You cannot save time in a bottle,
that's not something a bottle can do.
Sure, time can be lost there
and loves are divorced there-
but saving time, bottles can't do.

For those who spend time in a bottle
will wonder where time has got to.
Time won't be found there,
perhaps a good wine there
is sufficient to compensate you.

And as for "the box made for wishes
and dreams that will never come true."
They will put you inside
and there you will bide
till Gabriel's playing for you.

You cannot keep time in a bottle
experience taught me that's true.
Perhaps whiskey or rye
and a slow way to die
but time will not stand still for you.

The Brute had a puzzled look on his face
as the city around him burned.
What possible value this object might have
could not by him be discerned.
The object was heavy, musty and old.
Some thick yellow pages he turned
"The old man died in vain to protect this?."
he thought- and what means this word "Guttenberg?"
"It won't get me high and it won't get me laid"
The Brute saw one possible course-
He warmed his rear end as the book fed the flames.
Only the dead knew the cost.

They had waited on blankets, in cars,
to view the Chrysanthemum stars.
Instead of a pyrotechnic display,
The authorities sent them away.
A brief blast of frightening power
consumed at once many a flower.
It appears a computer malfunction
was the cause of the mini eruption.
The engineered boom had gone bust.
Makes you wonder- now who can you trust?


In the desert that night 'neath the stars
Jupiter, Venus and Mars
put on their free, nightly, display.
People on blankets, in cars
very seldom look up to the stars.
There a bowlful of wonder and light
goes sight unseen most every night.
The gift of a child's sense of wonder
goes unwrapped by these mortals down under.

Your impulses are generous, kind and pure-
But impose costs on us we can’t endure.
One point three trillion spent each year, tis said,
to keep our current poor in their own beds.
America has debt related worries
While social engineers break out new Mores.
Recent Grads despair of their careers
and student loans are going in arrears.
Priests, Teachers and the Boy Scouts, rank and file,
Apparently are staffed with pedophiles.
Socialism’s great and life is sunny-
until you run out of other people’s money.

His last sunrise shone in his eyes
as we readied, aimed and fired.
“Shoot straight you *******!”“Breaker” yelled
as his life and time expired..

Handcock and Morant together lay
sightless eyes toward the sky.
The courts-martial had convicted them.
Kitchener ordered that they die.

How did I feel about this man
my bullet helped to slaughter?
This man who ordered Boers shot
without a written order.

I’d seen him fight, and bravely too
when Boers struck the town.
The prisoners had manned the line
and helped us hold our ground..

Now stretcher-bearers took their limbs
and bore them from the field.
So fast and secret were their deaths
There was no chance of appeal.

Australians had been killed by Scotch
to please the Dutchman Boers.
British men and Africans-
we were all just following orders.

For Forty years he’d played and coached
and referred the game.
Now Alzheimer’s stolen
nearly all except his name.
With his past now dis-remembered
and all hope of a future gone
what else was there left to him
except to just play on.
The pickup game he’d played for years
Became his sole relief
He played with men he once knew well
before he met time’s thief.
You see him running on the pitch
with purpose, or with none.
And if he goes off sides at times
his friends say no harm done.
Like a child, he chases *****.
His scoring touch is gone.
Yet, in the moment, he finds joy
And so he just plays on.

We two were born on the same day
An Ocean apart, a world away.
My Dad dug graves,
His Dad owned stores
We both looked forward
to one day more.

The world then changed
for Him and me.
Both off to university.
I went to Queens
He attended Cologne
He partied with Models
I sat home alone.

The world then changed
for Him and me.
He became a captain
of industry.
With a Manse in the Mountains
and one by the shore.
I rented a place
for one day more.

The world then changed
unexpectedly
it was he who succumbed
to infirmity
When all his wealth
his billions, his stores,
failed to purchase
him one day more.

The World has changed
Just I go on
My wealthy twin
is dead and gone.
No wealthier that I was before
Yet enriched by the gift
of one day more.

A terrible year it was, in everyone’s eyes.
A King and a Prince many loved had both died.
In the Cities there were riots; in the land, discontent-
In Vietnam our money and blood were ill-spent.
So as that year ended, to no one’s surprise,
We all seemed more than happy to bid it goodbye.

Then from the firmament on that Christmas Eve
Word came from Heaven to grant us reprieve.
A quotation from Genesis was read on the air,
much to the dismay of Miss Murray O’Hare.

Then the image that grabbed us, that could not be forgot
The image of Earthrise as a little blue dot
A remnant of Eden, from which mankind was expelled
A beautiful picture of the Earth where we dwell .

