The cigarette butts were piling up out front
Where was that steady breeze?
So she wouldn't have to get the broom out
So, they would blow off to the trees
Way back in the corner though
One man continued to smoke inside
It was a right given to him years ago
No one ever argued, no one ever tried
The bar was smelling musty
No matter how hard she tried
The owner couldn't make it fresh
That's because all the food was fried
In the window, a brown and crumpled card
Notified the world "We're Open" now
But, outside of the old man, and the crew
No one in the outside world really knew
Visitors never came here,
they stayed away from here
The regs didn't care though
To them, it meant more beer
A college game was on TV
Two crap teams from the west
No one was really watching them
The regs liked the East the best
The carpet, full of burn marks
From cigarettes long burned out
Dropped from pursed and drunken lips
Who also no longer were about
The barkeep could tell stories
Though there was few there who hadn't heard
The stories of the past long gone
The regs knew every word
The posters drab and dreary
Selling beer from years ago
From breweries long since empty
And with tag lines nobody even knew
A poster for Black Label
and one for Jolly's brew
In the back sat a piano
Out of tune and never played
It had been out of use forever
The keys were cracked and grey
The bar itself was dying
A relic inside four walls
It was dressed in papered squalor
Like an old man with no *****
The windows showed their age
Shaking when the wind did blow
Ice was always building on them
There was more inside that in the snow
A breath of life was badly needed
The bar was really already dead
They hadn't made a dime in decades
They always ran it in the red
Today though, things would change
The door opened from the past
In walked a man of substance
Another character to the cast
He sat down on a bar stool
Ordered up, and looked around
And there standing in the corner
He saw the piano...with no sound
Asking if anybody played her
The barkeep said "No, she's long since died"
"Do you mind if I go and play her"
"It's been a while since someone tried"
He rolled it out from dark in hiding
Hit a key, and hurt his ear
Lifted the lid to look inside her
And then he ordered up another beer
He hit the keys and played a little
"Let's give this thing a whirl"
The sound it made was flat and pokey
"There's lot's of life in this old girl"
"I'll tune it up and come and play her"
"If you'd like...that is of course"
"Mr. if that's what makes you happy"
"But, I think you're beating a dead horse"
"By the way, they call me Johnny"
"Johnny Fingers if you please"
"I'll tune her up and play a while"
"I'll get her clean and bang those keys"
The barkeep offered up a contract
Tune her up and play for free
"If you're good, I'll pay you extra"
"The jury's out, we'll wait and see"
Johnny laughed and said "You got it"
"I'll play whenever you decide"
"I'll play whatever's asked for"
And he had a smile ten miles wide
The barkeep said "The venture's on then"
"Let's have a talk, and grab a seat"
"There are some things I have to tell you"
"Johnny....welcome to The Street".

A Roman Catholic concept rooted in a Jewish tradition where, if you cannot attend Sunday mass, you can go to the Saturday mass, the evening prior...

http://t.answers.com/answers/#!/entry/anticipated-mass-definition-in-the-roman-catholic-church,4ffcc10b­7af68a84dcfcad8b

not a religious man,
another "ain't behaving Jew,"
been long time passing,
since I went to a synagogue
of my own free will

(that,
free will,
a subject,
I won't discuss,
a free will choice,
unlike this poem
which writes itself,
me, just the telephone company
common carrier transmitting)

the holy days and
the holidays
come cycling through,
recycled sung sing tunes from
genes that once trained,
once disturbed and reawakened,
pass it on down
willingly or unwanted,
the calendar and
human marker thereupon,
in your face, undeniable,
you are, or start,
being what
they want you to be

been to midnight mass
on a Christmas past,
with a friend who happened
to be a Jesuit priest,
yeah, I'm an electric eclectic
ecclesiastical poetic natty vibe,
with many a
neutral nomenclature,
happens to live with an atheist,
so, tonight, we watch together
at her suggestion,
Fiddler On The Roof

boy oh boy
there I am,
Tevye the Poet,
writing poems on the roof
up on the wide screen,
talking to god
every where I go,
whatever I am doing,
even cursing the
Cossack ***** of the traffic hell on the
Long Island Expressway,
*******, you see

