Birthed by altruism or selfishness,
Motivated by personal gain
Or the forfeiting of a nation;
It's the betrayal of friends,
Country, cause and trust.
Cassius,
Judas,
Benedict Arnold,
The traitor has many personas.

Traitors are hated by those they prefer. (Tacitus)

I forgive those who ****** and steal,
but a traitor, never. (Zapata)

A nation cannot survive treason from within...
He rots the soul of a nation...
No wise man ever thought a traitor should be trusted. (Cicero)

Softness to traitors will destroy us all. (Robespierre)

An open enemy, however criminal, is no traitor. (Spooner)

To have a traitor as an ally is to have an enemy in waiting. (Carey)

It is the just decree of heaven that a traitor never sees
his danger till his ruin is at hand. (Metastasia)

There are but two parties now... traitors and patriots. (U.S. Grant)

If I had one bullet and I was faced by both enemy and traitor,
I would let the traitor have it. (Codreanue)

There is a special place in hell reserved for traitors. (J. Trudeau)

Every man must be for the U.S. or against it.
There can be no neutrals... only patriots or traitors. (S. Douglas)

Et tu, POTUS. (F. Lynch)

Prometheus ignites to spark this
Molotov to make his Marxist
On swine Fuhrer's Faux News tweet
Hashtag it #GorbachevWallStreet
'Cuz Putin's puppet Pinochet's
Whipped Creme de Kremlin's CIA  
From JFK to Allende
Like Russian roulette ricochet
I'll Trotsky through McCarthy's brains
Leave slain these ****** sugar Keynes   
Discred' the Fed’s six-figureheads
With strikes at dawn more red than Debs  
Still breakin' breads with Mulan Bouges
Makin' men of Khmer Stooges
Seein’ Rouge when Al Spans Greens
Potemkin loan wolf ponzi schemes
Who count the sheep like Philippines
Then Black Pearl Harbor GRANMA’s dreams...

Of Marilyn Monroes in store
Just off-shore ****** who **** the poor
A Glass of Steagall's broken trust
Half emptier than bowls of dust
In rust beltways still spewin’ fumes
As factories become Khartoums
No carbon footprint tax the hint
Of Amazon decays in Flint
Just pop the caps and drown in debt
Like Kent State drinkin' to forget
That cuttin’ class engenders race
Leaves glory, gold and God's disgrace
To slaughter Moor than Reconquista  
From Marti to Sandinista     
With Zapata sharin’ crops  
Till my Mexica heartbeat stops

I'm Pancho infiltratin’ villas
The Magilla of guerillas
In the midst of Congolese  
Same colonies, just different thieves
To me, my breed’s of landless deeds
So how you like ‘dem Appleseeds?
FReeducatin’ caves of youth
Fed Citizen’s United Fruit
‘Cuz now my open eye of Horus
Battle cries Grito de Lares
Che is centered in these veins
So my Ashoka takes the reigns
These Iron paci-Fists pack hits
Like Jimi on some Malcolm ****
Still Hajj mirages I barrage
The Raj with sheer Cong camouflage

Deployin' Sepoys on viceroys
And pol desPots’ in the employs
Of Tweedledums who run the slums
With country clubs of loaded guns
These Betsy Deez bear arms to school
Till no kids fly kites in Kabul
So gas-mask your Sharia flaw
I'll Genghis Khan Sheikoun it raw  
'Cuz refugees are rising
And we're anti-socializing
Subsidizing private party plans
Who take commands from ***** hands
These grand old klans coup klux control
Your diamond minds with mines of coal
An oil Standardized existence
Solar powers my resistance

******* sun of Liberty  
My fear itself is history  
Rewriting wrongs of Leo’s creed
In culture’s blood and vulture’s greed
An alt-right/all-white cockpile   
Stockpilin' human capital
In tricklin’ contests over spoils
Of the cotton-ceded soils
Jingos chained to Cruci-fictions
Swallowin' good Christian dictions
I spit Spanish Inquisition
Trippin' Socrates sedition
Droppin' Oppen's fission quest
For "now I am become death"
'Cuz G-bay pigs in-Fidel's sites
Flew U-2's into my last rites