The planet seemed peaceful when viewed from afar
And all that seemed missing was a bright guiding star.

When the rivers dry up
And don’t run towards the sea.
When the last of the seed corn
has died.
We may find fiscal hedging
Has all been in vain.
Is there something else we might have tried?

In the warm stagnant water
By the thousands, fish die.
The worst die off I ever did see.
Its funny how there is no shortage of flies-
I can’t say the same for the bees.

We look to the soil to sustain us on Earth
As we poison and plunder the sea.
In the Amazon, companies plunder and burn,
****** the earth’s forestry.

When the last crop has failed
And the rivers run dry
And we can’t catch a thing in the sea
The stewards of earth will be called to account
And will learn you can’t eat currency.





“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money.” –Native American proverb

The years pass us more quickly now;
The days and moments flee.
The constant in this sea of change
is the love you share with me.
It is the constant Northern light
that guides this sailor home.
It is the Pearl of greatest price
for which I’d sell all I own.
In exchange for all your gifts of Love,
your poor poet offers this:
A simple Anniversary poem,
warmed with a tender kiss.

4 A.M.- it’s much too early
It’s no surprise I’m feeling surly.
It’s cold outside and lacking light.
It feels like the middle of the night!
(When you’ve been out late and had a few
Mornings are no friend to you.)
Villainous clock that chirps and chimes
I’ll hit your snooze button one more time.
Its cold, and someone stole the covers
I reach for them as for a lover.
Alas, my larcenous spouse has taken them
I guess I’m in for a brewed awakening.

There’s a stranger in my house
I have seen him mope around
In some fuzzy bedroom slippers
and a faded dressing gown.

He somehow seems familiar
Though I cannot place the face
My memory retrieval seems
lost without a trace

Every time I see him
He is staring back intently
As if he too is searching
for a clue within his memory.


This morning he was back again
In a faded emerald robe-
You know, I have one like it-
Did he steal it, you suppose?

But that can’t be, I’m wearing it
I look up with a start
What a curse are full length mirrors
to a senescent aging ****.

I remember, when I was young,
Gloria Lynne and this song she sung,
She sang with perfect pitch:
I wish you Love.”

It was a light Blues serenade,
A song my older sisters played.
As I would sip my Lemonade
She wished me love.

Now that heart of hers,
so full of Love
Has become one
with Him above.
So, with regrets,
As fate abets,
She’s been set free

Yet on a certain day in Spring
If I should chance to hear
a bluebird sing.
I may recall
That, after all,
She wished me Love.

If I had the world and time,
ample wine and leisure,
then I might be well content
to give myself to pleasure.
Oh what fun indolence is
with all the world my treasure.
But infinity is not the cloth
of which I'm cut and measured.
The Fates that cut say time is short,
I cannot bide forever.
I preserve my time
in bits of rhyme
so posterity thinks me clever.
A prophet in his own home town
appreciated never.

The day is grey, the clouds hang low, and, in the air, a winter chill.
Upon the beach called Omaha an old soldier stands; a promise to fulfill.
Full Seventy years ago this man, weighted down with gear and kit,
raced across this wet grey sand, and, by some miracle, remained unhit.
Friends who’d survived that longest day, and all the long days after it,
had purchased the bottle held in his hands. As the last man standing
he had charge of it:

His eyes, watery from the wind, Looked at the bottle in his hands:
A Dom Perignon Brut Champagne, the 47’ vintage year.
He thought about his comrades gone. Surely they were heroes all
Who spilled out from the Higgins boats to breach the ***’s Atlantic wall.
He felt the presence of the ghosts, all those who fell upon this shore.
Boys, really, almost all eighteen, who’d died
answering Freedom’s call .

He tore the foil with old gnarled hands; His Arthritis made a chore of this.
Thin wire held the cork in place and was so difficult to untwist.
Once free his placed his thumbs upon the curved underbelly of the cork
The cork shot free across the sand and bubbly foam
chased after it.

He was not a religious man, it seemed impious for him to pray
Though he recalled so many had, that day they bled their lives away.
How best to honor these fallen men? Who had pledged their lives, each to each.
It was then he turned the bottle down and poured the contents
on the beach.


Some would declare it sacrilege to let that vintage go to waste.
The old soldier smiled and felt at peace.
He’d seen the vintage of 26’ poured out in buckets
In this very place..

