Long Eighty seven Poems

All the guys and gals that I had graduated with, from Jimmy Dorsey High School, back in 1935,
Half a century later were dispersing all around us, surprising me with whom among my class was still...

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I don't know how it started

But it's an annual event

But I don't think that an egg hunt

Is the best way to present

The story of our saviour

Chocolate eggs you go and find

I don't think that's the...

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Ducking into Nell’s Cafe’ to grab a noon-hour snack, I noticed, sitting quietly in a distant corner booth,
A little girl that checked the entire list of common features, including totally trusting eyes and, yes -...

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Approximately three plus days elapsed...
without yours truly experiencing urge to defecate

Neither bloating nor constipation
arose, but one nondescript anguished
logophile anticipated intestinal blockage,
hence prophesying worse case scenario

I (predicated in direction for an adult)
ingested three Dulcolax tablets
and subsequently...

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Life is way too short for some, and far too long for others -


“Says here, ‘Lester Kiblingworth - a former county sheriff - and oldest man in Sidwell, passed away at one-oh-three,’” 
I announced to...

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Preface: 
On February 4, 1861,
the seven states that had seceded
by this point convened and created
the Confederate States of America
under the leadership of Jefferson Davis.

Just under two months later,
on April 12, 1861, Confederate forces
opened fire on...

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“Everybody duck, everybody run, and everybody hide. Quickly now. Hurry. IT is happening now. All run run run” In haste the message spoke. Radiating booming voice from the tissue box placed in the middle of...

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Born in New England in the wake of the Civil War,
Her folks fled Irish famine and landed on our shore.
At age five, she took sick, losing almost all her sight.    
At eight,...

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Where are you along the curve?  How grateful is your heart?
Do you know the God you serve, or the gifts that He imparts?
Examine where you are and contemplate where you should be.
Take an honest...

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(Written in 1970 when I was a junior in high school)

Kyle’s only three and quite the tyke
And he wants to ride a two wheel bike
But his mom and dad say he’s too small
And they’re afraid...

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Like a messiah nailed down.
Steaks are high...
Cant ask why, for me, it's do or die.
You would have to live it to get it.
To see why I couldnt regret it.
To see what the significance is.
What the...

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Are you ready?
Picture eighty-seven children, practicing for a Christmas show
in a sales barn that does not have heat or a sound system.

A skunk died somewhere in here a few hours ago.
Many are screaming.
Some are crying.

Many...

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When I was just a little boy,
Attending Sunday school,
The story of Methuselah
Outshined the golden rule.

He was just like Rip Van Winkle,
A kind old gentleman,
Who lived more than nine hundred years;
The oldest living man.

And so I...

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If you are not computer literate you are missing a universe that is accessible, and ready to greet you.
You are missing a whole language, that the young people understand, and converse in, totally.
You are missing...

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(I hold three magic rocks in my hand
Rolling them over and over and over
Leaving this reality far, far behind
I dream Daddy's dream, over and over and over.)

My daddy talked about her.
He said she was a...

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In 1890, cowboy Bob Womack found gold at the base of lofty Pikes Peak!
In short order a ramshackle town was founded called Cripple Creek.
Hordes of gamblers, 'soiled doves' and prospectors hopin' to make a buck,
Heeded...

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A decade together with you,
Loving and learning all ways new.

What is a decade? A decade is ten years,
Ten years of love, laughter, and some tears.

A decade is one hundred twenty months,
A lot of kisses, hugs,...

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One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.
Pennies saved by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher.
One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the...

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It was about twelve noon when they asked me to count backwards

Only the potion they used on me just seemed to push me onwards

I got down eighty seven when I heard these voices

"No one has...

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The Last Summer 

This is the last summer 
with all of us together; 
next summer we’ll all be 
somewhere else and hopefully 
we’ll see each other again someday. 
 
We walked down the forest trail...

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Cancer - The Invader 

By Betty Harp Butler


Cancer does not knock-
It invades.
It comes when you least expect it,
When things are going just fine.
Then boom!
And in it wades.

It takes you by surprise,
When you have always been...

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‘Round the bunkhouse and corral—
Seven years old, without sin—
My yeller dog was my pal—
It seemed summer would not end.

The warm days went by fast—
It was time for me to wean—
The good things just do not...

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There is a name falls on my ear,
Like an aria, so soft and clear.
It rings with a melodious sound
With vision of maiden quaintly gowned.

I never saw my Grandma Hannah.
She lived far away in Indiana.
I knew...

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One dollar and eighty seven cents was hardly enough to buy
a Christmas present. Aside from the  gold watch gifted to him
by his dad, that was all James and Della had. Della had long
blond hair...

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Soft dawn light... 
Broke in the east 
Pink and red, 
in late December 
Christmas came on a frosty day... 
What I can remember.....
 
This time, so long ago 
So many years passed by 
Yet, I...

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