My old friend, you sit in the corner of my room.
My neglect of you is a silent accusation.
How I long to take you in my arms again
and make beautiful music together.
Alas I am not free. I have long loved another.
Now she has been stricken by a terrible fate.
A stroke has laid her low.
My beloved wife cannot speak.
Her whole left side is paralyzed.
I cannot leave her.
I must remain true to my hearts first love,
looking in her eyes I see
her wordless fear at the loss of her cognition.
Our world has shrunk to a small suite of rooms
Where a rented hospital bed cradles my Love
And the I.V. drips and machines monitor.
I who once sang for her in a beautiful baritone
and played for her my mandolin.
Now I know only songs of sadness and
I cannot play with these tear filled eyes.
So I have put aside my Mandolin.
I hold onto the hand of my Beloved

and the silence overcomes us both.

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

My Daughter has a fitbit that records her every move.
She wears it daily on her wrist in her efforts to improve.
Her every step, lap and jump thus are duly noted.
To self-improvement and fitness, she surely is devoted.

Me? I can get tired watching football on T.V.
The treadmill in my basement is piled high with clean laundry.
I can’t resist a chocolate bar, my diet isn’t great.
Does rising from my easy chair still count as lifting weights?

Still, there should be a wearable for the chubby hubby set.
To monitor the quality of the sitting time we get.
To count each doughnut we consume, to list each chocolate bar.
To note the steps avoided when we choose to take the car.

“Be silent, dear child, make not a sound,
lest by Herrod’s soldiers we’ll be found.
No whimper, cry or any small noise;
They have orders to ****** boys.”
I’ve heard your playmates’ mothers scream
as their sons were taken from their arms.
And heard their helpless piteous cries
forced to watch as their dear ones die.
The streets of Bethlehem run red
with nearly every male child dead.
All lie victims of Herod’s fears
Of every prophecy he hears.
I hear a brute’s fist pound our door.
He’ll still my heart ere he strikes yours.”

I went and bought a "Smart" house
in a stylish part of town.
It cost me a cool million
but its features did astound.
I can control the lights and locks
with apps on my smartphone.
I can view cam every room
to make sure no ones home.
The shutters and the blinds will rise
or drop at my command.
I can start the fireplace
while flying from Milan.
The automated kitchen
can prepare a gourmet meal.
and place my grocery order
making sure I get good deals.
In my den a giant wall
is a high res LCD
It shows me sports
and other sorts
of lovely greenery.
You'd think this place is perfect
and you're nearly right of course.
I'd still like to lose the talking scale
that says "Get off, You Horse!"

I went and bought a "Smart" house
in a stylish part of town.
It cost me a cool million
but its features did astound.
I can control the lights and locks
with apps on my smartphone.
I can view cam every room
to make sure no ones home.
The shutters and the blinds will rise
or drop at my command.
I can start the fireplace
while flying from Milan.
The automated kitchen
can prepare a gourmet meal.
and place my grocery order
making sure I get good deals.
In my den a giant wall
is a high res LCD
It shows me sports
and other sorts
of lovely greenery.
You'd think this place is perfect
and you're nearly right of course.
I'd still like to lose the talking scale
that says "Get off, You Horse!"

His old guitar is where he left it,
Still strung and tuned as on that day.
I remember he would play for hours.
Rock and roll he loved to play.

He never got to hold his grandson
or sit with him in his rocking chair
He's not a name that most remember
but fans of Joanie Jett still care.

For all you who love rock and roll
He wrote your anthem, he penned your prayer
I'll play a cover on my Fender
as the old man rocks up heaven's stair.

I think it very sad, don't you?-
That we grow old but  songs never do.
I'm listening to Kim Carnes
sing of Betty Davis eyes
but I can't will myself back
to the Dublin Pub
where I heard it the first time.

We were young and beautiful then.
(Vouch for me, I'll vouch for you)
I hear they've torn the old place down.
That's a **** shame, sad but true

A small Bronze plaque commemorates
the fate of Chaffee, Grissom and White:
Near half a century has passed
since their final, fatal night.

Ad Astra per Aspera-
a rough road to the Stars.
We do well to remember that
as we make our try for Mars.

