There were six of them, officer.
Each 800 pounds.
They had horns on their heads
and they moo'd mean and loud.
They trampled my gate,
made a mess of my pond
then they scattered my guests
and the party was on!
They tipped over the table
that held all the beer.
smashed the cans with their hooves
and they lapped up the cheer.
With the smell of their relatives
seared on the grill
I thought after their keeger
they'd be out for the ****.
I banged on my garbage pails
desperately thinking
The noise would stampede
these fat heifers out drinking.
They finished the Bud I had
bought at the store.
Then they sent my dog "here we go"
looking for more.
Your police car's loud sirens
put the bovines to flight
and they disappeared
drunkenly into the night.
Believe me Officer
I know what your thinking
but truly and honestly
I haven't been drinking


much

Viking chiefs Valhalla bound,
at death, were not interred I've found.
On a fire ship they 'd place their chief
and cremate him per their belief.

Was it an obsequious grief
that gave rise to this strange belief?
For seafaring folk it scarce seems mete
to lose a captain, then burn the fleet.

With Dragon heads fixed fore and aft
Those ships brought terror, sword and shaft.
Irish Monks would think its fine
to burn one to the water line.

The ship of death was burning bright
as it sank within the fjord that night
carrying the Viking chiefs cremains
to his Viking gods' domains.

Was it conspicuous consumption
that drove the Vikings to this junction?
Perhaps after a life , ****** and gory,
they craved going out in a blaze of glory.

I used to love that
perfume you would wear:
Pavlova, by pavot.
The name rings a bell.
In the post ****** heat
I remember it well.

Mandarin Orange with
raspberry ,musk,
Jasmine and Hyacinth
all that came between us.

Now the scent is redolent
of another place and time.
It returns me to our youth
in that summer of sixty nine

It of course has no such power
to make me, once more, twenty three-
but its subtle hints of citrus
gives rise to my

memory.

fifteen hundred Starbucks shuttered
by a maintenance miscue.
How will I face this morning
without their bitter brew.
Their water filter system
was due for an overhaul.
Now this forced decaffeination
has me climbing up the walls.
Where's my choc o-mocha latte,
topped with whipped cream
cooled with skim?
Without those extra calories
I'll soon be down a chin.
I miss my blonde barrista, Jill.
and her great good morning smile.
Rakeesh at Dunkin Donuts'
lacks her figure and her style.
I'm reduced to getting coffee
from a roadside hot dog stand.
why he doesn't have free WI-fi
I'm at a loss to understand.

I remember well his spirit
on that warm September day.
Al Quaida had attacked us,
Tom enlisted right away.

In Operation Phantom Fury,
near deaf from the cannons roar,
He manned a Marine battery
in November of 04'

He was present when Fallujah fell
proud of his unit's aim.
Then he saw his best friend die
After that, his letters changed.

He came unscratched through tours of duty
both there and in Afghanistan.
He was strangely quiet when back home
like he was a different man.

At night we would be awakened
by his screaming in his sleep.
He was haunted by experiences
of which he wouldn't speak.

The V.A. couldn't help him
escape the horror of the war.
Wounds so deep opened in sleep,
unbound, unsalved,and raw.

I thank you for the folded flag,
The honors of the field.
We lost Tom several years ago,
only now is it revealed.

The rain has stopped falling,
and the sun no longer shines.
Can broken hearts
truly be mended?
perhaps, on the other side.

The joke bears the retelling.
You didn't cry alone.
Your suffering is ended.
In song you still go on.

May the loser finally win
May your sorrows be redressed.
May broken hearts be rendered whole
May your tears be dried at last.



( Robin Gibbs, RIP)

A star lit night, a harvest moon
and you and I alone.
It might have been romantic
if you were not just bones.
Lucy was a hominid,
perhaps the mother of our race.
At three foot six she's quite petite
with an almost human grace.
Careful testing has determined
the age of your precious bones
which walked ***** and upright
in an age before cell phones.
Driven from the tree tops
that the great apes still call home.
You walked on the Savannah
and scavenged meat from bone.
So much your remains tell us,
bones that never knew the grave.
Those who you loved, all vanished,
like the grass in fire's rage.
You may not even have a name
or a name I could pronounce.
Your finder called you Lucy
so that's the name that counts.
He was whistling a Beatles tune
in Olduvai gorge one day
when you empty brain case
caught his eye, he dared not look away.

