It always starts with a Woman;
a woman with skin like sweet milk chocolate.
A woman with a voice like warm honey on a cold dark night
And brown eyes in which a man might comfortably lose his soul.

The club was cold; not much of a club really;
A drafty old barn of a building somewhere in Arkansas
A big barrel half filled with Kerosene was lit to heat the hall.
The Young black folk of the town were gathered around

Young B.B. King was playing the blues, on a guitar with no name.
That was when the fight broke out on the dance floor.
two strong men doing battle over a woman who worked at the club.
It always starts with a woman.

Punches were exchanged; in the melee someone kicked over that barrel
And fire, like a river, roared across the floor.
Everybody started to run for the only open exit.
B.B. King ran too, until he recalled he had forgotten his guitar.

She was nothing special except for the man who played her
The man who coaxed sweet sad sounds from every catgut string.
King wasn’t a rich man and that guitar was his meal ticket
So he raced back through the flames.

Just as he retrieved his guitar, the building began
Its slow sad collapse into ash and embers
He barely escaped with his life and his guitar.

Standing outside in the cold night
Looking on the ruins of what had been a good paying gig.
That was when he met Lucille;
She was the barmaid with the sweet milk chocolate skin
And a voice like warm honey on a cold dark night;
Those two men had just fought and died over
a pleasure that neither would ever possess.

That was when B.B. King christened that old beat up guitar
“Lucille”:
To remind him of this night he almost died.
to remind him never to do something that stupid again.
Like I was saying, it always starts with a woman.

They do not hold out hope of a cure,
Just a short extended time.
A decent quality of life- however that's defined.
There will be bouts of nausea,
They promise joints will tame.
My husband promised me a wig
in just my favorite shade.
Just time enough to say goodbye
ere the reaper claims the stage.
I know the limit of my days
are numbered in my bones.
Until I'm in a crowded room
resting silent and alone.

It was protracted suicide
Poe, dead before his time.
At the end he sold his clothes for drink
He was found the worse for wine.
A horror, like the tales he'd spun,
mad visions stalked his days.
This master of the Macabre
this day found a common grave.
No Raven croaked as he lost hope
of an earthly parole.
His doctor heard his final words:
"Lord, please save my poor soul."

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

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

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

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

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

Dead leaves smoking on an open fire,
Tricksters dressed up in odd clothes.
Ghouls and Goblins sneaking up on our porch-
Give them chocolate and maybe then they’ll go.

Everybody knows the jack-o- lanterns wick-ed light
Means it’s a pagan sort of Gourd.
Tiny tykes, munching sugar all night,
will wind up bouncing off the walls.

They know Brunhilda’s on her way
trying out her new broom on her special day.
And every little goblin’s gonna try
To see if chubby Witches still can fly.

And so I’m offering this simple phrase
Since trick or treat I think is overused.
Although it’s been said it’s the day of the dead;
Happy Halloween to you.

Summers by the Jersey shore
Have always called to me,
As though a Siren lived beside
our cottage by the sea.
A place where wave
and wind and sand
conspired perfectly
to make a simulacrum
of what Paradise might be.

This will be my last summer
coming to the Jersey shore.
My medications manage pain
But they can do no more.
The doctors say I have six months
before I cease to be.
So I have chose to spend that time
in my cottage by the sea.

I walk alone at Evening tide
beside the golden shore.
The tide erases every step
I take forevermore.
For I am not eternal
Like the deep and restless sea.
In truth I am ephemeral
More than I’d like to be.

I cannot bargain with my fate
I cannot buy more time.
This vintage, strictly limited,
is dying on the vine.

Too soon it will be Labor Day
And time for you and me
To close the place up one last time
our cottage by the sea.