These Saddamites, I smite Assad
Then spread 'em like Islamabad
Convert for-profit prison tsars
From Escobars to Bolivars 
Like currency in Venezuela
Current police-state favela
Where 9/10th's of your possession's
Worth less than your Great Depression’s
Upscale bail ‘em outs of jail
With Dodd-Frank banks too big to fail
Your FDA-approved psychosis
From Campos’ daily dose of
More defense? Here’s my two cents
These slave wages ain’t excrements
So just say no to Reaganomics    
Got us hooked, but not on phonics

Just that Noriega strain
Of Contras stackin' crack contain
Like MAD dogs who trade weapons-grades  
For Ayatollah hate tirades
On “don’t ask, don’t tell” plague ebonics
Drug crusAID Jim Crow narcotics     
Warsaw rats injected, tested,
Quarantined, and then arrested
Guess the J. Arbenz' lens
Still Tet offends their ethnic cleanse
Still Wounding Knees of Standing Sioux
Till Crazy Horses stampede you   
For Mother Nature’s common ground
My Martin Luther’s gather ‘round
Is hellbound sounds of Nero’s crown  
Let's burn this Third World Reichstag down

Vox populyin’ to remove ‘ya
Like Lumumba then Nkrumah
So some Pumbaa kleptocrat
Declares himself the next Sadat
To hide supply-side Apartheid
Increase demand for genocide
So check your factions in Uganda  
Tune into Hotel Rwanda
Come play pirates with Somalis
Then desert ‘em like Benghazis
Thirst for blood so French Algiers  
It boils mine in Trails of Tears  
My destiny unManifest-
Oppressive Adam-Smitten West
So pay your overdues to Mao
I’ll Mussolini Chairman Dow

Then flood this 9th ward Watergate
With killing fields of glyphosate
I'll redistribute IMF’s
With leftist depth so deft it’s theft
I’ll My Lai massacre these lines
With sweet Satsuma samurhymes
I'll make these Madoff Hitlers squeal
With that Bastille New Deal cold steel
Now feel that Shining Pathos wrath
Drop Nagasaki aftermath
On Nanjing kings and dragon’s Diems
With ****** bodhisattva zens
To show you how I pledge allegiance
With razed flags still rapt in Jesus  
Laosy liars pogrom psalms
Can’t Uncle Phnom my Penh’s truth bombs

On heroes shootin' ******
My fix is un-American
Tiananmen democracies
To Syngman Rhee hypocrisies  
Theocracies drive me Hussein
With Bush league’s mass destruction claim
So I dig laissez pharaohs graves
With pyramids of Abu Ghraibs
Then nail their coffers closed like Vlad
I AM THE GHOST OF STALINGRAD
My hammer forged in winters past
My sickle reaps the shadows caste
By pantheons of penta-cons
Whose Exxons lead to autobahns
When liberal Arts of War and Peace in
Free speech teach my voice of treason

I am scared!
Scared of this world

Robert Godwin Sr
Alyssa Elsman

How many more have to die?
By my kind,
By their kind,
Because they blame some other kind
What ever happened to just being
kind?

Daniel Parmertor, Russell King, Jr., Demetrius Hewlin

Where were you when the World Trade Center went down?
It’s something everyone alive then will always remember
Never Forget! was our brand motto for American Pride

Krystle Marie Campbell, Lü Lingzi, Martin William Richard, Sean A. Collier, Dennis Simmonds

And now, the death of another is so commonplace
That we forget what and where.
It’s no longer personal enough to register where in our lives that it struck us
Only note that another life has been struck down
Add another tally to the equation
And still it does not add up

Trayvon Martin
Tamir Rice
Samuel DuBose
Delrawn Small
Philando Castile
Terence Crutcher
Heather Heyer

We are completely desensitized
And decentralized
We keep ourselves disconnected
(because we just can’t absorb,
Take,
Process it all)
It’s not us
It’s not me
It’s somebody else
Somewhere else.
Until it is
Then we care
How much can we take, before we break

Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton Doctor, Clementa C. Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman Singleton, Myra Thompson

The tragedy is the comedy
We laugh so we don’t cry
Sakia Gunn
Richie Phillips
Nireah Johnson, Brandie Coleman
Glenn Kopitske
Scotty Joe Weaver
Jason Gage
Michael Sandy
Sean William Kennedy
Duanna Johnson
Lawrence "Larry" King
Angie Zapata
Lateisha Green
****** August Provost, III
Mark Carson

