LFS: The Storyteller

©2007 by LeeZard Dustin had been passed around quite a bit before we hooked up. He was about two years old—a magnificent, classic Collie. I wanted him the minute I laid eyes on him. Dustin obviously felt the same way. As I walked over, his upraised, feathered tail began to wag the entire rear third of his body and he broke into a huge canine grin (my fellow dog-lovers will understand). A squat, heavy-set man instantly appeared out of nowhere and asked if I wanted to buy the dog. I should have known; virtually everything is for sale at Englishtown, New Jersey’s famed open air flea market. It is more than 100 acres of junk, used auto parts, a smattering of genuine and faux antiques, clothes old and new, livestock, produce and just about anything else related to human consumption. I’d been ambling down one of the wide dirt pathways, enjoying the cacophony of commerce, when I spotted Dustin. He was tied to the cab of a beaten flatbed truck parked between a collection of your grandma’s old ...

I came across this free-verse during a recent move - and cleaning out of old (and I mean old) files. It was written in the late 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam War. My older brother was in the Marines and in the middle of the war zone, as he put it, "building the road to Da Nang with a rifle and a shovel." It is short but, I believe, very powerful. Sadly, it is still true today. ©2007 by LeeZard (Pulitzer Prize winning photo: Kent State students killed by National Guard during Viet Nam War Protest) He’s a boy. You’ve given him a gun, You taught him how to shoot. You’ve given him a knife, You taught him how to kill. You’ve taken him from home, You taught him how to hate. You call him a man. He’s a boy. A boy who can shoot, Kill, And hate.

We all have those special memories from childhood, the things that still make us feel warm and happy whenever we think about them. For me, it was Grandma Rose’s Apple Pie. YUM! ©2007 by LeeZard Grandma and Grandpa lived in Brooklyn on Ocean Parkway, a broad, eight lane boulevard with grassy malls seperating the six major lanes from the two side roads that fronted the red brick apartment buildings and numerous synagogues. From our home in Queens, it was a 20-minute-to-one-hour drive along the Belt Parkway, depending upon traffic. We visited often and Grandma always had something special, a favorite lunch or dinner, some brownies or, on those very rare, special occasions, THE pie. I didn’t realize it at the time but, creating this masterpiece was, and still is, very labor intensive. Four pounds of Macintosh Apples have to be peeled and cut into sections (and it has to be Macs; no other apple will do!). No store-bought pie crust either because that was the secret t...

Don't ask me why but, one day I just got the idea in my mind that I'd write a "raunchy beach song." Sometimes the muse is inexplicable and, I don't fight it. BTW/if you think you have music for this, or could write some, have at it! And, of course, hugs & hisses are always welcome. ©2007 by LeeZard Palm trees dancin' in the breeze, Are you real or just a tease? We met a few short hours ago, So, is it yes or is it no? I want to lay with you in the nighttime, Doesn’t matter if you want to be mine. I want to throw you down on a beach dune, I want to sing a lucky vacation tune. Let’s get out of this dingy bar, Let’s hop in my bargain rental car. Let’s drive ‘til we lose the road, I'll ride ‘til I lose my load. I want to lay with you in the nighttime, Doesn’t matter if you want to be mine. I want to throw you down on a beach dune, I want to sing a lucky vacation tune. I’ll hold you and make you sigh, I’ll caress your silky inner thigh. If you say no I ...

©2007 by LeeZard   NOTE: Coney Island's Mermaid Parade began in the 1980s when Brooklyn's storied amusement park had devolved to a sorry skeleton of itself. Today the parade is a huge celebration of the summer solstice and a major Brooklyn event.  For me, the Mermaid parade is a roller coaster ride back to my youth. For more on the parade history: http://www.helium.com/items/1870244-history-of-the-coney-island-mermaid-parade. I went with my brother, To the Mermaid Parade. Oh, what a parade it was. There was Ethel Mermaid, And Kool-Aid Mermaid, A bearded mermaid, And bearded mermen. There were mermaid kids, And mermaid maids, Mermaid dudes, And mermaid nudes. So many mermaids, To stir the mermories, At crazy crowded Coney Island. It was a searing Saturday in June, A steamy New York City Scorcher. A perfect day, a perfect way, To open the Coney Island season. It was hot, So sweatifyingly, humidifyingly hot, That riding the “F” train from Ma...

©2007 by LeeZard It was just Stonewall and me, only he wasn’t saying much; Stonewall Jackson has been dead for 144 years. But there we were. Well, there I was, standing by myself at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine in the small rural town of Guinea Station, VA where General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson died at the Chandler Plantation on May 10, 1863. The great general himself, or most of him, is actually buried across the state in Lexington, VA. I say most of him because, believe it or not, the general’s chaplain took Jackson’s left arm, amputated eight days before his death, from the Chandler Plantation to a field hospital several miles away - and buried it. That’s where the general was first treated after he was accidentally shot in the arm by his own troops during the Battle of Chancellorsville. So, if Stonewall Jackson wasn’t actually with me on that quiet southern morning, even in spirit, at least part of him was nearby. Nonetheless, I stood transfixed, staring at a small, lonely ma...

©2007 by LeeZard Here’s my theory on youth sports: * Coaches, referees, umpires and league officials: paid professionals. * Parents: barred from all practices and games. * Games and practices: videotaped. * Videotapes: sent home for private viewing. It started with my son in Little League. The parents running our local Little League had been around for eons and ran it like a private club. They favored their own kids and their own friends. The fields and the equipment were in disrepair. Many of the coaches were untrained, screaming negative demeaning commands to the kids. The same 10 or 12 people showed up at the annual meeting each year to elect officers. It finally took a massive phone campaign and countless hours of political maneuvering to draw almost 100 people to an annual meeting to throw the rascals out. After my kids outgrew little league I joined the local umpires association. Standing behind home plate is the best seat in the house. I umpired everything f...