Feathers Brush My Heart! I’ve been touched by an Angel sent down by my mother.
Placed a feather around my neck from a Gal like no other.
You took it off your neck-
Handed it over to me.
The gesture quite extraordinary, my heart filled with glee.
I was stunned for a moment as
your thoughtfulness kicked in,
Doesn’t get much better,
A genuine Win/Win.
The message gave me shivers,
Up and down my spine.
The beginning of a friendship
With glimmers of divine.
I will cherish the moment
As the jewel hangs above my heart.
A message from my mother
Nothing can keep us apart.

Ringo meditated his way to “80”
A relic, in the pantheon of Rock is how he Rolled.
The ever present thought of aging, rapidly taking its toll.
Rounding out numbers a blessing, yes privileged.
The progression our story at hand.
Amanda Gorman, The Queen’s Gambit, And Fauda
We marvel at the talent, the brand.
Moving slower as time moves more quickly,
Love watching the shows on Demand.
Our mistakes, our misfortunes our loses
All mixed right into to the fold.
A lifetime of lessons and falling
Getting up, while we brush off the mold.
Reevaluation a constant envoy
Of the people who get in our way.
Our inventory of “friends” going forward
Positioned center stage on display.
Primordial lessons of kindness
Comes first, second and third
And so who will make you do push-ups?
In lieu of cheering you along
Get rid of the the flies in your picnic
Hold tight to the words in your song. Amen!

Alexander Graham
Hold on to your Bell
Listen very closely to this tale we will tell.
4 out of 7 people walking on the street,
Faces we will never know
No one we’ll ever greet.
The instrument you invented, that sat upon our desk, came alive with Ding a Ling and oh, you know the rest.

An hello was the greeting
The connection came so strong

We got to schmooze and gossip

Tell a joke, sing a song.
145 years later and
The world has gone to hell.

Oh, Alexander, we need to be saved by the bell.

We are carrying, pressing and gazing at your namesake like no other.

You brought communication from one house to another.

We speak with our friends and check in with each other.

If you could see the spin off, we are holding in our hands.

The newest and most modern always in demand.

You gave us communication, sensibilities though were lost.

In fear of missing an email, a text at any cost. We are talking while we’re walking, our stories overheard,

Every Tom, Dick and Harry can hear our every word. Let’s travel back in time, when a phone call cost a dime, we had a party line and it all seemed fine.

We couldn’t take a picture or play a word with friends,

It simple was a means to a very happy end.

I dreamed a dream in time goes by

When life returns to more forgiving

I dreamed that masks were out of sight

Except on Halloween with candy giving.

When we were young and unafraid

When hugging Grandpa posed no limits

Our days galore of fun and games

Looking both ways before we crossed our aim.

But the virus came along 

The impact soft as thunder,

As our world fell apart

And our days left without their wonder.

We lived too long while stuck inside

Our hopes and prayers put on back burners,

It wasn’t gone as autumn came.

With dreams of life returning.

We slashed our plans to party on

Weddings and Bar Mitzvah’s without the music.

We had a dream of brides in white 

Children praying at the bema

And still we dream our life will be 

Pulling our chairs up to the table.

We will share a cup or two 

A little Nova, an everything bagel

The days are growing longer 

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow

We’ll grab a moment to reflect

And know we emerged so much stronger.

Double vaxxed now filled with hope

Six feet apart has gotten closer

Touching elbows and hugging shoulders.

While we kneel and pray for strength

Deep breaths while chanting prayers

“When we were young and unafraid

There was no ransom to paid.

But the tigers came at night with their voices soft as thunder.”

So for today we will rise above the cloud

Shrouding our better judgement.

We will open up our minds and dream that peace is on its way.

Don’t fall the docs all tell us

Let caution lead the way

A bone broken incurs,

Conversations with more to say
There is no easy fix

No bandaid lined with salve 

Wearing sensible shoes

You thought you’d never have

The bones are the main structure

From which we dance and play

The years of “double dutching” so very far away

So you fix the carpal tunnel

A slice of life returned

You can shuffle up the cards

And feel your finger if it’s burned

With the femur and the tibia and the humerus intact

A quick walk around the block

Once our sprint around the track

One foot proceeds the other

Add caution to the mix

Enjoy this beautiful Tuesday

Leave nothing left to fix.

