The following is a poem I wrote when I realized that it had been 50 years since I graduated from East Rockaway High School!-How the years have flown!  But within the tapestry of those 50 years were many wonderful memories!

The BIG Reunion 

50 years?- 50 years?

I don't know if I should laugh…..   or be crying tears??? 

How did it happen, how did time go by so fast this way,

that little guy "Mike" on his bike, from East Rockaway? 

Mr. Plunkett and Mr. Faulkner too,

if it has been 50 years since then….   heaven knows where are you????

The time has flown, some of us have even passed,

our children grown….   the years have gone by so very fast!

Time marches on to new tomorrows, and we must also learn to change,

we have had many joys and sorrows, in a rainbow range.

50 years? - 50 years?

We are the last roses of summer, and deserve Three Cheers! 

For we are bonded together in a very, very special way.

From the proud roots of our little town called….  East Rockaway,

and that wild Ocean Avenue-with that incredible bending turn,

and our beautiful High School located there, where we went learn. 

Yes, the magic of the Grand Canal and Hewlett Point Beach,

so many memories of gold, so easy to reach.

Rhame Avenue School, and Centre Avenue too,

and the good little girls from Saint Raymond's- and what -“they wouldn’t do.” 

50 years? - 50 years?

I celebrate them all!….  and cast away all my fears! 

For we are lucky to be alive, and how the world has dramatically changed in blinks!

From carbon paper, to texting, and online dating, and YouTube links.

From Rock Rivalry, to the digital age,....  the years quickly flew,

but I am still “me”……………..   and you are still “you.” 

Howdy Doody and Clarabell have left us, they have found their final fate,

but we must learn to change with the seasons, and stay up with Facebook late.

Yes, the old exchange of LYnbrook 9 or possibly 3,

has now transformed into a digital phone, with a screen we can hardly see. 

But alas we cannot complain, we are still here….    as you can tell,

yes, there has been some rain, but also many brilliant sunrises as well.

50 years? - 50 years?

Yes, so many joys-so many tears. 

Live it well, and grasp the opportunity of each new day!

and when that sunset comes, as it will…   Smile and say…

Life is a miraculous and mysterious gift, and I love it all,

it was a beautiful Summer, and a majestic Fall.

But do not fear the cold winter, it sometimes seems to be,

for if you live your life with joy, the power of love will always set you free.

Yes, every season of life can beautifully bring,

the joy of enthusiasm………..  and an eternal Spring!

                 With Love to all---Mike Jacobs  

March on Wall Street ???

To My Dear and Wonderful Fellow Brethren of the United States Of America ~

Number one, if you don't read any of this letter, please at least read the poem I wrote at the bottom of it.

Also, if you don't think you have the 8 minutes of time it will take to read this letter, and it is about the very financial stability and future of your country that you live in, and that your children will inherit- I believe you better review your priorities.

So we now have people gathering together in Manhattan on Wall Street who claim that financial greed is running and ruining this country.

How silly they are………………   or are they?

Yes, there is a sense of disorganization and focus to their movement, but the truth is-while there may not be a specific target of their anger, there is no doubt much truth in their cause.

We have built a world that is not grounded in reality today. We manufacture nothing to speak of in this country anymore.  Manufacturing jobs in the United States in the last 10 years went from 28 million jobs to 9 million!  If you are not making any real goods and just pushing around paper, eventually you will fail.   Our car industry has been devastated-look on the streets, and most probably in your own driveways-we have given away the ranch,-greed and laziness has brought us to a place of financial insanity.

And the Wall Street community got a bailout??,  The stock market today is a joke compared to the original concept of what it was supposed to be.  Yes, back in the early 1900s it was a noble idea, and an experiment to spread the wealth and prosperity of the industrial revolution upon the workers who made it all possible -- Give a chance to the average American worker to own a piece of the American dream by sharing in the wealth of a growing corporate America.    Yes, purchase Coca-Cola stock, or American Telephone and Telegraph, or General Electric-and hold onto it for 10, 20 years-and when your children are ready to go to college-you will share in the growth of the United States of America.

