This is a poem written by Dr. Norman Feinberg. He asked me to post it up. So here it is on the internet.
THE FINAL PERCEPTIONS OF A BRILLIANT FOOL
by Dr. Norman Feinberg © 2009
THE FINAL PERCEPTIONS OF A BRILLIANT FOOL
I sit here alone and waiting
For the Grim Reaper to finally appear
I know not when the exact time will come
Maybe today, tomorrow or sometime next year
It is this waiting that is so intolerable
For it gives me thought I wish to forget
Specifically, how can someone die at last?
When living has not been a friend he has met
Death is all around me, choking every breath
It never halts a moment to rest
Taking those whom you would call the worst mankind
As well as the ones you can think the best
Somewhere in the midst is where I belong
For a life unlived can duly attest
The thoughts of fear and loneliness prevailed
Yet the joy of youth exonerated all the rest
A play on words, an oxymoron to be sure
The question I have no answer for
That if death is just a part of life
How does one die without living before?
But the paradox is that I must have lived
The evidence proven by the words on this page
Although living is only a state of mind
I have no reason to dispute the thoughts of this sage
Each morning I awakened form a place unknown to me
A land full of dreams both good and bad
Happy to escape the frightful ones
Yet the good dreams awakened from leave me quite sad
An existential mind whom would have made Sartre proud
I dose my eyes hoping a half a century has not passed
What will my thoughts be when the Reaper appears
Whom or what will my consciousness think last
Will it be of what might have been?
Of a wasted genius turned absurd
Or perhaps the incongruity of Dylan's Desolation Row
The most profound yet insane poem I have ever heard
Maybe it will be of the legions of people
Those that built up and destroyed my being
The ones I trusted to look after my soul
Perchance the few who allowed me to truly continue seeing
The father I hardly knew; but who gave me the gift of verse
The woman I loved or rather l lusted
The two saints I will surely in Heaven again see
My mother and brother; those I most trusted
Will my last thoughts be of the first decade?
The only time I almost felt alive
Chasing butterflies in the sun
Running from bees as they exited their hive
The glory of catching polliwogs
In the shallows of a clear spring lake
Yet when they were out of their habitat
l ran from them as if from a venomous snake
All these thoughts - perhaps one indeed my last
I hope they bring me through Heaven's door
So I may finally speak to God face to face
Asking entrance to his house - even if only on the first floor.
My existence has been in black and white
Exhilaration to the nth degree
Fears so intent I could only imagine the worst
Not knowing which of these was the real me
Surrounding once by a plethora of friends
A family so endearing as to smother all danger
Now I can count on the fingers of one hand
Those whom I think of not as a stranger
The sobering thought is the reality it will only get worse
Unless I hopefully will become nature's next foe
Then I will mercifully not have to watch
Another victim melts like July's answer to snow
Once I thought myself invincible
Young and healthy with barriers easily hurdled
Now l feel like the oldest of creatures
Slow and sedentary like a century's old turtle
All these feelings crept into my being
One by one I noticed the change
Then one day I realized the truth
The reflection in the mirror was of someone quite strange
Who was that middle-aged leprechaun?
Shrinking with age before my very eyes
It seemed so clear that I was the victim
Of the finality before someone dies
So take me to the next level
Wherever and whatever that might be
Allow me to go where all before land
Wind up in the universe's great dark sea
Rod Serling was an intellectual hero of mine
Seeing life and death in a manner not unlike I have
With a bizarre irony and a fateful twist
As if Picasso's Guernica was sketched on a pad
Wth stories reminiscent of Aesopian moral
Like the simple yearning of Henry Bemis to have time at last to read books
Or the tale of the futuristic camera
Winding up in the hands of two inept doomed crooks
Serling was the knowing narrative
Not unlike the Greek speaking through Homerian tales
When the man with the ever-present cigarette died
We lost a modem troubadour whose stories never failed
To make us ponder thoughts long forgotten
Like the universal wish that we all go home
Or that which constitutes beauty is only superficial
Unless it emanates deep down under the skin and bones
I've always marveled at his intuitive insight
His imagination mixed with scientific knowledge
Watching his immortal Twilight Zone episodes
Enlightening as studying the human condition in an Ivy League college
A great deal of my thoughts were first planted
By Serling's stories depicting the line separating reality and dream
If Heaven and Hell are two sides of the same coin
Then how difficult for mankind to distinguish that which appears to be seen
Perhaps all the feeling I espouse
Are bridges on the ledge between day and night
Some are warm with moments flicked with joy
While others are cold devoid of any light
Heroes never die despite their mortality
Their deeds remain in our minds and hearts
My life has been filled with wondrous events
The men and their accomplishments will never part
Who can ever forget the events of July 1969?
