Offer:
“I can either give you, no strings attached, lots of cash and introductions to interesting, fun and beautiful people. Or arrange for some thugs to drag you behind the nearest building and beat you with a steel pipe!”
Response:
“I need some more information. What kind of a steel pipe?”
edited 05/10/21 1720
Valiant armchair warriors’ voices shrill
Treasury depleted by trillions
Hapless young soldiers sent to maim & kill
feckless foreigners by the millions
Though that ‘underwear bomb’ blew no hole
the Homeland Industry grows, rocks
A dud as well that ‘bomb in a sole’
still we’re here lined up in our socks
Here’s the ridiculous rub:
no more risk risk to fly
than slipping in your bathtub
Where did we go awry:
Distant countries laid in ruinous states
while TSA pats down our ample waists
edited 12/11/23 1650
M/V ‘America’ slipped its mooring
now tossing like a cork on roughest sea
Crew, brainwashed, chants: “Sea calm like flooring
we’re no sailor serfs but well fed & free”!
All but entertainment is a bore
so grant us bantering & glee
by those who us gullible adore:
The Celebs we so pine to be
But hold the laughs! Check the ship’s wake
the helmsman doesn’t know sailing
wake looks like a slithering snake
In bilges no one bailing
A nation on a cruise of illusion
course plotted by a Seasick Master
immune to Reality intrusion.
Just below horizon: Disaster!
Safe on the upper deck
proclaims The Power Elite:
“So what if looms a wreck
we own the whole lifeboat fleet!”
edited 06/26/24 1840
***%) Won’t do just voting ‘present!’
In ever worsening malfunction
humanity heads the wrong way
Amidst dialectic dysfunction
society turns disarray
Just can’t allow my mind turn lazy
when my heart pounds rapidly, sad
Just won’t do living a life crazy
be it our Species going mad
While life for some of meager pleasure
still won’t do just voting ‘present’
Life remains the abundant treasure
to be lamented if misspent
Engage now! Might be too late offer resistance
after departed from our human existence
+)
present = here: not taking a stand
edited 05/14/25 1000
In unstirring whiffed cottage jammed
stepping over those scattered
slumbering tightly, mushroomed, crammed
Surfaces gleam beer splattered
Morning of the young artist
tall still in hope, slim hipped
no 9-to-5 trudge ‘valse triste’
bearing still straight, rose lipped
Indolent black cats stir both
white pawed, green marbled eyes
now stretching, compassion loath
killers in cutesy guise
Morning dawns subliminal
in night’s lingering haze
Above rocks ravinial
sun’s first tenuous rays
From above stillness violated
through mufflers crescendo aggrieved
dawn’s purity adulterated
nature of her stillness bereaved
+)
-from above = here: from the road above the gulch
-ravinial = (by license) anything in or of a ravine
-valse triste = sad waltz; here: gloomy, boring way of life
edited 02/04/23 0715
Narrow roads edge dusty deep ravines
up & down, contorting, twisting
slicing faded cliffs more brown than green
Curve following curve, persisting
With tenuous roadway traction
cars squeezing mere feet apart
no place to indulge distraction
where driving a martial art
Just guessing at what’s up ahead
heedless of ravine-plunging dread
Cresting cliffs, mindless of ravines
in youth we indulged aspiration
silly fantasies, hopes & dreams
Then woke up from exhilaration
On whatever life’s journey bestowed
winding roads shall turn less thrilling
Time, strength, guts & prospects all erode
aging’s rain drizzles bone chilling
Just beyond the very next bend
awaits too soon our journey’s end
edited 01/29/23 1040
Corporation’s stock ‘worth’ billions
while people down on their luck
CEOs ‘make’ untold millions
while workers squeeze a last buck
Once solidarity gets ignored
those in need shall be derided
as lazy, feckless & untoward
Their grievances found misguided
Integrity by now denuded
to slick pretense we got inured
How did we become so deluded
from justice so easily lured?
edited 01/29/25 1725
Agony fills our bones
while minds racing, our guts churn
like crawling on coarse stones
For change our heavy hearts yearn
Social bonds no longer prized
irreparably frayed
Everything commoditized
trust & manners decayed
In Empire’s Wars & Celeb Cultures
self-entitlement’s fierce fangs bared
turning us into whiny vultures
Only poverty deeply shared
Little of wisdom debated
or of shared humanity
Neighborhoods fearfully gated
in self absorbed vanity
edited 02/19/23 0805
We ignore stentorian warning:
Planetary life keeps crumbling
in depletion, pollution, warming
met by our evasive mumbling
We equivocate & grumble
just own convenience is heeded
Glaciers melt & earthquakes rumble
not taking steps urgently needed
Our children & theirs shall pay the price
if we won’t change habits, they’re doomed:
As rivers drain, temperatures rise
ending them too early entombed
But for us, for now, a small price to pay
for enjoying the American Way?
+)
equivocate = deliberately ambiguous to mislead or withhold
edited 10/21/23 1425
In 2012 Mitt Romney received strong applause when he said: “President Obama promises to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise is … to help you and your family!”
Delegates went ecstatic
Thinking gelatinous
Attitude fringe fanatic
Logic calamitous
“Slowing ocean rise, no!
Me & us now, yes!
Go Mitch go, way to go!
He’s our guy, God bless!”
Rising heat & ocean?
Just slab on more lotion!
edited 06/23/22 0940
