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You spin against the righteous
You lose
But who are the righteous
And how do you choose?
Are they the pounders of the book
Or the receivers of Jesus’ look
Leaving them with words
But empty of the vessel
So they pour out in seamless agony
Verbs and nouns all juxtaposed haphazardly
Here we stand, looking for meaning
There flies a falcon
Looking for a meal
Hovering above the bluff
The updraft is enough
To find stasis in this world
For a minute or two
It all makes sense
And then . . . poof
No purpose, no consent, no division either
Just consignment
Take me out to the ballgame
The war veterans once sang
Now the losers fling burning cardboard
At the granite court house
Once a symbol of justice
Now a mob of false virtue
Proclaiming their virginity
In a world of complicity
Between the powers of Congress and Press
A symbiotic perversity
Of the end of national greatness
Unless we reembrace personal liberty 200807.1
WE AIM FOR LOVE
Some days
Spent standing against the face
Of a disinterested universe
Without a whimper or a care
For an individual or a nation
The big picture firmly in mind
Progress, continuation, evolution
As all creatures adapt
And find survival paramount
Regardless of philosophy or fate.
We do not rely on mystic insight
To fashion our life path.
Rather we analyze the results
Of every trial look and word.
Did it work?
Were we heard?
And the computer inner cerebellum
Derives its own derivatives
Paramount and unique
Considering genes, environment and experience
Until the baby is conceived
Her prospects are wide and deep
And then the close of all lanes
The narrowing of options
And the ability to evade
All such propositions
As we could ever imagine
And then, victory over the vacuum
And the clouds disappear
Vagrants in a wild universe
We aim for love
And find emptiness 200808.1
HER LAUGH
You live
Just one life
Please don’t regret
Any love you gave to another
Some of us, so lucky
Thank you Jesus
We found and attached to someone
One of the seven billion
And there, right in front of my eyes
She was
A lovely waif of a girl
Impassioned, bold, obstinate and genuine
The whole entire complete package
Gift wrapped in silken velvet
She kissed like a spring morning
Bold, in charge, full of love
And when you could breathe again
It hit you –
Who in the world could be so lucky as me?
A wanderer from another century –
Thrown a diamond so bright
It could not be held
And thus converted itself to flesh
And here she is
Wonder drips from these eyes
Sweet memories of belonging
Hovering, like a lover in climax
Between real life
And a sense of colossal merriment
Her laugh
Right in the middle of it
Caught me 200810.1
THEY CAME ON BOATS
They came on boats
No planes yet
This was before World War I
To an America
Free of a financial support structure
For those who don’t fit earn and save. –
The requisite standards for success
In a modern free-enterprise system
Wherein capitalism requires capital.
Surprise!
And those with no capital don’t do well
They fall down
Hurt themselves
Unable to sell their virtues in
A system that rewards productive work
And yet nearly half
See no big future –
Just want a stipend or eight. –
One for sustenance – cash
Two for food – stamps
Three for doctors and nurses and medicine
Four for hospitals
Five for schools, teachers, computers and books
Six for rent
Seven for tax credits “cash for kids”
Eight for reparations and such
Nine for a beach chair at the park
And ten for cable T.V. 24/7 in the dark.
So long merry men
Robin Hood signs off –
The Princess and I have left
You and the shadows they call men 200811.3
MATCH YOUR FIRE WITH WISDOM, CHILD
May never know
What sweet grace is
Look out
So many beautiful people
Have lived and given their all
So say somewhere
The sweet life must be found
These are delicate times
An edge to the anger
50 Years hence
The oppressed feel the urge
To return the crack of the whip
How to brutalize a soul
It may be illiteracy
It may be cruelty
But you can get burned
Tables turn
This day 2020
Blood runs cold
Primates for candidates
A human not among them
Match your fire
With wisdom child
Down in the hole
Apartment? Hah!
A hole, a tent, an overpass
A doorway, cardboard
A village, sleeping bags
A host of bones inside.
Make a move
Can see the time has come
And if fools don’t see
The youth will lead us to a good life
Based on individual liberty 200820.1
NEVER KNEW HOW
FAR THE REACH
Never knew how far the reach
From childhood dreams
To todays’ trifles and traumas
Lost in the jungle of money
Seeing the banana-eaters
At the top condo floor
Step over refuse humans
Down on 3rd Avenue
Our delicious restaurants guarded
By off duty gunmen and derelict junkies
Sprawled in a mutual psychic embrace
One band beating the drum
The other hallucinates on dope
Psychotic episodes bleaching from the brain
Intruders have taken over
Another human frame
Ask a passer-by –
How are you feeling?
Can you trust justice?
