Hypocrisy is all around
It emanates up from the ground
And fills the world with poison air
To propagate our great despair
How little do we know or mind
Of all the history we find ?
The whole truth is what all should crave
If we are to be strong and brave
Can we survive this huge attack
When will we have our honor back ?
The future’s grim, misunderstood
Without God’s love there’s nothing good !
This man reviled by all the press
Who came on board to fix the mess
His name will live in history
He saved this nation for the free
And time alone shall tell the tale
So many stories to regale
Have faith that in the end we’ll see
His name will mark our victory !
Some memories of long ago
They are still here, they come and go
Without them, how could we move on
For sure, the meaning would be gone.
It’s odd, the thoughts that take us back
Remaining on the proper track
Remembering those days we knew
When all were safe and faith was too.
Opportunity winged on by
With no time left for second try
We’ll have to make the best of all
Because there is no curtain call !
It seems our nation’s drowning fast
The world at large appears aghast
Oh, tell us please what can we do
To save ourselves and cleave to You ?
Our time is slipping past too soon
The path ahead leads but to ruin
Let’s say a prayer that this won’t be
Another page in history !
Two thousand years ago or more
When God’s own Son did tred the shore
And angels still had free access
To every spot that earth possessed
There was a man of great repute
Round whom there was a huge dispute.
This humble man of power and fame
Then known as John, his given name
Who thrived on honey and locusts
With leather belt round his waist trussed
O’er his robe of camel hair made,
So sad that he won’t make the grade.
The “Baptist” was how he’d been called
Beheading was his final fall
Remember Herod’s Salome
It was her dance did John away !
I’ve heard the stories told by men
Of events took place way back when
Catastrophes of world wide note
About which men of science wrote
Sagas of danger we have heard
Chock full of facts in every word.
They spin tales of this our Lord’s earth
In detail and for all its worth
Assured that God creates it all
Through summer, winter, spring or fall
I find in this no mystery
Just part of His Divinity !
Oh Christopher, brave Christopher how did you spend your life
Across the seas and oceans wide amidst chaos and strife
You stumbled into a new world upon your wooden ship
What a surprise it was to learn this was no Asia trip !
And thus it was so long ago this land of ours was found
When the Spanish came to conquer and rule all on the ground
Now that is how it did begin in fourteen-ninety-two
Today we owe Columbus all our love and huge thank you !
I miss the days of glory old
Where history and myth unfold
With repeat tales now long gone by
Of memories that did not die
When we were young and energized
And all our dreams seemed realised !
EXCUSE ME, have you been following the current trend of live interviews of H.S. and University students by media sources questioning their knowledge of the American Civil War, 4/12/1861, Fort Sumpter ending at Appomatox Courthouse, 4/9/1865 ? Hours of questions, total lack of facts and credulous answers from this totally ignorant segment of our population, a disgrace ! And we all pay the cost, taxes, grants, scholarships, government subsidies. This was the war that took a minimum of 750,000 lives, dead soldiers, north, south, white, black ! Where was the concern for the men who faced Armageddon in that war ? It was our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who led the cause to preserve our union and who was murdered 6 days after the signing of the peace treaty at the war’s end by a prominent American stage actor. “Sic semper tyrranus”, shouted John Wilkes Booth as he leapt to the stage. Who knew that we’d lose more men in that war than any other war we have fought to this date ? Those men were lost more than 150 years ago. Real Americans mark this tragic period with honor rolls and monuments throughout our nation without exception ! Lack of educational integrity robs our children of our country’s saga of the path to freedom. The saddest part may be that the true missing ingredient today is intellectual curiosity ! How can we appreciate our victory without its factual history ? This was a war to free the slaves, I ask you, did you know ? Sincerely, Claire B.
There’s a special place that I do recall
Quite a long time ago when I was small,
A large clapboard house on a country road
My great uncles built for their mom’s abode.
She’d been born in June eighteen-sixty-one
To a life one could guess was not much fun
At fifteen she married the stablehand
Oh, so far away in a foreign land.
This is a small part of their history
And the story of how they came to be,
As I look back on all the joys we shared
How grateful I am and how much I cared !
