The moans and screams of dying men;
a scene and sound surreal.
The flower of French Chivalry
cut down by English steel.
English Harry has won this day
on this wet and muddy ground.
So many high born men laid low,
but I am still around.
It was my blood that ransomed me
when others’ blood was shed.
I am the Duke of Orleans.
A poet, some have said.
In the aftermath of battle;
wounded, left to bleed.
Sir Richard Waller found me
and attended to my needs.
So today I am his prisoner,
we’ll become friends in time.
Now I am bound for England
as a “guest” of the English crown.
We’d had the numbers and the strength
to bring proud Henry down.
His Yeoman archers  turned the tide
on this awful muddy ground.
Beset by woods on either flank
No room to strike or move.
It was our Constables’ worst mistake
and the last, as time would prove
Like a dark and deadly rain they fell
out of a clear blue sky.
Here on the field of Agincourt
where Princes came to die.

An immigrant from County Clare
brought to this harsher clime-
Phoebe Prince, an Irish lass,
a gentle heart and mind.

First used, and then discarded
by one boy, then another.-
Object of the mean girl’s scorn
the consummate "outsider"
 
On her last day alive                                                            ­                                                                 ­                           
They hounded her from school.
The girl they called the “Irish ****”
disgraced and played the fool.

Her sister, Lauren, found her body
hanging lifeless in the hall.
Befriended by nobody
Phoebe chose to end it all

And on the day they held her wake
Those monsters held their dance
A debutante cotillion
for a troop of soulless tramps.

She’s buried here in County Clare
because the Ocean's waves
protect her from the harpies
who drove her to her grave

Joan of Arc gets all the credit;
everybody knows her name.
Agnes was not nearly as famous
but a least she avoided the flames.

Joan was Charles' warrior Priestess,
Agnes ,his mistress, of sorts.
She was undoing his virtue
While Joan was besieging Brit forts.

Agnes was the lady of Beauty,
That's  the castle Charles put in her name.
Her Decolletage  was her chief attraction;
Her cleavage put all others to shame.

In art she was  depicted as Mary,
her Breast bared for the Savior to ****.
Joan of Arc was depicted in armor,
her breastplate was spattered with muck.

Joan took inspiration from Heaven
Agnes from a feather bed's down.
Together they made Charles a monarch
In the city of Rheims  he was crowned.

When evil intrudes into our day
So many are silent or turn away.
They back away, stare at the ground
Scarcely a hero can be found.
It was on the “L’ train yesterday;
A man was beating on his child
A woman had the nerve to say
“Stop what you’re doing
For it is vile.”
You’ve heard the tale-
You know the rest
He turned on her
He ripped her dress
He lashed out and knocked her down
Our heroine lay there on the ground.
A heroine bloodied but unbowed.
New York would be a better town
If more like her would stand their ground
For evil cannot stand the Sun.
We need more heroes, but here was one.

Imagining the perfect girl
Is a fantasy of mine.
Every feature perfect
in proportion by design.
I’d have to start with
Elizabeth Taylor’s
captivating eyes.
Anne Hathaway has perfect skin
and is the perfect size.
Emmy Rossum’s flowing hair
Attracts some envious eyes
J-Lo is most bootyful.
Sweet Scarlett has nice thighs.
Mila Kunis gams are fab
And she is worldly wise.
To make her warm and welcoming
Add Julia Roberts’ smile

Of course this perfect girl of mine
Would want some change in me..
Six inches taller would be nice,
Then I’d be six foot three..
I’d then be perfect for my weight
The abs would come with time.-
I’m sure they’re somewhere buried
underneath this flab of mine.
I’d have to dye my hair for her,
to hide the tell tale gray.
Some dental work to fix my smile.
And keep bad breathe at bay……

It seems a lot of work to me.
I’d not enjoy the rack.
I’m better off right where I am
than having to deal with that!