The fire was horrific
and death, though quick, was cruel:
Like heretics of an earlier age
they served as human fuel.

Engineers by radio
could hear their muffled cries.
Thick black smoke drove back
the men who made a rescue try.

Poorly insulated wires
had given off a spark.
pure oxygen has fed the flames
on that distant night so dark

Ad Astra per Aspera
a proud epitaph for them:
Apollo’s sons who heard his call
to search the skies again.

No terms of endearment, no shy wistful glance,
No overt affection, no hint of Romance,
Can either remember when was their last dance?
Like two sled dogs running Iditarod races-
Each day starts the same and the view never changes.

No terms of endearment, no frank lustful glances,
He ponders his Journal, she devours Romances.
Can either recall when they last took a chance?
Their everyday lives are no walk in the park;
Bound by inertia and missing the spark.

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

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

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

Some stars explode in the darkest night,
while others, massive suns implode and swallow even light.
Most, after ten billion years, find themselves begin to fade,
As their hydrogen exhausts itself and they are put to shade.

Thought their ends may be varied, the next results?-the same.
Another Sun extinguished, another star put in its grave.
With the snuffing of each lamp, colors disappear from view.
We share the same fate as the stars, for we are stardust too.

“It is time” the Priest said.  I nodded, being well prepared.
My last confession had been heard, as well as my unanswered prayers.
Tom Clarke and Tom Mac Donagh would, shortly, join me in the yard,
where a line of British Soldiers would dispatch us off to God.

The light, grey and uncertain, the air was cold and raw.
A plain grey concrete wall would be the last thing that I saw.
My hands secured behind my back; a blindfold on my eyes.
A sacrifice both right and proper; for Ireland I will die.

I’d dreamt of an Ireland brave and free. To that I did aspire.
I hear the bolts of their enfields click and their captain shouted “FIRE

I am patient in my work. I take pride in what I do.
I have no room to make mistakes that would, forever, be on view.
I crouch before the stone with the dew still on the grass.
I record the names and dates which are their only epitaphs.
I’ve been at this work some time and I always work alone.
For lives written on water I record their term in stone.
Each gravestone holds a story of a life, once lived, now past.
These lives of joy and sorrow which, though precious, do not last.
Each one searching for their meaning, experienced alone,
from the moment of conception until the day that they’re called home.
Some here had lived a century, others just a day,
their entrances and exits incused for posterity.
Fate, which is inexorable, brings everyone this way.
to leave a stone upon a stone, to ponder and to pray

From every county of old
Ireland
The stones have come to speak again.
Joined together in these four walls
They tell the tale of vanished men.
One million dead, the Hunger’s harvest
A million more fled overseas.
The potatoes, on which they depended,
Lay rotting in the Irish fields
It was a hard death they endured;
Their sentence passed by
falling
yields.
The stones cry out, the stones remember
the shadows of the hunger slain.
They curse the British who dissembled
Who showed less mercy than the rain.
They cry out loudest for the children;
The bairns of that famished land.
Their mother’s arms, their only coffin.
their sole possession was their names.

When I was young,
and bedtime loomed,
my Father used to read to me;
stories from a wondrous book.
A Book that he alone could see.

From memory he'd recite poems
or tell of heroes doughty deeds.
Those stories shaped my mind and heart
as much as any faith or creed.

They were, of course,
the tales he'd heard
when mother had
sung him to sleep.
Stories run deep in our blood
the only treasures we can keep.

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 ****.

Her husbands’ death had come upon him quick.
He’d always been so full of life and song.
She’d had no warning that her Tom was sick.
until he crumpled to the sidewalk and was gone.

The very day they put her husband in the ground,
a Jet black Lab with no collar or license
that she took to calling “Pepper” came around.
“He must belong to someone.” was her sense.

She put up signs and Ads and asked around.
She made inquiries to find the owner of the Lab.
No one in town had seen the dog before
the day they placed her man beneath the sod.

Pepper stayed faithfully at his mistress’ side
They took long walks down Beachcomber Way
Only Pepper heard the tears she cried
and stayed by her till the sadness passed away

Three winters they passed in that little town,
a town that made its living from the sea.
Eventually she felt strong enough to work
and re acclimate to life and company

As Spring’s warmth dissipates the winter gloom,
Sadness cannot forever shadow hearts
The heart is a perennial and so will bloom
as soon as the snows of sorrow will depart.

