He was thought to be a genius by those who knew him best.
His output was prodigious; himself a source of infinite jest.
He was said to be obsessed by one who would not be his wife.
He was suffering from depression on the day he took his life.

There is no cure for sadness or the shadows that pursue.
Medication only does so much when sunny days turn blue.
His essays and his stories had garnered much acclaim,
And once you’d read his novel you would not forget his name.

So one day in early fall; rope tied around his throat,
David used his exit strategy from a life devoid of hope.
That is how she found him; suspended from the stairs.
Swinging softly like a pendulum, there, beyond the help of prayers.

Eric  Schneiderman misses the days
When Whites were supreme in this land.
He abused his poor lover for her dark skin,
and pretended she was his to command.

"Call me Master!" he said, as he slapped her around.
He beat her to make her obey.
There were several "Dead soldiers" strewn on the floor.
Eric is a mean drunk, folks say.

Now in disgrace, he resigns his high post.
Poor Eric is down and Forlorn.
Based on the accounts of amounts that he drank
I'm amazed he could even perform.

Its Mother’s day today and flowers, in their bright array,
are popular gifts to give to Mom on this her special day.
While they still thrive the air is sweet; redolent of both rain and Sun.
Eventually their beauty fades though a Mother’s beauty never does.
They are a small enough return for the gift of a Mother’s love.
They are symbol and remembrance too, for those whose Mothers rest in peace.
In their petals, soft like her cheek, lurk remembered fragrances
Stirring memories which make us weep

When I was a child of five I bought a flower for my mom.
It was a fragile little thing but I was glad that she seemed charmed.
The years of our shared lives flew fast, like decades of her rosary.
She is resting now beside my Dad; for now and all eternity.
Some photographs and books are all I have of what she left to me.
Imagine how I felt today when I found this in her breviary-
Pressed petals of that long dead rose; a cherished gift from her young son.
It made a grown man weep for words unsaid and deeds left undone.

Now, I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah­
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Halleluja­h
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Halleluj­ah
Hallelujah
Songwriters: Leonard Cohen

by
Gordon Lightfoot


The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Her long flowing hair came softly undone
And it lay all around
And she brushed it down as I stood by her side
In the warmth of her love
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And we played a game only she could win
And she told me a riddle I'll never forget
Then left with the answer I've never found yet
"How long", said she, "Can a moment like this
Belong to someone?"
"What's wrong, what is right, when to live or to die
We must almost be born"
So if you should ask me what secrets I hide
I'm only your lover, don't make me decide
The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And we played a game only she could win
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Songwriters: Gordon Lightfoot

Both Advance one death at a time;
Religion by the blood of her martyrs.
Science, by the death of those
who cling to the exploded
Theories of the past

Our friend Joe sure loved baseball, and his heart pumped Dodger blue
He played the game when he was young, then watched once he was through.
He’d travel around to one horse towns to scout the minor leagues.
He’d carry baseballs and a pen for the autographs he’d need.
In winter he’d watch hockey when no baseball could be found.
(I think that he was marking time time until spring came around.)
Nothing beats hearing the Umpire shouting out  ”play ball!”
How perfect is the diamond, the lush grass and the blue walls?
If we get to choose our heaven no matter what our creed,
Joe would want a season ticket; that’s all he’d really need.
He’d sit and watch his favorite team with stars from years gone by.
He’d listen as the sym-phony played in Ebbets field on high.
Now Joe is gone and tears are shed by us who toil below.
But I prefer to think that  Joe’s been called up to the Show.

Our Earth is but a pale blue dot
When seen from Saturn’s rings.
Voyager took the photo
which I found among my things.
Our Earth is a fragile sapphire
in the immensity of space.
I think we should take care of it
For we have no other place.

After the burial service
and after the meal for the guests.,
The old man returned home.
He felt badly in need of a rest.

He entered into the room they had shared
for all their years before.
It was faintly redolent of her favorite perfume,
but his Love wasn't here anymore.

Alone in their room,  the old man shed some tears;
He had shown a brave face to the World.
Now, all alone, he permitted his grief
to pour out for the loss of his girl.

He fell down on his knees by the side of their bed
but all efforts at prayer were undone
when he saw  on the wall a photo of her,
back in the days they were young.

That night he slept in the room down the hall.
The room they has saved for a guest.
There were too many memories in their marriage bed
for the old man to get any rest.

