I awoke several times last night
And looked for you on the
Pillow next to me
In my mind’s eye I saw you lying there
Your hair billowing around
Your beautiful face
Your breathing slow and gentle
The breathing of the content
Knowing of our love for each other
Feeling your presence
As I fell back asleep

Half way to the stars
Finding true love forever
Golden days ahead

Here we are together
Holding on to each other
Intertwined
In the union of love
Sharing not only our bodies
But our hearts and souls
Inextricably mingled
Like a force of nature
Naked and yet clothed
In a garment
Woven in Heaven
Only available when
Two hearts equal one
Mathematics discounted
Only the reality
Of our joining as lovers
Fulfilled by our passion
Which can only be
Overwhelmed
By our love

I look at your picture
Your eyes glow
Your smile brightens
Your beautiful countenance
Frozen in the time of a photograph
The apples of your cheeks
Lighting your eyes
Which search deep into my soul
And still reveal
The wonder of yours
Filled to the brim
And waiting to burst forth
Yet containing itself and hoping
I look at your picture
And see the love
Buried and longing
I look at your eyes and the smile
That takes my breath away

How do you measure a dream?
In ounces? Pounds?
Inches? Feet?
Centimeters, meters or miles?

Do dreams have weight?
Can you hold them in your hands?
How does it feel if you touch a dream?
Warm and tender?

Can you hold hands with a dream?
Can you put your arms around it?
Feel every fiber of it and yourself
Meld into one?

Dreams are ephemeral
Like dandelion flowers
Floating on the wind
Over a field of brightly colored daisies.

Can dreams come true?
Do they have height and weight?
Can they last forever?
Only when you meet the one you love!

8/24/18

A new day
A new life
Parting with the old
But never parting
Holding on to golden moments
Like a bee sleeping
In the palm of your hand
Looking toward newly made memories
In a Tiffany setting
Made of silver and platinum
Crafted by the deft
Hand of fate
Intertwining two lives
Like Rococo filigree
And sent off
To find their destiny
Amid the chaos
Of emotions
That can only be resolved
As one

Reality forsaken
For a chance at the golden ring
And though it’s only made of brass
A chance to grab it still could bring

Dreams of glory yet remain
Waiting on the shelf
For father time to come along
To turn them into wealth

And so our good friend harkens
And listens for the call
Remembering dreams of glory
Before a mighty fall

And time alone can put aside
The fears of remaining true
Refusing to abjure the dreams
Or asking where or who

Can take a chance again each day
Looking to the goal
For brass or gold it’s still a ring
A circle with a hole

It’s overcast and rainy
But I feel a special warmth
A warmth from above
A warmth inside
As if the sun were shining
For me alone

Finding your true love
Is not up to you
It can take years
Or an instant
Milliseconds
That equal lightyears

The heart chooses
And destiny is revealed
In a single moment
An hour
A week
Two people
Whose hearts are like
Opposite poles of a magnet
Drawn together
Inexplicably
Yet inseparable

Oceans apart
Or right next door
Love transcends all boundaries
Negating the past
Without tarnishing memories
Rejoicing in those memories
And yet looking to the new dawn
Another day
Another chapter
To be realized
Held in a hand
That only holds
Your true love

I sit on the porch
Watching the moon and the stars
Holding hands with God

As the sun focuses on a single tree,
Like a lighting “special” pinpoints an object on stage –
Life projects its essence of humanity.

What is a marriage?

The joining of forces;
A partnership;
Equal standing in the corporation
Of life and love.

Writers pooling ideas,
Scientists testing theories,
Two people sharing.

Marriage is not the contract
Or the piece of paper;
Marriage is two people who love each other.

And when their souls mesh,
Intertwined and inseparable
The piece of paper
Codifies their love
And shouts to the world –

We love each other
And will ‘til eternity!

8/21/18

Sunrise wakes the day

While dozing rejuvenates

The mind and the soul

For some
Any place they hang their hat is home
For some
It isn’t physical
It’s metaphysical

There’s an essence
Intangible, unimaginable
Indescribable, but real

For every cliché in column A
There’s a single word in column B
Home

Travel and transience
Can never subjugate
The pull
The allure
Of the quintessential

And as the song says
A house is not a home
And the greatest love of all
Will yearn in tandem
For the romance of home

The crooked tree stands alone
Reaching for the sun
Half remembered, half forgotten
Lonely in its isolation
With
Limbs extending in a-symmetry
Branches growing
Where no branches should grow
Twisted upward toward the light
Yet
Darkness shrouding the branches within
Struggling for a place
No one knowing, no one caring
The crooked tree remains

Do you know what
I like about
Being old?
Senior Discounts!
I love to walk
Into the grocery store
On Wednesdays
And say:
YEA! – Old People’s Day!
And get
5% senior discounts.