The portrait, done in black and white,
dominates their room.
A picture of their special day,
a day for bride and groom.
The only splash of color;
a bouquet of roses red.
“Jacob made that of us
on the day that we were wed.”
“For years it graced the storefront
of his studio in Bellerose.”
“He’d done our album for us
And he really liked this pose.”
“When we heard his shop was closing,
(Years of smoking took their toll)
My husband had to have it
Before the place was sold.”
When she spoke about her husband
There was love in every word.
It was: “We did this” and
“We saw that”
I listened and observed.
This wife had that rare quality
that beauties seldom find.
like those roses in their portrait
never fading, ever kind.

I awakened to a horror in which I couldn’t feel my feet.
In traction, in a hospital room, I drifted in and out of sleep.
I’d retain some feeling in my hands, yes, my fingers moved.
So I’d be a paraplegic if my condition won’t improve.

I can’t recall the accident.  Some call me fortunate.
Yes, I survived the crash; but I wouldn’t choose this fate.
For some weeks I was in a coma. The other driver’s dead.
Some days found me wishing that he was here instead.

They say I’ll never walk again. I’ll be sentenced to this chair.
I fight for my independence; the only remedy for despair.
I must cultivate new interests; I’ll no longer run and play.
Fate has cast long shadows upon the middle of my day.

You’ll find me in my garden now, when days are dry and fair.
I can still tend to my roses, even working from this chair.
They once were ornamental and seldom on my mind;
Now their careful cultivation is what gives meaning to my time.

They blossom in profusion in a riot of color here.
I have a little greenhouse and I work sheer magic there.
These petals, pink and delicate, are salve to my troubled mind.
They give me peace and an escape from all I left behind.

The bar was closed,
the dawn approached
like a grey and threatening sea.
He placed two glasses on the bar
one for him, one for me.

Black Bush shimmered in each glass
golden in half light
We proposed a toast to you
thirty years ago tonight.

That day We'd brought you to the church
and the graveyard just beyond.
Larger than life you always loomed
hard to believe you're gone.


They say that when a father dies
a boy becomes a man.
If it didn't happen right away
I hope you'll understand.

I'll never hear your voice again
or share a hug and kiss.
I'm drinking to remember
It was such a night as this.

The piece of paper in my hand
meant everything to me;
The end of twenty years of "bliss",
the ultimate decree.
Strange, I thought,
how tears now flow
to fill a void
that no one
could foresee.

We never touched.
We never kissed,
Nor did our limbs entwine.
Yet your translucent beauty
made an impression in my mind.
We never spoke
I never met
this beauty of the screen.
A girl they called Emanuelle
In a film some thought obscene.

She is dead of Cancer now,
A Krystal so sublime:
All youth and beauty withers
How briefly it was thine.

Our fingers never touched.
Our lips have never joined.
What might have been, forgotten.
What could have been, ignored.

A moment in your presence
is worth a mound of gold.
A hunger left unsated,
as time and chance unfold.

Here in the cold and damp
Of our, sadly, separate lives
Here we have never joined,
thus we have never died

In my mind's eye
I can see her;
Her dark hair now silver grey,
He smooth child's cheek
now wrinkled
by the light of many days.

Such days as those
she never saw.
Informed upon
and dammed.
Anne Frank lies in
a common grave,
No tombstone bears her name.

Imagine, in a better world,
if her family had survived.
Somewhere, in anonymity,
she might still be alive.

This is a Christmas time request
to join in a good deed.
I’m Giving a pint at Christmastime
To strangers who are in need.

So raise your sleeve and not your glass
Don’t let blood banks run dry!
The pint you give might help one live
Who otherwise might die.

Then afterwards we’ll raise a glass,
two heroes, you and I.
We must replenish after all
And not let the well run dry.