When heroic Neil Armstrong walked on the moon
Can it really be forty years since the world saw this done?
I doubt that I will see again a feat so great emerge so soon
Another monumental task occurred in my lifetime
When Dr. Jonas Salk found a way to prevent a disease
Not just any ailment but the scourge of young children
More than a half century later most children walk with ease
This very Winter a hero came forth in New York's Hudson River
A courageous airplane captain saved his passengers and crew
He landed his plane upon the frozen water without injury
I shudder to think the outcome if that was me or you
Heroic stories have been told throughout recorded history
They demonstrate the strength men can attain
In times of universal crisis or individual tragedy
Humans are able to rise up past the frivolous and inane
But what really makes men and women heroes
Aside from the act for which they are remembered best
I believe it comes from deep within the knowledge
That when a crisis arose some dwarf all the rest
So whom you may ask might our next hero(es) be
An athlete, an astronaut, a doctor or an aviator
Perhaps, but I surmise that the truly next hero we will see
Is that person who finds an end to all war
We are a species consumed by time
Trying to speed it up or slow it down
Unrealistically attempting to control
While illogically we cannot even count
For what is this concept we have tried to define
Something you cannot see or feel nor touch
Nature's continuous road on which we travel
As close as man lives it; though not very much
Often I think of how time seems to change
As a youth it seemed to be slow an endeavor
When recalling the names given it by mankind
A day, week, month or year were perceived as ending never
But as I grew older time seemed to accelerate
Where once a Summer vacation seemed an endless foray
Now each year the time between July and September
Fly by so quickly the time seems no more than a day
As I ponder this phenomenon, I was want to explain
I began to understand why this reality occurred
It became apparent that in youth each day represents
A larger percent of time lived, seen and heard
So as you grow older and another passage of time goes by
This sequence in fact is a smaller part of the entire
So that relative time seems now to appear
To be moving at a rate faster than the prior
As I sit here thinking of such analytical thoughts
It's apparent that what f am doing is searching for truth
An endeavor I long ago would have spurned
But alas that was the time of my long lost youth
Mornings are the hardest
As reality replaces blissful sleep
The sun peeks through your half shut eyes
There is no more reason for counting sheep
Another treacherous day has awakened you
The respite of the night subsides
All that you hope resolved
Faces you head on in the dangerous thoughts in which you reside
Loneliness which never appears in dreams
Now permeates the entirety of your mind
Vicious rodents seek to emasculate you
There is no evidence of anything kind
As the day continues, there is nary a shred
Of decency or compassion; only lies and deceit
Love now only a memory long ago lost
Hate once unknown you can no longer defeat
Wishing you had not awakened
From the temporary peace sleep has brought
Counting the hours till your eyes shut close again
Perhaps death will now be what sleep has bought
Unending days follow this pattern
Darkened nights to the wind and the snow
If ever someone needed Divine help
It is this pitiful, sorrowful urchin you know
A day in the fife of a once beautiful soul
Has disappeared like never to be
I only can tap into what I know to be true
That awakening from sleep was once Heaven to me
Whatever happened to double headers
On hot Sundays in the middle of July
When Mickey Mantle hit home runs so far
They looked like they would never descend from the sky
Whatever happened to the seven white and black channels on TV
That had more great classic and interesting shows to view
Than the unenviable task of cable search
With hundred of channels with little interest to me or you
Whatever happened to eating what you enjoy
And not worrying whether it was healthy or not
Where everywhere you looked or read
The foods you ate became an exercise in what? (Immortality?)