{but you grow weary
waiting for a writ called
Anticipated Mass,
and not a sermon
of a nonreligious miscreant,
who just happened to be
created, born on
the Jewish Festival of Booths,
in an R.C. hospital
on Fifth Avenue,
right next to his coreligionists edifice,
Mt. Sinai
(go figger, all part of the plan,
says my fellow new yorker, Allah}

if you are busy Sunday,
NFL football perhaps,
or a summer FIFA World Cup match,
Wimbledon working,
while on your deck surfing,
(Go Federer)
or a working stiff,
serving man for tips,
waitressing, taxi driving,
in order
not to starve,
for a living
must be made on
the day of rest,
so you go to
Anticipated Mass,
the eve of the day before
the prom dance

now that is something I like,
a flexibility that
inflexible dictums and regs
don't often offer,
like birth control being ok,
every other day

but anticipating my prayers,
just a bit too
OCD compulsive organized,
no matter
9:00am or midnight,
or even 6:00pm
the night before,
I can't anticipate
when the need to
go verse
with The Lord above,
arises

so I like to inform you,
when anticipating
the wine and the wafer,
the sabbath candle lighting,
the prayer rug time,
don't have to wait,
for a mass, a mullah's call,
or a minyan,
do a Tevye!

speak to him
with this Rx prescription,
"as needed"

let your own mass
be lightened, lighted, leviathaned,
relieved, celebrated,
the freedom from
anticipation and feel free
to listen to what god has to say,
cause he loves those
individual requests,
custom crafted,
even noises simple
grunted with good intent,
for those who posses not
the gift of
god gab

an informal sort,
a busy deity,
who appreciates brevity,
which is why
he gives my
long poems short shrift,
but sometimes attends
to my low whispered
observations for the needy,
for the masses,
whose body,
in his image,
I human share
and so often,
pray for...

I should have kissed you back
Stupid isn't it
Maybe the worst I'll ever be
I feel stupid now
I long to know what your face was saying
I wanted to look back
I'm looking back now
You're not there anymore
Who would be when people like me leave scars on everything they try to heal
I'm selfish
I want that again because I'm selfish
But I never deserved to kiss you
I should have never even been a piece of your world
Ive always had a remarkable talent of ending up exactly where I don't belong

On the playgrounds of the future
Children will laugh and sing
And we’ll cross the bridge to real peace
Where the bells of sanity shall ring

Until then we’ll play the game
Which will all add up to naught
“It’s your fault, no, it’s theirs…”
Why some fail at what is taught.

We’ve been given new books and bosses
Numerous regs to do the job
But money flows to the burbs
Inner-cities fair game to rob

Touching the future may seem easy
From a point too far away
One could assume it’s all just ditto -
Then lunch -  then math - then play

If this is your belief
You could not be further from the fact
That success is measured forward
As we have our students’ back

So forward we will plod
Secretly teaching to the mean
We will test, and test and test
From which all congress shall glean

Information in nice neat form
Of bars and charts sublime
Symbolic of teachers and students
Who have been sentenced to hard time

And the monied districts shall rule
Golden in and out
And the bootstraps will appear
Accusing all who doubt

Good will be the words to spread
And many who will eat them
The failures will be shown the straps
But for pity’s sake, don’t beat them

                                                                             G. Davis-Feldman

After failed rules, regs gone awry,
-values with no standard
-worth with no weight

we face, each the other, we face
screens and see reflections,
into the glass,
darkly
saying all our mind is willing to share,
if you care, or if I dare, you know?

-- I think of a dog friend I have;
-- she speaks her mind, with her eyes…
-- looks at me, as if she felt me think of her,
she wags her tail,
sometimes,
it seems such things are happening

just because I think
this or that
occurs to me and thus, to you, in your role,
in your time.

I notice, there, in my future, you do, too.

There’s always been something controlling me,
I knew, but I knew not what,
Something diverting and foiling me
Since the days that I lay in my cot,
I thought it was simply a parent thing
As they whispered their rules in my ear,
The things that were right and the things that were wrong
And the things I would most have to fear.

They sent me to school and the teachers, too,
Must have read from the very same book,
They always laid blame and they said it the same
And the cane lent a sting to their hook.
‘You’re coming to learn, not to think for yourself,
You’ll repeat everything that I say,
And maybe just some of these rules will stick
If you dwell on the rules every day!’

Then once in the world my employers unfurled
All the rules and the regs I would keep,
I didn’t last long, I’d seen them before
And told them they put me to sleep.
The government fined and unlicensed me
From a book that they said was the law,
The magistrates sat on a heap of these books
As I shrugged and I said, ‘What for?’

