He saw her only yesterday, this girl that he once knew.
She looked happy with her family as she passed before his view.
When he sought what most desire, relationships got in the way.
He still recalls her tear stained cheeks the day he threw her love away.
He's dressed in fine designer suits, his chauffeur is on call.
One day he'll make C.E.O. -will then he have it all?
Yes, the world thinks him a Titan, of most uncommon clay,
as he thirsts, like one in Hell, for the tears she shed that day.

It is a lonely life we chose;
a keeper and his mate.
We live on Execution rocks
saving sailors from sad fates.
The tower light protects the Sound
from Sand’s Point to ‘Rochelle.
The rocks are cruel, the lives they claim
Doubtless with Neptune dwell.

One day, exploring our domain,
I chanced upon a man.
Unusual, to say the least,
to stray so far from land.
His hair was white, his eyes steel blue,
blue as Ocean deep.
A sudden chill passed over me
Like a terror born in sleep.
He asked me if I knew this spot,
And how it got its name.
How, during the Colonial times,
Condemned men here were chained.
At low tide it was no matter
But imagine their distress
As the tide grew ever higher
until it strangled their last breath.
How horrible a fate they faced;
abandoned and alone.
Their screams were mad and guttural
as they drowned in Ocean foam.
There, down at the waterline
I saw a brace of chains.
When I turned back to look at him-
Only I remained.


It is a lonely life we chose;
a keeper and his mate.
We live on Execution rocks
saving sailors from sad fates.
I spend my off time reading
in our little house of stone.
I seldom venture to that place-
and I never go alone.
But sometimes, when the moon is full
And the tide is running high.
I imagine that I hear the screams
of a man about to die.
Published January 28, 2013
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I'd like to slip quietly away from Life;
Peacefully in my sleep would be best,
that's for sure.

No doctor pounding on my lifeless chest;
demanding of me an unwanted encore.

I seek no grand Finale.
I require no clamoring crowds.

No, for me, just a bare and empty stage,
with one less spear carrier among the  dramatist personae.
One not remembered once you turn the page.

The faces at the table change
it’s the flow and ebb of time
we struggle to remember them
and the days of Auld Lang Syne .

The former faces shared our names
We are their blood and line
We gather now in different lands
in a very different time.

Grandfather James, renowned for brains,
played music and sang songs
Great Grandson James, the chemist,
researches to right Cancer’s wrongs.

There were Margarets and Catherines
in that different age and time
I struggle to remember them
different people, different times

Our Ed is a music teacher
who can read and write a score
Their Eddie died a pilot
in that war to end all wars.

My age lacks a Sophia
and I count it quite a loss.
She was a faithful bride of Christ
and wore a simple cross.

There was a Susan and an Agnes
back in the former age
Agnes nursed in wartime London
as above the air war raged.

The faces at the table change
the ranks are thinned with time
We struggle to remember them
and the days of Auld Lang Syne

At first they were vivid,
Technicolor dreams.
So real you could touch them
and taste them it seemed.
With time all the images
would fade to pastel.
He saw his dreams
for what they were,
as realists often will.
When they turned to black and white
in the cold hard glare of day
He'd prayed then for a dreamless sleep
who needs them anyway.
Then came the darkest night
when all was bare and drear.
He longed then for the dreams of youth,
but none, of course, appeared

There were disappointed faces
on the students in the quad
The professor’s classes cancelled-
illness  had struck their mortal god.
A literary lion, A scholar
world renowned.
Pneumonia, favoring old men,
was the disease that took him down.
The Professor got the best of care
and had a private room.
His favorites brought him roses
to brighten up the gloom.
He was in an out of consciousness,
oblivious to fading blooms.

His true friends
were dead poets
and he imagined them about:
Blake, with his wild head of hair;
Bill Shakespeare’s pate without,
Byron, dripping from the Hellespont,
and Dylan Thomas chugging  stout.
His breath was shallow, rasping
His heart would skip a beat
His mind would wander mercifully
back to when the past  was sweet.
He recalled playing the Wolf
with a beauty named Naomi.
Had she ever thought him handsome?
Had he come across as phony?
The monitor went flat line then
They would save him, never fear.
Naomi's accusations were still
ringing in his ears.

