Think about it, I just might be the
savior of the nation.
I will make America grate (sic) again!

Time to grease the campaign trail!

Imagine if you will,
perfect unity fabricated
from the empire between my ears.

I could hose down the airways
with bile and ride the waves of
angst like a super surfer.

Should some ***** reporter call me out,
I’ll just whine in my nappies,
call her names and bully on.

I pledge to forge my ignorance into
a sword of virtue and tilt
every wind turbine in the US of A.

Demons are everywhere and I
have conspiracies to sell.
Help the cause; buy a bucket full!

I think we all know
that reason is for sissies.  
Just look how far we’ve fallen!

Listen up now, since
America needs me so badly,
you will be granting me your fealty.

I will make America grate again!

What, you say, my mission
is already spoke for?
My noble cause has been taken?

He has? How dare he!

**** you, Donald Trump!

Do I know you, stranger?
Here, move closer; move into the light
let me search your eyes and touch your face.

Ah, now I see you -
the wrinkles on your brow
rutted just like mine
like weathered roads
passing through hallowed fields
of sorrow and elation.

It's funny; You remind me so
of the choices I've made
and all those foretold
and unexpected consequences.

So there is hope for us yet!

And do you know me?
Here, let peel away my mask
and move a tad closer.
See, there's nothing to fear
and who cares a fiddle about
our colors, creeds or pedigrees.

Tossing our cautions windward,
Let us roll the dice
and dare to trust each other.

Sure, we might not know each other yet
but perhaps in time we shall.

for the Webster University Jazz Quintet

A tripod of piano, bass and drums
was spread across the stage
weaving chords and counts
into finest sonic cloth.
trumpet and tenor intersticed between,
dazzled the sound-scape
with vision and calculated risk.

Solos poured out like fountains
with swaying, clapping and bobbing heads;
Eyes closed to let the light of imagination in.

With colors as sharp and vibrant
as the cut glass windows behind them,
they painted memories of Miles
back-lit by Solar flares
and took a pleasant hike
in Shorter's Footprints
to the jazz realm's distant borders.

Having journeyed so many Miles,
we paid them sincerest thanks,
steered our engines homeward
then slept – tapping our toes in our dreams.

April,  2007

Dedicated to William Shakespeare, Gene Roddenberry,
Lewis Carroll and Franz Joseph Haydn.*

The power scythe roared and quivered;
Had he chops, he would have licked them -
So rabid was he to taste the fray.

Verdure clad stalks by the thousands
Eschewed all feint of
Futile resistance -
Falling like spineless wimps
Before the carbon breathed Leviathon's
Cyclonic advance.

Pausing only to quaff
A long draft of energy potion,
Toro relentlessly carved a swath
Across the battle ground -
Vorpally snicker-snacking his way
Toward the mission's
inexorable termination.

A single command
Brought the roaring vortex to a halt.
Victorious, sans medals or ceremony,
Captain Toro was debriefed
And escorted back
To his lonely barracks
To sleep, perchance to dream
Of past and future triumphs
In the jungle wilds at the confluence
Of Prairie and Missouri Avenues.

*August,  2007

Aymara Rivero and Hunting Honey
thundered past the finish mark
three lengths before the placing horse -
the tenth triumph of her rookie season.
How many winner's circles await her arrival?

Just a few brief yesterdays ago,
Mari had watched a lecture hall clock
checking off the hours of her life,
when a voice within her whispered again
"It's now or never,"  and Mari chose "now."

So shutting the college door for a time,
she returned to her stable home
and the company of equine friends
who'd brought joy to her youthful days.

Today the paddock gates open
and apprentice Aymara guides her mount
to the starting gates of life itself.

for Ashley and Trent

Joyous tears lie just ahead,
for Trent and Ashley
will seal their love today.

Pipes, strings, brass and voices
will soar beneath
Saint Peters towering nave

and we'll rise as one to affirm
their pledge of love and faith.

They met in band at Belleville East
and always seemed to know

that on some spring morn in June
they would stand at the altar
to vow their lives to constancy.

We all knew it too and today
we would be no other place

for hope unbounded rules the day
and echoes in our grateful hearts.

Sinbad’s sea-battered ship was
poised on the edge of annihilation,
The Sultan's brow furrowed with curiosity,
then without warning
Scheherazade stilled her narrative
and lived to see the morning sun.

When the moon and stars next owned the sky,
Sinbad was snatched from the jaws of death
then the saga of Prince Kalandar
seized the king's soul with wonder
but Scheherazade left the tale unfinished
and sang with the birds at dawn.

Rimsky-Korsakoff  turned the pages at his desk -
consumed by Scheherazade’s charms
then etched his pen across the waiting staves:
The violin must weave her spell once more
and bassoon and oboe take the prince’s part.

Trombone and trumpet led the martial call
and all the rest enlisted for the cause.
Russian bravura fused with the seductive allure
of exotic tunes born of the dust on the silken road.

A sonic whirlwind filled Saint Paul Church,
as winds and tremolos grew to cyclonic force.
A wall of brass completed Kalandar’s tale.
capped by an exuberant clash of cymbal plates.

The silence yielded to tender violins
chanting a hymn to the princess in all her grace.
Tambourine and winds wove a tapestry
of her debonaire and most virtuous prince.

As the final pizzicato chord faded, the Sultan
turned to Scheherazade with tear-filled eyes
and beheld his immortal princess
and she her valiant and eternal prince
and so it would be as long as night preceded dawn.

She kissed away his tears of joy and whispered in his ear,
“My beloved husband, I will tell you stories forever.
Tomorrow you shall learn of the Feast at Baghdad.”