The Twenty-Sixth Vacation Collection

peanuts and prunes,
a fig,
two dried apricots,
rose petals, eau de
toilette soap trio,
a bronzer brush,
l’Occitane en provence,
bubble gum,
a yellow toy car, shells and shells,
more shells, a constellation of shells,
coins, money,
DVD’s, passports, a plush rabbit
that squeals,
a flip book and a book
of mazes,
binoculars for gazes, tide charts,
a pocket knife, sun hats,
histories
of places, cameras for everyone,
lotions before and after the sun,
packed for all seven of us.

Packerland Train Show

Though their not real
They have that feel
They smoke and toot
And run to boot
Four sizes have we
N, HO, O , and G
And sometimes a Z
Lots of trains to see
Some around cities run
Some have country fun
I buy things I need
A tiny sack of feed
A bridge for my creek
More treasures still I seek
Fake grass for the plain
More track for the train
A little house for the hill
Hide from wife the bill
Once a year this train’s place
Brings a smile to my face

Anniversary

The sturdy little rowboat
we set sail on
twenty-six years ago
is now a majestic Titanic,
apparently unsinkable
cruising in serene, untroubled waters

Perhaps, even now,
the urgent warning has been sent,
lies crushed in Ismay’s hand

As we sail on, oblivious,
and so happy.

THE DAY SHE CAME BACK TO AMERICA

She was expecting some melancholy,
leaving her home of six years, having sold all her things.
She was expecting some anxiety,
arranging hire cars, hotels, shipping,
all very difficult even for normal people.
She was expecting some worry,
her husband was a nervous traveler.
She was even expecting some annoyance,
they would definitely be asked to move
to the side when going through customs.
But she wasn't expecting what actually
happened when she stepped off the plane
and onto American soil. She burst into tears
and thought, "My god, what have I done."

Great topic! I know exactly what I am going to write about, but I have to go and experience it first- be back later...

Laurie K.

The War in Iraq
April 25

The War in Iraq makes the point
that crime and criminals
are merely dependant upon scale:
fraud, theft, and even murder
committed individually and at home
are punishable by imprisonment and death.
But the same abominations
ordered en masse by governments
and their elected leadership
are merely the order of the day
are rewarded by reelection
the erection of monuments
the awarding of medals
and the accumulation
by those in power
of vast wealth.
Hugh

The Day!

Father, What is a prison?
Asked the little child
Dear, it is the heart of women
Said the father and smiled.

The child went to its mother
What is a prison mother? it asked
Dear, it's the house of your father
said the mother and basked.

To be or not to be -
In the prison of marriage

Halloween in Sierra Madre

A giant spider stands ready to pounce
On hundreds of unsuspecting victims -
Her face and belly covered in scary swirls,
For they were once pumpkins,
As were the bathtub, the carousel,
And the antique roadster
That the skeletons use -
And the witch and wizard's garden
Is the pumpkin Smithsonian
Of the macabre!
Come see the show,
If you dare!

Where is this Event?

There once was a prompt on “Event.”
But now I don’t know where it went.
This Saturday’s theme
Took a hike, it would seem,
Leaving us here to lament.

At the food court
*************************

Too many food stalls to choose from,
Too many food that are so delicious,
Food stall owners standing calm,
Food that could cause fatness.

Too many people coming to eat,
Alone, with their partner or family,
Sometimes with friends they plan to meet,
To eat whatever for them is yummy.

Food haven is the most appropriate description,
For Malaysia as a tourist destination,
Delicious, yummy, cheap food can be found abound,
Come to Malaysia and be astound.

Malay, Chinese, Indian, Nyonya, Vietnamese, Portugease food,
Are among some of the food that is all around,
There are also a lot of seafood,
Visit Malaysia and be spellbound.

Robert, glad you got the kinks worked out. Thanks so much for all you are doing here. You must be one of the most patient and ambitious people on this planet!

The First Day Without Long Sleeves

We bare our biceps to the world
and carry plastic bowls into the sun
to commune in eclectic splendor;
democratic domesticity -
Martha Stewart translucents with
Grandma's harvest gold and
Ambrosia salad and cucumbers in vinegar
macaroni and bean medley
tell the stories we create for ourselves.
We bare our shoulders to the sun
and fear we are pulled pork
or store-bought potato salad.

---

"Labor Day"

First Monday in September,
Last day of Summer;
Nighttime awakens
Incubated soul.
Pain, sobering
And divine,
Gives strength
To the unborn,
Saps strength
Of onlookers,
But strengthens
The one who toils.
She siphons courage
From the power of
Eve's lineage;
And gives birth
To a little Adam
Or a tiny Lilian.

April 25 Event Note: using caps to represent itlaics


Game Six


I tell myself I don't care
what those gap toothed, unshaven
specimens do on the ice.
Baseball is my game,
and my birds are flying.
Besides-I can't follow the puck.
OOh--I saw THAT one!
And it is impressive that
they do it all on skates.
Still, they play indoors
and spring is here.
I really ought to go to bed.
Did you see THAT?
Wow! Rock the Red!

Aftermath

Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Ike
Soft feminine or innocuous masculine names
For fierce, lashing storms.
Lives lost and disrupted.
Businesses destroyed.
Homes damaged
Existences swept away
By rampaging wind and water.

Survivors stand tall and proud
Above the twisted branches
Lying on the ground.
Some lean at precarious angles
Their trunks snapped like matchsticks.
Gashes made by flying debris
Scar a silent sentinel.
Witness to the chaos and destruction
That whirled and flew around it.

Months later, crews dot the landscape
Cleaning up the countryside
And clearing city streets.
Memories are all that remain
So many lives, homes and businesses lost.
Now new construction stands shoulder to shoulder
Beside roofless, empty-eyed buildings.

Residents return.
Dwellings are repaired.
Businesses reopen.
The tempest has past and life goes on
In spite of injury and loss.

Yet each one living in the land of hurricanes
Faces a new season with worry and fear.
Will this year be calm and serene?
Or will be it bring more storms
And leave another aftermath?

Morning

By Therese Haberman

Warm fingers of fresh air
caress my bare legs.
Breezes blend between them.
Gently the morning evolves.

Red-topped bobber rests
against the screen porch.
Watching, waiting
for that magic moment.

It remembers softy dipping
under the water's surface
then flying down deep
into the murky stillness.

Fish flight finds a way
into its favorite fantasy,
well inside the mellow
melodies of morning.

English Heritage Open Day

the gothic mansion
requests we admire its curves
but its place in our attention is usurped
by a peacock
who asserts his superior beauty
and struts down the gravel drive
to meet us.

he has a look about him
this peacock;
head tilted to one side
just so,
left foot raised
questioningly.
he walks up to my camera
and only just resists the temptation
to lunge forwards and peck.

I take his picture
say thank you politely
and walk on.
he doesn't bother to reply.
very rude, I call it.
I turn around
and stick my tongue out.

he doesn't notice, doesn't care;
more visitors approach with oohs and aahs
and he has duties of distraction.

My Wedding

In 21 days I will be a bride
A wife and a Mrs. for the very first time.
We’ve been a couple for almost three years
Our journey has been filled with love, laughter, and some tears.
He loved me at once; at first site he was smitten
I grew to return it once all my walls had been lifted.
On a spring day in May we will go from two to one
And thank God our single, dating days will be done.
We will write our own vows, special words for each other
In mine he will have to agree to kill all the spiders.
In 21 days I will finally be married
There’s so much to do sometimes I’m stressed and I’m harried
There are fittings, and flowers, limos and linens
And a new place to live we have to put all our stuff in.
This is a big life change for him and for me
But I must say this man makes me very happy.
He’s very supportive of me and my dreams
And I have shown him what having a real relationship means.
In 21 days we will begin our next chapter
And I’m looking forward to living Happily Ever After.

Birthday Party

Barely awake,
I made a cake.
The house is clean
enough for tweens
who will be here
to share the cheer.
Hotdogs and chips,
don't forget dip,
soda and cake
keep them awake,
spending the night
gaming till light.

Dedicated to my son who turns 13 tomorrow! better get to work...

Robbing a Bank (True Story)

My dog was dying.
I lost my job and my tooth
ached. My water got turned
off. The milk was soury.
Don’t you use these excuses
in the interrogation room
when the cop demands an answer.
Anything but ‘I did it’ don’t work.

But I almost got away. I was
this close.
But it’s better this way, ‘cause

if you ever got a choice
between a jail cell
and a beach in Bermuda,
well, you better choose
jail because heaven,
while you’re in hell,
is always gonna be better
‘cause you can dream it
the way you want it and
I never dreamt this good
sleeping in my bed at home.

"meeting anniversary"

how could i possibly know
that one simple phone call
could change my life
forever?
how could i guess
that several hours
of talking
could be the beginning
of a more beautiful
more colorful
more meaningful
life
with you?
how could i imagine
that a person
i barely knew
could see through my heart
could understand the real me
could accept and love
my whole persona?
how could i realize
that a li'l game with friends
would lead me to the one
who would teach me
how to laugh
how to love
how to truly live?
that was a decade ago
practically a long time
and yet you are still
here by my side
making me feel
as loved and cared for
as you did when we first met.
how could i possibly know
all this?
oh, if only i knew
then i would have dialed
that number
much sooner!

The Day A Black Man Stood As President – By Jane Eamon 2009


There ain’t a soul
Living or dead
Who wasn’t feeling something
That morning
All them times
When we were promised
The earth and the moon
Wrapped in a pretty bow
Here now was a man
Who meant what he said

It’s been hard times
Around here
We’ve been making do
But barely
Seems like the whole neighborhood
Done pulled together
For this day

Sam, he’s the barber
He promised free trims
To anyone who wanted them
He called them – Freedom Cuts
Gave a nod to ole Martin
Who started this fight

Reverend Tomas, he called it
It’s a day of reckoning he said
We now stand on the pulpit
Of history
Making our voices heard
In the highest seat in the land
No more, he cried, no more
Borrowing from ole King himself
We will be free
And justice will win out

Me, I was glad somebody
Was up there who maybe
Would pay attention
He’s a smart looking man
Mighty smart
Looks like he could get things done

I can’t help but think though
Don’t get me wrong
These old bones have seen a thing or two
We’ve been here before
And we tasted that sweet fruit of victory
But too soon we’ve had to eat
The bitter gall of defeat and death

I pray to the almighty that he’ll be safe
This brave black man
I pray as he walks unassisted
Down the long road
That they will let him live

I pray that he can get the chance
To do good in the world
It’s been a long time coming
Halleluja

Mothers Day

she is so fragile
so thin now
and used to be so strong
she is not able to
build whole sentences
Alzheimer disease
is taking her away
only her arms
still want to hug
the same way they used to
only her mouth still wants to smile
and her eyes
want to cry
the same way they used to
my mother
who now thinks
that she is my daughter
is excusing herself
that she doesn’t have a present for me
on Mother’s Day



bozena intrator

Tutorials

Busy middle school classroom,
bouncy students all around,
bright fireballs of energy,
every minute a thrill,
that is why they talk so much,
moods shift like puffy clouds
on a stormy windy day,
at their desks they can't sit still,
take round-robin turns to speak
on subjects academic,
not! But instead like peacocks,
show off their social prowess.

Wedding Day"

We decided to get married
it seemed like a good idea at the time
as I walked behind you
on our way into the courthouse
I had a sudden urge to turn and run
figuring I could get to the car
race home
grab a few things
and be gone before you noticed

An exchange of vows between you and me
nobody saw
except the judge
and the employees of the court
we had to borrow for witnesses
having none of our own

I wore heels which made me taller than you
when you gazed up at me
so serious promising to
love honor cherish
I don't know why the
laughter bubbled up inside me
at the most inappropriate moment
when all was supposed to be serious

but I'm like that
I have a reputation for getting
a case of the giggles
at funerals, too.

(c) m.u. April Poetry challenge day 25 prompt- "write about an event"

Poetry Reading at Taqueria del Rio

Latinos indigenous Chicanos Mexicans
gather ’round tables sharing enchiladas
clacoyos tamales sopes garnachas
to hear the words aligned in paragraphs
prose from Tel-Aviv distant love
found in the Caseron the old Caseron
full of winter memories howling beasts
magdalenas stories never recovered
strolls down main square ceramics
murals papyrus mummies Egiptian drawings
artificial boundaries separated by the great wooden gate
screeching past the threshold of their memories
into the open air of our cultures united
unassumingly turned into a luscious
cup of Café con Leche
roasted on comal con leña de monte
coffee ground on metate grinding stone
leche de vaca contenta
sugar from the latest zafra Cuba
Mexico Venezuela te canto y en Oaxaca
ollen mi llanto lejos de la patria
aquella que se ve de lejos y se siente cerca
when our thoughts y pensamientos connect
the place of being with the state of mind
friendship love for la Raza and the culture
left behind to find our voice connected
aligned in culture and pride
in this land called el Norte
north of Aztlan

Anniversary

Nine years ago
we stood before sunflowers
pushing their seedy faces
up the shed’s outer wall,
our feet immersed in
dandelion clover.

We declared from this day forward
to plant bulbs in Spring,
tulips, daylilies and irises;
push marigold and daisy seeds
into black Summer soil;
build towers for tomatoes,
grids for zucchini, cucumber, peas.

We vowed to sit in Adirondack chairs,
watching cedar waxwings
devour all the juniper berries;
to hang thistle for goldfinch,
suet for woodpeckers
from blue spruce branches.

Today, we take the bulbs
from their dark Winter storage
beneath the spades and rakes.
Gently placing them
beneath the ground,
another year, as promised.


Lori Desrosiers

25

I grieved on my 25th birthday, for I was now in my "late 20s,"
And dismayed that there were adults younger than me.
Twice that now, or nearly, changing my life so fast that
My 25th seems a lifetime ago, and age at all merely illusion.

Maiden Voyage


She hit so hard the shivering stars
rocked in their sockets

as her belly dragged and scraped.
She filled and dipped,

groaned and struggled, trying
to keep them all afloat while

her rivets popped like buttons.
So many pretty, shiny things weighed

her down, fell with her when
she twisted and slid away;

so many pretty, shiny things stayed
behind, clinging to the frozen sky:

so many glittering notes,
so many souls.

Toe in the Water

Ok Tiger, here we go, don’t mention your ex.
Get modern clothes, join a gym, read a face page
Make conversation for heaven’s sake!
Remain relaxed, but keep focused,
Just like any jump: deep in the saddle, look up, aim high.
Weed out the weak ones, remember it’s just an interview.
Don’t offer benefits until after a consistent three months.
Turn off the cell phone, no one likes to be ignored.
Watch a little TV, stop looking at books - how about People magazine?
Bring enough escape money for a cab ride home.
Don’t go further than you’re willing to dance.
Be evasive, be real, be appropriately dressed, be punctual.
What are you nervous about? Everybody twitters!
Seriously, at your age women are defiantly redundant:
More realistic to be struck by bolt of lightening than struck
By the little dude Cupid’s arrow - single men are all searching
For the nurse with a purse, check the medicine cabinet if you dare.
May I remind you, this competition includes women half your age, plus
Widows with life insurance money, widows with homes paid in full.
You ought to spruce up, take a class, a cruise, go where the men are.
Wait, where are you going? What do you mean you
Have a dog to walk? I’m the Life Coach!

INVENTORY DAY

Counting up widgets and whats-its,
keeping account of each flange,
get out the hitches of how many switches,
gauges and caps. What demands!
Pencils are sharpened and pointy,
part logs are printed and bunched.
Lets hurry up counting,
the pressures are mounting.
We have to get through before lunch.
after the tallies are numbered,
after the total all clear,
we start a new page, let our brains disengage,
we'll do it again come next year.

Pet Day at School

A picture of seven year olds
aligned on a bench in barefoot disarray.
Nervous girls and boys clutch cats and dogs
to protect them from the adolescent rooster
that was once your fluffy yellow Easter peeper,
all wings and squawking beak,
attempting to fly from his captivity,
to control his own fate.

The bright white cast on your arm shines
through the flash of flailing wings
evidence of your own attempt
to climb too far from earth.
Like Icarus were you testing or exploring
your earthly limits when you fell?

Forty years you have flailed your wings
attempting to escape the captivity of
your reality your self your limitations.
Still you wrestle with human destiny.
My son, I wish it could have been easier.

FALLING STAR

i wished
for all the usual things:

for health, for wealth, and for happiness,
for security, comfort for me and mine,
for fortune and fame and romance,
for world peace, for ice caps,
for everything, in the end,
to work out
okay;

but still i couldn't help feeling that
our lives are just like that:
transient, meteoric
collections of moments,
strings of steps
flaring and
dying,

and with all those things i wished,
instead of working for them,
in the end, i think,
i wasted my time
watching
stars.

Poetrython-Marathon

Readings, writings
All the day long
Well more like half
Donations, contributions
Help our group go on
Poems to make you laugh
Thought provoking
Poets Unleashed
Disturbing, memories
Drop on by if you please

My First Free Comic Book Day

I never lived near a
comic book shop. When
the opportunity arose
to go and get free comics
my heart skipped a beat.
I walked into a wonderland
comic books both new and old
were laid out in front of me
like offerings on an alter.
I gazed around the shop and
noticed everyone staring at me,
the lone girl in a shop full of
men and boys. I suppose I was
the exotic species that no one
expected to see. I gathered
comic books that looked interesting
and even bought a few to add to
personal collections. Bags in hand
I left with a glance over my shoulder
to see everyone staring at me as
I walked away. Flattering or creepy?
No matter. I had new comic books to read.

Visit-the-Relatives Day


once a month we celebrated
the holiday of visiting
Aunt Laura and Uncle Joe
or Aunt Calogera and Uncle Paul
or Aunt Josie and Uncle Joe

we rode the noisy subway
from Brooklyn to Jackson Heights
or to Union City, New Jersey
on that special day
of buses and trains

our parents speaking Sicilian
with Papa’s sister or brothers
and their spouses
all of them telling
the same old stories again

about their young days
in the old country
their laughter so loud
my sisters and I would ask
if we could go outside and play

and Mama would warn us
don’t cross streets
we’re almost ready to go home
but they never were
their long goodbyes

punctuated with kisses
with one more story
with kisses again
and a little more laughter
almost a comedy

#

janflora - cute! and good luck managing the horde!

Maria Elena - *giggle*

THE SEARCH FOR MR. HILL

In that kind of weather, nothing’s
waterproof. Low cloud, drizzle, mud.
That’s where he left his car,
end of the road without a map,
Tule fog in his head. Floodplain
swallowing his footprints in the dark.
Christmas Eve. Cold. We stepped
through haloes of flashlight. One
stumbled, one stopped, one drifted
from sight. I kept walking
in D-cell darkness, hoping for
what? a gathering overhead –
propellers or wings – a hawk wind
to whip the sullen murk away.
A star.

Poetry Festival

First there’s the dress-trying, being zipped
in and out of one after another by my husband
before we’ve even downed our morning tea.
Then, the shoe-modeling and decision, the choice
of shawl over sweater, the packing of the makeup
and jewelry bag. After that, the filling of water bottles
and snack-loading into the tote, with extra
anti-perspirant—my reading in the evening
after an 85-degree day, a/c in the hall
on the fritz. Finally, the prompt is up, this poem
written, so I can move on to the hair-washing
and choosing of underwear that won’t show.
Lastly, just before dashing out, the bundle of poems
will be slipped in a folder. I wish there were a checklist
I could go by onstage, but there isn’t. Only a prayer
not to stumble or trip—over heels, over words—in front of
my favorite poet—that lion of a poet—who will hear
my work tonight for the first time. May I read
like the red tulips finally in bloom on our deck, glistening.

Dia de Sant Jordi

Rambla Catalunya is padded with booths
one side waves roses, and the other flaunts books.
We shuffle through evening, umbrella lights
shine warmly, create an aura of production,
and we are drunk on leisure. Teenagers

lean on shoulders, squat on benches,
and inscribe books for their crushes,
with looks of earnestness their faces
have not held for years. Older couples

guide their loves with hands on elbows
through the crowd of faces above them.
Vendors move sharply, alert, feisty,
pulling the browsers into their glow.

The air is filled with the wet scent
of cut stems, fresh books, torn plastic,
empty boxes, rain over the sea, jasmine
secretly smiling in gardens, water
bereft of flowers, petals crushed underfoot,
and ink flowing across virgin pages.

I walk without a rose, without a book,
and wonder what happens to the flowers
no one buys at the end of the day.

The Great Bed Swap

The grey dog used to instigate the practice,
jealous of the spotted dog's comfort, snug
on the bed she didn't have.

She'd get up, look out the window and bark
like she saw something amazing. He'd prance
over to investigate,

peer through the nose-smears while she circled
round and plopped down. He'd turn and look
surprised, even after the

hundredth time she'd fooled him. Now, since
we've moved and they've aged to middle and
old, he's become the bully,

looming until she grunts and stands, reluctant
to move to his bed while he claims hers.

My Fiftieth

Only girls allowed
My technology friend
Made a CD
All my favorite dance tunes
My friends coordinated
Food, flowers and thoughtful gifts
One requirement
Had to start with tequila shots
Then dinner and sharing
Secrets and belly laughs
Finally dancing, dancing
Dancing and singing
All with joyful abandon
Gifts—poetry, geese,
Plants
At the end, sweating, smiling
We all hugged good-bye
Walking home
I was overwhelmed by
The love of my good friends
The best Gift
Of all

Sadaam’s Statute Falls, 4.9.03


Three weeks ago,
I felt an odd guilt
about invading Iraq.

Today, I am grateful,
that scores of humans,
for at least a few hours,
would not be torn apart by
screaming metal,
searing fire.

Today, I am sad,
sad for the loved ones
in San Diego,
in Karbala,
in Twenty-Nine Palms,
inTikrit,
in Des Moines,
in Al Kut.
I am sad
for the children of Basrah,
released from five years’ captivity,
only to rejoin a world of
looting and vengeance.
I am sad for
the well-meaning anti-war souls
whose legitimacy can be somehow
toppled like a statue.
I am sad
for the young warrior
who will be the last to die in Iraq.
What will be his name?
What will be her legacy?

Today, I am worried.
I am worried this pyrrhic victory
will inspire more preemptive strikes,
when what are needed are
preemptive education and
preemptive medicine and
preemptive food.

Three weeks ago
I feared that,
for one modern-day,
Arabic-speaking FDR,
the first dropped bomb
marked our own day of infamy.

Today, I am reminded
again, yet again,
how no one
hates war more
than the warrior

Today, I am aware,
once more, yet once more,
that wars are fought
by our children,
and by theirs.

Today, I know
that thousands will die,
more will be crippled,
and then, yes then,
there will be
another war.

Today, I am alone,
trying to not think of it,
any of it.

The Event of Cancelling Events

My life is uneventful. I guess
I’m too close to the situation.
“Write what you like,” I tell
my students. “You’ll surely bore
your readers if you are bored yourself.”
So let’s look at the news.
Anything to pique my interest?
Mexico City cancels public events
for ten days in an effort to contain
Swine flu. The event of cancelling
events. Okay, today I’ll write about
cancelling events. Doing groceries
is the event of the week for my
family. I push client one in her
wheel chair and client two pushes
the cart from the back while my
husband guides it from the front.
There we go back and forth down
the isles. I take things off the shelves
while hubby puts them in the cart.
We can’t cancel that.
We all like to eat.

The Writer’s Conference

She rotated her foot when lecturing, jabbed
a pencil at the air like a maestro a wand;

the train’s length of his reading; the interference
of his hair, slinking over his face as he moaned;

the hardness of the chairs in the wind-pricked theatre;
never the quality of the work; viciousness; crudity.

I came awake in the midst of on-going rage
serenaded by crickets as cheap wine and food

were distributed on a lawn where that year’s ex-
amples would sign books by the wheaty pallor of a setting

sun; those with a cause no more uncommon than mine
slipped secrets to those with everything to lose.

