I’ve fallen in love with a mermaid
She captured my heart with her song
She was singing her scales
And upsetting the whales
As she knitted a seashell sarong

Well I smiled at her, very politely
And she put down her knitting, and looked
She bade me come here
There was no sign of fear
And from that moment on I was hooked

So we sat and we chatted for hours
We talked about that and of this
Then after a while
She gave me a smile
And she bent down and gave me a kiss

Droplets of rain dancing on a lake
ripples caressing the shores,
Mother nursing her sleeping beauty
weaning her with sacred love

Sorrow is a communicable disease,
you get it by being alive....

There was no open casket,
a simple mahogany box with golden key
rested on the table
amidst pictures
of a twenty-two-year-life, silenced
by a too-long fall;

the camera's eye caught
his boyish smiles
and generations of men who wore the green
stood together
and women who held him close
now fall apart.

Who was this man-child?
We'll never hear his children's laughter,
Ashes, ashes, and we all fall down.

Click.

Booze Hound On regrets .............

With the benefit of twenty twenty hindsight 
should I  have stuck to milk.
Eaten my greens and taken bracing walks,
filling my lungs with fine bright air.

Should I have stayed at school
followed the rules.
Been a model son.
 
If I had married and had kids,
Oh fuck you I have to admit
I'd of been boring.
Eking the years ahead

I always wanted to be James Dean 
and leave a good looking corpse.
A rebel or Marlon Brando,
but not in his final years.

Sing if you will of crashing seas
and battling through the surging waves
or of being the sea's slaves.
Write, even, of white caps and breeze
above fresh water-flooded trees.

For there are those who seek such strife,
searching for the spice of thrill
(perhaps testing strength of will).
They say that danger adds to life
even forsake their kin and wife.

You hear the wind chasing your dreams
through the leaves
of your promenade,
blind valleys of your breath.
Ritual and denial snarl and guard dandelion fields
of Spring's easy
grace.
Daffodils in the park, in the rain. Like
tomorrow.

Never let it be said that I dish out what I can't cop.

Iambic pentameter
I leave my door and peer around and up
the coast seems clear and so I venture forth
my shopping bag is empty now until
I fill it with some beer and treats and grins.

To baptize we were asked to learn
Catechism by heart and words of creed
Words born out of understanding the law
Graded in stages of one, two and three

We passed from Monday class to the next
Tuesday graduated to mature Wednesday
The holy book was read in native tongue
Difficult it was, I panicked all the time

Reading a verse each, I counted my turn
Rehearsed to flow if none missed the twirl
So it was my roll to read verse twelve
Steeped in nervousness, I said, ‘twelve verse’

THE WARS :POETS IN EXILE

Like ghosts from a Netherland
In bands one by one
Along blackened bloodied roads
They marched
Shadows against a dying sun
These Makers of words
And Tellers of other ways

For they were taken
By the sublime madness
That was theirs
Dangers to the New State
These Seducers of souls
And Enemies of Hate

And so into Night’s dishonor
They quietly fled
Each and every one
Shadows against a dying sun

In the early 1900’s the American public was introduced to a new type of literature. It could be
purchased cheaply, digested by many, and served as a gateway to parts of the country that, for the most part, due to economic, social, and infrastructure issues lay beyond the means of the ordinary
citizen. The works were classified under the broad term of regionalism and they took readers to the