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.

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 .

Her love proved insufficient,
or , worse, illusory.
So you struggle bravely on alone
towards your Calvary.

Remember One who, too ,faced death
abandoned by his friends.
He, too, felt forsaken,
and cried out at the end.

We prisoners all face one fate.
It is our common link.
We all will share this cup of pain
that you are forced to drink.

Yet In this charnel house of Earth
another lies alone.
One, like you, that a
lack of Love has struck a fatal blow.

An evil illness stalks your days
but Love lives in your heart.
bring Love to an unloved one,
and you will have played your part.

The learn-ed scientist declared;
" The time has come that I,
by virtue of my own brilliance
will never have to die!"
"I engineered my own Genome
to keep me young and spry."

Indeed, by all appearances
the Doctor's boast seemed true.
His skin was supple like a child's
Though he was eighty two.
His pulse was firm and regular,
His body ripped and lean.
If not for his celebrity
you might think him eighteen.

" I am like the gods themselves-
Immortal is my glory"

The Fates laughed at his insolence
and chose to end his story.
Their Machina Ex Deus
was a drunk who drove a lorry.

Man may match Methuselah
if Science lights his way.
Still irony comes from above
and only Donkeys bray.

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.

My Liberal pal, named Sunny,
And I were quite the pair.
He was redistributionist
while I was laissez faire.
We always argued politics-
about welfare or day care.
Each was convinced the other
was deluded past repair.

“We are our brother’s keeper!
On poverty, make war!”
I said poverty was winning
if he’d bother to keep score.
And so it went, as time was spent
Until one night in Queens
When I espied a beggar
looking frail, quite pale and lean.
“Sunny, quick, give me a buck.”
as our car approached the light
I quickly rolled my window down-
I think it made her night.
“It’s sure fun being liberal!”
I said to my pal, Sunny.
“It’s pleasant being generous
with other people’s money.”
Published today 11.03

A Poet named Catullus
and Lesbia, his muse,
lived in a time of Civil War
when loyalties are confused.

Their field of battle was their bed
where Love and lust contend.
That place where all their passion
petered out and found an end.

It would seem Hades hath no fury
like a Latin poet scorned.
His Lesbia he would abuse
in prose, in Rhyme and song.

Where once he praised her beauty
and swore they'd never part,
he now condemns her deviousness
and damns her cheating heart.

The more things change
they stay the same
when Love decays to hate
They, who once coiled in adulterous sheets,
now despise each others name.

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.

How beautiful is the voice of my Beloved!
She makes music of words the most mundane.
When we need milk, its like the Siren's song:
She bids me to go and how can I refrain?
If perchance, the trash o'er flows the pail,
she commands I take it out and I comply.
Like Circe, her voice bewitches still,
and to resist her, I no longer try.
Some fools gainsay the power of her voice,
but I so love to hear her lyric line;
" Honey, will you wash the dishes, please?"
in tones so sweet how could a man decline?

The University where my friend teaches
has sadly forgot what Free Speech is.
Instructors are expressly forbidden
to use the name” Christ” in a greeting.
If you say “Merry Christmas” in passing
if non tenured,  it can be career ending.
If you bless in the name of the Lord,
be prepared for your Ox to be gored.
On the same Campus, on many occasions,
Folks speak freely of perverse persuasions.
Yet, Dean forbid, you should pray,
You’d be better off coming out gay.
If Supernatural salutations you savor
“May the Force be with you”- still is in favor.
So forget about Magi and Manger
or your teaching career is in danger.
If you lecture about Christ and sin
be prepared for what they did to Him.

His wife had always been afraid
of death, disease, decay.
So she made her husband promise,
before she passed away,
That she would be cremated
not interred and hid away.

Their children were against it;
Cremation they abhorred.
They much preferred the customs
of those who’d gone before.
Her husband, old and feeble,.
her two sons proud and strong.
They took over the arrangements
and felt sure he’d go along.

