Taxing Matters! “Are the taxes done?” These were the last words Of my grandfather. He and my grandmother died Just ten days apart o’er fifty years ago. Now, Five decades later, I muse as I render unto Caesar. Grammy suffered horribly. He kept up the family tradition And died of a stroke. The Colored Ladies were suddenly busy Stuffing smoked ham with kale, A Maryland tradition. We were filling up holes back of St. Mathew’s Fast as they could dig them  Close by the unmarked graves, Lost babies to Grammy’s salad years. I muse to just how many more tax returns I’ll file- Tedious American rituals, these Taxing matters! Like Sebastian It is a pain Second only to one far worse. I hold on,  And so, I  Serve people for whom I am   Of secondary purpose. I keep going On and on and on While others drop away. I am afraid I will be the Last one standing. I would have you lay me gently down, please. I am not blind to your sufferance,. Humbly and gratefully, I plea As I skate boldly On thin ice. I am always The risk taker Trusting  that You, The Director, Will keep the measure Of me. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Intercede for me, A sinner. Blessed Maria. Look down upon me. I would that I could Find a monastery Where, like Flyte, I could Retire from This field of battle. Lay me gently down, Lord.                              E. D. Ridgell ____________________________________  Two Down And One To Go My Dad and I were grieving. He’d just lay there on his side  Looking into a well of memories. He’d lost a patchwork wife, I the anger dumping mother- We were both relieved. Uncle Frank had introduced us On her high school athletic field. Confused but sincere I began to court her To Edith Piaf and frogs legs. Dad as always tried to buy my love. He went back to sea. I flew to Frisco- Sent her back a carved bauble. She’d given me her virginity. I’d given her a pregnancy.  She was circling me. She moved in Where a mother had died out. Her’s was a yellow diamond, Mine a gold band I soon lost. I gave up the rich lawyer To do the right thing. Oh it was all right at first. Our baby girl was beautiful. I taught by day and  Guzzled Chianti at night. Trying to make Amway Direct We stress-stumbled into divorce. The daughter would give us Three grandchildren. The ex would marry three times. So would I and two would die To pancreatic cancer- She and my soul mate. Two down and one to go?                               E. D. Ridgell, 2018   The Changing of the Gargoyles   Shape shifters, fallen angels Shifting shadows Straining their eyes.   His legions In crepe liveries with buttons of jet Plied their quarry with evil intentions.   The Day of the Last Judgment Held no mysteries for them.  They were loyal to him,   Perfect evil,  The unholy manifestation  Of his Creator for purposes his own-   Peasant and serf staring into  Nooks and crannies saw  Shadows in the shifting gargoyles-   But who would believe them  If they spoke of  Shifting, shifty forms?    Strained these would shift again,  And at the telling, leaving them To appear superstitious fools    The good monks, Not bothered by these superstitions  Were safe, after all.   The Prince of Darkness lay  No temptations For these chosen.   And so, undetected Looking down with haunting eyes The fallen plied their innocent quarry.                                                E. D. Ridgell	The Melon A Virginia melon, Lying nestled decades ago, In rich, sandy, Southern soil- That melon Is still etched in my mind. An enormous cantaloupe, Ripe for plucking, Tempting yet too perfect to pick- Its rich colors matched a copperhead, Spied, sunning, ‘side Dad’s pier. Everything about the nursery, stocked fields, Reminiscent of those salad years  Was abundant and vibrant with beginnings. Times were perfect and I was young- Safely bundled in denial. Came life’s passages, And harvest time- Consumption spread and Worldly things plowed youth’s disdain With its insistent optimism. Life’s harvest proved good and As September draws near, The melon is a memory, One of many memories, more good than bad- Since I plucked that melon from out Dad’s garden.                                                                E. D. Ridgell                                                                Revised 2018 ____________________________________________                                                                 Jean She arrived drunk She was almost always drunk  She spilled her drink. I fixed everything. I understood and liked her. She was a bird with a hurt wing. I forget just how she died. One day she just wasn’t there anymore. She hadn’t really visited that friend When in Frisco. She made it up. She just needed it to appear  Somebody wanted her- Needed her in anyway. Charles and her were buddies. That Christmas they arrived with the snow Giggling all over one another Dangerously close to sober. Charles died first, oddly enough  In Frisco. When Al’s mother left him All that money Jean just stuffed it somewhere And took it on the bus with her. We thought that Admirable. Jean was a poor soul Who just came to mind some Fifty years later. She has lain somewhere  Unattended For half a century.                            