Twelve thirty five
three shots ring out.
The Presidents been hit.
He's dying, no doubt.
A ghost stares down
at the Motorcade.
Another clutches his throat
as lifesblood is splayed.
Their drama plays out
at Dealy Plaza
Without the blood
or the Dura mater.
A great Man murdered,
A vision gone
November twenty Second
Fifty Years on

An Academic (with too much time) deplores our use of him and her.
“These gendered pronouns give offense; to transgenders, they are a slur.”
“So at our University, “Ze” shall stand for “He” or “she”
And when crowds gather now and then, “Zey” shall now be known as “zhem”.”
“Old style pronouns must not be used when the student body is so confused.”
“Gendered bathrooms, were so unkind, now the doors bear equal signs (=)”
We must not judge or interpose when boys dress up in women’s clothes.
Nor should we act with prejudice if Zey decide to make a switch.
For what you may have been at birth may not be what you had in mind;
Hormonal treatments can, in time, make a drab boy look Divine
Though Ze went to an all girl’s school, Zee’s now packing all the tools
With the surgeon’s skill and care you can lose or grow a pair.
“Though Male and Female He created them, surgically we have updated zhem.”

Eight Thousand and twenty games it took
before Howie could put it in the books.
There was, here and there,
a base on *****.
One desperate catch against the wall.
One possibly disputed call,
but Johan Santana got them all..

Bob Murphy would have loved this night
The Park in Queens alive with cheers.
Fans walking out in a gentle rain
with his happy recap in their ears.

I've soiled my sacred garments. I fear I've fallen far. I have a pounding headache and just woke up in a bar. My clothes reek of tobacco. My heart races from caffeine. As I was born and raised a Mormon this is not my normal scene.


I was prospecting for new converts , going door to door, when I ran into a sort of girl I'd never met before. Her hair was fire engine red, at least the drapes I 'd say. Her blouse was silk and tightly stuffed in a most intriguing way.

She said that she was off to "church", would I care to come along? She said the spirit moved her there, a place of cheer and song. I sensed a soul that I could save and so I went along.


Soon I was drrinking  Jameson. I bought the house a round. It's amazing stuff, this alcohol, this new friend I have found. I was singing karaoke and was dancing on the bar. I guess I had a bit too much, oh, I have fallen far.

I woke up from my stupor- cotton mouthed, dazed and confused. I'd been overcome by demon ***, a thing I shouldn't use. There was somebody laying next to me, I feared it might be "Red".  Imagine my profound relief that it was a man instead. He said his name was Khalid and he'd come here from afar. He, too, had a Prophet who forbade drinks from the bar. It turns out he also met the girl, this "Red" of whom I speak. He 's been trying to convert her and he's been here since last week.

The time machine, itself, was old,
compact, yet seemingly vast.
It prepared now for the journey
The traveler thought would be his last.

Like a ghost in the machine
Lights glimmered, dimmed, then flared.
The time traveler breathed deeply,
nodded that he was prepared.

Back in his distant past he roamed,
back, to his childhood home.
A vanished place now only seen
in creased photos with sepia tones.

But no, the sky a remembered blue,
The white clapboarded home
The lawn, a rich lush emerald hue
and he was not alone.

For at the door his mother stood
as she was in her prime.
To see her once again was worth
all the world and time.

She beckoned him to join her
and she hugged her welcomed guest.
The traveler whispered “Mother”.
as so many have said at their last.

Back in the sterile I.C.U.
There were no vital signs.
The traveler had a D.N.R.
The nurse noted the time.

Sickles' corps had broken; the Rebels had them on the run.
Hancock foresaw disaster; perhaps a worse one than Bull Run
How could he plug the gap in the line and rally men to stand?
"What Regiment is this? " he asked of Colville, in command.
The First Minnesota volunteers- they were sorely undermanned.


They were Lincoln's first volunteers, staunch Union men in Blue
Hancock ordered them to charge; a death sentence, they knew.
With bayonets fixed they made their charge outnumbered twelve to Two.

The Rebel regiments were shocked, disbelieving what they saw;
The company sized regiment who'd come through three years of war.
Canister ripped through their lines; there was no time to weep.
Five minutes Hancock needed; for that long their grief would keep.


This field knows many heroes; so many fought and bled.
But let us pause and honor these brave Minnesota dead.
They bought time for the General; the Union held the Ridge.
We might not have a country had they not done what they did.

No Judge, No Jury, No sentencing time,
No hurried last kisses, No final goodbyes,
Ramos and Liu were killed because they wore blue
by a black hearted coward named Brantley.