Like a treasured heirloom painting
dulled by passing time,
its colors, sadly faded,
this tricolor of mine.
Once crimson red, now cinnamon,
The blue an aqualine,

When Liberty was naked
We draped her in its folds.
The boys in blue held this high
in times that try men’s souls.
Let not the flag of freedom drop
nor linger in the dust.
Let faded glory be restored-
In Liberty we trust.

Why on Earth is Oblivion Black
instead of a more gracious hue?
After all, once you’re done decomposing
there’s nothing to see or to do.
The dastardly Demons of death
have decreed this dismal décor.
I think it’s high time we revolt,
not take it lying down  as before.
Interior designers of note
must give Styx a thorough redo.
We’d enjoy a more fab non existence
if everything faded to blue.


( I fell asleep while my wife was watching “Design Stars" on HBTV)

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary….

When books are replaced with Kindles and Nooks,
and content resides on the cloud.
It is relatively easy to delete certain works
at the whim of the haughty and proud.

If libraries falter, wither and die
The poor will lose access to the printed word.
Ten percent of the market will quickly dry up
and the price of a book gets absurd.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary.

The pleasure we had in turning each page
as our minds raced ahead to the end.
Short battery life never hindered our quest
when ****, Jane and Spot were our friends.

A storm on the Sun bringing ionized rays
and digital files are undone.
and force us to search yellow crumbling pages
for rumors of Kipling and Donne.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary.

Was Bradbury right? Should we all memorize
the words born of our favorite pen?
Imagine reciting Shakespeare’s Hamlet by heart
so that silence won’t win in the end.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary….

When books are replaced with Kindles and Nooks,
and content resides on the cloud,
It is relatively easy to delete certain works
at the whim of the haughty and proud.

If libraries falter, wither and die
The poor will lose the printed word.
Ten percent of the market will quickly dry up
and the price of a book gets absurd.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary.

The pleasure we had in turning each page
as our minds raced ahead to the end.
Short battery life never hindered our quest
when ****, Jane and Spot were our friends.

A storm on the Sun bringing ionized rays
and digital files are undone.
and force us to search yellow crumbling pages
for rumors of Kipling and Donne.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary.

Was Bradbury right? Should we all memorize
the words born of our favorite pen?
Imagine reciting Shakespeare’s Hamlet by heart
so that silence won’t win in the end.

I have been like some shipwrecked mariner,
adrift on the friendless sea for many days,
who looks upon the celestial lights
as they play on the water’s surface
and deceives himself by thinking
he beholds the stars themselves.

Just so have I self-deceived in thinking
That I have known my Love’s true essence
Yet never having experienced
more that your faint reflection

I can't say it was what I expected,
(an intimate dinner for two).
When Charlize showed up
with two bodyguards
What's a poor fella to do?

She glides in with the grace of a dancer
which is what she first wanted to be.
Charlize won the "Lucky Genes" Lotto,
I didn't unfortunately.

There I was was, stammering, star struck
blathering blithely away.
She passed a remark about mirrors,
suggesting I use one someday.

She could have been lovely and gracious,
instead she was distant and rude.
It seemed she was still Queen Ravenna
and I was the Burger King dude.

I dropped fifty large for the dinner
A pittance for charity due.
There's not likely to be little monsters
as Charlize and i are quite through

The young resent us oldsters, we seniors, stooped and grey.
We Boomers hold the bulk of worldly goods, at least today.
The game is rigged against them- resentment rules the day.
The Young have debts they can’t discharge and likely cannot pay.
The Old likewise resent the Young their beauty, strength and speed.
We, whose days are growing short, look at their Youth with greed.
Stocks and bonds are wonderful; but their compensation wanes
When I am cold in summer’s heat and live in constant pain.
If only to be young again, with Ann, beneath the stars.
That Fifty Seven Chevy was more fun than modern cars.
The young seem to resent us and I find it passing strange-
I’d yield this wealth for youth and health. It’s a more than fair exchange.