E. D. Ridgell 2018 _____________________________  Now I Understand! Oh Vincent, now I understand! I’d forgotten so much about London  But not your sad sunflowers.  Those around me ‘oo’d’ and ‘ah’d’- I just thought Oh, I see! You understood cutting- The slow demise, a wilting in the sun Aided with failing water, Or was there water in the vase? I think not. The courage of your weapon Striking in thick bold strokes. Did they think the impasto from tubes? One shot only led out a barrel. What an expense is pain! Why must some think beauty Must be pretty? Who sees any prettiness in the  Swirls of those starry, blue skies? A sadness lights your starry starry night.                                                    E. D. Ridgell                                                      Revised 2018 ____________________________________________________________  Further Still Three score and ten And I’m carding memory. It’s important to  Recollect the smallest detail. I stroll down modified streets Hand in hand with google. It mesmerizes me  And I am in awe.  Before thirty I swore I’d never see it And now scores later I’m cognizant Of that enigma that  Bid me travel this far And perchance Further still.                  E. D. Ridgell 2017 __________________________________________  Pancreatic Cancer Three   So I’m into “Shameless”. Seems real enough to me. Seems tricks these days are  “Done with mirrors.” He used to say that, The soul mate, The one who gave it up- To what? To the pancreas.   Life’s one big kick in the ass. Everybody’s ass- The most recent, the ex now Six feet below a cancerous Pancreas.   So come to the Point- Get to the point. The series’  Dip shit’s gone and fallen for her. Who? Who else- The bitch with the pancreatic cancer! Can you believe that?   Seems like Life is, real or not, Just one big kick in the ass. Whose ass? My ass!   E. D. Ridgell 2018 _______________________________  A Shot Of Brandy!   It works, you know- A shot of brandy. Takes the shock away!   I took the call. Charles was dead- Dropped dead of a stroke In Frisco and On my birthday!   I went white, Started to shake when  Larry quickly handed me  A shot of brandy.   It works you know A shot of brandy Takes the shock away!                                   E. D. Ridgell, 2018
The Jacket with the Missing Button   The body is not easily identified: A young, black girl around aged twelve; Cause of death, unknown, but probably exposure,  It being bitterly cold these last few days; No signs of trauma or violence; Neither poorly nor expensively dressed;  No means of identity on her; And no explanation as to why her body  Is found hanging by that convenient hang-loop  On the back of her military-like jacket  From the chain link fence hugging Route 1. A Sunny Surplus, military-like jacket,  Of an olive green, it is neither badly soiled nor entirely clean;  More in-between being used and worn. The jacket has many pockets, all of them empty. The pockets of her jeans are empty too As are her shirt pockets. The shirt, not too drab a green, Compliment the fading jeans. The treads of her tennis shoes betray no unusual wear,  And her socks are all white except for gray bands at the tops. This inadequate jacket for such raw temperatures  Neither looks recently purchased or bespeaks old. The article of clothing has no tears or stains. It is not exactly in and not exactly out of style. All the buttons are still securely sewn on, save one.  “Look! It appears ripped or torn off!" This unexpected incongruity in the face of so  Unembellished and austere impersonality,  Breathes new life of its own into the forlorn cloth- The clothing of its sad, abandoned, and dead owner. This jacket with the missing button  Suddenly contrasts with the melancholy anonymity of the child. The county sheriff, the coroner and her assistants,  Even the lone reporter, flash in hand, live tape reserved  For stories of importance-- all seem more subdued than usual  As if a dreary and heavy mist has descended upon  The taped off area where someone has taken her down  From the crisscross of metal fence by the simple act  Of lifting her up, off, and down onto the black tarp. That olive green jacket with its missing button is now  Disarmingly and immensely more interesting Than the disturbingly empty riddle a young, dead, black girl Hugging Route 1. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell                                                                             Revised 2018  ________________________________________________________________  It’s Raining Friends Half century later  And he wants to talk. My voice is not that long- The best man is too late! He’s a grant to share- Just for me He still trolls Breitbart! She wonders  If I got mine Is insistent Too! It’s raining friends!         