Is this where rejection sends us? Into acrimony;
blundering through famous woods; into star-

muddled night; into the adirondack chair solo
in moonless meadow where I hid, quietly mis-
managed, staring into empti-
ness.

BIG DAY NIGHTMARES
By: Hannah Bowles

So last night I had my wedding nightmare,
the tables were all square when they were
supposed to be circles, in the wrong places
with no table clothes. The cake was a home-
made sloppy one with some girl I didn't know
throwing soggy pineapple chunks on it, the
dance floor was all lumpy, it was a piece of
ledge (inside the building) with a scrap of
carpet thrown over it. Guests were arriving
and I had on regular clothes and my veil.
There was a fire starting in an extra room
because some random (environmentally-
happy) shopping bag was on top of a light
fixture and the maintenance man said "oh
no, that's fine, "while smoke billowed off
the top of it. Woke up laughing! I know
everything will be fine. I guess every bride
has to have at least one nightmare about the
BIG day! Twenty-seven hours and counting!


(Great prompts Robert, this one couldn't have been more timely!)

A Wedding in the Family

My great-niece will be married today
(I'm really getting old
but we won't go there.)

Our extended family
most of them anyway
will be together
for the first time
since my milestone birthday
almost two years ago.

Like many families today
we don't see each other
nearly as often as we used to.

At least this time
the occasion is happy
and the Italian cookie tray
will bring us together again.

For a little while
it will be
just like old times.

Memorial Bonanza for Neal Freeland


Yes, dearly beloved of the perpetually late
Mr. Neal Freeland its time once again to notify you of his..
Well his passing, this year to commemorate his demise
We are holding Sumo Wrestling tryouts for swag
Neal Freeland Swag will be upwards of ten bucks
Yes, yes that is right dewds and dewdettes
Swag bags for the Memorial Bonanza for Neal Freeland
Are filled to the brim with ten bucks worth of shit
What kind of shit? All kinds of shit, the good shit,
Non of the bad shit, shiny shit, usable shit,junk type shit
Bauble shit, funny shit, cute shit, sweet shit, and definitely HAWT shit
Soooo why the sumo fights?? Cause this is the bestest shit ever!!
Why if it weren't for the sumo fights at
the Memorial Bonanza for Neal Freeland
Anybody with a bit of shelf space could get this shit
.... for the wicked high price of ten bucks
So come one come all to the Memorial Bonanza for Neal Freeland
Where there's only one winner and a bunch of losers
And in Sumo Suits to boot!!
This Friday!!
EVvvvvrreeeebudddy welcome!!

I know this isn't two for Tuesday but here goes. I wrote the first one a couple of years ago and updated it today then became obsessed with writing the second one which is more personal.

Our 50th Anniversary

Planning with great excitement
To celebrate the many years
Of our marriage.

So much to do
To commemorate
50 years together.

Invitations to be sent;
Ceremony to be outlined;
Reservations to be made.

So much to do; so much to do

Order the cake,
Select a location
Convenient for family and friends.

What are we going to wear?
What are we going to say?
What music to use then?

To celebrate that day we said “I do”
So long ago yet it seems
It was only yesterday.

So much to do; so much to do

Our special day approaches
As our excitement swells
While plans are refined.

Then everything crashes
Down around us
And all is cancelled.

No trip can be made.
No ceremony will take place.
We have to stay and work.

So much to do; so much to do

All plans are abandoned
Amid my many tears
And our great heartache.

Our special day arrives
As we go about the job
Wishing it was different.

No gala to honor the feat
Of 50 years as man and wife
Just the two of us

Nothing to do; nothing to do

A gift exchange and private dinner
Are all that mark
This exceptional event

No family calls
No cards – well, one,
Not even a single email

Congratulate us or wish us well
On that singular day
Few attain.

Nothing to do; nothing to do

On a day that should be full of joy
Surrounded with well wishers
We stand alone.

No, not alone
As long as we have each other,
We will never be alone.

Yes, we stand together
As we always have
And as we always will.

So many “I love you’s”; So many “I love you’s”

Opening Day


winter still resists
in most localities
frequently snow flies
games are postponed
parkas and mufflers rule
but the bat crack leather snap
bunting and speeches
ceremonials and testimonials
take charge chase winter
to the showers it's spring
baseball renews again
opening day insists

Somalia
7/20/08

Written after reading aid workers are fleeing Somalia for their lives

Somalia
Is collapsing
Into drought
Civil disorder
Death.
The lifeline
To life,
The aid workers,
are fleeing
After threats
From parties unknown.
The director was killed
After evening prayer.
Some say
It was Islamic extremists.
They say
The government
Is responsible,
Trying to blame them.
Groups point fingers
At their unfavorite people.
It doesn’t matter
In the short run
Or the long run.
Mogadishu in drought,
A country in drought,
Civil chaos,
Things fall apart.
People starve
As outsiders
Watch hopelessly,
,As the government
Turn an uncaring back,
As thousands die
As extremist groups
Fight for turf
And dominance
Until
There will be no country
To fight for
And no people to intimidate,
Until the fight
Is a matter of principle
Who cares who rules
A dead country
Full of dead
Or fled citizens?
It’s just an ego thing,
A pride thing by now,
Like possessing
A large box,
Beautifully wrapped
Full of empty boxes,
Inside empty boxes,
Packed from small to larger.
It might look fancy
But it means nothing at all.
Just like
It doesn’t matter
To anyone
That people die.
Does anyone care
Except the parents
Who watch their children
Shrivel into death?
Mother, father
Watch the young,
The old,
And then each other
Reduced to bone
And extinction.
The devil is busy
And Somalia
Is the devil’s playground,
And will soon
Resemble
Lover levels of hell
As the country dies
And the outside world
Does nothing
Let’s be totally crass
And turn it into a sporting event,
Bets on the number dead,
Bets on the winning party
Of this gang turf struggle.
Hey, even better
Let’s use
This dying time
To organize
The carpetbaggers,
Blackwater,
And our contractor buddies,
So we can turn Somalia
Into Little America.
At least someone
Would care
About the calamity.

The "diet" was called a fast
But it wasn't going to last

No sugar, no fried, no dairy, no meat
And no bread to go with nothing to eat

We found day one was easy to do
But only compared with excruciating day two

Day three saw delusions and dreams of a ham
I admit I sprayed my rice cake with butterized Pam

We ate lettuce for day four and day five
And finally realized we might stay alive

But day six changed when we went to the store
And we realized we couldn't take it no more

We changed up the plan with a new goal in our sights
And then I ate a sub sandwich in only four bites

Hands Fasted


Traveling he comes
The priest into town
To bind us all
One to one
We stand in crowd
And stand our ground
Til cords wrapped
Are set free
Our turn comes
For a year of bliss
Let us pray
It holds for true
One more day
And everlast
That’s my love
For you

July 20th, 1969

Our mom and dad woke us up
and told us to come downstairs.
It was way after our bedtime.
My sisters and I,
still groggy
from our little girl dreams
witnessed another (more grown-up) dream
while we were lying on the royal blue carpet
of our living room
on our tummies,
staring at the TV.
Dad said
we were witnessing
history being made,
as a man named Armstrong
made a famous quote
on the moon.
We were too young
to understand
how little kids
like us
could witness
history being made,
especially when it involved
lying on the royal blue carpet
of our living room
on our tummies,
watching
a grainy black and white picture
on the TV,
especially after our bedtime.

Reading Before Bed

Sinking deeper into a warm well
of sleep, content to let my coffee
cool, the dog snatch cookies off
my plate, I'm startled as Ahab
steps from page 343 – one
large peg extending from the abyss
splayed between two gray sheets
of paper, then a leg, a hip, a shoulder,
a scowl: each dripping brine,
salting the living room, dotting
the hardwood with scallops and krill.

"Rise, ye swab - your captain’s
on deck. Get ye in my ocean!
There’s a devil to slay and I
ain’t yet swallowed the anchor."

Quick as that, with a splash,
he leaps back to his page.
Dutifully, I dip fingers – wrap
them about dark letters
crusted with barnacles, pull
myself into the surf as an octopus
slugs across a reef. My lungs –
full of deep sea. Beneath billowed
sail, I wield mop, pluck jiggers
from toes – ever scoping the distance
for spout and foam, a breach where
a pale flank might be askin’ for a poke.

Old House/New House
11/08,12/17R
Writing exercise about doors

Leaving.
Closing the front door
For the very last time,
Giving the keys
To the new owners,
I think good riddance
To the big old family home.
Thank God I don’t live here any more.
Good bye, failing neighborhood.
Good bye, ghetto neighbors
(I won’t miss your noise.)
Goodbye, freshly painted walls, Goodbye, freshly varnished floors.
(Shame to leave you
When you look so good.)
Good bye, walls that hold
Memories of my toxic marriage.
Goodbye and good riddance,
Ghost of my late, unlamented husband
Who throws things.
Good bye, clutter and possessions
That once owned me.
Driving to my new house
Block by block,
I move into the future.
Hello new house,
This key to the front door
Opening now
To new possibilities.
Hello, new neighbors,
Who welcome to me.
Hello, new neighborhood.
Hello, park at the end of the block.
I’ll visit you soon.
Hello, new house,
A new start
For me and my new man;
We’ll make you our own.
We’ll make new memories
Not haunted by the past.
( better duck—
The ghost of my late husband
Moved over here too)
Hello, house just big enough for two.
There is space to grow here,
Space for all my books,
Space for my studio,
Space for a garden.
Hello, future.
There is enough room now
For you to come in
And transform my life.

Hello Jay!

The little one made it an event
I was coming for a visit.
She spotted me
all of a sudden
running from the flower bed/garden
yelling my name
Jaaaaaaaaaay.
I was greeted and it was an event!
An event I look forward to repeating
over and over
and the Hi-fives when she got to me
weren’t too bad either!

All too soon the event has passed and
she goes back to watering the flowers.
Not knowing that she is the most beautiful
flower in that garden.

Sunrise creeps higher
washing the mountains with light
scattering night mists.

Marie Eleana- Good morning or aternoon now! I read your note from last night after I posted today, yes it is a good prompt for me. I thank you deeply for your heart-felt words. I'm feeling good so far, I probably will put my computer under lock and throw away the key so I can get something accomplished today though.
Thank you again!

Everyone: Happy writing, be inspired!

Oh yes, and congrats. Melissa Rossetti!

Small Works

Today I’ll spend in the studio painting small canvases
for an art show opening next Friday. Each piece
under 12 inches to fit the new economy, little prices,
maximizing hanging space. I imagine that all the artists in town are doing this today, taking their normally expansive selves and making miniature replicas, intentionally shrinking, compressing electrons,
reinventing what it’s like to be the way
we’ve always been, but can no longer be. Reshaping and perhaps throwing out the blueprint entirely,
changing medium, starting from scratch,
a huge oak becoming a tiny bonsai,
infused with concentrated passion, focus, longing.
It is only in America where size has any value. In Japan,
the tiniest of things are worth so much more.

Day 25: An Event

The Performance

She wanted,
longed for
coveted
the part.
I opened my eyes
in the recovery room
to the text message
on my phone.
The single word
said it all.
Oklahoma!
She would be
Ado Annie.
I sat beaming,
watched her frolic
over the stage
in pink gingham
and hair ribbons.
It was her
shining moment
and mine
as well.

Carnival on the Quad

The summer sun seeps into April
And forces all the bathing beauties
Out of hibernation.
The boys throw the nerf football
Across the lawn – dangerously close
To hitting the lounging ladies.
The carnival arrives.
Cotton candy and candy apples,
Fried dough and doughnuts.
There’s the Moonbounce House,
The one your parents
Had to pull you off of, years ago.
So you give the mustache man your ticket.
This time, instead of jumping for the ceiling,
You jump towards something
Much higher and less tangible.

“Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals”

Cubs and Cards
The ancient rivalry.
At Busch Stadium,
That’s where I’ll be.

Balls to snag
Bases to run
Hotdogs to munch
Too much fun.

Pujols will score
Fredbird will cheer
Runs will pile up,
Never you fear.

It’s strike one, two,
Three--you’re out
When the Cubs
Come up to bat.

Cubs vs. Cards
Stadium bound I’ll be
There to celebrate
A Redbird victory!

#25 THE EVENT

One hot summer afternoon
We were just sitting around
A mousey squeal from Momma’s room
Brought us to the sound

We ran to see what happened
In the middle of her bed
Our German Shepherd, Gretchen
Had a puppy in the spread

I guess she thought it was just right
For birthing that cute pup
So when her labor started
Gretchen just jumped up

We tried to coax her out of there
With snacks and force and charm
But she just lay there nursing
And tried to bite my arm

I noticed soon that puppies were
Appearing left and right
And soon she had six in a row
Such a lovely sight

By the time we made a bed for her
Out on the kitchen floor
And got our darling canine in it
She gave birth to seven more

A song was on the radio
Famous in that day
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha”
It was getting a lot of play

That doggie wasn’t finished
There were two more yet to come
Fifteen puppies all trying to nurse
We had to hand-feed some

They were all colors and sizes
The runt was incredibly cute
There was one that was totally white
And the biggest was a brute

They left our home to go to
Where Gretchen had to work
As a gas station dog minding the store
Her duty she couldn’t shirk

Dad put them in a playpen
In the front window on display
Where everyone fell in love
And took them clean away

Except for one little black one
We found each of them a home
So we kept that baby for ourselves
And that’s the end of this poem

Last Day Blues

It’s the last day of school
Another year is done
No more alarms, nor gruel
Grades are either lost or won

We will all have a break
From the daily rules
Just a little time to take
To do what we choose

Of course, there are some
who did not learn
So they are not done
They still have time to earn

For those of us
who paid our dues
This year I trust
has become old news

As has the time spent
The effort we put in
Nothing left to lament
with a summer to begin

We’ve all paid our dues
It’s time for reminiscing
Saying goodbye,
Last day blues
last minute hugging and kissing. . .

©Ralph J. Fitcher, April 25, 2009, An Event Poem. This one is about the last day of school
before the summer vacation for both the teachers and the children.

The Dead (Los Muertos)

El dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) is a celebration traditionally held on November 1 (All Saint's Day) and November 2 (All Soul's Day) in many Hispanic countries. The day is reserved to honor the lives of the dead by cooking their favorite foods, decorating cakes and sugar into skulls, and tending to the grave plots belonging to the departed.



It was not the Red Death which subdued everything but the Yellow Death, the Bone Death, the skeleton saint dressed in the virgin's robes. Santa Muerte, that Holy Death, that Saint of Death, touched each grave and grinned her faded smile. How the dead clamored in her direction, their arms stretched out and their hands upturned to receive the sweet skulls kept in her pockets.

“Where are children,” the old men and women ask, still wiping the dirt from their cheeks and foreheads. “Where are our babies,” ask the young women, holding bottles still warm from the stove and watching the straight headstones anxiously. The earth cracks and ripples. The dead emerge in long straight lines, marching, guided by the saint and her flowing robes.

Meals are prepared, both elaborate and simple, tables laid out with comfort foods: mole, chicken, seafood, pasta, tortillas, cheese. Everyone sits around the table while watching the door, only one empty chair at the head, and when the door creaks open, the late grandfather walks through and takes his seat. Everyone eats.

One day for the adults, the saints. The next for the babies, the angels. For these short hours, the definitions of living and dead are set aside and merged to create one boundary encompassing all consciousness realities. Everyone learns to live behind the skeleton's face, doughy and sweet, beautiful despite its macabre hideousness.

Soon enough, the dough becomes stale, the sugar cracks and pales. The women cover their faces with veils, go to the edge of each grave, guide the dead within and sew the soil shut, commit the Death Saint to her appropriate cave.

“The Paint Goes On”

Winter chills almost gone
Ice chunks vanished
Time to uncover
Forgotten summer friend
She’s weathered wind, rain and snow
Her sails scheduled for hoisting soon
Sound of waves beneath the hull
But for now
The sounds comprise
Paint lids popping and
Brushes gliding
Before she’s launched upon the water
The paint must go on!


By Teresa Lasher
© April 25, 2009

the un-xmas party

bagels and sugar cookies
menorah and christmas tree
booze
everyone who has noone
or who isn't speaking
to their family
or whose family isn't speaking
to them
is invited.

so come on down. we smoke
grass in the backyard
play dan deacon in the living room
and pile hummus, potato salad,
and quiche on plates.

there's coffee, whiskey,
wine, and that yellow stuff
you always drink on xmas.

so come on down. we have bacon and lox:
we are bi-religious, bi-coastal, bi-racial
and of course bi-sexual.

this is l.a. after all
and noone cares where you come from
only that you're here now
and the winter solstice
rolls around us
with its multiple meanings
as we open our door
wide.
so come on
down.

Sweet Valentine

The time before chocolate must have been
A series of long, boring days until some
One opens the door on a dull February
Afternoon and hands you a bright red heart-
Shaped box with the words “I Love You”
Written on it and when you lift the top
There they are each tiny sweet morsel
Nestled in its paper cup all smiling up at
You and saying “ Eat me! Eat me first!”
And you can already imagine the taste
Melting in your mouth and you try to
Remember that each flavor has its
Own special swirl but you are too anxious
To just pop one into your mouth and
Now you are so happy that you do live
In an age of chocolate and all the good
Things that say “I love you” even if it’s
Not written on a red heart-shaped box.

The Rattlesnake Derby

I like to watch the snakes in the pit,
But I don’t go on the buses and hunt them.
I like to ride the rides in the makeshift carnival,
But I won’t use the porta-potties.
I like to browse the vendors’ goods,
But I refuse to eat the rattlesnake chili.

~2

*The Rattlesnake Derby is actually this weekend in Western Oklahoma... we are going to miss out again. My family now lives in Phoenix, AZ. I think I would be arrested if I hunted and/or ate rattlesnakes here.

Bloomsday!

Each year it happens in old Spokane
The young and the old, the pale and the tanned
A race approaching Fifty thousand strong
The course more than seven point four miles long

The race goes on rain or shine
Rarely is the weather divine
Runners, walkers, wheelchairs, and strollers too
Some groups run together to see how they'll do

From around the world participants gather
There's a winner of course but that hardly matters
The race lasts three hours amid wild jubilation
The Bloomsday Race known throughout the nation

And which blooms are honored in this race way out west?
The answer of course, is Spokane's Lilic Fest

Stargate Convention

The first time
In a darkened room watching as if with friends,
fan-made music videos, the burst of laughter
From a few hundred others at the same time I laughed
I nearly cried, I confess.

At home in
My (not small) world of family and friends
Still I must take care, lest I begin to speak
in a foreign-language that here is all we need speak.
In shorthand we save the world.

The few hundred,
most of whom would not be friends otherwise
and will not be friends after this is over
But will be friends again the next time, even if it’s ten years.
We will rejoice at meeting.

For this weekend,
All we need is here, in this ballroom, in these halls,
speaking this foreign language, being a fan is enough to be included.
The perfect antidote to all those times of being left out and chosen last.
Leave your self behind, join as one.

Kindergarten Graduation

The excitement was building
For weeks
Today was the day
Skipping down the hallway
Shining faces brilliant with life
Entering one by one
Excited to stand on stage
Paper graduation caps
Cute as buttons
There’s always one
Who realizes
Other people are watching

- P.A. Beyer

Mother's Day

Most depressing day of the year for me
Mother's Day
All around are people celebrating, taking
Moms to dinner, bringing her roses,
candy, giving perfume and talcum powder and sweaters
things she really doesn't need or want
any more of, thank you Dears
but I sit around missing my mother
even after all these years, I still feel
the pain, just not as sharp. I long for her gentle
hand on my shoulder and voice in my ears
when things go wrong or the hug and laughter
when things go right. Oh, we had our days
of conflict and disagreement, but there was
great love there, and it's that I miss,
when the world is out celebrating
in a party I can't share.

"Battle of the Bands"

Fourteen bands playing,
The music way too loud.
How can you get into it,
When there's only a three person crowd?
Promotion was not good,
Arena way to far,
Tried to trump up energy,
At least there was a bar!
Still waiting for results,
Been waiting way too long.
Can't believe we drove three hours,
Just to play three friggin songs!

Walking on Juno Beach

First we walked on Omaha Beach
That August.
We climbed the hill that the soldiers climbed and, then,
We drove over to the site of so many Americans
Buried overseas.
We walked and walked through the rows
Mesmerized by markers and
Mourners who spoke in hushed voices.

Then we drove on to Juno Beach
Where we landed (parked) our vehicles and
Walked down to the shore

Not a peaceful day it was
The wind blew with a strength of D-Day and
The rain soaked our water resistant(?) jackets--
The person with GoreTex thanked her lucky stars for her purchase.
We shouted to each other as we trod the beach
The water foaming and frothing
With a thunderous voice
Almost as it was said to do
Several decades ago.

Continuing on our journey,
We walked further up the beach to the House
La Maison
The first site claimed/reclaimed by the Allies
It stands, refurbished, and welcoming to visitors Recalling the gain of '44.

Looking back, ironically, for me,
Photos of this day reflect the distortion
Caused by the winds of power
Winds not associated with any particular country
Making a statement--but I digress.

In another August,
Over a half-century later, on our journey,
Our last stop of the day was at a cemetery--Beny-sur-mer
Where my soldier's remains had been reburied
After the first hurried entombment.

Standing amidst a rain-soaked group of listeners,
In front of a freshly-washed gravestone
I shared my words of presentation on
Russell K. Adamson.
I told our group about this young man, RKA,
From small-town Ontario
Who died on the beach of Juno
Just weeks before his 20th birthday--I can't help thinking that
He would have been the same age as my son who is now studying to be a journalist.

Russell, not a high-achiever at school,
One of seven siblings,
Was content to drive a delivery truck for a local store.
He died on a Normandy beach far away and
So different from the calm Wasaga of his childhood.

After a solemn tribute to RKA
We draped his tombstone with paper and
Proceded to make a charcoal rubbing of the words
Engraved on the stone.
I carefully transported that paper from France to Ontario
Where it hangs in a poster frame on a wall in my home
Beside a clear glass jar filled with sand and stones
From Juno Beach and Omaha, too.
I photographed the poster with the jar and
Gave a copy to Russell's brother
Who, now, in his 80s still
Remembers the loss of an beloved older brother.

Back in Kitchener, Ontario,
On stormy, windy days,
My mind goes back to those hours
At Normandy--
Walking on Juno Beach.

Two Weeks Later

The house was too quiet
Now that she was gone,
So we went out East,
Plucked you from your brothers,
Sisters, and parents.
Your poor mother paced and cried
While your father looked bewildered.
You were the first puppy to walk in that room,
Wag your tail, pounce on the ball,
Take it away from all the others.
You had no fear, and you sealed the deal
with a kiss on the nose for both girls.
My husband and I wondered if your predecessor
Would approve. Could she send us a sign
From the great beyond to say we had made
The right choice?

As we pulled up to the house, we saw it:
Her ashes, in a brown package
from the mortuary, marked "Fragile."
You wagged your tail and ran from the car, sniffing
and barking at the package on the steps.

She came home and was waiting for us
On the day that you came home for the first time.
My husband and I smiled at one another
and our girls laughed.
We were all home again,
And someone important approved.

A Mother’s Speech to the Bride

At first sight you said.
I knew I loved this man.
Perhaps it was the way he watched
you, the way the pitch caught your ankle

stopping the game for just those
minutes, seconds, to fall in love.
With this man, who just hours
ago watched you on your father’s arm,

the words, oh god, whispered from his lips.
And now a love themed wedding.
Love poems, love songs, the circle
of love complete; outstretched arms,

clasped hands pulling together to keep you safe.
Join our circle all who are here, all who
have gone before, whispered blessings
falling like blossoms. My daughter, to each

other you will say: This I know to be true.
You are my frame of reference,
holding my position in time and space,
watching this same sky before the distant thunder.