The Point of no Return



From a thousand applications, they selected just us few.
The launch window fast approaching, this seemed like a dream come true.
First they launched an orbiter, our link to Earth, our mother,
Then Robots built the base camp, I’ll be sharing with three others.
We face a lengthy trip through Space; I hope someone brings cards,
confined within a shielded space, fighting boredom and the odds.
Solar panels give us light, hydroponics food to eat
Where the drinking water is coming from I prefer not to think.
This is a one way mission, there’s no plan to bring us back.
Just new colonists now and then to bring us all we lack.
I’d hoped to have three girls along that I could judge like Paris.
Instead I’m with two lesbians and a hairy guy named Boris!

Cyber Monday is my day
to Wrap my Christmas list.
I travel down the Amazon
to find that one-click bliss.

I keep my credit card on file
so when the impulse strikes me
I hop on line and grab my find
They'll ship it free most likely..

I joined their super saver club
which gives me priority.
I save a bunch on shipping
as I buy there constantly.

I pity those fools Thanksgiving night
waiting there on line
before a brick and mortar store
I guess for some that's fine.

Somehow Amazon recalls
the things I've bought before
and comes up with suggestions
I think its called Al Gore.

Remakes of old foreign films
Frankly fail to thrill.
Comedies are too predictable,
mistaking flatulence for skill.
It’s time to think outside the box.
Turn a genre on its head.
I’m working on a thriller
About folks haunted by one dead.
They must learn the ghost’s identity;
He’ll ***** them til they do.
The working title of my screenplay?
I’m calling it “Boo-Who?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A bust of Benjamin Franklin,
Too valuable to even be dusted,
She stole from her former employer,
Thus proving she’s not to be trusted.
Authorities now have her trussed
She was nabbed with the bust-
She had busted.
She was busted with a bust
In her bag
For fingerprints
The bust will be dusted.
Busted with a busted bust on a bus?
Some people can never be trusted!

A younger man
and his older wife
at their villa south of Rome.
Both English Poets of Renown
and very far from home.
Elizabeth was fading fast
Robert held her in his arms.
Her lungs were weak
and opiates for sleep
had begun to cause her harm.
Robert said that on her last day
she was radiant as a girl.
The last word she spoke
was "Beautiful"
before she left this world.

The thing that killed her has a name

It formed the plaque that scarred her brain.

She embarked upon that one way trip

where names elude and memories slip



This disease is most unkind

It slows the step and clouds the mind

Her daughter daily watched her fade

into a lemure, a ghostly shade.



She was not frail at eighty nine

She’d cold cocked nurses in her time

who came too close with an I.V.

and paid dearly for their ministry.



The heart was strong, but not the mind

Ten years passed, as we count time.

She couldn’t hear or speak our names

How silent then her world became.



She couldn’t eat without an aide,

Or walk without a metal cane.

At the last- the chair with wheels

And we all saw how helpless feels.



Some say death is most unkind

Perhaps, for those before their time-

But for those who linger at his door

There is no gift they wanted mor

Their leader was incompetent,
well-meaning but untried.
He lead his men into a trap
Then fled and let them die.

The Indian and British troops
Were outnumbered by Khan’s men
When their artillery was silenced
It was clear how it would end.

The soldiers of the Sixty Sixth
fought gallantly to the death.
When they turned to make their final stand
There were eleven left.

With sword and lance and cartridge
They battled hopeless odds.
On the dusty plain of Maiwand
They would, shortly, meet their God.

When their ammo was exhausted
They decided steel would do.
They charged then, in the face of death.
those men, so proud, too few.

When the last of them lay in the dust
having fought to their last breath.
The Khan himself paid them respect
For they had earned their rest..

Sometimes a spirit won't let go,
in spite of all the pain.
It wants another sunrise,
to feel, again, the rain.

But when at last, its time to go
with goodbyes said at last
return them to their mother's womb
at peace with their own past.

For so short is a lifetime's span,
from first word to last amen
We borrow breath to live as man-
expiring, pay it back again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outside it feels like ten below,
so I bask in the warmth and light
of the Fireplace's glow.
No better spot on a bitter night.
A cup of Cocoa to warm my hands
and suddenly the world seems right.
Then Chip, my Chocolate Lab, makes demands;
with leash in mouth he nudged my hands.

Out in the utter dark of night.
We walk together , man and beast,
Chip loves to frolic in the snow,
(and cares not if its ten below.)
Whereas I, on the other end of the leash,
do not enjoy it in the least.
He has fur and four paw drive.
I, old and portly, slip and slide.
I'd much rather be back, warm, inside.
I think it's time for chocolate!