The Tompkins House off Myrtle was the scene of attack.
Two officers down; both were shot from the back.
There is blood on the pavement; there is fear on the streets,
as the fires of Ferguson are fanned by the Elites.

Lincoln forewarned us before Booth killed him
That America only could fall from within.
No great foreign power could conquer these shores.
No, we would decline from within, he was sure.

Our house is divided and, as such, cannot stand
as long as we hyphenate each woman and man.
We are not helpless victims oppressed by”the Man”
We are either free people or hopelessly dammed.

Love is a connection between two people.
When one of them hangs up you get dial tone.
Followed by a little voice saying:
"There appears to be a receiver off the hook."

The night was cool
the moon was full.
There was no hint
of what was to come.
A nearby asteroid
was perturbed
from its journey
around the Sun.
It hurtled down
toward the Earth.
A billion souls
it put at risk
none but the moon
stood in its path
It struck the moon
a silent blast
because in Space there
is no sound.
Luna shook
but gave no
ground.
A slice of moon was
sharded off
Fragments blasted
here and there
The tides went mad
The seas rose up
The waves raised
in a desperate prayer.
In time the dust would coalesce
into a ring
about our orb
Poets would write
about the ring
which girds our earth,
our Eden home.

In the empty stands
Our champion sat.
Sans fans
and sans applause.
He mulled over
The match just past;
Its aces
and its flaws.

To have come so close
And not prevail-
A lesser man might cry.
But Murray knew the glory
That comes when Mortals vie.
He thought:
“I’m getting closer,
Than I ever have before”
A silver cup
At Centre court
Was the vision
That he saw.

John Paul Satre could have written it; a play about these times.
The Greek banks are closed on Holiday and Greeks all stand in line.
Sixty Euros if you’re lucky, that’s the limit for the day.
The Greeks are running out of Euros, and I’m afraid there’s Hell to pay.
The people have rejected Merkel’s plan to be austere,
And so the leftist government might finish out the year.
Printing Drachmas in the basement has to be their back up plan;
as they make their graceful Grexit may their creditors be dammed.
Will Brussels send the Wehrmacht in to seize crops in the fields?
You can only squeeze an olive once; there’s a limit on the yield.
This isn’t debt that they can pay the pundits have opined.
The can cannot be kicked again, this was the final time.
Italy and Portugal both wait with bated breath;
Along with Spain they want to see what Brussels will do next.
Greece is a small country, one with a pleasant clime.
What happens next is what you’d expect of Dominos in line.

Once upon a time
There were two giants
on our Island.
They were tall
and steely strong,
these twin giants.
They stood firm
on the ground
and their crowns
touched the clouds.
Then, on a crisp, clear
September day-
The world changed
And the giants were no more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The scientist was first on stage,
Then came his Geminoid.
The family resemblance-
impossible to avoid.
An android in his image,
That seems to understand.
A body that is ageless
in the shape and form of man.
An android body could survive
The void of outer space
without the need for oxygen
Or food that looks like paste.
Manufactured Hominids
Could roam the plains of Mars
Explore the nearby cosmos,
Travel to a nearby star.
Then when, at last, they journey back
to Earth, their cosmic home,
will they embrace their distant kin
or find they are alone?

There is a place on Goree isle-
It's call the house of slaves.
A port of call for slaver ships
whose crews no saint could save.
The captives of defeated tribes
here caught last sight of home.
Borne down by chains on
feet and wrists, crowded yet alone
All would pass one portal-
the door of no return.
Into the holds where many died
and more wished for the same.
They'd lose their language and their kin
and any hope of home.
They'd find a place beneath the loam
they'd work a lifetime long.
Stronger than the Indians
whites worked until they died
Their labors built a Country
in which they took little pride.
Yet they knew the day was coming ,
in the year of Jubilee,
When the shackles would be stricken off
and once more they would be free,

Wilmer McLean had seen war in the flesh;
Near Bull Run he had purchased a farm.
When rebellion broke out, Stonewall Jackson came up
Causing Wilmer distress and alarm

So McLean sold his farm, moved his kin far from harm;
-kept them safe to the very last day.
Until Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant
chose his parlor for the end of the Fray.


