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

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

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

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

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

My naked skin glistens
with strenuous sweat.
My name on your lips
urges me faster yet.
The Whip in your hand
is applied to my back.
I jump in my tracers
to the head of the pack.
As we round the last turn
To hollers and cheers,
I look forward to oats,
My Jockey , to beers

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 ninety years or more
Zelda’s family owned her home.
Generations born and died there,
She never felt alone.
The spirits of her parents
She always felt close by
And sometimes she would talk to them-
to gossip on the sly.
Most ghosts are rather lonely.
Regard it from their point of view-
To wait unseen, unbidden,
with no one to talk to.
It makes the loneliness we feel
While incarnate seem a sham.
We need only to make a call
to reach our fellow man.
But ghosts can not dial telephones
And rarely get attention.
Few master apparition
hardly any I can mention.
So take your cue from Zelda
and the next time you’re at home
have a spirited discussion
with any ghosts who chance to roam.
(To avoid two years in therapy
Make **** sure that you’re alone.)

Norma McCorvey has died today
In assisted living in a Texas town.
She was Jane Roe in Seventy Three
when the court struck all restrictions down.
She was used by lawyers for their cause
Used by men and women both.
Once a Lesbian then a Christian
Her fame the thing she hated most.
The times have changed and many have died
Because of what that court decided.
Her child still lives; she was adopted.
Its Sad how we have become hard hearted;
Divided we are, now as then.
We never met, nor were we friends;
Goodbye Norma (Jane) McCorvey
May you rest in Peace at journey’s end.

Our "sergeant" gave a low whistle
that stopped us in our tracks.
He motioned two kids forward
to prepare for the "attack".
The "enemy" was hiding.
Behind Uncle Louie's rusted Ford.
We checked our "guns" and "ammo"
and we trusted in the Lord.

We couldn't call artillery.
We couldn't drop ******.
If we really killed my cousins
they'd be Hell to pay from Mom.
We launched a pincer movement
with our guns set to pretend.
Imaginary air grenades
made quick work of my friends.

They had little cause to argue
as we shot them in the back.
They swooned upon the concrete.
All were "dead" from our attack.

Just then our Mother's called us in
for a feast of sausage bread.
Amazing how the dinner bell
so quickly raised the "dead".

All of us are older now
and some have gone to war.
Some Mother's sons I played with
aren't with us anymore.

If only Moms could ring a bell
and call us in to eat
And raise those honored dead to life
like back there on my street.

I have bad dreams.

They come, unbidden, into my room at night.

They pass through the maze of my alcoholic daze;

They take me back,

Back to a dusty desert road;

Our convoy is headed towards Mosul.

But we never make it there:

The Humvee is upended by an eardrum shattering blast.

I am falling.

I see you are screaming but there is no sound..

Blackness.

I died three times on the medivac copter

But the Corpsman kept bringing me back.

I have bad dreams

In them I see the faces of the dead,

They are the faces of my friends;

My friends, for whom I mourn

Until this heart becomes a stone.

In London, a statue of Neb
is constantly turning its head.
Despite being placed behind glass
The statue keeps showing its ***.
Revealing to all who are near
its demands for Bread, beef and beer.

An explanation had yet to be found
for why it keeps turning around.
As for its demands for some grub
It requires a lift to the pub,

The Seamstresses of Baltimore
had done their Country proud.
Their Flag, upon a staff of wood,
Defied The British rounds.
Fort McHenry and her men
alone stood in the way
of a squadron of the British fleet
in good King George's pay.
All through the warm September night
We saw red rockets glare.
And when the morning sun arose
our banner was still there.
The tale might have been different
One of death, despair and blood-
One shell had hit the magazine
but it proved to be a dud.


A lawyer and a poet
on a truce ship in the Bay
gave voice to the emotions
that filled his heart that day.
So when you stand and doff your cap
and sing his song I say,
let history become memory
in a simple, subtle way.

