In her majesty's prison hospital
The patient slipped in to a coma.
For two months he had led a fast
in solidarity with his brothers.

The men of ‘H” block wouldn’t don
Such clothes as thieves might wear
They were  brave Irish Republicans;
Politics put them there.

They dressed in sheets and blankets
When denied their clothes to wear
In this time of the “Troubles”
the “Blanketmen” prepared.

No warder's food would they accept.
No uniforms would they wear.
The world was focused on Long Kesh
and the brave lads dying there.

Bobby Sands was comatose;
His breathing shallow; his pulse was weak
This Native son of Antrim
Nevermore would speak    

Just Twenty Seven years of age
As he slipped into the past
Bobby Sands was the first to die,
But he wouldn’t be the last.

“Doc, over here.” I heard them cry.
I raced on black volcanic sand,
I know snipers target medics with
a corpsman's pouch in hand.

“It’s Mike Strank, they got him bad.”
Mike was down, writhing in pain.
He was losing blood
and awfully pale.

Shielding his body with my own,
in a depression in the ground
I cut away his Khaki shirt.
Until the entry wound was found.

A ******* wound, an evil sign-
red frothing bubbles from his chest.
A styrette of Morphine- all I had
to ease the pain of every breathe.

Suribachi loomed above us.
Barely had a week gone by
since this man had helped to raise
the Forty eight Stars on high.

Now he was dying, fading fast.
A grave awaited, far from home.
There was nothing I could do
except not let him die alone.

Five thousand Pounds of steel,
rising from the ground,
in a rusted, twisted state
at the center of our town.
The names of us who died
are inscribed around the base.
Our names are spoken yearly
and have been given pride of place.
Yet please don’t call us victims-
People taken unawares-
Recall us rather heroes
for we chose to climb those stairs.
We were fire and policemen
first responders, one and all,
In the war waged against terror
we were just the first to fall.

These are not the flowers I thought I would be buying,
These are not roses for the girl I wed.
These flowers bear a message of condolence
Who knew I would be buying these instead?

The time was short from your first diagnosis
until the morning when you met your end.
Now comes the tears of selfishness and mourning;
the pain that comes with losing a true friend.

Februaries in New York are bleak
when winter lingers on without an end.
“It’s a great life if you never weaken.”
I recall that’s what you always said.

We stand on frozen ground at Calvary
after three days spent on folding chairs.
Each of us drop a flower of remembrance
as the Padre mutters solemn prayers.

You never had a child of your own body
or devoted spouse to mourn your final breath.
Your nieces and your nephews now surround you.
Of your generation now none are left.

Some say the past does not exist.
We cannot venture there.
We cannot change what happened once,
Or redeem it with a prayer.
Yet what I am today descends
From all I used to be,
And those who claims to lack regrets
I view suspiciously.
Sometimes, at night, in slumber’s depths,
A long lost face I see.
In the light of other days
A while you bide with me.
I have the memory of your kisses;
Their sweetness I recall.
Then weep when daybreak draws me back
from when we had it all.

I was then but middle-aged, established in my world.
She was a young ingenue, a lithe and lovely girl.
she knew about the ring I wore, the promise it contained,
but we were both the worse for drink and passions were inflamed.
I should have left here at her door, my lusts I should have tamed.

Her perfume was enticing, unlike what my Lucy wore.
I stepped back to admire when her chemise hit the floor.
To hold a warm girl in my arms; to kiss those lips of flame.
I felt my youth restored to me when she whispered my name.

Her mystic rose was delicate; its subtle nectar sweet.
She raised her hips to meet my lips, the conquest was complete.
We both were lost in pleasure, her fingers urged me on.
We surrendered to our yearnings, all inhibitions gone.

Some say that Hell is a fiery pit with fierce unquenchable flames.
Others say its lined with ice and  the cold drives you insane.
For me Hell was a woman scorned and a co-respondent named.
I was crucified in the press; such is the cost of fame.

I am older, wiser now. I never touch a drop.
See, if you never drink the first no one need tell you stop.
I  have been a fool for Love but I will not pretend
that I don't miss her passionate kiss I'll never have again.

