I think that I shall never see
a better Carbon Sink than M.I.T.’s

It helps keep green house gas at bay
By sequestering it away

The Carbon Sink works like a tree
but does it more efficiently

When trees in wintertime are bare
The Carbon Sink still cleans the air    

And trees can yield up carbon once again
When Forest fires make them burn

Poems are made by fools like me
But Carbon Sinks are made by M.I.T

A most peculiar thing,
this annonymity-
Sometimes i seek it,
but mostly it finds me.

It begins, of course, in the Spring.
The evenings grow lighter
The air sweeter
and all the world is filled
With sweet optimism.

It continues through
the long hot summer
Humid evenings
and long hot afternoons.
It is a marathon
not a sprint.
Only one team each year
wins the ultimate prize.

It leaves us in the Fall
as Winter’s first foul
Imprecations
chill us to the marrow.
Days darken
and the sun seems absent.

It is both a faith and
a fixation.
Even in winter’s depths
It speaks to us of spring
and the hope
of redemption.


Unless you happen to root for the Mets...

The bachelor and the spinster
stood together, hand in hand,
before the Priest who’d wed them
in the chapel Kilmainham.

With two prison guards as witnesses
there in Kilmainham gaol,
Joseph Plunkett and Grace Clifford
wed at midnight goes the tale.

At dawn a firing squad awaited
her brave bold ****** man.
She’d remember their one, stolen, kiss
and the ring placed on her hand.

Her Joseph chose a dark way home
when he tweaked the lion’s tail.
In martyrdom he found a way
to rouse the sons of Gael.

Some marriages last many years,
some, a shorter time-
but a love that lasts a lifetime
is truly hard to find.

Joseph, knowing what he was to lose
His love and fate embraced.
He died when bullets pierced his heart
while in a state of grace.

The old grey man sat by the window
with his great grandchild in his lap.
He doesn’t speak much since his last stroke
but at least he could teach her to clap.

His brain is a puzzle with some pieces stolen.
He struggles to keep time at bay.
At times he can speak, if the past is invoked.
Most times, he has nothing to say.

For he is an actor, in spotlight unforgiving
who’s forgotten the lines he must say.
His timing is off, he’s missing his mark.
They’re writing him out of the play

The child in his arms, for reasons quite different,
will likely forget this fine day.
Her Great Grandpa a name, a face in a frame,
a memory time has stolen away.

We start out our lives in rooms filled with strangers
then, gradually, we learn our way.
We end up our lives in rooms filled with strangers.
As it was, so t’will be, make away.

Necessity is acknowledged
as invention's Mother,  sure,
but exactly who the father was
is a matter of conjecture.

We were cleaning out the attic
For the estate sale when we found
My fathers’ letters to my mother
from Vietnam, near Khe Sanh.

The pages old and yellowed,
The ink, in places, faded.
written in a boyish script,
with dried tear stains on the pages.

These were written from a battle
in a long and costly war.
They hold a tale of love and longing
For his wife and the child she bore.

My father was a Seabee
On the airstrip at Khe Sanh
By the time the siege was lifted
He was already gone.

The letters end abruptly.
He never made it home.
My mother set aside the letters
and lived the rest of life alone.

I never knew my Father
He never held his child
Still he found a way to touch me
with his letters from Khe Sanh.

You look like her.

No, not in the full light,
nor to the searching
and discerning eye.
But glimpsed briefly-
En passant-
By a mind preoccupied
Like a ghostly image
You look like her..


You, of course, are you.
The resemblance is
Superficial
It is like touching
A woman on her shoulder
Thinking, wrongly,
That she was one
I had loved.

Once upon an Earth lit night,
On NASA Moon base two,
I chanced to spy a cute Brunette –
A space Cadet named Yu.

Her eyes were dark and beautiful
Deep as a lunar mare-
And, freed from bra and gravity-
were ******* beyond compare.

Love in Microgravity
Is a curious affair
She brought me to her snuggle tube
And she restrained me there.

She straddled on the launching pad
And docking was effected
And after a few awkward strokes
Our cadence was perfected.