The Young resent us Oldsters, we Seniors, stooped and grey.
We Boomers hold the bulk of worldly goods, at least today.
The game is rigged against them- resentment rules the day.
The Young have debts they can’t discharge and likely cannot pay.
The Old likewise resent the Young their beauty, strength and speed.
We, whose days are growing short, look at their Youth with greed.
Stocks and bonds are wonderful; but their compensation wanes
When I am cold in summer’s heat and live in constant pain.
If only to be young again, with Ann, beneath the stars.
That Fifty Seven Chevy was more fun than modern cars.
The Young seem to resent us and I find it passing strange-
I’d yield this wealth for youth and health. It’s a more than fair exchange.

It was a "rite of passage"
to climb those stairs
in the dark clock tower.
She went there on a dare.

A" photo opportunity"
that many attempted
once their last test was  taken
and their senior year  ended.

A beautiful girl,
a tragic misstep,
a fall from a height,
a bright future wrecked.

She was not suicidal,
she deserves  thoughts and prayers.
She took one wrong step
and the step wasn't there.

She fell into darkness
her Soul unprepared
Doctors labored to save her
but she couldn't be spared.

The past may be a beautiful place, but, correct me, if I’m wrong-
all those who try to live there cannot remain for very long.

Your long and lovely auburn hair as you turned to give a kiss;
Yes, it only is in memory, but it still can warm a night like this.

I no longer am that strong young man who held you for that kiss.
In truth we parted years ago. My fault, I must confess.

I think about you often, though, and how you brought this heart delight
As fallen leaves recess in pools of light

in the lonely hours of the night

The stubborn little Maple leaf
held on when all its fellows fled.
They carpeting the ground beneath
a vast lushscape of gold and red.

Leaf held on thru wind and rain,
the last survivor of its race.
Leaf held on past Turkey day
maintaining there its pride of place.

Then Leaf grew lonely, I suppose-
Like the summer’s final rose.
Leaf envied then the flakes of snow
Who fluttered past to their repose.

Then, just as winter came to call,
Leaf felt a tug and then a snap.
Flying, tumbling on the winds
Fall to Earth. Fade to black.

Farewell, Aunt Jemima,
Goodbye uncle Ben!
It sure was nice to know you
but these stereotypes must end.

Now, about that Pillsbury dough boy-
He shames people who are fat.
Why does he still get a pass?
What is up with that?

Is Captain Crunch a fascist?
Is Tony Tiger really tame?
Will they ditch the Leprechaun?
I know I'll never look at Betty ******* quite the same!

I think that kindly Quaker is the cause of my confusion.
At least its good to know that he's committed to inclusion.

The Millennium Falcon seems empty now
with no one in your chair.
Though you had a tendency to shed
I didn't mind, I swear.

Your presence was always comforting.
I took courage in your growl.
I might even have understood you,
if I could only buy a vowel.

Leia is waiting for you now
to take you by the (?) hand
Off you go now together
to the moons of Alderan.

So may the Force be with you, friend,
though mortal bonds now sever.
Take solace that we hold you close
in memory forever

As the Rose is the flower of flowers,
Exalted above all the rest,
Their color denoting desire
Which words alone cannot express.
Some shades are symbols of friendship.
Some others connote happiness.
Some buds are a byword for passion,
and the reddest of blooms says it best.
A first love is never forgotten-
unless you forget yourself first.
It lingers in mind like the taste of your lips.
It is either a blessing or curse.
We were little more than adolescents
That day we embraced by the shore.
Though the tides haven’t changed
It has been many years
And now I will see you no more.
My tears are my heart’s lamentations
For a Love that was too long repressed.
I place my red rose on your casket.
The reddest of blooms says it best.

As the Rose is the flower of flowers,
Exalted above all the rest,
Their color denoting desire
Which words alone cannot express.
Some shades are symbols of friendship.
Some others connote happiness.
Some buds are a byword for passion,
and the reddest of blooms says it best.
A first love is never forgotten-
unless you forget yourself first.
It lingers in mind like the taste of your lips.
It is either a blessing or curse.
We were little more than adolescents
That day we embraced by the shore.
Though the tides haven’t changed
It has been many years
And now I will see you no more.
My tears are my heart’s lamentations
For a Love that was too long repressed.
I place my red rose on your casket.
The reddest of blooms says it best.

On that crisp September night
I heard the music play.
I will not hear those notes again
for Sandman’s gone away.

With one out still left in the ninth
Two men approached the mound.
Jeter said “It’s time to go.”
The ballpark roared with sound.