E. D. Ridgell 2018 __________________________________  On The Horizon The second Tudor The eighth Henry Lived to fifty five. The last Tudor Shown till sixty nine. I am seventy In times more reaching. Still I feel a hoary age, And death is on the horizon No matter how much I seek  To avoid the lopping Of its servant’s sickle.                                  E. D. Ridgell _____________________________________  The Opening of Parliament- The Queen is eighty eight; The sand is downing down On our age, and Grief is a pastime From dawn to dusk. Nothing is amiss. Everyone and everything  Is snug, as We settle patiently Into like-rituals all do observe. Though shape-shifting, the patterns Rote-repeat ancient themes from Cavemen's  ceilings. Softly, echoes  Weaken as they bounce One last time off the canyon walls.                                      E. D. Ridgell _______________________________________________________  I Won’t Be Long Some fifty years ago In our appetizer years You schooled me on A mocking bird outside  Our apartment window. Now long gone you lie upon  The Palace Green and  I listen again to a mocking bird Just outside singing In the springtime night. It’s a bittersweet song At once beautiful and forlorn At missing you. I do miss you  So much at times it frightens me  Though why I do not know.   Come dawn and the tiny bird  Grows less talkative. More like  Bukovsky’s bluebird. it’s had its Time to serenade the night. Wait for me. I shan’t be long.                          E.D. Ridgell 2019	Made For Walking They’re marching again The many boots Stepping into many Misgivings Many, many, many Move o’er land and water  Fleeing a place No longer a home Up to, under, around  And over The indigenous  Who will  have none of them These boots shod of fear Threadbare and worn They’re made for walking They’ll walk right over you                                E. D. Ridgell _____________________________________________  Tuckered Out!   Barack hit it out of the park! You could read it on his face. I’m glad I lived to see universal healthcare- To see the first African American President.   We landed a space probe on a meteor, And I thought back on Kennedy- The race for the moon, Winning!   Bill’s gotten better with age, Like an aged wine. Hillary’s winding down. The Dem’s got plenty, though, Whereas they. They got nothing!   Immigration reform? I’m tired. The family is moving on. Rudy is happy. I have to hold on, But truth is I’m tired. I’m plum tuckered out!                                                  E. D. Ridgell _______________________________________________  Insecurity   Do not let the dark shape-shifter within And, shouting, shape-shifters from without,   Chain you in, box you up; Silence you with insecurities, Speed glued too quickly into the psyche.   To that degree that you are passionate and  Naked in the mind’s eye to be self gutted and Re-righted, finally to stand revealed ‘fore  Yourself, friend and foe- Know that it is to that degree that this effigy  Be empathic; that alone, is the degree to which  You might pride yourself, Though in probability it be Some sort of self deluding- You feign to know let alone define The Creator. I think?                             © 2011 by E.D. Ridgell                                 Revised 2013 __________________________________   Is This Depression?   In the end all you really have is yourself. Everyone and everything else is tenable- The longer the walk, the lonelier the wood.   I write groping to connect to something beyond my comprehension. Perhaps it’s an addiction. The pathway is paved with distractions. Where does it lead? No one living really knows.   I am a burdened man on the levels of time. If only I weren’t so right in my foresight, I might catch a patch of light.   Peculiar people find me peculiar. As for myself, I’ve done the best I can. My faults are always just there beyond my control.   I feel like a shoe with a worn soul. I know longer want to wander much, And a nap is a sojourn of sorts.   Is this depression? I think not. People label uncomfortable feelings; Bastions against overt surrender.   Every thing living feeds off of something else living. Like the Ancients it is not unreasoning to think our gods want feeding. We feign a power over the violence of this universe; our strong levies.   One thing I’m sure of; Both good and evil have their tentacles In the evolution of man.                               © 2011 by E.D. Ridgell __________________________________________________      Further Still...   Three score and ten And I’m carding memory. It’s important to  Recollect the smallest detail. I stroll down modified streets Hand in hand with google. It mesmerizes me- I am in awe.    Before thirty I swore I’d never see it. Now, scores later I’m cognizant Of that enigma that  Bid me travel this far And perchance “Further still...”                       E. D. Ridgell 2017 Quote by David Livingstone