For Better, or Worse,
They freely consented.
The gowns were fitted,
the Tuxes were rented.
They both pledged their troth
before family and friends.
A fairytale Day,
but all fairy tales end.

For Richer, for poorer,
the latter's the norm.
with three kids in college
who all want to dorm.
They worked extra hours
to pay the expense
of caps and gowns earned.
Those were happy events.

In sickness and health,
There were scares, here and there.
A bout with colitis
A broken hip, a wheelchair.
They soldiered on through it
lifelong lovers must.
Silver may tarnish
but it never will rust.

Till death do them part,
No gold left in her hair.
She relies on her walker
He's confined to the chair.
She struggles to aid him,
at night she just cries.
Though his body still lives
there's no light in his eyes.

This is the journey
from the ring to the stone
Either rise to the challenge
or live life on your own.

A casual glance, a gentle touch,
It stops at that, we know it must.
A chaste embrace, an offered cheek
which I dryly kiss and count it sweet.

Once we’d danced around a flame-
an older man, a willing maid.
Both comfortable in our own skin
In secret we began our sin.

I know your body like my wife’s
But she was elsewhere, I recall
Your husband, too, was on the road
When I, like Adam, had my fall.

We speak of nothings, jobs, careers,
Not of our existential fears.
Celebrity splits, Horrid crimes,
our ****** ever on our minds.

We dance like moths about a flame
which never must be lit again.
It stops at this, we know it must
a casual glance, a gentle touch.

Sans le vent, sans la pluie
La pierre de la Terre resterait en pierre.
Le souffle de Boreas n'a-t-il pas soufflé?
pour former les canyons ici-bas?
Si ce n'est pas pour Kymopoleia et ses vagues
Y aurait-il des grottes sous-marines?
Imperceptiblement, goutte à goutte,
Les larmes du ciel peuvent conquérir le rock.
Transformer la pierre en sédiment par degré
Et retournez à la mer.
Alors aussi, mes larmes vont travailler leur art
Sur ton coeur adamantin
Et, dans leur victoire finale,
ramène ton amour à moi.

Without the wind, without the rain
The stone of Earth would stone remain.
Did not the breath of Boreas blow
to form the canyons here below?
If not for Kymopoleia and her waves
Would there be underwater caves?
Imperceptibly, drop by drop,
The tears of heaven can conquer rock.
Turn stone to sediment by degree
And make its way back to the sea.
So too, my tears will work their art
Upon thy adamantine heart
And, in their final victory,
carry back your love to me.

I stand before the wrack of it;
The home where I first learned to read.
The humble house of all our hopes.
Our refuge in our hour of need.

Surrounded by a plywood fence,
she lies in splinters on the ground.
The debris field of my yesterdays
is spread about me all around.

I find a piece of painted wood
with our house numbers nailed upon.
I rescue it for Closure's sake
One last look, then I am gone.

“Beautiful” she said;
And none can her gainsay.
The poetess who spoke,
then, in quiet, passed away.
Cossetted within her husband’s arms,
frail and small in death’s repose,
Never again would she put pen to paper.
No more sonnets would her art compose.
Her illnesses had dogged her all her life.
Only morphine kept the pain at bay.
It also gave to her a heightened sense
of the beauty of mundane reality.
How vividly did her expressive eyes
Put words to thoughts and thoughts to
printed page.
She was the wild enthusiast of life,
whose poetry was the spirit of the age.

You would think it a dream
to be forever nineteen.
To not age a day
to let youth and strength hold sway.

Still you never count the cost
of all you might have lost:
The sunsets never seen
because you always stayed nineteen.

Just yesterday we got the news;
a positive ID of your remains.
It seems that you died on a foreign shore
when you were just nineteen

Your parents are gone
your siblings dead or dying.
Your nieces and nephews themselves grown old
and yet we all are crying.

My uncle Joe is come home from the war
after Seventy two years gone past
He is forever just nineteen.
That birthday was his last.

She felt far removed
from life’s maddening pace,
whenever she would come
to this quiet place.