From Fort Sumter’s surrender to Appomattox Court House
Through five Aprils, ****** war had held sway,
It began in his back yard, ended up in his parlor
From fate he could not get away.

Much of our literature
has come from his pen-
or was He a She?
I can't say I ken.
When not writing poems
or dabbling in prose
Beautiful songs
Anon oft would compose.
Anonymous never gained
fortune or fame.
The works are immortal,
Their maker, unnamed.
Since the first of his line
painted caves all alone,
Anon ever has been
the artist unknown.

You would think him a villain; you would call him a thief
But he would just shrug and say “We all have to eat.”
On the Petersburg siege lines, he’d just made a score;
A rusted old bayonet used in our Civil War.

There are scores of collectors who would pay a good price.
They wouldn’t ask questions, they wouldn’t think twice.
He cared nothing for the History of the Blue and the Grey.
Only for the money the collector would pay.

The Sun was descending when he left from the Park
He bought some Tequila, to drink in the dark.
in a third rate motel that didn’t leave the lights on.
By three the next morning the Tequila was gone.

The thief had bad dreams, in his ***** induced sleep.
of a specter in gray at his bed near his feet:.
The ghost of a drummer from that long ago war.
The thief shook with fear at the visage he saw.

The blade he had stolen was now in the Ghost’s hands.
The ghost grimly eyed him with the soul of one dammed.
The blade shattered his ribs and ripped him apart.
As darkness descended it tore open his heart..

The medical examiner was called the next day.
A horrified maid found the body, they say.
His room had been locked. He’d bled out on the ground
The hall cameras showed nothing; no weapon was found

A candle in the window is a warm and welcome sign
of an accommodating spirit with a thirst for the Divine.
Our ancestors lit candles in the Ireland of our past
To let a persecuted Padre know that there he could say Mass.
Our native tongue was under siege and in time was nearly lost
as the Crown tried to grind Ireland down no matter what the cost.
We are a charming people, sweet and witty are our ways,
stubborn in our faith that man is most uncommon clay.
So on this coming Christmas Eve before the feast begins
Put a candle in the window and welcome Jesus in.

My house is haunted
it seems to me.
It has its
idiosyncrasies.
The heat comes up
pipes clank and hiss.
I fear something
must be amiss.
The floorboards creak
a dreadful sound.
Strange, it seems
no one's around.
The windows rattle
but the storm has ceased
This house won't give me
any peace .
Light bulbs flicker,
hiss and decease.
but even in darkness
my bills increase
Is some foul spirit
lurking here?
or perhaps the house
needs some repair.
I fear a demon from the abyss
in every clank creak rattle and hiss

She was found there, by the shoreline, hidden in a plastic bag,
where the ebb and flow of Ocean beat upon Deer Island’s sand.
A little girl, just two years old, in a bright jumper clad
A little beauty beat to death by some brute of a man.

No one could identify the body they had found
so police employed an artist to help them solve the case.
His rendering of “baby Doe” went up all over town.
Soon it was on the internet. “Do you recognize this face?”

They broke the case last Thursday, they finally had her name.
Her Mother and the boyfriend were arrested and arraigned.
Each condemned the other for the ****** of the Babe.
A bronze fawn now commemorates the spot where she was slain.

Some think it cute when young girls twerk,
Or use cosmetics like Tammy Faye.
Isn’t it cute to hear them curse?
Childhood?- Oh, that’s so passé.
Dress them like their older sisters;
in clothing barely more than slips.
Put ****** heels upon their feet
to roll those prepubescent hips.
I pity those who think this progress.
I put the ball back in their court.
The taking of innocence, I find appalling.
It makes childhood nasty brutish and short.

Consider a planet the mirror of Earth,
a place that is nearly our twin,
where Cannabis is legal
and sugar is banned.
Where you can have “coke”
But not gin.

