Health Care

Kaleidoscope health care is funny,
And millions that buy it are dummies—
Diseased and dejected,
Their claims are rejected,
While companies keep all the money.

Insurance, we’re told, keeps you healthy,
But corporate profits are stealthy—
When providers renege,
Won’t pay for your plague,
Their shareholders smile and grow wealthy.

A fresh émigré from Siberia
Had health care much worse than inferior.
A government plan
Filled him with elan,
Providing a life far superior.

It’s not wrong, we’re told, to earn profit;
It is wrong, we’re told, when we stop it.
And sickness right now’s
A major cash cow—
Investors will howl if we chop it.
                        (8/18/09)

Posted in Greed

USPS

I imagined (for a week) only mail—
Incoming—would connect me to the world.
I’d shun the Press, TV, evade assails
Of blogosphere—its ceaseless, morbid, hurled

Laments and rage. Just mail, six days each week.
Here’s the world I found—two pounds of paper—
Thirty-five events (some welcome). Nine piqued
Interest (two checks, netflix disks, statements

From two banks). Four more informed: two art shows,
A friend’s new novel, fresh college courses.
Six demanded money—pained, writhing throes,
Politics, charity—HELP! Feel remorse!

The weighty bulk? Sixteen adverts—page
Upon page of glossy exclamations!
Buy! Buy! