Yes, there are innumerable reasons to feel worseAnd I’m not just talking about what’s going on in the worldSome of … More
Category: Death
Gone
I heard about it by word of mouth, you knowThe way gossip starts small as within a familyThen blows outward … More
This Burning Wait
It consumes all of me is a dreamSinging red, yellow, and orangeAutumn’s dying days dance all downIn Korea choir the … More
Red burn of white paper, orange glow of rising smoke
He’ll always go home in that fitting brown aloha shirtFaded Reyn’s from years of favorite wear and washThe cycle repeated … More
The Circle
We all face each otherThe sun going downNot as wide a circle as it used to beNowadays a bit windedThe … More
That Unkind of Call
When people still had landline telephonesSometimes I wanted to throw mine out the windowThe last time we talked, he told … More
You Are a Star
It was the perfect way your body woreThe “I am a Star” T-shirt I brought to MadisonA collector’s item printed … More
The American Cemeteries of World War II
All of us have seen photos of tulip fields, vibrant colors stretching for milesNo need to see those in the … More
At the Louvre Museum
Amazing how quiet the multitude of viewersCompared to the works that speak to usEach visitor drawn to something somewhere hereThis … More
Night Watch
They sat and smoked the cigarettes they’d rolledLaughing softly about the way the grass grew hereCompared to how it waved … More
The Green Waves Roll
When they mow the lawns where the white crosses lieEach section of the American Cemetery at Normandy is cordoned offSeparating … More
Lucky
In Operation Market Garden200 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne’s 504th Parachute Infantry RegimentRowed across the Waal River to take the bridge … More
My Father’s War Souvenir
Paulie, my father’s friend in Madison, tells meThat after the Army bussed him back to MilwaukeeHaving held onto him for … More
Annual Birthday Party at the Zeppelin Field, Nuremberg, Germany
He stands at the podium projecting out over the fieldGrips the railing, his hands a ghostly whiteThe master orator had … More
The American Cemetery at Lorraine, France
All of them, like brilliant dominoes, lined up in perfect rowsColumns of names carved in stone, these markers of soldiers … More
The Haunting of Permanent Night
The moon may go down, but the night never endsHere where we mingle with the spirits of the deadIn the … More
A Few Words to the Wise
I remember how I lost my teeth, the wisdom onesAll four at one blow to a drillAnd on a tray, … More
A Family Tradition
I remember, nearing the endBefore dementia overwhelmed himThe first thing every morningMy father read the newspaperTurning more and more oftenTo … More
Jim, how I miss those horseshoe days
Remember the day you and I dug the pits at Castle Memorial?How you pinpointed the distance with a tape measureMaking … More
Aftermath
At the rate they were rifling through the houseIt wouldn’t take them long for them to clean outEverything of any … More
Lanning Lee 