The Moon Child that resulted
From our friendly first embrace
Forced Yu to have to shuttle back
to Earth from outer space.

It seems that Human embryos
Need gravity to grow.
Else their hearts would be too weak
Their reflexes too slow.

So, like Salmon, we go back
to where our mothers birthed.
Procreation’s problematic
beyond the bounds of Earth.

We named our daughter Luna
-Unoriginal, I know.
And now we’re out near Jupiter
getting busy on Io.

Perhaps they had tried to escape,
or else done some petty crime.
These three would not be gassed or shot-
The rope would serve just fine.

Two men, one boy with nooses fixed-
condemned but never tried.
The nooses tightened on their necks
as they kicked the air and died.

Except the boy, he was too light
He lingered when they died
“Where is God?” one man muttered
“Where is He?” others cried.

They made us all march past the place
Where those three in judgment fell
The boy in his slow agony
still endured his private Hell.

The path we walked was ash and bone
Of former inmates made
Those gassed and buried in the air
These were their sole remains.

“Where is God? Where is He now?”
Some muttered as they passed.
I thought- if He’s not hanging here
More than likely He’s been gassed.


( based on an entry in a Auschwitz survivor’s memoir)

We sat together on the bench,
we’d walked two miles before-
And though neither would admit it
Rest must precede two more.
We looked out upon the water
on this clear but windy day
as it ran in rivulets
down to the Great South Bay.

“I had a dream,” my brother said
“I’ve never dreamt before.”
“I was back on Fern Cliff Avenue.”
“It was nineteen sixty four.
“Back in our house that they tore down
to build  another store.”

“Dad was there, our grand kids too
Some he’d never lived to know.”
“Dad wanted to get out for a walk,
No one else seemed up to go.
So I said I’d accompany him,
Just a minute though.”

He was out the door before I rose
And half way down the block.
You never saw him move so fast.
It was something of a shock”.
“But as I was just twenty five
And I could really fly.
I was sure that I’d catch up with him
I’d hardly need to try...”

“John, it was the strangest thing-
as his lead increased still more.
Each block I walked I gained ten years
Soon everything was sore.”

“When I reached the cemetery block
Down near old John Bowne High
I was every day of seventy
With cataract clouded eyes.”

Inexplicably there was a bar
where a Dry Cleaners was before.
I felt in need of a stiff drink.
So I went in the door.”

“when I went in I was shocked to see
Our Father waiting at his seat”
“He ordered us each a Jamesons
His with ginger ale, mine neat.”

“I know this must be strange to you”
Our sainted Father said. “But I have
Missed you all so much
In the years since I’ve been dead”

“I prayed to see you all once more,
ere I was born again.”

“As a new born child, I will forget
All loves that came before.”
“The wheel of fate will turn again
You’ll see me nevermore”

“We drank then to each others’ health
and stayed to the last call.”
Such stories that he had to tell
I hope I remember all”

“The barkeep nodded towards the door.”
It was my  time to go.”
“I shook our father’s hand once more
As fate would have it so..”

“Just then a loud noise in the street
Awakened me in bed”
“In vain I tried to sleep again,
To find the vision in my head”

My brother grabbed his walking stick
It once was Dad’s, now his
“I usually don’t remember dreams,
But I remembered this.”

The sunlight, like a mother’s touch,
lies gentle on the water’s face.
The last warm breath of summer past
Not ready yet to yield its place


And you and I walk, hand in hand,
Around the long and winding path
Past where fledging Mallards stand
And weeping willows sweep the earth.


From beyond the rushes comes
the soulful melody of a horn..
All else is still, no sound intrudes
upon the bassist and his song..


Above us Ninja squirrels fly
And bomb the path with acorn shells
If they should hit me do not laugh
Odds are that they’ll get you as well.

I’m glad we came to Oakland Lake,
To watch the waterfowl at play,
And have a quiet conversation
about a nearly perfect day.

F
A
L
L
I
N
G

Falling in or out of love
We are falling all the time-
out of favor or out of line.
out of  synch or out of rhyme-


That’s why all poems start at the top,
and line by line decline.
Mimicking their maker’s fate
As we fall through time.

