Long Rhine Poems

The Rhine Salmon Complaint, Translation of Etiemble’s Complainte d’un salmon du Rhin

						For Yvon Belaval
(A lilting musical poem of varying line length in quatrains with a refrain and much internal
 rhyming; end-rhyme scheme: alternate rhymes in...

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Pay heed to those deeds from whence the heart must confess...
You're far from Rome Proconsul Caesar...
As they say, "All roads lead to Rome" Ariovistus
and all tresspasses are treated as threats of war...
My recent conquest of...

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Words of a mother melting your spirit despite it being cold. Her loving you no matter what chasing that heart of gold. 
         "You don't need to...

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Just like her favorite character Alice, she wears a light blue dress and a pinafore, she pairs it up with white tights and black Mary Jane shoes.   A black ribbon pulls hair tight,...

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Trifolium pollinated courtesy bombus

Before landscapers mow swaths
across undulating waves of clover
(the father/daughter team
usually cut grass every Tuesday)
bumblebees alight from one to another flower.

Meanwhile, I lie splayed
mid morning June 28th, 2022
with stomach upon natural carpeting
quietly basking...

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Hildegard of Bingen, aka the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German christian mystic who had visions of the Love of God beginning at age three. 

“Cry out, therefore, and compose!”—Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, translation...

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"Every day is a page to write a new story". 
And I have rewritten us every day for the last 20 years
We break up…but we were never really together
We make up…how sweet it is ...but...

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When empty bubbles of stillness brimmed the place
Upon an emerald carpet of meads, she genuflected with gathered grace
Of languished bones and reverence plucked from nunhood hearts.
Mighty potentate dear, the wonted beseeching starts. 

Oh! May the...

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This is the best beer I've ever had. 
Yes, The best beer I've ever had. 
No beer is really bad, but 
This is the best beer I’ve ever had. 
 
Beer’s invention was accidental I’m told. 
Something about stored grain...

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I thought for a long time

to try and do something right

(in your eyes)

I've taken the blows

and the comparatives 

of every beauty you know



You love me, you loathe me,

I'm evil and detestable

You take me to my...

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More than two years it be since me old dad had to fly. I miss him you know, he was 
my best friend. I miss the twinkle in his Scottish,Irish,American eyes, a kind and 
caring...

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UNQUOTABLE QUOTES - LIV : Swatting flies in Buckingham Palace from the White House

When Bianca Nobilissima, the statuesque Sea Anne-Anne anchor in her Star-Trek heat-wave get-up exposing her sculptured architectural buoy spaces from head to...

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I traveled almost everywhere, growing up. It took years. The landscapes, flora and fauna, the art, music, cuisines and curse words all seem to blend together in my mind.

Mount Fuji, the Rhine, the Himalayas, the...

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Oooh, Andrea, can we take a walk, 
because my time is passing
 and we need to talk.
Seems the days grow shorter 
when the ice melts in
And we don't know if we're gonna fall in.
But there's...

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Rolf was born in Wallertheim, in an optimistic year
Progress seemed to be everywhere, and not much to fear.
Then the reds took Russia, shook the world to the core
Millions killed when in power, a crime you...

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I’m in Berlin. It’s nineteen eighty-four,
The Army on the Rhine, and I’m a nurse.
I’ve got an ego like an exocet,
(it’s safe enough, if regularly flattered),
and I have had enough of NAAFI-lore.

Four Powers – us, Froggie,...

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Elvis has left the building.
West Berlin, a significant place
Where life was lived at a frantic pace.
Me and Old Elvis together through the night
In those days when I saw things
In stark black or white,
And me and...

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My family is everywhere like wild seeds sown
On the whim and bluster of a wind
Some left for Cuba before the revolution
Bring green stalks of sweet grass to sugar
And are still there, root sunken in the...

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what brought him/her to this point
no one will remember, since there’s 
nobody to witness & nobody to find
her/him if s/he takes it as far as s/he
can---still, the walls are closing in &
the rain outside doesn’t...

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The trenches are dug,
We gotta go, guys,
Defend our country,
On the other side of the Rhine,
They don’t speak French,
On the other side of the Rhine,
They don’t speak German,
Sprechen Sie Deutsch ?

We gotta go, guys,
To die for...

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Unescorted NYC HMT NY 660 Louis Pasteur started out from 
New York  Harbor Nov. 30, 1944. 

Landed in Liverpool, England Dec. 8th, 1944. Arrived Brddulph, 
Staffordshire, England Dec. 9th, 1944.

From Weymouth, England to LeHavre,...

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Lights are low.  Reflections flicker on the wall
Mirror images of those from long ago.
Dead so many years, yet who are still alive...
Here,...in black and white, ...in this dark room

Bergman and Grant.  I watch...

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The King swore his end
 By kingly power sealed by his signet.
 For the blind harpist
 Played down the joyful cheers
 Into sorrowful tears.

 Lords sobbed like lads
 While he sang without words.
 The queen's...

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She descended from a far away land
I was from the backwoods
She was my life and death
I was her lover boy

They taught me simple things
Beware of seductive pretty strangers
How to drive a car very fast and...

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I’ve been walking for a mile
The woman stalking me has been sniffing for a while
She has become my second shadow
I hope I am not the source of her sorrow.

I quicken my steps on the quagmire...

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