You know who you are. Google Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
Down at the paddle tennis courts, this guy
I know bemoaned his outcast state (although
Disgraced neither in fortune nor men’s eyes).
And I, embittered, could not help but crow!
Upon reflection, I accused myself
Of ugly, rank unhuman cruelty.
He’s seventy, too stout, alone—elfin
Eyes attest sagacity, wit. Multi-
Talented, yet, nonetheless, overwhelmed,
Depressed, yearning to lavish lust and love.
He knows, now, how he entered empty hell.
He knows he too soon scorned gifts from above—
Those, who pierced beneath his faults, found things
That stoked their tender hearts, released their flames.
He would, no doubt, change states with all those kings
Who, powerful, can purchase willing dames.
I recommended abstinence—he scowled.
I recommended suicide—he howled!
(2/15/11)
A Valentine’s Day sonnet for M.A
Melissa (although we all call her Mel)
Guards the gate down at our Marina Club.
Her ready smile and pungent wit dispel
The gloom we often bear, facing the drudge
Of exercise. Today she wore a top
Featuring that phat Sixers star of yore.
I chided her. She tossed her ebon mop—
“This was my brother’s gift to me before
I turned fifteen. Look, it still fits”—though taut
(The truth be known), across her loveliness.
“I’ve always liked his play and never bought
The tales they told of him and his noxious
Entourage.” Heart’s delight—ultimate fun—
That agile, crafty thug, Al Iverson.
(2/14/11)
See press headlines 1/21/11-1/31/11
See Kings 10:14-12:24
It’s January, twenty-eleven
And, this time, folks rage on Egyptian streets
Burning to leaven with yeast of heaven
The coarse grain of modern life—to defeat
Tyrants, corruption—demanding justice.
Thus was it always! Some three thousand years
Have passed since Solomon’s rash politics
Ruined his wily father’s taut, engineered
United monarchy. Seven hundred
Wives, three hundred concubines? How’s that wise?
And the building—the temple, the blundered
Palace (twenty years of forced labor)! Nice!
No wonder Israel complained when Prince
Rehoboam sought election. Less tax,
Less corvée, they shouted! Rehoboam, flint,
Drunk with power, ignored sage counsel, axed
His grandpa’s dream—snarling “More pain, not less!”
Hubris, greed, history’s accelerants,
Forever flame our lives, provoke such stress
The wretched rise, reject self-serving cant.
Three thousand human years, all brightly lit;
What have we learned? Amended? Not one whit!
(1/31/11)
Weather has been fine.
Warm, sunny January—
Is that good or bad?
Deregulation—
Libertarianism—
Frees them—sucks us dry!
Egyptian turmoil!
When the ashes cool, what then?
Corruption ends? Sure!
Our guns, guaranteed,
Each year reap thirty thousand.
That’s what guns are for.
Corruption, old grease
Lubricating governance—
Let’s find purer oil.
With mind at empty,
Haiku form allows some verse—
Illusory poems.
(1/30/11)
Stampede Near India Shrine Kills 100
(NY Times, 1/15/11)
Learned a new god yesterday: Ayyappan.1
I’ll tellya, it’s hard to keep up—Hindus
Got a lotta them! Spawn of myriad views,
Crowded canvas of the superhuman.
This one emerged when Shiva asked to see
Vishnu as a female avatar. Stunned
By “her” beauty, he lost it, jumped “her” bones—
And thus (don’t ask), Ayyappan came to be.
I’m cool. Whatever floats your boat. No harm,
No foul! But some odd gods attract huge hordes—
Fifty million pilgrims, every year,
Trek to high Sabarimala shrine, charmed
By the awful power of this weird lord.
Panic! One hundred died! Clear, my earthly fear!
(1/23/11)
1 This one really needs a note—Google him. From Wickipedia: Shiva asked if he too could see Vishnu in this female form. When Vishnu appeared thus, Shiva was overcome with passion, and united with her. The two gods thus became “Harihara Murthi”, that is a composite form of Shiva and Vishnu as one god.
From this union, Lord Ayyappan was born. He combined in himself the powers of Vishnu and Shiva, and is a visible embodiment of their essential identity. Lord Vishnu gifted the newborn deity with a little bejeweled bell necklace, so this god is called Manikanthan Swamy. He is also called Shastha or Shasthappan by most South Indian communities
Is madness, insanity, genetic?
Often that’s true. Bent, shriveled chromosomes
And unsparked synapses prove prophetic,
Produce certain intellectual gnomes.
Can’t be helped—nature’s often cruelly rude.
But another kind of madness afflicts
The mind, the heart, fingers, even toes—crude
Ineptitude and ignorance constrict
All humanity. Tempers explode, irked
Past all reason, while rule-bound blank-eyed clerks
Fumble to find the Form that can correct
A problem, so minor, so perfectly
Simplistic that any child could dictate
A solution, while bureaucrats gyrate.
(1/20/11)