I can’t say I’ve never thought of committing violence.
Hell, when my ex-wife cheated, it occurred to me
And I can’t say that I have never hit another
I’ve been a kid
My whole life is designed just to grow up
But, I’ve thought of killing myself far more often than the thought to harm anyone else have ever occurred to me
Because my problems are mine;
My fault,
And I am not seeking some scapegoat

Keenya Cook, Jerry Taylor, Million A. Woldemariam, Claudine Parker, Hong Im Ballenge, James Martin, James L. Buchanan, Premkumar Walekar, Sarah Ramos, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, Pascal Charlot, Dean Harold Meyers, Kenneth Bridges, Linda Franklin née Moore, Jeffrey Hopper, Conrad Johnson, 1 unnamed victim

I am not going to deny that being a white male hasn’t allowed me to sidestep a whole level of *******
One day, angry white males will be the minority
And we’ll have no one left to blame, but ourselves.
If we don’t **** everyone first
If we don’t **** ourselves first

Michael Arnold, Martin Bodrog, Arthur Daniels, Sylvia Frasier, Kathy Gaarde, John Roger Johnson, Mary Francis Knight, Frank Kohler, Vishnu Pandit, Kenneth Bernard Proctor, Gerald Read, Richard Michael Ridgell

Jonathan Blunk, Alexander J. Boik , Jesse Childress, Gordon Cowden,
Jessica Ghawi, John Larimer, Matt McQuinn, Micayla Medek, Veronica Moser Sullivan, Alex Sullivan, Alexander C. Teves, Rebecca Wingo

The earth has already decided that we are a plague upon it
Maybe climate change is the natural response to the abuse of our gifts

Nancy Lanza, Rachel D'Avino, Dawn Hochsprung, Anne Marie Murphy,
Lauren Rousseau, Mary Sherlach, Victoria Leigh Soto, Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Dylan Hockley, Madeleine Hsu, Catherine Hubbard, Chase Kowalski, Jesse Lewis, Ana Márquez Greene, James Mattioli, Grace McDonnell, Emilie Parker, Jack Pinto, Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos, Avielle Richman, Benjamin Wheeler, Allison Wyatt

What is this world going to teach my son?
That he’s better because of how he looks?
Or what I’ve taught him:
You make yourself better.

Jamie Bishop, Jocelyne Couture Nowak, Kevin Granata, Liviu Librescu,  P
G. V. Loganathan, Ross Alameddine, Brian Bluhm, Ryan Clark, Austin Cloyd, Daniel Perez Cueva, Matthew Gwaltney, Caitlin Hammaren, Jeremy Herbstritt, Rachael Hill, Emily Hilscher, Matthew La Porte, Jarrett Lane, Henry Lee, Partahi Lumbantoruan, Lauren McCain, Daniel O'Neil, Juan Ortiz, Minal Panchal, Erin Peterson, Michael Pohle Jr., Julia Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Samaha, Waleed Shaalan, Leslie Sherman, Maxine Turner, Nicole White

I work as a data analyst
So, I ran the numbers
But, these are more than numbers
These are people: sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, friends, lovers.

Stanley Almodovar III, Amanda Alvear, Oscar A. Aracena Montero, Rodolfo Ayala Ayala, Alejandro Barrios Martinez, Martin Benitez Torres, Antonio D. Brown, Darryl R. Burt II, Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, Angel L. Candelario Padro, Simon A. Carrillo Fernandez, Juan Chevez Martinez, Luis D. Conde, Cory J. Connell, Tevin E. Crosby, Franky J. DeJesus Velazquez, Deonka D. Drayton, Mercedez M. Flores, Juan R. Guerrero, Peter O. Gonzalez Cruz, Paul T. Henry, Frank Hernandez, Miguel A. Honorato, Javier Jorge Reyes, Jason B. Josaphat, Eddie J. Justice, Anthony L. Laureano Disla, Christopher A. Leinonen, Brenda L. Marquez McCool, Jean C. Mendez Perez, Akyra Monet Murray, Kimberly Morris, Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, Luis O. Ocasio Capo, Geraldo A. Ortiz Jimenez, Eric I. Ortiz Rivera, Joel Rayon Paniagua, Enrique L. Rios Jr., Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, Christopher J. Sanfeliz, Xavier E. Serrano Rosado, Gilberto R. Silva Menendez, Edward Sotomayor Jr., Shane E. Tomlinson, Leroy Valentin Fernandez, Luis S. Vielma, Luis D. Wilson Leon, Jerald A. Wright