Here, the air was hushed
with barely a sound.
A blanket of snow
lay on the ground.

A blanket of snow
undisturbed by feet-
save the tracks
of a squirrel
in search of a treat.

In that field of stones,
in that place of peace,
she sought one name,
one dear deceased.

One lost to war
in freedom’s name:
One life lost,
hers’ forever changed.

Never to be
in tune with time
ere she joined
her forever Valentine.

He stared at the words on the paper-
at least a dozen times.
At last he gave a little laugh and said.
“I can’t recall if these are mine.
I recognize a familiar style; a well-worn rhyming scheme.
Perhaps I may have written this back when still a teen.”
Beneath his façade of outward calm, I thought that I espied
a too familiar horror in his bespectacled eyes.
I saw the fear of loss of self, of dignity, of mind.
A brilliant wit now silenced, aware of its decline.
His mind was like a drowning man who panics in the brine;
eluding would be rescuers, going down for the third time.
He handed back the paper and I was too kind to say
that this was the piece of verse he finished yesterday.
Forget me not, It seemed to say. Please don’t leave me behind,
although the better part of me has died before my time.

Night after Night,
Day after Day,
He declaimed the words
he'd been given to say.

His costumes selected,
Each cue prearranged,
Little freedom of movement
Just a pawn in the game.

Each move blocked and taped.
The audience roared
at the droll repartee
he had heard oft before.

His understudy waits,
like all of his kind.
For the day he would falter
and be left behind

Beatrice and Benedict
time after time
No chance in a million
of forgetting his lines.

“Did I hesitate a moment? Did I stop and wonder why?
We were ordered to attack from some blunderer up high.
We were all, I think, afraid. Who wouldn’t be right then?
Those Russians were entrenched and had artillery with them.
We must have looked magnificent on our chargers riding high
As we rode for God and Country, we knew Death was standing by.
I saw my brother Henry die and more brave lads besides.
We dressed the line and galloped on, We who were about to die.
My horse was shot from under me and that threw me to the sod.
The battle sounded distant and my left arm felt quite odd.
Some Shrapnel cut my face and thigh, but I saw many worse.
Some men called for their mothers, others raged and cursed.
Our gallant charge was broken by effective cannon fire.
There were many horses riderless like the one that I acquired.
When I got back behind our lines, I thanked my equine friend.
Then I realized he’d been Henry’s mount when this travesty began.
I’m sure there will be an inquiry into how this was misplayed.
It is then I’ll tell my tale about our murdered light brigade.”

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

The Sun in Sudan is unkind.
There beauty withers into dust.
The people there are primitive,
Their ways are alien to us.

A Christian woman, eight months pregnant,
Has been condemned to lash and rope.
convicted by Sharia law.
Our outrage is her earthly hope.

For Meriam refused to yield,
In Jesus she maintains her trust.
She would not convert by force
To a cult that seeks control of us.

A modern day Antigone,
condemned to death because of faith.
A prisoner of Conscience, she,
Like the Lamb, endures their hate.

She is not clothed as with the Sun.
The child she bears, no Savior King.
She’s labelled an adulteress
though she wears her husband’s ring.

Her faith provides no easy path,
that often is the way of things.
Like all those Martyrs who came before her,
She puts her trust in Christ the King.

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

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

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

The only lottery where I took first prize
was the  one that determined who lived and who died.
I might have been sent to Nam with a gun
had my number come up in Seventy one.
Instead our older brothers all
had their names inscribed upon a wall,
in gold leafed letters, incused in black,
that said they weren't coming back.
I have no tales to offer of battles I won,
That's because I was the fortunate son.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Poet named Catullus
and Lesbia, his muse,
lived in a time of Civil War
when loyalties are confused.

Their field of battle was their bed
where Love and lust contend.
That place where all their passion
petered out and found an end.

It would seem Hades hath no fury
like a Latin poet scorned.
His Lesbia he would abuse
in prose, in Rhyme and song.

Where once he praised her beauty
and swore they'd never part,
he now condemns her deviousness
and damns her cheating heart.

The more things change
they stay the same
when Love decays to hate
They, who once coiled in adulterous sheets,
now despise each others name.