Whatever happened to the scores of friends
Whom you saw each and every day
Now l can count on the fingers of one hand
Those whom I hope never go away
Whatever happened to the aspirations I had
Of a future filled with hope and bliss
Where did the necessities for joy disappear
What error did I make; what road did I miss
Whatever happened to the wife I so wanted
Or the children who would inherit the wind
Why did I always choose the wrong girl
How could I not allow my mistakes to rescind
Whatever happened to the family I so adored
Both nuclear and extended and the answer is yes
All the things once here but now gone
Disavow them all in the name of progress - not
For most of my cognitive life I have wondered
What is the scourge referred to as cancer
Affecting every part of the body
Despite decades of research we are not yet close to have an answer
It targets all parts of society
The famous and those only known by a few
Even though you may think you are immune
The chances are it will strike someone close to you
I have known first hand how this disease can destroy
How illogical the afflicted can be struck down
That so called prevention never really works
That remission is as funny as Pagliacci's clown
My nuclear family has lost two members to cancer
By some perverse coincidence each to another
My father, a lifelong smoker, did succumb
To the same fate that robbed us of my oh so pure brother
Recently I watched on TV with sadness
The fight of a beauty as she loses with horror
Though seeking a cure, her courage be blessed
A miracle now is the only hope that can save the lovely Farrah (died 6/25/09)
Though not a medical doctor, I have deduced
That cancer is nature running amok
What normally allows the body to heal and rejuvenate
Cancerous cells reproduce wildly like an out of control truck
As a footnote to this ominous tale
Two other members of my family have survived cancer
Yet if anyone knows how to stop this disease
It is from God above we will find the answer
Visions of my first long lost love
Creep often into my dreams at night
Though she is lost to me almost fifty years
The picture she portrays is dear in my sight
We used to travel into New York City
When the trains were safe and clean and only fifteen cents
Exploring Manhattan as for the first time
And the ecstasy of leaving behind the Bronx tenements
Or going bowling on a Saturday at Stadium Lanes
Which I miss to this day
Across from the real House that Ruth built
The new one an impostor despite what they say
We loved each other in a way hard to explain
But that is the beauty when sex is not there
A feeling of innocence based on respect and trust
Prepubescent tykes knowing only that they care
I often wonder why of all the females
That have crossed my path throughout my life
Why is it only this first true love
That I dream about: that I should have made my wife
The memories of her are still so very clear
Her voice like that of Summer's beautiful song bird
Those eyes so bright like an Olympic pool
We should have spent our lives together; if only I had known the words
Now as I travel the final steps on life's road
Many a thought through my mind does recall
Of those I knew; of those now lost
Of a lifetime of love still there for Janice Ball
Everyone dies a pauper
Regardless of what material riches you possess
Leaving this life in much the same way you entered
Except for being naked, now wearing a suit or a dress
The idea so wonderfully phrased
That "you can't take it with you" I fully adhere
So the measure of what your life did entail
Or what or whom you influenced while your short stay here
Yet it is very hard to pinpoint the measure
Of how your stay on earth affected others
A teacher can never really be sure
Of what lessons taught open minds free or smothered
History is told by the words of great men
As wen as the women whose lives made life better
Yet I wonder if Newton, Einstein, DaVinci or Curie's
Genius could be seen if it were not for those from whom they learned their first letters
Cause and effect is a never-ending thought
How the grandest and smallest idea grew to be
The way that the world has come to evolve
Why is it the one idea has become that tenets of we
I suppose you could call it the interaction of minds
When learning and exploring tum into concepts
How inventing the wheel and the discovery of fire
Producing a new age of progress replacing the one heretofore inept
Unfortunately though mankind has certainly developed
He remains a creature still not quite whole
So when he dies, as is his inevitable fate
He leaves everything behind except his immortal soul
With the advent of the video recorder
I have collected over 30 years of time
VWh a passion to consolidate everything
That I truly believe is only mine
I looked at that which I thought was lost
Seeing people no longer here
Yet feeling that I have not made up or imagined
All that I once held so dear
Dreams are like videos of the mind
They indeed can be quite grand
The only pitfall to a wonderful dream
Is upon wakening the reality you must now understand
I often dream of those I know are no longer alive or in some other way lost
But the dreams that dominate the night
Are but another way t o warm the frost
Of trying to control and conquer time
A task so absurd as to be on the edge
Yet in every dream that comes through my mind
I am always standing on this comical ledge
Where events that never happened
At least not in the way that I see
Become turned upside down or in reverse
So although recognizable are foreign or strange to me
It would seem that this pattern