And what do they say? – These “People”
Welcome to the political aisle
Shopworn redundancies on your right
Polemic incendiaries on your left –
Choose carefully
Losers don’t like reminders.
Tread gently on the losing ideology
Talk about one issue
And then drink a toast to co-operation.
Matter is equal.
It is the spirit that inspires.
Take that billionaire old man
Find a true spot in the sun, unadorned 200917.1
FREE OF HUMAN
ENGANGLEMENT
We sat at the shore together
One hand embracing another
Separated since birth
Adrift in a cloudy world
Until that hand spoke
Said “You are mine, for all time . . .”
And the answer was clear
A spark of eternity lit her eyes
A flame of the future rose
And a being of immense proportion was born
As though a prayer to a long gone soul
Who started the equation
Many eons ago
Back when the forefather
Was a Nomadic brute
Savage as a wild boar
Starving in the woods
And you come upon him
A piece of old meat
Ready to be pounced
Yet the eyes resemble a trap
And the coyote steps adroitly
Able to evade any oncoming flack
Like hated and envy which ooze
Painted black
With grey overtones
A la Rembrandt
Dark circle under dark eyes
Iago fuming –
“Why not my lures?”
So the free spirit soars
Free of all human entanglement 200923.1
L.A. ENGINEERS
L.A. Engineers
Aviation captured the nations imagination
Headed to Southern Cal.
To build airliners
To connect the world
McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed
Turned to building war planes
Based on commercial passenger model
That could be converted to bombers
Troop transport
And even to fighters
Three hundred thousand workers
Execs, engineer, laborers of great skill
Sat and designed
Stood and built
Under camouflage by Disney
At Walt’s own cost
Chicken wire and feathers and horses
Under which bombers were built
A total of two million planes
Made to defeat Germany and Japan
That technology went to computers
Went to film
Went to building more jets
Get there faster, safer
Bigger airports
Congest the sky
The world now one
Quicker to get to Shanghai
Than to Iowa, Ames or Des Moines
As if your food came from further away
Than communist party convenes
But does not pray 201021.1
THEY MOAN
The malicious winds
Didn’t blow upon her
She was formed of rock
Sheathed in flesh
Adorned with wild breasts
And Cupid’s lips
Ready to curl the toes
Of any man who could approach
Even the King
The majesty of strength
Wisdom of the skies
Born of love
Lost to the fates
The befall innocent creatures
Here in Hollywood
Where the saints march the boulevard
We await the fall
Of the free-market economy
Where prices rose and fell
With the idolatry of the market
Imagine a free-flowing price
Based on everything about the firm
Personality, prospects, banks
Accountants, taxes, promotion and documents
Exhumed for the exam
Dissected by actuaries
Loaned on by risk assessors
And funded on the Nasdaq
With followers on the Tweet/Facebook
With glee by the fawning typists
And worship by the owners of stock
Who loll about the pool
And moan about the loss of sensation 201023.1
RAGE INSIDE THE SYSTEM
Rage inside the system
Be an attorney of vigilance
Reside in honesty, pilgrim
Be the antithesis of greed
Benefit only to the extent of others
Therein lies the reward
Therein is the justification
Not political gain
Not animosity and pomposity cubed
Just the direct knowledge
Will you spend your children’s money
Wil you squander and spin
What realm of public service are you in?
And why? Please, why?
Do you promise to tax and regulate
Until there is no enterprise –
Much less free.
Rather a token ownership
While the state rules
Pointing a crooked Pelosi finger
Hoping a better Trump card
Than the one left us citizens
Who only seek liberty
Along with our freedom.
We do not owe our life and our work
We do owe our home, our land to anyone.
It is the product of our lives
Honestly earned and taxed and saved
Not squandered like a drunk in a cave
Waiting for justice to relent.
No, the owner of his work is the man
Who shares it with wife, family, kin and society
All in proportionate measure 201101.2
HERE IS A PLEASANT SIGHT
Avoid immersing in circumstance.
Despite surrounding conditions of
Distrust, anxiety, anger or worse.
Your task is internal –
Learning to disregard aspects of society
The great clamber for more
Money and personal power –
Wanting to get out of the authority of others
Who use employees as a tool
For individual gain
We learn to use the capitalist system
As we acquire stock and equity
In our own company
Or that of others who do well.
Within that necessity is risk
Just as a newborn does
Facing an uncertain future
Learn skills others need.
Put them together –
Join components of existing businesses.
Build your efficiency
Do good in a community.
Money follows trust.
Maintain dignity
Love and savor your humanity.
It may be all you have some day.
Here is a pleasant sight –
Two year old on a bike
Little as can be
Following very slowly –
Mother ahead with baby.
And the sequence unfolds 200727.2