I would listen, in the dark, as the L.P. circled round.
A big fan, I’ll admit it, of this petite brunette’s sound.
I was shocked the day I heard you’d starved yourself to death.
Talent, beauty, youth all gone; the recordings all you left.
I hear you still at the holidays like a ghost of Christmas past.
Occasionally on the radio for your hits were built to last.
Most often when your C.D. plays as I drift off to sleep
So long ago, so long ago, but still your voice sounds so sweet.
Those who touch lips with fame die twice I’ve heard it told:
Once when we’ve forgotten them, then again when they grow cold.

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?

The prognosis was distressing.
The outlook was the same.
My aging mother could not eat,
we were playing her endgame.
Bereft of speech and cogent thought,
sitting in her chair with wheels.
Her fate placed firmly in our hands,
in the court of no appeals.
A feeding tube could well extend
her life for twenty years.
A life in limbo that way leads
where none can care or feel.
Pain management and hospice care
was the choice we had to make.
Years later some still argue
we had made a vile mistake.
Yet if my fate should be like hers
be kind and let me die.
A gentle exit into night
once life become a lie.

It seems a scant few weeks ago,
as the leaves turned red and gold,
You left us for retirement;
at the Jersey shore I'm told.

Envious co-workers wished you well,
with cards and gifts besides.
We did not know, nor did you know
that a tumor lured inside.

Inoperable, the Doctors say,
radiation will be tried.
When cancer has metastasized
time isn't on your side.

I'm grateful that you had the chance
to see your girl a bride.
Your doting husband doubtless hoped
to spend years by your side.

We're still hoping for some miracle;
some treatment yet untried-
To counter a prognosis grim
so Death may be denied.

When golden years are leaden days,
where morphine spells relief
The game of Life in Sudden Death
will likely come to grief.

We batter our foes
with bomb, shell and shot.
Now Despair walks their streets
And their children do not.
The average Marine
Spends more time at the front
than his grandfather spent
As a World War two grunt.

At home when we travel
We wait in long lines
To be poked and prodded
Even X rayed at times.
At home prices rise
For most essential things
The bankers are  flush
Ben Bernanke’s their king.

As the empire creaks
And grounds to a halt
Will he hyper inflate
or simply default?
Mourn the Republic
For which we once stood
When all food was organic
And we worshiped the rood.

Heed old Ben Franklin
He had vision to see
He warned long ago
What the tradeoff would be.
If they offer you “safety”
in trade for your Liberty.
You will never be safe
for you will never be free

He never regained consciousness
In all the hours I sat there.
The only sounds were the monitors’ beeping
And his staccato gasps for air.

Each breathe more labored than the last
as feeble hope turned to despair.
His extremities felt so cold,
as I sat and murmured wordless prayer.

A good life, certainly, and full;
Honor and glory both were there
As that old soldier slipped away
and his last breath rejoined the air.

In the middle of the Milky Way,
darkness overwhelms.
A dark Star grows so powerful
no light escapes its realm .
Gas, in ribbons, flows towards it
in undulating streams.
then vanishes eternally-
at least that’s how it seems.
There, in that sleep of death,
where no dream would intrude.
The matter that comprises Earth
would make one sugar cube.

Perhaps one day, some eons hence,
the dark star will explode
and give this universe new birth
when all the stars grow cold.

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

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

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

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

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

Their names will not be on the Wall.
It’s of the ghost patrol I sing.
Veterans of an unloved war.
Men from the age of Kennedy and King.
They’re dying now by their own hand,
by opioids or shotgun shell.
Some are dying by the glass-
As alcohol kills just as well.
They are victims of their memories,
deprived of sleep that will not come.
Post-traumatic stress some claim
Is the reason they have come undone.
See them sleeping on the streets-
a half drunk bottle in their hand.
The members of the ghost Patrol,
the pitiable legion of the dammed.

With wild teased hair, bright orange, and wearing shoes too big,
The clown abandoned Ringling to take on a new gig.
He was not content to pay his rent, like others of his “race”,
By acting in the remake of “killer clowns from outer space”
Nor would he do kids’ parties although he is no slouch
at raising fears that will take years to solve upon a couch .

With wild teased hair, a bright red nose and makeup piled on thick,
This clown decamped to Washington to try out his new Shtick.
With Eddie Munster as his pal, new laws he would propose,
that Femes, dressed as Vaginas, would vociferously oppose.
He’d surround himself with Sycophants but will not get too far
as, unlike his former colleagues, they don’t all fit in one car.