The battle is fought and our victory won,
My General has ordered me to run,
From Marathon’s plains to Athens Agora
to tell the elders of the battle’s outcome.
Oh gods on high grant us surcease
from threats of invasion if no true peace.
I have fought in the front line
and raced to and from Sparta in two days’ time.
Now fatigued and nearly done
I speed toward home from Marathon.
We will not suffer Eretria’s fate
Their city burned, their folk enslaved.
No! Thousands of Persians we have slain.
Our city on a hill is saved.
I’m short of breath and weak from wounds
Even as the walls of our city loom.
“Nike!” I cry! “Rejoice, we’ve won!”
As my proud heart breaks and I am done.

My secret flame has kindly eyes that I have learned to trust.
Let the world praise Nefertiti but remember she is dust.
No, she is not beautiful in the way the world decides.
Yes, my heart is on fire when I behold her with these eyes.
She is my muse, my Touchstone, my constant evening star.
She is ever on my mind, though often from afar.
Keep Helen with her thousand ships, such beauty is but vain.
A poet is much better off who has a secret flame.

They buried him at Calverton,
the sky provided tears.
His mourners were the Few, the Proud.
No next of kin appeared.

For years he’d wandered City Streets,
a casualty of war.
The V.A. patched his injuries,
they couldn’t bandage what he saw.

The State had little use for him,
once the Peace accords were signed
His tiny pension was just enough
to purchase anodyne.

The blessings of a dreamless sleep,
He sometimes found in wine.
Otherwise he was on night patrol
With friends he’d left behind.

It’s hard to live civilian life,
His haunted mind was too far gone.
His body slept in Central Park
while his soul patrolled Khe San.

Then one night, more cold then most,
that solider finally yields.
She found him, dead, beneath the bridge
That he’d called “home” for years.

That kindly New York City Cop,
who knew he was a Vet,
arranged a simple funeral.
-That’s more than many get.

Present, aim, ready, fire!
They fire three quick rounds.
Accompanied by a tape of “Taps”
They commit him to the ground.

It was a time of slush, snow and icy precipitate
when you and I first ventured out on what may be called a date.
A group of us went bowling, then repaired to the local bar.
Later you dispelled the chill as we snuggled in my car.
It's true that ice was on the ground and it was getting late.
I fell for you, you felt it too. It is a blissful state.
True, it was not a "forever" love; such is granted to but few.
We had love for a brief season in a time of cold and flu.

She is there and you are there,
The mood and time seem right.
Be sure your heart is healthy enough!
Know what Science brings to light.
Kissing someone like you mean it
makes hearts race as passion soars.
The work hearts do in minutes
can be multiplied by four.
They say that life is shortened
by each amatory kiss.
We work our tickers overtime
When we osculate like this.
Note I’m not urging abstinence
As that would be a crime.
Just, when kissing like you mean it,
Make sure she’s worth your time.

It has come to our attention that your License was suspended-
for failing to stop, within lines, for needed punctuation.
Your casual allusions to things and times of yore
Are confusing to the reader, and frankly mark you as a bore.
Your long winded analogies sometimes beggar all belief,
though some here think that your intent is comical relief.
All attempts at alliteration have been something of a dud;
You fall in love with the technique and sound like Elmer Fudd.
Your recent "Ode to Flatulence" using onomatopoeia
was but the latest instance of your verbal diarrhea.
Your metaphors are pitiful and this committee looks askance
at your evident confusion of mere lust with true romance.
Still, we are both kind and merciful (as bureaucrats tend to be) ,
So we'll renew you for another year upon remittance of the fee.

My model is a comely lass whose husband has commissioned me.
Her cheeks are flushed with natural blush, her half smile not quite matronly.
This dress is low cut to reveal the rise and falling of her *******.
Lisa has sat for me before (which allows some familiarity.)
This portrait will adorn her home and celebrates her second child.
I could suggest some jest of mine was the cause that made her smile,
but my medium is the truth and rank deceit is not my style.
My brushstrokes capture the last of her youth;
A half smile to intrigue mankind.

In fair Verona where Will set the scene
Belle Fortune moves the markers up and down.
Two households both alike in dignity
Fiercely compete for fear of losing ground.

When Juliet saw Romeo at the dance
Events were set in motion that, perchance,
Would see fair Juliet as our Romeo’s bride
but ultimately result in her suicide.

With Tybalt and Mercutio both dead,
And Capulet and Montague estranged.
Young Paris sought fair Juliet to wed
not knowing of her loss of maiden-head.