In his sleep he had dreams  of an ancient Greek myth
when the gods gave an old couple grace:
To spare death and mourning they were turned into trees.
There together both firmly rooted in place.


His son came the next day to see how he was
For his dad hadn't answered his calls.
He found Death had answered Dad's prayers
There in that room down the hall.

Love is a gift and Life is a challenge
Charon gives rides shore to shore.
The old man was blessed to have passed in his sleep
and was joined with his love evermore.

In the summer before the world went mad
Einstein summered at Peconic bay.
He walked the beach in shorts and sandals,
He was quite bohemian in his way.
Soon he would write that letter to Roosevelt
And the atomic age will have begun.
But, for the moment, he was just
A middle aged man
enjoying his last peacetime Sun.
The stars are more numerous than
The grains of sand
And space more infinite
That the sea.
His best days were, by then, behind him,
But happier he would never be.

When you are old like me
The sports page isn’t the first one
That you check.

It was just a modest notice,
If I hadn’t checked the obits
I’d have missed it,
I suspect.

Karen L., an entertainer,
She sang and played
Guitar.

In the eighties
I’d be there most nights
When she played our local
Bar

Mostly she sang others’ songs.
Her own lost on the wind.
Still and all I was a fan.
If you suspected we were lovers
I wouldn't tell you if you're wrong.


Her alto voice
was smooth and strong.
Her brown hair streaked with grey.
A little Simon
A little Guthrie
Those were her kind of song.

She made a modest living
As she turned breathe into song.
Others might have grown discouraged
But not her;
she was strong.

We lost touch ;( my fault)
some years ago.
Life dictates what must be.
Like River water our paths diverged
and flowed on
separately.

Her old guitar is silenced now
No nimble fingers play.
I’ll be along in just a while
Dear friend
My water of life
Will empty soon
Into the selfsame sea.

The call came late one evening
just before she would have been asleep.
Rob said "there's been  a hit and run."
"A stranger found Dad in the street."

She got herself dressed hurriedly
without an eye to style.
She left the kids with Steven;
A quick kiss as a goodbye.

She took Lyft to the hospital;
and as she watched the streetlights pass by.
She wondered how she ought to feel
If her father were to die.

The two of them were long estranged.
Had ever they been close?
Much easier to dress in black
if he had given up the ghost.

Rob called her from emergency
that Dad was fading fast.
His breathing was irregular
This night would be his last.

She joined Rob at the bedside
When she saw theirDad she gasped.
How could  he still be breathing
with all those tubes in place.?

The old man on the gurney
reached out and squeezed her hand.
Her father was too far gone  to speak
but hoped she'd understand.

There was no time for redemption
before the old man slipped above.
But, as she bent to kiss his battered cheek
there was time enough for love

On this, the last night of our world,
As rockets flare and people scream,
A floating mount of arctic 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.

She speaks of marriage; does she not see
the dissolution of my life and dreams?
My family’s’ fortune was lost in the Depression.
My Guggenheim wasted on unrealistic schemes.
I’ve spent these last years drinking, scarcely writing.
In taverns and dark places I have lingered;
searching for the Love that dares not speak its name.
Once I had such Love, but the fever broke.
I don’t think Love will trouble with me again.
I am weighted down with troubles and concerns.
My Youth and promise offered up for wine.
I long for sleep beneath these churning waves
If I take the leap will anyone know or care?
One resolute step will end both pain and time.

Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing;
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour—

Oh! then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain—
Oh might our marges meet again!

Who order'd, that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
Who renders vain their deep desire?—
A God, a God their severance ruled!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

Two young boys had their lines cast into the water while their playmate, Diana, skipped stones across the surface.. “Stop that!” Mohamed said, “You’re scaring the fish.” Just then the other boy, Jesus, felt a tug on his line.” As he reeled in his catch, he teased the slightly younger boy. “You are just saying that because your basket is empty and mine is getting full.”
Mohamed selected a stone and hurled it high into the air over the bay. As the stone arched down to the water he said: “No matter how high the stone ascends it always submits to the will of Allah.” Jesus selected a flat stone and sent it skimming along the surface of the water before it too sank beneath the waves. “Look how the stone generates ripples of change as it passes along the surface of the water on its way to eternity.”
Diana selected a small flat stone and sent it on its way across the water. “You two are getting way too philosophical for me. I am merely playing a game. I call it skimming stones.”

