Today, underneath an auto body shop on 3rd Avenue near 6th Street in Brooklyn lie the graves of 256 soldiers of our Continental army. They were buried in their blue and buff dress uniforms. They were mostly men from Maryland. Well, no: they were barely more than boys from that "Old Line" state, so named (by surviving comrades who became old men, ironically) for these now forever young lads who upheld our fledgling nation's honor on a fateful day, August 27, 1776 A.D. They held off enormously superior numbers of British troops long enough for the bulk of General George Washington's forces to evacuate Brooklyn Heights and safely escape to fog-enshrouded lower Manhattan the evening after the battle to husband their strength and fight another day. Washington had correctly assessed the horror through his telescope as it was about to unfold, unable to intervene from the fortifications atop the Heights. History recorded his cry: "Good God, what brave lads I must this day lose!" The Marylanders, under Brigadier General William Alexander, died where they stood, not just human obstacles like rock as hard as New Hampshire granite, but also as counterattacking watchdogs of liberty who six times charged the British lines with all that their muscle, blood and gunpowder could deliver. These newly "minted" Americans were annihilated except for a handful who escaped across the Gowanus creek. They and their spirit have been followed through the years by our subsequent generations of boys in, anachronistically, Kandahar, Falujah, aboard Flight 93, amongst the rubble of the W.T.C., Khe Sanh, Inchon, Bastogne, Normandy, Anzio, Bataan, Pearl Harbor, Chateau Thierry, San Juan Hill, Gettysburg, Buena Vista, San Jacinto, The Alamo, The Battle of New Orleans, Yorktown and preceded of course by the valor at Bunker Hill and Lexington-Concord. There is truth and there is love revealed by these countless acts of unselfishness.
To forget these brave deeds and supreme sacrifices is to presume perilously on the invulnerability of the luminous freedom that we bask in and to disgrace ourselves and the memory of our forefathers. Yes, freedom is not free. Remember this and remember them.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Norton's Point (Not)
Now the wound:
No hematoma (lost in time)
Nor rank aroma.
Hold the gut
Shut your trap
Fold both hands in the lap.
Sweet surprise
Not for you.
Rocky road you eschew.
Escarole a chew not shunned
With balanced bowels,
Bills not dunned.
In Greenpoint solid
You ensconce.
Resulting stump
Was whole leg once.
Made clean is now this amputee
In Slavic sparkle sans the glee.
To sleep for once,
Not here nor there
But in the arms of Loving Care.
Keep full steam
Steady's best.
Of Flower Girl
A small request.
Don't dwell on the umpteenth snub
Sweetest One
Entwined: the rub.
Mute remain
With alien neighbors.
Theirs: to wax,
Yours: waning labors.
Plug up holes.
No psychic pain
When counted, placed, cleaned and tamed.
Still, a something (what?) not stilled.
Small voice votive, motive killed.
Empty such: no filling filled.
Rockets racing to the end.
Send me to these stars that mend
No more a heart, nor need to rend.
But sign, release,
What I can lend:
Forgotten bones,
Poems never penned.
No hematoma (lost in time)
Nor rank aroma.
Hold the gut
Shut your trap
Fold both hands in the lap.
Sweet surprise
Not for you.
Rocky road you eschew.
Escarole a chew not shunned
With balanced bowels,
Bills not dunned.
In Greenpoint solid
You ensconce.
Resulting stump
Was whole leg once.
Made clean is now this amputee
In Slavic sparkle sans the glee.
To sleep for once,
Not here nor there
But in the arms of Loving Care.
Keep full steam
Steady's best.
Of Flower Girl
A small request.
Don't dwell on the umpteenth snub
Sweetest One
Entwined: the rub.
Mute remain
With alien neighbors.
Theirs: to wax,
Yours: waning labors.
Plug up holes.
No psychic pain
When counted, placed, cleaned and tamed.
Still, a something (what?) not stilled.
Small voice votive, motive killed.
Empty such: no filling filled.
Rockets racing to the end.
Send me to these stars that mend
No more a heart, nor need to rend.
But sign, release,
What I can lend:
Forgotten bones,
Poems never penned.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Philosophy 101: What Makes a Man Good?
by T.M.R.
An excerpt from the dialogues between the philosopher Trinitron and his pupil Fecius. Trinitron speaks first.
Trinitron: But what if these qualities are not sincere? What if they are affectations, so that others might think highly of the fellow? Is he a good man then?
Fecius: Clearly not. If what you say is so, Trinitron, the man is a scumbag.
Trinitron: Tell me, Fecius, what is the single most important quality of a good man?
Fecius: That he should do no harm to others?
Trinitron: How so? Give me an example.
Fecius: Let us say that he pays his alimony and child support on time. Is not such a man worthy to be called good?
Trinitron: But what if his ex-wife is a bitch? And their child, a little turd spoiled rotten by its mother?
Fecius: I see. Then surely this man cannot be called good, for he supports unworthy people.
Trinitron: Let us turn the question around, Fecius. Describe for me a bad man.
Fecius: I would say a man is bad if he cuts his grandmother's beating heart out and feeds it to the dogs.
Trinitron: Ah, but what if the dogs are Lassie, Rin-Tin-Tin, and Snoopy? And they are all very hungry?
Fecius: Then I must say that the man has done a good thing, for he has fed three hungry and much-beloved animals.
Trinitron: Indeed so. Can we conclude, then, Fecius, that a good man is a man who would cut his grandmother's beating heart out and feed it to the dogs?
