Throw some coins into that beggar’s cup
Even if the sod’s an addict drunk—
The act’s plain virtue.

The phone call from the American Diabetes Society—
“Help us end this horrible disease.”
OK—put me down for a hundred bucks—
I could use some virtue.
But wait!
205.7 million rolled in last year—
The fundraisers kept 29.2 per cent—
A mere 57.7 million—
And Larry, the CEO,
Brought home a salary
Of five hundred forty-five thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars.
Who knew diabetes could be so fulfilling?

Take a look at our beloved ASPCA—
You know,
The outfit that saves those sad yearning hounds
And bereft kittens
Shown, relentlessly, on our TVs.
Those tragic cats and dogs
Generated over a hundred forty-eight million
In virtuous donations.
But wait!
The fundraisers kept 52.7 million
Of those alms.
And Edwin? The CEO?
That lout drained five hundred sixty-six thousand
To help with the rent and the groceries.

For pity’s sake, ask yourself:
How do my donations serve?
Do they mitigate poverty,
Soften pain,
Enrich the arts,
Or contribute
To entrepreneurial,
Orgasmic riches?

Looking for virtue, self-esteem?
Give the drunk a few bucks—
Stop being played
Like an out-of-tune fiddle.
(1/11/14)

An intellectual, perhaps Voltaire,
Perhaps Diderot, many years ago
Reflected on our freedom and welfare
And determined what everyone should know:

“Men,” he proclaimed (women too—human yeast)
“Will never be free until the last king
Is strangled with the guts of the last priest.”
Mercifully, he never saw new things—

He never saw the dark enslaving source
Controlling worship, governments, and banks—
Birthing our greedy corporations’ force
With Wall Street traders’ horrifying pranks—

Far worse than priests and kings—alligators!
Reptilian beyond all decency,
Secret financial manipulators—
Parasites—sucking up our currency.

We never will be free until, benumbed,
They choke to death on their own bilious scum.
(11/15/13}

The stuff we yearn
To hear and taste.

But then
The daily news intrudes.

Over a hundred killed
Stampeding to a Hindu shrine.
A schoolboy shoots a teacher
And himself.
Scores of innocents killed
By careless drone strikes.
Egyptian Islamists
Raid a wedding party
At a Coptic church.
Six bombed to death
On a Russian bus.
Seven bombed to death
On a Pakistani train.
Our largest bank
Offers thirteen billion
To cure its criminality.
Twenty thousand children
Die every day
From malnutrition
And preventable disease.
Twenty thousand, every day.

All this, an iceberg’s
Puny tip.

How?
How can we heed
The happy refrain,
And just, dammit,
Just
Let the sun shine in?
(10/23/13)

One of the regulars down at the courts,
Larry, is eighty now famous for coifed
Hair, and immune to our mild, teasing snorts.
Educated children, grandchildren, waft

About his soul. He and his family
Have shared both mazel and tsouris enough—
Proud emotion, piqued by the awesome glee
Of birth and joy, darkened by the rebuff

Of illness and bone crushing accident.
Yet, through it all, he has remained unique—
Quietly dependable, provident,
He watches over us, cares for the bleak,

Helps even the drunk thieves who hang about,
Picks up the tab. We watch him from our bench—
He represents (we know and want to shout)
The very definition of a mensch.
(10/20/13)
Mazel = luck; Tsouris = trouble; Mensch = human in the highest sense.

Smarts, not strength,
Control the world—
“Kill regulation—
Foul, depraved!”
(Those masters suck
What we produce—
We’re, once again,
Enslaved.)

But times have changed,
Smarts must take heed,
Attend to need,
Wash away the mud—
Or desperation,
TNT,
Will draw the smart ones’
Blood.

It’s in the books
(Yeats knew it well)—
Jeroboam, Robespierre,
And Lenin found solutions.1
It’s just not smart
To suck us dry
And foment
Revolutions.
(5/10/12)
1William Butler Yeats theorized that history worked in 2000 year cycles (for every Christ, an anti-Christ waiting to be born). When King Solomon died, Prince Rehoboam went before Israel requesting that they accept his sovereignty over the United Monarchy of Judah and Israel. When Jeroboam complained that Solomon imposed unfair taxes on Israel, and asked for relief, Rehoboam threatened to increase their burden. His intransigence resulted in a civil war that destroyed the United Monarchy. Robespierre was an influential figure in the French revolution. You all know who Lenin was. Damn! It can’t be right when the footnote’s longer than the poem.

There once was a libertarian
With views both harsh and contrarion.
Opposing, with passion,
Tax, regs, and compassion,
He yearned for a world he could prey on.

Libertarians bellow what’s best:
“Free markets must not be transgressed!”
They firmly believe
Constraints are naïve,
And rules are just dangerous pests.

“Our government’s fat and corrupt,”
They preached as they lustily supped;
“Just hear what we say,
Get out of the way,
Let greed and self-interest erupt.”

Libertarians’ riches depend
On what the poor masses can spend—
So it’s not ‘one for all’—
‘All for one’ (be appalled!)—
A worldview they archly defend.

Corruption is rampant (take heed),
And lobbyists block what we need—
But what is the source
Of this immoral force
If not libertarians’ greed?
(9/23/11)

Just got the first quarter report—bummer!
Can’t really complain. For thirty-three years
(Mostly with laughter, though sometimes with tears)
We’ve done well. Now? We’ve never been glummer.
It is what it is, not so? And Summer
Is over—reality breeds fierce fears,
Our treasured investments, it now appears,
Beaten downward by a deadly drummer.

Cash flow, always our singular mantra.
Why would General sell producers off?
For chrissake, sell the damn losers, cantya?
Don’t stick a finger in, demand we cough!
Prospective (high taxed) profit? No heart throbs—
But loss of cash flow income wrenches sobs!
     (5/5/11)

Since we’ve built a better mousetrap,
The world takes note and beats a path
To our door, while we, enraged, slap
Those migrants back, nurture such wrath,

Such flaming discontent, our souls
Shrivel to ash—humanity,
Displaced by hate, and love by shoals
Designed to wreck without pity.

“Get lost!” we shout, “you tired, poor,
Huddled wretched refuse, homeless.
Invent your own damn mousetrap; stress,
When the world beats at your damned door.”
                       (8/14/10)

Trouble with car payments, filling the tank?
Save yourself and Earth—push it off a cliff.
Walk, cycle, take the bus. Deplore the dank
Pinch of frivolous fate, do you? Well, sniff

About a bit. Mark those three billion souls,
Half the planet’s writhing mass, pristine, pure—
Blessed without a thing to lose—cajoling
Puckered plots for one day’s sustenance, inured,

Hunger-hollowed, nature’s worm-ridden prey—
While we shriek at shrunken ‘401k’s.
                                  (1/20/09)