Conflicted Emotions of an American on the Corners of Church and Liberty I identify myself by fidelity to principles which are packaged in words that are set in sacred but secular writs. I am as immediate as a turnstile or descended from rough, rumbling and rum gypsies of global castoffs trailing a contingent of ‘Injuns I failed to kill off with the buffalo. Who are you to judge me, when I am but an amputee of you? God Save the Queen, but I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy and every day’s the fourth of July. Don’t murder mine on my burial grounds And, in league or not, taunt me with more threats that may or may not be real! Do you not see my coiled tail or hear its rattle? I will strike you if you tread on me; then bind your wounds with the wrappers of pocketfuls of Hershey bars. I am the relative you do not want who comes to visit and forgets to leave. I am an intervention in your dysfunction who at times is crazier than you. The children dressed in bulging vests tug on my fatigues asking for chocolates, and just when do I intend to go. That is the one thing, child, I just never seem to know. I am not pretty. I am beautiful, in the reflection of antique mirrors made new in the People’s Republic of cheap imports north of Vietnam where the labor is suddenly cheaper still. Come sign agreements in presidential suites. There’s a Hilton everywhere; Dubai, London, Singapore. Take care! Beware! There’s breath yet in this struck deer. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings and She’s a hummer still humming no matter the price of gas. Kiss my Yankee… Speak up or talk behind my back. “He’s losing his dominions. Her power wanes!” BUT- “Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth”. We identify ourselves by fidelity to principles which are packaged in words that are set in sacred but secular writs and we back it up with the USS Nimitz. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell	Amidst and Amongst the Wandering Jews Franklin and Lucy would drive out through Georgia marshlands in a waning wait, rejuvenating earlier times- amidst the wandering Jews. Both new and neither voiced the inevitable. In medias res- it did not matter. A war was won- amongst the wandering Jews. He had always fought inner battles. Only now could he admit the cripple; that insecure hero- amongst the wandering Jews. Only then could he patiently pose, lay down his pen, and die- amidst the wandering Jews. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell
A Street in Madrid in the summer of Seventy Six, She could not speak English, and she did not speak it, courteously, with kind, knowing eyes. Fat, dressed in black, receding with a gait, a carrying-bag in one hand, shards of Spanish light cut her into sharp shadows. She was colorfully colorless. Franco had banned color. She would not be muted. She had bade time for a lifetime. Grown old and obese on collected memories, she knew the cost of the loss of freedom- red blood stains on black and white photos, hot, hot hue on no color and all color, definitive. Receding down the sunlit street, at siesta- burned into my memory, a scenario; that gait had once been flamenco, and kind, knowing eyes had blazed for the bull fighter. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell	Born so Recently emerging finally from the nest so poorly hidden every spring in the middle of the flower ring, comes a furry, would-be innocent, little pest, bent on nipping every shoot from bulbs planted with care in hopes some might escape the hare, and boast like decisions taking root stark, bold colors in the garden everywhere- But no! Once again I’ll forfeit brief hues popping for the pleasure of seeing you lawn-hoping thoughout a coming long, hot, summer’s tear. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell
Memories That Will Not Die If they could not speak They just ran their hands o’er Traveler in a despairing goodbye. The old man, hat in hand, did not avert his blazing eyes. Eyes born of a woman buried alive. Eyes that had beheld too many who had died. The boxwoods at Strafford Hall, elephant eye-high just decades ago now slowly die of root rot. The memory of them does not. © 2009 by E.D. Ridgell	In A Quantum Leap… algorithms dictate, I am dead, and you are resurrected. You split in an infinite number of possibilities. Differences reconcile. No laws, no morals- opposites! Higher dimensions seek proof in collisions- atomic components wanted! Particles disappear into higher dimensions- proof positives. Open the portals. Become immortals. Be as one with the gods! He saves through wormholes; our lifeboats, transporting monopods of DNA- God’s ant colonies! © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell