666
Apocalypse
Cliff Pickover
Shivering math

Read Simone Weil
And Emily
Maya Angelou
Not much Sylvia Plath

I keep seeing 37
Don't know if it means
I like Pythagoras
Elf makes me laugh

I pray for my friend Ethan
Small towns are quiet
Baltimore, Maryland
I took a troubled path

              photographs

The United States Constitution was formally declared to be in effect in March of 1789.
At a celebration in Philadelphia, provision was made for tables serving kosher food.

I am obsessed with 17
37
72
137

Guadalupe today
Green
Ben Vereen
Things Not Seen

Madonna on at Starbucks
Desperately Seeking Susan
Patience. Patience.
Crazy For You

Isolation
But reaching out
Open
Coincidence

            Let us rise and go hence ...

My son turns 18 today
Pride. Worry. Pride.
I'm amazed by him
I like Malahide

Keep him going forward
Maybe JMU
July 12, 2006
I give thanks for Q

               I truly do.

So they dismiss me as mentally ill
That's alright - levitate
Such sadness in my soul
The terror within Cate
Homecoming soon
My boys go with their dates
Class of 72
87 radiates

            Alas. Too late.

There is mystery in the world
I felt it too today

1837
Came walking on my way

Two years as a teacher
In Tienmu yon Taipei

The Glass Sentence sits
And I say Xie Xie

              Emerson.

Emerson was wrong
We need to look to Europe

And Mexico and Canada
Tostadas y maple syrup

America is not an island
And should not be an Empire

Just a country with faults and talents
And good and bad desires

Come back to the human world
Come back and soul suspire!

So I got a thing with 37
When my oldest son was born
When she actually liked me
I'm tired of lesbian ****

Not tired of lesbians though
My friend at Subway is cool
One told me I have good genes
I do miss Sage Ridge School

Marriage did not work for me
I can't forget Prom Night
Her hair down to her waist
Her voice like gravelly light

**** and 18
**** and 53
Played the Jack of Hearts
What will become of we?

                    Let it Be.

1837, John Brown's vow
   Elijah Lovejoy's martyrdom
       John Brown anyhow
            Abraham Lincoln's speech:


Where are they all just now?
Glory! Glory! my head I do bow.

Stanley Yelnsts and Zero
I read indeed aloud
Bob. Mom. Dad.
We're Martians: Be proud.

Weird Al Yancovic
In Greensboro we hear Star Wars
Unusual odd Todd
In Boonsboro I remember Thai ******

There's a train a-comin
Comin' in the Night
Leave your things: All aboard!
Two green lights

                     Fights

4:37
Into the Spiderverse

Chapman University
Lincoln's Inaugural (first)

Southern California
Been there just two times

Balboa Park was beauty born
Brother, can you spare a dime?

So if you are with me this far
You see my thing with 37
Here it comes again
Diet Coke at 7 11

Probably apophenia
And my desperation
Did Shakespeare write 37 plays?
Is poetry bipolar elevation?

37 doctors in the Catholic Church
But I ain't gonna be one
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When the Day is Done

I asked the Canadians and Americanos too
Which European country as you travel through?
They all said Italy
Sunlight just might do

Why, I asked?
The people was their reply
Warm, friendly, generous
Mama Mia - What a sky!

I met a French waitress
So what do you think of France?
Se magnifique, I said
If you see her, ask her to dance

        In this Universe of Chance

America began in hate.
Genocide. Slave labor all around.
In San Francisco, I sit at the Dragon Gate
Can what was lost be found?

Rain all day today
Hath the rain a father?
Mr. David Markson
Speaking with his daughter

I practice the little way
Try to concentrate
St. Therese of Lisieux
1888

              I still wait.

So this is 18881 and yes
I am intrigued by palindromes
Merlin travels back in time
All roads lead to Rome

Spanish lullabies
Her Highland Ranch fine home
Galway Girl
Springsteen in the Tacoma Dome

She sent a curious email
Trappist 1 still unknown
Giordano Bruno
Exoplanets shone

When Doves Cry
Tears on your phone
Carolina Inn
She and I alone

   Ah! Perpetually Postponed

18 times 4 is 72
Gal Gadot - 1 fine looking Jew!
Just wanna do the best I can do
Istanbul: Will I see U?

