The Patriot

 THE PATRIOT

"My country,

Right or wrong!

Love it or leave it!"

The man cried.

            **********

"My country,

I love it

When it's right,"

The patriot replied.

            **********

"But when it's wrong,

I won't leave it.

I will make it right."

Final Destination

 FINAL DESTINATION

There is,

In the heart of Phoenix,

A Catholic cemetery

That has grown three-fold

Since I knew it first.

Now there are hard cold graves

Where once I slept

In my own warm bed.

It is a fine and private place

In the cool dark night,

And there I did embrace

My own first love.

            **********

There is,

In the desert town of Tombstone, Arizona,

Where Wyatt Earp shot it out

In the OK Corral,

A grave for cowboy Les Moore.

I stood at his Boot Heel grave

And read on his tombstone

That he was killed by three shots from a .44,

No less, no more.

            **********

There is

South of San Francisco,

A Jewish cemetery.

It is there you will find Wyatt Earp,

Next to a Brooklyn Jewish actress

He called his own true love.

            **********

There is,

In the heart of downstate Illinois,

An actual river,

Spoon River,

And near it is a small cemetery,

Peaceful, quiet, studded with trees.

You know the names

Carved on the tombstones.

You've read of their struggles,

Their hopes, their fears.

We stood over the grave

Of Lincoln's first love

And my name strummed his guitar.

We sang about their lives, their tears.

We'd driven half across the country

To reach those graves,

To the surprise of a passerby,

Unbelieving that the outside world

Knew who was buried in Spoon River.

            **********

There is,

In the heart of Pittsburgh,

The steel town

A Northern town,

The grave of Stephen Foster,

Who sang about an Old Kentucky Home

He never owned,

A Suwanee River he never saw,

And who never came from Alabama

With a banjo on his knee.

I stood alone over his grave,

On the anniversary of his death,

And placed a flag on it to mark it well.

            **********

There is,

In Elmira,

In upstate New York,

The grave of Mark Twain,

Who did come from the South,

Who knew the Mississippi River well,

And who wrote each day in a shack.

I sat at his desk in his shack,

And on his grave I left a stone in homage.

            **********

There is,

In Cambridge,

In a churchyard

Next to Harvard Square,

An old Colonial graveyard

With ancient tilting tombstones

Upon which rain and wind and time

Have erased the dates and names.

I stood among them

At sundown

And pondered the long shadows

Those tilting tombstones

Cast upon the snow.

            **********

And there is,

In Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery

The grave of Tammany Hall's Boss Tweed,

Leonard Bernstein, Basquiat,

And six hundred thousand more.

There is also a mausoleum of stone,

The final destination

Of an obscure life.

Above the doorway

Are chiseled these words:

"Good Enough."

Denny

 DENNY

I always called you Dennis,

        Like the Menace.

I grew up that way.

        Then, joining the many,

I learned to call you Denny.

            **********

But you were never a menace,

        Not to anyone, and not to me.

Always my friend,

        As well as my brother,

Generous and loyal to the bone.

            **********

I wish I could have been

        A better friend to you.

I left early, we grew apart,

        I seldom saw you,

But you were always in my heart.

            **********

You were good at chess,

        Just as good as me,

Better at darts and bowling,

        Better at cards,

And better at Candy Crush, Oh, yeah!

            **********

Were you better than me at dying?

        You fought a good fight.

Though you suffered, you never surrendered.

        Would I have done the same?

Time and chance will give the answer.

Jesus Wept

 JESUS WEPT

Jesus Wept

When he found the Temple

        Defiled by money and greed.

                So he overturned the tables,

        Took a whip in hand,

And drove the greedy from the Temple.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When the hungry and poor

        Flocked to hear him as he preached,

                And he saw they had no food.

        So he took the loaves and fishes

And multiplied them enough for all.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When Lazarus died

        And they laid him in his tomb.

                So he stood at the grave

        And said, "Lazarus, come forth!"

And Lazarus walked among the living again.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When they gathered for their final meal

        And he realized

                That one would doubt him,

        Another would deny he knew him,

And another would betray him to Caesar.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When he knelt alone in the garden

        In the dark night of his soul,

                And knew it was for naught.

        The Temple would again be defiled,

The poor would hunger, Lazarus die again.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When they came for him in the night,

        They took him away,

                They found him guilty,

And they scourged him with a whip.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When the people abandoned him,

        Turned against him for Barabbas,

                Mocked him in the street,

And laughed at the cross he carried.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When they nailed him to that cross,

        Gambled for his robe,

                Stabbed him in his side,

And he knew he was forsaken.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When he looked out over the land

        And saw the light of distant days.

                He wept with sorrow and pity,

For he knew it would never end.

                **********

Jesus Wept

When he died on the cross,

        And Paradise was forever lost.

Big Bird Song

 BIG BIRD SONG

It filled the air,

        It filled my ears,

                It brought me to tears.

It was so big it split the sky,

        And I thought,

A song that big

        Must come from some magnificent

                Throbbing breast.

A sound that profound

Must come from some big bird,

        A firebird with flaming plumage

                And a ruby throat.

                **********

I searched the clouds,

        Following the sound,

                And there, near the ground,

I found the singing siren,

        A small brown bird

                Hidden in the brush.

Violence

 VIOLENCE

I was conceived in violence

        And born in violence,

Ripped from my mother's womb

        By an impatient doctor

With forceps in his hands

        In a little down

Half a mile from nowhere.

            ********

I was raised in violence,

        The slap to the face,

The broken belt

        In the upraised fist,

The broom, the iron, the switch,

        Anything that came to hand

Would do in a pinch.

            **********

I lived in violence,

        Violence at home,

                Violence abroad,

Violence in an unknown land.

        It was a violent time,

                But all times

                        Are violent times.

            **********

Because violence is everywhere,

        In the night, in the twilight,

                In the daylight.

It grows, changes, mutates.

        It metastasizes into something

                New and strange,

But still it is known.

            **********

It is as old as dirt,

        As common as dust,

                As easy as a well-worn shirt.

Violence is as red as a setting sun,

        As white as a polar night,

                As blue as a wasted life,

As hungry as a wolf howling at the moon.

            **********

It waits for me like a spiker in its web.

        It waits patiently,

                For it knows

I was conceived in violence,

        And I will die in violence,

The flames shooting from my eyes,

        My bones turning to ash.

Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

SWEET JUDY BLUE EYES

"How does it go?" she asked.

    She couldn't remember.

        It was long ago.

But she remembered that night.

    They sang, they danced,

        And she drank too much.

    She did in those days.

She'd been sober, now, forever,

    But those were the days, my friend,

        Of drink without end.

She stumbled upstairs,

    Fell into bed,

        Fell into sleep,

No, she said, remembering aright,

    Passed out.

And awoke early in the morning.

    Head still pounding.

        Something still pounding.

Dark in the room,

    And the wind howling.

        No, not the wind.

It was Dylan downstairs,

    Pounding on the piano

        And howling.

She glanced at the clock.

    Three a.m., and he wasn't sleepy,

        He wasn't going anywhere,

And she listened as he asked

    Mr. Tambourine Man

        To play him a song.

I want that song, she remembered.

    That song...

        "How does it go?" she asked,

Remembering the moment,

    But not the words.

        It was long ago.

I wasn't there,

    But I remembered the words.

        So I sang them for her.

She smiled & asked,

    "Want to go on the road?"