Laureate    Birthday Letters  I peruse your recipe  Your adjectives, your brazen  Obvious inversions, the ingredients   Of genius.    I imagine what it must have been like  To be had by you, to be bad with you.  Your armpit masculinity hangs on you.  It drips onto and into every page.    Everybody was in awe of you.  She adored you, died for you,  Because of you.  Life’s not fair but you’re the poet.  You had all the badass varmints crow-  Lived to write these letters.    Your daughter is the last one standing,  Victimized again, left wanting.  Nick didn’t have your strength.  The void swallowed him.  Cancer swallowed you in the end.  I’m spread eagled-  Hawk Roosting on your droppings.    To off yourself-  It’s a waste of a way. He missed you.  She misses you. The world misses you.  The birthday letters.  It’s their doing. They’re perfect.   They are better than anything I can ever be  Not that I could ever be so much as a   Scrounger around your woodpile.                                                            E. D. Ridgell ____________________________________________________  I Remember Ronnie   I remember Ronald Reagan, And the indignant chatter  At the vast numbers, too many of them veterans, Who skewed his statistics!   I remember the great communicator who busted His first union so soon it made Thatcher giddy at the power, That could lay low so many good families, and When Daddy blew his brains out in the shadow of the conning tower!   I remember Ronnie’s template that made Walker the Scottie governor he is today- Jelly beans, astrologers, and Coats of Arms on the White House china, As though Mrs. Lincoln was haunting the shopping and taking notes!     I remember Ronnie telling Gorbachev That he just couldn’t sign after all and to take his wall down. Mikhail did more in four years than the ‘Just say no!” Did in eight as our prisons grew so fill they might overthrow!   I remember Ronald Reagan as though it were yesterday, And Mamie’s piece of puff furniture in her pink boudoir. Afghanistan will soon be through, the tide is turning, And Oh Barack, “Tear Down This Wall!” shading Mexican sombreros!                                                                                                                   E D. Ridgell _____________________________________________________________________________  [2006] A Sestina to Refrain From Baghdad near and afar attend a refrain; eyes billow crimson spying clouds sanguine. The knifelike wounds are deep as regrets are awful and no succor for fools your uniformed peace. I would the world were not this nice comrades and I safely and rudely absent. Here with no bush and too little cover present, allegiance tempers a query too eager to refrain, lest you think youth be complacent, stupidly nice. Do rosters repeat duties not sanguine? What’s the going price for peace save to sully honor with deeds so awful? For rumor is rampant and doubts are full with approbations of allies so absent, and growing so the tally of final peace. Verily do we not recall a historic refrain; the chorus of mothers weeping eyes sanguine, and heed the councils of nations delicately nice? Assume this land suzerain as to suffice with the toppled tyrant no longer awful. Consider it done and be sanguine; the weapons of mass destruction absent. Echo the muezzin’s sweet refrain. Strike your tents. Depart in peace! Reckon your troops the legends for peace lest they grow dissolute and too nice. Discordant whispers caution you to refrain, ‘fore thunderous shouts make elections awful, and driven in haste all caution absent your hawks find their nests less sanguine. Hear from here tempers are nary so fine. The Kingdom’s oily de1eds pump no peace, and fair pursuits of this Republic go not absent. Assume no mandates distorted and not nice, for much that is already done is awful and soldiers march to a rude refrain; She’s bloody awlful She sure ain’t nice! No thanks, sweetheart. I’ll refrain from that price, and wait on peace with some arse that’s nice! © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell  __________________________________________________________ Tweeter, Tweeter, Dumb!   I woke this morning deciding to be depressed, focused the media to stoke that fire that burns within; stuffed sugared feelings into the furnace that fuels my stroke, stoked, heart, and decided to write, no type,   before downing my daily meds, all seven, pretty pills, all in a line like some cocaine kick to the clogging drains flowing out an old pump.   I thought to forward the fading strangers and failed closures within in my contacts this protest against the growing tide, but indolence won out the day, and I decided instead to cop another day in my well worn bed and muse on happier days when I had any interest in the thirsty garden.   I peeked out at the feeders. The finches are almost all gone, flown to safety in numbers that dwindle each year, like hippies dying, one by one, irritants to Reagan written history. Someone intimated lately, laboring over a crossword puzzle, that even Samuel Clemens might still be present somewhere, hiding on some dusty shelf in a foreclosed bookstore- asked me if I thought he might today be considered liberal.   CNBC suggested we may need to test the bottom again. I’ve tested so many bottoms it’s become passé. Bottoms are society’s taboos, and an outcast’s opium den, one floor above any chamber in Dante’s hell. It seems to me more and more are drifting down lately to that dangerous bottom where “freedom’s nothing left to loose”. Like Jefferson there is that ambivalence in me that on a dark mornin’ like this sorta’ makes me hope so. That liberal in me, well, it just won’t die. © 2009 by E.D. Ridgell	I Am ‘Bout Done With You!   I was born and tagged With tiny initialed beads Strung in white and blue- Suckled to mother’s milk And the grand plans she Must have had for me.   Early on, I protested Your selection of me, Dodged your bullets and your war!   I swam bare-assed In your reflecting pool- Tossed my freedom flag with flare!   For resistance to you Was the embodiment of me. I’d make my own arrangements.   I coveted no path of your plans. I hollered “Hell No”! I did not surrender- Don your dog tags!   You would have bayoneted the queer out of me, If you’d had your way with me.   Now lay me gently down Upon a green I deign as patriotic. I am ‘bout done with you’!                                    E. D. Ridgell _____________________________  Humm'n With! I'd had a bump or two And she was sod all- I knew deep root'd As I do, she was go'n To loose it! It burst forth Like the breaking of  The Johnstown Dam,  And I just  Rock'd her in my arms. "Pops, my own  Mother forgot my birthday!" Every wave Billow'd o'er me- Like to broke my heart! Lord, lay me gently  Down now- I'm break'n with the Weight of this here 'version! All these Scientists piss me off- They'd rob me of You Just when of so late, I'm hmm'n with the Amazing Grace of You!             c. E.D. Ridgell, 2016 _________________________________  Sweet Jesus, No! Oh Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, It took me awhile to see' What so disturbed me  At the sight- the very idea of this! How can we punish the  Offense by repeating that offense? What reasoning is this? How does this fit into Your Creed? I am an old man. Surely I  Can stomach this. I've seen far worse Than a Blown Vein, for Christ's sack! That's just it though, isn't it? The table Sweet Jesus, no! Is it not in the shape of a cross?                        c. E.D. Ridgell, 2014 NOTE: Q is pronounced chin. Huang is pronounced wang. The Qin Soldier of Qin Shi Huang I have severed many heads in the service of our king. Send word to my village of an ever soaring rank. We move against the Chu. Soon all under heaven- kowtow now to Qin Shi Huang, who awaits to offer His tally to the revered River God. Let all the Gods welcome Qin Shi Huangdi, first emperor and living God. 2008 by E. D. Ridgell
The Homophobe Bachman's hubby calls me a barbarian, Eliciting the first belly guffaw out of me in ages. In Kenya they want to kill me outright  Or lock me up- have my neighbor report on me. Thanks to Secret Societies and their prayer meetings, Conducted just blocks from The Hill, the poison Transverses oceans and continents to search me down. The followers of Allah, "Alhamdulillah", say I am  An abomination and string me  Up to swing by my powdered, roped neck. Even the innocent I supposedly touched must swing in a hot sunrise. The pink star sewn on my breast pocket has rotted  Along with my emaciated body that once wore it, ‘fore being buried dead or alive next to the Jew Who both abhorred and detested me-just some  Piss and shit faggot bulldozed into a latrine trench,  I had dug minutes before,  Whilst being beaten about my shaved,  And bleeding, sorely, scarred head. All of this is to nothing though as to the anger And resentment I feel for you, the homophobe, Whose silence screams at me through the history Of two-bit bigotry and ignorance for which I, With the help of that God who made me,  Somehow must command the love  To forgive you your cruelty.                                                           