Today, it seems, I have nothing to say,
so I’ll be remarkably terse.
I never thought I’d see the day
when my mind produced no verse.

I’ve heard of a thing called Writer’s Block,
but not in a million years
did I think I would sit and watch the clock,
waiting for words to appear.

I’ve been in this chair for fourteen days!
My wife brings me food and drink.
Perhaps today I will think of some ways
to apply my poetic ink

to pages, still blank and staring at me,
taunting and making sport
of my wretched inability
to stand in that glorious court

of sages and poets and masters of verse
renowned for greatness and skill,
who overcame this vicious curse
and with determined will

filled all their pages with heavenly rhyme,
O how I wish to be there!
But here I sit, biding my time,
waiting, in growing despair.

The Spring of my life has come and gone.
I’m facing an arid summer.
If truth be told, this conclusion I’ve drawn:
I should have been a plumber!

“Mankind will endure when the world appreciates
the logic of diversity.”
Indira Gandhi

From my magic window I can clearly see,
I look nothing at all like a Live Oak tree.
The bird in the bush doesn’t sound like me.
I don’t even sing as sweetly as she.

But we share the same world, breathe the same air.
Doesn’t it seem completely fair
that we each do more than merely survive?
That we all have a chance to grow and to thrive?

Bobcats and beetles, rivers and streams,
the alarming news, it clearly seems,
is that little by little, at least so we’re told,
we’ve dug ourselves a very deep hole
and despite our efforts to change the trend,
we’ve set the stage for diversity’s end.

We’ve vanquished the garden for our own selfish gain
and inflicted unspeakable sorrow and pain.
From my magic window I can clearly see
this is not the way it was meant to be.

“We all  live with the objective to be happy; 
our lives are all different and yet the same.”
Anne Frank

 

“The life of a nation is secure only while
the nation is honest, truthful and virtuous.”
Frederick Douglas

I’ve never known what it feels like
to be excluded.  My roots are white,
middle-class from a time when that was
sufficient to be invited and included.

I’ve never known what it feels like
to be homeless.  Our little white-
frame house was far from elite,
but it was home in a neighborhood
where people assumed life was good.

Poverty?  No.  Paychecks were small
and we lived basically month to month
but everybody worked and got paid
on Friday.  I’ve never known the
despair of poverty.

When I look back, I realize how
privileged I was, though I didn’t
know it.  I lived in comfort, ate
well, knew love, and I was
invited and included.  It all
seemed so real for a
10-yuear-old.

Sometimes a line from a Willie
Nelson song floats through my
mind:  “I wish I didn’t know now
what I didn’t know then.”

But, that would be immoral,
I think.

“At the beginning of the World Series of 1947,
 I experienced a completely new emotion when
the national anthem was played.  This time, I thought,
it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else.
This is organized major league baseball, and I am
standing here with all the others, and everything
that takes place includes me.”
Jackie Robinson

“The only maxim of a free government
ought to be to trust no man living
with power to endanger
the public liberty.”    –John Adams

I never wanted to grow old and hear
myself say, “Well, back in the day…”
The danger of re-writing history
is too great, the probability
of redaction too high.

Yet, in my limited ability to revisit
yesterday, I miss the presence
and influence of men and
women who wore the mantle
and assumed the responsibility
of a noble calling.

Statesmen

We called them Statesmen and
bestowed upon them our
trust, our hopes for a
better tomorrow, our
future as a free people.

Human, yes.  Fallible, of course.
And they knew those words
well, yet rose above them
through acts of integrity
and decisions justly
made for the benefit
of all.

We spoke of them as Servants
of Civility and Law.  But it is
no longer yesterday.  It is
no longer yesterday.