Travel far.
Travel together.
Take love and faith.
All the rest will follow.

The Country Music Marathon (and 1/2 Marathon)


thirty thousand plus.
about a mile and a half from my house
thirty plus thousand people are still running,
although the kenyan has long since finished.

that's a lot of people.
I've lived in cities with less.

can you imagine
some small town,
hiking up its outskirts
and taking a run through the park?

Ralph F. --enjoyed your "Last Day Blues"--reminded me of my school days gone by!

Susan B-#25 The Event, cute!

RJClarken - thanks for that momentous recall of July 20th, 1969.

Darrell T., the "diet" fast--you lasted longer than I ever could! liked the rhyming.

HOUSE HUNTING

Climbing up the creaking stairs
I hear the realtor chat,
the birds are tweeting in the trees,
the children are hanging back.
The house is quite roomy
a mansion in the past
but now it's up for grabs
will it pass our test?
There's plenty of room for children,
and a dog and a cat
it has a roomy kitchen that
scares me half-to-death.
There are cobwebs everywhere
and lots to clean and scrub
the ad was true at least that
this house is not for the faint at heart.
I can make it cleaner, better
but I faint at the price it will cost
to prevent it from falling to pieces
at the very first New Jersey frost.
Am I ready to undertake it?
Am I ready to sign the deed?
I'm not really sure we'll take it,
we'll just have to wait and see.

“Connecting Event”

Have got a good news,
warm hello comes from
other part of the world.
My Grannies couldn’t
even imagine this. Thus,
last century is connected
with this point any way.
Would love to tell to
grandchildren of good news
Coming from other part
of the world.

Taking our Cancer Center writing group to the support group

In March we marched across the square
past the fountain bursting from rocks
and bright pansies lighting the dusk.
Our writing group met with the women’s
cancer support group.

After shared hellos and sidelong glances,
we read to show them what we do,
I described how.

Then came the support group’s disclaimers:
I can’t write!
I’ve never written in my life.
I’m doing chemo and my brain’s a scrambled mess.
A flat, No way am I going to write, I’ll just listen.
Even, I’m afraid to put pen to paper, what if I write about pain?

No pressure, no urging, just a simple prompt,
then I bent over my journal, started to scribble.
Peeking up, I watched the women
watching our writers writing.
One by one, every head in the place
bowed over paper, every pen moved.

When time came to stop,
I had to give extra minutes.

We read our stories to each other
after another round of doubt.
By the second reader, the women
could hardly wait for their turns.

Each story brought applause,
flushed pleased face of the writer/reader.
Laughter bounced off the ceiling,
hands fished for hankies to dab at tears.
Energy fizzed and sizzled through the room.

4/25/09

AL’S FUNERAL

People gather from near and far,
to remember
husband, father, friend,
grandfather, great-grandfather,
uncle, cousin, and son.

A chance to say,
“Well done;
farewell,”
to a man loved
by all,
cherished by many,
missed by multitudes.

THE DAY HE REALIZED HE WASN'T GOING HOME

Suddenly, all the things I'd brushed aside, those interminable
Events marking birthdays or holidays, the walks I'd
Never taken, little things around the house I'd never fixed,
Times I'd ignored chances just to sit and talk and laugh about
Everything and nothing- all those minutiae that make up a
Normal day of freedom- amplified to epic proportions and
Capsized the raft of sanity I was balancing on. The words
Exploding my calm deluged, defeated, destroyed,
Drowned me with the realization of "not for a very long time".

(April 25, 2009) Dianne Borsenik

"Spring Play"

Check the tickets one more time
to make sure got the day right,
the game right. Join the throngs in
the tunnel from subway to ball
play and emerge underneath the
concrete majesty of the SkyDome.
Check the tickets one more time
to make sure got the aisle right,
the seats right. Sit back in the
empty row, chuck the jacket and
the hats on the seats next door, and
wait for the snack man to come up the
aisle bellowing. Crack goes the
bat as at last the game begins.
This is Spring. This is Blue Jays time.

Haiku: The Pow Wow

In their bright colors,
they danced all day long until
their feet became sore.

Holiday Home.


All packed up and ready to go
waiting for the taxi
to start our first family holiday
abroad.

We'd been to Disneyland Paris once
but that didn't really count.
It wasn't 'proper' France
and we went by train
so it didn't feel like 'foreign' at all.

But this was real 'abroad'
we were going on a plane
flying hundreds of miles
to land where they didn't even
use the same alphabet.

We were all a little bit scared.
I of flying, my child of strange
food and strange new vegetables.
He was wary enough of familiar ones,
and my husband was worried about driving
on unfamiliar roads,
into unfamiliar territory.

To cut a long story short,
we found that 'home'
a place we had been seeking
all our lives,
by moving to different parts of the
country we we born into,
had been found by accident,
the moment we stepped from
the plane,
thinking we were on holiday,
when really we'd at last arrived
'home'.

Hurricane Deathwish


"It's unreal," my mother said to neighbor friends,
"We left the coast just in time
before Wilma struck and left things in shambles.
Now, the Northeast has a tornado and again
we missed its wrath."

I sit wondering,
what then is the name of the monstrous storm
that raises it clutch randomly,
pummeling down hard
on our already thin, flimsy,
poorly patched and puttied walls—
The storm that rises like the Great Tide,
far above our heads,
no warning, and breaks (again)
the rehearsed stride of bones
frail of repeated gluing.

A brother now estranged
nicknamed one of those storms:
Hurricane Deathwish—

My mother continued, "We got out just in time."

“Dingle Races”

The cars line up along the road aside the rock hewn walls,
On rising hills and in the dirt.
Trucks and trailers side by side beneath graying skies alive with rain, being held
In honor of the day when boys become men in colored silks and
Tight white pants with boots right to the knee, holding crops like their breath.
They’ve been waiting for this day to break from stables and quiet fields;
To round the corners with shouts in their ears of Irish near and far,
(And a few Americans come for holiday). Being seen by girls on
Father’s shoulders hoisted up to see them run in the shadow of
Brendan who journeys still, blessing this and that and all who come
To see the races in makeshift bleachers or standing near metal posts
Where they’re an arm away from horses decked out for this day, like warriors
Getting face paint when headed into war.
With braided manes and soft brushed tails.
They race on grass, still waving in the wind until trodden down by hooves flying
By and as quickly as it was all began, it ends with horses being loaded home and
Jockeys slapped on the back until Brendan stands alone and smiles at Dingle’s race of man.

(Reposting with sentence structure corrected in line 4)

THE DAY HE REALIZED HE WASN'T GOING HOME

Suddenly, all the things I'd brushed aside, those interminable
Events marking birthdays or holidays, the walks I'd
Never taken, little things around the house I'd never fixed,
Times I'd ignored chances to just sit and talk and laugh about
Everything and nothing- all those minutiae that make up a
Normal day of freedom- amplified to epic proportions and
Capsized the raft of sanity I was balancing on. The words
Exploding my calm deluged, defeated, destroyed,
Drowned me with the realization of "not for a very long time".

(April 25, 2009) Dianne Borsenik

Day 25 An Event

Even in 1972, high school graduation
was a major event, although back then all the celebrations
took place on one day.
We girls sewed our own dresses, pastels and florals,
flounces and inserts, cottons and polyesters and fortrel and the rebels wore dark colors.
It was easier for the boys.
We made our own decorations cause way back then,
we had a prom in the gym and nobody dreamed of hiring a limo.
Sesame Street was our theme
(We were the first to schedule lunch breaks at 11:00
so we could invade friends' houses, rejoicing in
the magnificence of Jim Henson's imagination)
and we labored long and hard on recreating the colors
and textures of our favorite characters.

We knew it was a big fire; we could see the smoke
from anywhere in town and everybody came:
kids, parents, grandparents, teachers, firemen, police,
the whole town came to watch the high school burn down.
It was the Sunday (maybe Saturday, I'm not sure anymore)afternoon of the May 21st long weekend. Nobody celebrated. When it actually happened, watching the school burn down
broke our hearts.
Nobody died,
the weight lifters and the basketball players all got out.

We were given rolled up blank pieces of paper,
tied with ribbon, when they held our graduation ceremony
in the gym at the elementary school.

PLEASE IGNORE/DELETE AND OTHERWISE DISREGARD THE SECOND POSTING OF MY POEM. LOL.

A Tiny Miracle

Push, push, push, stop.
Breathe, rest, get ready;
now push, push, push, stop.
Wiping daughter's forehead.

Now push, push, push, stop.
There's the head--dark hair,
ready, now push--the big push,
yes--a beautiful baby girl!

I wipe my daughter's tears of joy
She wanted a girl at first, not boy
Her wish was granted fourth try
My granddaughter is here finally.

It was touch and go for awhile
Three misses and one with surgery.
Learned of bad chromosomes paternally,
But drive for life kept them trying.

Olivia, so sweet and tiny, looks like
dad, but smiles like her mommy.
All cleaned up, weighed, and smiling,
I get to hold our little miracle.

Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday.
It's when the ghosts and goblins appear.
There are vampires, werewolves and demons.
Through the town they spread much fear.

Don't forget the witches and warlocks,
and all the scary monsters from Hell.
Stay away from them all, my friends,
they will put you under their spell.

Great Event

They can be yelling
"Play Ball" or flippng coins
all over the country but
those of us with mature
minds and bodies are preparing
for America's favorite pastime -
taking a nap.

The guitars were tuned,
The amps were abuzZ,
Ft. Lauderdale's Riptide,
Was where it was,
The Magic Lions,
And their first gig,
I opened my beer,
And took a swig.

“Graduation”

You did it,
You made it.
Congratulations.

Hopes are high.
You worked so hard.
Learned so much.

Today is your day.
Your day to be proud,
of all the doors you opened.

Our Wedding Day (by Jeanetta Chrystie)

I awaken, realizing that today is the day.
We will become husband and wife,
to have and to hold, whatever comes our way,
we covenant together with God…for life.

Though it seems as if time was standing still
before our hearts could forever,
be joined in Holy Union where we will
love and grow in life together.

What paradox! That time also appears
to have made a mad dash through
all the days available to prepare,
as in the times together with you.

And now, Our Wedding Day,
hurry to look perfect, gather all the stuff,
people, people everywhere; will there be enough?
The music starts, the people stand,
the aisle walk, you take my hand,
and time thoughtfully pauses as we kneel to pray.

Lord, through the hurry and bustle of life,
guide us, your children, with peaceful heart and mind,
through more than our wedding - becoming husband and wife,
on our lifelong journey together - joyful, playful, loving, and kind.

Christmas


When you are a child
At the merriest time of the year
Every commercial holds promise

And every day holds the possibility that
Presents may have appeared under the tree
While you were at school

Every snowflake is new and exciting
And the smoke from the chimneys looks like
The beard of the jolly old man

When you are a child
With no holiday baggage
To quell the merriment

No one has died on Thanksgiving
No pies have been ruined, no trees toppled
No gift wrap soggy with tears

At the merriest time of the year

"The Day Aunt Mary Died"

Woken from an afternoon nap,
curled like a cat on the parlor couch
on a day when the white tulips
opened by the front walk,
she heard voices at the front door –
first one, saying it,
then her mother, gasping.
She squeezed her eyes shut,
her body still as the stonewall
on Birch Hill, where Aunt Mary
picked the blackberries each year
for her prize-winning blackberry pie.
She held her breath, and tried to
shut her ears, until her mother
shushed everyone, and the door closed,
leaving her alone, cheek pressed
on red brocade, heart pounding.

“Pow Wow” By: Melinda Elmore


Sacred circle
Gathering of Nations

Hawks fly full circle
Pow Wow has begun

Beating of the drum
Soft footsteps tap

Upon Mother Earth
Every spirit gathers around

Beadwork elaborate
Swaying with the drum

With each movement
More sacred it becomes

The Gathering of Nations
A site to behold

Upon Mother Earth
The sacred circle knows

By: Melinda Elmore

Notification Delivered

Look, this letter
from Pulitzer folks,
unopened
and held by the sides
between fingers and thumbs

is scented with applause
and ruby-gemmed throats
and white-ties worn with tuxes

the mighty of literati
gathered and standing
are shouting Brava! Brava!
the pink tiara of stones
in my hair

blinding first chairs
in the orchestra pit
and I am smiling, nodding
my head as if the young queen

upon her coronation.
Every bank statement
is a Pen Faulkner Award,
AT&T bills are Nobel

notifications
I open slowly: the imagination
and muses all, straining
over my shoulder, greedy to read.

Deadline

From the day
the proposal instructions arrive
the clock starts ticking
and we start marching through the process:
plans, review
art work, review
text, review.
Yes, one review after the other
until the last.
We make the final fixes
and go to press.
One last hurdle,
delivery, and we’re finished.
We meet the deadline,
have the ice cream social,
get the goodie letters
and then move on
to the next deadline
and the next and the next.

Weddings and Funerals

The family comes quickly together,
an organism, spread thousands of miles;
suddenly a church-full of similar faces.
Here, the same around the eyes,
there, at mouth or brow, coloring
or hair. There that nose, those dimples,
genes spiral in a helix of helixes
like swirling whirlpools.

His side, her side, the places
we choose to sit or stand, tell all
about us, who we have become,;
from whence we came to be;
how we rose in the gyre of our height,
child, flowering adolescent, adult.
Also, how we descend, decrease,
decay and finally fall and go.
Wed or dead, the family glues
itself around the center soul,
Celebrates expansion or contraction,
and moves through. The whole,

Diminished or grown, each ceremony
mutates and transforms all
the family into what it always is.
How, a tree, after years of blossoms,
blooming and breaking branches,
becomes more than the seed,
becomes part of that which
helps holds up the sky.

The 1961 F.A. Cup Final

Saturday May 6th
100,000 people pack Wembly Stadium
The atmosphere electric
Could Tottenham Hotspur complete the double?
They’d already won the league
Would Leicester City deny them the greatest glory?
The BBC broadcast the match live
Twelve European countries share the transmission
The most famous national football trophy
The prize to be won or lost
Heroes to be made
Honours to be claimed

My father took down the kitchen curtains
To wash them, a favour to my mother
He settles down to watch the game
Glued to the tiny black and white set
Spurs goal disallowed
The first half ends goalless
Then sixty-six minutes in Bobby Smith
Takes his chance: 1-0 to Spurs
The double is on!!!
The seventy-fifth minute sees Leicester hopes dashed
Smith crosses to Dyson and it’s 2-0
Spurs champions of the league
Have won the Cup as well
A famous double
The great Danny Blanchflower lifts the trophy
The Spurs fans go wild with excitement

My father is dismayed
Not because he is a Leicester fan
It’s much, much worse than that
It seems it was only coal dust from the town colliery
That held the kitchen curtains together
He opens the machine
There’s nothing left at all
Mother won’t be pleased
And where is Mother during all this excitement and curtaining chaos?
Why she’s otherwise occupied
Along the road at the General Hospital
And where was I when Spurs won the double?
In a cot by my mothers side
Born half an hour before the kick-off
Unfortunately I missed the match
And Mother laughed when Dad told her about the curtains
She still does!

Iain

Thank You Terry! I enjoyed writing it. As an educator we always look forward to that last day of the year, and the two months of freedom. Most actually start counting down from the first day in September.

Ralph J. Fitcher

Lemonade Stand during Summer Break (event – April 25)

A lemonade stand in my own driveway
Ineffective as a moneymaker
“It’s really cold and sweet, just like you like”
A hopeful expression
An extended glass of pale liquid
Ice clinking against the glass
She knows her customer
Coins pass hands from parent to child
Expectations not very high
For this monopoly
Limited to family distribution
I bought the ingredients
Then paid for the preparation
Who learned more about business?
The child making a small profit
Or the parent understanding profit margin

This is meant to be a Tanka. Hope I've understood the form.



her annual undoing


each may first she goes
to the place where he now lays
leaves flowers and her heart
lying on top of the grave
wondering what might have been.

The First Barbecue of the Season

We fire up the grill, and immediately
it speaks to us of long lazy summer days
spent communing with nature, the drone
of lawnmowers and children’s laughter
the backdrop—I imagine myself
stretched out on a chaise lounge,
the novel I’ve been reading slipped
to one side as I doze, anesthetized
to drowsiness by the sun’s radiant warmth.
I taste the sweetness of the first juicy
ripe summer strawberry melting
off my tongue, reach for the tall
cool glass of ice tea, garnished
with lemon, and gaze with satisfaction
upon the mounds of gladiola,
dahlias and peonies, swaying slightly
on tall, thin stalks, scattered oases
of color in my verdant backyard lawn.
The first heavy drops of rain
begin to plink down then, flattening
themselves out upon our grill,
as summer all at once vanishes
in a sudden sizzle of heat.

Here we go with something new
They call it “Swine Flu”.
Mexico is the source
If you don’t blame pigs, of course!

Chicken pox, dog breath, swine flu
What on earth can we do?
Tick fever, mad-cow disease
Who thought of names like these?

Sadly they are real threats
Sweeping the land like speeding jets.
The aches and pains they inflict
Is far beyond what one can predict.

The question is “what can we do
To escape the ravages of Swine Flu?
Stay at home and wash our hands
Till this epidemic leaves our lands!

Moving Day


It's moving day
and the boxes, packed,
yours in one room
mine in another
stand ready
like soldiers
or football players from opposing teams
facing off
quality versus quantity

I was not ready
for the echoes my footsteps make
in the hall
or the way your voice ricochets
through empty rooms
when at last, you speak

moving day
each of us wondering
who's truck will come first
each of us wondering
how we will go on alone.


Midge VanEtten

Summer Block Party

Nineteen houses, thirty kids
crawling in and out of fire trucks and ambulances,
sliding down water slides and jumping in bounce houses.
Tummies full of snow cones, watermelon and corn-on-the-cob.

Painted cheeks can’t stop smiling at the
wet, sun-soaked bodies all around.
Relaxed parents chat, eat and drink,
discussing the merits of barbeque and
homeownership in times like these.

Night falls, kids don glow-in-the-dark necklaces
and stay up too late.
They recede to their clean sheets with red cheeks, filthy feet
and dreams of a child’s perfect day.
Deep laughter filters through windows for hours until finally
The last of the block “partiers” find their way home.

© 2009 Molly Logan Anderson

The Big Monument

Happy parents, friends and family
gathered together to proudly see,
their sweet young girl or boy
receive first holy communion with joy.
Flowers decorated the altar and pews
and everyone dressed in their best shoes.
Together they prayed in reverance
and watched with glee the innocence.
As each one took the bread and wine,
the choir sang glorious tunes divine.
After the service, all went to the hall
to celebrate with cake and pictures for all.
The day was a tremendously fine event,
one not to be forgotten; a big monument.

Laurie K.

NOTICE:

Grandfather gave me an empty
wooden Havana ten cent cigar box
with this label glued to the bottom:
Factory No. 25
18th District, STATE OF OHIO.
NOTICE.
The manufacturer of the cigars contained herein
has complied with all the requirements of the law.
Every person is cautioned not to use
either this box for cigars again
or the stamp thereon again,
nor to remove the contents of this box
without destroying said stamp,
under the penalties provided
by law in such cases.
So I guess I am safe
in using it these forty years hence
considering it does not hold cigars
but the fragmented collections
of the events in my life
worth keeping
providing they fit in the box.
Photos, ticket stubs, and significant
kicking rocks mingle memories with
my first communion scapular
the two small pieces of cloth
religious stamps
protected in plastic
a picture of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on one
St. Simon Stock on the other
joined together with strings now faded
then worn over my shoulder and back underneath
my dress to signify my membership
in our Catholic church
a symbol of protection stronger than
warnings marked on a cigar box
Pray for us
as I remember
the sweetly sickening scent
of Grandpa's cigar.

Just Yesterday

Was it only yesterday, the day you were born?
It had to be just yesterday, at least I would have sworn.
It was definitely the most scary day I have ever had,
And thinking back on it, in ways it was that bad.

You were so tiny, so beautiful but frail,
And your skin was way more translucent than pale.
The doctor said it took to long for you to take a breath,
And I shudder still remembering him predict your death.

But I held you in my arms, and gently stroked your cheek.
The feelings I had for you were too strong to let me speak,
My eyes filled up with tears and I prayed with all my might
'Dear God protect my little one,please let him be all right.'

And now it's been so many years, and you are now a man,
Handsome, and so funny, yes I'm your biggest fan.
No matter how old you get, for me it was just yesterday,
I was blessed with a special child who stole my heart away.

(A major “event” occurring in “outer-space” that has been unfolding for
billions of years under God’s jurisdiction)

© Richard-Merlin Atwater April 25, 2009

THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE

The marvels of the planet Earth transcend the mortal mind,
And yet there lies a Universe of vast, unfathomed space
Of Stars, of Galaxies, and a myriad of unknown kind
Which yet await a deeper search for conquest in the race.

Our mortal globe was placed by God to service all mankind.
A home for beast and fish and fowl, and a botanic garden too!
For placed within its atmosphere is the known living rind,
Both spirit and body, make a soul for experience on "the planet blue".

And this "blue globe", our mother Earth, a spaceship as to be,
Encircles Sun with precision course around its orbit zone.
With axis tilted in exact accordance as was meant to be,
While spinning around like a school child's top a circling at home.

The planet Earth, "the living planet", is teeming with known life!
From here we begin to expand our knowledge beyond the mortal realm.
In search of truth, a greater knowledge, sometimes known as light.
But not just spectrum of emanation, but rather assurety and calm.

To have the knowledge of the Gods on Mt. Olympus throne,
Not of Zeus, nor of Apollo, but our living Heavenly Father.
Creator of the worlds unknown, beyond the Terrestrial stone.
Where life eternal continues to expand, and all eternity gather.

We begin our search as to the Sun we look for evidence,
A ball of fire for energy which emanates to sustain life.
Placed 93 million miles from home by the hand of Providence,
'Twas Jesus Christ, the God of Earth, Creator, and Bridegroom wife--

Who placed this Star in fixed position to carry out its course:
The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser to rule the night.
The noonday Sun in glorious splendor, a mighty, stalwart force.
And the Lunar, Moon, at eventide to balance out the sight.

And 'round the Sun in orbit zones revolve nine known planets,
We call the group our Solar System because of their common tie.
But life is found on only one, the planet Earth, made of granite.
Though each unique within its realm provides a congregation in the sky.

So let us now begin our search, expand our discovery too,
And look upon this limited realm of our Solar System clan,
The Sun, and Comets, and Asteroids, and nine planets with their satellites anew.
Survey their make-up, revolutions and velocity, and distance at hand.

Perhaps we first should view the Moon revolving around the Earth,
Which orbits us with only one side facing us,
The dark side of the Moon, more rugged, cratered without mirth,
And no water and no atmosphere revealed there is no life, thus:

'Apollo missions' to the Moon brought man to stand on thee
To find with half a ton of Lunar material the rocks were just like ours,
And mountains, craters, and broad, flat, unwatered 'Maria seas",
But no man, no animals, and no botanic plants or flowers.

The astronauts left scientific monitoring stations way up there upon
the Moon,
And Lunar exploration continued since that date of destiny:
July 20th, 1969, a small step for man, but a great leap for mankind's boon.
Six landings o'er three years, twelve men to stand on thee.

Four hundred thousand kilometers away from planet Earth.
A four day voyage for the trip for trained and ready astronauts,
And signals beamed back to our globe revealed that 'moonquakes' are
given birth,
While the Moon slowly backs away from us an inch each year in
gravitational slots.

So now the Earth we may survey from the surface of the Moon.
And view the planet we call 'home' with its 40,000 kilometer circumference.
Which passes by at orbit speed of 100,000 kilometers per hour in tune
With all the equations set by God to make it an habitable recompense.