              Satellite Beach
              See me threw!

................JMU............
             Camus
             Absurd

Albert Camus at JMU
             Absurd!

JMU
Albert Camus
The Absurd in view


Wanhope.

Born Bertha Bowman, 1937
Thesis on St. Thomas More
             Sister Thea

Richard Wright, 1937
      New York City
            Protest!

So on my mantle is Picasso's Guernica
1937
And a photo, black and white,
Of me as a child in Taiwan
Near a pachinko machine
I am sitting in front of it
A little Taiwanese girl
Is standing next to it
We are 2 or 3 years old.

I also have my teaching diploma
From George Mason
Plus a small green figure
Of the Madonna and Child
Which my mother gave me
When she noticed me not going
To Mass much anymore
Before she died.

Mary has Asian eyes.

Picasso was asked
By a German military officer
Did you do this?

His reply: No, you did.

1937.

Professor Mcginn
       Eckhart
         1937

After God, born too late
Please destiny more than fate
David Markson: truly great
    Sleep. Dream. Meditate.

Cold and rain outside
I stay in and wait

I like Heraclitus
Not Alexander the Great

Vegetarian tacos
They do satiate

But for fine philosophy
Born too late, Born too late

I am not a saint, dear reader
But I have had religious obsessions
I have more hope in basketball
Than Bibles or benedictions

Asia calls my name
In the silence and the sadness
Prayers for Taiwan
Ice and snow and water and flame

Born too late
Married the wrong woman
Fatherhood is joy
Basketball my game

American politics is Chaos
Libraries are quiet
The gun nuts are ******
Her smile still the same

         Just had to get it out

                I do not blame.

the language animal of myth and magic
    self and world - both quite tragic
          though I'm born too late
             she's gotta have it...


                    tender spells
        (truly, truly -  I wish her well)

1972
Neil Diamond in France

When the time is right
Lord Shiva does his dance

Been to Angkor Wat
Vienna is romance

Dearest Emily
Her poetry does prance

           learning

flickers of memories
my dad and Scott and I
             T-ball
         birth of Ry

my life right now seems meaningless
so I play basketball

the country clearly a complete mess
since 2016’s Fall

I shoot in twilight’s silence
as they keep on building that Wall

Up is down, left is right, war is peace
America is Orwell after all

I like Emily Dickinson
Wore a white tux
Her dress was black and grey
Hotel room my call

Florida is ignorance
And powerful thunderstorms
Lightning over the Atlantic
I've been to Royal Albert Hall

She joined Alpha Chi Omega
I read Pythagoras
Her hair was very long
******* beautiful and small

Not to be born is best
That's what Sophocles said
He never met Wendy Towson
But I once did y'all

              1985. Fall.

I like Emily Dickinson
Wore a white tux
Her dress was black and grey
Hotel room was small

Florida is ignorance
And powerful thunderstorms
Lightning over the Atlantic
I've been to Royal Albert Hall

She joined Alpha Chi Omega
I read Pythagoras
Her hair was very long
******* beautiful and small

Not to be born is best
That's what Sophocles said
He never met Wendy Towson
But I once did y'all

              1985. Fall.

I like Emily Dickinson
Wore a white tux
Her dress was black and grey
Hotel room was small

Florida is ignorance
And powerful thunderstorms
Lightning over the Atlantic
I've been to Royal Albert Hall

She joined Alpha Chi Omega
I read Pythagoras
Her hair was very long
******* beautiful and small

Not to be born is best
That's what Sophocles said
He never met Wendy Towson
But I once did y'all

              1985. Fall.

I like Emily Dickinson
Wore a white tux
Her dress was black and grey
Hotel room, basketball

Florida is ignorance
And powerful thunderstorms
Lightning over the Atlantic
I've been to Royal Albert Hall

She joined Alpha Chi Omega
I read Pythagoras
Her hair was very long
******* beautiful and small