Would moonshiners distill
sour mash in their still?
Would junkies  there “jones” for some “Cane”?
Would addicts have shakes
due to no frosted flakes.?
Would they ****** and steal
for sweet sin?

There, those who like smokes
Would be left free to “****”
While the sweet toothed
were facing hard time.

To rehab they’d go
And be fed sweet and low.
To keep sugar
Off of their minds

Do you recall where you were that day, that November Friday afternoon?
The moment that you heard the news that someone had murdered J.F.K?
Some were just children at the time who now have grown so old and grey.
Half those Americans are gone who heard what Cronkite had to say.
That day that Camelot came to grief, and power passed to L.B.J.
Yes, I am a child of then, that day lives still in memory.

I held a rose without a thorn,
I say with certainty.
Every other rose has thorns;
every one save she.
There are other kinds of rose:
Long stemmed, hybrid, tea.
Still it was the thornless rose
that I kept close to me.
Perhaps I held a bit too tight
and her love began to wane
Sadly, I relaxed my grasp,
vainly hoping she'd remain.
We parted as the best of friends
as she got up from my bed.
I looked down, dumbly,
at my hands
and wondered why they bled.

My life was changed when you arrived,
I moved from Rock to lullaby.
I watched you as you grew and thrived
Just Daddy and his little guy.

When first you learned to ride your bike
and, wobbling, you sped away
I had a weird sensation that
I had just grown a touch more grey.

through every step of life with you
from nursery school through your degree
I paid the bills, I gave the rides
Life's afternoon you walked with me.

Afterwards,out with your friends
some beauties' eyes attracted you.
You stayed out late with your dates.
and I could not wait up for you.

Still later when you moved away,
and had a family of your own.
I didn't get to see you much,
we kept in touch mostly by phone.

Life is a journey, not a state
We knew this day would come for me
When I must go embrace my fate
and you must bide your destiny.

Our paths diverge, just yours goes on.
but do not stop to grieve for me.
I always knew this day would come
That I'd become a memory.

For so it was, and will always be
We parents bring life to this world
We start out as your guide and friend
never to see the journey end.

At five foot two in her heels
and being decidedly round
Lori didn't turn many masculine heads
Yet she turned one poor boy's life around.

Forty or more years its been
since we were both seventeen.
I recall it as a difficult year,
Like so many others between.

Cherry cokes at the Blue Bay diner-
She worked on the paper with me.
She rolled up her skirt like the others
to show off her catholic girl knees.

With Greg as her steady companion
she was the heart of our group.
They provided a fair bit of drama
in the happiest days of my youth.

For I was an ungainly kid,
nonathletic, built close to the ground.
It was Lori who made social circles
large enough to include me in bounds

We always were friends, never lovers,
never shared one passionate kiss
She taught me that mercy trumps justice
She made circles just like God must  make his.

Let other Bards praise the great beauties
They're easy to spot in this town.
My muse was a girl short and homely.
Such  a beauty is rare to be found.

I used to have the names and facts
right quick at my disposal.
It helped in settling arguments
and in drafting work proposals.
Now names and dates elude me.
Appointments just slide by.
Were it not for my Blackberry
you might see a grown man cry.
Yet deep in the recesses
of my bicameral mind
my neural Librarian,Norman
strives not to fall behind.
He's peering into synapses
and looking into lobes
He's hoping I can temporize
till the name he can disclose.
If I relax it comes to me
though too late to save face
Long after she has left my bed
I recall her name was "Grace"

Here, in the pale light of a winter’s day
I entered with a sketch pad in my hand.
I never dreamed that I’d encounter you-
To sketch out some old master was my plan.

Was it your eyes that first seduced me near,
or those cherry lips that I would never taste?
Two centuries past you were a beauty, dear.
Now, all but this image, time has lain to waste.

I envy him who painted you in camera,
together in your sitting room alone.
Who knows just how the session was concluded
If your old and senile husband wasn’t home?