Instead he brought a lawyer
to the Simmons Funeral Home
with an order to cease and desist
from the plans they’d made alone
Mom was refrigerated while the case
hung in the court
Her husband’s strength and wealth
were spent quicker than he thought.

It was decided in her favor
in the civil court of war
She was retrieved from
her cold storage and
at last the flames would roar


When the deed was finally done
and the urn placed on the shelf.
His love’s last labor finished
He drifted off himself

The sides are drawn and chosen,
Neutrality has been lost.
Dread war is coming upon us,
Caring not if we can bear its cost,
For the Strong will work their will,
And the weak suffer as they must.
The weapons we’ve forged will be used
The red on the blade is not rust.
The losers are put to the sword.
Their women and children enslaved.
Only there will they find what they sought-
The peace that awaits in the grave.
Of Justice we no longer speak.
Might, naked, commands the stage
Melos fought bravely, alone,
Not a stone of their city was saved.

The preying Mantis
said to her mate
“You think too much!”
and bit off his head


The *** was great

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 old red car
sat alone in his garage
pondering his likely disposition..
Odometers don’t lie
and his said he’d
seen some miles.
There was some body rust
defacing his red paint.
He was out of warrantee
and as he could plainly see
there were newer, flashier
models now about.

Still, his battery was strong,
plenty tread left on his tires
and his CD/stereo still
sounded great..
Would he be sold to another,
less considerate owner
who would make him
spend his old age
on the street?
Would he be towed off to the
dump?
his parts salvaged by some chump?
Would he end up crushed and
melted by the man?

If so, when the metal cooled,
would he find himself retooled
in a showroom ready
for the road again?

The old man’s skin was parchment thin,
his eyes a watery blue.
On his left arm he bore the mark;
his Birkenau tattoo.

The letter “B” and six numbers
would be with him to the grave.
A permanent reminder
of his time as ******’s slave.

Two winters spent in Auschwitz-
What God would so design?
It left him gaunt and starving
with no faith in the Divine.

Yet he survived the worst and lived
when all his bunk  mates died.
His first wife was dust on the wind
as was their little child.

Now his grandson bears that mark,
the one and  very same.
To remind the world Of ******’s crimes,
He has skin in the game.

The President assessed the scene
and gave a terse command.
His caddy grabbed his putter
and put it in Obama’s hand.
The breeze as not a factor
The air was hot and still.
The hole, a dozen feet away,
blocked by a small windmill.
Barrack needed this putt for par.
to help him tie the score.
Boehner got a hole in one
in the clown face just before.
Obama gave his ball a stroke-
it veered wide, an inch or two.
It’s a pity folks are watching
Or he’d lie about that too.
That he should be reduced to this;
Playing at the “Pirate’s cove.
The sequester is a right wing plot
likely dreamed up by Karl Rove.

After lengthy calculations, the aged cleric stood:
“This Saturday, May twenty first, those up to no good,
will find themselves abandoned by those who bless the Rood.”
The blessed and the Chosen will be caught up in Mid- air.
Evil-doers will suffer, the Righteous will not care.
It’s been a long time coming, the new Heaven and new Earth
But by my calculations, the four horsemen are at work.
“A time of tribulation will descend upon the land.-
It s’ past time for repentance by the legion of the dammed.

“If I’m perhaps a little off, (as I’ve been wrong before)
Keep those contributions coming, while I check to see the flaw”

He was younger than me.
He was a Prince of the “Street”.
Folks would all stop and listen
whenever he deigned to speak.
To him profit came easy
And with it came fame,
(while I cursed my bad luck
at the Powerball game.)
Yet I’m still living and breathing,
while he’s stiff as a board.
His heirs all lining up
to ravage his hoard.

It’s said he had millions,
yet, as you can see,
they could not buy him health
Or even longevity.
He saw the sun set
But did not see it rise.
Was it pangs of regret?
-Of Thrombosis he died.