Late last night
As I was walking my dog
We saw three deer
Munching away

We stopped to watch
And they watched us
And must have decided
That we’re okay

I will admit
I’m still not used
To deer so near
Who have no fear
And make it clear
They’re going to stay

Who munch and watch
People go by
And wait for
Another day

Waiting is the hardest game in the world.
How does one pass the time?
How does one even know what they’re waiting for?

There are so many things to wait for;
Even for that e-mail that says
Yes to some unasked question.

Waiting for answers.
Waiting for responses.
Waiting, simply waiting.

Too many things.
Too many options.
Too many choices.

Issues that pile up.
Factors set in motion
Out of one’s control.

Hope that lingers
Just on the precipice.
Out there beyond,
But beyond what?

And still one waits.
And the waiting gets harder.
The answers that never come.
The sublimation of the tangible
To the reality of the inevitable.

Who knows?
Who cares?
Only the waiting matters.
Taking on a reality of its own.

Setting its own terms
Without regard.
Without feelings.
Without conscience.
Without knowing
That there’s another side.
Without knowing,
Or caring,
That anyone is waiting.

Only the waiting.
And the waiting gets harder.

The end
Is the beginning
The next piece
The next moment
The next chapter

The end
Is movement
Moving forward
Moving backward
Moving wherever

The end
Is transitory
Tracing progress
Tracing moments
Tracing journeys

The end
Is a signal
Guiding airplanes
Guiding steamships
Guiding lifelines

The end
Is the ending
Holding loved ones
Holding mem’ries
Holding forever

(This was released on Leaves of Ink today)

I was recently asked
If grasshoppers
Blow their nose
In winter
I immediately answered
No
They have to hold it
‘Til next summer
But in winter
Millipedes ski

I looked in my closet
And discovered
That I went back to
Who I am

I tried being what I
Thought I should be
Wanted to be
I changed my wardrobe
I changed my hair
I thought I looked
The part
But playing a part
Doesn’t mean it’s real
Reality
True to oneself

Oxford shirts and jeans
And haircuts may not
Make the man
But they go a long way
Toward going back to
Who I am

Osgood the owl
Is three inches tall
A constant companion
Even though he’s green
With yellow eyes that watch me
From morning ‘til night
And faithfully sits there
‘Cause he’s made of stone

Exploding into the clarity of winter
Icicles hanging from tree limbs
Creating a crystal palace
Woven through the vines of frozen lace

The shadows of winter
Guiding the traveler to a haven
Where the cold refreshes the spirit
And cleanses the air they breathe

Longing for a freedom
From the turbulence of seasons
Chasing after rainbows
That never could have been

Time rejoices at the solstice
Making days grow longer
And the momentary fragments
That eludes the passage of time

Fragrant embers from the hearth
Filling the warmth with firelight
That overcomes the shadows
And the longing for winter’s grace

Fireflies
Leaving a trail of
Bioluminescence
Following a path
Known only to
Fireflies

Where I live
It’s so quiet
You can hear
Grasshoppers
Blow their nose

Upper East Side
The Hamptons
Aspen, Colorado
The plastic people
Follow each other
Moving in herds
Like cattle to the
Slaughter

Drifting
Floating
Shifting focus
From one charity event
To another
Whatever’s trendy
Whatever’s fashionable
Whatever’s happ’ning
Whatever’s the need
Tainted new artists
Society’s rejects
The film-maker who fits in with
The flavor of the month
The disease or the cause
That captures the moment
Stigmas overlooked
Deformities relieved
By one hyper exertion
By one pseudo good deed

Changing bedrooms
Changing partners
New alliances
Noblesse oblige

Mrs. Astor’s
Four hundred
Reinvented forever
Reinvented with fervor
On the edge
Of hypocrisy
Keeping up with the Jones’s
Maintaining the houses
Paris, Rome, Cote du Jura
Malibu, Palm Beach
Couture fashion
Madison, Rodeo
Worth avenues united
Avenues of the liege

Location, location, location
The right address unspoken
Dinner in the right places
Sporting events to be seen
Three martini luncheons
Halcion evenings
Business is business
Where money’s retrieved

Look to plastic people
For fashionable guidance
No matter the moment
No matter the need
Remember to catch them
While jetting to Santa Barbara
Saint Maarten, San Troupe
San Marco, warp speed
They live in their milieu
Can’t function outside it
Can’t follow a shadow
That others believe

It’s easy to find them
They leave behind footprints
But barely a mem’ry
Or singular creed
Other than finding
The latest in fashion
The latest persona
Or new plastic breed

