GLÓRIA HOTEL, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil..... For several years during my travels, the Glória Hotel, Rio de Janeiro, was a sort of second home for me. I saw it at its worst times, when old Sr. Tapajós still ran it and let it decay. I saw it when guests at breakfast had to fight off flies that entered through the opened dining room windows. I saw it as some of my American colleagues considered me someone who didn't know better and who should stay at a better hotel - possibly along the beaches. Fortunately old Tapajós eventually died, leaving his son to take over... The rest is history. The Glória is one of the nicest unknown jewels in Rio. I did a lot of my writing at that hotel while looking through its beautiful scenery in the distance. LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, October 28, 2000 Front Row - Donald and Elisabeth Second Row - Sarah and Dena Laura and McKay' Wedding Day PRIOR TO THE TEA DANCE DESTINY 1, 2, 3....... What can you tell me If your lies I already know? You see no life, though it passes you constantly in changing images. Mirror, mirror, on the wall... staring at pain - unfeeling, unpossessed, unhoping, unremembering... Show me not wrinkles of time. Talk to me, instead, of ragtime, aching quick steps following a stubborn sound. Tell me of her smile, the cupper raised as memories flow. She, who will be there again. she, ...the fairest of them all... Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Bogotá, Colombia, October 30, 1972 1 I met at birth your somber ways. Undaunted I faced you and felt your power. Winds of seasons change - But you - Relentlessly facing life unaltered. We have battled, fighting still... Until spirit that once lived Pleadingly accepts, Destiny. 2 Waves - against a rocky shore endlessly, life itself... pulverizing, expressing themselves on the sounds to their silent victims, Destiny, really, until the sounding silence dwindles, And they'll still move - as they die on a sandy bed. ADDICTION.... ...and so I bought another book despite all I had to do: Letters to write, music to learn, problems to solve, along with all I must recall. So much to do, while birds go on singing to cats sleeping cooled by the sun's afternoon shades... So much to do, while the dead sleep as we go on, not knowing what for, or why... And so I bought another book - where first I looked at the last page, Trying to find the answer. Rio de Janeiro April 4, 1983 ************************************ TO YOU PATRICK, AT MIDLENT Through St. George's Channel, fighting the draconian Atlantic, buffered by a North Channel holding a relentless Britain, The Sea lulls Gaelic sleepwalkers into new dreams - Elsewhere - Far Away... ...Where reality leads to imaginary forms of a land that never was. Where the Gulfstream blends the tropical aromas of its birth to solitude left by Nordic invaders, And rainwaters flow not, bogging themselves where meadows grow in morning mists that don't evaporate, except in tears emitted by songs of remembrance, or when blown by British Airways exercises, they touch-and-go as if the land were still ruled by Westminster, but not quite... Into that gentle land you came, with herculean strength tossing hissing snakes that bit your staff into the fire of an ideal. You fought, won, and now sleep where the Sea is Irish - where the land gave birth to the myths of Liverpool, America, Australia...while incapable of quenching the fratricidal fight where the color of blood in orange taint merges into the shamrocks's greenery. On this, your day, we celebrate, taking your memory from the urn of history into a make-believe land where everyone wants to be from, so its owners say, As they leave it to awaken Elsewhere. St. Louis, Missouri March 17, 1991 LOOKING BACK Death waiting as I gathered memories - Vague shadows of bygone ages cynically fading into Time. Tell me its worth, I asked. Towards my bed they leaned, You loved, they said. It was worth it. I walked 'til time ran still leaving loneliness my neighbor. Doors leading to horizons widened in distances unmet, into the sound of tongues unknown, unfelt, unfeeling. Then love appeared... I felt the horizon and walked no longer. ODE TO A DEAD BIRD (CHILE, 1973) You were aware As the sun broke the edge of night and you whistled a new morn As Nature guided Your search for life. You knew no wars As you could not lead. You shared the skies As man's genius roared upwards Searching centuries' Freedom. You knew seasons, time guided you. Death? You knew it now, As man, in search of reason... Reason? Freedom? Dying? What have they to do With songs no longer heard? Somewhere over Brazil July 4, 1973 ******************************************* GRINGO It's worthless to claim you know neither the country, nor the language, or That you're only someone   who made it through Customs viewing The usual passage while engrossed in Temple Fielding as the guide diverted you to a mountain, a lake, a sea, views from anywhere; or while from Hiltonian Intercontinental Palaces of plastic and glass you tried to know of Generals braided in medallions adorned in slogans, blessed by banned clerics, as politicos in platformed pretensions, published pulp of woven words selling suntan lotion to Blacks, hide themselves in their voices. Look, therefore, for those who from across the miles came dancing the rhythms of Labor - Dance with them, Gringo! Dance! Dance with the working people! And you will speak. Truly. