Half Mast

Occasion: I wrote this poem on September 19, 1986, while thinking about the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, obviously several months after the fact.

Many people read from pages,
Of long forgotten lore,
And cry for people of past ages,
And dying men of yore.

We watch our television screens,
As seven people die,
We wonder just what all this means,
And always question why.

It matters not when these men fall,
Today or years gone past,
We honor them both large and small,
With flags flown at half-mast.

But what about the men we see
As we walk by and by,
What kind of tribute will there by,
For the people we watch die?

People are dying every day,
And we're doing nothing fast,
We sit idly by the way,
With no flags at half-mast.

Once

Occasion: I wrote this during my second semester in Bible school, 1986. I had kind of started liking Tina during the summer and once back at college I found myself thinking about her constantly. She kind of took my breath away. Still does.

Once upon a lonely time,
Once upon a day,
Once I had no bell to chime,
Once no words to say.

Once I lived in poverty,
Once I had no gold,
Once there was no sun to see,
Once my days were cold.

Once is but a time gone past,
Once has passed away,
Once had bells that couldn't last,
Once had naught to say.

Now I have a richness great,
Because a precious stone,
Has come into my life of late,
That gem is you alone.

The Wall

Occasion: I wrote this poem after returning from a trip to Washington DC with my dad in the summer of 1985. We visited the Viet Nam Memorial and it impressed me. I had to write.

The air is cold,
The dawn breaks bold,
A mist is on my breath.
I stand and stare,
In cold despair,
Upon this wall called death.

On slabs of black,
Like clouds of flak,
I read the names in grey.
They tell of wars,
On foreign shores,
And horrors of the day.

I hear the screams,
I see the streams,
Of life-blood in the dew.
I hear the cries,
And blood drenched sighs,
A soldier’s life is through.

Through fields of grain,
In pouring rain,
There's something very wrong.
His buddy's dead,
Just half a head,
He hates the Viet Cong.

Eighteen he'll be,
The first of three,
His parent’s oldest son.
With head held high,
He'll try and try,
But still they'll take Saigon.

He tries to fight,
All through the night,
But then he takes his fall.
The years went fast,
He's home at last,
His name is on the wall.

The air is cold,
The dawn breaks bold,
A mist is on my breath.
I stand and stare,
In cold despair,Upon this wall called death.

Pondering

Occasion: I was stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco in 1987 and had lots of time to think about stuff. Most of the "stuff" I thought about was Tina. Man, she can be distracting. My room there had a fairly good view of the back side of San Francisco. Once again, Tina was my muse.

Looking out upon the city,
Through the darkness of the night,
I can’t describe the beauty,
Of the tiny, twinkling lights.

How they stand against the blackness,
Of the somber, evening sky,
How they seem so unaffected,
As the wind goes howling by.

It’s hard for me to tell you,
What my mind sees late at night,
Or how it’s you I think of
While staring at those lights.

Their number is so countless,
Yet they seem like very few,
And it makes it difficult not to see,
That there’s only one of you.

When my life seem filled with darkness,
Just like the still, long nights,
You simply brighten up my day,
More than all those city lights.

Sacramento

Occasion: I wrote this for a creative writing class early in my college career. The assignment was to write about the place we grew up.

In a valley where cold winds blow,
Lots of rain but little snow,
Chilly river waters flow,
Winter in Sacramento.

Weeds are tall it’s time to mow,
Pollen in the breezes blow,
I ain’t ‘lergic to nothing though,
Spring in Sacramento.

Down the river rafters row,
Evening traffic’s much too slow,
We’ll be too late to see the show,
Summer in Sacramento.

Off to school we all must go,
What’s ahead we just don’t know,
Grass and trees all cease to grow,
Fall in Sacramento.