What is the purpose of a knee?
It certainly allows one to be free
It liberates us to walk and run.
Play squash or golf or basketball or football.
If the knee could not bend, the leg would swing like one long-stick,
A bending knee also lets us pray. A holy gesture of humility.

It never occurred to me that the knee is also a lethal weapon.
A round end of the v-shaped shin-and-thigh.
Now a tip-end for full body weight to be projected onto the side of the neck.
Now I know because I saw it on TV.
The knee is designed to be a weapon to subdue or kill.
All you to have to do is keep the knee on the side of the neck 
for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, or so.
 
 
 ©2020 The Actual Dance LC 

 
It never occurred to me that I might be going away.
That is what the doctor said.
I wonder what it will be like.
It has its own allure.
Will the present “I” just evaporate?
Is it a place of great peace or of torment?
Maybe the pain is just in getting there.
The struggle to remember. The mental black holes
Turning the wrong way down the one-way streets.
 
Maybe I am going away. I wonder what it will be like.
A new place of the present only
No memory of me now.  Every day a new start.
I wonder if I will know then who I am now.
 
 
Samuel A Simon © 2019

I wonder if time can ever end
Time not measured by a clock
The time that exists inside of US
The US of you and me
A love that is and was and always will
The love that lasts to the end of time
And then a little longer

 
(c) 2020 Samuel A Simon 
 
 

                                                         
The question is a surprise.
It shouldn’t be.  She just wants to know why.
Why has our love and marriage lasted so long?
 
A college student filming for a project.
Capturing stories of when cancer intrudes.
Susan’s cancer was expected to be fatal.
Instead Susan survives, even thrives.
 
The student listens to our opposing views.
How years later I anticipate cancers return.
Susan proclaims: “Never! Gone forever!”
We are bound together now for nearly 50 years. 
 
Having heard our story. The student steps near to us.
Speaks softly so others will not hear.
An urgency in her eyes belies the calmness of her stare.
She pleads: “Do you have a secret you can share?”
 
Susan and I glance  for an instant at one another. 
Surprised. A question usually answered with humor. 
“Yes dear!” I would say in jest.  Susan then rolls her eyes.
Not today.  This young woman needs to know.
 
Her earnest energy moves us to be clear.
Is she about to marry?  Are her parents divorced?
Books and tomes are written on how to keep a marriage alive.
Do we really know why? 
 
A promise.   Yes!  A promise, we explain.
Made under the Chuppah, in the presence of All.
We declare “I do”
We promise to love and honor each other forever.
 
A Sacred Promise, we explain, is one that cannot be broken.


 
 
Samuel A. Simon
© 2019 All rights reserved V5.O

Two Jewish men, one a holocaust survivor the other his younger, now best friend.
Standing on the floor of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin
Staring up at the towering replica of The Isthtar Gate, the first of the ancient Babylon gates.
A restored relic, a mix of new and restored glazed-blue bricks and gold hued images of ancient lions, dragons and bulls.
 
In the center is an arched gateway to the ancient world of Nebuchadnezzar II.
The King who destroyed the first Jewish Temple and launched the first mass exile
A long broad walkway once ended here taking those Jews away from what been their land.
Those tyrants and killers of Jews are gone now.
Only remnants and relics remain.
 
Two Jewish men, one a Holocaust survivor the other his younger, now best friend.
Standing on the Pergamon Museum floor staring-up at the towering replica of an ancient Gate of Babylon.
Having come here from a more recent scene of horror, POW Camp Woebbelin
A make-shift camp used by Nazis to imprison Jews and others whose fate had yet to be set.
.
Laszlo, once had lived there, a mere teen not knowing if he would wake the next morning.
Now staring with his friend at the replica of the ancient Ishtar Gate of Babylon.
Remembering Woebbelin, another place where tyrants and killers sought to destroy the Jews.
Those too are gone now!
 
And look at us!! Look at us!!
Two older now American Jews. A former Holocaust prisoner and his younger best friend.
Standing on the floor of the Pergamon Museum staring at a replica of an original gate of ancient Babylon.
Having just left the remnants of Camp Woebbelin.
And look at us!! Look at us!!
We are still here!
 
Today, years later we stand among mourners anew.
Mourning the loss of eleven more Jews.
A guard with a gun now at each door. Will he stop the next horror?
Now look at us. Two older American Jews. Soon too we will be gone.
​
Who will still stand here then?

52

Years 1 to 10 -- Full of fun. 
When everything is begun!
We are new! So is the view.
A world now seen by two!
And then we add even more.  One kid then two.
It is all so new, as seen by two, everything starts darling and cute.
 
Years 11 to 20 -- Full of second guesses.
Things aren’t nearly so fun.
Kids grow up and start high-school!
Life’s turns and curves start taking their toll
You wonder sometimes if you aren’t getting old!
Second thoughts, lost chances, maybe even alluring glances.
 
Years 21 to 30 -- Just routine.
The patterns of our lives become ruts in stone.
We go our own way each day.
Come home almost the same way.
The loves and losses of our times pass by. 
Other lives are fragile as time takes its toll.
 
Years 31 to 40 -- Something more.
Life’s cycles now galore.  Grand kids on the floor!
New delights and other insights.
We can see more what might be in store.
Retirement is knocking at our door!
Children now move to the fore, time to adore.
 
Years 41 to 51 -- What is in store?
The question now is always there. Will there be any more? 
We celebrate at 50!  A Golden Anniversary.
US – Susan and Me – each now an equal half of the other.
We watch their lives unfold, kids and grand kids – we even remember when we were that old.
Our backs begin to hurt.  Our diagnosis always very thin.   
We know that someday it will end.
 
Year 52 until ….
Time now pays its dividend.
Now as one – bound together as if a single soul.
Kicks and nicks, bumps and bruises, don’t disturb this world.
It is as if we were always thus and always will be.
Not two, but one.
Just US
 

​©2018 Samuel A. Simon, All Rights Reserved.

If only:
You overslept that day.
The phone rang and instead you were called away.

Or
You decided to do something else that day.
Take a hike. Ride a bike.
See a movie.  Visit your sister in New Jersey.

Or
Your car failed.
The right tire went flat.
You forgot your wallet and had to go back.

Or
The instructor called in sick.

Or
It wasn’t a cloudless beautiful day.

Or
That damned small little airplane didn’t break.

If only, If only, If only, If only, If only
You were still here today.
 
© Samuel A Simon
2018

​A day just like today.
The second day of May.
Crisp and cold with a bright morning sky.
Laying asleep on blades of grass
near smoldering embers in ash of last night's fire.
Not sure if my eyes will ever open again, too tired.
Laying just away from the stench of the dead and those about to die.
A shove on my shoulder and then sounds of the motors. 
Get up! Get up!  My friend shouted.
The 82nd Airborne is here!
It was a day just like today.
Crisp and cold with a bright morning sky.
The second day of May, 1945.
Camp Woebbelin, near Ludwigslust, Germany.