From the Madeline Murals at the Carlyle, and foie burger at Minetta Tavern, We Love New York.
A stroll through the Modern
buying clocks with big numbers at the gift shop.
We Love New York!
With euphoric recall we remember the Days of Comedy Clubs and “Arthurs“ jazz club , two drink minimums, laced with “sunshine and sodas and beer.” Oh the crunch of multi colored leaves as we strolled across the park in Autumn to have lunch at The Boathouse.
Ah, yes NYC.
From Drinks at the bar at The Four Seasons before the variegated visuals of the flowers and soufflés at Grenouille, we Miss our golden New York. Memories of dancing at El Morocco and Le Club before backgammon in the backroom at Cavalleros, priceless. We closed the night before with an early breakfast at The Carnegie. How about the days of sitting on an auxiliary seat in the back of yellow cabs with leg room, en route to an underground Allen Ginsburg poetry reading in a dive on Astor place near Tompkins Square Park. ”I took a deep breath and listened to the bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.” Poems by Sylvia Plath inspired us to walk down to the Hip Bagel. An infamous, artistic guy named Shelly Fireman had a vision we jumped onto. We heard about him and his multifaceted interests. A perfect panoply of his Peter Max Art, knowledge of herbal cures i.e. Dr. Giller and his cocktails known as ACE (adrenal cortex extract) and the smoked fish from Barney Greengrass. We couldn’t help but prophesize that he would find a unique recipe for success through the perfect antipasto in the most lyrical of neighborhoods. He would breathe garlic into locations housing music, art and the sounds of Placido Domingo. Good guess, indeed. Moving on now to the long ago delights of Steak Diane at Quo Vadis before it became The Post House. A little black jack and throwing dice at a private after hours gambling joint in a townhouse on 72nd and Park. Brass, red carpeting and pink walls added to the late night fantasy of downing Harvey’s Bristol Cream and suffering the after effects the next morning. Bromo- seltzer set up on our nightstand could have served as the back drop of an Andy Warhol painting. B. Altman’s, Rita’s Blue Tent Dress Shop on Madison Ave and accessories and Mini Dresses at Bendels was our idea of a perfect Saturday shop around before lunch at Yellowfingers or Daly’s Dandelion. Sunday Mornings of counting Ninas on the cover of The Sunday Magazine section through the distinct brilliance of Al Hirschfeld, was the precursor to lunch at Maxwell Plum’s. Oh those Eggs Benedict and mimosas under the kaleidoscopic stained-glass ceilings imagined and realized by Warner LeRoy. What a treat before grabbing the latest Woody Allen film at The Paris Theater on 59th Street. In the way, way back of the memory bin, the Pate at Brussels, anything at Le Bernardin- and the pasta at Joe and Rose (favorite of the Kennedys) were all pieces of our we Love New York Days.
So just for today, we will brush off our blue suede shoes, pick out a paisley blouse, grab an old hermes belt, add a touch of Shalimar and dream of the Date-nut bread sandwiches at Chock Full o’ Nuts. Make it a memorable “Sunday in New York.”

Repost- of Days of innocence, generations to follow will never know. Praying for healing and awareness to bring us closer to our yesterdays. 9/11 😥

Hello I just dropped in from the 60’s!

And then one day we just stayed in bed, under the covers, eating mozzarella cheese and pretzels. A mental health day? Perhaps. A day of feeling sorry for our mess of a country moment, indeed. With so many things on our “to do” list the pathetic state of affairs has immobilized us. We try to rally by pooling our sorrows to comfort our souls. Devastatingly, in a crowd of millions we are back to fearing our health. With no obvious panacea, but mandates and time, we arrange comfort zone memories of watching reruns of Dobie Gillis, I Married Joan and I Love Lucy-with a Saint Bernard friendly Topper. We derive a sense of calm by exhuming memories of eating a can of Buitoni ravioli after school with a hostess anything chaser. We travel back to days when a big struggle was learning what a parallelogram or a quadrilateral was.

Ah, simple joys of listening to AM radio. Cousin Brucie spin us our favs. The times when one of our greatest pleasures was hearing the Temptations, as we were “not to proud to beg” while we waited to be built up by buttercups, knowing at this point it was the “worst that could happen.” Run on sentence counters, I know. Who remembers driving under the tressel , making your way through third ward park and looking to see which of our friends cars were parked there? How easily serotonin and endorphin rushes happened in the long ago and far away days, we so long for now. If only we were back to when busy signals offered the worst of frustrations. Or when setting our hair with pink plastic rollers and enduring the fumes of Aqua Net hairspray was one of our toughest endurances. Only if, our not so guilty pleasures were peanut cheddar crackers, Ring Dings or Funny Bones and a can of Tab, the acronym for the first (Totally Artificial Beverage). With lots of quarters, nickels and dimes we’d stop to get our after school snacks at the candy store next to Jan, Jill and Jon on Main Avenue. Shout out to Rhoda and Seymour Zucker (antique aficionados) for 50 years . What a run. Side bar, your Honor. Those were the times before rats were tested for lethal saccharine levels. Loved the rush from Tab and the sugar high from Dubble Bubble.
So we wait under the covers with bated breath as we watch our future decisions about when to go back into a movie theater and hope the seats we get are not the ones with chewed gum stuck underneath. We pray for the times we imagined that when Cosmo Topper, married Joan the only thing that was mandated was a fun- filled honeymoon to Bermuda and bringing your besties back a bottle of Chianti, Blue Nun or Thunderbird from the duty free shop. Hashtag Sad.

5782 what came before a real who knew

Let’s double down for healing strong

Wishing for a better a place to belong.

Life became more difficult

Everything takes more caution

We are praying and hoping this year, for please an easier portion.

We’ll bring along our double vaxxed proof

And send our blessings across to our troops.

On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

We will sing to the Lord

Paying attention in place of tired and bored.

Our prayers will bring memories of the youth we remember

Adding days, weeks and years to a future with embers.

Put on your mask

Not a big task

Variants are raging

Out of their caging

With tears in our eyes

Our Hearts touching hearts

Kicking up the gear on precautions

This round a head start.

Hold tight to the plan

Keep crossing your fingers

And washing both hands.

A booster for certain

8 months we will wait

Never a moment to call it too late.

Dr. Fauci our Shepherd

Baruch to Hashem

Don’t want to go back to zero

And start over again.

Keep calling on science

To guide us along

A wing, prayer and shout out

Is where it belongs.

Hoping when school starts, a plan will be in place

For hugging our loved ones

As we stand face to face.

There isn’t a moment without safety hovering

Our mask on our faces, our protection our covering.