( Written as a rejoinder to my friend's poem: "Poem written to a buxom young Lady")


You’re very tall
And painfully thin.
Your bust and waist
the same.
Your voice is high
and pitchy.
To hear it causes pain.
Your wardrobe,
much like Superman’s,
lacks all variety.
You’re an unfit
***** mother
you’ve neglected
poor sweetpea.
Yet two men
battle over you.
It strikes me
a little strange.-
but in your cartoon universe
You are the only game.
I think I’d side with Whimpy
And watch the others fight.
I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday
for a hamburger tonight.

The air was brilliant, crisp and clean,
as he in walked in on a sea of green.
Kerry Woods, old 34,
at Wrigley field, his field of dreams.

Upon a time, old Cubs fans say,
He struck out twenty in one day.
He stirred some hope the “curse” was gone;
the hope that Cubs fans live upon.

The surgeon’s knife put hope to bed-
his blazing fastball all but dead.
He could no longer start in games,
As a closer he achieved some fame..

He journeyed there, he journeyed here,
At times, in flashes, it would appear,
That blazing fastball on the gun
that time and surgeons had undone.

We all come to that final day
when we can no longer play.
Upon the mound for one last time,
What would be Kerry’s final line?

He threw three strikes, the last one swinging-
Kerry had that fastball singing
When coach came out to take the ball
Cheers shook the ivy covered walls.

He held his young son in his arms
and doffed his cap to cheering fans.
Old 34 then disappeared
In the ancient clubhouse beneath the stands..

A child is born
to her ***** mom.
The ***** donor
has fled and gone.

The road seems hard
when walked alone,
but she has you
to depend upon.

You have family to help.
You have courage and grace.
A dependent to nurture
and the future to face.

Your tale is common,
but sadly so.
For bad boys come,
and bad boys go.

They lack the virtues
that define a man.
Who would be a father
and become a Dad.

That's why your own mom
held your hand
as you bore down
again, again.

Rewarded with a cry,
her song.
This morning early
A child is born.

Dancing Queen
of youthful nights,
of crystal globes
and stobing lights.
To say that you
are gone seems wrong,
for we still have your
voice in song.

For one night only,
with no repeat,
I'd join the scrum
of dancing feet.
In tune, in time
with your talented drummer
My Queen ,you gave us
endless Summer.

A fiftieth anniversary party
up in the upper room.
The bride is here dressed in her best-
but,sadly, not the groom.
He rests beneath the
fresh turned earth.
I guess it was his time.
He cannot raise a toast to her
who was his lovely bride.
We did not think it right that she
should spend that day alone.
So we called in all the relatives,
We worked the telephone.
The menu and the courses-
the same as back in 38'
The best man had to send regrets
He wasn't doing great.
At least the maid of honor came.
My nieces sang old songs.
Death may have thought he crashed her party
but he couldn't be more wrong.
Surely Dad was in the room
though dust returns to dust.
We do not live in the past
but those passed still live in us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Someday the songs that we have loved
will not be played on air.
Music belongs to the young,
not the old with greying hair.
As we boomers file retirement,
or pass beyond the vale,
our boast that rock would never die
is past its date of sale.
Its' hard to do the hustle
when your hips no longer hop
When dementia runs epidemic
more than lyrics are forgot.
When your sitting in the Nursing Home
awaiting your ice cream.
You'll most likely be listening
to someone Else's teenage dream.

Pressure intense
around my head
and shoulders.
I am pushed
******
towards a distant
glimmering light.
My perfect
world
collapsing.
I am pulled
unwilling
into a world of bright
and cold.
Pummeled
by a white coated
assassin.
Made to weep
forced to breathe.
They lay me down
on your warm belly.
Your voice says
softly
"Hello, little guy"
I think
( but do not say)
Happy Mother's Day!

