Author: Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Dec. 28, 2023

I’m but one of America’s nearly 60 million senior citizens, an 85-year-old. That’s an age filled with concerns, all kinds of concerns, concerns about walking into a room not knowing why, concerns about aches and pains that come in several degrees and recent concerns about rises in ageism.

Oh, the list of concerns could go on and on, ad nauseum, but I have a particular concern that has, for a while now, bothered me tremendously, one that stands high on my list of worries.

by Ernie McCray

As the world spins
seemingly out of control
I find unfolding in me
the kind of wishes
one would make at a wishing well
in a fairy tale,
wishing that
Secretaries of State
in America’s states
will rise early every day
and stay up late
ensuring that
a former president
who is filled with hate,
like a rattle snake
overflowing with venom,
will not be a candidate
in his or her state,

by Ernie McCray 

I’m remembering
walking up a stairway
in Amsterdam
through narrow doorways
looking into nooks and crannies
in Anne Frank’s hiding place,
an annex attached to a home
where she chronicled
in a diary
that stands as a gift to humanity,
the trials and tribulations
of her people,
Jews,

by Ernie McCray 

I ran across
a picture of me
and two of my closest friends
growing up,
and I thought
of something I read that said:
“You can be friends with people
for years
and it could take years
for you to realize they were
never your friend”

By Ernie McCray

I read somewhere that
“A salary is the amount your employer
pays you to forget your dreams.”
And my take on the idea is
are you kidding me,
with some of the poorly paying jobs I had early in my life,
sweeping and mopping
and buffing and dusting
in between
wiping tears from my eyes
and cussing?

by Ernie McCray

There’s a meme
that reads
“Be the things
you loved most about
the people who are gone”
and when I think about it
I can see that
I’ve been doing that all along,
keeping the spirit of lost ones alive –
through how I live my life,
|going back to my teens

by Ernie McCray

I turn on the TV
and I hear the news
that Hamas
had taken the lives of
hundreds of Jews
and my eyes teared
and like dust being vacuumed
my breath was sucked away
just thinking that human beings
can treat each other this way
putting them in harm’s way
as they listen to music being played
and then I became equally dismayed,
knowing that Netanyahu’s
retaliation to this horrible display
of heinous madness
would be more deadly

by Ernie McCray

The seventy
and eighty
and ninety-year-olds
and beyond
compose a generation
whose days,
after so many yearly journeys
revolving around the sun,
are moving on,
yet,|
though their days will be done,
along with their memories
of a war that was won,
the ending of Jim Crow shenanigans
and marches in the street
for peace and justice and equality
that faced firehoses and snarling dogs
with bared teeth
and so many things –

By Ernie McCray

What if the slogan,
“Make America Great Again,”
was replaced
with a more hopeful
and promising acronym
such as
“Make America Governable Again”
like the time
when the powers that be
set, although rather unenthusiastically,
its slaves free
or when they laid down highways
allowing motorists
to travel the country
more easily and economically
or gave birth to voting rights
for all of our citizenry.

by Ernie McCray

When I think of one thing
that one thing,
especially if it’s something
that makes me cringe,
leads me to think
of something a bit more promising.
I mean,
for example,
when I think about
climate change,
my mind sets in motion
dreams of gentle rains
or if the thought is about
the armed conflict in Ukraine
I wish war,
like old soldiers,
would just slowly fadeaway

By Ernest McCray

I find myself lately
from time to time
thinking about the good time
I had on stage,
just a wee bit of time ago,
doing some rhymes
of mine
and poetry of a friend of mine
and the work
of poets who rank
among the best of all time,
poems referring to a people
still rising,

by Ernie McCray

Every time I’d look over
at my good brother, Jesus Nieto,
while a rapper
was doing his thing
to funk beats
or while other music played
or while the Kumeyaay elders prayed,
blessing this rather sublime day,
he’d be sitting back in his wheelchair
wearing that soft gentle smile of his
on his contented face