showed up
with two bodyguards
What's a poor fella to do?

She glides in with the grace of a dancer
which is what she first wanted to be.
Charlize won the "Lucky Genes" Lotto,
I didn't unfortunately.

There I was was, stammering, star struck
blathering blithely away.
She passed a remark about mirrors,
suggesting I use one someday.

She could have been lovely and gracious,
instead she was distant and rude.
It seemed she was still Queen Ravenna
and I was the Burger King dude.

I dropped fifty large for the dinner
A pittance for charity due.
There's not likely to be little monsters
as Charlize and i are quite through

The decedent weighed 500 pounds.
Her shape was decidedly round.
When cremation was requested,
Her fat cells combusted
and burned the old funeral home down.

The director ought to have been wary
Of a corpse it takes ten men to carry.
He sought long, in vain,
a home for her cremains.
“A barrel, perhaps?” offered Larry.

Her overweight fatty remains
exploded when touched by the flame.
Some speculate gas
Leaking out of her ***
was possibly partly to blame.
.
So if you’re a “plus” girl or guy
And in the course of events you should die.
Choose the dirt nap, not flame
For your mortal remains
It appears Butterballs shouldn’t fry.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary….

When books are replaced with Kindles and Nooks,
and content resides on the cloud,
It is relatively easy to delete certain works
at the whim of the haughty and proud.

If libraries falter, wither and die
The poor will lose the printed word.
Ten percent of the market will quickly dry up
and the price of a book gets absurd.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary.

The pleasure we had in turning each page
as our minds raced ahead to the end.
Short battery life never hindered our quest
when ****, Jane and Spot were our friends.

A storm on the Sun bringing ionized rays
and digital files are undone.
and force us to search yellow crumbling pages
for rumors of Kipling and Donne.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary.

Was Bradbury right? Should we all memorize
the words born of our favorite pen?
Imagine reciting Shakespeare’s Hamlet by heart
so that silence won’t win in the end.

Bargaining with the Venusians
can prove quite expensive indeed.
(Arranging the transit of Venus
cost me astronomical fees.)

I'm assured it will last me a lifetime-
The last in this century they say.
I've spared no expense to arrange that
it coincides with  my daughter's birthday.

After today I will never
see Venus transit the Sun,
Her childhood, too just a memory
Now that she's turned Twenty -one.

My life was changed when you arrived,
I moved from Rock to lullaby.
I watched you as you grew and thrived
Just Daddy and his little guy.

When first you learned to ride your bike
and, wobbling, you sped away
I had a weird sensation that
I had just grown a touch more grey.

through every step of life with you
from nursery school through your degree
I paid the bills, I gave the rides
Life's afternoon you walked with me.

Afterwards,out with your friends
some beauties' eyes attracted you.
You stayed out late with your dates.
and I could not wait up for you.

Still later when you moved away,
and had a family of your own.
I didn't get to see you much,
we kept in touch mostly by phone.

Life is a journey, not a state
We knew this day would come for me
When I must go embrace my fate
and you must bide your destiny.

Our paths diverge, just yours goes on.
but do not stop to grieve for me.
I always knew this day would come
That I'd become a memory.

For so it was, and will always be
We parents bring life to this world
We start out as your guide and friend
never to see the journey end.

Unseen and scene,
Of both composed;
these aery heavens,
this solid globe.
Will roused my Sire’s
ghost from the grave.
Will would, for
that’s the part
he played.
What is Will’s will
I next should say?
Will I best Laertes
with my foil today?
Will the villain, Claudius,
be undone
by his victim’s
vacillating son?
What is Will’s will
regarding Mum?

Unseen and scene,
Of both composed;
these Aery heavens
this solid globe.

Now I lay dying,
and Fortenbras comes.
Let my tale be told
in every tongue.
“The rest is silence”-
Thy will be done.

Do you really need that second slice?
Don't you dare to super size!
Guzzling down large sugary drinks-
Do you rally think that's wise?

Your hamburger is much too large
I'd cur it down to size
until its like those square ones
that White Castle serves sans fries.

I taught the City not to smoke
in that I was thought wise.
Unhand that Nathans hot dog!
It will go straight to your thighs.

I guess I'm just a Puritan,
my happiness undone
by the thought that somewhere, someone
might still be having fun.

Lawrence Davis was a veteran
who died without a next of kin.
He's buried in the cardboard box
That the V.A. shipped him in.

Being dead, he cannot tell
cardboard from Mahogany.
We, the living, take offense
at the insult to this man's dignity.

Some men lie still in foreign fields.
Some sailors sleep beneath the waves.
Larry got a cardboard box
from a 'grateful' nation he helped to save.

Eight Thousand and twenty games it took
before Howie could put it in the books.
There was, here and there,
a base on *****.
One desperate catch against the wall.
One possibly disputed call,
but Johan Santana got them all..

Bob Murphy would have loved this night
The Park in Queens alive with cheers.
Fans walking out in a gentle rain
with his happy recap in their ears.

His mother goes there every day.
His dried blood stains still mark the spot.
She gets down on her knees and prays.
Such grief will never be forgot.

Her son was murdered for his phone.
A single bullet to the head.
A single gold shell case was found
not far from when he was found dead.

He was his mother's only son
coming home from work at night.
Police came and took his Dad-
for victims must be identified.

Such suffering must one's heart bear
remembering that final day
to see him silent on a slab.
over and over it replays.

So numerous are Urban youth
like drops of water in a stream.
Still each drop is a human life.
Every droplet bears a dream.

His mother goes there every day.
A gentle rain begins to fall.
His girl left some carnations there.
She struggles to accept it all.

Politicians speak about "The Fallen",
Our dear departed servicemen*
Its a nasty euphemism
for the Legion of our dead.
For they did not gently flutter down
like leaves of gold and brown.
They were raked by foes' machines guns
as they fought to take some ground.
  They've met slaughter on the beaches,
been slain on distant mountainsides.
They've been sacrificed, quite needlessly,
for some Politicians' pride
Many a mother's heart's been broken
Widows and orphans have been made.
Political Stupidity has dug many a grave.
So don't speak about "the Fallen",
you who haven't borne the fight.
You've never paid the butcher's bill
so what gives you the right?

A simple kiss upon your cheek,
A gentle, loving kiss.
Not amorous or passionate,
Not connoting love remiss.
Thirty years ago
we were an "item" as they say.
I broke your heart
with my callousness
when, hurtfully, I strayed
I'm not proud that I hurt you.
Sad that it comes to this-
To kiss you like a stranger
feels like the Judas Kiss.

I lay down on my living room floor
Convinced that the world would end.
A crisis off Cuba with missiles in route.
Yes, I am a Child of Then.

A lady in pink with blood on her dress.
A President shot in the head
I remember where I was exactly that day
Yes, I am a Child of Then.

Police battle Blacks, Watts is in flames
Protests rage on without end.
King is dead at the hand of a bigoted man
Yes, I am a Child of Then.

Camelots heir sought to bind up the wounds
Then Sirhan Sirhan shot him dead.
Bobby bled out on the kitchen tiled floor
Yes, I am a Child of Then.

Asian girl running, naked, on a dirt country road.
A Viet Cong man shot in the head
Fifty Eight Thousand names on a wall
Yes, I am a Child of Then.