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil September 12, 1981 ECCLESIASTES, December 12, 1999 Is the sheltering, vibrant tree dead, once its branches are cut and its foliage no longer adorns, or dances to the sounds of birds? Is the tree dead once it stops fighting winds of change, or calm's steadiness, after violent rains following unforgiving droughts, when only in new storms life remains? Or is its life solely a process where Time is when and where The steadiness of destiny lives arrogantly in plans of long ago? Is the sheltering tree now housing life in its death no longer a tree? Or is its  now continued where the new sounds bouncing off its surface are, like the old, only temporarily passing until Time tires? For isn't Time, sustainer, enemy, Creation and Death, its journey leaving little, except for the memories of insignificant moments, of laughter, sadness, anger, victory, defeat, elation, sadness... Time does not settle for draws: Even the strongest trees, tall and proudly may root into Nature's unseen faults while Time waits smilingly unconcerned as it nourishes, or kills mercifully - or in violence. And what of the sheltered, the weather changed, the whispering in the wind, the awe brought to those who felt they knew, or could, preserve? Time cares not. It plays by the rules until the Game has ended: Time 1 - Life 0. says the scoreboard at final whistle, the audience moving on, some in pain, some in anger, some in sorrow, ready for another version of Time, in another Game, when Life will celebrate only the vanquished, now Strengthened by memories of old. In memory of Greta Freund, Memphis, Tennessee, a dear friend of more than two generations. ***************************************************** WINDOWS '01 ... ...a squirrel: Opening sunflower seeds on my window sill... Could this be all, I ask myself while he eats, Or should I, like my furry friend, keep looking For answers that no chips can store? Or will GOOGLE tell me If he worries that tomorrow's snowmelts will wash, or carry his seeds away? Or if, unable to eat all, others take over? Competition, humans call it... The data, meanwhile, telling me nothing, unless I tell it what I want. It's always like that: Bill Gates richly in his Microsoft world at my fingertips, just as Babylonians, Mayans, Hindus, Arabs prior to Mohamed's prophecies, found the wonder in a simple zero, a void where neither positive, nor negative exist, where a + 0 = a; a - 0 = a; a X 0 = 0, meaningless, indivisible. Did man really need it so that I may now stare at a screen telling me nothing - unless I tell it first? Or is the squirrel teaching me that life is a variable to all, man is incomplete, frightened, or he wouldn't search for the insignificance of the unknown because it's there...? MORNING VISIT Crows, rabbits, jays, canaries, sparrows, cardinals, squirrels... Greet my awakening... Friends, different languages, each in the scheme of life... my gift - Stale bread, unedibly ripened fruit, leftovers I should have eaten yesterday, Or in times past could have had accompanied by the hope that all was well, healthy, that they would nourish, if they didn't kill. My friends don't ask for anything, while from the outside they observe through the window, hoping for the moment when it will open and in the toss of hands full find: Sunflower seeds, bread crumbs, the dried golden corn still on the cob... What must they think? Could it be that they consider me wealthy? Or is wealth an insignificant abstract which, between us, only I can feel - having them as friends? I REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW Don't tell me I'm late to discover The first rainbow's birth, or the laughter of children catching hailstones while seeing them magically disappear. Nothing is ever late to the beginner... Don't tell me there are no midgets dancing on the moon, answering my soliloquies while playing hide and seek behind passing clouds. Don't tell me I'm dreaming, as grandmother's ghost in skeletal smiles frightens me. Would I see her peering from the closet had I stayed hidden in my bedcovers? Nothing is unreal to the believer... Don't tell me about stars I haven't counted, as if I knew not how many greet me, or play with the friendly moth whose lamp has retired, or guide the rippling brook to quench thirsty seas that get angry at Heaven's tears until one morning she gives birth to the rainbow. Don't tell me... Nothing is as it seems even if stars could be counted. July 11, 1982 St. Louis, Missouri EMPTY RINGS A heart beat, Yet soon the world darkened In vanishing hopes. "Oh, God, won't she answer?" A twopence coin readied ... but only the buzzing sound... A meaningless ring pleading: "I am here!..." But love was not in that day, The heart beat slowed, ... death walked away. SAD SONG Perhaps, just perhaps, you'll remember that I remain - unable to leave the same ol' place, The same ol' people, the same dif'rences separating us. While the same ol' wanting The same ol' days bury the same ol' wish in the same ol' hope that