Then, on the anniversary of the date
the day they placed her husband in the ground,
She called and called but Pepper didn’t come-
The Jet black Lab was nowhere to be found.

She put up signs and Ads and asked around.
She made inquiries to find her dog again.
but no one ever saw the Lab in town.
The stray will go where he is taken in.

It seems my little curb side tree
is acting like a tease these days,
Like the famed Gypsy Rose Lee,
She is disrobing by degrees.
A gust of wind, some red leaf falls
like feathers from a boa ripped.
Nearly naked head to breast
but fully dressed about both hips.
She seems quite loathe to lose it all
even in these waning days of fall.
Yet as the stripper ends her tease-
bare magnificence applauded,
My little tree will shed her leaves
to be raked,bagged and discarded

Twenty five thousand Sunsets
Give or take, one more, one less.
(barring disease or accident,)
From birth to final rest

Twenty five Thousand Sunsets
from first cry to final moan.
A pittance of Eternity
We’re born and we die alone.

Twenty five thousand Sunsets
to laugh, to love, to sin.
To bow our heads in wonder
at how splendid the day has been.

The fields were green; the sky clear blue, the land was fat and fair.
Prosperity was all we knew, and poverty was rare.
I looked with pride upon my fields, the ripening waves of grain,
unaware, that in scant days, so little would remain.

A desert locust, by itself, is not a fearsome thing.
A swarm of eighty million is pure terror taking wing.
The swarm came out of Africa and descended on my fields.
The sky was black with insects, the devastation was surreal.

The fields are black; the sky sad grey, the locusts’ feast complete.
Like teenagers with the munchies, these little beasts can eat.
The crops that we had counted on now simply aren’t there.
These now are hungry desperate times and happiness is rare.

Two objects lying in a field; a plowshare and a sword.
“Which of these gifts will they select?” pondered Mazda the Lord.
Two brothers, sons of Adam both, were passing by that way.
They spied the glittering artifacts that waited in the clay.
Hevel saw the plowshare would be great for planting seed in sod.
Qayin, the sword blade in his hand, looked at his brother odd.
Hevel was a Sheppard who minded Rams and Ewes.
Qayin grew crops and farmed the land, the only life he knew.
For Hevel to possess that gift did not sit well with Qayin
In a jealous rage he used the sword and thus Hevel was slain.
Qayin could not face his mother’s eyes, with shame he bore his sin.
Of his free will he’d swung the blade that did his brother in.
Qayin buried Hevel in that field to keep wild dogs away.
Then with both glittering gifts in hand, Qayin wandered far away.
In time Man would perfect the objects first found in that field.
The weapon would proliferate, evolve from Bronze to steel.
The tears of Mother Eve still flow throughout recorded time
because we are the sons of Qayin and profit from his crime.

The Pedicab drivers of Gotham all say
You should ignore a "Whale Hail"
because it just doesn't pay.
The city is hilly and
to pedal gets tough
when your passengers are,
shall we say, overstuffed.

Two tubby tourists out on the town
between them they weighed about
Eight Hundred Pounds.
They had wiped out the Sushi
at an all you can eat.
Much too lazy to walk
on their overstressed feet.

They hailed for a Pedicab
of which there's a multitude
Thats the sole explanation
for accepting their pulchritude.

Their ride started slowly,
but pleasant enough.
But then came a hill
and the going got rough.

He groaned and he struggled
as he trucked up the road,
but not even juiced Armstrong
could handle this load.

With two tubby tourists
ensconced in the back.
He slowed to a crawl
then stalled in his tracks.

Something had to give
with those two in the rear
The cab then turned turtle
chucking him in the air.

The two tubby tourist
were down on their backs
Their driver unconscious
and two tires flat.

An Ambulance came
and gave him first aide
The two tourists rolled off
and he never got paid.

If we banned too large colas
and sixty ounce beers
could we hope that these
land whales
might,one day, disappear?

Until then its risky
to pick such fares up
unless in a limo
or a truck thats Ram tough

The atmosphere was troubled at the end of that July.
The sounds of distant thunder rolled as lightening streaked the sky.
Though the weather had been warm, the woman felt a chill.
She prayed for her sailor son to live, if it be God’s will.