Of trying to realize a once glorious past
Are both the results of videos and dreams entwined
And until the end of my life will continue to last
It suddenly and inexplicably dawned on me
That my very writings including this very one
Are no longer directed at specific people or events
They are more philosophical; dare I say reckless if the truth be known
In trying to write an all encompassing tome
Realizing the little time left to me
I have attempted to put all my thoughts in a neat pile
So the reader can fathom all the findings I see
In that past four decades; the beginning of which
I began to vomit all the disdain and distrust
Of a life gone awry though I take all the blame
For if not for my actions then the memories would be dust
Once there were many people and events to be charged
Yet their common denominator was always me
I allowed that which malevolently occurred
By not realizing we are all those in whose frailties I see
So to indict an individual for the loss of innocence
Or to try to convince the world not to judge
A sensitive, brilliant yet so troubled imp
Is like trying to demonstrate the purity of sludge
I now write in what might be deemed generalities
For what I believe now refers to all of you
That aside from a few inconsequential differences
Like pigmentation, religion, mankind's similarities are more than a few
So the next time you wish to disagree, to conflict
Remember that we are all of one basic image
If mankind can put all paltry differences aside
Then all that we are becomes our greatest knowledge
Amazing is the human mind
The grandest machine created by God
Processing thoughts in a methodical way
Yet allowing to forget events we deem as too hard
A camera which can take pictures of things not there
As we imagine what we wish to be true
Remembering the most minute events
As it relates to its effect on me or you
Such an event came to me as I slept
Although it can hardly be called a dream
Rather a recollection of an event from my distant past
Allow me to share it with you; so you'll see that I mean
More than a half century ago
In the Springtime of Eisenhower years
The Korean War had ceased to be (for the moment)
For the time being, there would no longer be mothers tears
I remember quite vividly that beautiful day
As this little tyke played around our Bronx flat
Which was being painted by a tall black man
Whose simple words resonate still how about that
He and my mom were discussing the aforementioned war
How so many young men needlessly had died
With no resolution of the conflict achieved (see today's headlines)
Except that it had been the cause for those who had cried
The words which he spoke were indeed quite profound
That wars would be only in history books
A truly noble thought: if he had only known
That the next fifty plus years would convey
A series of conflicts that seemed never to abate
Unlike previous wars whose goals were quite clear
These miniature conflicts were nurtured solely by hate
Some of the "wars were ideologically fought
like four decades of stand-off between the East and West
They called it the "Cold War" for it never became
A shootout, although at times it was put to the test
Never so close as that October day in 1962
When the Americans and Soviets came eye to eye
And all over the globe people were sure we had come
To the moment that an mankind was going to die
Somehow cooler heads did prevail
A most volatile moment did not boil over
l presume from logical minds on both sides
Saw the ominous nuclear mushroom cloud which indeed did hover
There have been many smaller conflicts
That indeed have seen the blood of young men
Spill over deserts, wastelands and jungles afar
Started and ceasefire again and again
Vietnam was the war that painter thought not
Indeed that war was the one most affecting this lad
He could hardly have known that although I was not there
The turmoil of what it did; for years drove me mad
Even today decades after its culmination
This mind which so truly damaged cannot forget
That so long as mankind avoids lasting peace
The painter's hope will not prevail; wars will never end yet
Those who died before their time
Are remembered today in my lifetime
Whether by accident, neglect or unfortunate chance
I list them here as a reminder perchance
They are the famous whose lives ended too soon
In the back of a car or on the way to the moon
The parameters I have set are really quite benign
All those mentioned no older than 49
So let us begin with the first tragedy
And hope that the last is the final I see
Hank Williams Country music's greatest star
New Year's Day 1953 at number 29 died in the back of his car
Johnny Ace, while pledging his love on Christmas Eve 1954
Lost while playing Russian Roulette falling to the floor
James Dean, the ultimate rebel without a cause
Speeding to a race died at 24
Richie Valens, The Big Bopper and the great Buddy Holly
On February third 1959 became rock 'n roll's first major tragedy
On the seventeenth of June 1959
Every front page headline in American read
That the heroes of boys and girls around the globe
Superman had been found in his house shot dead
Of course what the story really meant
That it was actor George Reeves who portrayed him on TV
But the indelible mark of that three inch headline
Left the youth of the world shocked by wonder unreal
Eddie Cochran at 21, killed in England on his way back home
A sad tale of a great young man; thank God he died not alone
Patsy Cline the Queen of country song
Why oh why do these small planes always seem to go wrong?