It’s no one’s idea of paradise, this land of dust and wind.
Yet this is where God spoke to man and he  first conceived of sin.
The land is dry and stubborn, like the people of the Lord.
Even now I see them turning their plowshares into swords.
Ever since the Maccabees revolted against Rome
(Rome did not understand those Jews who worshiped God alone.)
This land of Dust and wind has known no peace
The men wield blades and staves.
In such a place the only peace Is the quiet of the grave.
How I long to comfort them, but where would I begin?
The people here have lost their way and lost their sense of sin.
The dispossessed now live in camps and old hatreds here still simmer.
It’s hard to parse the difference between the righteous and the sinners.

Aletheia looked into my eyes
and I could not avoid her stare.
Her silence a grim accusation
as I shifted uneasily in my chair.
No words escaped my lying lips.
No words could change my fate.
All men are confronted by the truth
Be they small or great.
Aletheia, you see, would be my judge;
such was my despair.
I looked again to see her face
and saw mine own image there.

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.

We all remember the nursery rhyme
with its pockets full of posies.
All together we would cheerfully chime,
our incomprehension showing.

Now, one by one, it is coming true,
Our fingers lose their grip.
The Reaper comes to claim his due.
To Death's tune we're forced to skip.

One by one they slip away.
We commit our loved ones to the earth.
Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down
Its scant comfort at best, that nursery rhyme verse:

Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down

The wind is moaning low tonight;
the sound of souls who cannot sleep.
It is said they walk the Earth tonight,
though they are buried six feet deep.
A shadow moves across a wall,
Is it a specter of one undead?
Such childish thoughts infect our minds,
giving birth to fear and dread.
On this night, when spirits walk the streets,
some are demanding tricks or treats.
Is that some clarion call from Hell?
No, just some kids who rang our bell.

Hearts, it seems, are as fragile as dreams-
and quite as easily broken.
Frail as a paper valentine
Which is but true love’s token.
The widow maker kills the king
Before needed words are spoken.
Hearts, it seems, are fragile things
And quite as easily broken.

Today three hundred gather recalling to the World its’ shame.
They’ve come once more to Auschwitz on a more comfortable train.
The youngest, in their Seventies, were children at the time,
when Russians overran the camp and exposed the Nazis’ crimes.
If you were gypsy Gay or Jew incarcerated there
They starved and worked you unto death-
Your grave was in the air.
The walks were paved with bits of bone from those who died before.
These lives and deaths were cataloged for the ***** Chancellor.
All who remain now gather for this last and final time,
to testify to their suffering and rebuke those who deny.

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 listened in the darkness as” the Franchise” took the hill.
Tom Seaver, perfect, through eight innings, had retired Cubs at will.
I could barely hear Bob Murphy’s voice; Shea was packed that night.
Santo, Banks and Spangler, all went down without a fight.
Randy Hundley led off the ninth, he was victim Twenty-Five.
The stands were like a roaring sea, electric and alive.
Jimmy Qualls came up to bat, a rookie, little known.
Every Mets fan felt for sure that Tom would bring it home.
Seaver looked in for the sign; Grote called for heat.
Qualls lined a clean single and a hushed quiet filled the seats.
Seaver felt deflated as the crowd stood in ovation.
As well as he had pitched that night was it wrong to seek perfection?
Seaver finished off the Cubs that night; Qualls' was the only hit.
That night would have been perfect if that ball had found a mitt.

I saw her just the other day,
But, not knowing what to say, I turned away.
For she has lost her only son,
off fighting in the war.
A bootless war that lingers on
Like a chancre sore.
There are others like her;
Gold stars in windows shine-
For brave boys brought home in boxes
for “no one’s left behind. “
There’s no word that refers to her
Who has lost her only child.
A remnant who lingers here
the last one of her line.
I’ve seen her tend his graveside
like she once made his childhood bed.
She keeps the flowers watered,
trims the grass above his head.
In her Living room, a folded flag
A grateful nation’s gift
To remind her of one she loved so
Whose death left her bereft.

