T. S. Eliot
Famously accused April—
Guilty I. R. S.?
Those Bangkok red-shirts—
If they prevail, will that change
My Thai noodle spice?
Holy Taliban
Kill praying foes in hushed mosques—
Allah, are you there?
Financial crisis?
No problem! Bank profits soar.
Rejoice! End times loom.
A Persian mullah
Blames earthquakes on scantily
Dressed women because
They corrupt men, while handsome
Men (god knows) never stir girls!
(4/21/10)
The upstairs toilet, dammit, just won’t flush,
Happily, downstairs works (most of the time).
The obtuse kitchen sink faucet gushes,
And must be canted, like a drunken mime,
To block its ceaseless drip. The cold water
Creeps scant drops at a time. The patio
Door clacks like a gunshot—should be tauter
In its agéd frame. Insidious flows
Mark the latest evil erosion—stains
At the ceiling’s corner signal, doubtless,
The roof’s waning life, succumbing to rain’s
Patient puddles, victim of time’s duress.
I know Kyrgyzstan’s now a deadly mess,
While arch priests piously fondle children;
Uganda’s lord’s army mangle, transgress,
India’s Maoists massacre. No Zen
Saves the saffron monks of soiled, roiled Bangkok
I know the rage-fed blasts, smoldering flame—
The sanctimonious greed (global pox);
I could, if asked, compile a list to blame.
But I, no hypocrite, meekly confess—
The murders (flesh and soul) engineered by
Rival gods and politics and bankers
And narcissistic pedophiliacs—
Beyond rhyme—press my mind, but not my heart.
Insomniac, I fidget over pipes
And toilet bowls, leaking sinks—not war’s hype.
My failed roof, not hist’ry, hurls smarting darts.
(4/20/10)
The starling’s song
The rising sun
The flashed green of twilight
Peonies
The adoration of my cat
The howling storm
Hardly ever in the news or on TV
March, 2010
Is Earth, after all, no more
Than boundaries?
Gods and governments?
Pollution?
We could, of course, sense wider—
Moan at iridescent sunsets.
Listen to the starling’s song—
That chirped complexity.
Sway with cornet blasts of lilies,
Unruled, rioting nasturtium,
Impossible sparaxis palettes,
Cymbidia’s outrageous creamy pink.
Warm to purr-prone cat affection.
And, thus, spew,
Evacuate unnatural,
Anthrogeneric dross.
But consider:
That starling’s thrilling trills
Are menacing—
Declare, just so, this boundary!
Incomprehensible loveliness
Of flowers? Lewd trickery—
Luring bugs, mesmerized,
To satisfy the plants’
Mordant sexuality.
And nothing
So impairs
Cats’ affection
As withheld food.
The unspeakable blaze of sunset?
That breathless spectrum
Engendered
By deadly pollutants—
Flared glory masking
Disease,
Mortality.
Our orb, this world,
Ah me!
(3/31/10)
The paddle tennis courts are haunted, graced
By myriad spirits—some demonic, foul,
Others, bright. Chief among those we embrace:
Virginie’s haloed smiles—she never scowls.
Haven’t seen her for a month. I asked Jim—
Her close friend—where’s our sprightly goddess been?
His eyes dimmed; stone-faced, lips white, taut, and grim,
He told me she was ill. Our shining jinn
Was ill! Clearly no vagrant flu explained
Jim’s desolation. I could not ask more—
Silently, I shrieked, bitterly complained—
Counted dispensable boors—then implored:
Mon dieu, tu sais, ce n’est pas juste—
Alors, ce n’est pas juste, mon dieu!
(3/18/10)
For D.T.
Beware the libertarians
(A most unseemly lot).
They’re certainly not agrarians—
They wish to sail on yachts.
“Drop regulation—leave us be—
Chop away those taxes!
Don’t you see, that markets free,
Yield the best climaxes?
“It’s true we don’t produce much stuff
(Though very skilled at lev’rage).
We’re rough and tough and good at bluff—
Champagne’s our favored bev’rage
“We wish we could go back to when
Work was commodity.
When wages could be cut at whim—
There was no SEC.
“When unions were a felony
And workers docile, weak.
Those are the days we yearn to see
The days when profit peaked.
“Those robber barons (much maligned!)—
They made this country great.
Let’s emulate them, stop decline
Enhance our country’s fate.
“Taxation’s theft! We all know that!
And regulation sucks!
Free us to be aristocrats
And suck up all the bucks!”
Thus speak the libertarians—
And, what is most obscene,
They mock us poor contrarians
(Who oil our guillotines).
Their lust for pelf makes them forget
Historical solutions—
Downtrodden folks rise up—reject—
In bloody revolutions!
So listen, libertarians—
To best insure your wealth
Attend the proletarians,
And thus protect your health.
(3/13/10)