Was there a dry eye in the house
when even Hall of Famers weep?
That night, Mo’s opponents cheered,
for the man who spelled relief..

For when a game was on the line-
Foes threatening to score;
One man, one pitch was all it took
as Rivera barred the door.

On that crisp September night
I heard the music play.
They will not play his song again
for Sandman’s gone away.

Too young! Well, yes, isn’t that the way
It seems to us when we hear a friend is gone.
The scythe swept close yet we ourselves remain
to drink our coffee and put on mourning clothes.
We’ll gather in a place we loathe to go.
We will see familiar faces in those folding chairs.
We’ll kneel before a casket made of bronze
And offer an inadequate childhood prayer.
In time, we all come to terms with our grief.
Experience has taught us nature’s way-
Our memories are like sand the tides subsume.
Not gone, exactly, submerged, hid from the light.
to surface like a dream in the dead of night.
Our friend was our companion on this journey,
Good company, a source of strength and humor.
Our paths diverged in a dark stretch of woods.
Our friend has reached the destination sooner.

Something there is that doesn’t love a rose;
The biting wind, the unrelenting rain,
The first hint of the coming winter’s chill
That will not suffer flowers to remain.

Something there was that did not love our Rose
The renegade cells whose blood destroying will
Seeped into the bones and her soft tissues
and on the warmest day left our Rose chilled.

Now our Rose lies still in her Sunday best
Her hands composed for prayer and ever sleep.
Something there was that didn’t let Rose live.
A circumstance that makes a grown man weep.

The decedent was in perfect health
As all our tox screens show.
No visible wounds,
No blunt force trauma,
Believe me, We would know.
A “Dear John” letter
Found near the corpse
revealed that she would go.
The coroner ruled
that loss of Love
had proved the fatal blow.

The moon shone full that fatal night
When Stonewall and his men
were returning from a scout
around their former friends.
The brightness of the risen moon
Put them in silhouette.
The pickets rose and fired;
an action they would soon regret.
Stonewall Jackson was unhorsed,
a Minnie ball in his arm.
The surgeons had to amputate.
One week later he was gone.
It marred a famous victory,
A masterpiece of Lee’s,
when Jackson crossed over the river
to rest in the shade of the trees.

If Father Mychal Judge gave you a hug, it was something you would not soon forget. It was not a burly bone crushing sort of bear hug that you could get from anybody. It was a delicate gentle hug as if he knew he was dealing with someone exquisitely fragile.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Mychal Judge had felt called to a Priestly vocation since his days as an altar boy. He was also a celibate gay man and a recovering alcoholic. He attended A.A. meetings in the basement of Good Sheppard Episcopal Church and was as an apostle to the gay community when elements of the mainstream church often turned their backs upon them. The Franciscan priest had a special care for the New York City fire department and was one of five Catholic Chaplains assigned to the Fire Department.
His frame was small but wiry. He had a shock of white hair that stood out in a room and a lovely tenor voice that would bust into a favorite Irish air at the drop of a hat. A member of the New York Irish diaspora, he loved to spend his spare time listening to Irish and Irish American folk music in the clubs and dives of Manhattan.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned as beautiful of a fall day in New York as any would ever see. Father Mychal was up early and went to vote in the primary, then briefly stopped back at the Franciscan friary for a morning cup of coffee with the brothers. There was a radio on in the background and that was when he first heard news of a commercial jet crashing into the North tower of the world trade center. Father Mychal knew that his boys would be going in harm’s way to fight those flames and he immediately rose from the table and set out to the scene.
Even before he arrived, a second commercial jetliner came crashing into to the south tower. The flames on the upper floors were so intense that many trapped office workers chose to leap to their deaths below rather than be consumed alive by the flames like some latter day heretics.
One of Father Mychal’s firemen had been mortally injured just outside North tower by one of the leapers. Oblivious to his own safety Father Mychal knelt down beside the dying man and gave him the last rites of the church. Father then got to his feet and, in the company of several firemen, entered the lobby of the North tower. They were heading for the emergency command center on the floor above the lobby when there was an unearthly roar as the stricken south tower collapse upon the streets of Manhattan. The world inside the North tower grew dark with smoke, soot and debris. Fearful that the North tower was coming down the men scrambled for shelter in a stairwell, all except for Father Mychal. A flying shard of metal stuck the Padre just after he had been heard by some to say “Sweet Jesus, make it end now!”
In the dark and flaming ruins of the North tower command center, it was difficult to breath and impossible to see clearly. The survivors of the group emerged from the stairwell where they had taken refuge and stumble across the beloved Padre’s body on the steps. Not wanting to abandon him in death, they placed him in a plastic chair and fire strong men lifted him up and carried him out of the dying North Tower, mere minutes before it too would collapse.
On the sidewalk of Church and Vesey streets, two catholic firemen said prayers over the body of their fallen companion, for no Priest was available to give Father Mychal the last rites of the church. Then he was brought to Old Saint Peter’s church and laid upon the Altar, his fireman’s helmet placed upon his chest.
They sent an ambulance into the devastated streets to retrieve the body of their fallen comrade. They bought him back to the house at Engine 1 Ladder 24 and placed his remains in the first of over two thousand body bags that would be used in the days and weeks that followed. That is how a humble priest who never put himself first in life came to be victim 0001 of the Twin towers disaster.
Hundreds of brave firemen and police gave their lives on that tragic day, the toll in the firehouse of lower Manhattan was especially heavy as you would expect. Time passes, lives end, and eventually there will only be the films the photos and the artifacts to remind the children of our children of that beautiful, terrible day in September.