It was easy to Love you, Columbia,
When you were young and fair.
Then opportunity was boundless;
Your land was rich beyond compare.

True you were born in conflict
And the years were not always kind.
Some say they have cause to hate you;
That to injustice you’ve been blind.

Evil men have harmed you
With their crass cupidity.
This current crop of “leaders”
Blunder repeatedly.

You do not stand as tall and strong
As when I met your first.
I see worry lines around your eyes
This year has been the worst.

Still, with all your imperfections,
None could take the place of you.
You still can take my breath away
Draped in Red white and blue.

When we had first crash landed,
The island was a Godsend.
a refuge from the maelstrom
with fish and fruits to eat..

When a rogue wave swamped Electra
our lives were forfeit., I’d have swore
We latched onto a piece of driftwood
We paddled towards the shore

Past endurance and exhausted
We wound up in an inlet.
We blest the waves that pushed us
Up upon that foreign shore

We learned to live like primitives
with water sweet not brackish,
the island helped sustain us
while we sought help from the sea.

Some months now I’ve been stranded
With my hope of rescue fading
I’ve had no need of language
since I prayed before your grave.

I am lonely past enduring
With no hope of rescue coming
With Noonan’s knife I slit my wrists
I will not see the morning.

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

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

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

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

My Altar is a table set upon a naked stage.
While waiting for the memorial to begin
I watch from the wings as students and alumni
In clots of twos and threes come shuffling in.

Poor Mary lived just nineteen years.
A dark depression did her in.
She was my student, I knew her well;
These tears I shed are genuine.

Ours is not an age of Faith;
Our thoughts and prayers are platitudes.
I look out  upon the faces of her friends
who’ve forgotten the beatitudes.

Her body rests in the cold hard ground,
interred two weeks ago today.
Some claim she is an angel now.
So I do hope but who can say?

What then can I say to salve these souls
who have forgotten  how to pray?
What cold comfort is my funereal black
on this bitter grey December day?

Her youth and beauty have been overthrown;
Persephone has been by Pluto wed.
How wise he was, the poet, who observed
The folly of being comforted.

It was hidden in the attic, they kept it carefully veiled.
To them it was a symbol, to others, just a rag.
Its’ field was all a crimson red, criss- crossed with stripes of blue.
Upon the blue; eleven stars; the confederacy they knew.

In the stars and bars are memories of numerous campaigns.
It was grand-Sire’s battle flag he’d rescued from the flames.
On the battlefields of glory; it’s said something remains,
But, to those ignorant of the past, I fear they are but names.

Some see it as the symbol of the hated KKK
Who used both rope and fire to take blacks’ rights away.
It’s a symbol of white supremacy, lower it they say
How can Black lives matter in the States where it holds sway?

Our country has a checkered past, to all who are not blind.
To our ethnic minorities we have been less than kind.
Yet to be fair, it was white men who fought to break those chains.
No other race in history, so far, can make that claim.

The soldiers bodies are now but dust, disturb not their remains
I don’t wish to repeat the past; I hope you feel the same.
We must not forget their story; a curse on all who try.
Six hundred thousand, Blue and Gray, were quite enough to die.

My parents would take me,
on Sundays, at times,
to visit their friends
who lived in West Farms.
Their five year old daughter
and five year old me
would play out in the porch
while the old ones had tea.

Ann Marie was an imaginative girl,
and our playtime involved
her imaginary world.
Music was played
on invisible strings
and her "friend" Purple Lady"
was invited to sing.
I never did "see" her
the Lavender Lass.
But I'd pretend to greet her
to make the time pass.
Ann Marie would tell stories
and include her "friend" in
We were always a trio
in her imagination.

I'm the only survivor
of those Sunday Soirees
Half a century older
and tending to gray.
So imagine my shock
when my sister described
A girl who'd been murdered
in that house in West Farms:
It had happened some years
before Mom's friends bought the place.
A young girl, dressed in Purple
Amethyst graced
was killed by her father,
who, divorced and disgraced,
sought his ex wife's blood
but killed their child in her place.