An Earth with air to breathe, and necessary water to sustain life.
A bluish star disk, so to speak, with reddish and greenish zones,
With whitish stretches of wisps, streaks, and spirals that contrive
Respective continents, oceans, and fluffy clouds like cones.

Old mother Earth, with living things of carbon-based and water molecules,
Organic living cells of micro-organisms with amino acids and proteins,
That grow and reproduce themselves when energized by fuels,
Make up "the living planet", this Earth of ours, and its Terrestrial scenes.

Back to the Sun we take our quest to understand its strength,
380,000 billion-billion kilowatts of radiant solar power,
The energy in one seconds time emitted here at length
Is greater than all mankind has consumed in all of histories hour.

A surface temperature in absolute, or Kelvin known degrees,
'Tis 5,750 degrees K, like a gigantic thermonuclear bomb,
With a diameter three times more than the distance one sees
From Earth to Moon, in measurement 1,392,000 kilometers long.

This fiery sphere of gaseous explosions transcends even our imagination,
A nucleus center is a colossal furnace 25 million degrees hot.
Surrounded by a radiative zone which transmits deadly radiation
And a photosphere opaque barrier surrounds the solar spot.

Beyond the convective granulation process lies the outer chromosphere,
With sunspots and flares of flashing light of great enormous flames,
And on to the silvery corona zone where clouds of pearly white appear,
A luminescent, zodiacal light, which solar system dust diffuses into games.

So now our Sun 'tis but a Star within the universe,
And there are thousands of millions of Stars just like our Solar Sun.
For every Star is but a Sun to carry out its course,
To accentuate light and heat and energy, and sustain life on the run.

Now to the congregation in the sky within the Solar Group,
We look to Planets, large and small as judged upon our scale,
The first, and nearest to the Sun, is Mercury which makes the loop
Around the Sun in orbit days of 59, the period of its rotation without fail.

With three rotations on its axis during two revolutions around the Sun,
Mercury slowly moves about with alternations, day to night.
At midday +350 degrees C, illuminated hot, quite 'well done'.
And the dark side hitting -170 degrees C, no atmosphere, the cold to blight.

The merciless rays of the nearby Sun have parched this Planet like the Moon.
Magnetic fields and helium gas provide no protective atmosphere,
And riddled craters, large and small, appear in sequential groups in tune
Like aligned escarpments, while cooling and contraction of the iron core adhere.

And Mercury, its orbit zone 36 million miles from the Sun,
With a diameter of 3,000miles to make it seem quite small
In comparison to other spheres, Celestial orbits on the run,
Is always viewed in the glare of the Sun, if 'tis seen at all.

The second Planet in our scope 'tis Venus, known as Earth's twin!
Closest neighbor, about same size and density, but deceptive to the truth:
For Venus fits the classic description of a 'Hell' with sin--
A place so hot that even 'the Devil' would cease to be uncouth.

A 12,106 kilometer planetary diameter with a solid matter crust,
Venus revolves backward around its own axis in 243 days.
And high velocity winds which rain down sulfuric acid dust
Are coupled with solar radiation which heats the ground with carbon dioxide
and infrared rays.


Thus Venus has 480 degrees C, or 900 degrees F, temperature to boot!
Enough to melt lead and glass on its mostly flat terrain,
Though craters do exist, and fluoro-sulphuric acid says we wouldn't give a hoot
About landing there, for thoughts to live on Venus would only be insane!

Now passing mother Earth again, beyond this orb of ours,
We travel off to Mars, the red Planet, known to all:
Of Martians, those "one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater', powers
That do not exist but in science fiction land, and tales of ours, so tall!

But Mars is a Planet smaller than the Earth, with a diameter 6,787 kilometers
deep.
It moves around in orbit 227,900 kilometers distance from the Sun.
Thus a year on Mars is 687 days long, and more than a 24 and one-half hour
day to keep.
With polar caps, craters, rocks, and Tharsis: an immense and high plateau on
which to run.

And four gigantic volcanoes, like Mons Olympus do exist,
26,000 meters high, 600 kilometers wide, three times bigger than Hawaii's
Mauna Loa!
And the so-called Valles Marineris canyons also do persist,
4,000 kilometers long, 120 kilometers wide, 6,000 meters deep, "Mama mia!"

And yet on Mars we also find in the southern hemisphere a great basin,
An enormous circular zone called "Hellas", 4,000 meters deep,
Possibly caused by a great meteorite, flat and without formation,
And connected therewith, great sandstorms and high winds, that form a dust
cloud left in a heap!

The atmosphere of Mars is of carbon dioxide too!
And white polar caps of carbonic acid ice condense and melt to move,
While the temperature remains somewhat colder than the dew,
At +15 degrees C midday summer, and -100 degrees C on a winter's night in
groove.

And finally two Moons exist, Phobos and Deimos, to orbit 'round old Mars,
One close in, and one at distance, to rise from opposite horizons,
And iron oxide on the surface, coupled with the dusty windbars,
Creates a red or pinkish sky around the red planet's contrivance.


And now a break we take from looking at the known and major Planets
To view the Asteroids, those micro-meteorites, or minor planetary orbs.
Within a belt-zone between the orbit of Mars, and Jupiter's transits,
They also orbit around the Sun in elliptical fashion like rocky blobs.

3,000 Asteroids have received definitive numbers of identification.
There may be as many as 22 million, but by name the largest ones
Are known as Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta: the brightest of the configuration,
While Icarus, Hidalgo, Apollo, Adonis, and Hermes come closest and furtherest
to the Earth for fun!

The Sun's family includes also those objects known as Comets,
Mountains of ice floating through space, and there are billions that exist,
They're water ice, dry ice, ammonia with dust and grit on it--
And they orbit the Sun from millions of miles away, and persist!

There's Halley's Comet passing by with a 76 year period.
The nucleus ice is surrounded by a cloud of known material.
Heat from the Sun vaporizes to produce an atmosphere "Coma" myriad.
The vapor material streams away in a long "Coma tail" that seems ethereal!

Spherical clouds of Comets, perhaps *one light year from the Sun
Begin their journey through Space, then cross the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter.
Solar radiation and solar wind push the Comet's tails outwards on the run,
A nucleus head 63,000 miles in diameter, may have a hydrogen cloud tail 31
million miles across the speedometer!

(*A light year = 6 trillion miles, or 9.5 trillion kilometers and is
the distance that light travels in one year at a speed of 186,000
miles per second, or 300,000 kilometers per second. Light travels
approximately seven times around the Earth in one second.)

A typical bright Comet will cross the Earth's orbit at an exceeding great high
speed,
And on the way lose 8 to 22 tons of material per second as it passes on its way!
Thus a Comet in flight may pass the Sun about a hundred times in need
Before it finally evaporates to be replaced by another on some distant day!


Now a third phenomena, besides the Asteroids and Comets, is known as
Meteoroids,
Like a 'falling star' it's a piece of a Comet that orbits 'round the Sun,
Gravel-sized particles that finally remain in the old Comet's path, filling in
the voids.
But if perchance they head towards a Planet it may be like a solar gun!

With a burned up fiery entry to the Planet's known atmosphere, day or night--
They become Meteors, known as 'shooting' or 'falling stars'.
A survival passage that lands on the ground is called a Meteorite,
While many Meteoroids appear as a Meteor shower when the Earth passes
through a Cometary orbit, like L.A. commuter cars!

Back to the Planets, Jupiter next is the one that's a giant in size.
It revolves around the Sun 778 million kilometers in distance away,
Making a complete revolution every 11 years, and 317 days we surmise,
With equatorial diameter of 142,800 kilometers, rotating 9 hours, 50 minutes,
and 30 seconds to make a day!

Jupiter's most famous observed configuration is the so-called 'red spot',
And bright and dark bands or belts parallel to the equator.
The red spot is three times the size of Earth and seems to float like a dot.
But landing on the Planet would pose problems, even for "Star Trek's"
Commander Data--

On Jupiter there is no ground, for it is a single ocean of liquid molecular
hydrogen.
'Tis 24,000 kilometers deep, at 11,000 degrees C on just the beginning layer.
Another 43,000 kilometers deep a liquid metallic state of atoms emitting heat
like the Sun,
And a core nucleus at 30,000 degrees C, one can tell it is hot and yet not be a
soothsayer!

This Planet's volume is one thousand times that of Earth, with sixteen known
moons.
And the great red spot is now known to be a huge vortex of cloud formations,
'Tis a hurricane swirling, much larger than Earth as it swoons.
And the night side of Jupiter has a ghostly aurora, with huge lightning storms
in gyrations.

The major satellite Moons of Jupiter are: Io, covered with active volcanoes,
And having a surface of molten sulfur which gives it bright yellow and
orange colors.
There's Europa, Callistro, and Ganymede, the other major Moons that pose
In some cases worlds in their own right, even larger than Mercury's planetary
umbrellas.

These planetary satellites, as all others, do not radiate light or heat,
And a Planet is the center of their revolutionary motion.
In the entire Solar System there are thirty-three satellites, and I repeat--
They may be as interesting as the Planets themselves, like "poetry in motion."


Saturn, the ringed Planet, revolves around the Sun at a 1,428 million kilometer
distance.
Its mass is over 94 times that of Earth, and orbits in 29 years, 167 days.
The equatorial diameter is 120,800 kilometers, and axial rotation of 10 hours
and 14 minutes insistance.
And is crossed by belts like Jupiter, while the rings are millions of tiny Moons
revolving in so many ways.

There are thousands of ringlets around old Saturn like the grooves on a
phonograph disk,
Called sheperding Moons, or also Moonlets, with dark and light streaks running
'cross.
Which are spokes to the rings radiating out from the Planet brisk,
And the rings largest width is at 276,000kilometers, and 11,000 kilometers
distance out from the planetary boss.

Near Saturn's equator huge thunderstorms rage 40,000 miles wide,
It encircles the Planet packing gusty winds 12,000 miles per hour.
Thick smog covers the Planet, which also has immense arches that divide
The landscape into various gradations of color, luminosity, transparency,
and reach up to the sky in great power.

The second largest satellite in the Solar System clan 'tis Saturn's Titan Moon.
Titan is known to have an atmosphere predominantly like Earth's nitrogen,
But you could not breathe even one breath at all , for no oxygen exists, not
even a spoon!
And abundantly there is a methane sea of liquid, and solid, and gas by the ton.

Uranus Planet is a gaseous one, like Jupiter in arrays,
With faint, green, horizontal stripes, and at least ten Moons, and 4.1 times
the diameter of Earth.
It is tipped on its axis, tilted more than any other Planet, to nearly completely
sideways!
As it rolls on its side, covered with a murky haze, surrounded by nine rings
since birth.

The solar revolution is 84 years and 7 days, at a mean distance of a 2,872
million kilometers run,
And a Uranus diameter of 51,000 kilometers, with the velocity of axial rotation
at 10 hours, and 49 minutes around.
But a peculiar feature is the polar axis, around which it rotates for fun,
Lies almost in the plane of its orbit, for something strange to abound:

Uranus alternately turns one pole towards the Sun for a very long period of
time,
While the opposite pole remains dark and cold to await its turn for the heat,
And like Jupiter and Saturn, the Planet Uranus, has no ground to turn on a
dime!
And the narrow dark rings are sharply defined, but in contest with Saturn's
they do not compete.

Uranus' Moons are a peculiar lot with different configured landscapes,
The outer most satellite Oberon has ice volcanoes on the surface to see,
While Ariel of 725 miles diameter contains branching, smooth valley floor
drapes,
And Miranda has huge 10 mile high cliffs, and rectangular fractured racetrack
like grooves and ridges to be.

Neptune is next, but not from the sea, it's the eigth Planet in our count,
With a 49,500 kilometer diameter it is slightly less than that of Uranus,
And at 2.8 billion miles from Earth it's hard to detect a great amount,
It was gravitationally detected before visually seen for its gravity was pulling
on Uranus.

The period of rotation seems to be 16 hours, determined spectroscopically,
With an atmosphere of 500 kilometers height extension beyond the surface mass,
Composed of methane, hydrogen, and helium, the surface must be far from
being tropically,
At -200 degrees C temperature, or less, and probably mostly gas.

Now Neptune has two peculiar Moons, the closest is Triton I'm told,
With a 3,000 mile diameter, it travels backward in orbit, different from
all solar orbs!
And tidal forces cause it slowly to spiral inward toward the Planet fold,
So eventually it will pull it apart, creating rings around Neptune, like an
editor from magazine Forbes!

The other Moon controlled by Neptune has been named Nereid by astronomer
man,
An elongated orbit brings it to within 800,000 miles of Neptune's dance,
Then it sails outward to a distance of 6 million miles, an eccentric orbit ban,
Which takes a year to complete, Oh what a feat, as around Neptune to continue
its prance!

And now to Pluto, the Mickey Mouse dog, Nay, the distant Planet unknown!
For many a year the astronomers cheer to find the mystery Planet of ice,
And in 1930 'twas finally discovered at 5,910 million kilometers distance from
the Sun's tone,
And Pluto's color is almost identical to the color of the Sun, Oh how nice!

Pluto reflects the Sun's light without altering its quality, thus it is white,
Most likely the Planet is covered about with immense stretches of ice and snow.
'Tis cold, and dark, an isolated place, good ground for the demons to fight,
As they wrestle about to heat up the place, and conjure up images of woe!

And notwithstanding small size, about that of Mars, Pluto retains a gaseous
envelope,
But due to its distance from the Sun the atmosphere is rapidly froze,
At -230 degrees C, a very low temperature, it may look like a radiant
cantaloupe!
That rotates perhaps six days, nine hours, and 20 minutes on its axis nose.

But Pluto itself is not alone, for once on a solar eclipse
It was found that even Pluto has a Moon, by the name of Charon given,
But a night black sky is strewn with bright Stars to view as hot chocolate one sips
While setting relaxed on the ice mound there overlooking the distant heavens!


Now let's take a break and surmise and peruse what we've done, the Solar
System clan to survey,
We have come so far from the Sun that it appears like a small point or dot
on the Celestial map.
A few billion miles out from the Sun, with Planets in circular orbit array,
But it seems as if we actually have never left the Earth as compared to
the Stars trap!

This enormous system which revolves around the Sun is the Solar System clan,
And the measured diameter across this array is 12,000 million kilometers wide,
And even the limits of this immense amount of space are inaccessible to
exploration by man,
Yet 'tis 8,000 times longer in distance, than to the edge of our clan, to
the nearest Star by our side.

But even to the edge of our own Solar System that we so limitedly know,
The Sun's presence in the sky is not sufficient to dispel the darkness of cosmic
night,
For even at Uranus in its orbitary plane our Sun is seen as a Star to glow,
And traversing this distance we soon realize night reigns every where out in
space, Oh what a sight!

And here on the Earth active lives of mankind are etched out in the light of day,
Yet this general phenomenon, of daylight in which to live, is quite rare in the
immensity of space.
For it only occurs on the surface of planets near the Sun with an atmospheric
array
Which diffuses the light of the Sun from its rays to give us such radiant grace!


'Tis night, but not darkness, that prevails, as we said, to the bounds of
the universe.
For as the Sun disappears from our terrestrial day, the starry night follows its
course,
And thousands of Suns are seen in array like Stars in a poet's verse,
As cosmic night reveals the truth concerning an expanding universe and all
of its powerful force!

And the cosmic night opens up the way to the firmament placed up above,
For a journey into space toward new Earths and new Suns, and the mystery
of the unknown,
To discover the Alpha and the Omega of all Creation, which began with
agape LOVE,
And to understand the meaning of our own existence, and to sit with God
on His throne.

Now leaving our Solar System far behind, we move on to the nearest Star,
Called Alpha Centauri, an astronomical name, to identify by configuration,
'Tis 100 million times the distance that separate Earth from Moon to reach
out just this far,
And at Space Shuttle speed now known to man, would take 500,000 years
to arrive on station!

But at speed of light, one second to the Moon from Earth, the voyage would
only be 4.3 years,
To Alpha Centauri, a Sun and a Star, the closest to our very own;
Yet in the world of Stars our motion thus far shows the heavens to similarly
appear,
For our space journey this distance is scarcely a perceptible step into the
unknown.

So now on to stellar evolution, or the birth of nova stars,
For there is stellar life and stellar death among the cosmic force,
And "nova", which means "new star" is a beginning, way off far,
But the life cycle of the stars is full of chapters in a course.

Stellar objects, there are many one can find now to observe,
Planetary nebulas, white dwarfs, and neutrons stars,
There are pulsars, supernova remnants, and black holes to curve,
Double stars, and multiples, and each is different from the par (s).

And we measure out the distance by the use of parallax,
Learning from surveyors how to cross the heavens fix,
As the Earth moves in its orbit 'round the Sun, while we relax,
One can angle: "shift of parallax of stars", one of astronomy's many tricks!

Thus to answer many questions 'bout those objects in the sky,
How far away? How hot? How bright? Or Just how big they are?
Perhaps to know what Stars are made of? How much matter in the dye?
Fundamental, basic questions of such things both near and far!

So let's travel first within us, using imaginations tool!
Off to Proxima Centauri, as we travel by the speed of thought,
As we arrive there in an instant we can not approach the fiery stool,
Thus we land on one of its planets, like the Earth--perhaps 'tis caught:

In an orbitrary travel 'round a Sun much like our own,
With a moon as its companion, and a solar planetary group,
As we look off to the distance towards Cassiopeia Constellation clone,
Where it adjoins the Constellation Perseus in a dance like "Betty Boop".

Thus we see a yellowStar there much like Rigel or Procyon,
Similar in brightness, but never, ever seen before:
'Tis our Sun, this new bright star as we greet the light of dawn,
From a distant globe in space which opens heavens door!

And the Sun which brings us daylight, 'tis not the Sun we call our own,
But rather Alpha Centauri on the horizon of a new and brighter day,
In surroundings perhaps somewhat different than our own Terrestrial drone,
But not so extraordinary as science fiction would have us thus portray.

For now we see that life eternal in the great expanse called Universe
Is made of populations from the species of the Gods,
There is man and there is woman to wrestle out "the Fall" and curse,
To be redeemed through consecration, or fall to lesser planetary pods.

For God Almighty in His discourse to the prophets long ago
Said: "Many worlds have I created, and many are destroyed."
But My work and also glory is to counter the opposition foe,
And bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man unalloyed.

In the limited scope and knowledge of man
We now turn our thoughts to the things that we see,
With telescopic vision, and like 'gold in a pan',
We can mine from 'the streambed of space', from A to Z.

Many Stars may appear "single" to the naked eye,
But seen through a telescope it may show that there's two,
A "double Star", or two Suns if you will, confide
That one moves around the other along 'the arc of ellipse', a clue--


That "double Stars" are not just a matter of perspective
Where juxtapositioning for distance holds sway,
But rather two Stars are connected to give
Shadows, and light, and varying colors to planetary array!

The first "double Star" discovered by man in his search
Is Mizar, the center handle of three Stars called "the Plough".
'Tis a "double Star" even to the naked eye on our perch,
An observatory which sees way beyond the clouds.

And the "double Star" phenomenon allows us to configure by math
Positional measurements, and absolute orbits of both Stars,
The ratio of the major semiaxes, and of the individual mass.
Thus man has succeeded to even weigh the Stars!

And the astronomers conclusion by all of this fix
Is an interesting idea of the situation to be---
Generally most Stars weigh about as much as our Sun as it ticks,
But some weigh ten times, and others one-tenth as much as she!

================================================================
Poet's Note:
Unfinished Poem---will continue going to the stars and beyond later---sort of like The Unfinished Symphony---it takes time to complete!

Today is the birthday party
she is ten
and beginning to think that she knows
everything.
No matter,
we get up early,
make a strawberry ice cream cake
tidy up the house
fix all kinds of goodies to eat
and games to play
. . . . .
and wait
very long minutes
for the guests to arrive.

Intimate Event

An entire day spent with siblings in
dysfunctional mode all over the globe,
ghosts of night-time monsters weaving
old patterns, old resentment right through
the discussion of what to do;
two bitter, brittle old ones being
swallowed by time and Alzheimer's.

Decisions to be made faded in the shade
of who did what to who and
who suffered enough for two,
laundry lists of daily dues read through.
It was an entire day and I was spent,
went to bed in the wee hours, released
to peace and my plump waiting pillow.

Apparently, around about two-thirty I rose up,
one cycle of sleep run through,
hauled off and punched the daylights out of
my patient, loving husband's shoulder.
I have no memory of the event.

Hey Iain, you lovely ol' sod...I loved your "turn left at..." poem yesterday. Now there's the guy I got into the rowboat with on a rum and a dare! Lox

The coming of Spring

It doesn't feel much different than
any other day since I've lived
in California. Each day from
September to April has been so
incredibly temperate and sunny
that I've grown to miss the chill
that October brings in New Jersey
and the snow that starts to dust cars
and tops of houses in January.
"The flowers are just starting to bloom",
my mother tells me on the phone.
"They have been here all along," I tell her.
It almost seems too perfect, as if
I don't deserve this pristine backdrop to my life.

The Storm, “Charlie” (hurricane FL 2005)

Waves broke like thunder claps against the shore
The trees bowed their long bodies nearly to the ground
Roars of winds growled
And slammed against the houses, windows, and ripped off shingles
Proclaiming its might and challenging anything man made
Laughing at all the structures as it blasted them with its hot breath
Buckling the buildings, throwing trees around like toys
Smashing windows from outside in and inside out
Destroying everything in its path
Even taking life, like it meant nothing.

Then the eye, silence enough to frighten even the penitent
Strong and silent, but promising more fury to follow
Just a glimpse of quiet before the train wreck continued
Powerful wall of destruction
Until we shook for fear at all the destruction
Until we begged for mercy that did not come.

Then, it was over
We ventured forth to see what could be salvaged
The neighborhood looked like a battle zone
Looters came
Then the volunteers
Sweat and blood mingled as the reconstruction began
Rain, followed by a lot more rain, and wind, lightening, and fear
But, just as it had begun, with the first crashing wave coming ashore, it had gone
Leaving a path of rubble and lives splintered.

Then, quite by surprise, I lifted my eyes to the heavens
There, against the gray ominous clouds stacking up against each other in the
West was an arch of color from road to sky
A rainbow, a promise, a gift

SusanB, I enjoyed your story poem. Fun to read.

Company Party

long time ago, when corporate still allowed
Christmas, when open-bars were standard,
when we’d never heard of designated drivers

all glammed up, with our poofy layers of hair,
aircraft carrier shoulder pads, we hit the party
to see who would play this year’s fool, I felt

hot, no, foxy!, in my one-piece electric-blue
jumpsuit, carried a little beaded purse, empty
except for ID, lipstick, car-keys, twenty

emergency dollars, straight to the bar, hit up
the man in the white shirt for a Fuzzy Navel,
sucked it down through a little red straw,

again, again, woke up in my own bed next day,
pictures say I had a great time, kissed Santa,
danced with the boss, drove home pregnant

This is ort of a sequel to yesterdays poem so if you missed it you may be confused....

A giant leap for mankind

The whole world watched
Amazed at the event taking place
Stunned crowds gathered round TV shops
In cities across the globe
Families huddled around their sets
Holding their breath
On the 20th of July 1969
Neil Alden Armstrong stepped on to the moon
The world exhaled in one global moment of elation and awe
He spoke the never to be forgotten words
“One small step for a man…
..a giant leap for mankind”
Four other eyes focused and stared
At the man in the strange garb
The two observers were seeing the event from a much close perspective
It was something their kind had been waiting for
Waiting for longer than most could remember
Now at last the waiting was over
The looked at each other half smiling
Half concerned for what the future held
The Dragon turned to the dwarf and whispered
“You see! I told you they’d figure it out”


Iain

The Christmas Concert


The hall is packed
With parents

Except hers.

She knows her friends are peeking
From behind the curtains to wave
To their parents
And to gossip about her.