I’m cast here in the role of a ******,
I haven’t even tried to draw a line.
Your dress of silk reveals just one bare shoulder,
Your eyes, the promise of a night divine.

My life was changed when you arrived,
I moved from Rock to lullaby.
I watched you as you grew and thrived
Just Daddy and his little guy.

When first you learned to ride your bike
and, wobbling, you sped away
I had a weird sensation that
I had just grown a touch more grey.

through every step of life with you
from nursery school through your degree
I paid the bills, I gave the rides
Life's afternoon you walked with me.

Afterwards, out with your friends
some beauties' eyes attracted you.
You stayed out late with your dates.
and I could not wait up for you.

Still later when you moved away,
and had a family of your own.
I didn't get to see you much,
we kept in touch mostly by phone.

Life is a journey, not a state
We knew this day would come for me
When I must go embrace my fate
and you must bide your destiny.

Our paths diverge, just yours goes on.
but do not stop to grieve for me.
I always knew this day would come
That I'd become a memory.

For so it was, and will always be
We parents bring life to this world
We start out as your guide and friend
never to see the journey end.

Dennis Doyle, a barrister,
gave up his job upon a whim.
Now what to do? A quest!
A quest he would begin.
A lifelong fan of the New York Knicks
He'd follow them home and away!
Tickets were a big expense
=Twenty five thousand he would pay.
Then there would be planes to catch,
food and hotels along the way.
He'd sit and cheer his heroes on!
Each night he'd watch Carmelo play.
Too soon, the losses began to mount;
he watched the season slip away.
It takes a special sort of soul
to sit and watch this team at play;
to seize defeat from victory ,
the Knicks would surely find a way.
To qualify for a high pick
they traded half the team away.

Each night He'd sit and glumly watch
This team that will not win a ring.
Is it all worth it? Who can say?
For the true fan, the play's the thing!

Pressure intense
around my head
and shoulders.
I am pushed
******
towards a distant
glimmering light.
My perfect
world
collapsing.
I am pulled
unwilling
into a world of bright
and cold.
Pummeled
by a white coated
assassin.
Made to weep
forced to breathe.
They lay me down
on your warm belly.
Your voice says
softly
"Hello, little guy"
I think
( but do not say)
Happy Mother's Day!

If they weren’t in the Polo grounds, the drive was a home run..
Don Liddle served a meatball and Wertz swung and thought it gone.
But Willie Mays thought otherwise and raced towards the wall.
Improbably, impossibly, he caught Vic Wertz’s ball.
He turned to throw; his cap flew off, as Doby raced for third.
When Grisson relieved Liddle, Liddle quipped:” I got my man.”
That the Indians were dispirited you well can understand.
That inning turned the series as Cleveland didn’t score.
The Giants won that game in ten and swept the Tribe in four.
Of all who played the game that day, a precious few remain.
The man who made “The Catch” still lives; forever will his fame.

In the dark, past no man’s land,
When the cold night’s wind whispered low,
We heard a most incongruous sound;
christmas carols sung by our foe.

Someone raised a flag of truce
and we met them on contested ground.
We shared our food, some cigarettes.
And  hummed along with their joyful sound.

Our fellows sang what tunes we knew-
In broken English they replied.
Together we buried our common dead
Who belonged now not to either side.

I hear in some sectors games were played.
a game of football of a sort.
Sadly it was the briefest pause
ere we resumed our deadly sport.

In years that followed no quarter was given
So bitter had our men become.
There were no songs left in our hearts.
after the slaughter of Verdun.

Oh, pity the suits! The masterful class,
who Robin-hood traders just kicked in the ***.
Sitting high in their towers of concrete and steel
They thought naked shorts were the art of the deal.
They shorted more shares than are said to exist
So henceforth they just ought to cease and desist!
The retail investors, those dumb money fools,
Bought up call options and took them to school.
The rich lost their shorts and maybe their shirts,
They can perhaps sell their mansions and go live in yurts.
If they have some bitcoins perhaps they can sell them
But never buy shares in a hedge fund named Melvin!