The trick, of course, is to appear
As if we’re standing still.
To create the illusion of permanence
We never had nor never will.

This loss is very hard upon his mother:
Enduring first his birth and then his death.
The time between -scarcely a generation-
But in that short span of time he proved his worth.

They are too few, the proud who wear the emblem,
And fight our countries battles in our stead.
When they found him, his position was surrounded
By the bleeding bodies of Jihadist dead.

Enroll his name among our Countries’ heroes
Remember him for all of time to come,
But put away the medal they awarded-
I need no medal to recall my son.

My brave strong son who first fought in Fallujah,
and battled militants in Kandahar.
He joined the fallen as his tour was ending
Hearts can't be mended with a golden star..

In the dark days that now will be our portion,
I will ponder certain questions in my mind:
Was this sacrifice truly required?
Is our suffering random or by design?

Its true girls come with baggage,
be she starlet or plain Jane.
The trick for guys is finding one
whose baggage they would claim.

Its said all girls are crazy,
and experience proves it true.
the secret is to find the girl
who’s crazy about you.

Its not as if we’re perfect,
We have baggage of our own.
It‘s the burden we must carry
if we’re to ever have a home.

Good friend, for Heavens’ sake forbear
to pluck the rose that’s growing here;
For many a season there was none:
too much rain, too little sun.

Enter this garden as a child would,
In life’s morning, all seems good.
Let wonder wander where it may.
Scarlett roses bloom today

Good Friend, for Heavens’ sake forbear
To pick the rose that’s growing here
her velvet robes will come undone,
if you should steal her from the sun.

For roses are in short supply,
These bloomed the day my mother died.
If you should take these, I’ll have none
This late in season, no more will come.

The Ding Dongs at the T.S.A.
decided as of yesterday
frosted Cupcakes aren't allowed on Board
flights domestic or abroad.

They employ the dumbest of the dumb
To harass us as we go and come.
Miss Liberty must be dismayed
to be prodded, strip searched and X-ray'd.

Thus the Empire extends its claws
through privacy invading laws
They won't repeat Marie's mistake
encouraging people to eat cake.

The deceased was seventeen years old-
An enlarged heart, the coroner claims.
A basketball player on the court.
his team trailing in the game.
Their perfect season was at risk
when he shot and made a “Three”
He then collapsed upon the court
midst shouts of victory.

Hearts are unromantic things
That race and slow by turns.
They simply pump
While we run and jump
And prance about life’s stage.

We take for granted our own hearts
As we wander through our days.
Our faithful friend who never sleeps
So we can laugh and play

And when hearts fail we feel the pain
Of songs now left unsung.
That’s why we’re haunted by the tales
of Athletes dying young.

The first night that they slept apart
-I think because he had a cough-
He grabbed his pillow from their bed
Mimed a kiss and then was off.

Their separation lingered on
like cancer growing in a womb
Days into weeks turned into years
each spouse in their separate room.


Anniversaries came apace
To the separate cells wherein they dwell
All marveled at “togetherness.”
None could glimpse their private hell
.
No kiss, no glance, no warm embrace
As would ward off a winter’s chills
No passionate heat or casual lust
Not that either needed pills

And then one day he failed to wake
Cool to her touch, she felt his arm
Detachedly she looked upon
Her love, long dead, now gone

She lay down on the bed once shared
And swallowed pills enough and more
To join her fellow in that sleep
They’d share together evermore.

“Doc, over here.” I heard them cry.
I raced on black volcanic sand,
I know snipers target medics with
a corpsman's pouch in hand.

“It’s Mike Strank, they got him bad.”
Mike was down, writhing in pain.
He was losing blood
and awfully pale.

Shielding his body with my own,
in a depression in the ground
I cut away his Khaki shirt.
Until the entry wound was found.

A ******* wound, an evil sign-
red frothing bubbles from his chest.
A styrette of Morphine- all I had
to ease the pain of every breathe.

Suribachi loomed above us.
Barely had a week gone by
since this man had helped to raise
the Forty eight Stars on high.