She pretends they have to work late.
And that they just might make it.
If....
They care enough.

They snigger. They know. They gloat

The teacher had asked who wanted to be
The Hind Legs Of The Donkey.
Taking Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, the House of Bread.

Nobody’s hands went up, except hers.

That way, she thought, they wouldn’t see her crying.
And she wouldn’t have to sit out
The performance backstage.

Curtain up.

“When fishes flew and forests walked, and...
Fish grew up on thorns... some moment when...
The Moon was Blood...”

...intones the Reader.

As the Donkey walks majestically up the aisle
Between the seats
Front Legs whispers to Hind Legs
“Your Ma and Pa are here...
How funny! How silly!
They are holding hands!”

She struggles to undo the zipper from inside...
But cannot.
She gasps for breath.

Her legs give way.
Donkey collapses.

The audience thinks its part of the show
And laughs delightedly
At the absurdity of it all.

The Show Must Go On...
And it does.... without her.

Front Legs sits on empty haunches.

And the Concert continues.
As she watches from her mother’s lap.

Chesterfield Fetish Munch

Come one, come all ;
come to the party,
come have a ball.
Come in your leatherwear,
come in your frocks;
come in your rubber,
come in your socks.
Come to buy handcuffs,
come to buy whips
come to buy cock-rings
and clamps for your nips.
Come to watch demos
come to be seen.
Come to the C-munch
a fetishist’s dream.

MENTAL EVENTS

Our lives are important.

We cannot predict tomorrows or todays.

Our condition is a cosmic tragedy and
cannot be improved.

Our lives are hideous and amazing.

We cannot be giving away our hearts just
to be stepped on.

Our lives are too short.

The easiest way to find something you
have lost is to buy a new one.

Our lives are changed forever.

We cannot be giving away...
We cannot be giving away...

Our lives are ours alone.

Back Home From College


Thrown back into home
life – heavy – after I've been

away— four years. Ma picks up
right where she left off—

talking about Miss Wright,
the art teacher, and how

she wore, to a church function,
a gray wool dress & sneakers—

“…when she crossed her legs
I had to bite my lip to keep

from laughing.” And daddy is still
stuck on the left side of the sofa

hollering at the television
about the Mets or about the numbers

that came out— the ones he almost
played.

PS Msr. Le Kemp...I really enjoyed today's storytelling too!

College Graduation

That I was thirty-one the year
I finished my B.A. was of
no consequence. I wanted to
go out like any giddy twenty-
something; a red paper cactus
pinata topped my mortarboard,
confetti poppers filled my pockets,
I shook it all the way across
the stage and jumped the last three steps.
At six o'clock that night I ate
a square, and smiled until my sockets
hurt; I owned the bar, slept in my car.

Closing Session at Spectrum

Two and a half days of meetings
were finally drawing to close.
People calling farewell greetings
when the speaker finally rose.

“Stress is not an event. Stress is how we’ve chosen to perceive an event.”*

Having caught the listeners’ ears
the speaker then began to laugh.
She told stories from childhood years
wielding words like a magic staff.

“It is your job to make sure you hear laughter every day.”*

The tales she told, the wisdom shared
pulled laughter from throughout the room –
for to ignore her no one dared –
and grins on most faces did bloom.

“If you laugh your head off, well … that’s pretty much when the fun stops.”*

She said that each one has a choice,
we can do whatever we want.
A calling we all need to voice
and from it, let no one else daunt.

“Your job, regardless of what it is, does not define you.”*

She left us too quickly that day,
for another event ‘twas planned.
Yet her eyes twinkled all the way,
“Till I’m gone, please give me a hand!”


*Quotes from T Marni Vos, educator, humorist, public speaker and an inspiration. http://www.tmarnivos.com/#

Nita G Isenhour
April 25, 2009
PAD Challenge prompt # 5: event

Writer's Digest magazine: Challenge for National Poetry Month (one poem a day) April 25, 2009 poetry prompt word: "event". This is about my 200th poem for the month. Rich Atwater--- a real event that happened this morning 8AM to noon at Bay Pine's Veterna;s Hospital St Petersburg, FL, and othe rplaces all over the South East Area of the USA under Priesthood Leadership jurisdiction--
=================================================================

Today's Event (C) Richard-Merlin Atwater

Several hundred thousand Mormon's true,
Dressed in yellow shirts with hands of green and blue,
On front, on back, to symbolize "the days event",
"Mormon Helping Hands" in South East USA were sent,

By Priesthood Leadership on a "Service Project" day,
To Veteran'a Hospitals to work without pay,
And thus show the admonition of our Lord,
'Tis better to be "of service to others" than just sit and read His word.

And so my friends of every land and clime,
Let's get out, to be of "One heart, One-shirt-color, and One mind,
To live the life that JESUS taught in "the rod of iron"---
Become, not just in word, but in deed, the meaning of ZION!

“Mother’s Day 2009”

Last year two.
This year one.
One phone call
One bouquet
One card
One “I love you”
Not two
Last year two
Two sons.

Oh, his back hurt in summer.
It had for years.
She should have never let him
Why hadn’t she stopped him?
Let him move her boxes
When she moved into assisted living.

In fall he had the surgery.
A mother always worries.
Rods, pins, braces
He looked so uncomfortable.

The beginning of winter
He said the word
The word that changed
Her worry to terror:
Cancer.

She prayed and prayed
Called everyone she knew
To pray.
They promised
To pray.

In late winter he went
Into the hospital
For the treatment that might
Change everything.
But not in the way
She had prayed for.

Now one.
Not two.
One bouquet
One phone call
One card
But in her prayers
Two I love you’s.

WAITING TO NOT WALK


Standing in an
alcove
waiting on
thick carpet
constricted by gold flocked
walls and gilt
mirrors
her eyes
reflected as she'd
hoped maybe somehow
they wouldn't
her complete
confidence
that this was all
wrong
Waiting in that alcove
lace dress sticking
to every tender
piece of flesh
she listened
for the reprieve
She was sure would come
Her father beside her
her father who
always knew
her
every thought
Standing in that alcove
she waits for him
to say those words
she has heard
over and again
echoing in her mind
willing them
into sound
"You Don't Have To"
he'll say.
"No" I don't she'll
smile and laugh and
won't.
Waiting in the alcove
music swells from
beyond a curtain
Her father's eyes
sparkle with sudden tears
and
finally
Finally he speaks
to her heart lifted
on hope realized
He speaks
and smiles
He smiles
and says
wiping a
misunderstood tear from
her cheek
"Baby. Let's get this show
on the road"
And the curtain
opens
exposing
her
to the waiting all
as they
begin the
walk
down the aisle
The aisle
littered with
broken roses
Into a future already
written in disappearing
ink...

Vacation

Twelve long days mark the end
of this and the beginning of that.
At least for a moment. I’ll trade
my white papers for white beaches,
my spreadsheets for sunscreen and
sandals. On those days I’ll keep
time with the sands washed in by
the surf. I’ll toast myself golden
under the fire of a burnished sky.
I’ll sleep to lullabies murmured
by lazy waves. Oh for that to be
the job that pays for my wanton
curiosity to learn what it might be
like to sit in an office and peck
strings of words on a keyboard,
an unusual break from an overly
indulgent life.

Sociology is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the science of society, social institutions, and social relationships ; specifically : the systematic study of the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings”
*******************************

SOCIOLOGY CLASS
T/TH 9-11:15
ACADEMY HALL RM 204

By: Nikki Markle

On time, for once, I
Didn’t need to sneak
In the back door, but
Dutifully reviewed my
Notes as the teacher
Watched the news.

No one cracked a book
Or complained that they’d
Crammed for a test that
Would have to wait.

We all stared, too shocked
To cry at first, but not
Embarrassed to want to.
Thirty kids witnessing a
Devastating lesson in the
“Interaction between organized
Groups of human beings.”

Who could have known
That today would be
Burnt into my consciousness?
The first time I ever felt a
Connection to the human race,
And yet to have it marred by
Shame in being a human,
If such beings were capable
Of such needless cruelty.


***********************************************

I’d always heard that you never forget where you were when something important happens; I remember my mom telling me exactly what she was doing when she heard JFK had been shot. I wish I’d never found it out first hand, honestly.

Saturday Afternoon Swimming Session


It's in their eyes. I see it.
I am a missile, the tidal wave
that swallows their children,


who clearly should not
have to watch where they're going –
that is breast-diving, leap-splashing, frog-stroking


play, not swimming as such.
If asked politely, I would say
I have no wish to steal


their love of water, gladly
side-swim out of their way
if they'd only look


and their parents not stare
with eyes that clearly shout:
“Saturday's pool session is not for swimming.”


Sarah James, UK.

(Perhaps this poem may need some explaining, as I'm not sure if people in other countries tend to have their own pools or have to use leisure centres as we do over here. Mine, as you can probably tell, is always over-used so neither serious swimmers, leisure swimmers nor learner swimmers - such as my own children - can really enjoy it fully. Still, we make do...just about!)

TITLE CORRECTION

9-11-2001
SOCIOLOGY CLASS
T/TH 9-11:15
ACADEMY HALL RM 204

Ma’s 70th birthday


I snuck around the corner
creeping, crawling
not to cause a stir.

They all waited,
held their breath.

There was silence.

She turned…
She saw me…

A scream,
A true surprise.

I traveled
Seven hundred miles
to the outskirts of Detroit

To celebrate a special life…

The 70th year of her existence.

By Lynn Potter 4/25/09

Heather Day


They come from far and near
Some to see the statue
while others just want to hear
about all that is Heather and her crew

Some travel a very long way
Just to be a part of the crowd
For Heather Day
It’s true they can get loud
But, it’s just that they
Are just so proud
to be a part of the celebration
To be able to show their adulation
For Heather and her crew
After all they were able to do

There is not a child on Mars
Who has not learned of the great wars
Between earth and Mars
Nor, how Heather opened the doors
For peace negotiations
creating the unity shared by both nations

Though it was many thousands of years ago
Every government requires that every child know
Every detail of Heather and her crew
Every sacrifice
How every bit of it is true
Ultimately how she paid the price
most importantly how peace grew

Yes, it’s Heather Day
A tribute to a true hero
who’s legacy reminds us everyday
with determination good always wins
No matter the size of your foe
As long as you realize, its with you, that success begins. . .

©Ralph J. Fitcher, April 25, 2009, Event Poem. Fictional yes, but we created Heather here, so
why not create a holiday for her too. For those of you unfamiliar with the saga of Heather and her crew, Read back a few months, you will see a series of poems that tell a saga.

“Move-In Day”

That floating feeling
permeates throughout campus,
a mix of nausea and slight
euphoria. Every building
seems grand in height,
as each breath barely
staggers forth, telling you
that you are still alive.
You wonder if somehow
have beaten your roommate
there, so you can claim
which side of the room is
yours for the semester.
It all seems frightening,
as you lug boxes up three
flights of stairs because
the elevator is already
out of service.

An Event

I went to an event.
You should see how much money I spent.
We had a good time, didn't commit any
crime.
Actually one person did go to jail.
So we went to go bail.

(Not a true event)

bozena intrator -MOTHERS DAY - sad, but beautiful - kudos

This is an early attempt at a villanelle. I may have tried in the past, but until PAD, this is the first time I've written poetry since 2001. And it's addictive!
==========
"Another Anxiety Attack"

It’s been over a year but the anxiety grows,
spreads like Christmas cheer;
no matter what I do it never slows.

It clings to me, even when I doze:
I wake covered with its filmy smear.
It’s been over a year but the anxiety grows.

Before cutting my flesh to excise the fear, I froze –
my husband is too near.
No matter what I do it never slows,

and I don’t want to come to blows
with him as he reaches for a beer.
It’s been over a year and the anxiety grows.

Even if I think he knows,
I search for spare blades, hope he doesn’t hear.
No matter what I do it never slows.

And a year from now, will it matter what I chose?
That I sliced my flesh, resolute, my conscience clear?
It’s been over a year but the anxiety grows.
No matter what I do it never slows.

Junior Clarinet Recital, 2002

I could worry
about a wardrobe malfunction.
After all, I do not have the chest
to fill out this dress.
But I’m more worried
about a finger fumble,
and not being able to recover.
My friends keep telling me,
“You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine.”
No more time for practice,
show time has arrived.

When we play our final piece,
a clarinet duet with piano,
I think that life cannot get much better:
I’m doing what I think I’m meant to do
with two of my best friends.
The glow of triumphing
over those sixteenth notes,
nerves, and a harsh critic
lasts only as long as
birthday cake on a plate.

Fast forward several years.
I no longer play clarinet.
One friend has disappeared
from the landscape of my life;
another in contact only once
every few months.
I still remember the laughter
we shared over that duet,
never imagining that I would have
to deal with friendship malfunction.

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

With mincing steps, she crept
back to a kitchen still warmed
from hours of baking. The neighboring
walls reverberated with
ecstatic yells from swell-gutted
men. She shook her head and
smiled to herself as she piled
homemade pizza slices and a few
cookies onto a paper plate then
slipped away again, unnoticed,
back to her own world
mounded with papers and stickers,
photographs and albums.
A radio blared ‘80s tunes to drown out
the overflow of testosterone baritone
from the other room, and she
nibbled away at the results of her
long labor, head banging, as she drummed
greasy fingers to “Jessie’s Girl.”

SOCIOLOGY CLASS
T/TH 9-11:15
ACADEMY HALL RM 204
9-11-2001

By: Nikki Markle

On time, for once, I
Didn’t need to sneak
In the back door, but
Dutifully reviewed my
Notes as the teacher
Watched the news.

No one cracked a book
Or complained that they’d
Crammed for a test that
Would have to wait.

We all stared, too shocked
To cry at first, but not
Embarrassed to want to.
Thirty kids witnessing a
Devastating lesson in the
“Interaction between organized
Groups of human beings.”

Who could have known
That today would be
Burnt into my consciousness?
The first time I ever felt a
Connection to the human race,
And yet to have it marred by
Shame in being a human,
If such beings were capable
Of such needless cruelty.

Merlefest

Every April, as the hordes
are streaming in from several
states away, the locals either
rent their houses, close
them up and leave the town, or
volunteer to drive the Boy Scout
bus to shuttle campers to the site.

Vendors set up tee shirt tents
as Harley riders, hippies,
children, cowboys, college girls
and high school teachers
dine on butter corn-on-the cob,
turkey legs and sweet potato fries.

Over at the dance stage, crowds
mill in and out, just waiting; flanked
by Richard, Doc comes on at seven
tunes up, sings “Tom Dooley.”

The chairs fill up as Emmylou
sits down and sings “A Quarter Moon
in a Ten Cent Town.” Her silver hair
swept back, she looks up startled,
as if she almost had forgotten
they were out there, listening too.

And now the chairs and blankets
cover every patch of grass. Barefoot children
run around, dancing to the music,
never looking at the stage. The moon
has climbed above the tallest pine trees,
the music echoes through the valley,
where the last clear note will hang
long after everyone is gone.

Nancy Posey

THE DAY I TOOK MY DRIVING TEST (PAD April 25, 2009 - An Event)

Waiting, Waiting
Nerves on edge
Sweat on my brow
Shaky, inhale, exhale
Waiting, waiting
My turn
Chin strap, stern jaw
Pants expertly creased
Sliding into the passenger seat
Icy dread
Waiting, waiting
Clipboard, nod in my direction
Easing forward, remember
Stop signs, yield
Gripping the wheel
White knuckles
Turn signal, parallel park
Weaving between the cones
Ease to a stop, park
Stern silence
Pen scratching across paper
Waiting, waiting
Palms sweating
Nervous cough
Waiting, Waiting
A nod in my direction
Overwhelming, hemorrhaging relief
I'm a licensed driver!

Mr. R.M. Atwater, SIR! YOU ABSOLUTELY ROCK THE HOUSE!!!!!!

SPCA charity banquet 1960

No baby sitter tonight
I am right here
with mom and dad
at a charity banquet
for the SPCA

Hundreds of dogs
all sizes and breeds
cross the stage
a canine parade
minus drums

We can’t find dad
Mom shrugs and sighs
“overgrown boy
that’s your father”
I laugh, looking up

I watch dad approach
large loopy grin
arms bursting with
shaggy black pup
his first dog ever

And on this night
with dream come true
our overgrown boy
is the happiest boy
at the banquet

The Poets Party


In the time of parties
i was shy and they hurt
but the poet climber insisted
it would be safe, full of food,
chairs and corners and i was poor
and hungry when we went to anything
where we might be fed

One annointed by Bishop
heralded by the Times
made his way toward me
we chatted amiably
he had taught at my alma mater

Was i the one, he pressed
that you had loved? yes
yes because the day i
no longer let your miscreance
in, was raining and you were bereft
and he loved you in my stead
holding you together

So much truth in the story
what did he want to know
would i buy this revelation
and be repulsed? did he
expect me to be less or more?

Or with the casual cruelty
of the warped and wounded
did he just stick and slice
as you did, to see what stuff
might bleed out.

SUNDAY SUPPER

My hands work the heavy chef’s knife
back and forth on plump cloves of garlic,
slice purple onions into paper-thin rings,
cut strips of sweet red pepper.
My thought drift across days of the week
just passed as my breath moves in time
to each slice, chop, swish of the knife.
I cut away days already used up,
surgically remove the stressors that pound
behind my eyelids, behind my rib cage,
filet the memory of the day the doctor
called to say she needed to biopsy
your kidney. Two small samples, she said.
That’s all it will take to change your life,
to tell us how your future is altered already.
I breathe, pour olive oil into a pan,
turn on the heat. There is now just this
moment, this supper I prepare for you,
for me, for sustenance, for strength,
for whatever we learn next.

Earth Day

Are you keen
on being green?
To leave clean waters
for sons and daughters?
Preserve rich soil?
Use less oil?
Save the trees and manatees?
Then walk more and drive less.
Turn off lights.
Create less mess.
Recycle plastics, papers, cans.
Be our earth’s custodians.

Kata,
a beautiful poem, rich with love and pain

Sobriety Date

Once a year
look back
on how rich
life has become
rain or bright
sunshine
pain or full
joy
and say
"Thank You."

Day 25 An Event

My Death

I've lived a long life, now my time's come to die.
My fam'ly surrounds me as I say goodbye.
With sins all forgiven my soul now will fly
To Heaven where Je-sus awaits.

'Though sinful and helpless, Chr-ist loved even me.
He chose for himself one so evil; what glee!
My sins He has buried beneath the deep sea,
And now here I stand at Heav'n's gates.

Last School Auction

We’ll go tonight, support the school
That helped to raise our kids. Folks who’ll
Attend, we’ve known for years. Between
The books, car lines, and sports we’ve seen
Them go from letters and playground
To prom dress wearing college bound.

With these last bids we start to fade
Away from giving moneyed aid
With fall begins a different game
Our lives will not quite be the same
But for tonight we’ll fill the hall
And drink a toast to times recalled

I hope that it will feel all right
To help the school, we’ll go tonight.

On the Celebration of Another Anniversary of our Non-Marriage

25 years
Is a long time to be together:
No matter when you start,
It means most of your life.
Sometimes people ask,
Well, if you didn’t have a wedding
How do you know it is your anniversary?
And I think I could smile and tell them
That it was when we first slept together,
Although the night that we first slept together
All we did was sleep
Because I had not yet asked the question
That I thought my therapist had told me to ask
When she said that sex
Means different things to different people.
All these many years later
I still get teased for asking,
“What does sex mean to you?”

But that is not the event we celebrate
Each year on September 17th.
Rather, it is the date
When we went out for the first time
On a real date:
Dinner at the Empire Diner--
You ordered linguini with clam sauce and a glass of white wine,
And I said,
I am not being a copycat
But I’ll have the same.
Then an off-off-Broadway play,
Jane Chambers’ “A Late Snow,”
Mostly women in the audience;
And afterwards, there was Ariels,
A woman’s bar down the street--
Ariel’s, another place that no longer exists.
I think you kissed me there,
Or maybe I kissed you.

No one back then
Was talking marriage.
I liked the idea of my own secret world,
A separate space to live my life.
No one was talking children either.
Now, of course, I would marry you
In a New York minute,
If New York State decides to make legal that minute,
Because the injustice
Of the inequality
Has been getting to me lately;
And 25 years is a long time to be together
Without a joint tax statement.

Silent Auction

Today’s the day we prep you see
The silent auction’s tomorrow, oh me!
The hustle, the bustle is really quite scary
The auction’s tomorrow, no time to tarry.

The girls who helped me make the signs
Trimmed and glued with laughs and no whines.
We’re focused and working this day to prepare
For the big auction and all who’ll be there.

Lamination finished, we got a quick lunch
I was happy to feed them, my little sign bunch.
We’re ready to put signage from hither to yon
To help make the auction, fun, fun, fun, fun.

Now all that’s left is to make sandwich signs
To tell the attendees they’re not going blind.
The deals that they’ll see are all up for grabs
The profit from them will help lower our tabs.

Church camp, trail hiking, the calendar’s crammed
Of youth events and summer joy slammed.
So once the auction is over, you see,
I’ll be resting and realizing I didn’t get to bid.

Too Many to Choose

So many events – which do I choose,
When they each have affects so rife?
Like when I married, and then had kids;
These events really affected my life.

Then there was when I accepted Christ;
He changed my life view so much.
He also helped me through sad times,
Like when our son broke his back, and such.

I've learned how tough it is to lose loved ones;
Becoming Grandma, there's nothing to compare!
This is why it's hard to pick just ONE,
So several I've chosen to share.

There are other events, too many to list,
Some of great fun and some strife.
But the best event lately that is special,
Is, for 35 years I'm Ed's wife.

- spoken word evening -

to mythologise the close at hand
from a bad mood sinking
to a good mood rising
poetry as a flotation device
bubblemint gum and coffee
jesus and love and the little prince
wincing through the injury stories
smiling through the shared warmth
we read, listened, some of us sang
memory, idea and imagination
and the hidden secrets of an old house
on the roof outside smoking
something above our heads and in our hearts
clicked

Cherry Blossoms

The blossoms
are busy
flirting
with every
stranger
eyeballing them.

The blossoms
are busy
standing
on tiptoes
to see who
is coming.

The blossoms
are busy
snowflakes
sliding
up and down
the stairs.

The blossoms
are busy
preening
and showing
off their
new dresses.

The blossoms
are busy
Cherry Blossom
festival
Macon, Georgia
in March.

What She Did

it was never
her fault those
terrible things
the devil or
some higher
evil power
made her

when she
was caught
she dodged
the blame
she did not
know no one
told her

not a leg
to stand on
when confronted
with her
cheating
and lying

today she
did something
she cannot undo
the final bid
for attention

today
she took
her own life

Best Seller

In the distant future, a year or two I envision in the making,
All of my hard work had paid off for sure with perseverance,
From concept to first draft, four rewrites and the final copy,
This dream come true of mine was ready for the real taking.

After a lot of blood, sweat and tears, it's now queried to start,
As the dust settled and a dozen rejections led to an acceptance,
It took the wind out of me, like a leisure sailboat, to a faint heart,
In spite of my learning disability, I've defeated the odds with confidence.

A few weeks later, an auction with a few publishers took place,
For a future publication date for late this year or early next year,
I can see it on the New York Times's Best Seller list for weeks too,
Though I'm ahead of the game, when editing I hate and what I fear.

Ibaraki Glory

A torrid day,
In far-flung Ibaraki,
An explosion of green,
Met Robbie Keane's late equaliser,
Past the hapless Hahn,
And for one brief instant,
Saipan forgotten,
it felt like Ireland had won
the Japanese World Cup.

Sorry this is so long. Kuddos to those who endure...


Bird Watching for Avocets Along the Skanor Sand

Two miles along one end
of the beach where human
flesh flashes brightly
against sand, sea and grasses,
there, sunning in an inlet
out of the wind with only
a scarf on her head, another
lanking a few meters ahead
and the binoculars reveal
nothing other than flesh.