First they’ll hold a grand funeral
with much mindless palaver.
Then, like other such maggots,
They’ll feast on the cadaver.
They’ll Jet here and there
To Paris or Rome
Drink fine wines and whiskeys
but seldom at home.
Their meals will all be
Five star and five course
and all at the expense
of one excellent corpse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rights are inconvenient things,
I’m sure you must agree.
Why guns remain in private hands
is quite the mystery.
Felons will turn in their guns
I’m sure, without a peep.
(Tyrants always take the guns
Before they slaughter sheep)
Once you cannot defend your rights
Who cares what you think or say?
Harry Bellefonte thinks
You should be locked away.
Wouldn’t trials be quicker,
Would not be justice served,
If truth serum was administered
Instead of oaths with words?
Your guns and your religion
are quaint relics of the past.
Sharia law is coming,
Beheadings ought to be a blast.
You clamor to give up your rights.
The leftists are amused.
The ****** of the innocents
For their purpose will be used.
Quite soon you will be powerless
before the Almighty State.
When you fall ill some bureaucrat
will sign off on your fate.
A land without the Bill of Rights-
It ought to give you chills!
Your birthright gone, your children slaves
of the Marxists on the Hill.

From long time friends to bitter foes
From boon companions to friends estranged
The cute little redhead accomplished that
but it was nothing she'd prearranged
So delicate, so beautiful
with eyes a deep Aegean blue
Of course I made a play for her
She wasn't going home with you
Yes, her kisses were as sweet
as you imagined they must be
The reality was better still
warming an autumn evenings chill
I was the first to take the risk
that’s why I was the one she kissed
My actions weren’t the least bit shady
but faint hearts never win fair Ladies

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s safety in numbers
I’ve oft heard it said-
Unless there are ninety cows
stuck in a shed.
Those numerous ruminants
Munching on hay
Produce mucho methane
in the course of a day.
Ninety odd bovines
Snacking on grass
Take in the fuel
And produce moos and gas.
Those flatulent heifers
Many cow pies produced
Until a stray spark
blew a hole in the roof.
It was shocking to the farmer
And a blow to the farm,
But at least we take comfort
That not one cow was harmed.

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

Ascot - Race Course 1910-20 by daib0


King Edward the Seventh,
was dead.
With him, hope died also, tis said.
At Ascot later that year
his mistresses, I hear,
all favored blacks over reds.
Black hats with black feathers
they wore
in mourning for Bertie, they swore.
Black dresses, of course
for their dear love, now lost,
who, often, had honored their beds.

King Edward the Seventh,
was dead.
With him, hope died also, tis said.
In uncertain blue twilight
Dark shadows were spawned
as the glow from the
lamp lights had fled
Kaiser Wilhelm now free
of restraint from
  his Uncle Bertie
with reckless abandon
chose war.

He was her only Rose,
and you might think it unkind
for Rose to have left Libby
so close to Valentine’s.
Still, Libby couldn’t hold him.
He felt that it was time,
for he knew in Libby’s cold embrace
So many men had died.
For Libby was a prison,
drafty, crowded and a hole.
A hundred Union men escaped
in a break daring and bold.
Under cover of the darkness
They broke for Union lines.
Like blacks escaping slavery
Polaris was their guide

Her fingers are good, she can sew, she can thread.
She has time on her hands, now that her husband is dead.
Lillian Weber is past ninety nine,
she’s on her last mission in a race against time.
She makes dresses for young girls that she’ll never meet;
colorful frocks for the African heat.
Her goal is one thousand dresses, so fine,
by the day that she’ll celebrate for the 100th time.

Rattler

I lay, languid,
upon the rocky
outcropping.
Basking in the early
afternoon Sun.
Just then
a furry vole
wandered past me.
I slithered over and said
“Let’s do Lunch.”

For years we've consumed
far more than we grow-
preferring to reap
what we disdained to sow.
Our savings outstriped
by the sums that we owe.
Sooner or later
we ride to our fall
the banquet of consequences
awaits for us all.