Pressure intense
around my head
and shoulders.
I am pushed
******
towards a distant
glimmering light.
My perfect
world
collapsing.
I am pulled
unwilling
into a world of bright
and cold.
Pummeled
by a white coated
assassin.
Made to weep
forced to breathe.
They lay me down
on your warm belly.
Your voice says
softly
"Hello, little guy"
I think
( but do not say)
Happy Mother's Day!

The Sun, at dusk, was ruddy red,
as it was swallowed by the sea.
A promise of fair weather
and a gentle rolling sea.

Come morning we'll be outward bound
as the winds possess the sails.
Then, out beyond the harbor,
under way and under sail
my first mate and I will revel
in the fresh and salty air.
Making way along the shore
with a gentle pitch and yaw
Was that a babe in a bikini
or a mermaid I just saw?

We tack around a floating buoy
and towards the deep we bear.
On the far horizon, bright colored sails
belong to friends of ours.

This is freedom best defined
on a sea as smooth as glass.
Free to choose and set your course
as freely hours pass.

The sun grows lower in the sky
its time we must return
to our mundane working life
for to play we first must earn.

Reluctantly we tack about
and set our course for shore.
its time to find safe harbor
for our boat the "Pinafore".

That night was cold,
The wind was biting.
All over Ireland
the snow was falling

“I was packing
my trousseau,
To Dublin town
I was to go.”
“I heard a pebble
strike my pane.
A moment passed,
then, there, again.”
“I looked out
On the snow filled lane.
That’s when I saw him,
Saw my Michael.
His pale face raised
toward my light.
Like an angel
lost in contemplation.”
“Michael’s health was not the best.
His lungs were weak
and fluid filled.”
“Soon after I had left the West,
I heard that he had fallen ill.”
“He’s buried now near Sligo town,
between Ben Bulben and the sea.
Michael Furey's soul is free,
You know, I think he died for me.”

They looked so happy,
the couple upstairs.
He, roughly handsome,
was tall and strong
She, dark and lithe,
was prone to song.
Their apartment was done
in the height of fashion.
where scented candles
lit nights of passion.

Now their place is dark
and the shades are drawn.
He sits and wonders
where they went wrong.
in the room once shared
now devoid of song
It's painfully obvious
that she's gone.

They are,and aren't, like we are;
born with an extra chromosome.
They are,unlike us, trusting souls,
brave hearts, and never ideologues .
Their time is short upon this Earth.
Seldom will they reach old age.
Souls of unconditional love
who make no mark on history's page.
They used to call them mongoloids
blunted features with Asian eyes
Now they are erased in Vivo
So seldom are they born alive.
They used to be the child who stayed
with their parents until old age.
Hearts full of love, devoid of greed
Now marked for death because, you see,
imperfection is not what we need.

The learned Dons of Oxford
Have invented and refined
An efficacious compound;
Love Potion number nine.

A heady mix of pheromones
and vitamins and such.
Just give it to your blasé mate
And she’ll hunger for your touch.

Oxytocin warms her heart
and bonds her to your side.
Testosterone’s included
So she’s randy as a bride.

A simple pill upon her tongue
And passion is restored.
A boon for long time couples
Rather lacking in Amor.

Just be sure to stay at home
when she ingests the pill.
If you don’t make yourself available
The mailman can and will.

to contemplate your beauty
is this poets' guilty pleasure,
but, as we're taking separate trains,
this joy won't last forever.
The play of light upon your face
as you read some Lovers' twit
gives you an aspect of Kabuki
in the station's dark abyss.
Your perfect, doll-like, features
painted porcelain by the light
An oasis of sheer beauty
amidst the station's urban blight.
Too quick, the moment passes.
I board and you remain.
For, you see, I'm headed Westbound
aboard the downtown train.
You reminded me of one I loved
in another place and time.
The girl who is forever young
and never far from mind.