Her face is the face of an angel, if angels, as such, there be.
Her hair is a crown of platinum gold and she sang her words softly to me.
Her eyes are twin pools of cerulean blue; her lips wear a pink coral hue.
She offered her hand; we embraced in a dance as timeless as Heaven must be.
To possess such a treasure you would sell all you owned, for she is the pearl of great price.
Her Love is a treasure that never will rust; I’ve no need for another’s advice.
My heart’s own desire I held in my arms; we embraced in a passionate kiss.
The power and glory of all the world else is as nothing compared to this.

El pintor de palabras se recostó con su café
En el viejo y maltratado sillón de color burdeos.
Deseó estar bebiendo borgoña
En una silla de color café, pero los mendigos no pueden elegir.

Ser un pintor de palabras no es tan lucrativo como lo era en el pasado.
Sin embargo, en el lado positivo del libro mayor, nadie era probable
Para pedirle que nade el Hellespont
y arriesgar su vida por la independencia griega.

¿Qué, entonces, debería escribir hoy?
Pensó en ella que una vez había usado su anillo.
Pensó en una niña encantadora, bronceada
Con mechones ***** azabache
y ojos latinos vivos.

Extraño, no había pensado en ella en bastante tiempo.
Bueno, pensó, después de todo, hoy es su cumpleaños.
“Feliz cumpleaños a mi querida Barbara Jeanne.

Me enseñaste lecciones de amor y pérdida
y me dejó con solo el toque de un poeta.

On the first night of the Festivus All grievances were aired
But after a few cups of *** our feelings were repaired
The Festivus pole shone brightly, illumined by a single light.
The alcohol flowed freely, this would be no silent night.
Cousin Jerry in the corner was caught snogging with Elaine.
George’s girl was laughing as he struggled to explain
The cause of her disappointment (shrinkage was to blame).
Cosmo Kramer danced around the pole, making spirits bright.
Newman spilled the bowl of punch,( he never was too bright).
Frank and Estelle were doing well and feeling little pain.
She pinned him in the feat of strength, not that he complained.
When the meal was over and the holiday was done
They all made their donations to support the Human fund.

When my father was a boy,
in the County of Tyrone,
His father owned a quarry
and he worked the fields of stone.

My Dad grew lean and hard
As he excavated stone
Yielding granite for stone carvers
And gravel aggregate for roads.

His hands grew strong and powerful
He had a muscular physique
He couldn’t read or write
But no one dared to call him weak.

When my Dad was in his twenties
He was working in the mines
Excavating British coal
at Newcastle on  Tynes.

Later on in life
He was living in the “States”
Working in landscaping
on large Gold Coast estates.

When my Dad was in his fifties
He was digging graves by hand.
Once again in Fields of stone
a hard working Union man.

Each morning he’d rise early
And walk two miles to work
He never had an office
And he’d never be a clerk.

