How This Ends

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The air– it shimmers, then grows thick
And darkens. Time drags by.
Black storm clouds gather on the marge
‘Tween earth and leaden sky.

With sizzling Crack! the air reverbs,
Yet still it’s hot and dry;
The tears of Nature fail to drop–
She’s no more tears to cry.

Old shovels stir dust into clouds
And, choking, you and I
With slow and steady patience dig
The hole in which we’ll lie.

Too bad but one will shovel o’er
The box to which we vie;
The other stays through empty days
And hopes to God to die.
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Slack Times

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Now THAT was a most hurtful crack…
…And the reason you called me a quack?
I’m not God, don’t you know;
I can’t make your thing grow –
Have your wife help you take up the thwack!
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Trimming It To The Core

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Her body was svelte, sleek and trim,
For herself (and to look good for him),
Lest her frame become dense
And he stray o’er the fence–
Such domestic noblesse that we limn!
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Phil's Catalina Sail - 2014

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Entry made in the Guest Book aboard "Dutch Courage," owned by van den Bosch
(one week prior to Catalina’s Buccaneer Days at Two Harbors)

Where to spend all our pillage and plunder?-
On an island that's almost split sunder.
Every day we find more
Of its harbors galore-
But to pick just one spot would be blunder.

Both the rails of Dutch Courage got washed
(And the crew of said boat mostly sloshed!)-
Not a reef would stay pinned
In the 20-knot wind-
Marv'lous week was fair spent van den Bosch'd.

Grand adventure lived day after day-
Dinghy fun, moonstone sands, dolphins play,
Fragrant sizzling stove,
Awesome reefs that we dove-
It was sad to slip moorings away.
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Tinkle-Toes

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Beat the ravage of Time? All men flee!
But from life’s ups-and-downs we’re not free;
On this most human topic
We obey laws entropic—
When we hit fifty years, we can’t pee.
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Mike M’s Birthday Dinner Toast

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What's to say of Mike's personal skills

As he navigates through social ills?
"Scarlet! Don't give a damn!"
Puts on fez, takes a dram,
Smokes cigars, and roars, "Send me no bills!"

Yet the lady beside him in life,

In our estimate, acts as a siph-
   on of grace from above,
As he push-pulls and shoves;
His joy seems that he husbands this wife.

Who's to say if it's righteous or just?

But we're told that each Burning Man must
Show that fade and decay
Come as years pass away--
Brawley Mike has returned to the dust.

Friends, before us tonight, Mike is kilted

In a garment that he himself built'd.
At his age, there's surprise
(And delight, we surmise)
Should he find that his kilt... it is tilted!
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UNBEFOULING THE NEST?

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If the home is considered her ‘nest,’
And the kids have done well and progressed,
When the count drops to two
And her focus is you,
In all likelihood YOU she’ll divest.

Several decades, her feelings repressed,
Caused her female mind to congest.
So we’re done now because
(just believe me) it does
Absolutely no good to protest.

@Kiran mentioned the great ‘acid test’
Of a marriage. More like an Inquest!
“After years of your slop,
We have come to full stop—
I regard you as naught but ‘egest.’ ”
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