I did research to try to find all the victims since I became abruptly aware 16 years ago
There are too many
I could not discover a single database that contained a comprehensive record
No one can keep track of it anymore
I know I’ve missed people
I know there are 1000’s of people now missing people
Even 1 was too much

Hannah Ahlers, Heather Alvarado, Dorene Anderson, Carrie Barnette, Jack Beaton, Steve Berger, Candice Bowers, Denise Salmon Burditus, Sandra Casey, Andrea Castilla, Denise Cohen, Austin Davis, Virginia Day Jr, Christiana Duarte, Stacee Etcheber, Brian Fraser, Keri Galvan,  Dana Gardner, Angela Gomez, Rocio Guillen Rocha, Charleston Hartfield,  Chris Hazencomb, Jennifer Irvine, Nicol Kimura, Jessica Klymchuk, Carly Kreibaum, Rhonda LeRocque, Victor Link, Jordan McIldoon, Kelsey Meadows, Calla Medig, James ‘Sonny’ Melton, Pati Mestas, Austin Meyer, Adrian Murfitt, Rachael Parker, Jennifer Parks, Carrie Parsons, Lisa Patterson,  John Phippen, Melissa Ramirez, Jordyn Rivera, Quinton Robbins, Cameron Robinson, Lisa Romero Muniz, Christopher Roybal, Brett Schwanbeck, Bailey Schweitzer, Laura Shipp, Erick Silva, Susan Smith, Tara Roe Smith, Brennan Stewart, Derrick ‘Bo’ Taylor, Neysa Tonks, Michelle Vo, Kurt Von Tillow, Bill Wolfe Jr.

and NOW I’ve run out of lines and time to read off all 2,977 people who died in 9-11
Isn’t that a tragedy?

Let's get this revolution
All my new world orderlies
Because we are the solution
To the bigger stick diplomacies
The shadow of plutocracies
Casted by the sons
Of the Titan kings inciting
The immortal chosen ones
To Prometheus igniting
From the mythic rebel guns
Of Zapata to Guevara
Bolivar in Venezuela
They provided the umbrella
To the reign of encomienda
Reconquista gunna meet ya'
In the jungle with the rumble
Of a Sandanista struggle
From the hovels of Aleppo
Diggin' rubble with a shovel
Wagin' Warsaw in the ghettoes
On the concentration Campos
Lazarettos, and the diamonds
That you smuggle to the kingdoms
Of the Leos in the Congo
But Lumumba, they remove ya'
Like guerillas in the mist if ya'
Resist em' in the system
Arab springin' into action
'Cuz the shah is a mirage
And the Contra-banded faction
Is another name for Raj
To convert the sacred hajj
Into cheaper camouflage
With didactic hypocratic
Neo-liberal art collage
To reeducate the masses
With a capital dogmatic
Lower-casing democratic
Are the over-ruling classes
Where the socialist fanatic
Anarchistic automatic
Never passes, spewin' gases
Of an open-****** fascist
But the tilting of this axis
Is the cashing-in assassin
Malcolm X'n MLK and then
Allende, Joao, and Mossadegh
The CIA, pieces in play
Objective's always Pinochet
When fair elections
Have their way
The pawns go first
The cheaters say
Game over Mr. JFK
And they don't shed
A tear for Ted
Without a bullet
To the head
Of another red dead scare
To hide the truth behind the D.A.R.E.
Grin and bare the propagand
Now it's Comey's Hoover Dam
And Putin's Agent Orange  
Is the latest Khmer stooge
On the trail of ** Chi Minh
Painting refugees in rouge
Making killing fields of stock exchange
His presidential recompense
No cents expense for Climate Change
To silence sense and dissidents
Within the firing range
Of this ****** hate crusade
Scorching Mother Earth campaign
So we gotta disengage the main
Brain drainin' inhumane
Tyrants always back again
To seal the gates and lock the cage
Vote us off the winners' stage
By droppin' bombs of martyrdoms
Crazy Horse was not insane
Brown said **** this ball and chain
With Henry Wallace all the wage
Ragin' fifty shades of Shay's
To free the press and then reclaim
Our history's white-washed front page

