Having been a virtual prisoner for the last six days (holiday with wife and mother in law) the word freedom came to mind.

So there's the weekly challenge, FREEDOM

I see them still,
From time to time,
Their goofy smiles,
Their laughing eyes.
Still hear their *******,
Their growled complaints,
Their farts in the night,
from five bunks down.
The relentless joke telling,
The brotherly jabs.
Still see their sad empty eyes
When no mail from home arrives.

Oh and the lists of things
That they would do,
When back they'd go,
Into the World,
Added to daily, always growing.
Get that new Camaro,
"Set them tires on fire!",
Cruse the strip back home
and pick up chicks.
Put on their Class A,
And strut down the block.
Find that foxy girl from English class,
And make her his wife.
Tell his old man,
to actually "*******!"
We were but boys,
Too eager and green,
Posturing and playing at being men.
What I wonder, would they have become,
Given the chance to grow to a man?

Young lives cut short by ballistic pain.
So now still they linger, boys they remain,
Night visions left in the mud and the rain.

The other night,
I dreamed of you and Katmandu.

It was of that first night in that
Guest House, where the seedy
proprietor tried to sell me the
12 year old Kitchen Girl for
20 US Dollars. And throw in
a small bag of Black Hash for free.
Then upon my refusal,
Lowered the price to Ten,
And again I told him no.

The place where the rat came,
up onto our bed and nearly,
ran across my head.
Where February winds threatened,
To blow the shutters in.
The smell of burning lamp fuel,
Fouling the stifling cold room air.
You insisting I not put out the light,
To prevent the rat's return.
That foreign place, the Himalayans base
That city, that cold room.

Our stomachs rumbled from the tainted
dinner rice and so called, chicken meat.
As always your feet like two popsicles,
In the bottom of our sleeping bag.  

Yet our bodies radiated a familiar heat,
The only civilized comfort of that night,
So very far away from home,
With you all wrapped up in my arms.

I have not thought,
Nor dreamed these things,
In over 35 years,
Visions no doubt lost among,
All the bitterness and tears.

And yet last night there they were,
Of you and me in our bed.
And I smiled at this,
Our shared and lost remembrance.

I struggle now and then,
Forgetful as I've become,
The colors of my life,
Certainly now have dimed,
All the faces less seen and recalled.
I actually forgot,
My Mother’s name the other day,
Or was it several weeks ago?

Way back I was told,
I had a Photographic Memory,
A useful tool to have.
The go to guy for remembrances’,
I could really put on a show.
Those color images are now,
Mostly Black and White,
Or faded to a sterile blank,
Featureless as an empty,
Solid, all grey wall.

Alzheimer’s the Doctors say,
Creeping in to stay,
Stealing my very soul away,
Until there is nothing left,
But a useless empty shell.

Without my soul of memories
Why would I even want to live?
A thing I really must consider,
While still I can recall.

We meet and entangle,
An impassioned embrace,
That ultimately,
Crushes the heart.  

Bitter sweet love,
That flows and dies.
The folly of expectations
the key to its sad demise.

No perfection exists,
Except in the mind.
All the rest, an illusion.

They swarm in
Their thousands,
Moving as one,
Erratic it seems,
Rolling and undulating,
Rippling like a
wave on the sea,
Traversing the Valley
And Hillsides,
Seeking plunder,
In their numbers.
A well rehearsed
Sky dance perhaps.
A demonstration of
superior, formidable
and menacing forces.

Soon the air cannons
Will boom
And echo.
Hired men will walk
Among the vines,
Banging on metal pans,
Firing shotguns.
The swarms you see,
Wants the fruit.

Starlings care nothing,
for aged fermented,
Fine Pinot Noir,
By the glass,
Or bottle.
The grapes their prize.
Nor are they concerned
with the efforts of man,
Or his air cannons.
What is noise to them,
When fat sweet grapes
Are in plain view?

The war of the Vineyards',
A yearly event.