The clown claims he can build a wall to keep out one and all,
and he has a herd of Elephants at his beck and call.
He rules our land by fiat, as delay he can’t abide
He is a textbook narcissist with an overweening pride.

Minnesota has Al Franken as a Senator of course
And, back in Roman times, the purple was worn by a horse.
So  one might say that precedents exist for this strange thing;
for a clown to wield a scepter and rule over us as king.

The desert sands, oft dark and drear,
show signs of life this time of year.
Rain, that most infrequent guest,
supplies the means, seeds do the rest.
What once appeared as barren ground
with desert lilies now abounds.
Their flesh so pale and delicate
exploding from the silicate.
So if you come to Joshua Tree
there's more than cactus here to see.
You'll see the lilies bloom at dawn
so welcome come, so quickly gone.
We've much in common , it seems to me,
these flowers and humanity.
We, too, quickly bloom and fade,
then spend forever as a shade.

The taxman owned a share of him,
To another he owed rent.
His ex-wife and her attorneys
Had a say in how he spent.
When food got more expensive
He switched from Steak to bread.
The rising cost of health insurance
left him prostrate, nearly dead.
He worked all week at several jobs
In an attempt to make ends meet.
The reward for all his efforts
was to be taxed like the Elite.
He was star in his own tragedy;
a tortured leading man.
Today he is a Free man.
He died at his own hand.

Stuck in a chimney
high above ground
A burglar called out
He couldn't go up nor down.

He'd stolen some money
and pilfered some clothes.
then, by way of egress,
up the chimney he rose.

But that move only works
with a suit of red Clothes
on one night a year
if you finger your nose.

He got stuck half way up
and he couldn't get down.
The fire Department
had to rescue this clown.

He'd broken in through a window
and jumped down to the floor
If only he'd thought
to go out the side door.

He was covered in soot
from his cap to his feet.
He's our Darwin Award
winner for this week!

I heard him exclaim
as they booked him that night
I sure am a dumb-***
( That at least he got right)

For Better, or Worse,
They freely consented.
The gowns were fitted,
the Tuxes were rented.
They both pledged their troth
before family and friends.
A fairytale Day,
but all fairy tales end.

For Richer, for poorer,
the latter's the norm.
with three kids in college
who all want to dorm.
They worked extra hours
to pay the expense
of caps and gowns earned.
Those were happy events.

In sickness and health,
There were scares, here and there.
A bout with colitis
A broken hip, a wheelchair.
They soldiered on through it
lifelong lovers must.
Silver may tarnish
but it never will rust.

Till death do them part,
No gold left in her hair.
She relies on her walker
He's confined to the chair.
She struggles to aid him,
at night she just cries.
Though his body still lives
there's no light in his eyes.

This is the journey
from the ring to the stone
Either rise to the challenge
or live life on your own.

Every woman has one in her closet,
Although some are loathe to confess.
It’s perfect for many occasions.
It is known as the little black dress..

For Women who seek to entice,
or have men they want to impress.,
There is nothing terribly virginal
concerning that little black dress.

Its of Spidery inspiration and,
oh, what a web they can weave.
They use it, some say, ensnaring their prey.
It comes out again when they grieve.

In Wedding, our Ladies wear white.,
A Little black dress when they keen.
They dress in subtler shades of gray
on all the days in between.

This ****** with binoculars
sat waiting in the blind,
half hidden by the rushes
That grew tall on either side.
Perhaps I’d spot a Peregrine
or a hawk on the attack.
My camera is beside me, and,
should I catch one in the act.
I’d photograph a mating pair
(but artfully, with tact.)

So far there’s just a flock of wrens
Not much this day I see.
I start to get the strange sensation
that they’re here observing me.

She moves slowly in her parlor
in the fading light of day.
In her time she was a beauty,
celebrated on the stage.
From ingénue to has-been
was a short eventful trip.
A cup from which a never-was
Perhaps would like to sip.
Even in her eighties
Her pose is ramrod straight
As when she was a lovely teen
pursued by the rich and great.
She loved the man her husband killed,
She never loved her mate.
When Harry Thaw killed Stanford White
Karma chose the place and date.