I won't write a letter to some president
Whoever they may be
Because if they ever truly wanted freedom
They would tear down the fences
And make the White House a shelter for the  homeless  
Or they would fill all the empty houses on my street
And every other empty house on every other street with empty houses
If there is something I've learned from 21 years
Is that its the common people who make the real change in this world
It's the common people who build the world for all to life in
For me this started at Peekskill
When 20 thousand men and women
formed a wall so Paul Robeson could sing safe from harm
Then I learned of Spain in the 30s
From the Asturian miners to the Catalan anarchists
The guns that protected Madrid and thousands of voices singing A Las Barricadas and No Pasarán
And some nights I whisper a curse for every bomb that struck Guernica
Meanwhile in West Virginia common people fought for equality at Harper's Ferry and for the rights of the workers at Blair Mountain
And even today in southern Mexico, it's the common people who are creating Zapata's great dream of a world where land belongs to those who work it
The people of this world are capable of such beautiful things
All the dollars in all the banks can't buy out the human spirit
And all the bullets in all the guns can't lessen the strength of us all standing together
And just as a wise man once said:
"We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute."

It's too late for me my friends
Pacing around my kitchen with a half empty bottle of Red Stripe I write this poem to you
To anyone who gives a **** enough to pay attention and listen to all the nonsense that leaves my lips
I am a man with no realistic goals
I am a man who does not listen to the battle cry that beats in his chest and forces it's way through his veins
Instead I plug my ears because I know what danger would come from action
I am a slave to inaction
And I've been told that a slave that doesn't defy their master is not yet deserving of their freedom
While I don't believe that's the truth, I let it apply to me
Because I am a coward
Nothing I want is attainable
None of my dreams are feasible
I have lost more times than I can count
But maybe if I lose enough, it will mean someday I've won
Because I don't want to live a quantifiable life of wins and losses
Successes and failures
I want a life that is worth getting up each morning
A life of joy that is armed to the teeth
Because from John Brown to Emiliano Zapata
From Spanish barricades to French communes
I believe that the heroes who fail are the only one's worth having
Because in failure there is always action
There is sincerity and the feeling that what one is doing must happen eventually
So why not now?
What is stopping me from saying "no more shall I live a life that isn't according to the what I believe"
I believe in a life like the hardships of Paul
"Sorrowful but always rejoicing
Poor yet making many rich
Having nothing yet possessing everything"
Alone I must build for myself a life worth living
And together we can build a world we can finally call home

This sad scent on my fingers reminds me of the two kids I saw on the bridge. They were supposed to be selling peanuts and crackers, but they were playing with it instead. It reminded me of the photograph of a child ******* with a shabby barbie left on the ground. How cruel the world is. How come the government let this to happen? This must be stopped from happening. We must rise. Revolt. Unite. Yeah. Rise. Revolt. Unite.

"If there is not justice for the people, let there be no peace for the government." ~Emiliano Zapata

Lol no just kidding. Who cares about it. This sad scent on my fingers just reminds me of

you.

I thought,
There could be nothing more awkward
than two half naked middle-school girls
fighting in the middle of a locker room
the imaginative and ingenious verbal warfare of “*****” and “Perra”
bouncing off the tall cold grey concrete walls of the showers
combined with the energetic and exaggerated use of hand gestures and physical intimidation
could not be ignored
though I tried, even as the others spectated and incited the two opponents
Because mi guela always says Las mujercitas no se meten donde no la quieran
(Little ladies don’t intervene)
I thought there could be nothing more awkward
Than hiding my face inside a gym locker
With two half-naked middle school girls arguing behind me
Until I heard one of them say “Stop acting like a Mexican”
Mujercita o no I could not remain silent
“What’s that supposed to mean? I asked her, “You know I am Mexican too?”
I thought there could be nothing more awkward
Than two half naked middle school girls fighting
Until I saw both their eyes appraising me
Then shifting between each other
with their brows raise in agreement they said to me
“Mariza you know you’re white” “An Oreo when it comes down to it”
I didn’t know that the name of my favorite cookie could hurt so much
When said with a strange mixture of disinterest and certainty
And I didn’t even know what it meant
But I knew that it was an evaluation of my Mexicanness of my identity
All the mujercitas slowly poured out of that locker room
Not a one making an objection or even feigning interest in what was said to me
It did not matter that I spoke Spanish
It didn’t matter I grew up able to quote every Maria Silvestre movie line
It didn’t matter how much I idolized Vicente Guerro and Emilio Zapata
It didn’t matter how I saw myself
The mujercitas agreed I was dark on the outside, white on the inside
For years, I tried my hardest to prove I was Mexican
But it seems that the standards changed every year
No one was ever convinced
No one wanted to be associated with me
No one believed that I truly cared about the Mexican community
To this day I am trying
What does it mean to be Mexican?
I’m still trying to figure that out
It must be more than a facha, a look
It must be more than music, celebrations, a shared Language, And an Experience
It must be but
No body has ever told me what it is
Only what it is not
Which is Me
an Oreo
And all that it implies
A pocha, a race-traitor, a sell out
Dark on the outside white on the inside

