Sweet sweet Sam
Warrior Sam
I was green as a blade of grass
New cop
Rook
Puppy
Wide eyed and wondering at the darkest corners of the night when I met
Sergeant Sam
He was such the mentor
Teaching the cop way
The right way
The warrior way
We flew the night and conquered evil with our hearts out and minds open
Sweet sweet Sam
Entering the Cambodian Donut Shop at 4 o’clock in the morning and hearing the owner rush out
Sergeant Sam Sergeant Sam
And drinks in the dusty morning after cleaning blood and grime and tears from our worn armor and discussing life
He was the marrying kind
Married Kim and then Debbie and then Cindy and then Amy
And I’m sure he was questing for another when he slipped like sand in an hourglass away from here
And I can’t help but picture him
Resplendent in uniform or plain clothes or even at his last wedding with a crown of leaves adorning his head
With that same smile just ready to break over the horizon of his lips and light his face at any given moment in time
Sweet sweet Sam
21 years as guardian of the city
Keeper of the lights
Defender of good and
Vanquisher of Evil

Doing it right
Doing it kind
Compassion for others stacked up in his heart like 10 million ingots of gold
Reaching he was always reaching and
Searching for Love
He found it in his children always
Ryan and Casey and Ashley and Garrett and Megan too
When he spoke of them I always saw joy reflected reflected reflecting in his eyes
Sam Sweet sweet Sam
I feel your kindness washing over here and now a Tsunami of goodness picking me up lifting me up Carrying me forward past this moment past the pain of your passing past the space once solid but now Ethereal you occupy and my tears burn and sting but I am glad to have known you I rejoice in your helping to shape my mind my heart my soul and my life
As you have so many others
Sweet Sweet Sam
I know you dreamed of being a fighter pilot
Soaring on the clouds above in liquid air
High high above the earth
Where the bluest blue meets the stars and kisses them briefly
Spinning and dancing and cartwheeling past and
Glimpsing Heavens Gate just swinging wide open for you
And calling you home
Time to go and give your love everlasting
As a Warrior in the sky
Warrior Angel
Warrior Father
Warrior Husband and
Warrior King but mostly and always
Sweet sweet Sam
A cop and friend I will never forget.

for Sam Hilliard and Family February 5, 2002 by Harry R. Fagel

Authors Note: Sam Hilliard was a Sergeant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police department. He passed away suddenly one morning, much to the horror of so many who loved him. This was one of the first tributes I was asked to write for a fallen friend.

Welcome to the Free
You stand pissing in the same world as
Freaks and
Soldiers
Cops and
Strangers
Beatnik Preacher Homosexual Revolutionaries
You drop water with
Kings and
Devils
Whores and
UPS men
The Exalted and
The truly evil
The likes of You pass time
And Wind here
Along with Doctors and
Lawyers and
Artists and
Junkies
Politicians have reared ugly heads in here
Writers and
Confederates too
And the insane the
Insane have bathed in the very sink you
(hopefully)
Wash your hands in
Cackling as the water slid over their
Fevered skins
Lovers have stopped here
Haters as well
Students Professors Runaways
The Spiritual and the Jaded
Spinning short tales of lust or devotion or both right where you
Stand
here in the cubby
In the inner sanctum
Deep in the secret heart of this
Holy Café

-Harry Sweet Feet Fagel 2000

Authors Note: This poem was written in tribute to the Cafe Roma, which used to reside at 4440 Maryland Parkway. It was the first place I read poetry out loud to others on a regular basis, and it was truly a magical place. Open mics, acoustic nights, “The Killers” Dayvid Figler, Trish Martin, Alex Getchell, Josh Brown, Biscuit Street Preacher, RU, Ken Jordan of Crystal Method, Romney the Rocket, Spit Newborn, Elizabeth Blau, Zog, Sonny, Roller Blading, Beth Carey, Saab Lofton, Steve Custer, Frank Masey, Crazy Bob, Kate Hausbeck, Scott Johnson, the list goes on and on, and just like the poem says, so very much more. I miss this spot still, and I am sure so many others do as well. I could list names until I ran out of band width, so if you read this and remember, please post. Filthy, amazing, Roma. R.I.P.

ighting back the Urge
To purge these words and
Erase myself again
Is uphill or bigger at times
But I sit and type anyway
Denying the frailty I face on a
Blank page
The sadly sad sad paper glaring white and
Unmarked
But for these mad ravings
The alcohol blurring my
Art like
Smeary skies or
wet sugar
or kisses in the sand
Gritty but bearable and
Lingering
Curse my art
And its demand but keep it as a
Sacred Lover
I walk with it like all great passions
Thin lines between Love and Hate and
Banality
Wisps of real
Real
Meaning spin out on occasion but mostly everything is
Autistic
Genius hidden in the
Moronity
Flowers in the
Manure
Shafts of light
Piercing storm clouds for seconds barely seen by
Naked eyes
Yet still the words flow
I hope Mankind will find them someday
Hidden in clay pots in mountain caves and
Brought forth into the light
Turned this way and that and beamed with
Radioactive isotopes
And creating wonder and puzzlement and questions of
Creation and in my long gone grave my long gone bones will
Laugh
Knowing it was all just a
Booze rant