Now he was dying, fading fast.
A grave awaited, far from home.
There was nothing I could do
except not let him die alone.

When Dorothy trod the paths of Oz
Her companions were deficient:
One lacked Courage,
One lacked brains,
One was heartless, but
Ax Proficient.

She was an illegal alien,
from Kansas, of all
places!
Imagine, when she and
Toto came-
the look on people’s faces.

Still that was seventy years ago.,
In another place and time-
Just before we went to war
against evil personified.

If Dorothy, today,appeared
with a similar convocation
The Wizard might mistake them
for a Congressional Delegation

For lack of brain and heart and spine
Our Congress is more than sufficient-
Some lack Courage, some lack brains
Some are heartless but
tax proficient

If Rex Ryan got the nod
and was cast as Cindy’s prince.
The play would run much longer
than it had before or since.

When the royal decree went out
To the maidens of the land
To display their pedicures
Rex would be close at hand.

He would visit every maiden
and some hottie matrons too.
Caressing Paula’s bunions
And sniffing Jennie’s shoe..

And when he got to Cindy’s shack,
He’d take her feet in hand
And ease the pain she suffered
last night dancing with a ham.

“You have such pretty little feet,
I really hope its you.
Alas, I have no way to check,
as I forgot the shoe.”

This human I’ve adopted
at first seemed rather sad.
Her meals were all unhappy
in Golden Arches paper bags.
She seemed so sad and listless.
She lacked a vital spark.
That is until I convinced her
to go walking in the park.
I next began to teach her ”fetch”-
it became her favorite game
Her arm grew strong with every pitch.
She was really glad we came..
At dusk we’d walk the promenade
to watch the sun go down.
I’ve got her trained to buy for me
the finest puppy chow.
(It’s gotten so she reads my mind
without me saying “Bow”)
Yet recently I grew concerned-
she’s taken in a stray.
I think she said his name is Dave
and they hope to wed one day.
They say they both love chocolate Labs
that I brought them together.
I guess walking in that park
wasn’t altogether clever.

Every year, on Christmas Eve
we gather at her parents' home.
That has been our tradition
since before I married Joan.

First, the traditional feast of fish,
Lobster and scungelli.
Some pasta shells for Judy
cause fish makes her stomach queasy.

The Men took turns as Santa Claus
when all the kids were small.
I needed pillows way back then,
I've since grown into the role.

My only son, when he was young,
could not say Santa's name.
but boy was he excited
whenever "**-**" came.

The years fly past. We all grew old
the Children all grew tall.
The little ones are College bound
the oldest works on Wall.

This year was sadly different-
"The patriarch has died
It’s Dolores’ first Christmas
without him by her side.

But if he's not there in the flesh
to joke and beam with pride
I'll put his portrait on a chair
placed near the fireside.

Then when all gifts are given,
and third desserts have been declined.
I'll say, “Christmas is over"
because that always was his line.

The Lady loves me-
I’m certain of it.
It’s not just my read
of a look or glance.
She confessed her love
in a verse redolent
of forbidden
passion and romance.

Elizabeth is of the old faith,.
a highborn lady of eighteen..
She is young like my own daughters,
How inappropriate would our love seem?

I was tutor to the Prince but
Edward’s reign too soon is done
Catholic Mary will be our Queen
I must  to the continent be  gone.

It is quiet, even peaceful here,
out past Hana on Maui’s Isle.
Near Palapala **'omau Church,
This is where I have come to bide.
To listen to the Ocean’s roar,
to find what peace is left to me.
I could not hide from you, oh Lord
Not in the uttermost depths of the sea
My time is fast approaching when
I will lose this quarrel with disease.
The air is warm and liquid here,
It has a perfumed fragrance that
would bid a younger man to stay.
but Cancer bids me to fade away
As I will, I’ve seen the stone,
simple enough to mark my space..
In the Churches’ graveyard here
my friend Sam has made a place
I recall, when youth was dawning,
You gave me the Wings of the Morning.
Was it simple vanity
that made me venture the unconquered sea.
I took off from Roosevelt field alone
and touched down in Paris, far from home.
Now I am far from home again,
Death’s boney hand he offers, like a friend.

