At the Gravesite of Ralph Greenleaf

The image etched eternally upon your stone
Shows you hunched over, analyzing your next shot.
You've chalked your cue, now follow through.
You believe you've got all the angles figured.
Seven scuttles into the corner pocket, then you sink
Sinister thirteen.  Now you're set to run the table.
No luck involved; just skill and positioning.
Yeah, you were great then.  Two grand a week;
Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and the Prez commanded
That kind of dough. Big bucks for a pool hustler,
Especially during the depths of the Depression
But you had it all then;  charisma, style and talent.

You brought showmanship into smoky pool halls.
Your petite Chinese bride, Princess Nai Tai Tai
Proudly narrating the action ,a billiard ball ballet
Of brilliant hues cavorting across the green felt;
Mirrors suspended above to magnify the motion,
Reflecting it as dancing kaleidoscopic colors.
As " Champ," you dazzled the rubes with your patter,
Charm and an amazing repertoire of trick shots.
You were "The Aristocrat of Billiards," so handsome
That Hollywood moguls wooed you with script offers.
Life's a blind draw though; You can't know ahead of time
What you'll go up against, or what will finally defeat you.

Just when your life reached that balance point
When to pick up a cue made you feel like a king,
The balance tipped from bon vivant to boozehound.
The liquor had become as much of a crutch to you
As a mechanical bridge to a player with no reach.
A bad break or two, then some nasty caroms,
You found you no longer had all the angles figured.
Behind the eight ball, you'd hoist another highball.
The booze you boasted helped you relax before
A tourney soon became your means to escape,
A substitute for confidence, consolation
For not winning, solace for not even showing up.

You ran through your winnings as effortlessly
 As you used to run a table.  At times some semblence
 Of your majesty shown through your dishevelled rags.
 Busted for vagrancy in Arizona, you proved
 Your identity to a skeptical Sheriff by sinking
Eighty-seven balls in a row for him.  This display
Of artistry amazed cowboys who had come to scoff,
This was your last lunge for the surface, though,
Before drink pulled you under.  When your Princess died,
Decades later, her last wish was to be laid to rest next
To "her Ralph."  To have retained such undying love,
Even to your bitter end, yeah....you had been great once.

Free Speech Zones (A Villanelle)

A poem dedicated to the heroes of OCCUPY,
Who are standing up to the evil and its minions

Soon despots can gloat, secure on their thrones.
We'll see the dark path down which we've been led
Now that dissent's confined to "Free Speech Zones."

They've picked their teeth with First Amendment bones
Their security measures fill us with dread;
Soon despots can gloat, secure on their thrones.

Who has the courage left to hurl more stones
At the uniformed thugs whose tasers we've fled
Now that dissent's confined to "Free Speech Zones?"

Too few resist Tyranny's chaperones,
Too mind-numbed to know that they've been misled.
Soon despots can gloat, secure on their thrones.

Listen, you can hear Miss Liberty's groans
"What a sad lot of passive wage slaves we've bred
Now that dissent's confined to Free Speech Zones."

When will we realize Freedom has fled?
Liberty's departed; she's left us for dead.
Despots can gloat now, secure on their thrones
Dissent's been compressed into "Free Speech Zones."