Short is our tenure
on this beautiful Earth.
As brief as the grass
In winter’s cold breathe.
Death, the implacable foe,
Bids us yield.
Faith is our Armor,
our Carapace, our shield.
Denial, our method
of avoiding the shroud.
When Donne is not done,
Death be not proud.
A tenuous tenor may
Give voice to fear.
Yet, turning to face him,
No one is there.
The prize is our self
And possession is all.
All else is but vanity
To hang on a wall.

"Are the gods angry?"
she said with a laugh
as Vesuvius rumbled
with warnings advance.

I cuffed her behind,
but gently, and laughed:
"Lady bring me more wine
for my morning repast."

I had sup'd with old Pliny
just the evening before.
Admiral of the fleet
anchored safely offshore.

My vineyards are fruitful,
a source of fine wines.
and the olives, when pressed,
make a spread that's divine.

My Villa is handsome,
and I own many slaves.
so you see I've no use
for their Jesus who saves.

The top of the mountain
disappeared in a blast
Our homes are laid siege to
with pumice and ash.

The women are screaming
I hear a child cry.
I hear prayers vainly offered
to an uncaring sky.

The air is quite thick
My lungs are oppressed.
My Villa is burning
along with the rest.

With a cloth on my mouth,
I race to the shore,
hoping, dear Pliny,
to see you once more.

I look on with horror
as burning stone blocks my path
I crouch by a wall
as my last moments pass.


* * * * *
The Archeologist tutted
"Well, who have we here?
"Clearly no slave
from this ring it appears."

" I am Lucius Flavius."
My Lemure would remind.
but I'm like a statue
and mute for all time.

They can’t be seen.
They won’t be felt,
when you and they collide.
They’re like universal glue
That keeps the Heavens bound.
In the dark of seeming empty space
Is where the W.I.M.P’s abound.
Invisible, undetectable
the source of beings’ ground.
Science hasn’t seen one yet-
They’re difficult to find.
Yet Scientists believe in W.I.M.P’s
Though they’re tricky to divine.

In the German town of Shtuping
Something clearly was amiss:
Town name signs were disappearing,
The good townsfolk were nonplussed!
“For years tourists have sniggered
At our name when driving by
As its Yiddish for activity
A girl does with a guy”.

Some people want to keep the name
That makes the tourists come.
Others are ashamed to say
That Shtuping’s where they’re from.

When the townsfolk vote to change the name
It will cost a pretty penny
To change the signs from "Shtuping"
To the new: "Notgettingany".

There will be no service and no luncheon
when you “now” becomes a “Then”
Just a dignified cremation
awaits at your Journey’s end.
There will be no spoken eulogy
By a priest who knew you not.
No crying yapping relatives-
For none had you begot.
There are those of us
who’ll shed a tear,
to think the old Girl’s passed.
but there’ s no need to wear a suit
Or get the Limos gassed.
You’ll have passed on in your sleep
Having felt the needles pinch.
A far more humane fate I think
than dying by the inch.
Brownie was a good dog
And often gave me her paw.
She always got excited
when she saw me at the door.
A better pet you couldn’t get,
Nor meet a gentler soul.
I’ll shed a quiet private tear
when I put away her bowl.

It is a pleasant place to lie,
amidst a copse of Olive trees.
The tears of muses, never dried,
have effaced the writing from your stone.
These hills about once knew your step,
your strong and confident poet’s stride.
Robert, the Royal Fusilier,
Once thought dead, but you’d survived.

Your home is a museum now,
Your Black Cordoban hangs on the wall.
I step into the little den
where you finally said farewell to all.
Looking out your window I
Espy a naked maiden flee.
Skin starkly white with Golden hair-
The White goddess? Could it be?
At any rate, a comely lass,
Beauty to whet a poet’s pen
I’ve heard you were inspired thus
by lovely muses, now and then.


Your domestic arrangements
Were quite strange;
celibate infidelity.
I’ll admit that’s one I haven’t tried.
Nor would I like to, honestly.
But your genius can’t be ignored.
by honest literary men.
I’ve spend hours in Ancient Rome
transported by your fertile pen.