“We should eat; I’m getting hungry” Said Mohamed, producing five small loaves of barley bread. Jesus gathered some driftwood from the shore and started a small fire in a pit scooped out from the sand. He took the two fish he had caught and began to cook them over the open flame.
As the three friends sat cross legged on the sand and enjoyed their lunch, they were observed by a slightly older lad, Siddhartha, who had been enjoying the day beneath the shade of a tree father up the *****. As he walked toward them Jesus greeted him saying. “Would you like to join us Sid? We have enough left over to feed a small village. Siddhartha paused, then patted his stomach ruefully, saying. “If I eat too much I will be mistaken for a small village.”

AS the sun began to decline into the western sky Diana said.” We had better get started back to the village. You know how frantic your mother gets, Jesus, when she doesn’t know where you are.” Diana shook the sand from her hair and tied it up in a neat efficient pony tail.

As the four friends made their way home across the hardscrabble towards the village the Sun cast their elongated shadows across the white sand until they reached the village and went their separate ways. The Sun cast a few final deep red rays over the surface of the Bay before descending into the waters of the salt unplumbed eternal sea. Then the only light remaining was the reflected light of the crescent moon.

The atmosphere was troubled at the end of that July.
The sounds of distant thunder rolled as lightening streaked the sky.
Though the weather had been warm, the woman felt a chill.
She prayed for her sailor son to live, if it be God’s will.

Her Homer was a specialist. He wore the Navy blue.
His ship was the Indianapolis. That was all she knew.
He never wrote about his work or told his port of call.
Loose lips sink ships so secrecy was sacred to them all.

Her animals seemed unsettled; something spooked them on that day.
As twilight fast descended the outside world turned grey.
Then came a flash of lightening and she saw it plain as day.
The face of her son Homer, then, just as quick, he slipped away.

Her heart was sorely troubled by the vision she had seen.
She sensed he was in danger, he’s’ just a boy, Lord, just nineteen.
She stared at the spot in silent shock. She seemed to lack all will.
Her heart was beating rapidly though all the house was still.

For weeks she had heard nothing; no letters of reply.
Civilians were told little; it was brave boys who fought and died.
It wasn’t until the doorbell rang that she knew the worst was true
She numbly read the telegram “We regret to inform you…

My brother related a strange dream that he had:
It took place in a bar; he was there with our Dad.
they both ordered a Guinness, in the mood for a stout.
They both were committed  to enjoy their night out
The barkeep then asked if they'd be running a tab.
Jim reached in his pocket, he paid for his drink  and Dad's.
" I don't think we will."" Just the one now" He said,
"For I'm on blood thinners and my Dad here is dead."

Our present is unsettled;
we are each others foe.
Ignorance  grows exponentially
and tolerance grows low.

Our Past and Future are both at risk
in our current culture war.
Twixt You and me I can't decide
which one I  pity more.

The teams were bitter rivals and, judging by the score,
The Dodgers would be champions once they retired just three more.
Don Newcombe was pitching brilliantly and had a three run lead.
Surely he would slay these Giants and get the outs we need.

Then Al Dark hit a single and Mueller did the same.
(Surely there was just no way that we could lose this game.)
Monte Irvin popped-up- that’s one for our boys in blue.
Then Luckman hit a double and Newcombe’s day was through.

Two Giants on the base paths and Blue had a two run lead.
Ralph Branca got the call to get the outs we need.
Bobby Thomson was at the plate, some kid named Mays on deck.
Branca had an open base- would he simply walk the vet?
Branca’s first pitch was a strike and some gave sighs of relief.
The second pitch was deposited by Thomson in the seats.

In disgust Ralph tossed the rosin bag as Thomson made his trot
His failure made immortal by Bobby Thomson’s shot.
Dejected, Branca left the mound amidst a mad mob scene.
The number on his uniform? -A starkly black Thirteen.

They gathered in the upper room; they locked and barred the door.
They were fearful of their fellow Jews; afraid of Roman law.
Like sheep who’d seen their Sheppard killed and torn apart,
Their confidence was at low ebb and they were faint of heart.

They were startled when they heard the sound of knocking at the door.
Had Judas sold them also?  Did his treachery demand yet more?
Then they heard the Magdalene’s voice its music heartened them.
She proclaimed excitedly that death is not the end.