Not to be born is best
That's what Sophocles said
He never met Wendy Towson
But I once did y'all

              1985. Fall.

I like Emily Dickinson
Wore a white tux
Her dress was black and grey
Hotel room was small

Florida is ignorance
And powerful thunderstorms
Lightning over the Atlantic
I've been to Royal Albert Hall

She joined Alpha Chi Omega
I read Pythagoras
Her hair was very long
******* beautiful and small

Not to be born is best
That's what Sophocles said
He never met Wendy Towson
But I once did y'all

              1985. Fall.

I've loved Susan for so long
But I'm such a geek

She is now in Denver
Blessed are the Meek

Quietly the night again
Darkness comes to call

My family in Maryland
My mind in Wetheral

               River Eden
                Misty Fall

I'm a product of my time
Arriving a bit too late

But I'm time out of mind
Dylan is my mate

To make you feel my love
I sent you secret words

They came back to me in song
Which shows me that you heard

The Highway of Regret
Is long and dark and lonesome

I spoke of you to Mark
Now I'm on my ownsome

We may never meet again
We may 2037

St. Augustine at sunset
To be young was very heaven

                1985 - 1987

Just coincidence, not a cause
The play of chance, Santa Clause
I get the panic terror
Try to place my mind on pause
Lonely isolation, only feel my flaws

Memory comes to me
1986
Workin' on mysteries without any clues
Better than guitar licks

It's gonna get scary as I get close
Please calm amidst the fear
2 Thai tigers
3 deer dear

               Angels appear

The basketball player and the cheerleader
My romantic teenage nights

Long before Chiraq
Cars, not mystic flights

Now my Letter to You
Now silence. Now the church.

Farewell and Adieu
The silence is the search.

When I don't take the medicine
Sometimes I have intense dreams
As just now, for instance
Israel. Shema Israel.

Divergent
Post-apocalyptic Chicago
Knoa and Jessica
Mr. Witherell

Desantis is Disgusting
**** flags at DisneyWorld
Which was Grad Night for me
1987

Allison
Judi
Mike and Steve
Kevin

                      La Florida ...

What might have been
What might have been

All is Vanity!
And chasing after the wind

Do not talk to me about the Infinite love and mercy of God until you have visited the children's cancer ward of your local hospital.

                        - Bertrand Russell

The brilliant atheist mathematician and philosopher is quite right.  We must put our faith into practice. So after Mass there will be sign up sheets.  We are going to visit the nursing home, the homeless shelter, the mental hospital, and, yes, the children in the hospital, some of them suffering from terrible diseases.  We are going to be their companions.  Vans will leave from the CCM house.  Please come if you can.  Then come back to Mass next week, share what you learned, and I will speak with you about the Infinite love and mercy of God.

                        - Fr. Bill Lafratta
                  Catholic Campus Ministry
                  James Madison University
                                    1987

I dreamed of her again
Hair all flowing down

35 years later
Far from our little town

I sleep now through the days
Yearn for her at night

Grow old in this maze
Brown hair can still delight.

The Princess Bride
       Verdi Cries
         Roxanne

To find a little uniquity
You have to do it different
Postcards and stamps
Warrior Poet fight

I go down quite lonely
Sleep away the sadness
Solitude is painful
The Princess Bride delights

                    1987

I used to be a teacher
I definitely ain't no preacher
I never could quite reach her
But there is beauty in her features
I remember her in the bleachers

                 '87!

Westley is a man of action
Unbecome by lies
1987
I laugh until I cries

I am a disabled man
Broken in my brain
Inner silences
Fear. Hear. Pain.

Gratitude stands guard
Threats indeed abound
Guns and ignorance
Confusion all around

I walk my dailiness
Ain't lookin' for a fight
Looking for vocation
Looking for the light

          Still I write.

The Princess Bride
New Year's Eve, 1987

Maybe we don't survive death
But our first kiss was Heaven

30 years pass
Letter in the mail

Unexpected is what she said
Does true love prevail?

Earn more sessions by sleaving
           Worms, Roxanne!
                     Worms!