I thought to arm myself against seas full of trouble,
but my every effort  was doomed  to fail and caused my woes to double.
Let this be a lesson that I should proceed with caution
Because these days slings and arrows cost an outrageous fortune

My cohort is shattered, the regiment reels,
from the lead of the merciless foe.
I'm wearing the blue, Fredericksburg,62'.
I''m a conscript from County Tyrone.
Saint Mary's Heights is a most fearful sight:
****** acres of men who won't fight again,
Our wounded are dying alone.
The devout say a prayer, others blaspheme and swear.
I just wish I was back in Tyrone.
Up on that hill wearing Butternut grey
are Irish like me from back home.
Sure they gave out a cheer when Meagher first appeared,
with our banner of green, on his Roan.
What mortal flesh can, we did in the end
Some died just in sight of the wall.
In the cold dark of night we survivors take flight;
Rappahannock, protect us I pray.
I'll never forget the screams of that night
or the butcher's bill we had to pay.

The taxman owned a share of him,
To another he owed rent.
His ex-wife and her attorneys
Had a say in how he spent.
When food got more expensive
He switched from Steak to bread.
The rising cost of health insurance
left him prostrate, nearly dead.
He worked all week at several jobs
In an attempt to make ends meet.
The reward for all his efforts
was to be taxed like the Elite.
He was star in his own tragedy;
a tortured leading man.
Today he is a Free man.
He died at his own hand.

The only computer on board was Glenn’s brain,
as he orbited up  in the heavens.
The heat shield was damaged and hung loose on the frame.
His odds of survival were even.
With faith placed in God; no time even to think
Glenn began the flaming descent.
Icarus or Daedalus; which would he be?
Was Glenn’s luck still good or all spent?

In the waters below the Navy stood watch,
anxiously scanning the skies.
His wife had been told she should expect the worst;
The Mission head thought Glenn might die.
There! A red parachute dotted the sky!
The destroyer “Noe” sped to the scene.
Not since Lucky Lindy had America had
Such a hero who dared us to dream

I think snow and I could become better friends
if Snow would confine itself to where the grass ends.
Snow should linger on ski slopes, packed powder preferred.
On my driveway and walks snow should not be observed.
For this white gift from heaven is not very nice.
Snow is cold and it's wet and it soon turns to ice.
Snow snarls my commute and makes parking a mess.
My back hates when I shovel, but I fear I digress.
Snow is beautiful, falling, driven by the wind,
but a pain in the ***** when the clean up begins.
Oh, I could wax poetic of snow's pristine beauty,
but my wife has assigned me to shoveling duty.
The lottery Genie could do me a big favor,
if my numbers all hit, she could well prove my savior.
On my beach, I'd recline, with a drink in my hand
and sing of "White Christmas" with my own back up band.

I have never been a big fan of hospitals, yet here I sat.
Wordlessly, I held my Grandmother’s hand, listening to each breath.
She was somewhere north of ninety as she neared her journey’s end.
She was lucid intermittently, she spoke of departed friends.
She told me of her adventures; the mountains she had climbed.
Sunsets she’d shared with lovers who then parted by sunrise.
She told me of her voyages on Homer’s wine dark sea.
“ I leave this life with no regrets.” She whispered, soft, to me.
Those were the last words that she spoke though her heart kept on some time.
It waited for her spirit to resume her final climb.
A final lesson for her grandson; the good life requires chance.
A life lived too conservatively is no subject for romance.

A most remarkable woman; she parted here with no regret.
She experienced the best of Life from sunrise to sunset.

As the Priest approached the lectern,
there were sobs  and audible sighs.
The church was filled with mourners
of a friend to young to die.

Farewell, my brother, said the priest.
He comforted all who wept.
He read from the gospel about Lazarus
who the Lord had freed from Death.