At first they did not believe her; who can blame them for their doubt?
They had seen loved ones entombed and none to date walk out.
The Magdalene bore witness; Yoshua’s mother did the same.
Something had happened at the tomb both wonderful and strange.

John and Peter were deputized to go and see the tomb.
The other nine stayed hidden, waiting in the upper room.
John, the younger, ran ahead; he arrived then paused,
For Peter to arrive; For both to see what Mary saw.




The Roman guards had fled the scene.
The Stone had been rolled away.
They who grieved saw and believed
on Resurrection day.

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

I didn’t know what the excitement was all about; being just a boy.
I thought my mother was taking me to see some harlot,
caught in the act of adultery,******.
Instead we left the city gates and climbed up Golgotha,
where three executions were taking place.
The sky was grey, foreboding, the wind tasted of rain.
I looked upon the three condemned, engaged in a cruel game.
Hanging, arms outstretched on crosses ,struggling to rise to take each breath.
I saw this was a losing battle; soon fatigue would stake its claim.
My mother said that two were thieves, caught in the act , condemned.
The other was a blasphemer; a crown of thorns upon his head.
(Strange for the Romans to take an interest in him,.
stoning to death a much more usual remedy for sin.)
The condemned were naked to the sky as they struggled and began to die.
The one they called the Rebbe called out
In words that gave my heart a chill.
Then he slumped in Death’s embrace
And all about was still.
The sky grew dark and the Earth beneath us shook.
My mother hurried me away from there then.
I didn’t stay to see his friends take his body down from the cross
But yes, yes, I was there the day they crucified my Lord.

I think it very sad, don't you?-
That we grow old but  songs never do.
I'm listening to Kim Carnes
sing of Betty Davis eyes
but I can't will myself back
to the Dublin Pub
where I heard it the first time.

We were young and beautiful then.
(Vouch for me, I'll vouch for you)
I hear they've torn the old place down.
That's a **** shame, sad but true

I have never been a big fan of hospitals, yet here I sat.
Wordlessly, I held my Grandmother’s hand, listening to each breath.
She was somewhere north of ninety as she neared her journey’s end.
She was lucid intermittently, she spoke of departed friends.
She told me of her adventures; the mountains she had climbed.
Sunsets she’d shared with lovers who then parted by sunrise.
She told me of her voyages on Homer’s wine dark sea.
“ I leave this life with no regrets.” She whispered, soft, to me.
Those were the last words that she spoke though her heart kept on some time.
It waited for her spirit to resume her final climb.
A final lesson for her grandson; the good life requires chance.
A life lived too conservatively is no subject for romance.

A most remarkable woman; she parted here with no regret.
She experienced the best of Life from sunrise to sunset.

In a medically induced coma
The patient was divorced from time.
He wandered from room to room
in the chambers of his mind.
Memories of long ago;
things and people he’d left behind,
Competed for his attention
with all his kith and kind.
Ghosts of family, dead and gone,
came face to face at last,
with his children’s children
at a glorious repast.
He bellied up against the bar
with some friends he’d  lost in Nam.
They looked no worse for being dead
For what seemed a very long time.
They raised a glass to memory
and gave a toast to Time.
The barkeep said “its Final Call!”


and his monitor flat lined.

He was a shadow of himself, the man I came to see.
Time had robbed him of his strength; sapped his vitality.
This man who rode the badlands, this man who’d hunted game,
leaned on his cane to greet me; In fear of why I came.

We long had been acquaintances, I wouldn’t style us friends.
He was a politician, I’m a newspaperman.
I bore bad news to Sagamore Hill; He wouldn’t take it well
It was ill tidings I’m afraid, that I’d been sent to tell.

He had four boys in Khaki clad, all serving then in France
His youngest, Quentin, was a pilot, a fair haired figure of romance.
I think he knew before I spoke the reason why I came.
I saw it **** the boy in him as I pronounced the name.

The “old lion” died months later. He had so long been ill.
After Quentin’s death his father seemed to lose his will.
He was a shadow at the end, a soul adrift at sea.
I prefer to think of Teddy as the man he used to be.

Three decades since he last drew breath-
it came as something of a shock
To find a tape that he had made
Its existence long forgot.

