After the fact

Eulogy

Someday I'm gonna move on and I won't want an eulogy.
But an epitaph might be nice.



No Eulogy -- Epitaph

After a morning martini
in the Bonaventure cemetery,
Savannah, Georgia
near Johnny Mercer's gravesite
I saw an other guy's epitaph

Engraved on
the man's tombstone:

CONRAD AIKEN
COSMIC WANDERER

Those words certainly appeal
but damn all they've been taken
so I'll simply settle for
the plain, the more mundane

GERARD C. SMITH
1938-20??

He Came; He Went
He Did No Harm

Time eternal

‘round Midnight
(with apologies to Thelonious Monk)
by GC SMITH

‘round midnight
klieg lights, jazz riffs,
hot licks, slick chicks
and time is movin’ on

‘round midnight
ain’t quite “last call”
but I’d say all in all
time is windin’ down

‘round midnight
gettin’ a bit nervous
truth is time can fly
maybe pass you by

‘round midnight
guys are super horny
gals are looking fine
flattered by dim light and wine

‘round midnight
herd’s about to thin
guys cuttin’ out the cuties
for the one night stand

‘round midnight
guys-gals get tight,
so to not be passed on by
you gotta have yourself a line

‘round midnight
you gotta make a move
‘cause if you don’t
then damn all you lose

‘round midnight
it’s maybe up to you
or maybe up to her
just do what you must do

‘round midnight
you know who you are
the stud goin' off with the hot babe
or the guy who's shleppin' off alone

Times they are a changing

On Neo-Con Hubris
And Liberal Passivity
Finally Giving Way To
Some Common Sense
By GC SMITH

Bomb the bastards,
keep ‘em in their place;
send ‘em back to the stone age
that’s where they belong

Oh no, they are our brothers
they are our sisters
we must all get along
there cannot be another way

Whoa, we’re in this world together
our differences may be legitimate
just keep in mind that we are mankind;
think, weigh options, then do what must be done



Wait, think a bit, weigh options, then act
it’s what we should do -no, it’s what we must do;
each of life’s challenges must be addressed of itself
or we will fracture fracticly or even worse –chaoticly

Perhaps there is a simple anodyne
a soothing for the anguished soul
a relief for the sore hurt mind
could be, it’s thinking - acting - for the commonweal

Maybe we’re off in
that direction
I hope so, I think so,
et vous?

Forty five years ago ...

I was on the Mall in D.C for MLK's "I have a dream" speech. Nineteen-sixty-three seems like yesterday and seems like a million years ago.

On the day of the "Dream" speech I took the afternoon off from work to attend. Someone from the ACLU handed me a sign on a stick. If memory serves it read:

"WE SHALL OVERCOME."

Those were the heady days of the Kennedy Administration and young bureaucrats like me thought anything was possible. Three months later Kennedy was dead. Five years later MLK was assassinated. A long winter had set in.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008 a thaw in that long winter's ice began.

EMMETT

Hey Emmett
By GC SMITH

Hey Emmett, Grandpa’s getting’ old,
seventy years are comin’ real soon;
he’s hopin’ for another thirty or so
but that’s a wish, one can never really know

I’ve been around here for a while,
it’s a long time ago I was a child;
still I remember those good days and
I surely hope yours will be the same

Yesterday, ridin’ bikes with buddies,
pedalin’ over mountain hills and valleys
destination, clear cold Pennsylvania lakes
or just explorin’ where I had never been

There were the many holidays to enjoy
July the four the best -contraband fireworks
like cherry bombs and M-80 firecrackers
somehow, I still have all ten of my fingers

Then there was the thrill of my first car
a forty Packard full of dents and dings;
gas was but a dime or so a gallon then,
that made it easy for a guy to get around

With mobility came life’s great discovery, girls,
the wonderful mysterious alluring other sex
whose pigtails I’d dipped into school inkwells
until I figured out that wasn’t what one should do

So, Emmett as you grow from child to man
enjoy each and every day, I know you can;
your days will stretch out with wonders to behold,
so grab them, embrace life’s fun, simply enjoy

Correction.

Oops!

I was wrong about Billy and plum poems (he wrote one). It's poems with the word cicada or with vortex that he won't read. Go figure!

On Billy Collins refusing to read a WCW poem on plums

I never …
By GC SMITH

I never wrote a poem
about a plum
until just now
moments after
I ate one and its
juices dribbled
down my chin
to drip upon
my shirt

So,
screw you
Billy Collins
who won’t read
a poem about a plum,
your loss, not mine