Her Mom died then of grief
of her dear girl Bereft ,
but I'm beginning to think
that her child never left.

It was always quite cold
in that room where we played
as children

The man in the casket
was beloved in this town.
To us kids he’d been “Doc”-
Its hard believing  he’s gone.

A long time ago,
on a field far away,
He had been a young Giant
waiting his chance to play.

“Doc” Graham had played baseball
in many minor league parks,
in an age before lights,
in an age before darks.

An elegant fielder
with a strong rifle arm
“Doc” had one “cup of coffee”
and then he was gone.

He played in right field
on a warm Brooklyn day
you could look it up
the old professor would say,.

He played in the field
but was denied an at bat.
He was waiting on deck
when Claude Elliott flied out.

Though quick as the moonlight
through shadowy leaves,
“Doc” never again played
in the National League.

He hit  the books instead
and became a physician
In our small town of Chisholm,
he found a position.

A lifetime of love
yields a lifetime of care:
He tended our needs
and shared in our prayers

No trace of self-pity-
having missed that at bat.
Being “Doc” to us all
meant far more to him  than that.

Now Moonlight is elusive
never grasped in your hands.
But on nights short of heroes
I remember this man.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Amish elder named Mullet,
And some of his ****** clan,
bore hatred deep in their gullets
for their Amish fellow man.
****** seemed out of the question,
It’s rare among Amish, folks say,
(It may be that a horse and a carriage
doesn’t make for a quick getaway.)
So Mullet and some of his minions
Invented a new sort of crime:
Shaving their bearded opponents
one Amish man at a time.
Losing one’s beard among Amish-
A disgrace before God, it’s been said.
Mullet spared no woman either
choping the hair from their heads.
His victims are speechless with anger,
denuded of both beards and hair.
Leave it to someone named “Mullet”
To offend using a Barber’s chair.
Mullet’s in Federal custody;
charged with a crime, not a sin.
He refuses to answer the charges
By the hair of his chinny chin chin.

She was fished out of the river just beneath the mighty span.
Her clothes suggested affluence. Her death bespoke despair.
I sent two men to search the spot from whence she took to air.
Her dead face poses the challenge; can you find out who I am?

Her prints? Not in our database. No purse and no I.D.
She wrote no note that we can find before she took her leave.
Was this some broken love affair? Is there no one to grieve?
The witnesses to her leap are few and contradictory.

Her hair is blonde and shoulder length, neatly coiffed and trimmed.
I notice that she bit her nails, but never will again.
She should be off in college; a new beginning not an end.
The M.E. bags the body. Soon the autopsy will begin.

I look through missing person files, to match a face and name.
I dread the call I’ll have to make to drain some parents’ hope.
To lose a child by her own hand- how can a parent cope?
The tox screen shows no drugs present. I had thought the same.

Female Caucasian, about nineteen, no birth marks and no scars.
Our Janet Doe was pregnant. Was that motive for her leap?
Did her condition make her desperate for this forever sleep?
Surveillance footage yields a clue. To pursue I’ll need my car.

The Tap room reeks of Guinness; the night is near its end.
I show her picture to the barkeep- This girl was here tonight.
There’s a glint of recognition and new facts brought to light.
He doesn’t know her name, but he surely knows her Friends.

They are sitting at a table, looking somewhat worse for drink.
I get her name and address. She is “Janet Doe” no more.
Celene attended N.Y.U. she had been majoring in law.
I left them deeply grieving and not knowing what to think.

This morning I will make the call, the saddest one of all.
“Can you come in to identify the wreck of your hopes and dreams?”
“We think your daughter took her life, at least that’s how it seems.”
To hear her mother’s sobbing is the hardest thing of all.

For thirty years I’ve worked this beat, but today I cried.
I’m not inured to suffering or indifferent to pain.
I’ve seen the broken bodies and think it such a shame
whenever wingless angels try to fly.