Fortunato, I am called.
My friends rate me a connoisseur.
Tonight I wear a jester’s garb
for the feast day of misrule.

Tonight is fine, the wine flows free
With honeyed sweetness on my lips
My headgear rings with happiness
as I enjoy another sip..

Montresor came to speak with me
He wore a mask and monkish gown.
I shook the hand he offered me.
We spoke about a cask of wine.

A cask of sherry, dark and sweet
Amontillado- so he claimed
My friend had paid a premium.
Wished me to judge and share his gain.

He thought he’d ask Luchresi’s help
But that man is no judge of wine.
Give him grape juice in a cup
And Luchresi would exclaim “How fine”

I took his arm and off we went,
Not knowing how this night would end.
I went quite willing to my doom
with this fiend I thought a friend.

Montressor’s servants were away
Leaving he and I alone
He poured for me a warming glass
then led me to the catacombs.

We sampled others of his wines
to keep the cold and damp away.
I coughed and could not catch my breath.
But from my goal could not be swayed.

In the darkness of the tombs
Among Montressor’s ancestral bones
He victimized my drunkenness
I found myself chained to the stones.

I quickly learned it was no jest
I screamed in vain- none heard my cry
As he with brick and mortar built
this prison tomb where I will die..

The only computer on board was Glenn’s brain,
as he orbited up  in the heavens.
The heat shield was damaged and hung loose on the frame.
His odds of survival were even.
With faith placed in God; no time even to think
Glenn began the flaming descent.
Icarus or Daedalus; which would he be?
Was Glenn’s luck still good or all spent?

In the waters below the Navy stood watch,
anxiously scanning the skies.
His wife had been told she should expect the worst;
The Mission head thought Glenn might die.
There! A red parachute dotted the sky!
The destroyer “Noe” sped to the scene.
Not since Lucky Lindy had America had
Such a hero who dared us to dream

A difficult woman, most people would say.
Stubborn and headstrong,
clearly uncommon clay..
Thick as a mule
Steadfast in her ways
When she went on the warpath
even atheists  prayed
A heart good and faithful
A rock in the storm.
She could drown out the choir
She was never lukewarm.
Her several grand daughters
are  of the same mind
My daughter's just like her
I've been paid back in kind.

The eightieth lash had found its mark
when the prisoner crumpled to the dust.
Her hide, a mass of welts and cuts,
the lash, cruel as her ******’s touch.
What was her crime, why did she die?
This young girl had reported ****.
Religious courts reject such tales
when no males will corroborate.
Adultery, her **** was called.
One hundred lashes, her public fate.
For blessed is the prophet’s name,
The law is holy and God is great

The President drew a line in the sand
And said” Don’t you cross this, Assad.”
“If you do, you will be like the souls of the dammed,
In the hands of an Angry god.”
Despite consequence dire (brimstone and hell fire)
Bashar Al-Assad risked the President’s ire.
Will Obama stand down or put boots on the ground?
Oh Valerie, what should he do?
Will the matter be pressed- or the Emperor undressed?
Ms. Jarrett, he’s waiting on you.

How can I write the story
of a battle fought and won,
when lying close beside me
Is the body of my son?

He was ordered to this field,
a place where his unit bled.
Wounded, left to die,
when even surgeons fled.

The sole object of my interest
Is this, my oldest son.
Does it matter Lee was beaten?
That the Union forces won?

All around me is death’s harvest.
for him, a fruitful one.
I will send you home to mother
and be cursed for what I’ve done.

The photographers are roaming
Through the fields of blood and gore
Taking pictures of the fallen.
They are bringing home the war.

“**** those Pakistani kids
Always playing ball
outside my compound wall.
With all this noise
And confusion
It’s amazing that
I can hatch a plot
at all.”

"What’s with those Helicopters?
Landing on my lawn!
Don’t the Honchos  know I’m busy
On my laptop
watching ****."

"It is infidel crusaders
Come to pay a call!
They’re violating our
Sovereignty! Treaties!.
Protocol."

"Come here dear
Wife number four
Hide and shelter me.
You make a lovely
Human shield
From Seals
Who’d
****** me."