Published today 10.01

A man on the cusp of One Hundred
found letters that proved beyond doubt
that Rosa, his bride since his twenties,
in the 40’s had “catted” about.
Some German had tickled her fancy
and perhaps a bit more its believed.
The statute of limitations doesn’t apply
when an Italian husband’s aggrieved.
Did he stop to think of the children?
They’re at such an impressionable age.
They may go and spend
their whole pension on drugs,
join a gang, or go out and get laid.
Antonio’s mad at his Rosa
He’s just about called her a *****.
It matters not to him that her transgression
dates back to the second world war.
We don’t know what he read in the letters-
Perhaps his whole life’s been a lie-
but as he is on the cusp of one hundred
why not wait for the children to die?




In Italy, a 99 year old man has divorced his wife aged 96  for a affair she had with a German officer in 1942
He found their letters in a drawer.  No he not longer has to wonder why his oldest boy was named " Fritz"

When Whitman wrote his "Leaves of Grass"
he was a man before his time.
Just ten years - the span of his career-
before he wrote his final line.
He never asked to have the gift
he could not un-see what he saw.
His sensibilities were formed
in the crucible of civil war.
He wrote beautifully of loss
in words that he was proud to sign.
Now I too know how he felt
as he approached the finish line

It started as a bit of grit stuck in an Oyster’s craw.
In time, through suffering, bit by bit it became the Pearl you saw.
Translucent pink, a perfect orb, no polishing required,
You alone possess this gem which many have desired.
It cost you dear, this perfect pearl, as the bid grew steadily higher.
You’d have gladly given all you had to possess its inner fire.
Time and suffering produced the Pearl, it is immutable law.
Forget that at your peril for the Pearl would be no more.
The Pearl is not a bauble meant to dazzle others’ eyes.
It, like wisdom borne of suffering, is its own reward and prize.

Stephen Hawking is of the opinion
this all came together by chance.
No need for an unmoved first mover
while electrons and protons can dance.

We’re adrift in a sea of dark matter,
loosely bound by invisible force.
Spheres orbit without any music-
background static is all per his thought.

Stephen is bound to a wheelchair,
but blessed with an insightful mind.
Surely God will forgive him for doubting
the intelligence of his design.

In the cold damp stairway
of the Tower I saw her:
Lady Jane
the nine days Queen.
Unperturbed
she walked right through me
heading for the Tower Green.
Escorted by an unseen Parson
to the block, likewise unseen,
Her translucent body
bends before it
Lady Jane, the nine Days Queen.
How many times, I wondered then
has this poor ghost played out this
Scene
bereft at once of crown and life
there upon the tower Green

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 left unsaid and deeds left undone.

When he returned from Vietnam
it was in part, not whole.
Something akin to jungle rot
has seeped into his soul.

He was not fit for steady work
or the company of man, and
in his dreams lurked demons
only liquor could withstand.

The streets of San Diego
are more hospitable as most.
You'll find him sleeping on the grass
in the Corps of the lost hopes.

His final battle rages here,
more desperate than in Nam.
this veteran fights for dignity
in a cold, uncaring land.

Hands trembled but their hearts did not
on that Independence Day.

When they signed the Declaration
many signed their lives away.

Some signers died in prison
or sank in poverty.

Several closed their eyes on life
before final victory.

One man, Clark, of New Jersey
deserves a special nod.

He suffered much for Liberty
at the hands of Howe and God.

His two sons were imprisoned,
floating on the New York tide.

Deprived of food and water
what could they do but die.

The British were true devils
and said they'd be set free.

If their father would come out for King
and recant Libery.

If he betrayed his sacred trust
He might well save his sons.

If he recanted they'd be free-
what would you have done?

His answer echoes down through time,
Their proposal he denied.

Our document was signed in blood and thrones must be defied.

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.