The picture hangs upon the wall
of a slender woman, une eleve
She is eternally en pointe
a Student of   great Nurerev.


With Martha Graham’s Corps de ballet
She’d danced (before the children came)  
Performed a beautiful Glissade-
enjoyed, for a while, a muted fame.

Light and shade proportionate
here catch her look of radiant joy
The dancer, ignorant of her fate,
seems more  a heavenly envoy.


But you and I both know the rest-
The ravages of age and time
The sad result of little strokes
that slow the step and cloud the mind.


Here is her cane, her walker too
Their owner has succumbed to age
There will not be a pas DE deux
Nor bouquets tossed upon the stage

I had a sister once
She had sunshine in her smile
She was everybody’s friend
For you she’d gladly walk a mile

When I see her in my mind’s eye
Jeanette’s forever young
When we lost her to the monster
She was only 41.

So that is why tomorrow
I’ll be racing for the cure.
With caregiver’s and survivors
We will beat the beast for sure.
And if my step should falter
As I am no longer young
Her ghost will run beside me
Until my race is run.

Perhaps you have a sister too,
Or someone that you love
Perhaps she’s a survivor
Of a battle bravely won

We must celebrate the victories
Each year there are still more
Until what was a feeble cheer
Becomes a mighty roar

So that is why tomorrow
You’ll be racing for the cure.
With caregiver’s and survivors
We will beat the beast for sure.
And if your step should falter
For you are no longer young
Your survivor friend will pace you,
Until this race is won.

Gather at the starting line
Young and old together
The sisters and the daughters
And survivors feeling better
There may be 20,000 here
The organizers say
They fail to count the shadows
Who will run with us today.


So that is why today we’re here
All  racing for the cure.
Family , friends and lovers
We will beat the beast for sure.
And if our steps should falter
For we are no longer young
Our dead will bear us forward,
Until their race is done.

On the flight path down from Quebec
in the recent past, they say,
The lead goose saw a foursome
on the fairway, hard at play.

Their clothing was intriguing
Bright Argyles and Staid plaids
Little lackeys followed them,
carrying their bags.

The goose brigade lost interest
in proceeding South that day.
Instead they landed on the course
intent on watching play.

The lead Goose now spent all his time
At Bethpage, on the Black,
and honked golf commentary
to all his fledgling flock.

This lead Goose was the First,
brave Avian pioneer,
who broke the pattern going South-
instead he wintered here.

The Geese are protected by the law,
so we have no recourse.
We can't hunt down these honkers
who are greasing up the course.

Within one human lifetime-
a revolutionary change.
the geese have all stopped flying South
They're students of the game.

It’s seldom that folks see me dance,
for want of occasion or partner.
My stiff joints pray “give others a chance!
Just sit with your drink in the dark there.”

I’m not really hip and can’t hop
Arthritis has put paid to that dream.
I’d let younger ones gambol and lark
here I’d sit, waiting patient, for ice cream.


But no, I sway out on the hardwood,
locked in a slow dance with you.
I clinch like a boxer, exhausted-
Whose opponent has landed a few.


I pray that the music is ending-
My balky hip screams with each turn
After this I’ll for sure need a Walker
A Blue, on the rocks, I have earned.

She took my breath away
just by her being near
Her long red ginger hair
Her dangerous curves, her sparkling pair
of eyes that chanced to look my way
Just as the wind snatched my toupee
(That knocked the wind out of my sail)
That left me paunchy, bald and pale.

I guess I might as well inhale.