I sat in the jail for contempt of court,
Spent plenty of time in my cell,
The world was consumed with a million rules
Designed to consign you to hell.
I watched all the lawyers and prisoners, cops
As they danced to the rules of the cot,
And sensed they were puppets, and most of them fools
Who would baulk at the words, ‘I will not!’

They’d hate to be questioned, they thought they were right,
If you disagreed you were canned,
They’d lock you away for a hospital stay
There was no going back, it was planned.
You had to be made to agree with their way
So they clamped electrodes on your head,
Then slide up the volts, and it wasn’t their fault
If it happened you ended up dead.

They called it Electro-therapy
And said it was doing you good,
But the thoughts in my brain they were never the same
When I came out from under that hood,
I saw the strings jerking from shoulders and heads
In a vision you couldn’t conceive,
And there were the hands that were pulling their strings
When I called out, ‘I don’t believe!’

‘I’ve never believed and I’ll never believe,’
I called, and they all moved away,
A thunderous cracking of mortar and ceiling,
It all fell apart on that day.
The strings fell away from my shoulders and hands
And I knew I was finally free,
And then I called up to the Puppet Master,
‘You won’t be controlling me!’

People were falling all over the place
As he dropped all the strings from his hands,
The bearded Master could see the disaster,
‘You’ve ruined my world and my plans!’
He paused for a moment and then he was gone
Leaving people to blink in the light,
The rules were the rules of the Puppet Master
Now we can decide what is right!

David Lewis Paget

Grab a coach home heroes,
sit amongst the somewhere men,
the here and there women
and the growing up fast kids,
with lantern phones, magic tones.

Everyone here is going somewhere,
winter’s bare
and home awaits.

Fantastic lips and red sense in style,
a lady reclines in front.
She texted Rhys, lengthy in characters,
whilst the plot remained precise.
‘I have to agree with you, let’s take it slow’
fantastic fingers itched her fringe.
Was she confused about love
and its rules and regs,
or was he a staller,
‘the old car won’t start again’ kinda feller?

There are no heroes on this coach tonight,
we’re Sheffield bound and
all without a fight.

Eager to write to express the love words,
Not afraid to be criticized by regs or nerds,
Putting the words down to see if there fine,
Making many changes line by line,

Posting and watching minute by minute,
Checking reviews to see what's in it,
Eager to write from hurt or sorrow,
Anticipating what's in store tomorrow,

Thoughts of should I post or shall I wait,
What does it matter they don't validate,
Eager to write from joy or pain,
Entered my login to do it again,

If I were writing for someone to like
There's always Facebook- another website,
Here is a little something about me,
I write for the joy where I'm free.

Time is for tides
And boating lake rides
It’s for boiling your eggs
And the swimming pool regs.
Time is spent in detention
Or paying attention
Or sitting a test
Or having a rest
Time is for departing
Not for outsmarting
A pie shaped chart
With nothing to impart
A dish served cold
That chimes when your old
It scrawls lines on your face
And flutters the flag
At the end of the race
But the best of time
Is when it’s all mine
No pressure on the day
No programme to display
No seconds tick away
No words left to say
A smile paints my face
The sun warms my skin
My mind’s lost in space
My heart’s deep within
A Disney ride
With three kids in my care
Bristling with pride
The wind in my hair
And come the time
When I’m
Just a thought
Caught in your throat
That’s how to think of me
Because that’s where I’ll be.

SE

seems i have made some rules
for my online activity and find
that chatting to you is exempt

from these invented regulations

so i work here for one hour early
again a while at dusk

when

nice things happen
stove is lit
washing is in
folded
cat is out

door locked against
& all settles in

i do not use private messages
for work
except a fella on tug hill,
in a friendly manner only

i make no remarks
on improvements & refurbishments

i hope you are enjoying your time away
from work, and that the length of your
sentences vary

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

   A Band of Brothers in Which Some are More Brothers than Others

                          Dedicated to the Secretary of Defense


  There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
  There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.

                     -Kipling, “The Last of the Light Brigade”


American soldiers are a band of brothers
Of course the regs apply to some but not to others

Those who fight in the field are sometimes led
By generalissimos comfy back home in bed

If a private in battle really shows his mettle
His commander awards himself another medal

And when that combat action is called to a halt
The private nurses his wounds; the Pentagon single-malt

A poor homeless veteran might suffer hunger and need
His old general is cozy at Walter Reed

They say that Army recruiting is totally flat
Oh, yes, dear brother, there are reasons for that!