This guy walked into a hopping disco bar
crowded with a sea of youth wide and far
and saw a movie star with long golden hair
and eyes so blue he couldn’t help but stare.

But did she notice him?  Certainly not.
for their were many others much more hot
with long hair and bell bottom blue jeans
as it always was, at these nightclub scenes.

With false swagger he arrived just a little too late
as she left with another, and thus he assumed his fate
would be to be denied this one so beautiful and fair,
and wondered if he should try again, should he dare?

With courage and drink he did try again
and to his surprise she said yes, with a grin,
and on a crowded dance floor the romance did begin
and we’re still celebrating such a chance, such a win.

That two should meet and build a life
together as husband and wife.
A family born from the happenstance
of beauty at a disco dance.

And fifty years hence she is still the fairest of all
no matter the restaurant, bar or dance hall.
And he is just a boy who cannot help but stare
at the girl with blue eyes and golden hair.

If we permit ourselves
only an artificial world
and never really see the
trees or the horizon.

How would we know nature,
how will we appreciate
the skyline, and the forest
hiding among the trees?

What is a sunrise or a
sunset if only witnessed
in the posted pics  of others
and the colors of imagination?

How are we part of nature
if we eschew the wisdom it
screams at us every day
on the evening news?

Did we forget about
the warming of the earth
for the sake of profits
and lower taxes?

Wonder what will kill us first
the intelligence we created
or the wisdom of nature
we ignored?

Searching the past,
trying to understand
something beyond what
the history books tell.

The pictures of youth
with energy and vitality
and their words, not so
different than our own.

These people in faded
graying images, who
are still somehow alive
in stories and legend.

Will someday, our digital
images lost in space
be found and will anyone
learn our stories and legend?

Photo, from 1944, Sergeant and fighter pilot, Michael Vargo and his Nephew Michael Varga (Mickie)

The bribe smells of desperation
It stinks like soured milk, which can
keep you alive, as it makes you sick.

The ideas, like the milk are sour,
there are not enough ‘others’
to torture to satisfy an impoverished base.

The self-aggrandizement has
flown too close to the sun,
where even gold melts.

We’ve run out of missiles for
which to wag the dog, and
losing alone is painful.

Our neighbors don’t even hate us,
rather they pity us
for our wretchedness.

But the bribe… now that we
can do, for corruption is all
that is left… no matter how it stinks.

So drink up America, for this
is what the Gold King calls Great!

Can we keep calm,
staying on the centerline,
avoiding the borderline?

Can we keep calm,
maintain an even keel
and to no king kneel?

Can we keep calm,
manage anger and pain
and keep from going insane?

Can we keep calm,
and level our head
rather than losing it instead?

Can we keep calm,
and stay the difficult track
and to reason and ethics get back?

Can we keep calm,
and trust our democracy
and one another as our legacy?

I thing we can!

What we believe to be normal
is a mythology we arrived
to through a million, million
choices through the ages.

Imagined by many someones.
Intentional or not, they effect an
agenda inscribed
on the scrolls of life.

There maybe such a thing
as human nature, but
there is no normal human
experience.

We are left to our
own devices and our
own interpretations of
this thing we are told is normal.

Some truths are inviolable.
All who are born will die.
All who love will hurt,
All who exist need others.

For all else we get to
choose, how we think,
how we pray, how we
love and how we live.

Choose wisely.

Something so simple,
something so singularly connected to life,
something, as necessary, as the air we breathe.

How has it become so complicated?

How much to drink a day? Eight or more,
but never enough, from what I keep being told.

How it should be filtered?  So we convince
ourselves there is nothing but water in water.

Can you rinse water?

What portable container we should carry?  For
wherever we go, we cannot trust un-bonded sources.

Bottled, sparkling or tap at a restaurant,
ice, no ice, maybe a lemon?

Is it on the south pole of the moon
so we can somehow live in such a forbidden place?

Will there be enough when rivers run
dry, but melting glaciers flood coastal towns?

There is too much, and not enough at
the same time or so it seems.

Part of the recipe for coffee or tea, for without
which, how could we meet to discuss important matters?

Ah, but for me, I prefer to contemplate just a bit of water
in a tumbler of single-malted scotch and little else!

I’m writing a story hidden a long time ago.
Something the survivors had never told.
Something so heroic and yet so terrible
it was buried in the dust of another time.

The journey is arduous, requiring being
in the minds of others long since gone.
Feeling the fear, emotion and joys,
as well as, the deprivation and pain.

Sometimes called the Greatest
Generation, they were but ordinary
people put in impossible situations
bearing the weight of history and circumstance.

I know now why they buried all of it,
I know why they never told of the
horrors they wished to never relive;
and words could never be enough.

They believed no one would ever
again allow the rise of demigods
and the fatalism that led to the
inhumanity they witnessed.

They knew we couldn’t really
understand, and this is exactly
why their stories must be told
and retold, so we do understand.

Stories tell us who we are,
they tell us where we came from.
They are the memories of our
ancestors, and our coming legacy.

Stories define our victories
as well as  our failures.
They inform our character
and refine and define our beliefs.

Stories bring comfort to the
sorrowful and inspiration
and education to those
lost and searching.

Stories are what we must
tell ourselves to know who
we are.  So be good to yourself
and tell your best stories

and believe!