In darkness he lies
Blankets up to his chin,
Eyes stare into blackness
Would the monsters rush in?

Tap tap on the window,
Scritch scratch, rustle rustle;
Just a branch from a tree
Scrapes the pane, tenses muscle.

From its hide behind clouds
A bright moon appears,
Casts shadows on curtains
To build up his fears.

Nerves stretch as a fiddle
Taut for the bow,
Buries deeper 'neath blankets
Whimpers loud, fast and low.

"Oh! woe is me" the phantom wailed
As through ghostly halls his head he trailed:
"Oh! woe, Oh! woe, thrice woe again,
Eternally walking these halls of pain.
These walls wherein I met my doom
Hacked down in prime as flower in bloom.
You ask what crime deserves such fate
I'll tell a tale sad to relate.

On Hawaiian shores forever,
she dances for us all.
Her graceful moves in life,
pick us up, when we fall.

Now, the balloons are carried
to distant, far off shore,
and she is no longer with us,
I'll hold her hand no more.

Mother, dance your best,
for us up in the sky.
I saw your love for all,
there's teardrops in my eyes.

Somewhere over that rainbow
bluebirds will surely fly.
The joy that she gave to us,
Mom's love will never die.

There's a word in the English language,
This word sounds much like duck,
I certainly won't say it here
It may bring me bad luck,

This word I often use it,
As my wife is prone to do,
It is so versatile
Some examples now for you.

Remember General Custer
in 1876?:
"Look at those ducking Indians",
As they rode from out the sticks.

And the genius Albert Einstein
With his relativity,
Proclaimed it out to all the world:
"Surely any ducker can see".

There's a time to go back to live life again,
Let the boy who was fearless be reborn just the same;
Command the old man who grumbles and moans
Of the aches and the pains that torment his old bones.

Ride his bike one more time, no brakes, hands free,
Skate winter's froze pond where he knows not to be,
Go down to the river for frogs, newts, dragonfly,
Climb gnarled oaks so tall they caress azure sky.

Bloodied and dying the end of his days,
He lie on the field life slipping away;
Spread all around his dead gallant knights
Lay with their foes who had been put to flight.

The cost was high so many dead,
He surveys the field from his own deathbed
Slaughtered they lay friend and foe alike
Dismembered and hacked in autumns sunlight.

Beneath a boardwalk a girl and I
Naked would lay
Neath a summers's night sky;
Overlooking a beach
Where night birds call,
We kissed and caressed
Each exploring all.

This was the place boys took their desire
On warm summer nights
By a flickering fire,
Then under the boardwalk
Both would retreat,
Lay rampant with lust
'Till passions replete.

If I could write like Kipling,
Swinburne, Poe or Noyes
My pen would never cease to scratch
Tales full of hope and Joy.

Maybe songs of misery,
Of woe and long lost loves,
Girls I kissed with a passion
To rouse desires thereof.

Of gardens soft and verdant
In dappled sunshine's glare.
Deserts bare and sunbaked
Where bleached white bones lay bare.

Tales of high adventure,
Buccaneers and gold,
Of worlds in space, so far away
Adrift in realms ice cold,

He had grown to be a man,
since his capture as a child.
He'd survived two wars by now,
he was seasoned... but half wild.

Was there anyone still left,
who would remember him?
Was there still a village there,
was there even one last kin?

He had been to life's great school,
he had learned his lessons well.
Lived in paradise, been poor,
been to heaven, gone through hell.

Frog he hops,
Then he stops.
Tadpole sees.