But that is not the way it ended up. No, that is not what happened. What happened is that some clever Wall Street investment people loaded with greed in their heart, figured out how to transpose the stock market into a Las Vegas gambling casino.

Forget about investing as you knew it, the Wall Street greedy said-"let's create derivatives-let's get into "puts and calls" let's become day traders and all get rich!- Let's figure out how not to work or produce anything-and just have a great big party!!   Let's figure out how to buy oil futures, corner the market-and become wealthy, buying multiple homes, giving no real productive "added value" to our economy-and let all the "little people" work.

I call it the "Humpty Dumpty financial syndrome" --and without making this letter too long, which it already is-the final results of all that greed can very simply be stated from another poem of our youth "All fall down."-  And yes, "And all the Kings horses and all the Kings men couldn't put Humpty together again."   But karma is a bitch,-I don't know all the facts, but we do not have to look to far from home to see that some of the highest and mightiest have fallen.

And how do so many in this country continue living in such an opulence and luxurious lifestyle today?

Well, you must look "under the numbers" and recognize that "created wealth" is truly not being created today, but rather it is a Wall Street illusion. What really is happening is a very few, figuratively speaking compared to the whole population of the United States, have figured out how to manipulate the numbers-have not added any "true value" to our economy, and actually have raided the past wealth of our country.

Yes, the dollars being spent lavishly now by many of the super-wealthy are a combination of the tremendous sacrifices and efforts of the money amassed from the industrial revolution of the early 1900s, going through the beginning of the manipulation of Wall Street. Those proud past citizens of the United States who saved in banks,worked in our factories, farmed our lands, and off the sweat of the people who sacrificed for their children from past generations-who truly worked for their country and the future generations to come. 

This is not resentment, THIS IS REALITY!

That is part of the equation. And the other part of the equation is that last point I brought up-and that is "future generations."

Please understand the national debt today, if divided by the number of people today, would equal $105,000 for every single man woman and child in the United States. Not only that, but we are adding to that debt at the incredible rate of $3.85 billion a day, or a staggering $1.3 million dollars a minute!

The illusion of wealth which is being spent today by Wall Street aristocrats is a combination of robbing our past and kidnapping our future. Yes, the sad truth is the Emperor of the American economy has no clothes.  When you really think about it, the main function of all of the Wall Street fat cats of our economy do nothing more than raise capital for corporations.  That's it!  

But by changing that into a gambling scenario rather than investing scenario-they have become very wealthy bookies while the rest of the country suffers.  So they made some bad bets in 2006 through 2008-but instead of having to cough up the losses, they got a bailout from the exact suckers they would take the money from in the first place-this is insanity!

It is not a question of corporate greed, but it is truly a question of the manipulation of corporations by the sharpies of Wall Street.  That is the problem, not the profits from the corporations.  The profits of corporations should go to long-term shareholders as the original intention was.  But unfortunately when greed enters the equation, fairness and logic go out the window.

We are in a very bad place now and getting worse.  So many have bought into the illusion that you don't have to manufacture anything, don't have to turn over any soil,-don't have to plant any seeds, and everything will be fine.

It just ain't so!

I will stop the letter here, for there is much else wrong-corporate consolidation is a disaster-we are eliminating jobs, and the level of compassion we have for the American worker is disappearing.

I wrote the following poem after being heartbroken by losing my career and stability when losing my job that I worked so hard to build for 16 years-and one Wall Street merger deal, and it was all over.  The investment bankers who put the deal together in a few weeks made more money than all the workers of the company put together for a few years. 

The Takeover

Our biggest competitor, is a hungry predator,
That gobbled us up in a bite.
We were shocked to hear, our very worst fear,
The nightmare of takeover fright.

Well I suppose, that's the way it goes,
But I really hurt inside.
Not just for a business position, or bumpy transition,
But a part of my family has died.

Our company story, in all of its glory,
Had the heart of this special team.
So with sadness I feel, only time will heal,
I bid farewell to our company dream.