E.D. Ridgell ____________________________________________________________  Turtle Dove The geese were overhead Migrating south and making those Sounds I loved so much. I’d thought how lucky we were- You and I, together, Doing what we loved most, Following symbiotic fancies. Geese, swans, ducks, All forms of fowl Came with you. You shared your darkest secret, Lamenting how you could have done such a thing. For one brief moment You had hosted the Polish man’s touch of sadism. I knew he burned the whiskers off the kitten. I watched him from then on- An old Pollock, not evil but not nice. Sadly, you related how you took your peeps To the zoo for them to care for, Only to learn later they fed them to the snakes. Then there was that silly parakeet, You almost tossed out with the Christmas tree. It ended up dying in Sandy's lap. Ducks and geese and All forms of fowl came with you- You were the kindest man I ever knew. If ever there was a turtle dove, It was you my love. It was you. E.D. Ridgell, 2016 _____________________________________________________________  Two Down And One To Go? My Dad and I were grieving. He’d just lay there on his side  Looking into a well of memories. He’d lost a patchwork wife, I the anger dumping mother- We were both relieved. Uncle Frank had introduced us On her high school athletic field. Confused but sincere I began to court her To Edith Piaf and frogs legs. Dad as always tried to buy my love. He went back to sea. I flew to Frisco- Sent her back a carved bauble. She’d given me her virginity. I’d given her a pregnancy.  She was circling me. She moved in Where a mother had died out. Her’s was a yellow diamond, Mine a gold band I soon lost. I gave up the rich lawyer To do the right thing. Oh it was all right at first. Our baby girl was beautiful. I taught by day and  Guzzled Chianti at night. Trying to make Amway Direct We stress-stumbled into divorce. The daughter would give us Three grandchildren. The ex would marry three times. So would I and two would die To pancreatic cancer- She and my soul mate. Two down and one to go?                               E. D. Ridgell, 2018	Dactylic Hexameter Whoever Homer was He was nothing if not heroic. One foot here a syllable there Laced with spondee. Besides war and  Penis facsimiles, Rome managed little poetry And a lot of history. The poetry you could trust. The history you could not. Augustus banished the poet Ovid to far off Romania. The Emperor was long gone  When they sacked Rome. History is often written In the guise of poetry. The truth is on the wing- If you will know a thing Look to poetry- Not  history!               E. D. Ridgell 2018 _________________________________  The Terrible All the Tsar's are Ivan's. Heavy is the crown, Dripping diadems Of gems and jewels- Diamonds, red rubies, The bluest of sapphires! Our Streltsy from out Our Oprichniki, Mingle with our Boyars- The farther away the poorer But by far the safer From one swipe of Our Bear paw!                          c. E. D. Ridgell, 2015 _________________________________________________  Cherokee Do not forget The Trail of Tears. That trail runs through our veins. The Great Spirit knows the trail we walk And He will guide our footsteps gently, Outside once proud tribal lands. Great Spirit lead us o'er strange lands, Alien to us, plains we take no pride in. Whiskey wetlands we must die in, Wandering shadows under the  Grey, grey clouds of The Great Spirit.                                     E.D. Ridgell, 2013 ______________________________________________  All The Flags Were On The Field, The CEOs, moguls, generals; Divers and sundry world leaders, Whoever- must entertain you constantly, In your New World Colosseums! Named after cell phone companies and  Big banks, too big to fail! All the flags we're on the field  For you to see, but you would not  Hear the dying words of liberty. The most difficult and complicated Character of the Bard's 'Hamlet' was  The voice of the ghost..."Remember me"                                     E.D. Ridgell, 2013 _________________________________  Consider it a Consideration-   I went and got 'em some Tight, sturdy rope, here. Does anyone know how to tie A right good noose knot, you know, The kind that snaps the neck When they step off 'an swing? Yep, looks to me like those Folks are fix'in ta hang themselves. Ain't none of my do'in. I just gave 'em more yeller rope... Least a body could do, Consider'in...Yep! Consider it a consideration. Glad to do it! Glad to do it!   E.D. Ridgell...2012  _____________________________   On The Shoulders Of Giants   Carl Sagan is Planted somewhere  Near Ithaca New York Under a comforter of newsprint Anchored with tiny stones Although he was not Jewish.   Stephen Hawking  Resides in Westminster Abbey Near Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin Having come there from Great St. Mary’s Church Cambridge Although he was a devout atheist.   “By denying evidence For climate change and  Pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable  Environmental damage  To our beautiful planet…”   The time for compromise is past- There is no room for debate For us and our children, Less we become another Venus Under a hot comforter of Raining sulphuric acid.   If there were a God, “We would know the mind of God”- Everything that God would know “If there were a God, Which there isn’t.” “We’re made of star stuff.”   “Like butterflies who flutter For a day and think it is forever”, We fly in the face of Science- “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” The time for compromise is past-                                          E. D. Ridgell 2018