Some there were surely comforted,
while others doubted yet.
It was sad for all who'd known him
from Sunrise to Sunset

In wind and flame a forest dies,
But from the ashes she shall rise.
From pine cones opened by the heat
The trees ****** victory from defeat.
Among the embers fading glow
Seeds take root and soon will grow.
Surely conifers shall rise
and, evergreen,reach for the sky.
Like the Phoenix bird of legend
They rise anew to strive for heaven

What happened on Weehawken Heights,
that warm midsummer’s day?
There are several versions of the “truth”
but none for sure can say.

The Principals were both well known:
Hamilton and Burr.
Aaron Burr had made the challenge,
Hamilton would not demur.

Hamilton choose pistols as the weapons
Then Burr proposed the site.
Per the Irish Code Duello
It was all proper and right.

Dueling was illegal,
so the Seconds looked away
so they could plausibly deny
that they had seen the fray.

Each man walked off ten paces,
and Mister Pendleton yelled “Pre-sent”!
Most think that Hamilton fired first;
wide and right, his shot was spent.

Aaron Burr was deadly accurate:
His shot, its target found:
Alexander Hamilton, wounded,
swooned upon the ground.


“this wound is mortal, Doctor.”
was all Hamilton could say.
They bore him to the City where
he passed on the following day.


Aaron Burr also fled the scene,
evading prosecution.
He had “Full Satisfaction”,
this hero of the Revolution.

What is full satisfaction
when Burr’s Star was past its season?
He never more held public trust,
indeed, stood trial for treason.

A person can be haunted
by a ghost that none can see.
Burr’s brilliance had been blighted
by a sort of infamy.

Towards the end of his own life
Burr said of his enemy:
“{Had I known}The world was wide
enough for Hamilton and me.”




On July 11, 1804, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought the most famous duel in American history. These two heroes of the Revolution were political enemies and Hamilton had done much to exclude Burr from the Presidency and from the  New York  governorship.  Burr,feeling he had been defamed by Hamilton's published remarks demanded the "Full Satisfaction" of a duel.  My account generally follows the account of the historian, Joesph Ellis. Any errors are my fault. Any items in quotes are words ascribed to these two famous individuals.  Aaron Burr never after held public office and eventually stood trial for treason for his alleged attempt to set up an independent country in the territory Jefferson purchased from France. After several years living in France, Burr returned to New york where he faded into obscurity. Alexander Hamilton is buried in the churchyard of Trinity Church in downtown New york.


Towards the end of his life, Burr remarked: "Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me."[35]

It began with the work.
He was the brilliant author; she his secretary.
They were racing against time
To pay a debt that must be paid.
Her nimble hands matched his nimble mind.
Her fingers flew to record his thoughts.
Four weeks, a mere four weeks,
to finish his novel; to rescue himself from debt.
Each night she worked, by feeble candlelight,
To transcribe his thoughts
While thoughts of love engendered in her breast.

At last the work was done, his time redeemed,
Yet he could not let go of one so dear.
Shyly, Dostoevsky proposed they wed.
She consented to become his wife, so dear.
She was not beautiful in the conventional sense
But became his muse, in fact his life and death.

Pygmalion beseeched Aphrodite:
"Goddess, please answer my plea:
Give life to my dear Galatea,
that she may live always with me. “

The goddess, in a generous mood,
animated your figure Divine.
Your *******, generous in proportion,
Your bubble **** one of a kind.

Your skin is a fine alabaster;
Like marble, but warm to the touch.
Could your sculptor have done any better?
No, I’m sure there is only one such.

With golden, shoulder length tresses
and lips, apple red, candy sweet.
It’s not much of a mystery, really,
That Pygmalion was swept off his feet.

....


Everywhere I drive, she’s there,
dependably beside me..
Anticipating my every move,
and always there to guide me.
She has a sultry throaty voice
seductive in a way.
I hang on every word she speaks
lest I should lose my way.

She never gives me grief about
Some bill I failed to pay.
I never have to worry
That her Mom will come to stay

She’s always calm in Crisis
She always saves the day
Unless the signal should be lost-
If that should happen-PRAY!