Fecius: Yes, Trinitron. You have logically defined the essence of a good man. I see it clearly now.
Trinitron: Do you also see, Fecius, why all questions must be subjected to philosophical scrutiny?
Fecius: Indeed I do, Trinitron.
Trinitron: Is your grandmother still alive, Fecius?
Fecius: Yes. Indeed she is still alive.
Trinitron: And does she live around here?
An excerpt from the dialogues between the philosopher Trinitron and his pupil Fecius. Trinitron speaks first.
Trinitron: What are the qualities of a good man, Fecius?
Fecius: Wisdom, patience, virtue, moderation, kindness, courage, open-mindedness?Trinitron: But what if these qualities are not sincere? What if they are affectations, so that others might think highly of the fellow? Is he a good man then?
Fecius: Clearly not. If what you say is so, Trinitron, the man is a scumbag.
Trinitron: Tell me, Fecius, what is the single most important quality of a good man?
Fecius: That he should do no harm to others?
Trinitron: How so? Give me an example.
Fecius: Let us say that he pays his alimony and child support on time. Is not such a man worthy to be called good?
Trinitron: But what if his ex-wife is a bitch? And their child, a little turd spoiled rotten by its mother?
Fecius: I see. Then surely this man cannot be called good, for he supports unworthy people.
Trinitron: Let us turn the question around, Fecius. Describe for me a bad man.
Fecius: I would say a man is bad if he cuts his grandmother's beating heart out and feeds it to the dogs.
Trinitron: Ah, but what if the dogs are Lassie, Rin-Tin-Tin, and Snoopy? And they are all very hungry?
Fecius: Then I must say that the man has done a good thing, for he has fed three hungry and much-beloved animals.
Trinitron: Indeed so. Can we conclude, then, Fecius, that a good man is a man who would cut his grandmother's beating heart out and feed it to the dogs?
Fecius: Yes, Trinitron. You have logically defined the essence of a good man. I see it clearly now.
Trinitron: Do you also see, Fecius, why all questions must be subjected to philosophical scrutiny?
Fecius: Indeed I do, Trinitron.
Trinitron: Is your grandmother still alive, Fecius?
Fecius: Yes. Indeed she is still alive.
Trinitron: And does she live around here?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
2020 Vision
by T.M.R.
By the year 2020, old people will have microchips implanted in their buttocks, for good and practical reasons ... storage of personal data in case they forget who they are ... GPS positioning in case they forget where they are, or where they're supposed to be.
Their golf handicaps.
Their medication schedules.
A complete list of their Facebook Friends.
Etc.
Young people in blue surgical scrubs will perform these minor but painful procedures. This is not to imply that these young people will be doctors. That would be expensive. So they will simply be young people wearing blue surgical scrubs.
Medicare will be a shadow of its former self due to budget cuts. Therefore old people will be required to pay out-of-pocket for this pain-in-the-ass indignity.
After the surgery, old people will have to eat standing up for about three weeks.
However, they won't eat much, because by the year 2020 the rate of inflation will be 15.7 percent. (Hats off to Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke.)
The Giants will have won five more World Series by 2020. Pop will be blase about it by then. The fifth one, he won't even bother to watch. He'll read about it in the paper.
Rus will be arrested but let off with a stern reprimand and a pretty hard spanking -- right on his computer chip -- for trying to purchase a shoulder-fired missile.
My ashes will repose in a landfill, since I have already instructed my executor to leave them by the curb for collection by the sanitation department. Upon reading those instructions, she said: "That's so sad. I hope you change your mind about that."
In 2020, the universe will have 10 fewer years to go until the Final Whimper, when matter and energy as we know them will no longer exist. No stars. No galaxies. No life. No dreams. No music. No art. No laughter. No stickball. No nothing, unless you count a very, very thin soup of subatomic particles -- solitary quarks and mesons separated from one another by tens of thousands of light-years -- as "something."
By the year 2020.
.
.
.
.
By the year 2020, old people will have microchips implanted in their buttocks, for good and practical reasons ... storage of personal data in case they forget who they are ... GPS positioning in case they forget where they are, or where they're supposed to be.
Their golf handicaps.
Their medication schedules.
A complete list of their Facebook Friends.
Etc.
Young people in blue surgical scrubs will perform these minor but painful procedures. This is not to imply that these young people will be doctors. That would be expensive. So they will simply be young people wearing blue surgical scrubs.
Medicare will be a shadow of its former self due to budget cuts. Therefore old people will be required to pay out-of-pocket for this pain-in-the-ass indignity.
After the surgery, old people will have to eat standing up for about three weeks.
However, they won't eat much, because by the year 2020 the rate of inflation will be 15.7 percent. (Hats off to Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke.)
The Giants will have won five more World Series by 2020. Pop will be blase about it by then. The fifth one, he won't even bother to watch. He'll read about it in the paper.
Rus will be arrested but let off with a stern reprimand and a pretty hard spanking -- right on his computer chip -- for trying to purchase a shoulder-fired missile.
My ashes will repose in a landfill, since I have already instructed my executor to leave them by the curb for collection by the sanitation department. Upon reading those instructions, she said: "That's so sad. I hope you change your mind about that."
In 2020, the universe will have 10 fewer years to go until the Final Whimper, when matter and energy as we know them will no longer exist. No stars. No galaxies. No life. No dreams. No music. No art. No laughter. No stickball. No nothing, unless you count a very, very thin soup of subatomic particles -- solitary quarks and mesons separated from one another by tens of thousands of light-years -- as "something."
By the year 2020.
.
.
.
.
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