To hear his Irish Brogue again
after  a long  respite.
To hear  the music of his voice
It is my heart's delight.

A simple oral history
we taped in 73'
we did a sort of a "Q and A"
I think he humored me.

Some truths he told
Some truths withheld.
I know with certainty.
Not all will be revealed.

He had the courage to venture out
from the old world to the new.
I love him more than words can say,
but no more than he is due.

His sentence had been pronounced by Nero.
Paulus of Tarsus would die at dawn.
His race would soon be over; he had fought the good fight.
So many souls for Christ he had won.

Peter had been crucified; Paulus, as a Roman,
would not be tortured like a slave;
The executioner would take his head
for his preaching about the Son of Man.

We prayed with Paulus; he was not alone.
We smuggled his last letters out.
His words would stir the pilgrim church on earth.
His Faith  would inspire all those devout.

A good God fearing woman, Lucia,
Promised Paulus that his remains
would not be fodder for the wild dogs.
She would entomb him on the Ostian way.

They came for him then; he showed no fear.
The master had prepared his Heavenly home.
He bared his neck to the axe man’s blade.
His crown was won by Faith alone.

If ever you feel lonely and unloved,
and even  hope evades your desperate grasp.
Remember there are people here who get you.
Supporting all  those who post here to the last.

No mute inglorious Milton need you be.
At this site you will be both heard and seen.
Spin your tales of heartbreak love and loss.
We only ask you keep the language clean.

You poets in the trenches are our heroes.
Star shells burst as you cross no man's land.
You marshal verbs and set he line of battle
with every sibilant syllable you command.

Buried on this Island in a tiny unmarked plot,
You would have been my son or daughter
but she decided to abort.
It would be nice to have been consulted,
But that’s a right men haven’t got.

You might have been a beauty
as your sister is today.
Or You might have been a scholar
if not commingled with this clay.
There is no stone where I can grieve;
No plot to kneel and pray.

Just this burial ground of paupers
I am visiting today.
It is my fault as much as hers
I do not seek to blame.
If only I could have  held you once
or given you a name.

The winter chill cuts to my core.
I feel a sense of sin.
I’m reminded the saddest words of all
Are these:“what might have been”

The  general was in a race with Death.
His memoirs ,if finished, some comfort would provide.
Yet a cancer was eating  at his throat.
His doctors all thought it a matter of time.

Each day he forced himself to write,
although his pain could not be denied.
Sometimes he caught himself staring at his gun,
Entertaining thoughts of suicide.

No, he thought, that's not my way.
The book I'm writing will provide
for my wife Julia in her old age;
an old age I will be denied.

With a firm command of names and dates
He spun his tale of Civil War.
Eight years in the White House He spent.
Years marked with scandals not seen before.

He had seen his share of war
Surely no man longed more for surcease.
He sent his final chapter to press.
Word shortly followed: "Grant is deceased."

It was cold, it was wet and a cruel North wind blew
as I walked at the edge of the shoreline with you.
At our feet- dying starfish, several thousand all told.
They lay dead on the beach from the unnatural cold.
There were some ***** and lobsters and anemones.
Some could survive being cast from the sea.
For the rest shock and death was their imminent fate.
(At least they were spared winding up on a plate.)
These are strange times in Britain; so much ice and snow
and the Ocean so cold with such strong undertow
that thousands of starfish were cast out of their Eden.
There’s a message in this that we need to be heeding!
This planet is dying and, unless we repent,
our fate is another extinction event.

Beneath the Coral Sea, located nearly two miles down,
A submersible was sent to search, and the Lexington was found.
The ship known as “the Lady Lex” had been rent by shot and shell.
For four long days she stayed in the fight until the final bell.

Two hundred and sixteen of her crew went down with her all told.
Internal fires burned white hot and ran out of control.
Scattered about the mighty Lex, her wildcats by the score,
these fighters, built by Grumman, have seen the last of war.

Men Die, Steel rusts, and memories fade of battles gone before.
Her struggle becomes legend and she enters into lore.
It is a watery grave she found beneath the Coral Sea.
But her brave crew and pilots made her mark in history.
The Japanese had been repulsed from fair New Guinea’s shore.
Within a month Midway would mark the turning point of war.

James Bond was a dissolute youth
who spent his nights drinking Vermouth
I was shaken, not stirred
when they gave me the word
that his blood test came back ninety proof.

