Long Wagner Poems

Picture this..? Seedy joint.'mediocre comedy one Kiev night.
Hunky billionaire bored and sour, joins his guests Uneventful hour.?
A pan faced man is on the stage, mocking life with inward rage.
George faintly get the vibe, listens more...

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1.    John Desmond Patrick Keegan
2.    Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
3.    Sally Aline Mae Beller
4.    Charles Edward A. Berry
5.    Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce...

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A Good Mystery


I love a good mystery
A real whodunit,
I love the Hallmark Mystery and Movie Channel,
Nothing like watching Andy Griffith play the part of “Matlock”
He always figured it out
And revealed who the murderer is in...

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A year ago, the Russian state launched an unprovoked attack
Seizing land from Ukraine but they've bravely fighting back 
If Russia can't have it, they operate a policy of scorched earth
And turn many towns and villages...

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It is a beautifully warm and sunny day.
Here in the pleasant spring month of May.
It is the month's very first Saturday.
It is here in this place, I am to marry Elaine's daughter.
The church is full...

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Out into the crisp February morn,
Sunshine finally frees nature
From the long oppressive grip
Of the icy, snowy, bitter cold of
Grey darkness that has enveloped
Both sky and human heart alike.
Nature briefly awakens, 
The small winter birds scatter
And...

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Ashes,
Black, gritty, sooty signs
Painted on the foreheads
Of humanity parading about.
My thumb would be black
For several days following
The signing of so many foreheads,
The dark soot engrained
Within my right thumb print.

Ash Wednesday is a magnet
That draws people,...

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I have attempted to capture my favorite major league baseball players in this little shape poem of home plate. Included are (in no particular order):

Say Hey Willie Mays       ...

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She turns me around
Forty years ago
At High School graduation
And she says…
Something I can’t remember

It was probably something like,
‘Well, lookit that!’ or
‘Boy, Howdy!’ or
Some such encouragement

And… though I cannot remember it
Now, I would not part with...

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CERTIFIED CURSE’S ASSISTANT 
(with all due respect to Ms. Jane and Ms. LaNette---the only two deities I pray to.  And I 
ain’t telling you what facility they work in  because if anyone gets...

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Two weeks before 
we share our vows,
in my Miller Hospital
x-ray scrubs, I sit, 
a lull in the activity
of the morning exams
with Helen, a fellow 
wheel chair jockey.
Closely she examines me,
“Do you want to have
a happy...

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“We have no milk,”
you speak quietly
in a tone reminiscent 
of another’s observation
that wine had run out
at a wedding feast.
Miraculous transformation
of wine or milk
from pitchers of water
seemingly absent from
the church job description
of educator and
director of parish...

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“Go west young man”, the neighbors said; but they wisely stayed at home.
From pianoforte to pianoforte, saloon to saloon, town to town I roam.
Surrounded by Phillistines, “soiled doves”, cowpokes, and dullards,
Gamblers, dealers, dance hall girls,...

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CERTIFIED CURSE’S ASSISTANT 


Did you know there are places our old folk are kept?
And if sadly they have no one else a guardian must decline or accept
If they choose to eat they’re served the cheapest...

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My chair, 
at times over 
the past twelve weeks
my prison cell. 
Seven weeks more 
before my sentence
is completed. 
But today,
my chair is going to be
my time machine.

Not flashy and gaudy,
with a Christmas display
of flashing, colorful...

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Every morning upon rising
Routinely searching my vital signs
As a poverty stricken person
Searches pockets for spare change.
The grim news reports,
The skyrocketing death tolls,
Mausoleums more populated
Than the emptied churches,
Many desperately seeking God
From the confines of their dwellings.

I...

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QUIRKS

I once had a friend long time past 
Who was wont to always break his fast
On cornflakes not with honey and milk
But pickled onions, gherkins and their ilk

Now if that’s not a quirk I’ll eat...

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Everette E. Hill
1899-1915

Tyrus Cobb of the Tigers.
Honus Wagner of the Pirates.

To simply see those two hit a baseball,
Well, that would have made my last day alive, worth living.
To watch those two run the bases, like...

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Going through a closet,
I was quite surprised to find
Several shopping bags of t-shirts
That my son had left behind.

While looking at them, one by one,
I realized they portrayed
His entire growing up, through college,
Starting in first grade.

The...

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God of changing changelessness.
God of endless surprises,
confounding the confoundless.
You are the God of Paradox,
revealing to children, that,
which you hide from the learned.
Those mortals you touch,
utterly transformed, Divinely
refereeing matches between
angelic wrestlers and mere mortals,
Jacob becoming the...

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The semi-trailer sits at the farm,
a gift from your dad,
holding everything we own,
except some of our clothes,
and that of our sons,
and Pampers.
Homeless, my pride beaten down,
humility or is it humiliation, it’s master.
Your pride is not...

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Pride and Prejudice A Dog’s Tale

Simply scratching is really not fair
said King Kong to the mut in his lair
you’ve laid down with me’s
and I’m covered with fleas
Now, Fay Wray will end our affair!

Oh well, said...

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A CHRISTMAS PRAYER POEM FOR 2020

Exiled to our homes,
We sit, so many of us alone.
Outside, in a world a whirl,
In which darkness and fear swirl,
We peer for your light,
A respite from our soul’s blight.

In his...

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WAGNER PHRASIS
Enchained by fancy petty wants
and necessity,undisguished
sensuousness burning with
fiery passion kindles the most
consuming flame,my peace of
mind was over.Driven to despair,
idle & disorderly,levity wounded me 
deeply,tortured,no semblance of
reality,puritanical hypocrisy
ordinary & mediocre ,savagery
of taste,adverse outward circumstance,
all shadows...

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We really rather love our Mr Wag.
A bag of music, music in a bag.
Such masterpieces did he once produce.
We listen every day to Mr Wag.

Oh such a man, a wit was Mr Wag.
Oh what a...

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