Farewell Robert, Beryl too
You knew he’d be yours at the end.
Muses fuel a poet’s pen
But cannot love as wives may do.

There was a man who was a fraud.
Incarcerated, He found the Lord.
“I am here for my dereliction,
But why are you in this situation?”
“I heard a soul call out my name,
a spirit in a world of pain.”
“Tonight he dies by lethal injection.
I came to hear his last confession”
“He killed a young girl”, Charles Colson said,
“Surely, it’s just when he, too, is dead.”
“I see that Justice in your mind
is of the eyeless, toothless kind.”
“On you, the irony is lost,
But his gurney is shaped like my cross.”
“He bears the cross known as regret,
His crown of thorns awaits him yet.”
“Forgive me, Lord”, the Felon sighed
“my rush to judgment and my pride.”
“ Let me be reborn this night,
that I might show the world your light.”
He spoke this as a humble prayer,
to a man no longer there.”
The Lord had moved to the bedside
Of the one who would be crucified.

From the moment I first saw her
I knew she was the girl for me.
Sun freckled skin and auburn hair;
Her eyes laughed Merrily .
Intelligent and focused
with a smile forever young.
I doubted not a moment
that she would be "the one"

"I love thee, I love but thee
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold
And the stars grow old." -
I'll be your special guy!

She looked at me, perhaps askance,
When I had said those lines.
I think she knew their provenance
was another place and time.
" Unless you're wearing Pantaloons
and have a balding pate
don't be quoting Shakespeare at me
if you expect a second date."

Unabashedly ashamed was I-
caught stealing others' lines.
I longed to be her Romeo
with balconies to climb.

To lie with her beneath the stars
to share Love's sweet delights-
these days its but a memory
that keeps me warm at nights.

I nearly fell out of my comfortable chair
when I heard some sexologist declare:
“The scent of licorice in the air
makes men and women want to pair.
Far more effective than cologne,
Use licorice or you’ll sleep alone.”
Some say Chocolate gets you “Honey”-
I say try some “Good and Plenty”

Remember Charlie? he was an engineer
He didn’t drink coffee and abstained from beer
“Charlie had an engine and he sure had fun
He used “Good and Plenty” candy
cause it made his “train” run”

For all I know, this tale is baloney
Licorice may leave you ***** and lonely.
But if you are lonely and feeling forlorn,
candy’s much cheaper than rhinoceros horn.

For Secret servicing so nice
and pay for play that rocked your world,
best keep private your secret vice;
If there's a next time, Pay the Girl.

Squabbling with a *******
in Cartegena of all places
has made you unemployable
and caused flushed and embarrassed faces.

Your actions placed POTUS at risk-
Foreign relations are so tricky
Settle on price before you play,
avoiding situations sticky.

Your servicing was less than secret
The whole world knows you sought some "strange"
A shame you lasted just a minute-
still no excuse to ask for change.

For Secret servicing so nice
and pay for play that rocked your world,
best keep private your secret vice;
If there's a next time, Pay the Girl.

Squabbling with a *******
in Cartegena of all places
has made you unemployable
and caused flushed and embarrassed faces.

Your actions placed POTUS at risk-
Foreign relations are so tricky
Settle on price before you play,
avoiding situations sticky.

Your servicing was less than secret
The whole world knows you sought some "strange"
A shame you lasted just a minute-
still no excuse to ask for change.

A learned scientist opines
in outer space there are two lines:
Proteins that would mirror mine,
and sugars of a non digestible kind.
On Earth “Left handed” proteins rule
at Barrows base right up to Thule.
“Right handed” sugars fuel our race
“left Handed” sugars have no place.
In our earthly reality
We have homochirality.

Still, somewhere in the cosmic dust
might be the opposite of us.
On a world no meteor ever scored
Might be space faring dinosaurs!
Intelligent, cunning and with big teeth-
Suppose they come to disturb our “peace”
Velociraptors with ray guns
might be as nasty as they come.
Thank God the U.S. has Marines
to blow those “Saurs” to smithereens.
Then, after they have taken their licking
We’ll find out if they taste like chicken.