Science tells us that natural selection
plays no small role in our complexion.
Environment too must play its role
in making us white, brown or gold.
Southern whites, whose genes spend time
In hot and sunny southern climes,
may, in the course of generations,
start looking brown to Scandinavians.
While Blacks who live in the Northwest
see dark tones fade, go unexpressed.
In time all hatred based on race
perhaps will prove to  be misplaced.
If whites turn brown and blacks turn pale
for whom would Reverend Sharpton rail?
When mostly Mocha men and women
Drop clothes and prejudice and get to sinning
Our census forms will need fine tuning
when the only box for race is human.

Glory came early as did fame.
to Gary Speed there on the pitch.
Cheers he heard from adoring crowds
among the elite he found his niche.
With time’s passage he lost a step
even if he felt the same
but as he ran he thought he saw
an old man’s shadow
in a young man’s game.

He coached to stay around the game.
After the cheers for him had faded
A friendly face, a familiar name
but as he coached he thought he saw
an old man’s shadow
in a young man’s game.

For many, Gary was an icon,
a living legend of the game.
They failed to see the mortal man
with silence weighting on his frame
As he tied the rope he thought he saw
an old man’s shadow
in a young man’s game

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
   I will teach you in my verse
   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
   Just compare heart, hear and heard,
   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
   Made has not the sound of bade,
   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
   But be careful how you speak,
   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
   Woven, oven, how and low,
   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
   This phonetic labyrinth
   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
   Blood and flood are not like food,
   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
   Discount, viscount, load and broad,
   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
   Would it tally with my rhyme
   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
   You'll envelop lists, I hope,
   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
   We say hallowed, but allowed,
   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
   Petal, penal, and canal,
   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
   But it is not hard to tell
   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
   *****, ***** and possess,
   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
   Making, it is sad but true,
   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
   Mind! Meandering but mean,
   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
   Prison, bison, treasure trove,
   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
   Evil, devil, mezzotint,
   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
   Funny rhymes to unicorn,
   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
   No. Yet Froude compared with proud
   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
   But you're not supposed to say
   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
   Episodes, antipodes,
   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
   Rather say in accents pure:
   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
   Say then these phonetic gems:
   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
   With and forthwith, one has voice,
   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
   Job, Job, blossom, *****, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

****** does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and *****,
Next omit, which differs from it
   Bona fide, alibi
   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
   Rally with ally; yea, ye,
   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
   Never guess-it is not safe,
   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
   Face, but preface, then grimace,
   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
   With the sound of saw and sauce;
   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
   Respite, spite, consent, resent.
   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
   Monkey, donkey, clerk and ****,
   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
   Once, but *****, toll, doll, but roll,
   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
   Won't it make you lose your wits
   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
   Islington, and Isle of Wight,
   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
   Finally, which rhymes with enough,
   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

I dared to love my brother’s wife
And I am not in love alone.
I took her while he was at war
as I will take his throne.

True, Hamlet smote the sledded ******,
And gained Denmark a prize,
But I have a poison that will freeze his blood-
guaranteeing his demise.

Gertrude, love, he left your bed
so many years ago.
Now the King lusts for younger flesh;
Look- he eyes Ophelia so.

Polonius sees and will declare
And place me on the throne
We’ll join our hands and fortunes
Before your son gets home.

My brother’s art is violence
With which he overawes the world.
I do my deeds in silence,
Deadly schemes I thus unfurl.

So, Gertrude, love, give me a kiss.
Provide me with the key.
That I, with poison, enter in
and set both of us free.

I dared to love my brother’s wife
And I am not in love alone.
I took her while he was at war
as I will take his throne

My Facebook friend does not like Trump,
While I despise Chuck Schumer
We post opposing clever memes,
Insults, innuendoes and rumors.
He’s not a bad soul, I suppose,
(Just terribly one sided)
There’s no convincing him or me
That our opinions are misguided.
I see him daily in my feed
He’s never been “unfriended”
Our “arguments” will continue on
Until one life is ended.
So we agree to disagree
And that with me is fine.
I will not to the choir preach;
That’s the ghetto of the mind.

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

The old black man had CA in his bones.
His pain by opiates barely concealed.
His nurses at the hospice were frankly amazed
that his proud heart, so far , refused to yield.