She had, she knew, been careless,
But what’s a girl to do?
It’s hard to watch the clock
when a Prince asks to dance with you.

At the first stroke of Midnight
She turned and fled the ball.
Other than one glass slipper,
she’d left no trace at all.

Her coach turned back to a Pumpkin.
Her rat coachmen scurried home.
Her gown turned back to homespun.
Her splendor all had been on loan.

The Prince had been heartbroken,
She was ever on his mind.
The girl who danced into his heart,
then left her shoe behind.

He knew he had to find that girl
And ask her for her hand.
She must become the princess
of his tiny far off land.

The Prince set off upon his quest,
The glass slipper in his hand
He meant to try the shoe
on every damsel in the land.

The day came when her stepsisters
were asked to try the shoe.
As both of them wore size thirteen
They simply wouldn’t do.

The wicked stepmom then broke the shoe
Before Cinderella had her chance
To slip into the slipper
that she’d lost at the dance.

As the Prince prepared to turn away
Our girl knew what to do
She slipped her hand into her pocket
and produced the other shoe.

AS I stare down the bottle
deep into the murky past
I see the home I used to own,
the love that did not last.

I think of the two little ones
we had before my fall,
but I'm too drunk to be with them
and they no longer call.

I miss the man I used to be
before I fell in love with drink.
In my rare sober moments
I'm amazed how far a man can sink.

I mourn the loss of wife and home.
Its painful to recall
Back before I was a drunkard
You might think I had it all.

It's Just you and me now two buck Chuck
We've had a real good run.
I am the wine Traveler;
my goal? Oblivion.

This place is a museum now; this great hall where my father stood.
Here he waited on line with all the rest. He waited for admission.
He was dressed in his best with a few dollars in his pocket,
and the address of his sister and her husband in New York.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother, Helen, was native, first generation born upon these shores.
My father was a laborer; the quarries and mines had made him strong.
His years in Scotland plus his native Irish brogue
was baffling at first to those Ellis Island clerks.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My Dad found work building a bridge high above the waters reach.
He started out a near illiterate but slowly learned to read
From discarded copies of the New York Daily News.
He met my mom at an Irish dance.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother’s voice was all New York; a dialect of English speech.
She loved her numbers, and clerked for Met Life, but she may have longed to teach.
Instead she sat with me in our small kitchen
Teaching me my numbers as our dinner was prepared.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

For those of you who have heard me speak
And found my own accent hard to place.
I am a little of old New York and a little of a fair green place.
My American voice is but the echoed music of my race.

The boys he had known were now men dressed in suits
of conservative hue and tone.
Except for those few who were painfully young
and attired in  uniform.

The girls of his youth who had been ,mostly, aloof
were adorned with some glittering stones.
He noticed one young girl with a dusky complexion
who was sitting apart all alone.
He saw upper class men, the jocks and the freaks.
then he noticed how grey they had grown.

His friends shook his hand and pounded his back.
"You are the last  to arrive.!"
The final Alum of a school long since closed
with no graduates still left alive

Consider the quark both charmed and strange,  
From which all matter has been arranged
If position be known, momentum cannot be
That’s a certain uncertainty.
For if we knew both speed and spin
We’d have no notion what place it’s in!,
    It can be puzzling, tis true
    And two quarks can be entangled too,
    As I would wish for me and you..

OH, at some distance I have admired
The secret object of my desire  
But though I orbit at close distance
Our opposing charges cause resistance.  
Though you are up and I am down  
I’m strangely charmed and hang around.
    When you are bottom, I am top
    Our entanglement must never stop.

For to abandon my rotation
would be the source of our damnation.
For if we twain should ever meet
We’d dissipate in light and heat.

There was a quiet, then, between them
as if neither one dared speak.
One wished to be decisive
out of fear of being weak.

The tension was unbearable
The stress was off the chart.
Her crystal dream was shattered
by this Rogue's unfaithful heart

Let there be no tears in this-
time ,later, enough to weep.
We both know well whose fault this is;
Let just admit defeat.

She walked away in silence
with nary a glance behind.
He sentenced to do penance
for all the rest of time.

Two hands, one heart
a band of gold.
It was my mother's ring.
Redolent of emotion,
the last of all her things.