On this, the last night of our world,
As rockets flare and people scream,
A floating mount of artic ice
has made a nightmare of our dream.

Dear Charlotte, get into the boat.
Don’t make an orphan of our child.
I smile and lie and say that I
will be along in just a while.

She nods, and we share a final kiss,
a kiss redolent of goodbye.
It is my hope that they will live,
while I prepare myself to die.

Doomed gentlemen upon the deck;
noble, wealthy or in trade.
I play as brave as any there
In this, our final masquerade.

Their little lifeboat floats away
adrift upon a sea of glass.
I pray, for the first time in years,
full knowing that this cup won’t pass.

Should I go down with the ship?
That is the Captain’s choice, I hear.
Or put a gun into my mouth
And firing put an end to fear?

No. I will stand with these brave men,
Who made the choice that I have made.
We’ll leap before Titanic sinks
And in these depths  find honorable graves.

Rice, Potatoes, Wheat and corn-
All starch and sugars, I contend.
They go right to your bottom line,
contributing to fat rear ends.

Those sugary drinks you gulp in gallons,
And all those meals you eat in haste-
Contribute to your lack of tone,
those rolls of fat about your waist.

Ancestors on arboreal plains
walked all day in search of meat.
We drive to the convenience store
to keep the weight off our sore feet.

Exercise some sort of will
And don’t resort to diet pills.
Eat lean protein, please don’t scoff
when your talking scale says “Please get off!”

The smell of rockets, all burned out,
lingers in the chill night air.
A thousand voices scream and shout
And slowly dwindle in despair.
I’m clinging to this upturned lifeboat-
Strong hands reached out and I was spared.
I turn to look upon Titanic
But there is only flotsam there.

My friend and I had jumped together.
He went first when I declined.
He was ****** down by Titanic;
a victim of the White Star line.
Somehow I was spared his fate.
I’m dripping wet and freezing cold.
If only I survive this night-
I’ll stay on land till I grow old.

"You, Come here!"
spoke the Roman, looking mean,
clearly, he meant me,
Simon of Cyrene.

I do not like to argue
with men who play at war.
He motioned I should take the cross
that the Rebel, Jesus, bore.

My strong shoulder lifted up
the heavy, rough Hewn cross.
No wonder he had fallen,
look at all the blood he's lost.

We walk together for a while
up the steep incline
I do not speak, but I wonder,
what is on the Rebel's mind.

they stretch him out upon the cross
and drive nails in his wrists
They raise him up and jam him down
They have practice doing this.

He's speaking to two women
and a man, perhaps a friend
maybe only they can hear him,
his voice weaker than the wind.

The people of Jerusalem
Taunt the Rebel as he dies
Three hours pass, he speaks his last
vain prayer up to the sky

the soldiers have to break the legs
of those two who hung with thee
and they jab a pilus in the side
of the man from Galilee.

The day by then was cold and raw
where the sun had shined before.
I made my way back down the hill,
with disgust for Roman law

I'm too old for the part,
too old to even read.
This cuts me to the quick-
(something my ego didn't need.)
I had thought that gray was ****,
the director thinks its not.
It might have been, sans double chin,
and without this large bald spot.

Instead he has me trying out
for a humorous,character, role.
Swallow your pride, Othello,
it beats being back on the dole.
I remember waiting tables ,biding time
back when times were lean and so was I,
Then nothing lay between a maiden's legs,
and I played Hamlet beneath the summer sky.


Our film proves a modest success
I receive some kind words for my art.
The critics are harsh towards the lead
they opine he's too young for the part!

I'm too old for the part,
too old to even read.
This cuts me to the quick-
(something my ego didn't need.)
I had thought that gray was ****,
the director thinks its not.
It might have been, sans double chin,
and without this large bald spot.

Instead he has me trying out
for a humorous,character, role.
Swallow your pride, Othello,
it beats being back on the dole.
I remember waiting tables ,biding time
back when times were lean and so was I,
Then nothing lay between a maiden's legs,
and I played Hamlet beneath the summer sky.