If Love has made a fool of me is it not ever so?
To be Love’s Fool is more the rule than exception; This I know.
Those eyes, those lips, each stolen kiss bestowed upon your jester
makes my being a fool for Love not much of a disaster.
In Spring, a young man’s thoughts are of Love and not of the hereafter.
I’m drunk upon the sight of you, besotted by your laughter.

“The Mass is ended,
go in peace.”
the aged cleric said.
“Thanks be to God”
said some dozen odd
parishioners
who then fled.

The Priest dismissed
his server.
and had turned himself to
go
when he noticed still
one worshiper
kneeling in the seventh row.
She was an older woman,
her head swathed in
a blue scarf.
She was obviously in devotion
before the Sacred Heart.

He thought:
“There is no need to rush”
He shuffled towards the chair.
which is where the Bishop sits
when attending service there.

The aging cleric said a prayer
for the gracious soul’s repose
whose generosity provided
his vestments and his robes.

He next prayed for his friend,
a priest, who’d grown too fond of wine.
He’s consecrating grape juice now
the non alcoholic kind.

He thought:
“it now is getting well past time
I need to lock the doors.”
His urban church had been vandalized
a scant few months before.

He rose up on his arthritic hip
and didn’t cry in pain
He accepted this, his suffering,
in Jesus’ holy name.

As he approached the woman,
Her head bowed as before
He had a vague uneasiness
He experienced fear and awe
She looked up then and he said
“Mother!”
and fell, senseless, on the floor.


His housekeeper found his body
on the floor of fitted stone.
The police found no evidence of foul play,
The priest had died alone.
The M.E. said the heart had failed
Though not from shock or rage
The Lord had called his servant home
to grace a grander stage.

After all the crowds had gone, we came to the Rotunda where
Our murdered President lay in state, resting in his coffin there.
We shuffled in with our winds and woods to play a requiem for him.
Leonard Bernstein, with his grey tousled mane, motioned that we should begin.
Our fingers danced upon the strings as wood winds sounded sad and low.
In Life he loved to hear us play and we had loved him too you know.
Notes flowed in the November air, up to heaven for all we know,
Music taking the place of prayer; for many of us its long been so..
We’ve played before Thousands in New York and in concert halls around the world,
But this night we played just for him,

for Massachusetts favorite son.

We played Mahler’s requiem

for an audience of one.

When police were called it was too late, he could not be revived
Peter Cronkite, just twenty two, had committed suicide.
He was a natural athlete, handsome and well bred.
He fell victim to the demons that were screaming in his head.
His whole life lay before him: he’d been dealt a decent hand.
He chose a common grave instead- for reasons we can’t understand.
In life we all make choices and young Cronkite has made his,
As Grandpa Walter often said: “And that’s the way it is..”

I'm in a special chamber which deadens every sound,
I began to grow more anxious with no decibels around.
I've spent my life connected, on the web and on the phone.
to be cut off without a dial tone; I've seldom felt this all alone.
I am lost, without a signal, uneasy in my skin.
I'm wanting to be anywhere except the place I'm in.
Was it like this for my mother? she lived stone deaf for years.
I was foolish to think blindness worse than deafness in my fears.
There are places were a body floats without the sense of touch.
The tests' subjects hallucinate,I wouldn't like that much.
Noise is fun, noise is good, I need noise, it appears,
to distract me from those whispered truths I do not wish to hear.

An empty bottle of Mateus couldn’t help me drown my sorrow.
It cannot bring you back to me, and I’ll pay for this tomorrow.
All it has done is render me numb to your parting words and kiss;
a kiss goodbye, no public scene, no angry emphasis.
I had lost at Love before, yet something about today.
I think the finality of it all, drove me to this plebeian rose’.


When the love of your life has walked out of your life
What remains then to do or to say?
I will live work and sleep, pay my debts, keep my peace,
And still love you when I’m old and grey.

They are living, here, among us,
These fine celestial beings.
These children with Downes syndrome;
These angels without wings.