He rose to be a foreman
Working in that field of stone
And when darkness overtook him
It became his earthly home.

Now when I go visit him
I kneel and pray alone
Beside his Celtic Cross
standing in the field of stones.

Viking chiefs Valhalla bound,
at death, were not interred I've found.
On a fire ship they 'd place their chief
and cremate him per their belief.

Was it an obsequious grief
that gave rise to this strange belief?
For seafaring folk it scarce seems mete
to lose a captain, then burn the fleet.

With Dragon heads fixed fore and aft
Those ships brought terror, sword and shaft.
Irish Monks would think its fine
to burn one to the water line.

The ship of death was burning bright
as it sank within the fjord that night
carrying the Viking chiefs cremains
to his Viking gods' domains.

Was it conspicuous consumption
that drove the Vikings to this junction?
Perhaps after a life , ****** and gory,
they craved going out in a blaze of glory.

Uncle Sam sat down across from me and placed his satchel on the floor.
It was time to pay the piper; that is God’s immutable law.
I tapped my bony finger, impatient to begin.
“That will be fifty eight thousand, Sam, starting with Tonkin.”

From his satchel, that seemed bottomless, Sam produced the cash.
“Start counting!” I demanded, as I drooled over his stash.
He started pilling Franklins up on the table there between us.
Each “C” note meant one hundred dead Due to McNamara’s genius.

Fathers and sons had fallen; young men by the score.
Just think of the girls they never kissed; the children they never saw.
Uncle Sam doled out the bills until his thumbs were sore
When he finished I took out my Scythe and swept them on the floor.

I saw Sam’s look of horror at my eyeless, nose less face.
He had counted out a treasure that he knew he can't replace.
“It was a Pleasure doing business.” Oh, how I despised that man!
Still I was certain that we’d meet often,even after Vietnam.

In the arctic wastes where the Inuit tribe hunts caribou and fights to survive,
I have been told since long ago that tribe has fifty words for “snow”
That seemed superfluous to me- Fifty words for one commodity!
If I was born an Eskimo, I’d have fifty words to learn and know

I do most of the shoveling here, my wife and children cheer me on.
The winter lingers long and drear, some days it seems the Sun is gone.
Despite the calendar I greatly fear that blessed spring is nowhere near
Tomorrow, the radio makes clear, we’re expecting six more inches here.

Some snow is like a sugary mist, granulated and sublime,
Quite useless for a snow ball fight, for that you need the packing kind.
The worst is the wet sodden snow, the kind that threatens a heart attack.
It’s difficult to lift and throw; it hurts the arms and strains the back.

I told my wife I now know why they need fifty words for snow.
I have a few choice words I’d add; words the children shouldn’t know.
Those Inuit folk who fight to survive in the land of snow and ice-
Now I too have fifty words for snow, not one of which is nice.

DEATH felt a tug upon his line.
He gave the reel some play.
Down in the depths the struggle commenced
This was some soul’s dying day.

Down in the depths of deep despair
His victim fought the hook.
DEATH had used pleasure as his lure
oft that was all it took.

DEATH sat back in his fishing chair
aboard his Yacht “Mort Du”.
He waited for acceptance;
for the struggle to be through.

DEATH smiled a hideous fleshless smile.
What did one mortal say?
“If your work is your hobby,
It’s like you never worked a day.”

The Sun rode low in the western sky.
A  certain chill invades the air.

DEATH felt the strain in his sinewy arms.
And He shifted in his chair.

It’s Time, DEATH thought, to end this sport.
“You will not get away.
I’m glad you made it interesting
Now perhaps it’s time to pray”

Just then DEATH felt the line go slack:
Cut through upon a submerged rock.
His prey, still burdened by his hook,
still had time upon the clock.

DEATH surveyed the darkening sea.
as twilight settled on the brine.
DEATH took it philosophically;
We’ll meet again another time.

I was younger back then
than my youngest is now.
(Impossibly young, it would seem.)
There I first did encounter
the fig newton girl
so lovely, languid and lean.

I fancied myself a writer of tales
back when I was fresh from my teens.
Blank pages taunted me
right to my face..
They haunted the sides of my dreams.

