Eulogy for our dead  sons

Sound taps! Ring the dormant bells!

Wail aloud! Burn the buildings down!

Pierce heaven's shield with mourning!

Gather round the corpse of the slain

powdered and painted for a party!

Clandom's day of remembrance

with curses and tears to be shed.

Our cold heroes sleep past dreams;

frozen in youth, they lay dead.

all promises ceased with their heart

hope vanished at the hour of their passing.

God hears the weak fists pounding

sees revenge kick ass about town.

The brothers' lives survive in red

rivulets of blood drying on a curb.

Tiny notes appear in the press:

Young man killed outside his home.

A numberless death counted by the FBI

for a report on crime and statistical health.

Fire, then, shots that "honor" these dead;

bring one more to the funeral home. 

*The midlife passage is a psychological crossroads of utmost importance, rivaling adolescence in pain and promise.  The transition from the first half of life to the second provokes multiple changes, and one of the most dramatic involves men and women switching roles and crossing paths.

-Allan B. Chinen

*Men raised in traditional masculine ways usually have trouble with interpersonal relationships and tend to see people mainly in terms of social roles, rather than as individual persons.

-Allan B. Chinen