The Tides of Time: In Prose & Poetry

By Essdale Wilson

The Tides is an accumulation of thoughts concerning world and American events, moods, results. It consists of tidbits for the man on the street, the overburdened, the isolated. The comments serve as springboards for recall of the last years that have been tumulus, forgetful and unforgettable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450003537

Essdale Wilson

Essdale Wilson spent a career in education before turning to writing. Earlier he wandered the maze of life before spending a four year awakening hitch in the USAF during the Korean conflict. Now he devotes most of his time to grandchildren and most of his frustration on golf courses.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Chromatic Folly

Take Warning

Susquehanna Hymn

The Forbidden Path

The American Dream

Race, Human

The Wall

My Calendar

Scourge of The Eighties

Termination

Dogma

On Success

Validation

On Tolerance

And Understanding

Social Noose

The Site

To Kyle Gallagher-9/1/95

The Dawn Toad

The Faded Psalm On Feeding Baby Robins

To A Son

To A Daughter

Count Me In

A Directive For Benevolence

Time Out

My World

A Gold Star

Mother Weeps

Sixth Grade—First Rejection

Promises

Good Night All

On Life (Time)

Gay Marriage

What Shall We Value?

What we do know about the Bush Blunder/Cheney Plunder years?

What we don’t know about the Bush/Blunder—Cheney/Plunder years

My Country,

Wrong Or Wrong

Questions That Baffle The Mind

Only Essdale’s Perception

The Bible For Non-Believers And Lost Souls

The Condensed Version Of The Old Testament

Summer AM

Ebb Tide Scatterings

On The Beach

On Politics

Heard Or Said

At The Beach

The American Way

On Telephone Messaging

On Problem Solving

On An Attitude

Toward Others

On Money

About Me

Lessons Of Life

Little Known Facts

On Poetry

Completely

Unknown Facts

Tim Mcveigh Mentality

Self-Help Common Sense

Rescued Pearls From Don’t Quote Me, But

The Power Of Praise

That’s The Spirit

Love And Marriage

About You

More On You

Other books by

Essdale Wilson

Dear Reader:

Thanks for reading this tome. Most people will want to run me over or burn my house down after unenjoying the book so I’m thanking you in advance. I will dedicate this work to you because you are a reader and there is a special place in my heart for avid well-informed readers.

I have been in education for many, many years; since my kid brother Methuselah learned to walk. I have a different slant on the world primarily because I walk with my shorter leg down hill.

In the past, I have had several meaningless poems, pointless short stories and non-redeeming essays published but nothing as power-packed as this piece of work. If this stimulates just one person, it will be well worth the half hour of midnight oil needed to produce it. You can’t get more trite than that. Enjoy. Well, maybe you can get more trite, or triter. I just did.

I hope that the book provides food for thought as well as a few chuckles. God bless you (it’s in the book), eat all of your vegetables, and may you always find the best parking spots.

Essdale

The Tides Of Time And

Thoughts Of Mine

CHROMATIC FOLLY 

Don’t market a world of eternal peace,

Where all are loved as kin.

There is no hope of tranquil nights,

While obsessed with all the hues of skin.

Oh yes there’s talk of loving all,

But open arms can never win,

Opposing a mind that will persist

Embalming the spectrum of the skin.

Black or white derma never was,

All groups exhibit dark and fair.

Thus criteria for marking race exists,

That consists of noses, lips and hair.

All noble efforts of harmony,

Sincere and painstakingly from the heart,

Are but benign dawdling of foolishness,

When assuming colors as a basic part.

If sympathy, respect and caring take root,

Nurture the humane garden with grace.

Maintain universal acceptance and,

Extract the weeds of reference to race.

TAKE WARNING 

Ignore the oaken scull.

Its hardness pains the hands

Neglect the entwined hemp.

Receive no burns from strands.

No matter whom you scuttle,

Care not for the strife.

Crave only for full billows,

As you fare the sea of life.

Slight the thunder and angry swells,

That batter the soul of the sinned.

Free sails wing you through the night-

But, ah, which way the wind?

SUSQUEHANNA HYMN 

I ration my day and set aside time,

To watch you as you cut your way,

Through NYPENN hills point west and south,

Carrying runoff to the Chesapeake Bay.

Oh, what beauty in silent days,

Of summer sun and gentle breeze,

Or raging anger in springtime storms,

Or islands of ice from a dying freeze.

Lads seek your bass from Owego depths,

And pike from where the Chenango merges,

On bridge’s span at Thompkins Street,

Or Rockbottom Dam where backwater surges.

You are a magnet to migrant fowl.

You’re home to lone heron here to stay.

You tranquilize strollers after tedious day,

From an etched path through resistant clay.

THE FORBIDDEN PATH 

Father did bend the twig sincerely,

So the tree would grow God’s way.

He knelt with us and read the missal,

Not willing to challenge in light of day.

He extruded myths and fables.

He embellished and passed on lies.

With all the trappings of his faith,

He never drew on whats or whys.

Oh, churchman, how you bewilder me,

When you avow divine perfection still,

From your god of love and kindness,

Peace and warmth and ever good-will.

Are you void of critique and vision?