Within the lattice of his brain, he saw
his young self on the baseball field.
He'd been an all-star, twice MVP.
A threat to homer  or to steal.

Thad Tillotson was on the mound.
Paul Blair took his lead off second base.
His Orioles were the  leagues elite.
The once proud Yankees were in fifth place.

Frank Robinson stepped in the box
The distant black walls were his goal.
This time he did just enough
he drove a single through the hole.

As he reached first and Paul Blair scored
Reuben Amaro took Joe Pepitone's throw.
The first base coach ; a winged Seraphim,
welcomed Frank Robinson to the Show.

There once was a man from Gibraltar
who was deathly afraid of the altar
Then a girl, sweet and round,
by Cupid was found.

Now she leads him around with a halter.

Someone has cut off my hands, not that it caused any pain.
Look upon me, a proud man’s daughter, enjoy then what remains.
My eyes will stare into your soul. My lips bear the trace of smile.
My portrait has lent immortality to this woman who never had child..
I was both a wife and a lover, this painting was made for my swain,
But he had both a wife and a mistress. In Florence he couldn’t remain.
In me you will see light and darkness. Sadness is there in my eyes.
My family has made me an older man’s bride; my circumstance breeds my disguise.

It sounded, at first, like two kids fighting.
Then two hard hits brought neighbors to their doors.
Her “boyfriend” splashed the accelerant upon her
then he lite fire to her clothes.

Terrified,  Screaming, she ran  into the hall,
She would have died if Not for Stan.
He got a blanket wrapped tight around her
and smothered the fire with his strong hands.

Her “boyfriend” fled, that sniveling coward,
who had tried to ****** that innocent child;
His criminal rap sheet gave no indication
That attempted ****** was his style.

They say she’ll live; that ******* fire.
Her beauty stolen; it was her curse.
The “boyfriend” ought to turn himself in.
It won’t go well if I find him first.

At first she thought it cute
that he would call a dozen times:
His dating style was quite attentive,
gentlemanly, and refined.

It got a bit annoying when
he’d question her at length;
but she wasn’t getting younger
so she agreed to set the date.

At work it was disrupting
that he called so many times
thankfully, both her employers
were of the understanding kind.

After their first child was born
she thought he would behave;
Instead he acted helpless
and abused her like a slave.

In the darkest moments of her life,
he’d seem to disappear;
She buried parents, by herself,
A time he should be there.

His jealous was crushing.
His conversation was inane.
He took the air out of the room
with his selfish, childish games.

So, while at a cocktail party,
a handsome stranger asked her name.
She wanted to dance slow with him,
The moth approached the flames.

The Judge decreed that I must die
for my “crime” of self-defense.
I’ve spent five years in prison since
abused in every sense.
When I have done my final dance
And the hangman cuts me down.
Please donate my organs.,
Don’t consign them to the ground.
Let one blind see with my eyes.
Let my young heart beat free.
Give others a new lease on life
Don’t say the gift is me.
Better that than to become dust
as you wear black and mourn.
Death is not the end of Life
So do not be forlorn .
Don’t consign me to the ground
That would be a waste and sin.
Consume with fire what is left
and give me to the wind

In Sandy Springs stands a mansion, but not for very long.
The trees, grown great, will share its fate, soon all will be gone.
“its progress!” say the town fathers; a new subdivision tract.
To preservationists it’s a tragedy; mark the calendar in black.
A massive Tudor mansion, an edifice so grand-
At fifteen thousand square feet it could house a massive clan.
Too soon the wood will splinter and the stone and stucco part.
The walls will be imploded as the demolition starts.
The wrecking ball will smash stained glass that Tiffany supplied.
You will almost hear the timbers shriek as the vandals work inside.
The stately home of Thomas Glenn was once Atlanta’s pride.
It was finished in the tragic year of Nineteen twenty nine.
He passed away soon after, the family moved away.
Now empty, its’ clocks all stopped, it waits its’ judgement day.
We men of mortal flesh all know how quick we pass away.
Our achievements soon forgotten, our honors made of clay.
We build great homes to house our kin; this hall was built to last.
Yet “progress” is inexorable and this; a relic from the past.

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