Since I have poetic license
and don't get out much at all.
I sometimes think of words as people
- it beats talking to the wall.

So I had a chat with "Friend" today
after one or several Brews
Thanks to social sites like Facebook
"Friend" is often in the news.

"Friend" you're looking tired,
Exhausted, overused.
People have abused you
like they'd treat a rented mule.

Folks who'd be acquaintances
back in the days of yore,
are now best friends forever
and we have them by the score.

Our brains are not hardwired
to handle friendships by the score
Our mundane lives no longer private
either "liked" or, worse, ignored.

"Friend" has  suffered from inflation
like the dollar now and then
Both seemed once to have value
comparing now to way back when.

She wasn't precisely a criminal,
nor innocent of sin.
An Asymmetrical warrior
and a Republican to the end.
To Londoners, she was a terrorist
To the Irish, a voice from the past.
She wound up, old and embittered,
Determined that Peace should not last.
She 's survived by her sons and her sister
and some tapes that Sinn Fein brands lies.
She was known as the "Old Bailey bomber"
in the time of the Troubles gone by
Her coffin was draped in the colors.
Her comrades in arms standing by.
The living now are greybeards
and the rising moon is  not nigh.

As she held the ring box in her hand,
she felt a trace of fear-
Would the answer to her question
be the word she longed to hear?
They'd lived some time together,
wrapped their bodies in a kiss,
but would satisfied desires
translate into wedded bliss?
This was the time, this leap year day
to end her long suspense
she'd ask her love to marry her
and hope she would say yes!

If the music of the spheres is noise
And randomness is all.
Our Spiral is a roulette wheel-
By chance is where we fall.
Carre, Cheval, Column bet,
En Plein, Voisins du zero.
Gather round and place your bets
if Pascale is your hero.
A lovely maid may bring us drinks
As we wager round the table.
Spin the Wheel again, Mon Cher,
My weakness, you enable.
The orphans may be in the chips-
Or I may drown in wine.
Step up darlings, place your bets:
Random or Design?

On this cold November night
Salman Rushdie shook my hand.
An irate Ayatollah had
pronounced a fatwa on the
man

He seemed at peace, this hirsute fellow.
in his bespoke suit from Savile Row.
He signed some copies of his book
then his security man said he must go..

The lecture hall had been half full.
Perhaps some had been scared away.
I had come to hear him speak.
Freedom of speech must rule the day.

Outside  Colden in the dark
an amphitheater is tucked away
A stage sunk in a bowl of grass
where Greek tragedies  might be played.

Which tradition shall prevail?
I wondered to myself that day.
Will acolytes of a murderous cult
Sweep Euripides away?

A Moslem horde  poured through the gates
when Rome fell  for the second time.
The Divine Wisdom was defiled
and Constantine Palaeologus died.

I turn my collar against the damp
illumined by sodium vapor light
I think on Arnold's loss of faith
and ignorant armies that struggle in the
night

A weak and vacillating man,
one vain and narcissistic ,
once drew a line upon the sand
with consequences cataclysmic.

Now some will say
the line’s been crossed,
while others say not yet.
Intervening in a civil war
won’t end without regret.

Relentlessly his minions beat
the drums and call for war.
Propagandists lionize
Their would be king once more.

In Austria, Franz Ferdinand
is stirring in his crypt.
Entangling alliances-
It seems I’ve read this script.

Now if the lights go out again
as they have dimmed before
We will not see them lit again
If we blunder into war.

We have many faces
but we are all the same:
the drudges of existence,
the drones in life's great game.
My best days are behind me,
my race is nearly run.
I get up for work each morning,
its been years since its been fun.
I am wedded to a woman
whose passion has grown cold.
I have worry lines around my eyes
to remind me I am old
* * * * *
I met her on a Thursday,
The memory makes me hard:
Perhaps she was the Devil's snare,
Perhaps a gift from God.
Her perfume was alluring
Her hair brunette and long.
Her posture was inviting,
unless I read her wrong.
She'd been recently divorced
surely there's nothing wrong with that:
She had finally shed her man
and had yet to get a cat.

On my finger, a reminder,
a band of gold I saw.
to be yet another cheater
would offend me to the core.
So we chatted and had coffee
Cheek kissed in parting, nothing more.
Another battle won
in a nasty little war.