Her Homer was a specialist. He wore the Navy blue.
His ship was the Indianapolis. That was all she knew.
He never wrote about his work or told his port of call.
Loose lips sink ships so secrecy was sacred to them all.

Her animals seemed unsettled; something spooked them on that day.
As twilight fast descended the outside world turned grey.
Then came a flash of lightening and she saw it plain as day.
The face of her son Homer, then, just as quick, he slipped away.

Her heart was sorely troubled by the vision she had seen.
She sensed he was in danger, he’s’ just a boy, Lord, just nineteen.
She stared at the spot in silent shock. She seemed to lack all will.
Her heart was beating rapidly though all the house was still.

For weeks she had heard nothing; no letters of reply.
Civilians were told little; it was brave boys who fought and died.
It wasn’t until the doorbell rang that she knew the worst was true
She numbly read the telegram “We regret to inform you…

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

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

The Crust of the Earth Ruptured in a caldera.
The Sun blotted out by the ash and ejecta.
Dark lay the land in that perilous time.
way back before history had written a line.

The carnage terrific, there were deaths beyond count
When Starvation set in we saw casualties mount.
We came so close then to the end of our race.
There were ten thousand humans left on Earth's face.

These ten thousand survivors, the sad Remanent left
were fruitful and multiplied, at least that's a good guess.
At last count we numbered seven Billions or more.
We have plundered the land and polluted the shore.

I wonder when Yellowstone will rumble again.
It will blot out the stars and will threaten World's end.
But if some should survive and start over again
for the sake of Our Father please this time stay friends.

He stops and starts, he drives too slow,
He turns hesitantly.
He struggles reading street signs-
That much is plain to see.

He lingers at each corner
And others can’t get by.
He honks his horn incessantly.
No one can tell me why.

The old should face a driving test
to stay behind the wheel.
Forcing him to take a cab-
That idea has appeal.

I want to give the finger to this annoying S.O.B.
but when I pull up next to him
He looks a lot like me

The poor you will always have with you-
We incent them to make more besides.
Then too, there’s the risk of inbreeding
as collective I.Q. starts to slide.
It started when life got too easy
and so many made Lazy their way.
Why bust your ***** and hustle?-
Others sit on theirs home every day.
It’s been noted that Democracy’s shelf life
is limited from its first day.
It begins to collapse when the people
elect demagogues who give stuff away.
People who vote for a living
outbreeding those who work for pay?
The results aren’t going to be pretty,
This tragedy ends just one way.

In that valley of death the Highlanders made their stand.
To live or die
but not retreat
in the Empire’s hour of need.
The British redoubts had been overrun by the Russians
in the desperate morning fight.
If not for the brave men of the Ninety third
The allies would be put to flight.
The Russian Calvary with sabers slashing
came at them from all points.
The highlanders were not dismayed
by the sound of the Lancers steel.
The thin red line wavered but held
then drove them from the field.
Their courageous stand has been sadly forgotten.
They were passed over by the Press.
For that same day the Light Brigade
were led to the slaughter next.

Last night they checked my garbage can.
It’s a good thing that I have a shredder.
My cell phones records are of interest-
I’ve made calls to known “tea baggers”.
Warrant-less “burglaries” have been made,
then I find my screen door broken.
The I.R.S. just called again
my case has been “ reopened”.
On every airline trip I take
I’m “Caressed “by the T.S.A.
I’m almost ready for a cigarette
after they’ve had their way.
Such harassment is “kinder spiel”
compared to what comes next.
They have a “brain wave” scanner
that can translate thoughts to text.
So I wear a cap of aluminum foil
whenever I’m on American soil.
To protect my ideas before they find them
I always make sure to copyright them.

Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos
the trio we know as “the Fates”
Were discussing the fate of some poet
while calmly ******* on dates.

“At best Sisters, he’s merely adequate.
Sure, he knows his rhythm and rimes.
But when they compile an anthology
will his poems merit  more than three lines?”

“Some of his verses are Humorous”
“You’ll grant me that, Clotho, at least.”
“Other times he takes himself too serious,
and behaves like some priggish high priest”

“Atropos, where is my measuring rod?
All too soon he’ll meet us face to face.”
“Here is the fate I have chosen.
Take your shears and mark well the place.”