Are your senses muted by your ties?

Does your allegiance smother reality,

When your ears defy your eyes?

THE AMERICAN DREAM 

I dreamed the dream of youth:

Change the world, fortune, fame-

The climb from nil to silver spoon,

Of travel, leisure, social game.

I dreamed the dream of greatness,

That fulfills every need;

Yachts and horses and flashy cars.

Yes, I dreamed the dream of greed.

Absent in the dream of dreams,

Is allowance for downtrodden aid-

Concern for squalor and misery-

Only the magnitude we are paid.

Yes I pursued the dream in earnest,

With coffer full and compassion blank,

Too late to embody the converse,

Of success to riches in the bank.

RACE, HUMAN 

You’re not at all like the thickest night,

And not at all like a raven’s back.

And nothing like an undertaker’s shoe;

It must be said that you’re not black.

I’m not like snow on a mountain top-

Nor like the ermine with fur so bright.

I’m not at all like the cresting waves-

Nor a friar’s robe; I am not white.

Could it be more shallow; more inane,

To ascribe an image to shades of skin-

To block by races of dubious hues,

And evoke a hate where none can win?

Caring, acceptance, courage inside,

Virtue and love be not denied,

Ambition and accomplish all warrant pride,

But never the happenstance of a certain hide.

THE WALL 

You stand mid celebrated structures;

A chevron of blackness engraved with shame,

Over fifty-eight thousand heroes emblazoned;

Wasted in a conflict of vague rationale.

A hundred-thousand scruffy survivors,

Kneel beside you and pray for what?

Their weeping defeated heaviness,

Tells of blood and death and unconcern.

You had to be ebony like the wicked night,

Verifying the injustice that cut through lands;

Wanton necropsy disguised as honorable,

Inspired by dollars capitalists pursued.

A generation is drawn to your semblance,

Of a war that humbled a once proud nation,

With disillusion, decadence and mistrust,

And an innocent equation lost forever.

Ah yes, there were the avid hawks,

Separated from grenades by miles of sea,

Forgotten with other sins of war-

Sins that declaration of peace buries.

Always chant of the evils of ambition.

Stand strong for all you face.

Never allow your message to fade,

That triggers the tears spilled at your base.

MY CALENDAR 

Only an insignificant peel of paper,

Pounded, pulverized and bleached;

One of over a three-hundred stack-

Yesterday’s focus and today’s vapor.

It takes little effort to rip you away,

Though you signify a segment of existence,

As you’re cast aside I leave behind,

My life as it was; my yesterday.

The contingency of all that lies,

Within my psyche, infused by eyes;

My being in a world of no future ties-

There’s but fleeting days and then one dies.

Yesterday was spent but then how wise?

SCOURGE OF THE EIGHTIES 

A five year old fights although he is losing,

A struggle with illness that is all consuming.

His young, young life will soon drain away.

He’ll be forever still within the fourth day.

A pained mother’s prayers will then die too.

She’ll weep and cry out, God, where were you?

She’ll weep as she fulfills what has to be done.

With heart torn out she’ll bury a son.

He was immaculate; void of all blame,

Yet struck by a virus laced with shame.

Is there profound enlightenment from agony and pain?

Is there reason or justification that is sane?

What overriding wisdom for humanity to gain?

TERMINATION 

When the erosion has ended;

The hills and valleys all blended,

When the seasons are done,

Without color from the sun-

What of Him, glory and damned,

When all that lingers are echoes of man?

DOGMA 

No one saw, yet his image was spread.

No one felt but was assured of his touch,

No one heard though his message was said.

What of misery; the suffering so much?

Of death, starvation, the cutting that bled?

How is this benevolence, caring and such?

ON SUCCESS 

The rewards are all up stream.

The current is constant and strong.

Only the bow pointed forever head on,

Will touch the shore where the valored belong.

Lifting the oars and refuse to struggle,

Surrendering to the swiftness of the stream,

Impels into mediocrity and mundaneness,

And divorces the timid from their dream.

Captain your ship of destiny.

Leave it not to sermonizer’s reins,

Nor the whims of pious pretenders,

That are exempt from all your failure’s pains.

Downstream is strewn with the shipwrecked,

Replete with self-pity, scapegoats and delusion,

On riffles of boredom, poverty and confusion,

Where IF ONLYS fill nostalgic conclusion.

Here’s to the tenacious and their spoil,

That dwell in luxury on contented soil:

Free, fulfilled and in foil,

Requited for their mettle and toil.

VALIDATION 

No, it isn’t the breeze because it’s gentle.

Nor is it caused by the light warm rain.

It’s the self-inflicted foolish wounds,

That cause this constant inner pain.

Where is the road, the lane, the path?

What is happening to the accruing day?

Why do the dreams and hopes all fade?

Why does contentment always fall away?

Do cinder blocks and mortar envelop me?

Am I chasing rainbows in a game?

Do esoteric keys surround me?

While I search in vain for illusive fame?

I’m taunted ever with this aching;

This one that I can not even read.

I can’t comprehend this restlessness,

Called forth by longing and enduring need.

I crave the fifteen minutes in the sun,

From something conquered; something