I’ve read that UFO’s ride the skyways
Looking for a friendly atmosphere
But the way we treat our neighbors
The way we rattle sabres
It’s hard to find intelligent life down here

The space explorers see the humans racing
To see whose bomb can make who disappear  
And the visitors must say
War seems to be their way
It’s hard to find intelligent life down here

COMPASSION’S NOT THE VALUE THEY REVERE
THE SMOKE OF WAR'S TOO COMMON ON THIS SPHERE
THE GOLDEN RULE'S OMITTED
IT’S SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
IT’S HARD TO FIND INTELLIGENT LIFE DOWN HERE

They seldom reach a plane for compromising
They don’t trust each other much I fear
And when strangers pass this way
They see morals in decay
It’s hard to find intelligent life down here..

I hope they'll love there brother
Before bombs blow up each other
It's hard to find intelligent life down here

my obligation’s very

very simple

listening to the inner voice

the one that's kind and gentle

that guides me step by step

perceives the right and wrong

before i reach the fork

call it conscience

or what you will

when i heed that source

i know the way

that little voice

is the bottom line

i listen close

and all is well

God’s Son identified with men

And God watched from above Him

He healed the sick and broke the law

And men would come to love Him

But law men stressed  He’d have to die

In mankind’s cruelest way

Rome was good with Cross techniques

And death would have its day

The spikes were long to hold Him high

Acute the agony

Not once he begged for mercy

Till God would set us free

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Reported the occasion

Since then He’s died a trillion times

In man’s imagination

It’s fragile and fleeting and filled with fear
Tentative, uncertain, uncomfortably near

Loss

The losing of you; horrifying, insane
Picking and tearing, hurting my brain

Loss

Of you is foreign, extreme
Never considered even in wildest dream

Loss

It hangs on nothing though intrinsically tied
To my life and your life, it waits as it hides

Loss

Of your breath will suffocate mine
Turn me inwards and upwards and over the line

Loss

It’s fragile and fleeting and filled with fear
Tentative, uncertain, uncomfortably near

The boy left home to become a Marine.
He trained with the best you’ve ever seen.
There were times early on he longed for home
But with the family of Marines he was not alone.

The boy, who left home became a man.
To protect the freedom of this great land.
He put his heart and soul to become the best.
To become a Marine, He was put to the test.

He went to Iraq to free the ‘people of tears’.
From the oppression suffered thirty some years.
He served with bravery in face of fire.
With fear in his heart, but with freedom’s desire.

The Marine, the man, comes home again.
To his family and friends who prayed for him.
He left a boy, just months ago.
He returned a man, a Marine, with freedom in tow.

The years have flown by, it seems like
yesterday we met, quite by chance.
Me, a backward country boy,
You, a beautiful girl in a red coat...
And a walk that made my heart skip.
Little did I realize that moment
would last forty five years.

As we grow old together
As we we stand at each others side
in happiness and sorrow,
in sickness and health,
May we always remember what
brought us together.

“John?” “yes.”, says I
“You are supposed to take Pennye,
in the red coat over there, to the party.”
Being backward and stupid in the ways of
“setups”, I said,  “OK.” and
walked over to you and said,
“You are supposed to go with me to the party.”
“Ah, OK.” you said, looking a little shocked.

I fell in love with the “girl in the red coat” that night.
A love that has not wavered,
Has withstood the test of Time
A love built on God's love.

Here we are, raising two grand-kids
who puts a smile on my face and
sometimes a frown..
You remind me, “He's only five.”
“Yes, but, but, I think he is fifteen.”

Then,
I must remember how much God loves me and
try to do the same for those close to me and
not so close to me, who irritate me at times..

Your love for me is amazing, Babe.
I would be a most miserable, old man
without your love.
It shall forever be mine and
My love shall forever be yours.
Oh, and that little blue dress with the white strip
at hip level?  Sigh. They don't make those any more.

Ref Jerry, promoted again this year
to the Mighty Kinder Teams.
Raises the growing Kinder Spirits
to achieve even higher dreams.

The Kinders play their very best
So unaware, they don't even know it.
Week after week, excelling, growing
in the Upward Game they show it.

A slam dunk thrill is even possible
with a lively, uplifting Ref Jerry assist
Lifted high to the rim of the lofty basket
It was hard to have missed.