The fruit made Atropos’ grasp slippery
A lock of hair fell in her face.
The poet got more than allotted
It was sheer dumb luck in his case

The crystal face is missing from this witness to the deed.
It doesn’t have its’ seconds hand, there is no longer need.
The date displays “11”. That it always will
to remind us of the day on in which fanaticism killed.
I look upon Todd Beamer’s watch and experience a chill,
realizing that while Time truly flies, it also can stand still.

She was a most beautiful girl with splendid golden hair.
Her prized violin was in its case by her side.
She was just come from her Julliard audition,
with the world on a string in her talented hands.

Richard Rojas was high as a kite, his blood on fire with ***
His Honda Accord he drove into a crowd.
The voices in his head made him do the deed
There were curses and screams, then weeping.

A lovely young tourist lay dead on the street.
Several others, severely injured, might never rise again.
The beautiful violinist was thought one of the lucky ones;
Her left hand merely mangled, her violin shattered in its case.

Richard Rojas was quickly apprehended.
He’ll go on trial for this thing he’s done.
Parents weep for the dead and injured,
And feel their souls dead in New York.

She was a most beautiful girl with splendid golden hair
Her prized violin, which she would never play again,
left  in splinters on a street in New York,
in the gutter where her dreams lay shattered.

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.

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.

I woke up on the gurney
with pain that robs my breath.
Broken ribs and a row of sutures
running down between my *******.
Strange to still be breathing
when my heart is dead and gone
In my chest Abio-Cor
stubbornly pumps on.

Was it really just a week ago
sitting with my friends  in class
when first I felt the stabbing pain.
when each breath came as a gasp?
My teacher called an ambulance
He saved my life, friends say.
A muscle killing virus
caused my pulse to fade away.
One hundred over forty
I was quickly losing ground.
I would need a donor transplant
but none compatible was found.

I’m a high school girl, just seventeen
-I should be college bound
Not fighting for each breath and
destined for a plot of ground.
The surgeon asked my parents
if he should try Abio-Cor
an artificial heart replacement
in which researchers placed great store.
My crying parents, grasped the straw
consenting he should try.
They would operate immediately-
delay would mean I’d die.

So now I’m in recovery
with my artificial heart.
My fiends call me the Tin Girl,
because of my replacement part.
It will be a long recovery-
seven weeks if fate is kind..
I share my feelings with a heart
still learning to be mine

There are so many dentists
that the market's getting tight.
One must differentiate
to draw trade to one's site.

Being new kid on the block
especially was scary
Until, in a flash of brilliance,
he called his:"The Tooth Fairy"

With gloves and masks
and dental dams
He served his clientele-
leaving their other cavities
to those who knew them well.

His clientele were handsome
and all exercised a bit.
Some were macho, some were fey
it mattered not a whit.

What mattered were the smiles he saved,
that gave him satisfaction,
and he earned a decent living.
from the fine are of extraction.

So if you, too, seek success
it pays to find your niche.
Serve the Sado- masochists
and make them all your b*tch.

Our eyes met on the crowded train and we were changed forever.
I was captivated by her smile; she thought my small talk clever.
Our conveyance bucked and rolled through that cold, dark night.
We were locked inside a cattle car; no scenery in sight.

We quickly learned each other’s names and fell in love I fear.
We knew we shared a common faith; the thing that brought us here.
We could not know her time was short. We would not be together.
We spoke of our future, hopefully, and swore we’d love forever.

I have kept that promise, all these years, since she was torn from me.
She died the day we entered here, where “Arbeit Macht Frei .”
I recall the day the Russians came; our German guards had fled.
That precious day salvation came for the living and the dead.
I looked out over the little lake where they’d dumped the Jews’ cremains,
and felt my face wet with bitter tears as I whispered your sweet name.

“Come on, Boy.” I rattle Bo’s leash.
My little spaniel heads for the door.
This November morning is crisp clear and cold.
We wander alone, enjoying the peace,
An old man and his dog joined by this leash.