I was taken by surprise
when her Dad handed me the keys..
“I have a meeting in the City,
Could your drive her to school for me”
That day I had not thought to drive,
My own “K” car was in the shop.
I was having the rear brakes replaced
because sometimes I like to stop.
My car was an econobox
but for my purpose fine.
His car was a Red Firebird-
Top down, top of the line.
The day was clear and drenched with sun-
The perfect top down day.
We waved goodbye as Barb and I
pulled out and on our way.
We heard something from Stravinsky
On her father’s Classics station
As we drove across the Bridge
to her college destination.
The Cross Bronx, unexpectedly,
was light of cars that day.
Traffic on the Bronx River
seemed to yield us right of way.
I pulled in near Bathgate Avenue
And gave my girl a kiss.
I would have liked to linger
But that final she couldn’t miss.
The engine gave a gentle purr
on my return trip down.
I met up with her father
And he dropped me off back home.
With both hands in my pockets,
I watched as he drove off.
The car would prove a classic,
The girl proved, alas, aloof.

High above the Canyon’s edge,
Far above the ancient clay,
The helicopter hovers there
Like a dragonfly at play.

With my jet pack on my back
I coolly, calmly step away.
Gain separation from the blades,
Freefall starts my epic day.

On stubby wings the jet packs fire
I’m Daedalus in the morning light.
I soar across the canyon’s rim.
Laughing like some hell born sprite

One hundred eighty miles an hour,
The wind whips cold despite the sun
I glide toward my landing zone
The jet packs sputter and are done.

My parachute has been deployed
My guide ropes turn me for my drop.
My wings are just a dead weight now
I touch down one the Mesa top.

At Kitty Hawk that fateful day.
This must be what the brothers felt
Kindred souls who sought to fly
By using wings that wouldn’t melt..

It must be love
That seeks and finds
such perfect grapes
from vintage vines.

In a year far
from the best
Our bridge and groom
are truly blest.

When even water
Is hard to find
In their hot and dusty
Texas clime.

This finest wine
completes their feast
When other hosts
Pour out their least.

It must be love,
Enduring fast
that saved this best wine
for the last.

Disappointment dogged their every step
on the trip back from the Pole.
Amundsen had bested Scott,
as the World would soon be told.

Evans was the first to die,
to perish in the frost.
Oates, the poor old soldier,
was next to pay the cost.

Crippled by an old war wound,
Home base too far to go,
He walked out in a blizzard
and was buried by the snow.

Eleven miles to fuel and food
The three men left were stranded
A fierce winter storm held them at bay
Empty bellied, empty handed.

Bowers first, then Wilson died,
felled by dysentery .
Scott, their brave Commander,
then wrote his final entry:

“A pity, I can write no more,
too weak to venture out.
Nearly snow blind from the Frost,
by Winter put to rout”

Eight months later, a rescue party
came upon their sad remains
Robert Falcon Scott had died.
The world would learn their names.

They raised a cairn of ice around
the place where brave men died.
A crudely fashioned wooden cross
they placed above on high.

For an Actor, preparation is everything.
We are much more than
our face paint and props.
Rehearsals can go on for hours,
as we block out our scenes in our parts.
So it will not surprise you that Friday
The fourteenth of April found me
at Ford’s theater  in Washington
preparing for my part in the play.
My horse would be held at the ready
My pistol was loaded and clean.
I was known and well liked by the company.
Like a ghost, I could wander unseen.
I’m disappointed Grant  missed my performance
His wife Julia hates Mary some say.
Her aversion has stolen one target, but
the other will not get away.
Theater is a matter of timing
and I knew this crowd and this play
I entered amidst raucous Laughter
and fired, once, in the “Emancipator’s” brain.
Some soldier attempted to grab me
and got himself stabbed for his pains.
I balanced myself on the railing
preparing to leap on the stage.
I could hear Mary Todd Lincoln Screaming.
“Sic Semper Tyrannis!” I raged.
My boot spur got caught in the bunting
I lost balance and fell on the stage.
The actors were stunned to inaction
as I limped, none impeded my way.
Mister Lincoln has made his last speech
and likely seen  his last play.
What actor worth his salt wouldn’t ****
to make his exit my way?

There were disappointed faces
on the students in the quad
The professor’s classes cancelled-
illness  had struck their mortal god.
A literary lion, A scholar
world renowned.
Pneumonia, favoring old men,
was the disease that took him down.
The Professor got the best of care
and had a private room.
His favorites brought him roses
to brighten up the gloom.
He was in an out of consciousness,
oblivious to fading blooms.