Our film proves a modest success
I receive some kind words for my art.
The critics are harsh towards the lead
they opine he's too young for the part!

The portrait, done in black and white,
dominates their room.
A picture of their special day,
a day for bride and groom.
The only splash of color;
a bouquet of roses red.
“Jacob made that of us
on the day that we were wed.”
“For years it graced the storefront
of his studio in Bellerose.”
“He’d done our album for us
And he really liked this pose.”
“When we heard his shop was closing,
(Years of smoking took their toll)
My husband had to have it
Before the place was sold.”
When she spoke about her husband
There was love in every word.
It was: “We did this” and
“We saw that”
I listened and observed.
This wife had that rare quality
that beauties seldom find.
like those roses in their portrait
never fading, ever kind.

My work site is climate controlled,
No Pigeons threaten my peace.
Of all of my gigs, this one is the best,
no acid rain scours my cheeks.
Yes, it is boring at times;
stuck in the Louvre, night and day,
but, as I’m a creature of Marble,
I cannot run outside and play.
Instead I’ve become an observer
of the tourists who whisper and gawk.
That girl with nice ***** is from Paris,
that fat little guys’ from New Yawk.
I pose for their pictures for free
as they snap up some memories for home.
My maker, long dead, was the master
who painted those frescoes in Rome.
Its hard to believe that the heirs
of the Renaissance men of my time
have gotten so fat and complacent,
gorging on fast food and cheap wine.
pig like are their fat chubby faces.
They prate like some fatuous child.
They are, compared to their forebears,
like butterball turkeys to wild.

In the time of the Caesars
The Emperors played god-
although some of them were
most exceedingly odd.

The man on the street,
was dependent, for bread,
on the grain dole that started
ere Julius was dead.

The unemployment problem
in Rome was severe
- at recessionary levels
for year after year.

How to keep happy
those unemployed masses?
Put on a circus
and give all free passes.

There were Lions and Tigers
and men with black faces.
Gladiators were drafted
from men of all races.

Roman blood lust was sated
with violence and wine
and all went home content-
having had a good time.

That which made Rome great
by then was a memory .
But, thought too big to fail,
Rome didn't lack for an enemy.

There's a lesson for us
in that circus and wine.
Empires fall
and its just about time.

Outside our window, Bernini’s fountain played.
At night it often soothed John off to sleep.
My friend was frail and fragile, facing death,
without the comforts that Believer’s seek.

The poet had grown fearful of the dark,
so I kept candles burning through til dawn.
By then he was too weak to write or read,
but took some pleasure in a Robin’s song.

He grew anemic, and Rome’s winter chill
had penetrated into flesh and bone.
His love was far away, dear ***** Brawne.
By Love and duty, I tended him alone.

He coughed up blood, and by its color knew
the hour of his death was growing near.
He summoned me to prop him up in bed
The pain had mostly past despite my fears.

For seven hours thus we both remained,
beyond the help of Doctor, Clerk, or Priest.
There beside the Spanish steps he lingered,
It was nearly midnight when his breathing ceased.

In the Protestant graveyard you will find
all that was mortal of my Poet friend.
“Here lies one whose name was writ on water.”
I disagree, but I carved there what he said.

Plato told a fabulous tale
of two souls so meant to be
that when they met together
she completed he.

For so it was with us, my Love,
from childhood's first shy glance.
For far longer than most married folk
we shared Love's sweet slow dance.

Now it seems you want a break
We no longer are a pair;
At parties where we'd both attend
there is one empty chair.

Our once shared bed is empty, too.
This place I toss and turn.
Faint fragrant traces of perfume
remind me why I yearn.

A brief lacuna in our life
I hope this proves to be.
If this parting is forever
were we never meant to be?

I've lost the best part of myself,
our friends so clearly see.
Like part of Plato's soul I seek
the other half of me

I read your obit yesterday,
The Wake, the Church ,
the whole nine yards.
I never got to say goodbye
before you ventured off to God.
Strange to see your name in print.
In black and white,it seemed so odd.
a casualty of carcinoma
metastasized from a black mole.
Are you a star within the night
looking down from high above?
or are you hiding in the ground
awaiting the last trumpet's sound.
Was your life all that you'd hoped
while, like a snowflake,
you fluttered down.
through time to eternity
to briefly linger
then be gone.