Two hands, one love
a heart of Gold.
A Mother's tender care.
Though parted in the present tense
in Memory, ever there.

The path to Suribachi’s top was paved by brave marines
But the first flag that they planted there was too small to be seen.
The fight to take this vantage point had seen so many die.
To rouse the spirits of our men a larger banner now must fly..

From the fleet came the flag that we would raise this day.
A star spangled banner visible to  the ships at sea.
Six pairs of hands bore her up on high.
(Three of those boys were shortly to die)

A photographer from the associated press
Took the photo we love best.
Six pairs of hands would forever raise her high.
Our flag was the object of all eyes.

More than another month would pass,
ere Iwo was pacified at last.
The image now lives on in Bronze
to honor those brave souls, now gone.

By crises, character is revealed.
Their courage overcame their doubt.
So long as men would not be slaves,
So long our flag will proudly wave.

It would be the oddest prom night this land had ever seen;
The dance hall would be deserted and there would be no King or Queen.
No Chaperones would be required and the band would play no sound
For the silent generation is nowhere to be found.

They might have all been beautiful; some members would be wise.
For all we know they might have all  been  angels in disguise.
The silent generation died before they took a breath.
This reverses nature’s course wherein birth occurs, then death.

In truth, they never played the game. They never learned a word.
Their departure from existence went largely unobserved.
They said no word in their defense before they were put down
For the silent generation is nowhere to be found.

On every college campus they would fill each empty chair.
Our stadiums would rock with sound, if only they were there.
If they were born America would be a touch less gray,
But the silent generation never saw the light of day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is my last year teaching, here, at Columbine.
I’ll be leaving Colorado and these bad memories far behind..
The kids come into homeroom and each year it’s the same.
The seat where Eric Harris sat is one that’s never claimed.

I guess, as High School massacres rank, others , since, were worse.
We suffer notoriety because we were the first.
The names and faces of the dead still haunt me in my sleep.
I had the charge to keep them safe; a charge I failed to keep.

Eric was intelligent; in a different place and time,
He might have found a better use for his creative mind.
But he was often bullied; I had  failed to intervene.
Some say he thirsted for revenge both brutal and obscene.

On April twentieth of Ninety nine, he and Dylan came here late.
Eric warned one friend to flee; to stay was a mistake.
I heard the first shots fired and saw bodies hit the floor.
They headed for the library.  I hid and locked the door.

I confess I was a coward; I was no hero born to save
Those young and beautiful children destined for an early grave.
I hid, as many others did, and cringed at every blast,
As youthful dreams were shattered and this day became their last..


In the end they died as suicides. Their crude bombs had failed to blow.
Had their plot been a complete success- we’d all have died, I know.
Instead I’ve lived with my regrets, my shame and my despair;
haunted always by my guilt and Eric’s empty chair.

As he watched her walk away,
fading quickly in the dark.
He fought back a sob, a tear,
as he nursed his damaged heart.
She had made her choice at last
and brought an end to their affair.
A universe of might- have- beens
vanished on that cold night's air.
How bleak his future looked right then
for she would not dwell there.
Triangles are difficult
and swans belong in pairs.
His children he saw in her eyes
now never would be born.
He would find another Lover
but never Rose without a thorn.

“There’s nothing here worth saving.”
I knew that she was right.
It ended, oh so calmly, no screaming match or fight.

Call it a Night,

Call it a Night,
  Call it a Night.

For many years we’d lived a lie, persisting in a sad mistake.
The only Love you get to keep is only that Love you make.

Call it a Night,

Call it a Night,

  Call it a Night.

Some folks will be surprised I guess. Others, knowingly, will nod.
The warning signs were always there; as obvious as God.

Call it a Night,

Call it a Night,

  Call it a Night.

We knew of your use of Holinshed; that you “borrowed” from Plutarch’s Lives”
We suspected you dredged for characters in various bars and dives.
Now scholars have discovered your main source of “Richard the Third”
From which you borrowed liberally, and sometimes word for word.
Macbeth, King Lear, the gang’s all here -you scene steal-er you!  
(You rummaged Marlowe’s “The Jew of Malta” for your Venetian Jew.)
Sophisticated software has snared you in its trap;
As you read North’s manuscript, bet  you never thought of that!


Since you are my favorite dramatist, I’m inclined to let this pass.
If you were a college Freshman- I’d be seeing you after class!