Making It
Making It You’ve outsmarted all of the rest. You’ve proven that you are the best. But still you can’t stop. You work till you drop, Because nothing exceeds like success.
Getting On
Getting On In spring, some old men’s fancies sadly turn to thoughts of loves long lost, abandoned, left in the distance, only dreamt. Not this old man’s fancies, for I’ve been lucky in love, and so remain, although I bitterly regret the pain I caused to those I loved and left. For I have been
The Festival Of Toast
The Festival Of Toast Dirigibles for Heaven leave on time each hour from the tower on the shore. Wing’d people flicker through the flower-towns, feeding as they fly. Today’s great leader frowns from a monument of paper to a war we loved to lose. Electric cowbells chime in the upland meadows where the tractors mate,
The Festival Of Toast
The Festival of Toast Dirigibles for Heaven leave on time each hour from the tower on the shore. Wing’d people flicker through the flower-towns, feeding as they fly. Today’s great leader frowns from a monument of paper to a war we loved to lose. Electric cowbells chime in the upland meadows where the tractors mate,
Unlocking Time
Unlocking Time Winter locked my mind in place As though I were under house arrest. My thoughts, imprisoned, became dreams- Not nightmares, always, but dark enough To leave a trace of fear. This morning there’s a change, as though My sentence has been served, and I can go Not wholly free, but less constrained. The
At The Elysian Fields Retirement Home
What Do You Miss? The Elysian Fields Retirement Home is a large, slightly run-down three-story building with a wide verandah overlooking the sea. Set out along the verandah are several lounge chairs, and seated in them are eight old men and two old women dressed in bedroom slippers and white terry-cloth robes. In front of
Choices
Choices I have a grim little manual entitled “Worst Case Scenarios,” which presents the reader with a series of awful situations, and challenges her or him to pick the least dreadful one. In the spirit of that manual, here are a few tough choices of my own: 1. It’s your daughter’s Bat Mitzvah celebration, and
A Drinking Song
A Drinking Song Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye. That’s all we shall know of truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh. – William Butler Yeats
Bulwer-Lytton Contest entry
The new diminutive occidental municipality’s law-enforcement officer and sheriff ambulated out of the disreputable gin-mill saloon, shrugging aside the lady of the evening who sought to impede his progress by clinging to his forearm. “Fill your hands, you low-life, utterly deplorable, mannerless scum-sucking scion of a female dog!” he yawped in stentorian tones to the
The Ides of March
The Ides Of March Leaden sky, snow drifts, Birches bend and hemlocks groan. When will spring wake up?