But we are looking for avocet.
One man points the other
direction, says the bird are
there, definitely not here, as
he builds a shelter in the sand.
We walk a little farther away
from where he points. When
we return, he and his wife
match the other two. We’re
wearing coats against the
wind, so we don’t understand.

And we are looking for avocets
in a few of the marshes back to
the car when our son the five
year-old rebel walks into quick
sand, loses a shoe, takes another
step, loses the other, sits down
and then his father is sinking
getting him out and there is
mud and tears and the lecture.

But we are looking for avocet
birds, and there is the shell duck
couple in the reservoir, the hand-
ful of sea gulls and ten rook, one
swan sitting on a nest, the other
dredging an inlet, and songbirds
singing from the marsh grasses,
but no avocets. We drive
to the place referred. The place
not right, I back up, suddenly,
into another car. Thank God
for Volvos—not a scratch.

But we are looking for avocets
with an engagement 45 minutes
from the time we find the right
place. More shell ducks,
a mallard couple and some birds
we can’t even see with the bi-
noculars, let alone a 100 lens.
The child is still mud-wet.
Not today. No avocet today.

Catching Wind


Ether floats above
various villages where
every shaman tries
nervously to capture its
texture in Ball Jars.

An event that will surely
make their jobs easier.

"The Thursday Regulars"

Thursday date,
lunchtime sharp.
cherubic face
smiles my way.
blotches
of eczema cloud
her skin.
she's beautiful.
can't help but
worry what
school age kids
will do to her.
the bible klatch
two tables down,
six voices
all at once.
never seen them
open the Book.
john from the
neighborhood.
never see him
home.
must live here.
food comes.
good.
coffee better.

I admit the event part of this is rather oblique. But it is an imaginary event, and it does refer to current news: Geoffrey Pullum's critical essay on Strunk and White in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Taking on such a sacred cow is a kind of event and has sparked many discussion events on- and offline.

(I only take credit for the arrangement, not for the words themselves.

Master the Art of Writer's Block With Strunk and White

Avoid
a succession
of loose
sentences.

Use definite, specific, concrete language,
place yourself in the background
and make sure
the reader knows
who
is speaking.

Write in a way
that comes naturally,
but always prefer
the standard
to the offbeat,
avoid foreign languages
and do not
affect a breezy
manner.

Be clear.

Use a colon after an independent clause
to introduce a list of particulars,
an appositive,
an amplification,
or an illustrative quotation.

Avoid fancy words.

Write with nouns
and verbs.
Use figures of speech
sparingly
and do not construct
awkward adverbs.

Put statements in positive form.
Do not overwrite.
Do not overstate.
Do not inject opinion.

Place the emphatic words
of a sentence
at the end.

Do not explain too much.

The Snowman’s Rally

A bright and sunny February day
We pack up the car and drive away

Heading out to see Loch Ness
Away from all the week day stress

The roads seem empty to my eye
One cannot help but wonder why

Vroom! A race car overtakes
A loud and roaring sound it makes

It swings the corner out of sight
And gives us both a massive fright

Another race car roars behind
We hear its engine loudly grind

And then it slowly dawns on us
The local paper – all the fuss

The Snowman’s Rally is today
And us in our mini are in the way

The race begins on normal roads
Then into forest trails explodes

A sober thought has just occurred
With two gone by, that makes us third!

A café on the road ahead
We park and drink some tea instead

He graduated unnoticed,
no time to celebrate.
He found his place--a job to pay
the debt that would not wait.

Poem in Your Pocket Day – April 30, 2009

millions of tiny
poems tumble out all over
readings at bus stops

Linda Voit

Bob's Barbecue

Bob and Marie invited us over
for a barbecue at their fifth wheel
which was more like a house than
a trailer. Marie asked me what

I would like to drink, and Diane
said I should have a Margarita
as they had lived in Mexico and
would know how to make a

good one; so I ordered a Margarita
but immediately regretted my
decision when the Margarita
mix appeared and I knew it would

be nothing like the Margaritas
Diane made nor anything special
at all. But I drank the Margarita
which was okay, all the while

wishing I had taken wine. I sat
on a comfortable leather chair,
and Diane sat on another one.
When it cooled down a bit

we went outside and sat around
the outside table and watched
Bob barbecued the pork chops. I
took photos to preserve the event

and the people in attendance.
Bob and Marie, Laney and Elliott,
Diane, me. When it was time to eat
we went inside, sat around the table

and ate pork chops, Brussels sprouts,
sweet potatoes, and salad. This
time I had some wine. For dessert
we had ice cream with blackberries.

It is amazing how much room there
was in the fifth wheel. After dinner
I went to sit again in the leather
chair, and Diane sat in the other one.

One time when Diane was talking
she gestured so broadly that her hand
brushed the candle which was setting
between her and me, and the candle

tipped and candle wax got on the
leather chair and on my shirt but
luckily nothing started on fire and
we later learned the wax came off

the leather without difficulty. It was
a pleasant evening with good food
and good conversation in a beautiful
fifth wheel, and though the wax is

not yet out of my shirt, we are
working on it.

the Christmas Eve Service in the Basel Cathedral

the men’s choir sang old carols
to red sandstone walls
where the shadow of Erasmus
nodded in time
to flickering candles
the rhythm of liturgy
eight hundred people
gave birth to hope
as the bells called
“joy to the world”
into the centuries.

Halloween

I was a homeless bum that year,
tatty, bargain-basement sweatshirt
artfully torn jeans, too old
for trick-or-treating, too young
for costume parties. Dropped off in
a better neighborhood to roam the
cul-de-sacs for Reese’s Peanut Butter
Cups, Almond Joys, Now and Laters,
in the company of my short-lived
girlfriend and her sister, still in love with
my ex-best friend, uncomfortable
teenage frustration perfumed the gloaming,
even over the cinnamon leaves
crushed to minute particles by expensive cars.
House to house, doorbell after doorbell,
brown burlap sack bulging with bounty
when some skater punk swiped for it,
knocking quite a few tightly wrapped candies
to the blacktop. Hastily walking back to my
girlfriend’s house, I gulped, called my parents, and
never celebrated Halloween again.

Parapente

The sun is high, building clouds
speak of thunderstorms,
far away and harmless for now.
Thirty five hundred feet below,
the Columbia is half a mile wide,
cobalt blue, streaked white from boats
like contrails in a clear sky.
Dust devils skitter below,
hinting of rising air.
Wind in the face and it’s time.
Flick the wrists and the wing rises
like a Phoenix, poised, waiting.
Three steps toward the cliff
and you’re gone.
Settle back into the harness,
check things over
lines, risers, wing.
Now it is time to join the hawks.
Wing ruffles hard crossing into a thermal.
Rising fast for a moment until it dies.
Another is not far away.
Climbing until friends at the launch
are as small as the boats.
Landing softly back at the take off
grinning and looking down toward the river.
There is one more flight yet to make.

Cumberland County Fair, Maine, always in September

When it began in 1868,
on Tuttle Road and Main Street, right in back
of Greely Junior High, as it is now,
the ladies of the town displayed their cakes,

their jams and needlework. The farmers brought
their vegetables, and those with working steers
showed off their strength in pulling teams, and raced
their horses round the town. Some world events

occurred - two wars, the flu – but they put in
electric lights, the Exhibition Hall,
clay track and wide arena for ox teams
and giant horses. So it is today,

when all there is of life is at the fair:
laughter and music from the carousels;
loud screams from stomach-turning midway rides;
and shots from stalls with rows of tawdry prizes.

The smell is burgers, onions and fries;
maple sugar cotton candy; cinnamon
in sugar on fried dough; fresh apple crisp;
fried chicken wings; corn dogs and funnel cake.

People high on the ferris wheel can see
the harness-racing horses scurrying
like ants, and hear the crowd’s applause drift up
before the gondola plunges down again.

The Mountie team display perfect dressage
to local politicians; children lead
their ponies out into the judging ring;
the 4H tent is crammed with chicks and ducks;

giant squash and pumpkins (only one per
family allowed, vines must be trimmed
the regulation one inch long) loom by
the fork-lift truck that heaves them on the scales.

And in the craft tent rows of jams still sit
alongside perfect quilts, displays of beans,
tomatoes, hook rugs, knitted sweaters, dolls
dressed painstakingly in costumes of the past.

Readin’, Writin’ & Rondeau


Hooray, hooray! Today’s the day!
When all the moms come out to play.
First Day of School, and there’s no doubt
As the kids go in, our smiles come out.
At last, freedom is here to stay!

We love our kids, it may sound cliché
Just don’t want them 24 hours, per se.
So we dance about, we scream and shout:
Hooray, hooray! Today’s the day!

As the teachers look the other way
We spin, we twirl, we may even plié.
Sanity is what it’s all about
So while the kids fret and fuss and pout,
We clap our hands and gleefully bray:
Hooray, hooray! Today’s the day!

No Baby
By Judy Kneprath
4-25-09

Racing off the school bus
No car in the yard
Screen door unlatched
No one home

Where’s mother?
None of the other kids knew either
Just a puddle of some funny-colored
Liquid in the middle of the kitchen floor

Maybe she’s gone to the hospital
And had the baby today
I was old enough to know the basics
About the birth
But not the specifics
So could not interpret with surety the amniotic fluid
Left spilled in the middle of the kitchen floor

Car coming!
My grandpa and my aunt get out
Tears on their faces
Arms reach out to hug us
But eyes won’t look at us
What’s wrong?

He died, but your mother’s okay
Only lived four hours
Heads shaking, voices trailing
She’ll be home in a few days
But no baby

They moved around my house
Gathering up all the soft flannel baby clothes
I’d watched my mother cut out and sew for weeks
Putting away the waiting crib
Boxing up the cloth diapers
Removing all traces of an expected precious infant
Before my mother’s return

Stone cold was my heart
Who gave them the right
To cleanse my house
Of this precious event
My mother would be heartbroken
My dad, too
I wanted to grab those clothes
Nuzzle my face in them to grieve
To let my little brother know
I had already loved him
But now there would be
No baby

D-land

some times i'm so rebellious i rebel against my rebellious nature

i become disillusioned with every counter cultural abjure

i've come to realize that no one's truly willing to escape corporations

even anarchy has become a mass produced market focused sensation

so when tomorrow comes at last we're pulling out the season pass

and driving with it in hand to a magical place with marvels to see and rides that go fast

the whole time there seeing the illusions behind the lies, and knowing deep down inside i'm feeding "the man"

but i don't care it's the happiest place on earth, it's D-land!!!

Oh, Judy Kneprath...your poem is beautiful and heart-wrenching and profound. It broke my heart just reading it. If it is based on true events, I hope the writing of it has helped heal yours.

Anne Corey - Amen.

Kathleen Cassen Mickelson - powerful. Beautiful build of details.

The Summit Speaks to the Climbers

I see you bunched together, plotting
the route to reach me, torsos as chiseled
as the cliffs you scale.

Why don’t you dust your sweaty palms
with chalk before you cup my sides,
tape your torn calluses?

Find a dime edge to wedge your toe,
steer clear of scree and sand,
crimp your fingertips

on my holds one hand at a time,
in a slow-motion monkey crawl
up my wall.

There’s no need to speed
to find me, there’s enough room
for you all at the top of my boulders.

Super Bowl

He invited many of his friends
and some of his family
he prepared enough food
for a large crowd
he had plenty of 3D glasses
for the commercial
he bought plenty of beer to drink
his excitement for the game grew
Only two showed up
besides my son and I
I could see the disappointment
in his eyes

There's always next year

Beekeepers' Dinner

Not a place for speeches, though these guys
are quick as lightning on the countryside,
but gossip, lore and something else besides:
the calm contentment of the quietly wise.

They have the characters they seek in bees:
docility, good health and industry.
They're from all backgrounds, though stability,
jeeps and country gardens are part of these.

They often meet for talks with videos,
email each other, share tips, change their goods
in country barter: scour the hills and woods
for wild bees: what they don't know, no-one knows.

Tonight they've gathered for their annual bash
at Suzy's Diner, merry while their bees
cluster in dark hives in their apiaries
or make and use their honey and their cash.

Enamoured of their colonies and hives,
they talk and listen, of worker, brood and queen,
each with a wife or husband rarely seen,
who wonders how the beekeeper survives,

dependent on this super-organism,
existence pointless without bees to tend,
plants to identify and frames to mend --
and puts it down to individualism.

Seeing Biloxi

I’d not yet gone to the city.
One week there as part of a clean-up crew,
helping victims sort their lives out;
listening closely to plans of “make-do”.

We showed our I.D. to the guards.
(Our red symbol alone would get us through.)
There was the Gulf! It looked the same,
but not one other landmark that I knew.

Standing stairways going nowhere;
cracked-open church, dangling choir loft and pew;
centuries-old tree, roots exposed;
casino tossed across the street, askew.

(I stayed there last year.) What a sight!
Bridge gone; open water reflecting blue.
Turn up a street, and head downtown.
Recognizable structures are too few.

Remains from homes; junk piles grown high
Looking like mountains of salsa or stew.
The stench was overpowering;
Senses of loss, despair and horror grew.

Turn left. Get out. Salute the guards
as we pass Security. We have to
get to our Center, and thank God.
In the future my complaints will be few.

"Square Dance Party"
Aleman left and dosey do
swing to your right and
go go go.
Meet a new partner
dance with them
maybe you'll get married
who can tell?
Break up the dance floor
two on two
don't forget to bow
and switch your shoes.

The Night My Music Died

I’d never played before a crowd
especially a group like this:
2500 screaming football fans
crammed in a college stadium,
impatient for the game to start,
yet patriotic enough that night
to salute the flag and sing along
to my silver trumpet’s golden tone
that trilled the hallowed notes of
the “Twilight’s last gleaming.”
And then it happened. Some
someone somewhere decided
somehow the moment would be right
and the floodlit flag be riveting
if houselights dimmed and all went black.
I could not see a single note
of my music, unmemorized,
but I have never since forgot
the night my music died.

It happened at fourteen
and totally unforseen
We went to a party during the day
The mom and dad were away.

There was pot and beer
and lots of good cheer
Soon we were hugging
then we were kissing

The two handsome boys
said come look at our toys
I followd them through the door
and was thrown to the floor

The room too dark to see
Soon they were all over me
I started to yell and shout
Let me out let me out

No one came
to them it was a game
I was filled with fear
yet never dropped a tear

Soon it was over
There was no cover
Wrapped my arms around my knees
and whispered please please please

But no one came
No one called my name
I was alone and scared
seems no one cared

I dressed with care
I wanted out of there
Soon I was outside
My face I tried to hide

Some days I lament
that I never mentioned this event
To my friends or family
The day I lost my virginity

Clean Sheets Day

Hurray, hurray, it’s Clean Sheets Day.
No time to read, no time to play.
Tasks abound, they always do,
grocery shopping, ironing too.
I promised, after all those miles,
to be of service, wearing smiles.
I cook the meals, sometimes well.
I love it when they cast a spell
of happiness, unfettered glee,
it really means so much to me
to see the pleasure it gives you,
it’s truly selfish, what I do.
The cleaning is, at best, not bad,
we need those visits from the maid.
I hope it agrees with my honey,
I need help, the maid needs money.
The dishes are an easy chore,
it cleans my fingernails, what’s more.
But nothing seems so much like play
as Thursday, known as Clean Sheets Day.
Towels, undies, pants, a shirt
are ridden of their nasty dirt.
I always save the sheets for last,
so they’re the final item cast
upon the bed before we sleep,
their clean fresh fragrance ours to keep
in memory as we drift off,
our daily aches so soon to doff,
remembering at last to pray
we’ll make it to next Clean Sheets Day.

“Poetry On Tap”


We were twelve or sixteen
maybe more, who weren't seen
plus a smiley lady behind the bar
and another one, not too far.
Then four enlightened ones,
talented, friendly, joined all at once
with their artistic sides,
books, inspiration, like-minds.
Beer on tap, poetry and chat
to that place and poets I tip my hat!

© Rosangela Cricci Taylor / 04-25-09

[This poem's event happened on April 23, 09 at Minhas Lazy Mutt Lounge in the charming Wisconsin town, Monroe. It was a very enjoyable Poetry Reading with tap beer as courtesy of Minhas Craft Brewery. The Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet presented their lively program called "Under the Influence" – the award-winning Wisconsin poets are John Lehman, Shoshauna Shy, Richard Roe, and Robin Chapman.]

Talent Show

The Tenth Annual Tiger Talent Show unfolds at the local school,
a celebration of kiddom. Hail Jean Shephard stories.
A serious boy’s violin leads off. Two girls glide in solo dances,
already gorgeous in bright silks and blossoms, grace itself, twice over.
It would be easy to mock the first grade magician who draws generous
oooohs and aaaaahs as he works slooooooowly some kit illusions,
tiny hands revealing all, his mute appeals to parents, audience-bound,
endearing. No hooks appeared. Dancers and singers wait nervously
till the curtain slides open and it’s too late to bolt. The flutaphone
Mary Had a Little Lamb is mercifully slotted well before the flawless
piano recital of a Handel Sonata. Pop wannabes used to lip synch,
now they sing along with Mylie or Jonas bros, just amped louder
through the microphone. Ours sing a song they wrote themselves,
bolstered by their firebrand friend who urged them to enter. Boys
do martial arts in demo and dance. First grade girls flip hips and flail
arms, jumping jacks flash dance. See a trio jumping rope out of sync
and finish with lumbering steps; jaws drop at the sheer power of
inexplicable choice. It is a tribute to the staff sponsors who
did not shape the show, just let the kids sign up and have a go.
We are so accustomed to the fully blossomed; it’s good to see seeds sprout.
Bravo.

Eventful
By R. Chazz Chute

It was the Millennium.
This, we were convinced,
was It.
The ball was coming down
in New York.
Dick Clark was still strokeless
and Y2K was coming to get us.
Satellites would fall from the sky.
I’d read my first books
since high school, studying
to be a blacksmith,
pounding out horseshoes.
Or a whitesmith, pounding out tin.
We toasted our preparedness.
We oiled our weapons.
We locked the door to the bunker.
We waited patiently for world’s end.
Yes, it was a great disappointment.
But now we know about Al Qaeda.
So we still hold out hope and
iron our camouflage
so we can look sharp for the
coming…well, whatever they’re planning.
Thing is, I am sick to death of the stew.
MREs sounded so cool,
seven years, no refrigeration,
Now I have to eat them all, because
Jennifer refuses to feed the kids anything
a year past its expiration date.
We were all supposed to be past our
expiration date by now.
Jennifer took the kids to her mother’s.
I sure wish those goddamn lazy
terrorists would get on their horse
and get on with it.
History is exciting.
Trouble is, nobody’s making none.

The 11th International Symposium
of Fireworks in Puerto Vallarta
April 20 – 24, 2009

the sky exploded
in chrysanthemums,
mushrooms, spheres, shooting
crowns, roaring missiles.
deafening noise and
smoke that drifted to
the mountain-tops in
shapes of unearthly
nature. fire by man.

Last Day of School

Among empty desks
Balls of paper, broken pens:
What words will be saved?

Grandma’s 100th birthday

she didn’t quite make it
died one week before
the big party

but plans had been made
hall and caterer hired
plane tickets bought
motel rooms reserved
so we all came anyway

held her memorial service
then gathered one last time
ate, drank, hugged one another
told stories
looked at old photos
reminisced
before the family
drifted apart

Concert

He conducts their sound
Tranquil orchestral classics
First string seats oldest

The World Series


There once was a baseball world series
That boosted sales of pizza deliveries
No one wanted to cook
For they might miss a look
At their favorite team blowing their theories.

The Moment I Reclaimed My Pen Name

An old favorite shirt
I haven’t worn in years.
Anticipating garish colors,
A tacky, dated 80’s-pattern-fashion
Grossly out of size.
I pull it over me,
And find it strangely
Aesthetic
And fitting.

The Carnival of Resistance

The Carnival of Resistance
A spectacle to see
Social justice at your finger tips
Working in solidarity
Advocates and Anarchists
Standing side by side
Pontificating politics
Of only the leftist side
All done with an abundance of veggie burgers
And potato salad to abide
Come join us one and all
And have a real good time

A TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

© Richard-Merlin Atwater 1989

(In commemoration of the Bicentennial of Freedom's Fundamental
Document, and the "events" which led to its' formulation, and its'
affect on future generations.) (Written for the 200th
Anniversary of The U.S. Constitution as freedom's document!)
Composed when i was a Captain in the U.S. Air Force and a Professor of Aerospace Studies at Brigham Young University.
But since it is a major and significant EVENT that happened 233 years ago that affects all of us I share it with you now! RMA



Forged in the fire of a free man's mind.
And tempered through the tests of time.
'Equal justice under law' to bind,
And to balance truth against all crime.

Fundamental law, and fundamental truth,
With liberty and justice for all.
Banner for life, guardian of youth,
Standard of free men who heed the call.

Parched on the scroll of eternal flame,
Emblazoned as freedom's shrine.
Son's of liberty pledged their name,
To this document of worth, sublime.

Seal of a union, stamped with a crest,
A symbol of honor and truth.
Protector of all who come under the test,
With guaranteed rights at the voting booth.

As history records the events that are known
To every school boy in America;
The message of freedom throughout time has flown
On the wings of an Eagle with character.

Continental Congress, thoughts to debate:
Declaration of freedom for all.
Solemnly publish 'gainst tyrants and hate;
Political connections dissolve.

Appeal to "the Judge", for Providence guide,
To protect and to lead the way.
In the name of the people these truths to confide,
A governments rule of "Yea, and "Nay".

Republican form, Democracy rule,
Established in representative style.
Consent of the governed to institute;
Self-evident truths to place on trial.

Equal creation, unalienable rights,
For man to pursue his own course;
With life and liberty, to reach for the heights
In pursuit of happiness, without force.

Separate but equal, under nature's laws,
In the course of human events.
In respect to opinions they declare the cause
Which impel them to separate consents.

In New England's clime, Massachusetts with Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island;
From Connecticut's stretch the patriots came
To repel the foreigner's violence.

Pennsylvanian farmers, and Delaware's breed,
New York and New Jersey came too;
Virginians and Maryland also gave heed,
Carolina's and Georgians were true.

Unanimous voice of the colonies pledge,
Thirteen colonies grouped in all.
Born on the shores of Columbia's ledge,
The United States of America's call.

With "Declaration of Independence",
A statement to lead the way;
Lives and fortunes were pledged to PROVIDENCE
And their sacred honor today.

Signed as a scroll for the world to see,
By the Hancock's and Jefferson's,
The Adam's and Paine's, Ben Franklin, and Lee's,
And the Benjamin Harrison's.

Fifty-six names were signed to that scroll
In seventeen-seventy-six.
Independence Hall, Philadelphia's stroll,
The fourth of July to be fixed.

So off to the call of freedom's shrine
The colonists went to fight;
Under the banner of truth, sublime,
With allegiance pledged to the right.

Led by the vision of Washington,
Commander-in-Chief of the troop.
Start of America's Revolution,
A star spangled banner is drooped.

Lexington green, and Concord's bridge,
Were already history's page.
The old North church on Boston's ridge,
And a General by the name of Gage.

America's soldiers, at West Point trained,
Wore ragged and tattered clothes;
But their opposition to the king that reigned
Led them triumphantly over their foes.

Ticonderoga, and Saratoga Springs,
Were names that would come to view.
While the British red-coat soldiers sing:
"God save the king", anew.

Montgomery from New York, and Arnold through Maine,
An offense they to Quebec.
But their storm on the fortress---St. Lawrence sea lane,
Was destined to hold them in check.

Valley Forge and the Delaware's cross,
Were symbols of suffering and strife.
But the victor's crown was the tyrants loss,
While 'Yankee Doodle' was played by the fife.