Romeo was banished for his crime,
a sin for which a peasant would have died
Their two households, joined because they wed,
remained divided by their foolish pride.

Summer’s fierce heat shimmered in the air,
oppressive in the absence of a breeze.
With Friar Lawrence’s help, Romeo’s girl played dead,
as if struck down by some unknown disease


Romeo , in Mantua, heard that his Juliet
Lay dead amongst the sleeping Capulets.
A draught of deadly poison he obtained
So they might sleep together once again.

When Romeo met Paris at her tomb,
Words led to swordplay, leaving Paris dead.
Would not the world have been a better place
if Romeo had kept it sheathed instead?

Unshriven, Romeo drank the poison down-
the only son of Montague now dead.
Perchance just then fair Juliet revives
Bereaved, she took his Dirk to bed instead.

Authorities, arriving at the scene,
could only mourn a brace of kinsmen lost.
Capulet and Montague were reconciled
Their amity bought at a fearful cost.

My wife's been a smoker
since she turned sixteen.
Through the years we were married
and the years in between.
Now though she breathes
like a fish brought to shore.
her long term addiction
had her craving one more.

Who am I to judge her
or deny her last wish.
She is not getting better,
I've no heart to resist.
I gave her the smokes
she had long put away
I gave her the lighter
and sought out her ash tray.

A tremendous explosion ripped
through our first floor.
It indeed had proved fatal
her request for one more.
on purpose or accident
I can't judge her intent
in choosing to smoke
in her oxygen tent.

Once upon a time
in a nasty little war
Cromwell came to Ireland
like a blight upon our shore.

He waged war upon my people
in a genocidal style
but some revisionists might argue
he was merciful and mild.

At Drogheda he killed thousands,
what a slaughter that place saw,
at the hands of "Christian" soldiers-
surely righteous was their cause.

Then, when the war was over
and all our blood was spent
the Gaels, who used to own the land,
all wound up paying rent

" To Hell or Connacht" is a phrase
sound biters did invent
I don't know if he uttered it
but its surely what he meant!

In the dead of Winter came
a dread that did not give its name.
A thought whose source would not disclose
the fear that all those living know.

In the dead of winter came
those short lived days we pass in vain.
Anger, short lived, but intense
at Love without its recompense.

In the Dead of winter came
a bitter cold without a name
Disease that would not run its course
The bitter pill of our divorce.

Drink is the doorway to despair
and yes, I sought some comfort there,
when human voices all went still
to warm me from the Winter chill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I cannot see the man upstairs, but yet I know he’s there;
He plays his telly very loud, he must be deaf, I swear.
I hear him stomping to the loo several times each night.
He’s either back to drinking coffee, or his prostrate isn’t right.
He pays his rent on time each month; he puts it with my mail.
He leaves for work before I wake, and his trash is in my pail.
I know that he loves mallow mars and the beer he drinks is Schlitz.
So by these sure and certain signs I know that he exists.
I know some of my neighbors must harbor secret doubts.
The man upstairs is an introvert, you never see him out.
Every night at 6 P.M. when he plops into his chair,
His presence is revealed to me; He’s the man upstairs.

These empty rooms
devoid of life,
behind a bookcase
in the hall.
This was, for a time,
our home
while the Germans
held the Dutch in thrall.
My wife since dead from hunger,
my daughters in a common grave.
I, Otto Frank, the sole survivor.
Is there no one I can save?
Annelise, my dearest daughter,
Miep Gies gave me your book.
The Germans cast it on the floor
without a second look.
Here in your words I find
that not all of you has died.
Here your words may speak
for all who suffered, all who cried.
Its small comfort for an old man,
broken, ready for the grave,
but my girl might be a symbol
for all those we could not save.

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

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

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

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

Gaukroger’s war was over.
Gaukroger, too, was through.
A piece of him here,
a piece over there.
Not the Peace that he wanted
in his last forlorn prayer

Gaukroger was a fellow second lieutenant
and survival was not his forte.
For days after death he lay there unburied
Nor could I make my eyes turn away.

We’d been sent to this place
to be forward observers.
enemy guns found the range.
Gaukroger died quickly,
without even a goodbye.
Sometimes, after,
I wished for the same.

When I looked for Boche,
Gaukroger stared back
A steady and reproving stare
At night the rats came,
larger than cats,
by next morning
my friend wasn’t there.

We had quite a run old girl,
nearly all of it was fun.
A rose is my final gift to you.
I, too, am nearly done.