He's paid his dues for far too long,
singing other people's songs.
For so long that he's forgotten
the voice that was his own.

Now in crowded bars
and seedy cafes
he plays the tunes
He thinks will pay.
His big break wasn't yesterday
nor will it come tomorrow.

Now he drinks alone, in silence,
of the waters of regret.
His old six stringed companion
is the one true friend still left.

He Had a gift they used to say,
and so he traveled to L.A.
Here he's still singing "Yesterday"
with a genuine dash of sorrow.

From the courtyard far below
We all heard the woman scream.
Faces at the windows saw
The masked assailant stake his prey.


“Stop that”, someone shouted down.
but none went to the woman’s aide.
Not even did we call police
while she still might have been saved.


She screamed for help but no help came,
Her hands bled from defensive wounds.
Her killer made a final ******
And she folded in a swoon.

He grabbed her purse which was the prize
And left her in the courtyard, dead
Her name was Kitty Genovese
A pretty girl, the tabloids said.

A moment in a City’s life-
Not a source of civic pride
Glad she was not a child of mine
Did you watch the night that Kitty died?

When I was young and needed wheels
my father helped me buy my first.
He worked then in a funeral home
and got a great deal on a hearse.
When first he handed me the keys
I thought there must be some mistake;
A Station Wagon for the dead-
Most dates would do a double take.

True, it had low mileage,
but a ghastly MPG.
It was very roomy in the back
where the coffins used to be.
I thought it would be hard to park,
and in that, I wasn't wrong.
Dad said the horn was customized-
when pressed it played "the Munsters" song.

Its capacious bay proved useful
when transporting beer and wine.
It even helped me to get "lucky".
a "Goth" girl thought it fine.
Pale white skin with tats and piercings'
those memories still can thrill.
Though I found it disconcerting
that she liked to lie so still.

These days I drive a Prius
in an effort to be "Green"
I work out and eat "healthy"
as I'm no longer quite so keen
to be caught lying in the back
of a flatbed limousine .

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

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

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

Each night we strut upon the stage
in plumage not our own.
You are Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.
I am Marc Anthony of Rome.
I die by sword, you die by Asp
our seperate fates well known.
Octavius had triumphed at Actium
and moved to seize your throne.
Each night, our tragedy complete
we bow to crowds' applause.
We act out Master Shakespeare's words
in climes and tongues unknown
to that Queen of Eqypt
and the Triumvir, late of Rome.
After curtain,some young dancer
gets you drunk and takes you home
Octavius does lines of Coke
Marc Anthony drinks alone.

Grumpy cat has shuffled off of this immoral coil.
For years he was my favorite meme; my most favorite  foil.
He had a constipated look, a near perennial scowl.
He was a cat that didn't purr, In truth I think he growled.
He had a most unpleasant mien.
A most unpleasant stare.
This tabby has checked out for good,
Don't ask me if I care.

Heaven Sutton was a little girl
of Chicago’s poor west side.
There turf wars rage
where rival gangs
Use bullets to decide.

A child of seven shouldn’t
Have to fear to walk the streets.
A poor mother shouldn’t
Have to buy a dress
for her forever sleep.

Heaven Sutton was gunned down
by a bullet gone astray.
Now mother’s keep their kids close by
afraid to let them play.

Should lawmen sweep the streets of
Guns?
Society must decide.
But on these streets no child is safe
Since the night that Heaven died.

Heaven Sutton, aged 7, was victim #251 of Chicago's "tough" anti Gun laws since the beginning of the year.

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.

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

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

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

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

A Lover, cloaked in sorrow,
knelt beside his woman’s stone.
His Ann was only twenty two
when Heaven called her home.

Their love affair was secret
to all but her closest kin.
She had been pledged to marry
one of their long absent friends.

Those were dark days in New Salem.
Typhoid claimed her life.
Lincoln thought to end his own-
perhaps with rope or knife.

In those days friends feared for his life
So dark his mood became.
Some thought him suicidal
whom dark depression claimed.

A figure cloaked in sorrow,
deprived of a life with Ann.
Embraced his life of martyrdom
when the moment met the man.