His true friends
were dead poets
and he imagined them about:
Blake, with his wild head of hair;
Bill Shakespeare’s pate without,
Byron, dripping from the Hellespont,
and Dylan Thomas chugging  stout.
His breath was shallow, rasping
His heart would skip a beat
His mind would wander mercifully
back to when the past  was sweet.
He recalled playing the Wolf
with a beauty named Naomi.
Had she ever thought him handsome?
Had he come across as phony?
The monitor went flat line then
They would save him, never fear.
Naomi's accusations were still
ringing in his ears.

Being kicked in the head by a horse
can be rather unpleasant of course.
My father lay stunned for a time
and for three days thereafter was blind.
He was lucky the horse was unshod
or he might have been punted to God.
As it was he spent three days abed
while his mom worked her beads in his stead.
On the third day he rose as before
with the  injury that kept him from war.
His impaired vision a fortunate curse
Time spend on the Somme would be worse.

He sits with a stoic's resistance,
        his son in the casket lies there.
        No line of a tear mars his visage-
        the man with the Thousand yard stare.


        He sits in the front row of mourners,
        His dear sobbing wife by his side
        in silence he keeps his sad vigil
        and stares up at Christ crucified.
    

        The mourners pass by him in silence,
        touch his hand or say meaningless words,
        for his part he stares straight on through them
        as if nothings felt, nothings heard.

        The Parson commands us to silence
        and struggles to lead us in prayer-
        but half of the room has forgotten the words
        like the man with the thousand yard stare
        

        Death is my race's core competence
        dealing with life, we're but fair,        
        but none living today keeps sorrow at bay
        not the man with the thousand yard stare.

We die each night,
to sleep succumb .
Perhaps to dream,
remembering none.
Yet as we wait for
sleep to come,
we believe
we'll see
the morning sun.
Ten thousand million
days saw dawn
before the day
when I was born.
Ten thousand million
nights might end
ere ever I see home again.
If Being sees
in me no worth
perhaps this is
the last of Earth.
But as the Son
for mercy, dies.
Perhaps this good thief
too may rise.

Twenty five thousand Sunsets
Give or take, one more, one less.
(barring disease or accident,)
From birth to final rest

Twenty five Thousand Sunsets
from first cry to final moan.
A pittance of Eternity
We’re born and we die alone.

Twenty five thousand Sunsets
to laugh, to love, to sin.
To bow our heads in wonder
at how splendid the day has been.

I hoisted myself on the parallel bars
(in itself a remarkable feat)
Determined this day
I would go all the way.
As if I was some student athlete.

My gym teacher sought to encourage me
As he knew I’d fallen before.
“imagine your crossing
A rope bridge in the jungle,
hungry crocodiles roaming the floor.”

I inched myself forward across the beam
My arms bore incredible strain.
I made it half way
Then my arms gave away.
My best efforts had all been in vain.

I admire the gymnast on balance beams
Those who soar on the parallel bars
But I’m short and I’m fat
So that put paid to that
So, mostly, I travel in cars.

That day stands sharp in focus
Whenever it's called to mind;
A peaceful Sunday Morning,
just before the Harvest time.

They held a picnic benefit
Each year on public land
For the Widows and the Orphans
Of the firefighters clan
.
All gladly paid to enter
and bought chance books besides.
The old men brought their families
The young men brought their brides.

Bouncing on the rides and slides
erected for them here-
The children had the best of times
as their mothers hovered near.

The men were cooking barbecue,
Tossing footballs, drinking beers
You'd recognize their names-
because you hear them once a year.

The day was nearly cloudless
Seldom was the sky so blue.
Who knew so many would be lost
before that week was through.

Within two days too many here
were cut down in their prime.
Betrayed by poor equipment-
They could not escape in time.

But I, permitted to grow old,
remain to testify
about the courage of my friends-.
so that their memory never dies.

That day is sharp in focus
Whenever it's called to mind;
A peaceful Sunday Morning,
just before the Harvest time.