For sixty years we played the songs,
the stuff of memories.
Our audience has greyed or strayed,
now you've abandoned me.

Our house is like a record store-
Ten thousand old L.P's
Each song labelled and cataloged
-memories in melody.

I did our show that one last time
for those fans who still care.
The truth is I cannot go on
because you are not there.

Beside my bed, your photograph,
You're ever on my mind;
a single rose named Dorothy
whose melodies were mine.

From Cy Young to DeGrom
The distance stayed the same
Sixty feet, six inches
It’s the measure of the game.
Each base is Ninety feet apart
In Diamond shape arrayed.
Shortstops still get the runner
Wherever the game is played.
Home plate is Seventeen inches wide
And the pitcher toes the rubber
These are the articles of faith
For any baseball lover.
In every City in this land
Where Freedom used to ring.
The sounds around the Diamond
Were a welcome sign of Spring.
You can meddle with the mound
And fiddle with its height,
But don’t touch the distance from home plate
Unless you’re ready for a fight.
Its true we now play games at night
But surely that’s our loss.
When you tally up the profits
You forget about the costs.
This game was born for Summer
On hot afternoons they played.
When you lose the children, Manfred,
That is when you lose the game.
Our game is not played with a clock
Yet there’s an ending to each game
In this it is like life itself-
for the keepers of the Flame.

Four bold gypsy warriors
bonded when very young.
Neither darkness nor the roaring wind
could make them come undone.

The four became like sisters,
like mothers to the young.
to outsiders they were terrors
and they vowed to be as one..

From the time that they were children
They sang, they played, they prayed.
They claimed each others friendship
in ways  time can’t blot or fade.

The winds of change could separate,
-but only physically.
Each bold brave gypsy warrior
retained true empathy.

Life gave both tears and laugher;
happy times and desperate days.
At times they felt like wanderers
trapped within a maze.

Then, when the days were darkest
one would pick up the phone
and summon a companion
for things you shouldn’t face alone.

Once more now they’re together.
Shared dreams and kindred hearts
Four bold brave gypsy warriors
against the wind and dark.

She started out some years ago

the wife of a friend of mine.

The lady’s name was Lisa,

and she was a Florentine.

Through all of my commissions

She followed me through time.

Lisa Gherardini

had a shy and secret grin.

I remember when she sat for me,

the light was perfect then,

But something less than perfect

Was the aspect of her eyes.

She had a stigmatism

That my art could not disguise.

Last night, lying there with Salai

my apprentice and my love.

I looked into his eyes

and was inspired from above..



I hurried to my studio

And burned the midnight oil

This time Salai sat for me

in the same pose as the girl.

.

The result I deem perfection,

I will keep her till I die..

I’ll never sell this mystery girl

That has my lovers’ eyes.

You can still find our pictures
behind gilded frames.
If you take time and the trouble
You can find out our names.

We are fading from memory
as our Families pass on.
We’re the crew of the Thresher,
long time gone down.

Our boat was the pride
of the  Atlantic Sub Fleet.
Five years on our station,
patrolling the deep.

We were out on an exercise
Two hundred miles off Cape Cod
When, quite unexpected,
We encountered our God

A critical subsystem failed
the reactor shut down
Without power or steering
The thresher would drown

Our companion ship heard
A roaring like wind.
We were crushed by the pressure
as the Thresher caved in.

Some worker on shore,
in a hurry to lunch,
Had missed a weld on a pipe
-The Inquiry board’s hunch.

You can still see our pictures
behind gilded frames.
If you take time and the trouble
You can find out our names.

We are fading from memory
as our families pass on.
We’re the crew of the Thresher,
long time gone down.

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

The envelope please!
No, not that one, you fool.
Mistakes have been made
by Price-Waterhouse tools.
A Harvey –like gaff
At the Oscars was made
And the wrong cast and crew
were called up to the stage.
How mortifying
It sure must have been
To be standing up there
And learn you didn’t win.
Kimmel mocked Harvey
For just such a switch
Last night Jimmy learned
That karma’s a witch

Not on your lips,
No, not anytime soon.
Your mind has become
Like the dark side of the moon.
Full of holes and lacunae
and dark shadowy walls.
Sometimes words fail you,
More often, recall.
I show you a picture
Of when you were young
I can see it’s a struggle,
on the tip of your tongue.
I wish you could help me
Match names and faces
Caught here in print
In silvery traces
If only a synapse could snap into place
Give you back the dignity
That time has erased.
Then you could name these comrades
headed off to the war.
Maybe then could you tell me
where past years are.