I remember fig newton girl
reading her poems.
(Bee stung lips
and bare minimum clothes.)
She had our attention -
so sweet was her sound.
while I fought my
struggles with prose.

" Close your eyes
You could be anywhere.
Even next to one
whose eyes are also closed."

Those were her last lines
and they've stayed in my mind.
(Impossible though it may seem.)
When I close my eyes
she is next to me yet-
the fig Newton girl of my dreams.

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.

Remember our high school finals-
the proctors, attentive, alert.
They roamed the aisles like policemen;
on the lookout for cheaters and flirts.

I was an enigma to them;
in some classes, first honors, hands down.
In others I ranked near the bottom;
acting, you’d say, the class clown.

I mention those long ago days
as I’m facing a final of sorts.
I’ve taken the medical tests-
Now I wait in my robe and my shorts.

This new proctor gives me the creeps
with his scythe and his hooded black gown,
but he’s sure to command my attention
when he tells me to put my pen down

She had been condemned to silence
since the stroke, two years before.
The lovely lyric voice I loved
seemed vanished evermore.

Locomotion came back slowly.
Just this spring I saw her smile
Still, my girl remained in shadow,
sadly silent all the while.

Her new therapist was hopeful
That she could be taught to sing.
I doubted it was possible-
She couldn't say a thing.

Two hours, nearly every day
the girl who wore my ring
with her therapist accompanist
keep struggling to sing.

I never thought that
"row your boat"
could be my favorite song
Until I heard her sing it,
for the first time on her own.

When all my prayers were answered
I no longer felt alone.
That day the girl who wears my ring
made it all the way back home.

For years, it remained hidden,
behind a picture in its frame.
Seen, unseen, forgotten
behind people now unnamed.

My cousin went to toss it out,
but felt the metal’s heft.
She felt, refurbished, it would look nice
on her Mother’s antique Chest.

Her husband took the frame in hand
with the thought to paint it blue.
“What’s this?” he said when,
from the back, a paper he withdrew.

There upon the yellowed sheet
in a spidery scripted hand
were our maternal ancestors:
Great Grand Ma and Dad.

Great Grandfather was John Devine
of Kildress Parish in Tyrone.
His bride, Sophia Gormley-
a name, till now, unknown.

They had a child named Margaret;
Grandfather’s second wife.
She was mother to my father
and thus my own path to life.

The name Sophia stands for wisdom”
and she married a” Devine.”
Thus I may claim a 1/8 share
of wisdom that’s D(e)Vine.

The trees outside their classroom door
so recently were green.
Now they all are bare and brown;
great evil they have seen.

I cannot, will not, speculate
what drove that youth insane:
or why he murdered children
then put a bullet in his brain.

The Season now is dreary;
Christmas greetings go unsaid;
Presents never to be opened
and even Hope seems dead.

A grateful Father hugs his girl,
Her classmates all are dead.
Their classroom is an abattoir:
Finger-painted Red.

The poetry of longing
is but the bright side of despair.
The expression of a yearning
for a love no longer there.
The embodiment of our parting
that cold dark Winter’s night,
brutal in its finality
beneath the stars unblinking light.
We turned there from each other
as two halves, now unpaired,
Each knowing in our hearts
the bitter tasting fare.

The decedent weighed 500 pounds.
Her shape was decidedly round.
When cremation was requested,
Her fat cells combusted
and burned the old funeral home down.

The director ought to have been wary
Of a corpse it takes ten men to carry.
He sought long, in vain,
a home for her cremains.
“A barrel, perhaps?” offered Larry.

Her overweight fatty remains
exploded when touched by the flame.
Some speculate gas
Leaking out of her ***
was possibly partly to blame.
.
So if you’re a “plus” girl or guy
And in the course of events you should die.
Choose the dirt nap, not flame
For your mortal remains
It appears Butterballs shouldn’t fry.

It would seem we had little in common,

myself and the grizzled old man.

There was always the family resemblance-

He was, after all, old Granddad.

He had served time in the army

but seldom would say what he saw.

(His buddies who died where the heroes,

They didn’t come back from the war.)

We would go walk his dog in the park.

He would hear out my childish concerns.

He taught me about love of family.

That Love, he said, always returns.

Baseball was our common passion.

We’d root for the Mets, then despair.