You were brought to the U.S. at eight years of age,
By hard-working parents seeking a better life,
Especially for you and your sister, Carmen,
Than was available in your native Galicia of the time.

Both of your parents, Carmen and Manuel, had strong work ethics,
That allowed them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,
Through hard, honest work in very hard times,
Guided by a strong moral compass they passed on to their two children.

You and your parents lived for many years in Downtown Manhattan,
In a tenement on Cherry Street where Spaniards gathered amongst their own.
You began working at a very young age unloading and delivering newspapers,
And in other jobs that included working as a soda **** in a drugstore.

The Lower East Side was your cradle and your domain in which,
You made life-long friends, including your best friend, Larry Morell.
You learned responsibility there, and a yearning to succeed,
Never letting humble beginnings serve as an excuse for failure.

You were frugal then of necessity, but also generous to a fault with those less fortunate,
And even when working in an office job, you’d walk miles every day,
To save the five-cent subway fare that would leave you a quarter,
For your favorite Saturday activity—the movies.

Every Saturday you would spend that hard-saved quarter only after walking
To every local theater to determine which offered the best movies,
Before spending your quarter in a temporary palace offering two films and a newsreel,
Your silver-screen gateway to excitement, travel, and your window to the world.

You were a gifted athlete in track and field, successfully competing in meets
And earning numerous medals. Your son, Bob, surpassed you in his athletic
Prowess and earned so many medals and trophies even before and during high school
That his mom quipped he must be buying them at a local store.

Good genes and hard work propelled Bob to excellence in track and field, soccer, rugby,
Basketball and only he knows what else since childhood through his years at the
Air Force Academy and beyond. He retired as a Lt. Colonel, special forces para-jumper, and Held multiple levels of command with numerous combat tours he never talks about.

Your daughter, Alice, also inherited your athleticism and was accomplished in fencing and Gymnastics in high school. And she is also an excellent writer with outstanding Organization skills—it took three people ((one full-time, and two part-time) to replace her in The Publications Department when we married, and she left her job for our move upstate.  
You Volunteered to serve in the Korean War and attained the rank of Corporal.
The touch-typing skill you learned in a Manhattan business school served you well,
And you became your company’s clerk, serving by the border with North Korea,
In a more serious version of the beloved character of Radar O’Reilly of MASH fame.

You almost never spoke about your service. But on two occasions during our long talks,
You mentioned that only once during your tour of duty did you actually hold a gun,
When ordered to escort a prisoner further South on a long Jeep ride while another
Trooper drove. Though always in danger very close to the hostilities, you never saw combat.

Your second war story told through tears more recently, but before the dementia
That plagued you for the past years of your life robbed you of your memory,
Included your efforts to quietly help North Korean families fleeing South who
Sometimes wandered through or near your camp in the middle of the night.

When you returned home from your tour of duty, you took advantage of the GI Bill,
To earn a college degree at night as you worked in an office clerical position,
And you continued your graduate studies when you became a high school teacher,
Earning at least one master’s degree over an extended period of time.

After your service in Korea, you traveled to Spain, fell in love, and married
Your wife in your native Galicia, a beautiful, loquacious woman, Marisa, who helped
To soften your serious, no-nonsense persona and draw out your social nature
While giving you a daughter and then a son and supporting your long years of study.