I had a daydream
That I was transported back
To Old New York.
But the time was confused,
The eras overlapping.
Was I a New York Knickerbocker
Or a Gilded Age socialite?
Were my friends the Theodore Roosevelts
Or Mrs. Astor, the Vanderbilts,
Carnegies, Howells or Upton Sinclair?
With Gilded Age manners
And pride in couture.
Was I living on Washington Square
Or in a Fifth Avenue mansion?
The confusion was scary
And my timeline divided.
And yet there was something
That comforted me, held me
Like a blanket.
Society changes
But dreams are everlasting.
And Old New York remains a mem’ry;
Painting a picture,
Holding a candle, a gaslamp, a light
To brighten the moments
With happier eras,
And flights of imagination
Of times out of sight.
As Old New York remembers
The passage of time
That rekindles our passion
For elegance and splendor;
That brings on the daydreams
That remain Old New York.

Going backward to go forward
Finding my true identity
The hidden core
That represents my reality
Overgrown with twists and turns
Carrying me in wrong directions
Swimming upstream
Pummeled by the surf
Battered by rapids
Working on goals
That seemed long forgotten
But only frozen by cryogenics
Waiting in the wings
Hoping to be rediscovered
Looking in the mirror
To another dimension
Past the vortex
That remains transitory
Fleeting moments pointing the way
To look backward
And go forward

early evening sunsets
pink and orange clouds
holding hands with moonlight

Where does time go
And yet remaining
Every Saturday
Another week

Flying by
Yet standing still
Looking forward
To another dawn

In the distance
All the longing
Soon resolved
By a pocket full of weeks

hidden dreams of glory
soaring over trees
flocks of birds on an august morn

The butterflies are back
To carry off my soul
Leaving only the shell
To walk the earth

The pathways of time
Blending hours
In a mixture of
Light and dark
Casting shadows
Into a homogenous
Stew

And yet time moves on
Like a river without end
Forging a course
Of its own making
Burning in limestone
Hard as granite
An eternity forsaking
All boundaries

Black holes notwithstanding
The empty void
******* time into a vacuum
Frozen in the universe
And still time finds a way
Penetrating reality
Bending light for its own purpose
Into the unknown

Never showing itself
Never enumerating
Its variations
On a theme of its
Own making
Hidden within the
Pathways of time

The tapestry of the mind
Filled with golden threads
Like the orbits in the universe

Grief prevents momentum
And sadness sustains limbo
Seconds become days
With relentless stagnation
Fate playing tricks
In ways unforeseen
As calendars remain
Fostering the season
Lessening reality
In intangible ways
That heightens the dogma
Of grief

The yellow light of dawn
Burning through the trees
Awakening the day

Late afternoon
A gentle breeze
The trees a full rich green
On the cusp of summer

The sky’s a perfect sky-blue
With wisps of clouds
Barely visible
Transparent
Like cigarette smoke
In a film noir
Slowly drifting across the tapestry

The sun
Just before it sets
Bright, with that extra glow
Of eventide
Showering the tops of the trees
In a halo of shimmering light

A perfect time to be lazy
Reclining in a comfortable chair
Daisy, my dog, watching her world
Then drifting off happily
With drooping eyes to nap

A busy day
Slowly ending
With golden moments
Before ev’ning shadows
Envelop the day
And gentle breezes
Drift into night

Building a bridge
From here to reality
Crossing the path
Of the unknown

Holding hands with God
Walking through the journey
Recognizing passion
And the eternity of love


In loving memory of my wife, Lydia Franklin
                           Dancer/Actress

driftwood floats
to a corner
of the lake
hidden from view
in a cove
shrouded by trees

sailboats glide
on a breeze as
mild as september
over water as
smooth as glass
tinted amber

hidden depths with
spring-filled caverns
limitless
against the
ebbing tide

summer haze and
autumn colors
new day’s glory
turns to
evening shade

flying fish and
water urchins
fishing rods
with baited
hooks

swimmers dive
into pale blue
water
crystal clear
with a hint
of green

fishes ride
in the wake
of rowboats
speedy oars
pulled by
teams of men

gentle times
as the lake
remembers
passing times
that remain
the same

You and I will have our dreams together
See the world as pink and green together
Knowing that we’ll always be together
Feel the morning, rise upon us
Hold the feeling, all wet with dew.

You and I will spend our days together
Moving right on through the maze together
Playing games and making plays together
Happy endings, ever after
Like a story, we’ll spend our lives.

With time for holding you
And time for loving you
We’ll make our dreams come true
You and I.