Wallace Hartley nodded
and the band played on.
The lifeboats and collapsibles
by then were launched and gone.

Futile flares lit up the sky
A chill borne of despair.
What was the last song that you played ?
A waltz? a Hymn? a prayer?

The violin I hold in my hand
was Wallace's all right.
What will be bid for this memento
of that remembered night?

Some survivors after claimed
you played a hymn of praise.
The wireless man McBride recalled
a mournful waltz was played.

You were the gift of Wallace's love
A girl who never wed.
The last memento of these Lovers
who rest now with the dead.

Now all Titanic's complement
are muted dead and gone.
Yet all survivors testified
that the band, indeed, played on.

****** Smily Face by billyraines08



This one, to her, seemed different.
She seldom met artistic Huns..
She thought his little mustache cute,
his smile, a winning one.
With charcoal he made sketches
when his duties were all done.

A man, she thought, of courage.
He wore the iron cross.
It was a time of hell on earth-
so many young lives lost


Perhaps her judgment was impaired
by the alcohol that she consumed.
The sixteen year old French girl
took Adolf ****** to her room.

In time she gave birth to a child,
a ******* if ever was one.
A boy they named Jean Marie Loret-
The Devil’s only son

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

You are Dark, my Dove and sweet.
Like Eve, you tempt me, and I eat.
Oh! Dark Deliciousness!
Oh! Bittersweet!
Your taste- like heaven!

but I shouldn't cry out
here in Seven-Eleven

He showers each day,
and he takes out the trash.
He works in the garden at times.
Mostly he sits in his cell and he reads.
He has never admitted his crime.

He seldom gets visitors
and hasn’t made many friends.
He sits by himself at mealtimes.
He serves a life sentence-no hope of parole
Until death he’ll remain here inside.

Conjugal visits? It’s been several years.
Since last she was seen by his side.
At lights out, sometimes,
you can hear gentle sobbing
as a little bit more of him dies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does it matter how the flames began
to creep about and up the stairs?
A mansion on the Waterfront
with seven people sleeping there.
A scaffold on the Second floor
signified that restoration had begun.
An Ember carelessly discarded
burst forth to threaten both old and young.
When firefighters approached the scene
They saw the mother attempt to save
her children on the second floor.
but tongues of fire drove her away.
Her contractor had likewise tried
to save the girls who slept upstairs.
He had two nearly in his grasp
when they both panicked and ran away.
The girls’ grandfather came the closest
to saving one granddaughter dear
He brought her to a window seat
and tried to get her in the clear
but choking smoke and his  weakened heart
brought his attempt to end in tears.

A mother weeps, uncomprehending,
as water hoses douse the flames.
Both her parents and her children dead,
and her home a smoking, ruined frame..

Sophocles, the attic poet
called man a thing of “breath and shadow “.
Too long a life can be a curse
A life too short, a cause for sorrow

The shot rang out from across the street
The Minister clutched at his throat.
He collapsed upon the balcony.
There was little cause for hope.

Dr. King was there in Memphis
to support black men on strike.
To help them gain a living wage
To help all do what’s right.

Jessie Jackson cradled King
as his vitals went flat line..
His words saved for posterity,
But violence would define the time.

A foolish, selfish criminal
Full of hate and self conceit.
James Earl Ray killed Dr. King,
And tempers flared on city streets

Bobby Kennedy called for calm
As riots rocked the City streets
Ironic that he too would die
within the space of several weeks.

Within four years, three leaders lost-
gone well before their time.
These killings poisoned Liberty,
She’s dying all the time.

This morning was cool
and the sky just as blue.
I remember where I was.
I suspect you do too.

A moment for Silence,
the ring of a Bell,
Hearts still in agony
remember too well.

In Memory still green
Eleven years on
A day to read names
of those dead and gone.

We stand here together
in memorial park
between two dark pools
where the world came apart.

That morning was cool
and the sky just as blue.
I remember where I was.
I suspect you do too.