When the hoops were allusive
high fives did still abound
For the valiant effort of each play
Mighty applause did resound.

As in the Big Kinder Game
The Ref of the Universe is there
To lift us up when short of the goal
To help us, our burdens to bear.

He picks us up in times of need
holds us high for the goal to reach.
He keeps us safe with rules of life
Covers our Sins with a lesson to teach.

Upward! Upward! Upward still!
The goal is in sight as Upward we go.
In His love. In His hands.
It is all we need to know.

Now go and play the Kinder way
Do your best with all the rest.
Keep your eyes on the ball...
There may be a TEST.

I watched you make one of the coldest moves in front of our reflection. You plunged through billowing smoke into areas that lacked any expression at all. I saw you shift away into various shades of pictures then run shrieking using all that you had seen as an excuse.  While all the while, I was arranging to tour the fields of you.

I saw headlines printed in places so that they became more than just this morning’s declarations. I really liked how you always understood all the tiny little windows you said they held because this is how you knew everything that was happening.  Yes, you knew it all.

There were hundreds of experiences I could hear asking me why you were making the coldest moves.  Yet, you acted as if you never heard them. Still, I saw the look in your eyes the minute they approached. Somehow, I could tell you knew that what you saw smiled and looked forward to not hearing what we both needed to say.

All I could do was shake my head and begin to face more puzzling hours filled with only you and your insistence that I adjust the temperature of the air you had frozen.  I wondered how anyone could stand and look at you and not be startled by who you are.

Blurs of agitation too strange for even me to identify looked over my shoulder with excitement.  They were not there to inhale my perfume only to seek out my scars. The scars that visit my heart from time to time to remind me they can still hold my arms back from reaching out to you.

Even though you laid right next to me we could no longer find each other in the billowing smoke that issued from our breath.  Ice had begun to form between our hearts within the coldest moves.  There we lay in the darkness both of us looking for the best place to hide.

Take my word for it, as this was not an illusion.  I swear I saw cold clouds hanging over the bed laughing at you and me. Because we didn’t have the faintest idea that the darkness wasn’t real or how close we lay to what could make us warm again.

I adore those painted kisses
Although I must confess
Each time I walk away from you
You leave me in distress

Your smile will always follow me
No matter where I go
I spend my days admiring you
While walking to and fro

I know you feel the same my dear
Though, your voice I've never heard
I see the way you stare at me
You don't have to say a word

Each time I turn to look at you
I catch you staring back
I try my best to be debonair
But it's something that I lack

My beautiful Mona Lisa
Leonardo's pride and joy
It's time for this museum to close
Why must you be so coy?

He walks across the great expanse as if a ghost.
He walks alone and out of place as two by two
the joggers pass and barely glance as if its normal

to behold a ghost.  What they don’t see defines
his life, the tortured demon voice inside his head
that taunts and teases all day long and
tells him he “ain’t spit” and “ugly is forever”.

He’d been neglected all his life but now that he’s
become a man he thought the love he sought
would save him from the way it was when he
was young. His problem now is wrapped around
his backward thought that love is his to find and take
instead of his to give and share, if only he had
learned this in his childhood.

He slowly mounts the rail between the ocher beams
on Golden Gate and looks at murky water far below.
His clothes are black, his hair is long and black,
his skin as white as snow. He stands ***** while
looking back to see if one might lend a hand but
no one does.  He smiles a smile and turns around and
then as if he’s been cut down he leans, unbending,
and falls.

            A hundred miles away a mother knows her child
is dead.  She bows her head in shame and cries,
the why at war with guilt. A part of her is gone,
a part she can’t deny or blame as someone else's fault
instead she hates herself for never having loved the boy,
but even more she hates the hurt.  If only she had
fought the urge to drink, if only she had loved him half
as much as that crazy **** she used to smoke, the ****
she called her ‘crystal blue persuasion’. If only she
could turn the hands of time and rearrange the things
that mattered most.

A flare is dropped to mark the spot where he went in,
the flaming red a beacon on a bay of mother’s tears.
Another soul engulfed in grief is gone, the deed is done.
A crowd is gathered at the rail to point and stare
as boats approach the flare where men with hooks
will pull him out while mother drinks 100 miles away.