You may still find me - where we can still be one, but never the same again... AT LAST ...then the Carnaval in madness will rise from the ashes burying arms In cities where greenery grows glowing towards a Sun warming a Sea that defies science, daring its waters, or Life itself... And man will rise to the winds as they evict rains from dirty clouds And from the cleanly-drenched earth flowers will rise to meet the winged gentle, hungry, kiss, or feed the unconcerned as the band serenades the saneness of the Mardi Gras... while amidst the ashes burying Hell in changing winds, A song is born from the last gap of Death, as It fades into the First Breath of Victory... COLD SPELL I didn't brush my teeth, shower, or shave while the temperature dropped inside my formerly -warm house. Interesting what one doesn?t do when powerless, other than shiver, hoping that the weather will just go away. Even warm clothing, allied to benefits of the fireplace, could not relieve depression that my pills destroy. Through the picture window, I could see crystals hung on unbreakable trees, loaning their weight to limbs, once home to birds, now embedded on slick ice, remained as long as Nature wished.. The cell telephone rang telling me that I was not alone. Someone still cared, I hastened, accepting the lodging offer, while thinking of those who must be alone With nowhere to go, or where the weather never takes a holiday. How long, I wondered, Will it be before they will be forgotten by even good people? How long, I felt, will they be trying to neutralize Nature? Two pairs of pants, even if they had no where to guard them? Their lives will never be disaster areas, even if they accepted its formal definition. Bad luck never afflicts the weak who want it that way. Soon, like Reagan's welfare queen in mink, they wiill be down to collect their allotment, or keep their luxury cars going while politicians point to them despairingly -r even the comfortable have a right to despair- Or to lie as self justification.. Nature, however, does not lie. Soon, it will relent in its fury. while I discard the warmth of my clothing venturing forth to brush my teeth, shower, shave, And even to forget. St. Louis, Missouri, December 5, 2006 THE ROSE TATOO She had been vaccinated On skin that her mother wished Only her husband would someday see. Thus I couldn?t even imagine the pox-conquering mark Left behind, as she sat facing me. Yet Mom had no say, As the rose tattoo above her left breast Meeting her blouse Permitted the multi-colored butterfly to suck the generated nectar of my imagination as her breathing would gently move the insect up and down - While I wished I had wings, Even if I were only to live briefly. St. Louis, Missouri, March 26, 2006 GENETIC MAKE UP After his anger subsided, My accuser spoke Of my volatile inheritance - Something in the genes, somewhat like Latin colonels on American payrolls Have often shown the world While pretending to heal what affects their countrymen. Strange - since I had not lied, Nor started a revolution Anywhere. Strange, really - since my relatives In lands of reverse seasons only obeyed Myths the new Quislings publicly Presented, while hiding dollars Quietly pocketed. I listened - Lest I prove the accuser Correct in his ignorance. What if I felt that history Had often kept him in the dark? One gains little from truth if that terrible mother slowly Sustaining mental changes Physically jogs non-physical modes while stereotypes remain. Mankind will fight off bedbugs that feed off one?s blood, Leaving the victim alive for later feeds, termites whose survival only comes from slow destruction, As bombs explode elsewhere. Truth that matters little to the powerful with the right ?genes? with the right gods, with the right interests And who Never lie. St. Louis, Missouri August 10, 2006 UNTIL Curiosity never finds the best in you Until you fail. Curiosity never finds the best in you if you do not return the wonder of childhood into the life you abandon, searching where secrets lie visible to all... "Mommy," shouts the child in wonder, "Abe Lincoln died"... while at Canaveral, a far-away world is captured in another truth as scientists congratulate themselves for finding existence, another image on a computer screen, unable to see why man should suffer, or cheer the humble butterfly that does not decapitate, or depreciate, God. Although, as it moves from flower to flower, it may also wonder about the gods forcing your wonder About justice, love, forgiveness, or being who you are, and why... Curiosity never finds the best in you Until, like the powerful wave, you will perish on the gentle beach, and still survive. For you are not just the wave, but an ocean, an everlasting sea from whence life came rolling, creeping, adapting, - until time to go. Fear not, therefore, when you will no longer find the curiosity abandoned as life abandoned you, your prayers, your wish for permanence, The roar, the swoosh as your wave reaches destiny. Fear not, therefore, what form. is a part of you. Lincolns never die, as long as you wonder ...

St. Louis, Missouri December 8, 2000

River... quietly moving, as Life sings... A savior to the thirsty, a plague to the flooded. In either case, you provide... CLICK