“The accumulation of all powers,
legislative, executive, and judiciary,
in the same hands, whether heredity,
self-appointed, or elective, may
justly be pronounced the very
definition of tyranny.”
    –James Madison

 

“Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations,
or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the
state of facts and evidence.”
–John Adams

Tell me truth, unadorned, raw and
bare to the bone.
Cut no corners.
Do not speak things you think I
want to hear, or should hear,
or need to hear.
I have no fear of truth.
I wish to be liberated from
falsehoods, misconceptions,
and truths that once held sway
but now have been
set aside for the sake
of new light that
magnifies the
human adventre.

“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier
to do it a second and third time, till at length it
becomes habitual; he tells lies without
attending to it, and truths without the
world’s believing him.  This falsehood
of tongue leads to that of the
heart, and in time depraves
all its good disposition.”
–Thomas Jefferson

When you take a knee at the football game,
I suggest you have a good reason.
If you’re thought to protest the political scene,
you’ll be out for the rest of the season.

Maybe you’ve lost a contact lens?
Perhaps your shoe is untied?
Just give it some thought before you kneel.
You’re out there with no where to hide.

I have a friend who went to his knee.
He was one of the big time stars.
Today he regrets that fatal move.
He’s selling unwanted used cars.

If you take a knee at the football game,
I suggest you have a good reason.
The knock on your door tonight might be
Secret Service with a warrant for treason.

Some days are a mixture of beauty and pain
with no word sufficient to finally explain
the glorious sky on a star lit night
nor the agony felt at the terrible sight
of suffering that leaves an indelible stain,
our triumph and trauma, in which we maintain
this impossible notion that somehow we might
save ourselves from the oncoming plight.

What words do we use to justify
the heartless acts and political lies
as children are torn from their parents’ arms,
the innocent ones who can cause no harm,
who live in fear and nightly cry
for love that we so glibly deny?
Is there no one who senses with growing alarm
the immoral depths of this hideous storm?

We have created a legacy stained with shame
as we play a grotesque, political game,
in which we abuse little helpless ones,
locking away our daughters and sons
as if they were part of a heinous scheme
to destroy the grand American dream.
What kind of nation would allow this done?
The answer, my friend:  a soulless one.

There once was a man who wrote a poem.
He never really intended to show’em
that his birthday was now…
but they thought somehow
that the poem was a
statement of
fact.

So he wrote a silly, awkward verse
in order to somehow gently reverse
the confusion he caused
when he announced to all
that his birthday was
the 20th of
June.

To set the record completely straight
on the 16th of August I’ll be 78
but thanks dear friends
as I try to amend
the poem that
started all
this.

Thanks for all you had to say
but remember: today is YOUR birth-day.
When the sun peaks out in the morning sky
enjoy your day and really try
to live it with joy
and thanks!

In the course of living an average day,
I try to think of things to say
that will bless the ones who pass my way
and lighten their load a bit.

“Hello, my friend.  How are you today?”
And I wait for something he might say
but when he turned and looked my way
his frown was word enough.

Was he rude?  Oh, no.  I don’t think so.
His head was down and his gait was slow.
There is pain in his life that I don’t know.
What good would judging serve?

I’ll drop by his house later today
and offer to listen if he wants to say
anything that will gently pave the way
to finding joy again.

In the course of living an average day,
I watch the world go by my way
and I think if they stopped, they all might say
“Dear God, unite us in peace.”

 

When the wheels fall off,
all you can do is tighten
the lug nuts and keep
going.

When the bottom drops out
get some duct tape,
fix it and move on.

If you spill your milk,
don’t cry over it.
Clean up the mess
and be glad that
you had some
to spill.

If two times two equals
six, don’t panic.
Relax, stay calm,
change the batteries
in the calculator
and try again.

Some days just don’t
make sense.  But then,
some months, even
years, are a little
whacko.  It’s
called life.

When you think the world
doesn’t love you, and
everybody is out to
get you, and you
feel unfairly
treated,
get over yourself.
Life is six parts what
you make it, three
parts luck and
one part
mystery.

This is it, friend.
Make it work.