'A shriek in black ink down a diary's page." from "Passage: March 9, 1936."

'Savoring the perversity of power, I opened my hand." from 'Adventuring"

'In that world within our world
The explosion of Armageddon " from 'A Conundrum Visited."

'Oh Greedy Race to want much more than human " from 'Speed"

'Thirty-four million miles apart,
Through space so narrow that
Your passing's like a kiss."
from 'On Seeing Mars" (August 27, 2003)

All the elements of fine ballads, free and rhymed...

At the beginning of World War I, the English were more fascinated than frightened by the gigantic, silently floating Zeppelins. Using their flashlights they sought them through the fog unthinking that they were guiding them to drop bombs over London.

At Pearl Harbor the Japanese samurai damaged or destroyed all the ships on Battleship Row almost destroying the harbor's usefulness for the duration of the war.

Over Ploesti, Rumania, the American Fifteenth Air Force never did succeed in destroying Hitler's primary source of oil for his tanks. Colonel Paul Tibbets pulled the Enola Gay...