In the care of aging parents,
Or together in group homes,
These angels without wings possess
47 chromosomes.

You will recognize the gentleness
Of their kind, defective, hearts.
Yet you may discount their usefulness
In a world that values “smart”.

If you do so, at your peril,
Discount these gentle souls,
You will never learn that wisdom
Is what makes a person whole.

We’ve seen intelligence abused
And been victims of its lies.
Innocence has been refused
When unborn angels die.

At a distance they resemble us;
These angels without wings.
Yet they have an openness to Love,
That speaks of higher things.

Famine had come to our shores
The poor and weak it claimed.
It was our staple, the potato, which failed.
There was no lack of grain.

The landlords were exporting crops
While they watched their tenants bide.
A crueler death than Cromwell gave
Back when he let God decide.

The Wealthy were the Protestants,
centuries in the ascendant.
The victims, mostly Catholic,
of native Celts descendant.

Starvation is a lingering death.
It is not quick or kind.
Green Grass was, for many,
the last meal on which they dined.


When our neighbor, Kitty Kelly, died,
too proud to take the soup.
We boarded ship for old New York
And left behind our youth.

When days of future pass
and cannot come again-
Half a century seems a moment.
A loved musician meets his end.

The haunting notes you played on the flute;
those somber moody blues-
will echo through eternity
though you, yourself be through.

A treasured disk of Vinyl;
A loved, remembered song.
I played it first when just a teen
living in my parents’ home.

A Sculptor’s work melts in the rain
It’s lines made indistinct
An author, once thought popular,
may  soon be out of ink.

A film made in the golden age
is faded acetate.
The beauty of white satin nights
I hope escapes their fate.

The bar was nearly empty as the barman cleaned a glass.
This establishment is closing. Its glory days long passed.
The jukebox sat in silence; A regular nursed his beer.
Before too long they’ll put another drugstore chain in here.
My Uncle and my father both worked here and tended bar.
Its heyday was in the 50’s when the boys came home from war.
A friendly local tavern; an essential spot in life
Where you came to drink with buddies and escape your scolding wife.
This place of refugee now succumbs. We all know that its true.
Cold beers are in less demand when opioids get you through.
With the cost of the insurance, the wages and the rent,
It’s been run as a nonprofit for so long that all’s been spent.
The awnings lights extinguished. One last toast for old times’ sake.
Let there be tears of joy and sorrow; This is an Irish wake.

A most peculiar thing,
this annonymity-
Sometimes i seek it,
but mostly it finds me.

How is it acquaintances
Choose to be friends?
Born in the same year,
but at opposite ends.
How do separate lives
form poetic book- ends?

I bore you with history,
You gallantly try
To grasp why the past
Fascinates this old guy
There are, certainly,
more prolific pens.
I view the great world
Through a limited lens.

We’ve dealt with our losses
We’ve buried dear dead.
We’re maudlin at times
When dusk signals days end
That's when we tend to dwell
on those dear to our heart.
We’re on the same wavelength
Just an ocean apart

( Written as a rejoinder to my friend's poem: "Poem written to a buxom young Lady")


You’re very tall
And painfully thin.
Your bust and waist
the same.
Your voice is high
and pitchy.
To hear it causes pain.
Your wardrobe,
much like Superman’s,
lacks all variety.
You’re an unfit
***** mother
you’ve neglected
poor sweetpea.
Yet two men
battle over you.
It strikes me
a little strange.-
but in your cartoon universe
You are the only game.
I think I’d side with Whimpy
And watch the others fight.
I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday
for a hamburger tonight.

Anonymous is a funny name
for a writer on an Opt-Ed page.
I'd want a by line I suppose
if I were going to step on toes.
I know the President would glower
to find me speaking truth to power.
He'd say "You're fired!" on the spot
but I 'd have my  verbal parting shot.
Hashtag "Not Me" is all you hear
from senior officials who quake in fear.

