Unshaven, old, and nearly spent,
He slouched in his kitchen chair,
Lungs rattling each wheezing breath,
Radiation doing little then,
To control the mass within, or
To prevent the Mass he knew
Would soon begin.

Hard to believe a man
So tough as Rubin always was
Sat stubble-faced and wan
In that early morning sun.

Two years ago,
At 65,
He and his son
Put a ****** on,
Fought a cop,
Nearly won,
Stayed a week in jail,
Paid a $7000.00 fine,
Then bragged it all
Was worth the time
And memories.

I saw him jump,
At 66,
From a moving van,
Six feet up
Like a younger man,
Hell bent to take his fill,
Shovel hard, cursing still,
Cigarette hanging loose
Even with a rattling cough
(He shrugged it off),

And stop.
Always 67,
His last remains crave no nicotine,
No *****, wayward fights,
No carousing old man libertine
Out with his son at night,
And we who watched Old Rubin's days,
Paid our respects and went our ways.

INTRODUCTION
someone's following you online here,
and you want to know why
Well, here's why...take your pick


POSSIBILITIES*

1)
Oh, I follow you because you look good
and though I never read your poems
I come back often
year after year
to see if you age at all


2)
you don't use your real name
you use a moniker or pseudonym -
and I'm just  going by the desperate hope
you are Obama or Putin incognito
and you might give me asylum one day
if I'm outlawed by one or the other

3)
I'm in jail for life
and this is the only way I can stalk anyone

4)
I was hoping you'd reciprocate
and follow me too -
so why the hell don't you, hypocrite!?

5)
I'm your ****** boss in disguise
and I'm at this site keeping track
of how much office time you waste here,
you ****** loafer!

6)
I'm actually your wife
and I got a thing or two to say to you
about all those comments
you've written for the women here
Same old liar here and at home, aren't you?
Just wait till you get home...

7)
Well, I'm a ****** academic
who never gets creative
so I'm collecting all your poems
and I'll publish them in my name
and there'll be praise all round for me
as academic, and poet, and novelist too
(the novels I steal from my students)

8)
you scratch my back
I scratch yours

9)
Why do I follow you?* -
but aren't you my mum?
You never taught me
to let go of your apron strings

10)
actually, it was a mistake, see
I was on my smartphone and I went
tap, tap, tap
and my index finger fell on "Follow"
and I'm too darned lazy to set it right...
that's how I ended up following you


11)
My cult tells me
the Messiah is here at this site
so I just follow everyone
in case it happens to be you -
it is you, isn't it?

My wife’s given me 6 children
and all we’ve known is each other
so I can’t but help feeling a little
that she’s old, so I started calling her
“Mother of 6” instead
of using her name
So at parties and gatherings
I might say: “Alright, Mother of 6 -
time to go”
Or I might introduce her to new friends as
“This is Mother of 6”

But she obviously can’t take
my humour any more...
last night
as I called out to her
(at the dinner hosted by our neighbors)
when it was time to leave:
“Mother of 6, time to go” -
she retorted just as loud:
“OK, lead the way -
O Father of 4!”

O how I hate people
who can’t take
a joke…

Portia and Bassanio

Brave Portia's lot was cast
Inside a mocking case of lead,
Morrocco came and passed,
Then Arragorn, arrived and left, forlorn.
A list of louts came, failed, and went
Before Bassanio played his turn...
Poor rich Portia's patience spent,
Nerissa's lady solace yearned

Antonio, Bassanio, a troubled pair
A wily shark a loan arranged,
Whose bite, though small,
Beyond compare aimed deepest
To the matters of the heart.

Antonio, about to lose his fortune,
Bemoaned the losing of a friend,
The foiling of a fortune, sunk.

Shylock, certain of his pound of flesh,
Summarily dismissed by gentile gender-bending,
Played as a fool by a woman posing as a man,
Who drove a lawyer's visage in a Portia.

All ended well, at least for "Christian" men...
Life sweetened by the turning of a Jew,
No matter his conversion at duress...
Straight away Portia and Nerissa turned back
A ******* borrower who had landed on his feet,
And sprang their traps to tame their husbands' heat.

We sit,
Witnesses
To Immolation,
Acknowledging Death.
Vap'rous vows now vanished;
Infidelity preceding
The wedding day,
Following after,
Covered deftly under
Lies compounding lies,
One holding true,
One never so,
And so we sit over
Coffee and Divorce,
Now that the truth is out.

We sit,
Witnesses to small talk:
"You may have the furniture";
"Insurance ends in May";
"Do you have a question?"
"There's nothing left to say."

We sit;
She leaves;
Her emptiness
Remains;
We three sit tight,
Uncertain,
Nothing left to say,
But still we sit musing
Coffee and Divorce.

Barely liquid, spitting Spring,
Clear, cold and wet, it clings...
This changeling Life that
Drenches hills and hollows,
Blackens bark in glistening sheen,
Brings mosses to a glowing green,
Shivers calves and lambs, newborn,
Melts the snow and frost, forlorn,
Fills ponds and lakes to overflow,
Erases muddied banks of dying snow.

Later, Summer moves at summer speed,
Urging throbbing plants to seed,
Bustling bees to waken work of flowers
Setting fruit with watering summer showers,
But Spring's cold rain moves buds to swell,
Ruffles robins where they quivering dwell,
Bares branches as they shake and tease,
Standing sleepily for sticky leaves.

So I must shiver out a few wet and chilly days,
Hold fast as Winter, grumbling, slow, demurs,
Knowing Spring's blustery, watery ways
Finesse the cold away and beckon Summer.