Somewhere beyond the finances, of Wall Street romances,
Are lives that also fell.
Of the fathers and mothers, and sisters and brothers,
Who don't show up on the P and L.

One day we will learn, it’s all not just what a corporation can earn,
That tells if a takeover is just.
But that insider trading, and corporate raiding,
Destroys families for the glory of financial lust.

In time history will show, CEOs don't even know,
How much hurt the loyal employees will feel.
But if the stock is a hit, that might even split,
The worker is only a gear in the wheel.

In the land of the free, it's a wonder to me,
How the guy who worked for twenty-five years.
Is given the boot, with no golden parachute,

To tell his wife he was crushed in the gears.

In time justice will draw, repayment beyond human law,
To those who were surrounded by greed.
So to all the guys at the top, who just wouldn't stop,
One day you'll learn to take no more than you need.

  

Mike Jacobs

Happy Birthday Poem for Eva!

The Space In-between

Her life was so short, that date from beginning to end,

but that does not tell the full story of Eva, so much more than " just a friend."

For it is not just the day she was born, till the day that she passed,

no,- for the memories of Eva, eternally will last.

From the day she was born, and yes… that sad day when she was released from her pain,

is not the full story of what will eternally be, her loving legacy and endless refrain.

For now that much time has gone by, since her radiant physical smile touched me so,

when I close my eyes and think of Eva,-there is still that radiant spiritual glow!

So you see my dear friends, while her physical form no longer is here,

the energy and loving smile of sweet Eva, is still so very close and so near.

Of course I miss her human presence, her magnificent grace,

from her stately physical magical grandeur, and that adorable face.

But life is for living, as Eva did beautifully so,

and so we must move forward…..    and forward we shall go.

It is important to celebrate her life, even though she can no longer be seen,

yes, although her life was much too short, it was a glorious space in-between!

With Great Love of knowing you……………    Mike Jacobs

The Riddle Of Life

I got an interesting New Year's gift from the cosmos today on January 1, 2011.

Possibly it was because of all of the “ones”  lining up together    1/11/11.

While staring at a log from a beautiful tree burning in my fireplace-the key to the answer of human existence became very apparent to me. But then, as often happens-the clarity dissipated because of my human consciousness getting in the way.

But this time I will struggle to recall my memory while it is fresh, and somewhere within this story, is the story of what life is all about.

Here goes, "to my best ability", describing my vision of what life is all about.

I saw the glow of the logs I just put in my fireplace.   As the logs were burning beautifully, with their glow, the same color as the setting sun-giving off warming heat and light with flames beautifully dancing in all different directions, each log burning in its unique own way-not exactly the same, yet all uniquely beautiful.

Now let me figure out the riddle here????????

The tree started as a seed, a seed of the universe created of star-stuff from the original Big Bang. That seed was fed and nurtured by the powers of the universe, until it grew from that original seed, to a magnificent stately tree. The trees are of all different varieties, shapes and colors, again, not exactly the same-but all uniquely beautiful.

From that point the tree was cut down, and the logs eventually ended up in my fireplace because a variety of coincidences that defy logic or understanding.  But somehow-there they were, --- burning in my fireplace, giving off a beautiful heat in their supposed last dance of life in their current form before going back to star-stuff dust again. Eventually their dust will go back to the soil-and possibly be part of the energy to nurture another tree to rise again. And thus the cycle will begin all over.

Now where are the parallels of how this gets back to our human existence????

I am not quite sure of that,-but I do feel sure of the process having those parallels.

Let's look at some options.

The first option that popped into my mind is that the tree took many, many years to grow and be formed into the log that was sitting in my fireplace. It may have taken close to 100 years for it to get into its form of that log. Yet miraculously in less than 100 minutes it will turn back into star-stuff dust again.

But while the logs sat quietly for that 100 years to grow into the original tree, it looked like nothing was happening. In that rhythmic 100 years, if someone continually stared at it, the tree would look pretty much the same. The seasons and size of the tree growing was not noticeable on a daily basis to the human eye. It was a slow beauty of growth-but yet, in that 100 minutes of burning in my fireplace-the log was actively beautiful, flames changing in fractions of a second! And it would totally disappear into dust within one hour.