It just seems to happen, more often than not,
That Bo and I wind up at the very same spot.
I swear we don’t plan it, but it’s always the same
We wind up in the town square near the Metro North train.

We watch and we listen as the southbound train leaves.
The slow mournful whistle echoes forth on the wind.
The train I rode for decades from here to the end.
The train I took to work but will never take again.

My former co-workers; the drinks at weeks end.
My boon companions dare I call them my friends.
They have still their careers, they still have each other
I have a small pension. I yearn for a lover.

At length and at last Bo and I turn for home.
They’ll be coffee for me; Bo will play in the yard.
I never imagined that retirement
Would ever be this hard.

At birth, we boarded the train of life and met our parents, and we believed that they would always travel by our side. However, at some station, our parents would step down from the train, leaving us on life's journey alone.

As time goes by, some significant people will board the train: siblings, other children, friends, and even the love of our life.

Many will step down and leave a permanent vacuum.  Others will go so unnoticed that we won't realize that they vacated their seats! This train ride has been a mixture of joy, sorrow, fantasy, expectations, hellos, goodbyes, and farewells.

A successful journey consists of having a good relationship with all passengers, requiring that we give the best of ourselves. The mystery that prevails is that we do not know at which station we ourselves will step down. Thus, we must try to travel along the track of life in the best possible way -- loving, forgiving, giving, and sharing.

When the time comes for us to step down and leave our seat empty -- we should leave behind beautiful memories for those who continue to travel on the train of life.


Let’s remember to thank our Creator for giving us life to participate in this journey.

I close by thanking you for being one of the passengers on my train!

When he rose to speak, I pitied him,
that tall, ungainly, man.
His speech was high pitched,regional,
but clear to understand.
An inner fire burned in him,
his spirit fairly glowed.
His eyes and voice enchanted us
despite his rustic clothes.
The constitution was his text;
By chapter verse and line
He taught us what the founders meant,
the thoughts that filled their minds.
He said a true Republican
would not bid slaves to rise.
John Brown was no Republican,
his actions were unwise.
He explained the Government
could forbid slavery's spread.
The Union is a sacred trust
and must be preserved, he said.
I felt my heart on fire
when I heard him speak tonight.
When I saw his homely features
Transfigured by the light.
This Lincoln must be reckoned with;
if the South misunderstands,
They'll be tears and lamentations
in many homes in Dixie Land.

Bargaining with the Venusians
can prove quite expensive indeed.
(Arranging the transit of Venus
cost me astronomical fees.)

I'm assured it will last me a lifetime-
The last in this century they say.
I've spared no expense to arrange that
it coincides with  my daughter's birthday.

After today I will never
see Venus transit the Sun,
Her childhood, too just a memory
Now that she's turned Twenty -one.

An old black man, in a hot dry month,
sat in the shade of the Baobab tree.
The once verdant grasslands
were dry with drought,
victims of the winds of change.

“Old, they call me old.” He thought,
“my Seventy summers have turned me gray,
but this Baobab tree grew tall and strong
When Roman legions passed this way.”

The old man chewed the baobab fruit
and sank into a trance like state.
He was in a state of mind;
Not quite asleep, not quite awake.

He heard a voice: “I thirst.” It said,
Though he was sure he was alone.
It seemed not a human voice:
a dry dispassionate monotone.

“For generations, men like you
Have sought my shelter from the Sun,
But now it is finished; the land is parched
And I am dying, little one.”

The old man wept to hear these words
For when these trees die, as they must,
They collapse upon the barren ground
So quickly they return to Dust.

“The world has changed for you and me,
The winds are dry beneath the sun.
I forgive the world of men
For they know not what they have done.”

The old man woke up with a start
and raised himself up with his cane.
He wept to think this tree would die

but tears cannot replace the rain.

It happened, once only,
on an African plain.
A subtle mutation
and everything changed.
On Chromosome Seven
A new protein emerged.
A peripatic primate
Spoke her first word.
There were apes that were stronger
or had larger brains.
But it was **** sapiens
who gave all things names.
The mutation of speech,
an advantage unknown,.
soon reduced competition
to a mere pile of bones.
Our forebears surged forth
From the African plains
Some wandered to China,
others summered in Spain.
As elders died off,
Their knowledge survived
Through oral transmission
til the advent of scribes.
Now each human mother
awaits baby’s first word
It’s the price of admission
to the tribe of the verb.