Yet if computers can disclose
by close analysis of prose
what Shakespeare did or didn't write
I'm sure the identity will come to light.
I think the turncoat might be named "Dan"
but I'm not willing to take the stand.
Cory Booker, who knows the law,
still thinks it must be Kavenaugh.

My son passed on in 95’; his cause of death was AIDS.
We hadn’t spoken for some years; we were then estranged.
I could not understand the love he had for other men.
Still, I admit my heart was broken that his life was at an end.

Decades passed and I grew grayer, ready for my final bow.
I wish I’d been a better Dad; knowing what I know now.
Then it came, the letter, one he’d written long ago.
A card he’s sent for Father’s day some thirty years ago.

It filled my heart with gladness to read of his love for me.
If he only knew I loved him too. We might have both been free.
Life cannot give him back to me, nor all my tears erase,
Still I pray this was a sign he’s in a better place.

At midnight’s stroke we raised our voices to greet the brand new year.
The lyrics and the music both are meant to draw a tear.
For there are those, who we loved well, that sang these words and tune.
Who are no more among us as we look about the room.
Dear Mom and Dad, I think on you as another year slips by..
As long as I have tears to weep this cup will not run dry.
Soon others will take up the song to greet the year anew
And if the kindly fates allow I’ll sing along with you.
But if, by chance, fate is unkind and I’m no longer here
Raise a cup of kindness yet to the passing of the year.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
    —Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
    Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
  Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
  Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
  And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Disappointment dogged their every step
on the trip back from the Pole.
Amundsen had bested Scott,
as the World would soon be told.

Evans was the first to die,
to perish in the frost.
Oates, the poor old soldier,
was next to pay the cost.

Crippled by an old war wound,
Home base too far to go,
He walked out in a blizzard
and was buried by the snow.

Eleven miles to fuel and food
The three men left were stranded
A fierce winter storm held them at bay
Empty bellied, empty handed.

Bowers first, then Wilson died,
felled by dysentery .
Scott, their brave Commander,
then wrote his final entry:

“A pity, I can write no more,
too weak to venture out.
Nearly snow blind from the Frost,
by Winter put to rout”

Eight months later, a rescue party
came upon their sad remains
Robert Falcon Scott had died.
The world would learn their names.

They raised a cairn of ice around
the place where brave men died.
A crudely fashioned wooden cross
they placed above on high.

It was by accident I found it, in a box of odds and ends;
A short eight millimeter film my father made back when.
It’s Grandpa’s house up on the lake. I’d been just three or four.
The flickering images speak to me as from a distant shore.
The people who I knew and loved, who long since have passed on,
were shown as I remembered them from a time long since gone.
It is, of course, a silent reel and the colors fade a bit
but memories fill in the gaps as I remember it.
It was a perfect summer’s day, out fishing on the lake.
I imagine sunshine on my face as I view that scenic take.
My grandpa was a kindly man and, with infinite care,
He taught this headstrong little one about how we should share.
I’ve had my fill of tragedy, life isn’t always kind,.
but I know this made me smile, this serendipitous find.
Soon I must get back to work, resolving Mom’ estate.
But I’ve found a piece of Heaven here; all else will have to wait

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.

Pint on Saint Patrick’s Day


Our servers name is Molly,
She works at the Pence and Pound
We were there to have some beers
and dine on beef that’s ground

She is a lithe and lively blonde
in black tights and mini dress.
Her hair tied back in a pony tail
as she seated us, her guests..

But what a sight did Molly make
when she next came into view:
each hand contained a perfect pint
of Guinness’s dark brew

A darling girl, wondrous lass
A Gaelic beauty too
I’d testify that St. Pauli girl
can not compare to you.

But I’ll sit here and sip my beer
Too old to give offense
We’ll stay and have a round or three
And spend more pounds then pence.

I loved to watch you as you sleep;
your breathing even deep and slow.
I loved to watch you as you dreamt
of places I can never go.
We read your stories, I heard your prayers
Then, touching the pillow, you drifted off
It seems like only yesterday,
but really it was long ago.

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

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

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