Our lives are cast in many ways
With results for all of our days
No one may change what has begun
For history’s been set and done.
We hope and pray we do not fail
And of our strengths we shall avail
So each will do the best he can
To fill that role down to a man !
So long ago and quite faraway
In the world that was then, not today
There lived a priest they called Valentine
He married couples most of the time.
But Claudius, great emperor he
Needed all young men for his army
Thus marriage was a forbidden joy
For many a Roman girl or boy.
Well Valentine refused to abate
And so he suffered that triple fate
Torture, stoning, beheading also
This was the way that he had to go
Oh sad for him twas too long ago
Who knew he’d become our great hero ?
I knew a boy quite long ago
There was a war, he had to go
He was so green, his life was new
How could he guess what he’d go through ?
I did my best, he was my friend
And wrote to him right to the end
How hard is it to turn away
When there is nothing left to say ?
Except you did your extra best
And hoped and prayed bout what came next
The wars will come and wars will go
What is the reason, who can know,
You’ve heard me say these words before
Why must youth die in old mens’ war ?
I wish, I wish that I could be
The fruit upon an olive tree
So good to eat and full of health
Both for the heart and greater wealth.
This tree can live a thousand years
Producing fruit and soothing fears
The Greeks and Romans knew its worth
Their fables told about its birth.
Seems God gave man the olive tree
In truly ancient history
Add this to all its virtues found
The olive’s wealth must all astound !
Now Moses was a Hebrew lad
So long ago in Egypt land
Twas quite a temper that he had
And such great strength within his hand.
One day a soldier in the field
Assigned to watch the slaves at work
Did beat a slave and would not yield
Because he thought the man did shirk.
When Moses struck him to the ground
This was a crime, the soldier died
In fear he ran not to be found
To Sinai, forty years did hide.
Then through the Burning Bush of Flame
That’s how God called him home again
He donned the role of Bible fame
To lead his people out of pain !
Now I have trod thouands of miles
From the Highlands to the low
And wandered o’er its paths and stiles
Threading through the fields that grow.
I’ve hiked so many mountain peaks
And clambered over rough stone
I’m bored by shopping and boutiques
I prefer to trek alone.
It’s ancient times that intrigue me
With stories that I have known,
What’s captured me is history
And the legends it has sown !
I feel the silence all around
There is no movement to be found
No beating heart, no breathing sound
The quiet permeates the ground
The air is still, unused, unbound
The loss intense, the wound profound !
A man stood by the lintel on that historic day
I’m sure that he was sorry he chose to pass that way
And there among the soldiers with rabble gathered round
A man collapsed on the path and hit the stony ground.
On his head he suffered a mock crown made of thorn
His body bore the scourges, his garment wet and torn
The stranger he came forward to give this man relief
He helped him drag his burden just like a common thief.
The stranger’s name was Simon from Cyrene he had come
Who guessed we’d know his name for two thousand years and some,
His courage and his kindness played well on that last day
While our Lord Jesus died in that place so faraway !
There was a time quite long ago
When I was on a trip, you know
I’m sure it was in Ireland
I saw a gypsy caravan.
It filled a field of great expanse
I stared in awe at happenstance
The travelers were busy there
With tables, chairs and kitchenware.
Each one about seemed occupied
Their washlines full of laundry dried
As children and their pets ran free
Some tended horses I could see.
They gathered wood and were intent
Preparing for some big event
I only saw them that one day
When I returned they’d gone away.
I’ve often thought of their abode
And wondered why they chose the road
To have no base to call their home
And for their lives forever roam !
Here’s to the Statue of Liberty
And to this place called land of the free
Despite the crack in Liberty’s bell,
Honor the tale historians tell
Of Revere and his steed’s late night ride
Through this great land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
To patriots who fought in the wars
And gave their lives for this country’s cause
To the young, the feeble and the old
The quick and dead, the brave and the bold
And to our Lord who resides above
For His constant care, enduring love !
Long ago far across the seas
There lived a man, a Genovese
Christopher Columbus by name
Whose quest earned him forever fame.
