****************************************************** Do I Hear
Of a goin in the ranks? Is the battle lost; And what of its Cause? Where are the
Sergeants-at-arms’? Who bolsters freemen, Nurses their fidelity, So conscientiously, hard won?
The
first of Our Chief’s line Suffered so many setbacks, It seems a miracle The seeds of our legacy were ever sown.
He’s
honored, The Father of Our Country, For good reasons; One being that tenacity moored to So much humility at his commission’s end. Speak not in common wear and tear, But only in tongues, ‘in opposites’ to disfavor. Muster in! Muster up! It’s better
to be dead than confined? Remember all that
are the Cincinnati Of that revolution and a Tea Party ‘fore. Nothing new is in the wind, that this Republic Has not endured ‘fore and will
not suffer again. Each day begins with reveille
and its “Call to Colors”- And with the nightfall’s retreat and taps we Entrust our sleep to the brave sentries of centuries- ‘Fore battles next day
and a war we will carry to the end! ©2010
by E. D. Ridgell Do
Not Mind My Strong Opinions
I'll be dead and long gone
‘fore my words hit
home;
Strike the marks meant
Not as too strong my opinions
But as an elder's warnings,
Wrapped in the
worrisome
Knowledge that I will not be here
To care as I do about these worldly
Things that are festering
In patterns that I would break
For the sake of those I love so strongly,
Including you-
Struggle to wheeze
on for
Long after I've any wish to mentor
Any other strangling death
But my own. Honor thy father,
Even
if his voice is a
Queer echo of another-
A man is measured in heavenly things,
Not in earthly biases.
© 2010 by E.D. Ridgell
______________________________________
Catching Night Predators
‘Fore the Baltimore Museum of Art
Tonight, much
like any night; Just
the other night-- Last
night, He
was hunting a predator. It wasn’t easy. It takes skill To get kill after kill.
Tonight, he’d
tagged one, already. “Steady”,
he thought. ”Sober up! Follow it up. Look up, then down. Wait. He’ll circle round. Here he comes. Yes! Slow down.” Tonight;
Three,
no four More
tricks- kicks, Niches- Predators caught that night, ‘Fore the soon-be sunrise, ‘Neath his twin lions, ‘Fore the Baltimore Museum
of Art.
© 2011 by E.D. Ridgell |
********************************** Grieving Aristotle Here it is. The first wave. Ohhhhhhhhhhh! I’ve known it was coming For over a year now. We
talked around the edges. I
kept breaking plans to see you And
told you so. You knew and As
always you understood Knowing
better than I the whys of me. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,
the sweet pain, The justification
of the mind's eye'd lashes I bestow on my back like the Polish Pope So recently dead, dead, dead, Like you- cold to my lamenting! I must have broken all the rules Under your tutelage. You taught Me how to untie the Gordian knot Of the burden, we blessed by a God So few else acknowledge to
share. You gave me the highway
to understand Rasputin,
and the back door into salvation. You showed me it was holier to be Persian Than a hypocrite supping with the legions- And, when I went off with Alexander On the glorified roads to India, you
blessed The undertaking.
Messengers carried the Delicious
news back and forth from Athens to wherever. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, how the loss of you Hangs heavy on my being! I must rally yet again so that, I fear, I must Know the anguish of being the last one
standing. The medication
is beginning to lay me down gently, To sleep in some short respite. This is primary, rough, and real. Whether I will shape it further I do not know. I do not think I can Master the words for the feelings. Just as I want Tom to hold me in his safe arms just
one last time, So do I want
to hear your banter and laughter, just one brief moment more. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
© 2010 by E.D. Ridgell ________________________________________________
|
|
| ME IN ST MARYS CITY, MD ABOUT AGE 60 AT THE DEATH OF MY AUNT |
********************************** Shellfish Bay Reflections The waves break o’er
me, Billowy in this latest tempest; A red tide of events and mortals. The undertow
could carry me out but for luck And that pluck to anchor firm, Until what, I do not know or fear. Driven, why so driven? Why weigh against the waves? Tether this tempest and Idle side
the shore 'o the Bay awhile. Rarely, does the Bay Reflect a dead calmed, mirror
of sky To tarry and measure feelings that wake o’er me, Storm-tossed ‘fore this self levied lull. The Bay is a rite to me. The
Bay sweats from pours of me; Mine, salty glands of drowned-down ‘watermen’. Surely as the Full
Flower Moon salutes the night Are these pauses welcome markers In the ebb and flow as “I follow
on the water”.
© 2010 by E.D. Ridgell
|
|
|
|
| LEADING YOU DOWN THE AISLE WAS THE ONLY TIME I'D KNOWN YOU TO SHAKE ! |
[Dedicated to Trissa Tatiana,
my Daughter] Be Positive If You Would Be Forever Young
Pessimism is a poor proponent
For anything but failure.
You must first pick the
old thread out Before you
sew the new garment. The
bottom is the firmest place to be Because the only way is up. It is when everyone has lost hope that The successful make their moves. Alexander untied the Gordian knot In the flash of a slash of steel. Napoleon reached down and picked up The crown of France from out the gutter. Lenin took a train east by invitation. Spitfires flew into the bright orb to disappear into heaven hands. Truman against all odds airlifted hope
in; Ceasar crossed a river
that had once known elephant
dung. They call these latest optimists the millenniums, And hawker on how difficult they will have it. We are in what they call the great recession; A metaphor for the changing of the guard, One of many corrections inevitable with
time. The violated virgins
of generations before Resist
and resent the demarcation from business as before. The future is not ours to know. Today is all we have. Your day is yours. My day is mine. I’ll pick flowers from my garden
and Strew them about my
geography Grateful for their
beneficence to keep me positive. Label me a miscreant if they must, but I will go to they’re Gallows with garlands ‘round my neck, And fragrances, the last sensation, of all that is positive From out the garden.
© August 22, 2010 by E.D. Ridgell
|
| MY DAUGHTER AS A BABY ! |
|
|
| TAKEN BY A BACK-STABBING MAN WHO THOUGHT I DIDN'T KNOW ! |
------------------------------------------------ Exit, Stage Right! We donned her
Trissa To be different, Then Tatiana after a little Princess who was rumored To have foiled fate long ago, Only to learn she did not Dodge the missiles. But low, ours
was favored Above that innocent
namesake. Our's was then,
and is now, words That dissolve
into tears At the very thought
of any harm To her, Trissa
Tatiana. Time has brought its inevitable changes; Blessings and sorrows Replete with tides of tedious rituals Of That farce we try to play out So well, too often to little avail. We've had luck- made and shaped As we contrived the need for it. Now, each of us can go comfortably Into those head lights, High-beamed into that night, Where with luck and deliverance one can exit, With grace and good timing- Stage right, And dare not look down or back For the fear of it!
© 2010 by E.D. Ridgell |
