Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

For the past seventy-five years, I have had the occasion to stop and ask, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”

This life, this existence, what’s it all about? But then life came calling. First, Uncle Sam asked for four years of my life, barring sudden death at Vietnamese hands. Then afterward, college, thanks to that same Uncle Sammy. Then children and picking up one child from a dance recital while rushing the other one to the dentist’s office because her opponent in Karate kicked her in the mouth. Then finally home and time to grade a few papers before stopping to read to the girls before they head off to the land of nod. In the sad, mournful words of Sandy Denny, ‘I have no thought of time for who knows where the time goes?’[1] Then, late in the evening, a moment alone with a book, then a fleeting thought about what the meaning of this life is all about. But I close my eyes and one, two, three, and I close the door on all the great philosophical questions about life. The questions that keep us up late at night. The questions that may have induced you to purchase this book. Hopefully,

In the spring of 1956, my mother received a phone call from my grandmother. We lived in California, where my dad was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. I was ten years old, my little brother was five, and my older sister was fifteen going on thirty. My sister was usually off with her friends listening to Elvis Presley, who was all the rage among teenage girls. So, my little brother and I spent hours exploring the desert that surrounded the base with a neighbor’s kid, Gene Fiaconni. Gene was an expert at finding tortoises and various snakes, and he knew which ones to avoid….

Here I hang from this high tree, say What,

While the Big G just sits up there, who happens

To be punching holes in Cheerios to

The tune of a

Melodic Everly Brothers song, All I have to do is Dream

Hey Mom! Has my sentence been deferred?

No? Well, Say ‘Hi’ to Pete and all the guys, Does

This mean they have forsaken me, or does it

Mean the forgiveness well has run dry

I didn’t really expect to be up

In this Dogwood like

All forlorn and shriveled and hanging like a

Grape going to raisin

(This poem was based on the first chapter of Boot, The Kootchie is Undefeated. After a discussion on the viability of Kootchie being an inappropriate word for poetry, being too tangible, it was decided that Cauliflower would be a suitable substitute. Like the Kootchie, Cauliflower is not often romanticized in poetry.)

(I was doodling one afternoon after the death of my stepfather and thought about a moment we shared together during the old TV sitcom Gunsmoke.)

(This short ten-minute play was written in 2016 for the Five and Dime Drama Collective in Eureka Springs, AR. Jocelyn Morelli played the part of the Police Officer and Ed Bibber played the homeless Veteran. The play was written based on news headlines about the plight of Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.)

(A parody of Devil Went down to GA by Charlie Daniels and The Mountain Whippoorwill by Stephen Vincent Benet. This was written during the Corona Virus epidemic of 2020.)

(This is another example of the incomplete poem. I have worked on it, off and on, over the last fifty years. Still doesn’t seem quite right…)