In the little town of Peru, Illinois,
as twenty Eleven wound  down,
We heard the scream of  the fire engines
racing through our town.
The giant Westclox factory,
Abandoned three decades before,
had, at the stroke of midnight
burst into flames with a roar.
Peru’s biggest structure in peril-
neighboring houses in flames-.
We fought through the night
Through to dawn’s early light
wondering who was to blame?
The timing we thought was suspicious.
Was insurance the cause of the blaze?
Perhaps brazen Metal thieves,
looting the “Corpse”,
inadvertently started the flames.
Homeowners, who had greeted the New Year,
now wandered the streets in a fog.
On the sidewalks were scattered time’s ashes:
broken hands, melted Faces, loose cogs

With stem cell therapy, one day,
we may keep old age and death at bay.
Immune response can be restored
from a pharmacological horde.
Folks aged a century or more
will still be limber, never sore.
It's possible  a child born today
might live a millennium, scientists say
Imagine Methuselah on a date
with some sweet young thing
who was born too late
I wonder if the ageless geezer
will have the wherewithal to please her.
A small blue pill will help him score
when all his peers are ancient lore.
If she be coy, it t'were no crime
cause he has all the world and time.

The walls of this place
have protected me
since the moment I
was first aware..
Here in the darkness
I float upside down
like a fruit bat
asleep in his lair.
Now I feel pressure
and pushing
Something’s draining
the fluid of life.
A dim glow growing
constantly brighter
at the end of a tunnel
there’s light
My heart beat
is marathon racing
as I’m dragged from
my sinecure dark.

This new place is large
and its freezing
Put me back in,
I beg you
I scream.
My protests are ignored
as I’m prodded some more
Then I’m slapped
on the ****
by some cur
I’m lain down
on a warm curvy belly
and this woman, called mom,
weakly smiles.
At least this part
doesn’t seem
frightening
Perhaps I will stay
for awhile

What if the stars around us
are of Sentient life devoid ?
Binary stars and Giant blues
are common in the void.
Binaries do not provide
a habitable clime
Blue Giant Stars burn fast and short-
Evolution needs more time.
Giant Reds live long enough
but keep few planets warm.
Perhaps upon a distant rock
there is some primal goo
but that is quite a ways away
from beings like me and you.
So please be better stewards
of this third rock from the sun
That lovely little yellow dwarf
round which our race is run.

The faces at the table change
it’s the flow and ebb of time
we struggle to remember them
and the days of Auld Lang Syne .

The former faces shared our names
We are their blood and line
We gather now in different lands
in a very different time.

Grandfather James, renowned for brains,
played music and sang songs
Great Grandson James, the chemist,
researches to right Cancer’s wrongs.

There were Margarets and Catherines
in that different age and time
I struggle to remember them
different people, different times

Our Ed is a music teacher
who can read and write a score
Their Eddie died a pilot
in that war to end all wars.

My age lacks a Sophia
and I count it quite a loss.
She was a faithful bride of Christ
and wore a simple cross.

There was a Susan and an Agnes
back in the former age
Agnes nursed in wartime London
as above the air war raged.

The faces at the table change
the ranks are thinned with time
We struggle to remember them
and the days of Auld Lang Syne

Her Horse didn’t canter in Canterbury
Her braided hair was long and Brown.
She galloped uncovered in Coventry
so that taxes would drop like her gown.

Hot to trot without makeup or Jewelry
Hair undone, long tresses hang down.
A ****** named Tom was observing her
riding through town sans a gown.

A woman of substance and Charity-
Not given to horsing around.-
Her legend comes down from antiquity
That’s how seldom those taxes go down.

Like a modern Diana the Huntress
Emma exuded appeal
She wore liquid black leather outfits
designed to reveal not conceal.
As a member of TV’s Avengers
She was her partner, John Steed’s, ideal.

Emma Peel in a Mini was fetching
Her clothing set fashion and style.
Leaving little to imagination
it made many a teenager smile.

In time she would leave for theater
and do a film as Mrs James Bond
Linda Thorson paled in comparison
but at least she was not a dumb blond