Washington led with Marquis Lafayette,
Against Hessian soldiers of Trenton.
There on the plains of New Jersey they met,
To conquer, then onward to Princeton.

The battle raged with the brothers Howe,
By land and by sea 'gainst New York,
But the rebel retreat to defeat would not bow,
With escape from Manhattan and the river's fork.

Burgoyne from the north, St. Leger at west,
Converged on Saratoga's hold,
But defeat for the British was put to the test,
By General Gates and his soldiers bold.

'Bonhomme Richard' under John Paul Jones,
Fought through the day and the night.
While the 'Serapis' prize bowed to the tones,
Of: "I have not yet begun to fight!"

In South Carolina 'the Swamp Fox' was known,
For his daring raids 'gainst the British.
General Francis Marion grown
With guerillas towards freedom's own wish.

New York, Clinton's camp, his headquarters set,
While Cornwallis remained in the south.
But DeGrasse with his navy, the British fleet met,
On the waves of Chesapeake's mouth.

While Washington marched to Virginia's coast,
To lay siege on the Yorktown hold.
Surrender was nigh for the red-coat boast,
And the war had come to it's fold.

Commissioners sent for the treaty of peace,
Were Franklin, and Adams, and Jay.
'The Treaty of Paris' had set a new lease,
A new country began on the Rue Jacob Way.

Shelbourne's defeat, Lord North's resignation,
King George had been humbled at last.
The British rule now with a new ministration,
Set to bind up the wounds of the past.

A pledge of allegiance, America's call,
A Republic, one nation at last.
Indivisible freedom, and justice for all,
Under GOD, its' liberty cast.

Federal Convention, a plan to devise,
James Madison, 'Father' to be.
The Virginia Plan, Constitutional wise,
Was the basis to formulate thee…

'We the People of the United States…'
The Preamble set forth the tone,
A more perfect union in future dates,
With domestic tranquility grown.

The common defense and general welfare,
With liberty and justice for all.
The blessings of life, posterity's care,
Ordain and establish this scroll.

The powers that be are subject to this,
A Constitutional grant.
For the U.S.of A. to live under bliss,
And diminish the tyrant's chant.

Checks and balance, division of power,
With citizens guaranteed might.
A government central, but not overpower
The state's individual rights.

Article I, A legislature,
Two houses of Congress to be.
Representative House, and the Senators,
Elected by the people freely.

Apportionment set according to size,
Each state represented by number.
Two Senators each, Representative ties,
To divide populations encumber.

A Speaker to lead, and President pro Tempore,
With powers to try and impeach.
For those in an office of trust to enforce,
By majority vote will they teach.

Rules and proceedings are set by each House,
To accomplish the work that's at hand.
And the 'Yeas' and the "Nays' of each members vote,
Shall be set in their journals strand.

Revenue bills shall originate with
The Representatives call.
While amendments attached, to the Senate is given,
May concur or propose it to fall.

Each bill that has passed the Congressional vote
Shall be sent fore the President's eye.
And if he approve with his signature wrote,
Or return with objections to die.

Each House with two-thirds in agreement to pass,
May o'er ride the President's wish.
For the bill to be law, accepted enmass,
Reconsidered and not relinquished.

Congress shall have the power to tax,
To lay and collect for the debts.
The common defense and welfare it backs,
For which it uniformly sets.

To borrow money on credit for loan,
And regulate commerce with nations,
Among several states, to all that are known,
And for uniform naturalizations.

To set uniform bankruptcy laws for the land,
To coin money, set values for each;
To fix standards of weights and measures at hand,
And counterfeit punishment teach.

To establish Post Office and roads for us all,
Promote science and arts in their field.
To guarantee rights of authors, inventors,
And exclusive protection to shield.

To constitute courts of inferior claim,
Tribunals below the Supreme Court.
To punish piracies, felonies, blame,
And declare war 'gainst those who would hurt.

To raise and support armies, to provide for a navy,
To call forth militia when needs so require.
Set rules, regulations, and henceforth to levy
Appropriations, and arms to provide as desired.

To exercise lead o'er the seat of a government,
A United States 'District' for all.
And Habeas Corpus writ to be sent,
Except when rebellion, invasion may call.

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law,
Shall be passed by the Congress at all.
And statements of money from the Treasury draw,
Shall be published on occasional call.

Nobility title shall not be allowed,
Nor present, emolument foreign.
And states likewise held to a similar vow
With restrictions subject to revision.

Article II, Executive power,
A United States President's head.
A term of four years right to the hour,
With Vice-President chosen to heed.

Electors decide by ballot for each,
Majority vote to have sway.
A natural born citizen up for the reach,
Fourteen years in residence stay.

The oath of his office to solemnly swear,
To faithfully execute law.
To preserve and protect, and defend constant care,
Of the Constitutional draw.

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces rule,
The militias when called to the bid.
Executive officers opinion to school,
And reprieves and pardons granted.

Advice and consent with two-thirds of the Senate,
Provides for the treaties abroad.
Ambassadors, judges, and Ministers public,
And United States officers appointed by law.

A 'State of the Union', presented to Congress,
For information to give,
And recommend measures expedient for us,
The President's message to sieve.

Ambassadors, ministers, he shall receive,
And faithfully execute laws.
Commission all officers who justly believe,
And sustain Constitutional clause.

Article III, judicial, the branch,
Which shall vest in one Supreme Court.
The judges appointed give justice the chance,
Good behavior their office reports.

Their power extends to cases in law,
And equity cases authority.
United States controversies of flaw,
To citizen's rights, and minorities.

Jurisdiction shall be appellate for them,
As to law and to fact certain cases.
Such as consuls and states, and the ministers hem,
Regulated by Congress's graces.

The trial of all crimes, except for impeachment,
Shall be administered by a jury.
And treason convicted against the government,
Two witnesses testify in a hurry.

Article IV, Full faith and credit,
A clause to recognize acts;
And records, proceedings of each states debit,
By general laws, prescribed facts.

Privileges, immunities to citizens all,
Each state recognized as the same.
But those who flee justice across the wall
On demand of the governor shall be returned to blame.

New states to the Union by Congress admit,
And the powers with respect to the territory,
With guaranteed form of Republican government,
To protect from invasion each state's habitory.

Article V, Amendments propose,
By two-thirds of each House of Congress.
Or convention to call Legislatures who choose,
To ratify all intents and purpose.

Article VI, Supreme Law of the land,
This Constitution shall be.
All officers bound by oath that do band,
To support and sustain and agree.

Article VII, ratification,
Conventions of states to decide.
Unanimous vote select approbation,
In 1787 confide.

Bill of Rights 'Father', George Mason he was,
Set democrat principle forth.
Then offered by Madison, each approved clause
Became pillars protective of worth.

Amendments agreed, numbered one through ten,
Known to all as 'the Bill of Rights'.
Were later approved by the group of statesman,
Whose high aims had reached for the heights.

Freedom of speech, religion, and press,
To assemble in peace, and petition;
The right to bear arms and seek for redress,
And quarter no soldier without permission.

Unreasonable searches and seizures forbid,
Without warrant or probable cause.
Grand jury indictment at capital grid,
Twice in jeopardy offense to pause.

Due process of law, shall be given to all,
Not to witness against himself---
In a criminal charge; And with properties call
For just compensation to shelf.

Criminal trial, the accused has a right
To a speedy and public case.
A jury impartial, with cause brought to the light,
Witness and defense to face.

Common law suits, a jury trial too,
For value is set by the law.
Excessive bail---No!, Fines diminish and hew,
While punishments cruel and unusual draw.

Enumerated rights, don't deny others kept,
By the people who master the plan,
Reserved by the states, or the people adept,
Powers not delegated to the land.

Hamilton, Madison, Marshall, and Jay,
Defenders, expounders of wit.
Through 'Federalist Papers' they each sought to sway,
And promote Constitutional writ.

Ratification on June twenty-one,
In Seventeen Eighty and eight.
Nine states held together, now in the union,
And others to follow the gait.

Federal government, dividing the lead;
Three branches, a mighty oak tree.
Up from the acorn, Sustained by a creed:
'IN GOD WE TRUST' to stay free.

Free from the tyrant, to free the oppressed,
The wretched refuse of the day.
'The Statute of Liberty' welcomes the quest,
Of the immigrants search for the way.

Onward to Ellis, the island of hope,
The traveler from distant lands
Comes to the altar of freedom, to cope
With naturalizations chance.

Bulwarks of freedom against the sky,
Manhattan is seen in his dreams;
Towering landscape, shimmering high,
In the glimmering thoughts that he beams.

Through the long lines of registration
The alien wends his way.
A Pledge of Allegiance to the nation
That offers him hopes today.

Hope for the future, Hope for the chance
To rise from his status in life;
Over his shoulder no more to glance
At yesterday's forgotten strife.

This be the heritage given to us
In Constitutional frame.
A land of the free, established in 'Unis',
'E Pluribus Unim' to reign.

======================================
(Written while as an Air Force Captain the author was
also a Professor at Brigham Young University in 1984)

A major EVENT that happens to all of us every single day of our lives that we are ALIVE. It's called the functions of "human anatomy and physiology" wherein all the functions that keep you going in everything that you do is happening unconsciously even at this moment as YOU read this poem, and as you think of poems to write yourself, even as you breath and each beat of the heart continues. It happens even while you are alseep. I wrote this some time ago, but since it is such a major EVENT I share it with you now on this day's prompt. After this I'll "shut up" as the teenagers might say--or "No way, Jose", before Einstein comes to get me! Regards Obi-wan "the Rich" Atwater (Practising poet)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE HUMAN BODY © Richard-Merlin Atwater

Anatomy and physiology, the physique of mortal man,
And also how it operates so intricately on any given day,
Is such a fascinating discovery for one to comprehend or understand,
'Cause the multitude of systems within work together in harmony, hand in hand, I'd say!

The structure of the clay of man has functions from within
That are timed and move like clockwork on the wall.
What makes them 'tick' may not be clear at the drop of a pin,
But the body's daily rhythm begins and ends on time at call.

Cells and tissues formulate to create an exciting embryo,
And shape and size accumulate into threads of chromosomes,
Will it be a boy, or will it be a girl, I really do not know.
Sperm cells and the ovum of fertilized egg cell determine it at home.

That little living blob we call a cell is active as can be in every way.
It takes in food, it breathes the breath of life, gets rid of waste, and works a job,
There are just so many members in a community to hold its' sway.
But each component is necessary to perform the final function of a blob.

The nucleus directs all other parts, like President to be,
The little dark threads, once a great mystery, are now called chromosomes.
While the mitochondria can change your food into living energy,
While combined chromosomes have forty-six little threads that sweep just like little brooms.

Then there is a white little circle that is called a vacuole,
It dumps the garbage from the cell with help of filaments.
And ribosomes take substances to make a protein in a bowl.
While lysosomes digests things not needed to maintain pigments.

The Golgi complex is a group of odd shaped little bags,
It functions as a warehouse to package material that a cell must often use.
And centrioles help out when cells grow and multiply in zigs and zags,
While the outer membrane is protective coat as it grows to amuse.

Similar cells work together to formulate tissue,
They manufacture chemicals, digest food, and have many other jobs.
Some produce mucus to keep the tissues moist at issue,
While their size and shape and configuration are just so many gobs.

There are muscle cells, long and thin, and bundled up together;
Nerve cells with the brain to think and feel.
There is connective tissue, tendons, and ligaments, and blood cells light as a feather;
Cartilage, bone cells, skin cells, and epithelial matter to heal.

Now let us take a look from the outside to the in,
And examine man, or woman, as they truly are.
We'll view the outer surface that we call skin,
It consists of thickly dermis just inside, and epidermis that's abar.


The skin is made of three main layers after all,
And the inside layer, called the dermis, is the thickest.
And the middle is of soft, plump, almost square celled wall,
While the thin sheet, outer epidermis, keeps us from being sickest.

Tiny fibers of material called keratin help kill a surface cell;
And the dead cells overlap and cling to form a waterproof film.
It takes two months for the cell to be pushed to the surface knell,
And a million dead cell skin flakes leave the body every day at the helm.

Epithelial cells make up the three layers of your skin.
While hair grows out of follicles in the bottom layer.
There are nerve endings, sweat glands, blood vessels, and fat cells from within,
And sebaceous oil glands sometimes causing acne that one must bear!

Skin cells also form a lining of the mouth, the nose, and throat!
And continue down through the lungs, the stomach, and intestines too.
The skin cells of your tongue multiply very fast at night, afloat,
Causing mucus, releasing thousands of dead cells for each evening's adieu.

When sunlight hits the surface special cells protect you from sunburns,
The cells produce a brownish substance we call melanin,
And millions of little air conditioners which are the sweat glands,
These coils of cells produce a mixture of water and chemicals for sweatin'.

When sweat reaches the top layer of skin it evaporates and carries off the heat;
An adults sweat glands produce three cups of water when it's warm!
But exercise, and quite excessive heat, make ten cups an hour, quite a feat!
It's drawn from tiny blood vessels, and lymph that bathes the body's charm.

Your skin reveals the outside world so you can know within the truth,
As special eye skin covering called the cornea lets light inside to see.
And thick ridges on your fingertips called papillae are proof
That your identity is more different than anyone else can be.

Scattered throughout the dermis are tips of nerves that keep the brain informed,
Of hot and cold, of hurt and harm, and soft caressing touch of love as well.
And your skin keeps your delicate inside parts from drying out or being worn,
And kills the germs, and bacterial yeasts, with antibiotic chemicals that swell.

A mixture of melanin and other coloring substances called pigments
Produces different colors in people's skins around the world.
The brown, the yellow, red, or white in everyone's stigments,
Or albinos with no pigment, are enveloped in 'miracle wrap' unfurled.

Now let's take a look at how we eat our food, digest, and emulate,
To become what we are of chemicals, enzymes, and nature's call;
From the alimentary canal, that goes from top to bottoms gate,
And a multitude of parts that form the digestive systems mall.

At the top are teeth to chew, salivary glands to dissolve, and pharynx to swallow.
As you chew your tongue and cheek muscles squeeze and mix with saliva.
This liquid moisture made of tiny globe-shaped molecules called enzymes, not so hollow,
Is the start of the digestive process for you, and for me, and also for 'Lady Godiva'!

As you cut, and crumble, mash, and shred your food,
And grind to bits and pieces with your teeth,
It is still not small enough, nor liquified to mood,
For the cells to use without digestive action down beneath.

Hence down the esophagus it must go to reach the place
Called stomach, heavy-duty mixer, lined with epithelial cells.
Protected with a mucus, sticky substance, to withstand the acid taste,
That pours from glands and works with millions of enzyme gels.

Three bands of stomach muscles help to squeeze and churn,
While twenty-five million glands squirt juices for the job.
Strong acid, enzymes, with water seeping from blood vessels, learn
How to squash and dissolve the food and crush it like 'the mob'.


The pyloric sphincter at the bottom of the stomach operates like the cardiac one up above,
Through this gate some liquids flows into the tube-like small intestine,
Twenty feet long, it winds back and forth as your abdomen, my love!
To keep you well nourished, and healthy, through the duodenum line.

Movement is helped by millions and millions of tiny, waving, finger-like villi,
They line the intestine walls with three tubes, two of blood, and one of lymph.
The molecules of starch, sugar, and protein float about to work like Melvin Belli,
Then suddenly they disappear into blood vessels with minerals and vitamins like a nymph.

Juices from the intestine wall come from the pancreas and liver,
They combine with stomach acids to prevent the hurt of cells,
Enzymes in the juices chop fat molecules to make them useful, thither,
Still other enzymes by the millions break down the food it fells.

Nourishment to all the body's cells is carried by the blood,
Vitamins and minerals and chemicals that make us what we are
Are sucked about through many capillaries in a flood,
While fat molecules and other vitamins travel to lymph vessels afar!

Some leftovers move along into the cecum pouch,
Which makes the beginning of the large intestine tube.
And dangling there is useless vermiform appendix, ouch!
A worm shaped extra part that is a worthless boob.

From the cecum the thick liquid of undigested food is pushed along,
Be it apple, bread, or exotic cuisine from afar,
Since fiber is not digested in the small intestine furlong.
The large intestine bacteria use the leftovers and keeps it in a jar.

This bacteria turns some food into vitamin K for use,
Your body uses it to make substances that stop the flow of blood when cut,
At the same time the bacteria produce waste material called gas, or refuse,
While the layman's language calls this place 'the gut'.

Here vast numbers of bacteria live and grow, and multiply and die,
While the last remains of food move through the large intestine tract,
The waste reaches the bottom of the rectum, including mother's apple pie,
And becomes the feces eliminated through the anus in an act!

Though the liver and the pancreas aren't strictly digestive in their call,
They do help food to change for your hundred trillion cells,
The pancreas makes insulin to control the amount of sugar for all,
And the liver produces a greenish liquid called 'bile', as one tells!

The bile is stored in the gallbladder's pouch which release down the bile duct.
And the pancreas pours out a cupful of liquid to mix each day,
Together they flow into the small intestine, the final stage of digestion sucked
Down from the stomach to its' useful place I'd say!

Now the liver has at least seventy more jobs to boot,
And inside are thousands of little bunches of cells called lobules,
Blood brings food and vitamins to each lobule as loot,
Or sends them along to feed your cells and nobules.

The liver manufactures chemicals to help make a blood clot,
It destroys red blood cells that are worn and have passed their day.
It even gets rid of certain poisons, harmful if not caught,
Then it changes protein into sugar for nature's way.

Finally the spleen should not be left out in consideration,
Like the liver, it removes worn out red blood cells all along,
It's a reservoir for blood, and an emergency station,
To release the extra blood and lymph when things go wrong.

It's time to take a look at the circulatory system here and now,
And the most important part is obviously the heart.
The heart is a pump made of muscle that squeezes blood, Wow!
It has its' own electric motor of small clumps of cells, a pacemaker to make it start!

The heart pumps blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels,
And the beating of your heart goes ka-thump, ka-thump all through life,
And your doctor can listen with a stethoscope to this wonderful muscle,
To determine health, and understand if you are happy with your wife!

The pacemaker cells sends out little electrical currents,
Which signal the heart muscle to contract and squeeze,
Between signals the heart relaxes, then pushes blood in torrents,
To the top of your head, and to the bottom, way down below your knees.

The current makes signals about seventy times a minute,
Which is equal to, but not the same as, your pulse.
That's the throbbing, wave-like motion of contracting arteries, in it
Is the blood that moves along to feed each cell and give you health.

There's a complicated path of blood vessels from the heart, throughout the body,
But they all return back to the heart now once again.
Blood comes into the heart through a vessel called a vein, Oh Lawdy!
And the squeezing chambers sends the blood through arteries, some as small as a pin!

The pin-like, tiny, capillaries help to feed parts of internal organs,
And the blood passes through the liver, and intestines to pick up food,
It also picks up necessary oxygen from the lungs, as it runs
And together, food and oxygen, help determine your ultimate physical mood.

The heart has four chambers that function like two hearts,
A left and right atrium, with valves, help do the pumping,
At the top they perform quite well their parts,
While left and right ventricle at the bottom do their thumping.

While the atria fills with blood, ultimately they expand and contract,
Then the atrial valves close, and the ventricle begins its' chore,
The left side pushes much harder than the right pact,
But all four chambers give the blood an extra push, galore!

A grown person's body has about twenty-four cups of blood,
The liquid part, the plasma, is yellowish and mostly water,
It has twenty-trillion red blood cells to help thicken it like mud,
And five million can fit on the dot of an "i" inside your daughter.

These tiny red blood cells seem to look like rubber rafts,
They carry oxygen in the red substance called hemoglobin,
And are manufactured in the bone marrow shafts,
Two-hundred and sixty-five molecules of hemoglobin are in one cells bin.

A new red cell spends four months rafting in circulation,
And it makes 160,000 trips to and from the heart.
Two and a half million red blood cells die every second in a ration,
While the same amount are newly created to do their part.

It's a marvel of the body to have a system to recycle,
For the worn-out cells are not wasted very fast,
Through the liver and the spleen they must travel,
And dead cells soon reappear again with life at last.

Blood also contains white blood cells, like detectives,
Several kinds wander around the blood stream and move against the current if they need to,
Their job is to protect against germs and chemicals that lives
Contrary to the needs of the body that we know.

A lot of white blood cells wait inside the spleen,
They pounce upon invaders then grow bigger,
They quickly divide creating many new cell beans,
To pursue the germs, then bounce like Winnie the Pooh, and Tigger!

Platelets are often called cells but are really only fragments,
But they contain chemicals that helps your blood to clot.
Suppose you cut your finger and then it foments,
The clot stops the bleeding, and keeps the germs out of the spot.

But should some germs get in to cause infection,
Then the white blood cells unite with lymphocytes,
They slither their jelly-like bodies through capillaries for inspection,
Receiving signals from certain chemicals that the infection excites.




Red blood cells contain two different substances for uniqueness,
Their names are "Type A" and "Type B" to categorize,
But those with neither substance are "Type O" for preakness,
While those with both substances are "Type AB" for size.

To make a successful transfer of blood transfusion,
For saving life and to keep the ill man fit,
"Type A" can give to "Type A", "Type B" to "B", and "AB" receives all three's illusion,
But "Type O" can only receive "Type O", but give to all adrift.

Thus the heart, the veins, the arteries of blood vessels,
With the gates, the valves, and all the little capillaries too,
Complete a marvelous circulatory trip through all the muscles,
So that's why we call it the circulatory system, anew!

Let's turn our attention now to the immune system and its' call,
And let it first be known that your body's cells live in a warm bath of liquid.
Special white blood cells called lymphocytes flow from wall to wall,
And they contain a speck of chemical called antibodies to fight forward and backward.

The lymphocyte antibody attacks a virus or a germ,
Such a foreign substance does not belong in the body at all,
The lymphocyte grows and produces new cells called plasma cells firm,
And another kind of white cell called phagocytes digests the invaders as they fall.

Viruses and "memory" cells sometimes come into a conflict too,
So when the chicken pox disease tries to do you some harm,
The lymphocytes with antibodies not only kill and destroy the flu,
But also kill chicken pox and retain "memory" cells with antibodies and plasma for an immune alarm.

A vaccine to prevent one from getting a certain disease, or more,
Is created by taking killed or weakened viruses that cause the disease,
With a sharp needle they are injected into your arm and pores,
And the lymphocyte cells create antibodies and "memory" cells to put you at ease.

Now the lymph system is quite wondrous in what it does,
But sometimes it fails to perform the way it should,
Thus pollen from flowers with a chemical called histamine of cloves,
Cause cells to explode, creating allergies, not so good!

But generally our body serves us very well,
And immunity and lymph are a marvel to behold,
There are lymph nodes formed by knobs of tissue in a gel,
And the tonsils, adenoids, and even the spleen are lymph nodes very bold!

As lymph flows through every node the body has,
Bacteria and some waste matter are destroyed you see,
Through the lymph ducts, thoracic duct, and lymph vessels pass
This protective coat of warm liquid for immunity.

The respiratory system is how you breathe to stay alive,
What you breathe is a mixture of gases, the main one being oxygen,
Oxygen combines with food to produce heat and energy, 'til five,
Then it's time to rest, so you can breathe easier at home in your den.

But should you perchance decide to do strenuous exercise,
You'll need extra energy to help to pull you through,
Therefore you breathe much harder as some living cells dies,
While others take in more oxygen to help you feel vigorously new.

The respiratory breathing all begins inside your nose,
Your nose acts as a guard of outside gate to your sensitive lungs.
The air travels past some hairs that inside the nose grows,
Trapping large particles of dust to stop them getting caught in bronchial rungs.

