<p align="left">These poems were gathered from more than one hundred others I have saved over the years and those which I wished people to read.

I stopped writing poetry in my fifties (with an occasional lapse) and these verses span approximately the time from when I entered college until I became a grandfather. I am proud of one or two, but less enthused by others. </p>

<p align="left"> I never thought of myself as a poet-indeed, I am not sure what a poet is-but if it means wringing from personal experience some words that seem to belong together, then I think these pages fulfill that definition. </p>

<p align="left"> Many poems are concerned with war and death. I would like to think they also reflect a time when war and death or the cold war and death were important themes in history. They certainly reflect how I felt about both at the time. </p>

<p align="left"> I do not know why I stopped writing poetry, but clearly it was in part because I no longer needed it as a means of expression. Nevertheless, I think it worth saving these poems, if only because they are a record of the past. -CFH </p>

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<p align="left"><em>About the author:</em></p>

<p align="left">Carl F. Heintze is a veteran newspaper reporter with twenty-two years experience on the San Jose, California, Mercury, and News and seventeen years as a columnist for the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers. </p>

<p align="left">Carl also is the author of numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction and currently working on a book about his father, a civil engineer, to be called Bridges.
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