We walk through the world
Not showing the fear that boils down under
Putting on the brave face
and Striding into the darkest night
Kissing our worried wives or husbands or lovers
They may not say it but they feel it as they watch us
Ensconcing ourselves in Kevlar vests
And leaving for
they pray
They pray
Just for the day
And we walk the through the world
Brave hearts and souls
Caring more than many
Caring more than most
Just because we are
the last to run
and the first to stand and fight and try
try
try
To save this place for another minute, hour, day
We do it for children
We do it for love
We do it because we can’t help it
Picture
A murdering demon
Escapes clutches of the right
And careens through people filled city streets
Steals a taxi with an innocent woman inside
burning rubber burning burning
Screaming brakes and piercing sirens
Crashing back and forth from street to street to street
Ol’ lady gets out in the airport tunnel
road ripping her and breaking her and scattering her like
porcelain dolls dropped by a careless moving man
And demon finds another victim takes their
ride just a car jacking murdering fool he is

Grinning now faster faster 70
80 90 miles per hour
Trying to outrun the courage chasing him in black and white chariots
so close so close
And up ahead in the distance
Brave, brave Bobby
Laying out the spikes
Placing them just right
You know he kissed his wife
Held Dawn in his arms like comfort
She hoped like the others for safe returns
Of cops who work in this razor blade jungle
And Brave Bobby
Laying out the spikes
Thinking about stopping the innocent from a madman
Not having time to think about the Cleaveland Indians that he loves so much
Just thinking about the Job
The Job
Laying the Spikes
Stopping the Demon
And We all have a moment
Working in this mixed up insanity
Where time stands still for an instant
Photograph of forever drifting on soft lights downward
Bobby on the side of the road
Click
Nearing forever
Click
And the Demon
Capering and leering cuts the S.U.V. Into bobby like a Tank ramming an angel
Click
At forever
Bobby on stretcher
Dying light wringing out from behind his eyes
Juanita and Robert praying and praying
Hero cops Tim & Won helping to save him and capture the Demon
And snapshot forward
to a
Miracle
He lives
He lives
He lives
More and more and more Alive
In spite of Evil
In spite of pain
Like the beings who ran helter skelter into burning towers to save the innocent never to return
We feared Bobby was gone
Lost
Carried away into some other place far beyond his Wife and family and dogs and treasured Indians
In a place most never come back from
Just gone
But heroes never truly die
Some live on in memories
Ghosts of greatness traveling on unseen but very well felt currents
Others
When miracles happen
Survive
Like
Bobby
Hero
Warrior
Hero
Man
Hero
Husband
Hero
Son
Hero
Bobby
Who is here
With us now
And ready to move on

© 2001 Harry R. Fagel

Authors Note: This poem was written for Bobby Kintzel, a young Nevada Highway Patrolman who was hit by a murder suspect driving an SUV over 88 miles per hour as he attempted to lay spike strips down. Bobby received massive injuries and has not fully recovered to this day. The poem was written for a fund raiser for him, and was performed at The Orleans Showroom along with nuemrous other performers. The fundraiser was orchastrated by then Sergeant Randy Sutton of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.

Every time I shut my eyes I see the same blood washed visage
Babies whose skulls have been crushed by Mother’s maul
Vagrants torn and dead in the street
Jagged bits of glass glinting in exposed neck ligaments
Old ladies pushed down stairs until their bodies become an unrecognizable old mess
Quivering on the landing
Drug dealers shot in filthy alleys where garbage from the paleolithic era still reeks quietly
My eyes squeeze shut hard as iron gates yet no tears come
Only a grim sort of desert sand forms in the corners and gums up the works
I finally shoot from bed and endlessly pace the house
Passing works of art and books of poetry
That shall one day lay in ruin too
My anger bubbling and stinking and fogging the air
How did this happen?
The obesity of the world stretching the thin tenets of civilization to the point where its
Permeable to every bad idea that ever was
Everyone’s opinion laughs from the brain box about how wonderful it all is
Echoing off of the empty words booming from the stereo inside a lowered truck that
Sits painfully on the hot night asphalt outside
Chika-chika chicka-chicka chicka-chicka chicka-chicka chicka-chicka chicka-chicka
The Ghettobird awful close for this slice of paradise
Why can’t the poor stay in their trenches of shit where they belong instead of spilling out
Into the graffiti bourne sidewalks
“Listen children to the story that was written long ago..’bout a kingdom on a mountain and the valley far below…”
War is all that is real
Wake up and see it for once
Without it the periods of peace would be nothing
The Devil is not about sex or sugar or finality
The Devil is murder
The Devil is the spirit of man
The Devil is the Judge rose bald and gleaming from the brimstone laughing and dancing and
Playing the violin
Hanging babies in trees is as easy as walking head-high through a green park
This fat reality TV land shimmers on my distance
A mirage of nothingness against the truth of death
Know death
Embrace it
Taste it
Find it
Mind it
It’s coming
What did you do? Did you survive a battle?
Blood streaked and pissed and more importantly did you understand love?
War is love
It is
And that is truth too
Love your neighbor
Lest you raise the axe and cleave him twain
Love your children
Lest you tie rocks to their limbs and pitch them in dark water
Love your wife
Lest you murder her out of spite for her beauty
Stay at war
Nothing meaningful was ever peaceful
Cheap or easy.

©2012 Harry Fagel for Cormac McCarthy