Other bits of dust and also germs get caught in sticky film of mucus too,
The mucus-making cells also line your throat and your windpipe,
And they proceed towards the lungs throughout your tubes,
While a tiny hair-like forest of cilia help to clean away and wipe.

Now the respiratory system includes the sinuses, pharynx, epiglottis, and larynx,
And all of them are located in the head or in neck.
They're each involved with breathing, cleansing, and maintaining bearings,
For the breath of life to keep you from becoming a wreck!

Now the lungs are quite extraordinary in their function,
The right lung has three lobes, but the left lung has only two,
There's a lower lobe, a middle lobe, an upper lobe and bronchial unction.
While the larger bronchus is the main attachment to the trachea windpipe tube.

Your lungs act like a pump that has a motor made of muscle,
Which is driven by some signals from the brain.
It is called the diaphragm, which stretches underneath your lungs as bustle,
And can tighten up, or get shorter, then expand its' frame.

Other pumping muscles are attached now to your ribs,
And they often pull the ribs up and outward with a breath,
As the chest cavity goes from being bigger down to smaller there's less pressure to the bibs,
Now air can rush out, and in reverse air comes in to prevent death.

Now attached below the bronchiole extension,
Is an alveoli group of bubbled cells and tissue,
It is here through breathing that carbon dioxide gets remission,
And is expelled as the molecules of CO2 at issue.

Thus the respiration of a human body acting,
Is a matter for the brain to exercise,
In conjunction with the lungs and other apparatus exacting,
Which if you fully understand they'll think you very wise.

The body's method of sifting waste materials out of the blood is called to excrete,
Thus the excretory system now comes within our fall,
Other wastes, the solid kind, leaves through the intestine seat,
But the urine waste methodology is a separate system in its' call.

It all begins with two bean shaped organs we call kidneys,
And each is about the same size, that of your fist,
You can think of them as two recycling factories,
With a million tiny workers called nephrons, now that's the gist.

Each nephron takes waste out of the blood to purify it,
Then puts back into the bloodstream everything that is as useful as can be,
Blood rushes into nephrons through a cluster of the capillaries slit,
And they taste and test it for salt and chemicals and recycle back only what the body needs.

There's a lot of water in the liquid that is useful,
And a lot also the nephrons send to waste,
It is collected in tubes called the ureter where it lulls,
And drains down from the kidneys ex post haste!

Waste of nephrons, and that from the liver mixed with water, often fill the tubes,
And they form what we call urine, sometimes pee!
Which when a cupful collected in the bladder lubes,
Causes nerves to signal the brain and says: "Please empty me"!

In the kidney there are functions for withdrawal,
From the renal pelvis, to the glomerulus ball,
A convoluted tube and loop of Henle,
While blood and waste pass through the capillaries wall.

The two million nephrons in your lovely kidneys,
Cleanse your blood of waste once every forty-five minutes at home,
Every day the nephrons send six cups of urine to the bladder seas,
And the yellow colored urine, from chemicals in the bile, win its freedom.

The excretory system has another name, the urinary tract, as well,
And the lower tip of the bladder has a ring shaped muscle sphincter,
To control by thought how much to keep or sell,
But a baby doesn't think about it much, just lets it rinse-ter!

Now the brain and central nervous system come to vogue,
What a complicated mess of mush to learn about,
But it functions quite intelligently, be you sage or rogue,
And it's the system that sets you completely free from doubt.

The headquarters of your nervous system is called the brain,
While the nerve cell neurons connect the brain to other neurons in a network,
They reach to all organs of the body whether you're normal or insane,
And they do what must be done, be you a professor, or a jerk!

Perhaps a hundred billion neurons transmit electrical signals,
But most of the neurons are found within the brain,
We can simplify the understanding of a complex brain's enigmas,
By naming three parts: cerebellum, cerebrum, and the brain stem train.

Now the brain stem is an extension of the spinal chord,
It is control center for the digestive, respiratory, and circulatory involuntary action.
While the cerebellum orchestrates physical coordination, balance, and equilibrium at the board,
And the cerebrum is the largest, most sophisticated of two hemispheres at traction.

The two hemispheres are joined by bands of nerve fibers,
They include the corpus callosum, with a core of white,
Myelin-covered nerve fiber, surrounded by gray matter, are called the cerebral cortex cybers,
And it starts and stops all your voluntary movements, including a fight.

The cerebral cortex likewise receives all your conscious body sensations,
It's responsible for learning, judgment, creativity, and emotions too,
Different parts of the cortex are responsible for different functions,
It controls sensations of sight, hearing, taste, and smell to give you a clue.

To break it further into opportunistic understanding,
The cerebral cortex is broken down into four ventricle parts,
A right and left lateral ventricle, a third and fourth ventricle handing,
And all together they have quadroplex uniqueness like the heart.

Now the brain is both surrounded and protected,
By the skull, the meninges, and cerebral spinal fluid,
Discs between the vertebrae provide cushioning that's detected,
While the fluid occupies the ventricles associated with the bloodstream steward.

The left hemisphere of the brain causes one to be right-handed,
And is responsible for producing and understanding speech,
It also causes some to be good at reading, writing, and logical thinking demanded,
While the right hemisphere reviews the perception of music, artistic ability, creativity, and emotions to teach.

The brain is only two per cent of a person's body weight,
Yet it consumes twenty per cent of the energy produced,
The energy comes from glucose (blood sugar) and oxygen in rate,
And brain cells will die in five minutes if oxygen is not seduced.

Through a complex network of nerves, electrical signals carry messages to and from your brain,
Your nervous system is always collecting information from the inside and outside of your body,
And the system processes and stores information, while acting on others, such as messages to muscles and organs concerning pain.
And building up a memory, and understanding of new ideas, be they good or naughty!

There are twelve pair of cranial nerves within the brain stem,
While eight pairs of cervical nerves control your arms and neck,
There are twelve pairs of thoracic nerves for the thorax chest gems,
And five pairs of lumbar nerves control the legs and feet at deck.

Your sympathetic nerve trunk controls some autonomic reactions,
While six pairs of nerves from the sacrum and coccyx help the pelvic organs and buttocks to move,
And down through the center of it all is the spinal column tractions,
For a complete electrical message service center groove.

Your somatic nervous system controls voluntary actions,
For your body's relationship to the environmental outside world,
While the autonomic nervous system regulates inner organ factions,
And controls the body's internal environment kept aswirl.

Thus your brain and central nervous system perform many different tasks,
It is all done with split-second timing which is quite efficient,
Such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, you ask?
Digestion of food, and many other body functions beyond nutrient.

Now in addition, but in conjunction, comes the sensory systems view,
Your nose to smell, your tongue to taste, your eyes to see, you see,
And the complicated ear to hear, for both me and you,
While the sense of touch rounds them out to five, to be, or not to be.

But in reality you do not see with your eyes, nor hear with your ears.
These are sense organs that collect information from receptor cells,
They pick up clues that send electrical signals along sensory nerves to the gears,
Thus you see and hear, touch and taste, with your brain, which also smells!

Your skin has five kinds of receptor cells that cover the entire body on the surface,
They detect heat, cold, light, touch, pressure, and pain, all about,
Thus in touch sensation you can feel many different things so perfect,
And the first of the five senses can even cause you to shout!

Another sense called hearing seems as complicated as can be,
But to hear a voice to say: "Hello", we take for granted every day,
There's the outer ear, an external auditory canal, you see!
But inside are meticulous components to help understand what you say.

Three small bones, the hammer, anvil, and stirrup vibrate inside the eardrum,
Another drum, the oval window, covers an opening in the spiral-shaped chamber of your inner ear,
Here there is a liquid and extremely small hair cells that vibrate to a hum,
And the jostling sends electric currents past the cochlea so your brain can hear.

Three hollow tubes, the semicircular canals, and eustachian tube,
Are not a function of your hearing, even though inside your ear,
Filed with liquid and patches of little hair cells in a cube,
They control your sense of balance so you can walk far or near.

Now all the parts of your eye work together to let your brain know what you see,
If a computer had to do the same thing it would take ten billion calculations in a second,
Millions of receptor cells make up the retina lining, the inside of your eye for free,
Rod cells give black and white images, and cones detect colors which beckon.

A transparent skin covering called the cornea protects the inner eye,
It lets light pass through the retina so the brain can understand,
The colored tissue, iris, surrounds the pupil, an opening to the inside tie,
While coating sclera connects to the optical nerve, a connecting band.

There's a transparent sac of fluid called the lens,
And muscles change its shape depending on the distance of an object.
Other muscles attached to the outside of an eyeball, all depends,
On whether you wish to move your eye to an up or down, left or right direct.

Now to taste depends on a clustered bunch of receptors,
A batch of two hundred taste buds line the crack around each bump on your tongue.
Others are scattered on the roof and back of your mouth imperceptored,
And altogether 10,000 taste buds formulate, not very far flung.

The buds on the front of your tongue detect things that are sweet,
And just behind these they pick up salty tastes that materialize,
Buds at the side of the tongue detect the sour, Oh how neat!
While buds at the back detect the bitter things, what a prize!

A smell is something you will never forget once your nose has picked it up,
Your smell receptors are high inside each nostril in a little patch of cells,
There are twenty million receptors in each patch with a twenty hair-like bristle cup,
Dissolved in mucus, molecules start electrical signals to whom the brain it tells.

In addition to electrical currents for messages to the brain,
There are many different messengers called hormones, made of chemicals,
Thus the endocrine system enters now the fold to feign.
Which from glands empties the chemicals directly into the blood ventricles.


There are more than a dozen endocrine type glands,
And the master is the pituitary, or regulator, up above,
Hormones from the pituitary move through the blood stream strands,
To regulate the release of other chemical hormones, such as love!

Hence even your "feelings" are endocrine in nature,
And many other bodily activities are too, you see!
One of the pituitary hormones is the growth hormone, I'd wager,
It helps you grow to become what eventually you will be.

The growth hormone is responsible for many major changes,
And the pituitary sends messages to the sex glands as well,
Hormones in a girls' pituitary and ovaries cause her breasts and eggs to make re-arranges!
While the testes of a boy causes hair to grow, voice to deepen, and manufacture sperm cells!

All of this is endocrine in nature as a teenager moves through adolescence stage,
Through a certain phase one is but a child, or just a baby,
But through endocrinology and hormone movement through the page
Of life, one becomes an adult, capable of having children of their own, maybe!

The hypothalamus serves as a link between the autonomic and endocrine systems,
It regulates hunger, thirst, sleep, and wakefulness also,
It controls body temperature, sexual drive, and the menstrual symptoms,
And regulates the master pituitary gland I'm told!

There's the pineal gland for vestigial memory,
And the thyroid and parathyroid glands for metabolism and calcium and phosphorus in the blood and bones,
And the thymus gland to influence lymphocyte activity,
While the adrenal glands affect intense emotions, mineral and water balance, and other things related to your clones!

Finally the pancreas, stomach, small intestine, and kidneys too,
All have double functions as exocrine duct glands producing liquids,
And as endocrine glands releasing chemical hormones through
The ductless method of the blood streams flowing quick-wards.

Next, the skeletal system is more than just a collection of bony props,
The bones are living parts of you where important things happen.
Half of each bone is a hard mineral, one-fourth is water, the rest is living cells and tissue drops,
And the center, buttery-looking marrow contains fat, and keeps things snappin'.

Near the ends, long bones have spongy areas where nerves and blood vessels run in and out,
The spaces are filled with a tissue called red marrow,
Like a factory, the red marrow manufactures blood cells all about,
Some are red cells, some are platelets, some are white cells rather narrow!

Every second the marrow makes more than two million new red blood cells,
And if you need more oxygen while you exercise,
The kidneys detect this need, squirt a chemical into your blood gels,
And the chemical signals the marrow to produce more oxygenated red blood cells inside.

The skeletal system is the framework for your body,
It protects your delicate organs, and enables you to stand upright,
Muscles attached to it allow you to move to and from the potty,
And there are 206 bones in the adult skeletons delight.

The skull, face and ear bones, are 29 in number if you count,
There are 26 bones in the vertebrae, or neck and back bones,
And the ribs and breastbone called the sternum stand as a mount,
To protect the inner vital organs of the chest cavity functioning tones.

The shoulders, arms, and hands have 64 bones in number at the call,
While the pelvis, legs, and feet have 62 bones to help you move,
That's a lot of bones from the top to the bottom of you all,
But without them you'd not be able to dance about to the groove.

The jaw bone is the mandible, and the upper arm bone is the humerus,
The shoulder bones are the scapulae, While the collar bone is the clavicle,
There's a radius and ulna in the forearm, and the femur thighbone, not so numerous,
The knee cap is the patella, the shin bone the tibias, and the leg fibula is not so laughable.

The wrist bones are the carpals, while the hand bones are metacarpals,
The finger and toe bones called phalanges, and the tail bone is the coccyx,
There are tarsals that are ankle bones, and foot bone metatarsals,
There's the sacrum, pelvis hip bone, and the broken bones to fix.

The tough membrane covering of your bones is the periosteum,
And this outer layer is called compact bone, surrounded by Haversian canals,
And through the canals blood vessels bring food and oxygen,
While the inner layer honeycomb is called spongy bone, for your marrow pals.

Now your spine, or back bone, as we said is many vertebrae,
These many small bones are held together by ligaments,
And the spinal chord down the center is an important nervous organae,
While spinal disc, shock absorbers, fit between each segment.

And where two bones meet we have a joint to bend, or turn, or twist,
In a movable joint there are ligaments and muscles to hold the bones together,
The ends of these bone connections have very smooth cartilage, get the gist?
So they won't injure each other, and a special fluid-like mechanical oily leather.

Let us shift our attention to the muscular system as it were,
And recognize three muscles types to group at call,
There's the skeletal muscles attached to bones to help you move, sir!
And smooth muscles to control internal systems of involuntary actions though small.

And finally the cardiac muscle of the heart to help you pump the blood,
Is a system by itself from the circulatory range,
But all the muscles consist mostly of protein in a stud,
While fat tissue is more prevalent in the female tissue change.

The human body has more than 400 skeletal muscles all in all,
They are marvels, complex bundles of cells and fibers too,
Each muscle cell can contract or relax as the brain does the call,
Indicating that good muscle tone, or good condition is there for you.

There are muscles in the head and face called the temporal and massater,
In the neck and shoulder is the sternomastoid and trapezius,
The large shoulder muscle is the deltoid fastener,
And the major chest muscle is called pectoralis major for easiest.

In the arm we have the biceps and the triceps,
As well as the brachialis and brachioradialis too,
On the back and sides is the serratus, latissimus dorsi steps,
And the deltoid extension to complete the glue.

Now the tummy is the rectus abdominus extension,
To the side is the gluteus medius after all,
And the buttocks are called the gluteus maximus retention,
While the exterior oblique muscle fills the upper side wall.

At the front thigh are the quadriceps and sartorius muscles long,
To the back leg are hamstring muscles upper, and the gastrocnemius, the calf,
And running to the foot is the Achilles tendon, not so strong,
While the ligaments surround the ankle and foot on either half.

Muscles are often arranged in pairs, to bend a joint or straighten it back out,
Such pairs are called antagonists because they oppose each others motion,
Some muscles are flat such as the diaphragm for breathing all about,
And the muscles of your face are only attached to skin.

Sphincter muscles are circulars and enable you to open or close,
While the muscles in your back help stabilize your spinal column so you can stand upright,
Leg muscles help you stand, shift your weight, run, and jump when you don't doze,
And arm muscles are arranged in similar ways in case you want to fight.

Muscles protect your delicate internal organs especially in the abdomen,
Your stomach swells after eating, and a woman's uterus swells when she is pregnant,
Therefore three layers of strong muscles are needed when they can,
To do the job that could not properly be done by bones, extant.

The contraction of a muscle is triggered by chemical process,
The myofibrils of a muscle cell slide over each other to shorten,
The chemical process involves two proteins, myocin and actin, we assess,
And this neurotransmitter is served by a branch of a motor nerve begotten.

The work of your muscles requires energy from a combination of glucose and oxygen,
It's necessary to have both carbohydrates and protein in your diet,
Combined with exercise, which helps increase the content of glycogen,
Hence the greater strength and stamina for your muscles even when quiet.

Finally we come to an examination of the reproductive system,
It takes a man and a woman united to create a human life,
But both together yet still require God and His wisdom,
Who foreordained procreation to be employed by husband and wife.

The chief organs of the male to reproduce are testes to create the sperm and a penis to release,
Other parts of the system help to store or transport in their function,
And the ultimate purpose is to bring about ejaculation as arousal begins to cease,
And for millions of sperm with DNA-coded instructions to meet an egg at fertilization junction.

The testes are egg-shaped glands found within the scrotum sac,
The scrotum keeps the testes at the necessary temperature for sperm production,
So if it's cold, to obtain protection, the muscles of the scrotum will contract,
But if too hot the same muscles will relax for the scrotum's released reduction.

The testes contain endocrine cells, many tiny tubules, and connective tissue,
The endocrine cells are instructed by the pituitary gland to produce male hormones,
The foremost being testosterone which leads to ultimate issue,
As "the Bible" calls the stuff which leads to life with skin and bones.

The tubules, originally solid, develop canals at puberty,
Then tubule walls which are lined with cells develop into spermatozoa,
These male sex sperm cells pass through the epididymis and vas deferens tree,
A twenty foot tightly coiled thin tube, for twenty days to store sperm cell protozoa.

During sexual arousal the mature sperm move from the epididymis to the urethra,
Fluids from the prostate gland, the seminal vesicles, and Cowper's gland,
Are added to the sperm to neutralize acids (both male and female) and provide nutrients at draw,
And this mixture of fluid and sperm, called semen, carry the DNA brand.

The urethra is a tube that runs from the bottom of the bladder,
And continues to the tip of the penis, with three parts:
There's the roof, the shaft, and the glans called the foreskin ladder,
And muscles close the bladder's outlet when the semen's in the cart.

The autonomic nervous system causes rapid flow of blood,
From arteries into cavities in the spongy erectile tissue,
The veins contract so blood is trapped inside the penis in a flood,
And ejaculated release of semen becomes the issue.

The semen contains hundreds of millions of the sperm,
And the head of each sperm contains the DNA-coded instructions,
Half the blueprint of 23 chromosomes comes from the males term,
While the other half of 23 chromosomes belongs to the female reproductions.

The sperm go lashing their whip-like tails from side to side,
Then they swim for two hours along the female reproductive tract,
Millions of sperm die along the way at tide,
But only one sperm manages to meet an egg to fertilize the fact.

During each menstrual cycle the female produces one mature egg cell,
The chief organs of the female reproductive system are two ovaries and the uterus,
The ovaries produce the one mature egg about every 28 days each spell,
And the uterus provides "the nest" where a fertilized egg may become the baby "Gus".

The female has three passageways, two fallopian tubes, and the vagina,
During sexual intercourse the male penis releases sperm into the female passageway,
And if the egg becomes fertilized it is nourished nine months and may become the girl "Dinah".
Once she is pushed and expelled through the vagina on her birthday.

The two ovaries are almond-shaped organs, one on each side of the uterus chamber,
Ovaries are made of immature egg cells surrounded by hormone-producing cell and connective tissue,
A girl is born with from 40,000 to 300,000 egg cells in each ovary to remember,
Beginning at puberty they produce the one mature egg at mid-menstrual cycle issue.

Hormones from the pituitary gland regulate the ovaries work,
These hormones are progesterone and estrogen by name,
They are responsible for female sexual characteristics gone berserk,
During puberty to enlarge the breasts, grow hair, widen the pelvis, and other games.

An egg and surrounding epithelial cells is called a follicle,
At the beginning of the menstrual cycle several follicles move to the surface of the ovary,
One breaks open to release the egg, a process called ovulation, not diabolical,
Picked up by the fallopian tube, it forms the endocrine gland corpus luteum to carry.

On goes the process of a thickened uterus, and hair-like cilia in their motions,
Aided by the peristalsis of the tube walls to move the egg along,
Fertilization of the egg takes place while on the journey of emotions,
While the uterus stretches during pregnancy which excites the mother enough to sing a song!

The inner part of the lining of the uterus is called the endometrium,
During pregnancy, with progesterone, it is thick to nourish the fertilized egg,
This prevents a new concurrence of menstruation in the atrium,
Since menstruation is the shedding of the endometrium and its leg.

The menstrual discharge passes through the neck of the uterus, the cervix, and vagina,
Since the female body has a separate urinary and reproductive opening you see!
The opening of the vagina is protected by folding skin, the labia, mind ya!
And where the inner labia meet in front is the erectile tissue, the clitoris, known to be.

During female sexual arousal the clitoris swells to excitement,
And in young girls the vaginal opening is protected by the hymen skin,
It becomes stretched or torn during first sexual contact, like broken cement,
With pituitary hormone response the entire menstrual cycle repeats itself over once again.

Up to 500 million sperm may enter the vagina as they mate,
But each sperm and each egg have different sets of DNA,
Thus a great variety of characteristics are passed by Mom and Dad at gait,
That's why brothers and sisters are much alike, but different, come what may.

Sex chromosomes are of two types, an "X", or a "Y",
The egg has only "X", but the sperm contain either one,
If union becomes "XX" chromosomes you'll have a girl, don't cry!
But if "Y" sperm makes "XY" pair a baby boy is born!

By the time the fetus is an inch (two and a half centimeters) long,
Almost all of the organs of the human body have been formed,
During the final six months of pregnancy, assuming nothing's wrong,
The fetus increases more than 100 times in weight and 20 inches stormed.

The placenta is the fetus's own special development organ,
And nutrients and oxygen move from the mother's blood through it too,
Then on to the fetus's blood so it will grow and have fun,
Becoming a new born baby when it's finally through.

The fetus lives in a fluid filled bag, called the amniotic sac,
Within it the fetus kicks its legs and swims around also,
It can experience sensations, hear noises, tell light from dark,
And feel its own body and explore the environment with hands as they grow.

The nucleus of cells have many thousands of genes,
Genes instruct your body to produce all the molecules it needs,
The genes are made of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, it seems,
Which stores inherited information, and making of exact copies of the beads.

Each person, with the help of RNA messengers, has a unique genetic sequence,
Your DNA controls your sex, height, hair and skin color, and immunity and allergies also,
It furthermore directs development, growth, systems functioning pretense,
And makes you different from everyone else in all the world.

Now after all this mess of mush and guessing,
The human body corrupts and it ultimately dies,
But the chemicals and dust of earth from this dressing,
Is not what makes a man, or woman, in the guise.

There's a spirit oozing life within the body,
It's the spark of life, and also the light of Christ within,
But when it's time to go, sometime way after forty,
The spirit separates and goes to join the next of kin.

Hence the soul is made up of the spirit with the body,
It's the complete and total aspect of mortal man,
But when the time comes to reach the state of glory,
Through resurrection they reunite, never to separate again.

It's the plan of God to gain eternal life and immortality,
Hence the human body is a place to gain experience,
On the planet earth we come for some short rationality,
Then proceed to after life without a glance.

But the human body is also a temple,
And there are rules and laws that we all must obey,
In order to fulfill the measure of our creation, simple,
And to return to God, from whence we came, some day!

A man must be united with a woman in sealed and bound estate,
Along with their children enjoined under covenant true.
Part and parcel of “the New and Everlasting Covenant” of Gospel fate,
Which leads to exaltation and complete and full joy and happiness for YOU.

================================================================
(Written between 15 January and 14 February 2002 at my home in
Florida while reviewing books on human anatomy and physiology,
with the intent of understanding the detailed functions of the human body, as I prepare my book manuscript on the interconnectivity of the mind, the spirit, and the body in relation to LDS theology.)

copyright 2002, Professor Richard-Merlin Atwater, A.S. 1970, B.S. 1973 (WSU-Ut), M.A. 1975 (BYU-Ut), D.N.S.M. 1988 (NDU-Wash, D.C.).