He had just sat down to dinner
at the Heart Attack Grill.
The fab Las Vegas nightspot
where the fatties eat their fill

A place where the morbidly obese
and Summo wannabees
can chow down to their heart’s content
cause Fatties eat for free.

Nurse Bridgette brought his burger
and he started feeling ill.
As he slurped his triple milkshake
did he feel a sudden chill?

Was it the unfiltered cigarettes
He went through by the pack?
Or the triple bypass burger
that brought on his heart attack?

He started turning purple
and was rolling on the floor.
He was regretting his decision
to bypass that health food store.

Nurse Bridgette practiced CPR
and dialed emergency.
Thanks to her ministrations
He'll make a full recovery.

The Mongols swept down from the North
across the Persian plains
They massacred those who did not flee
and left their homes in flames.
The libraries that heretofore
were Persia's pride and joy
Were valueless as plunder
to the rapacious Golden Horde.
So that is why the buildings burned
and the rivers turned to black
as priceless volumes bled to death
discarded  in the Horde's attack.
A learned culture was destroyed
and never made it back
in the land that is a crossroads
and which is now known as Iraq.

They always liked Charlie.

Charlie was tall and, good looking.
The quarterback of our high school team.
That one of us whose life was perfect;
The Guy in the arms of the homecoming Queen.

Until of course, that fatal day.
The senior trip none can forget.
They took us all by bus to Rye.
Where ten of us had come to die.

Charlie was a moody sort.
We saw him on the rides alone.
The Queen was with her brand-new Prince.
His highness, Charles, had been dethroned.

It happened as the day wound down
Just before the bus would take us home.
Charlie emerged from the tunnel of Love
Curiously, he was alone

Back in the darkness of the ride
The tunnel of Love was filled with smoke
We heard our classmates muffled screams,
Like dammed souls devoid of hope.

In all ten died that horrible day
Several others suffered smoke inhalation
The tunnel of Love was a substandard ride;
A deathtrap disguised as an assignation.

There was of course an investigation.
Some evidence of arson had been found.
Curiously, no one was ever arrested
The cops  all said “insufficient grounds.”

But they always liked Charlie

I’m not considered “normal” by policemen on the force.
They apprehended me in public having an*l *******.
From early on I’ve always been attracted to a certain sort of man.
I’ve tried to be with women but that’s not just who I am.

Condemned as an “abnormal”, my security clearance lost,
considered an Enigma and somewhat an albatross.
In war I was a hero in the cryptanalytic game.
Now those doors are closed to me and others just the same.

So much I have accomplished, yet much remains undone.
Their chemicals have unmanned me so this capsule on my tongue
Once crushed with bring oblivion with its bitter almond taste.
The destruction of a once great man, will someone rue the waste?

On a cold, grey Bronx September day, an old man stood on the Courthouse plaza.
His palsied hand reached out to touch the monument to his life’s sole drama.
He’d just turned nineteen when the A.E.F. had been ordered to assist the French.
Near Chateau-Thierry He helped hold the bridge without the safety of a trench.
“We Marines fought like devil Dogs” He whispered softly to the rain.
“The Germans came, wave after wave, but only the stars and stripes remained.”
“Paris was spared and the foe was impressed by our Marine’s defiant dogged defense.”
“My best friends died, but I survived to keep them in remembrance.”
“We stopped the Germans at the Marne.” He felt an old familiar pain.
Some might say that the old man cried, but he would say it was just the rain.

There are unsmiling faces and bright plastic chains
And a wheel in perpetual motion
And they follow the races and pay out the gains
With no show of an outward emotion

And they think it will make their lives easier
For God knows up till now it's been hard
But the game never ends when your whole world depends
On the turn of a friendly card
No the game never ends when your whole world depends
On the turn of a friendly card

There's a sign in the desert that lies to the west
Where you can't tell the night from the sunrise
And not all the king's horses and all the king's men
Have prevented the fall of the unwise

For they think it will make their lives easier
And God knows up till now it's been hard
But the game never ends when your whole world depends
On the turn of a friendly card
No the game never ends when your whole world depends
On the turn of a friendly card