He traveled o’er the ocean waves
To visit harbors, coves and caves
And finally he came to rest
Among the islands of the west.
His goal to seek another way
To bring back spices of the day
Now how did he achieve all that
Since he’d been told the world was flat ?
Though not the first his goal was true
Seems now tis time to say thank you
He had the grit and fortitude
We all owe him great gratitude !
Throughout our history we’ve learned
That words are more than image earned
From Cain’s admonishment reply,
“I know not”, that was his deny.
“Am I my brother’s keeper ?” so
From that day hence God made him go
Into the land of Nod went he
To live and raise his family.
( The first lie serpent spoke to Eve
“Ye shall not die”, and she believed
Alas, her true naivety
Willed us our real heredity ! )
If I were a dinosaur
What is it that I would see
The world as it was before
In a place that used to be.
Dinosaurs lived long ago
When there was no one about
They roamed the earth to and fro
Free to screech and howl and shout !
They came in many sizes
Long and tall and short and fat
Ate each other, no surprises
I’m so glad I missed all that !
There must have been a reason
One that I cannot explain
Seems all died in one season
Never to be seen again !
Wise Solomon he had it all
But knew his kingdom would soon fall
The wisest man to ever live
God vowed that was His gift to give.
King Solomon had many wives
Who brought false gods into their lives
Huge stables, horse and chariot
Two thousand strong when they found it.
A thousand wives and concubines
Imagine how that family dines
I think it might have been such fun
To party with old Solomon !
For some strange reason I awoke this AM with the name NORMANDIE in my head and began a mental odyssey of a cold and windy day in February 1942. It was quite personal because the husband of my old Aunt Rose was the chief engineer of that incredible former French great lady, his name was George Clow. He left his home, his mom and sisters in Glascow, Scotland at age 14 to join the Royal Navy in the 1800’s to see the world ! Which he truly did until he retired at age 75, hash marks on his uniform clear up to his elbows ! He looked quite heroic with a chest full of medals. His tanned leathery face with laughing green eyes and rugged chiseled profile, mouth full of gold and ivory teeth, cut an impressive figure of a man not quite 5′ 6″, not to mention those colorful tattoos that wiggled ! A lovable pixie was he ! Times he would be gone for 2 years, but oh, the ecstasy as he returned laden with gifts for all, from darkest Africa to the mysterious Orient. He enthralled us with the tales of his adventures with that heavy Scottish brogue he never did lose. By the time I was 12 he had traveled the entire world nine times, sending cards from each port including Fiji and the Pitcairn Isles ! It was the 9th day of the month that this noble ship, rechristened the Lafayette, met her fate, sinking on the 10th, the death of an era and tragedy beyond belief ! We watched that NY harbor blaze from the Heights cliffs above HOBOKEN for hours, believing it was sabotage ! Today I still wonder why no one has ever attempted to tell the whole story of her life and death ! Aren’t you curious ? I am ! Sincerely, Claire B.
Now long ago there was a man
He ran away from Pharaoh land
A fugitive from death was he
Demanding all his brethren free !
Well Pharaoh was a stubborn sort
His men searched hard but never caught
This man who started on his way
Babe in reed basket swept away !
A story told through ages past
Ten plagues that left the world aghast
To show the power that God must be
And how He shapes our history !
Our heroes bold, those men of yore
Brave soldiers who did wage the war
They fought and died to make us free
And won for us our liberty !
They’d come from every walk of life
And served us well in times of strife
They sacrificed both lives and land
To save us from the tyrant’s hand !
These battles waged within the past
We’d hoped would be our very last
Now seems we’ve made a grave mistake
And find our world facing heartache
What shall we do, where will we turn
Who’ll save us now the beast’s returned ?
My heart seems caught on tethered wings
And shuns the song the siren sings
The wind that whistles through the trees
Echoes soft murmurs on the breeze !
This land I’ve loved for all my life
Is rife with anger, hate and strife
How did we lose our sanctity
What ghostly force have we set free ?
Is this the end of what we’ve known
And fruit of all man’s evil sown ?
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Claire V. Bogdanos 