Johnny Horton, Jesse Belvin, two wonderful singers
Died as the decade changed, their memories forever lingers
The young Ernie Davis of the Syracuse Football team
Waiting to become an NFL star
Died of a terrible disease (leukemia) at age 23
Never to touch the greatness allotted him by far
The sports world not spared in '62 of premature death
As Kenny Hubbs and Wayne Estes gone within the blink of a breath
Hollywood's great symbol of beauty and sex
In the Summer of '62 Marilyn Monroe tragedy's next
It seems that the decade of the sixties
Brought early death every time you turned around
Beginning with the unthinkable
A young President Kennedy; was his killer ever found
Still reeling from the event's of Dallas in 1963
The country now tried to recover in 1964
When three young men, Goodman, Schwemer and Cheney
Were murdered in Mississippi as they tried to take down Jim Crow laws no more
In the very same year as the British invasion
Came with a vengeance upon our shore
We lost two of our great young talents
One to a gunshot. the other to a boat without an oar
Sam Cooke, the inventor of the genre called Soul
Died in a motel at the peak of his star
While Johnny Burnette, the quintessential rocker
The man whose most comfortable venue was a honky tonk bar
The Apollo 1 astronauts died in January 1967
The first time in America's space race
Saw death to some of its bravest young men
It would not be last time death reared its ugly face
The same year we lost the troubled Montomery Clift
The first rebel actor before Brando and Dean
An obituary just waiting to happen
Sometimes death comes before it is ever seen
The ultimate insane deaths of 1966
When a sniper went to the top of a Texas tower
With a rifle killing 26 young innocent people
The entire event took less than an hour
1968, a year perhaps like none I have seen
One America seemed daily filled with screams
Punctuated by the two months when we lost Bobby and Dr. King
A lesson not learned that violence never works; but we can all still dream
That same year we lost Frankie Lymon
Without whom there would not have been a Michael
This past month we eerily lost Michael Jackson (6/25/09)
To the never ending drug killing cycle
The following year we lost the songbird known as Judy
Pills and booze and a troubled mind
Plus years of woe and hardship
Garland was indeed one of a kind
We also lost the original Rolling Stone
In July of that same year
When Brian Jones drowned in his pool
Or so that was the story we were made to hear
As the 7O's ushered in a fresh new decade
The worst was yet to come
We had no idea although deep in our heart we surmised
As music greats dropped one by one
When word came that Hendrix died choking on pills
Within a month we lost Joplin with a needle in her arm
Finally in another twist of fate coming in numbers three
Was the death of Lizard King Jim Morrison a victim of his own harm
The mid decade saw the untimely deaths of two young song writers both in their time
Jim Croce died (yes) in another small plane
While Harry Chapin's number came up well before his time
The baseball world also lost three young men
Lymon Bostock shot for no apparent reason
Thurman Munson flying home his family wishing to see
In the midst of the baseball season
Perhaps the saddest of all these deaths
Was the loss to all mankind
When Roberto Clemente's rescue plane went down
On his mission to help those the earthquake left behind
Bruce Lee, the brilliant example of the martial arts
As he was emerging as a world-wide star
In 1973, died mysteriously
I guess his genius only was meant to go so far
America's premier long distance runner Steve Prefontaine
But with a life beating to a different drum
Killed on a cycle in 1975 at age 23
We will never know how far he could have run
The 70's took others from us
Like the unique drummer of The Who, the great Keith Moon
And of course the most famous of all
When King Elvis died at 42; indeed much too soon
If we hope that the 80's would give us a respite
Of early death to those so very young
We were indeed about to learn
That death takes no vacation from those it lives among
This decade can be generalized
In a word heretofore known to almost none
As the AIDS epidemic spread over the world
Killing millions of unknown young; and the famous one by one
Freddie Mercury, the charismatic leader of the group Queen
Others in the world of the arts too numerous to name
All succumbed to this unearthly plague
Some to lifestyles, others to needles, the result were all the same
The 80's start for me on a personal note
When my dear Japanese friend Shizuo at 29 died
Followed within months of my brother-in-law Lowell
Both leaving young children left only to cry
Within a month came another senseless death
That rocked the world as few had before
When John Lennon was killed by a man with a gun
As the NRA fought to allow people to have more
His death seems to represent the folly
Of civilization's small price on life
How many young people have died
In the name of country, in the act of strife
Whether it was to "end all wars"
Or on the beaches on D-Day
On the little hill in Viet Nam called Hamburger
There's got to be a better way
Arthur Ashe, a gentle man in the truest way
Died as the result of a doctor's mistake
No one's fault perhaps
But why the good ones should the Lord first take
One New Year's Eve 1985
The Prince who once took Elvis' crown
Died in a small plane crash at age 45
Ricky Nelson and his Stone Canyon Band went down
I have now come to the beginning of the end of my sermon
In which as they say "all true stories end in death"
But the young men and women who died in their prime
Should all be with us now drawing a clean fresh breath
Perhaps the most representative of all the people
Whose life was cut short in a way so inane
Was that of Pat Tillman an athlete who chose to give up
Wealth and fame to fight a war now deemed insane
The past 30 years have taken their toll
On young athletes, entertainers and an the rest
Names like Cobain, Heath Ledger and a girl named Wendy
Some quite unexpected, some quite profound
The brightest and best
AU those who died on 9/11, I'm sure the thousands killed that way
Had nary a clue this was their fate
They would never see another day
I end this dedication to the fallen young
By remembering an event in January 1986
When seven young astronauts died on TV screens
And all of our thoughts were totally transfixed.