Originally used as a song lyric in the show Marriage and Other Happenings in 1983

I look at the sea
As the sun shines down
And the glare stings my eyes
But as I watch
The sight comes clear
And all the ocean’s beauty
Comes alive

Here I sit
Seven stories up
Safe and warm inside
For the sea is cold now
And sometimes angry
But it will be warm and calm
Again this spring

So I look at the sea
As the sun shines down
And I dream of the spring
And when spring comes
I wish you here
To share the ocean’s beauty
With me

This is the 2nd of a set of three art songs for soprano and piano called Three Landscapes - the other two poems are by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Renaissance
The Enlightenment
The Baroque
The Romanesque
The Classical
The Neo-classical
The Romantics
The Avant-Garde
The Dark Ages
The Middle Ages
The Federalists
The Philanthropists
The Modernists
The Cubists
The Minimalists
The Impressionists
The Imperialists
The Rationalists
The Surrealists
The Transcendentalists
The Gilded Age
The Industrial Age
The Golden Age
The Space Age
The Age of Reason
The Age of Mediocrity

The stillness of the morning
A quiet time to think
Burning off the mist of darkness
And drying up the dew

Ev’ning shadows long forgotten
As golden rays appear
Casting off on a new day dawning
With incandescent light

Like fishermen in hip-boots
Trailing lures in streams
Teasing dreams to follow
The long forgotten embers
Of yesterday’s embrace

New shadows of awak’ning
With piercing crystal light
Leaving empty spaces
To be filled as time progresses
Toward another afternoon

The patches still in grayness
Soon to disappear
Ending off the day’s transition
As morning overtakes

The dawn of another journey
A day to be revealed
Moving on toward a day of brightness
Another day with you

I weighed the options.
Should I or shouldn’t I?
That is the question:
I’ve done it so many times before
And been rebuffed each time.
The answer should be clear;
I should be firm,
But each time I hesitate
And then relent.
Should I, this time,
Risk it again?
Why not?
Why yes?
I’ve stated the obvious;
Repeatedly and redundantly
And still I consider doing it.
It costs nothing
And if the result is the same
I’ve lost nothing.
But why, this time,
Do I seem more resolved against it?
Yes!
I’ll click the button
And submit the story.

Upper West Side apartments
A hidden agenda
Not so hidden
To the literati
And intelligentsia

Psychological
Societal studies
Family relationships
Real and dysfunctional

Phobias and foibles
Siblings and psychosis
Fantasies and follies
False or deferential

Dixieland or
Café society piano
Introspective or
Hyper-sensitive

Transcendental
Expressionism
Paradoxical
Acri­monial

Laughing and crying
Over spilled cocktails
While hiding at parties

Lifestyle studies
New York or foreign
Of the rich or famous
On the wrong side of the tracks

Happy or tragic
Sophoclean
Finding the truth
Through open eyes
Transfixed on sidewalks
Broken like pavement
Filled with potholes

Boiled like cabbage
Rolled into daydreams or
Nightmares
Finding the way
Home

The gentle breeze has just a hint of coolness to it,
Barely relieving the humidity even this early in the day.
The fetid air hangs heavy in the trees,
The residue of yesterday’s scorching thermometer.

Is there hope in that gentle breeze?
The first in a season of no seasons.
The land of mold, mildew and bug bites
Reveals itself as a season of perennial hot.

The man sips his coffee and picks up his pencil,
Trying to draw the outline of memories:
Golden days of autumn and snow white cliffs of winter
Where time moves onward in a perpetuum of days.

The man sits stagnant in a world of empty spaces;
A vacuum created like a tunnel through the reality of time.
Nothing ever changes; no one ever reaches for the golden ring of glory
Or the passion of fulfillment in the land of the living dead.

The tree of life
Takes a circuitous route
Stumbling its way
Toward destiny

Another anniversary of your death
A time to reflect on living without you
It hasn’t gotten any easier

All the times you sat next to me in the car
All the things we loved to do together
All the things we looked forward to doing together
All the places we went together
All the places we’ll never get to together
All the times simply being together

I do things alone now because I have to
But nothing will ever be the same
I look to the future and an empty life
A life that once was shared with you

My wife died six months ago today - this is for her

There’s a profound sadness
To the death of dreams.
When hope withers
And days stand still;
Drifting one into another
And another.

The gentle touch of success,
Simple in any form,
Withdrawn.

The golden rays of sunshine
Shrouded in
Black clouds.

The new hopes and prospects
Foiled by an
Unseen hand.

Time lingers and
Dangles, like a carrot,
The portent of change
That remains unfulfilled
Except by a profound sadness.

Times remembered
Now repeating
Now receding

Vacant mem’ries
Hollow entries
Long abandoned

Empty journeys
Once remembered
Twice forgotten

Open highways
Never travelled
Dreams forsaken

Faded glories
Full of promise
Now depleted

Long lost treasures
Stolen chances
Dissipating

Silent voices
Empty spaces
Past erases

Times remembered
Now repeating
Now receding