We walked up to the Fun House,
Together, arm in arm.
The ticket taker watched us
with a smile devoid of charm.
"abandon hope, who enter here."
He mirthlessly intoned.
" For some who come together,
will end this night alone."
We walked among the mirrors,
together hand in hand.
At first they were quite innocent,
These walls made out of sand.
Our images were stretched or shrunk
as magic mirrors can.


Then we came to mirrors
unlike the ones before:
My face resembled Satan's,
My girl looked like a *****.
We were somehow seperated
by these walls of molten sand
We ran from that place screaming
like two souls who had been dammed.

We were reduced to silence
by the nightmares that we saw.
Not a word was spoken
as I walked her to her door.
The ticket man had spoken
and the words he spoke were true:
We had spent that time in Hell,
The love we had was through.

The Art World knows her face,
and, for certain, her smile;
a smile sad, enigmatic, constrained.
So I read, with some interest,
of a copy that that’s thought
to share an author one and the same.

The provenance of the piece is not clear;
Some detect the Master’s own style.
Others contend an apprentice’s fingers
transcribed the work like a file.

The dispute will continue, for years
I suspect. The work will be x-rayed for clues
If it turns out to be Leonardo’s own work,
I t will certainly be front page news.

He carried the original wherever he went.
He was proud of this work, I am sure.
In a long life of work there would be time enough
to copy this famed portraiture.

I look on it now: She is modest, demure,
her lips bear the hint of a smile.
She’s a thin coat of oil on poplar wood,
done in his unmistakable style.

Are you a copy or are you for real?
Dear Lady, refined and reserved,
in you was the hand of the Master at work?
Mona Lisa’s not saying a word.

At the foot of the Cross stood the Magdalene
with Mary, his mother, and John.
Jesus was now in extremis-
the curious people had gone.

The mark of the whips were upon him,
an ugly bruise under his eye.
Blood filtered down from the crown made of thorns.
dripping down from his face to one thigh.

Mary watched as her eldest was dying.
Bore her pain with incredible calm.
She wished that, his agony over,
She’d hold him once more in her arms.

With breath that was labored and shallow
He spoke with his life nearly gone
He commended young John to his mother
And commended his mother to John

He looked at the Magdalene sadly
With a love that’s ineffably rare.
Then with loud voice he cried out to Heaven
A fool might think this was despair.

Joseph of Arimethea
came with a ladder near dusk
With the help of the Priest, Nicodemus
He took the crucified Son from his Cross.

Mary was silently weeping
at the body of Christ in her arms.
She looked at the King Pilate murdered.
Whom the people had greeted with Palms

A pretty blonde researcher
was observing, from a “blind”,
some Silverback Gorillas-
among the final of their kind.

The senior of the silverbacks,
his back turned towards the” blind”,
was communicating with his troop
with gestures much like sign.

“She who is observing us
is a member of that tribe
who fell from grace with Heaven
and was banished far and wide.”

“They were banished from this Eden,
and confounded in their speech.
They then made war upon each other
and have never once known peace”

“Observe, in them, their arrogance,
they think themselves evolved,
Yet they are apes that practice war
and ****** their own kind”

“A gorilla child knows not but love
and tenderness in kind.
Where there is many a human child
left neglected on the vine.”

From elsewhere in the Jungle came
the shouts of evil men.
Poachers of the coarsest sort
with Silverbacks in mind.

“Disperse my sons and daughters.
It’s time to flee and hide
from those who seek our hides and meat
to sanctuary, hie.”

The silverback then beat his chest
and, to buy the others time,
charged against those evil men
and, for his children, died.

Time passed before the searchers
came upon the blind
where the murdered Dian Fossey lay
where the Silverback had died.

Poachers want no witnesses
to their  theft of meat and hide
They left with her the severed hands
of one not kin but kind.