This week we pay tribute to the ultimate sacrifice
Of the hundreds who died in battle
I hope we treat our fellow man
Like friends of heroes instead of slaughtered cattle
I know I have omitted a number of souls
Simply because there are too many to mention
But three more come to me while writing this poem
So I add them now with the sincerest intentions
The end of this decade again left its toll
When college basketball's greatest scorer died on the court
Pistol Pete loving what he did best
ln a pickup game, his heart stopped with no retort
The millennium ended on a July night
When another small plane took away the young JFK
He might have followed in his father's shoes
But before that occurred, he gambled with everything to lose.
Each time I think I have ended
This litany of those who have died
Before their time much too soon
Another group of peers side by side by side
Three great musicians dying
Before two score years
Dennis Wilson, the surfing Beach Boys, drowns
Jim Croce, whose Time in Bottle ran out
Stevie Ray Vaughn victimized as the helicopter goes down
I leave with these sad thoughts
Of those who left us without failing to mingle
The ones I mentioned died quite fast
While Jackie Wilson 10 years did he linger
In the spring of 1972,
A small news article said Clyde McPhatter was killed
Years of party and drinking the cause
At 39, R&B's most beautiful voice forever stilled
Sept 1971 saw the death of Pier Angelli at 39
Probably the result of a mother controlling and mean
Hollywood's most fragile and beautiful waif
Forever the star crossed lover of the legend James Dean
A love affair that indeed was quite short
It has lasted in myth well over 50 years
As both died the bookends to a tragic love
What might have been drenched in our tears
I digress for a moment to pay tribute to one
Who technically does not belong in this poem
Who although he was past the age of 49
His birthday this week reminded me to honor him
He was my brother - taken at age 58
Much too young to say farewell
When he should be with us now
And not at Heaven's Gate
Someday I'll be with all these souls
The first thing I'll tell is how much they are missed
But in God's Heaven, age is not real
Eternity does count the years to exist.
One of the reasons for writing this narrative
Perhaps the primary quest that has perplexed my life
Is to try to ascertain the moment of truth
Where a wonderful adventure turned to heartache and strife
A jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing or lost
I have wrestled with this moment with nary a clue
On a road once so right and straight
Turned crooked without destination; totally askew
But somehow in the writing of this monumental opus
A clearer picture began to take shape
The threads which wind throughout this endeavor
Gave me insight into the answer, free to find its escape.
It is now apparent to me that all things changed
When I began to realize the reality of danger
That we are all prone to be whisked away
Despite what we believe: we are all, in some way, total strangers.
Not in the very personal sense
Certainly not to our closest kin
But to the next obstacle around the inevitable road
Where there is no protection from the travesty about to begin.
And at the beginning of the teenage years,
I began to obsess over unprotected danger and death.
Where once I felt that no great harm could come my way,
All those around me would shield me with love with their last breath.
So to pinpoint the moment I became immersed in fear and torment,
Summer is just a month away
A time that once filled me with joy
But that was a word of anticipatory illusion
The hopes and dreams of a dear little boy
I can still recall the plans of my family
Memorial Day being the unofficial start
Watching parades from New York's Champs-Élysées
When the parade ended Summer's impending beginning filled our hearts
Returning home we all went to work at doing
The chores needed to welcome Summer's arrival
It took more than a month for our eventual exit
During that time, school ended, July 4th came and we all took off for an ecstatic survival
As I write part of this lengthy tome
Listening to a song over 50 years old by Charlie Gracie
It speaks of one of nature's most beautiful creatures
The butterfly of my youth chasing it with glee
Those Summers which l refer to remain unmatched
The warm sun, the dear blue sky, the family together
This Summer (assuming there is one) offers me no such hope
Simply another notch in a race toward inability a storm to weather
Yet still beside reality of five decades from Summer's joy
An occasional peek into what was the grandest time
A healthy, hopeful and beautiful soul
This and much more was once upon a time all mine
May this summer grant me one last gleam
I can feel the sun upon my face
The salty sweat streaming down my brow
I can dream, can't I, of that glorious place