She joined you in Lower Manhattan when her visa was granted. And a two years later,
After your daughter Alice was born, you both bought your forever home in Queens.
It was a very old, two-family home that needed a lot of work which you undertook,
While working and still studying for your first college degree.

Your daughter was 25 months old and your son three months when you moved,
Leaving your young wife to raise two young, active, energetic children as you worked and Studied, with very little support, working tirelessly with limited funds and patiently
Waiting for you to complete your studies which took more than a decade.

You got your teaching certificate and began teaching at Bryant High School
Within a short walking distance from your home. You taught Spanish to native speakers,
And continued your studies for your master’s degree also at night, traveling for years to
NYU, St. John’s University, and Hunter College for courses.

After five years of night classes, your wife gently began to ask you “When will you finish?”
You told her seven more years. Even after the 12-year ordeal, you remained busy with
Grading, lesson plans, and the unseen work all teachers knows only too well.
But your wife and children finally got to see you at the dinner table nightly.

 
You loved the freedom of summers off, and traveled most summers to Spain,
With your wife and children for two months from 1964 on,
Living there with your parents and finally having your wife able to spend time
With her own parents, a short ride by car or bus from your parents’ home.

During those summers, you came across widows struggling whose husbands
Had worked for many years in the U.S. but had died in relative poverty.
You took on the role of advocate for them, getting for many Social Security
Survivor’s pensions for husbands who died without filing for benefits themselves.

You took this on without being asked as a charitable act that during hard times
Brought desperately needed relief to some living in abject poverty.
It was one of many acts of charity, of kindness, that you extended to others
Throughout your life—known only if beneficiaries gratefully acknowledged it.

You loved music, especially classical music, opera, and crooners like Frank Sinatra
And Perry Como. You often retired to your study to listen to music as you worked.
Just days before passing away when you no longer communicated or recognized
Loved ones, your son noted how you tapped your fingers on your table listening to opera.

The last year of work before you took early retirement, you gave up your
Teaching and advisement duties at Bryant High School and accepted a
Promotion to the Board of Education to work on creating new standards for
Bilingual education and help in their implementation.

Rather than a short walk to work, you now had to drive during rush hour to and from
The Board of Education near the Brooklyn Heights area. It was not a pleasant commute.
Moreover, you were tasked once the plan was in place with traveling to high schools
All around NYC to help implement and assess the program.

Despite your commitment to a program you believed would help thousands of students,
You were miserable with your administrative duties and constant driving to schools
In Manhattan and in the outer boroughs. After about a year, you’d had enough,
And you took early retirement to travel with your wife and enjoy life.

Before and after retirement, you were an avid writer. You leave behind hundreds of poems,
An unpublished historical novel, and goodness knows what else locked away in your
Computer’s hard drive. You loved history, especially the history of Spain generally and Especially Galicia, as well as U.S. and world history. You were also a talented painter.

You enjoyed speculative documentaries on the possible interaction between alien visitors And early humans along the lines of Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods.
You knew my interest in science fiction and loved to pose “what if” scenarios on
The possibility of our civilization having cyclically destroyed itself and risen from the ashes.

 
You and I shared a love for writing fiction, poetry, and non-fiction and had countless Discussions on these topics, and music, teaching, art,  politics, and so much more.
When I bought my first computer, you were fascinated and asked me to order you one.
I did. In the days before the Internet or books on the subject, you were willing to learn.

I taught you the basics of the DOS operating system, and WordStar, and then WordPerfect.
You were a good student, though the new technology was a challenge for you.
Nevertheless, as a touch-typist you were happy to abandon your manual typewriter
For the wonderful flexibility of a full-featured word processor.

We spent many, many hours on your new computer—and the many others you later
Asked me to order, but you never looked back and in your late 50s became a convert.
When my dad retired, I did the same for him in his 60s, and he took to it like the proverbial
Duck to water, though my dad was far more interested in and experienced with technology.

You were much more than my father-in-law, family, and a trusted colleague and friend.
I loved you dearly, as I did my mother-in-law, and was blessed to have a special Relationship with you both and to have spent so many years in your company.
I will miss you forever, as will the thousands of people whose lives you’ve touched.

The world is diminished by your passing.
But in the end, it has been enriched by your journey in it.
Your bright candle burned weakly in recent years and has finally sputtered out.
It’s smoke now swirls slowly towards the heavens where loved ones await you.

Rest in peace.