At least he had seen them be champions,

For me they had yet to get there.

A single rose dropped on his casket

Is a scant thanks for the years that we shared.

You were there for me from my life’s beginning;

The first best friend I ever had.

Father Mychal Judge bent down
to the woman on the floor.
His right hand made the cross in sign
like oft he had before.
Above him the North Tower Burned
like South Tower just next door.

The chaplain of the firemen,
Mychal was a Catholic priest.
Born and bred in Brooklyn,
He was no stranger to these streets.
When he heard word about the planes,
his safety he ignored..
He had to go be with his boys
His trust was in the Lord.

The people in the towers had
the choice to burn or fly.
So many that day took the plunge
preferring not to fry.

The raging fires melted steel.
South Tower started to collapse
The Bravest in her stairwells
never heard recall perhaps.

“Sweet Jesus, Make this end now! ”
Some heard  Father Mychal cry.
Debris from the South Tower
Like a scythe came flying by.

It was blunt force trauma to the head
laid Father Mychal low.
His friends removed his body,
before North tower , too, would go.

Thousands passed that terrible day;
the mighty and the small.
When responders came with body bags
Mychal was first of all.

Zero Zero Zero One
A strange number for a Priest,
who rushed in where many others fled,
May now he rest in Peace.

We met for drinks and music
in a quiet little bar.
A singer, Reno Sweeney,
was the evening’s featured star.
Bob and Shelia never showed,
throwing us together:
You, a dark eyed beauty,
loquacious and quite clever.
I, your unexpected swain,
With eyes an emerald treasure.

Later at the Piper’s inn
We sat before the fire
You sipped on your white Russian
I drank my Pinot Noir.
I could not know, did not foresee
Our future in my glass:
Our sensual adventures
On rooftops and on grass.
Our joys, our sorrows, and our end
Which then could not be guessed-
Just your sweet face upturned to me
anticipating to be kissed.

There are loves that are inseparable,
loves that never leave.
Loves that can define us
This much I do believe.
I remember well my own first “love”.
A Love I brought to bed.
I brought along a flashlight too
To discern the words Love said.
When all my family was asleep
from my pillow I’d retrieve
My treasure from the Library
And I’d begin to read.
That was my first chapter book,
A mystery, I recall.
Of all the words I’ve read or writ
It was the start of all.
I like to find that book again
and hold in one more time.-
and in the touch and smell of it
Recall a simpler time.

There are loves that are inseparable,
loves that never leave.
Loves that can define us
This much I do believe.
I remember well my own first “love”.
A Love I brought to bed.
I brought along a flashlight too
To discern the words Love said.
When all my family was asleep
from my pillow I’d retrieve
My treasure from the Library
And I’d begin to read.
That was my first chapter book,
A mystery, I recall.
Of all the words I’ve read or writ
It was the start of all.
I like to find that book again
and hold in one more time.-
and in the touch and smell of it
Recall a simpler time.

I was happy in our home and she answered all my needs
So the day that my first person died, I was sorely grieved.
I plucked out all my feathers as a sign of my distress.
My silences spoke volumes about how I was depressed.
My first persons’ other family didn’t want a cockatoo,
So they took me to the shelter on the day that I found you.
Now I sing and speak and play. I’m happy once again,
But I will never once forget her; my first person and my friend.

The woman, Miriam, had been caught in the act,
selling her favors; making cash on her back.
She was dragged to the square barely half dressed
and everyone knew what would be happening next.

She stared at the people who all gathered around
and watched as they picked up the stones from the ground.
She reeked of her sin as she cowered, half dressed,
one word from the priest and we'd stone her to death.

One word would be needed and then stones would fly
The ***** would be battered for sinners must die.
The pavement around her would be stained with red
God would be pleased that this woman was dead.

An Itinerant  rabbi was asked by the priest
if he would pronounce sentence, let the stones be unleashed.
He paused to consider, drawing lines in the dust,
then he spoke his decision about what was just.

"Let he from among you who is without sin
throw the first stone; let fly and begin."
Stones dropped from each hand as each did consider
the sins in our  own hearts and made us forgive her.

" Does no one condemn you?" he asked of the *****.
"Then neither do I, child, go, sin no more"















9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

11 “No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”