Yes, in that 100 minutes, it gave back all of the heat that it took from the sun in the 100 years the sun put into it.

In that 100 minutes it gave back the glow of 36,500 sunrises and sunsets. Even the orange color and glow of the burning embers is so similar of the dancing light coming from that log in the exact same hues as the golden sunrises and sunsets of that sunlight 93,000,000 miles away! Yes, those rays of light were captured and bestowed upon the log, all stored into it through the wonderment of nature.

Again, this is not an easy concept-but considering all of the thousands of years of organized religions running around in total confusion trying to figure out the meaning of life, while making hundreds of wars in-between, I bring forth this theory without wanting to shoot anyone because of me forcing them to accept MY THEORY-over their own. Believe whatever you want-that is the glory of freethinking.

But let me not digress here, let's get back to the heart of the subject in the light and heat of that fire.

What the moral of this story is, besides me being possibly insane-is that we, in our very gifted human years of existence-are that log burning in my fireplace. In some strange way the energy of the universe created us as a "spiritual tree"-formed us from a seed of the cosmos into the finished product of being a human being “log.”  Yes, a human being-originally in the form of that living tree-however, possibly in the plane of existence we are in right now, it is not the living tree part, but rather the part-incredibly unknown to us because of the last stop before our log state-we are now in the form of that log ready for the fireplace of the play called "Life on Earth."

When the illusion of our "only life" begins….  it is when the fire is first lit. And in this plane of human existence, it is our time to give off the flames of our individuality, and creating and feeding the heat of our own uniqueness. It is such a joyous time, it is very short-lived against the face of all the other stages within the cycle of the cosmos, and we must make the most of it.

Let your flames soar! Enjoy the light and beauty of each new day recognizing how magnificent the opportunity to give off your individual light is. Recognize that possibly that this is all part of a pattern far beyond our ability within our limited human consciousness to totally understand. No, not even the smartest scholars understand everything-and those smartest scholars recognize that.

Brilliance is when the curtain of our small human mind steps out of the way and for moments , or microseconds, and we see epiphany's of truth which are incredibly revealing. Those moments last a very short time, and then the curtain of the illusion of what our eyes see falls back again. I believe what happened to me tonight was that curtain was pulled back for that very short moment-and I wish to grab my vision in these words, even though much of it does not make sense, but I have it now to refer back to for possibly another glimpse of that moment of an epiphany of the true reality.

I believe much great art, whether it be writing poetry-composing music and a wide array of other inspirational arts is "grabbed" during those small epiphany moments of brilliant insight. All moments are not the same in intensity. Some are small oases of truth, while others cover great cosmic understanding. I believe me staring at the fireplace tonight gave me a very short "cosmic jolt" of the true reality of existence.

Truth is a continually unfolding story-and oftentimes changes. Just ask Copernicus or Columbus-or more recently Einstein. Do not stagnate by the illusion that is put in front of your human eyes staring through your iris-with rods and cones giving as you the real truth. Do not let your human consciousness fool you either. Yes, it is all we have-but I do believe there is so much more!

To me, those trying to sell me organized religion are no different than a man trying to quench his thirst-and a charlatan trying to lead him to a desert oasis that is nothing but a mirage as long as he goes through the tollbooth of the preacher's "bridge of truth."  

The journey of finding truth as Krishnamurti so beautifully said-is a journey of "the self"-a pathless land of unfolding truth that will best be journeyed within the sacred temples of our own mind. And one must look at the forces of nature as being intricately involved with the real truth of what religion an life is all about. My temple is thunder and lightning and the beautiful canopy of the rainforests, and the majestic oceans and estuaries and all of our brethren who we share this Earth with. They are not lower forms of life, they are our common threads.

If anyone got to the end of this-you better check yourself into Bellevue mental hospital.

Please get a room close to me so we can discuss this further.

My spaceship has arrived and I will be leaving here soon………..    Happy New Year………..   Mike Jacobs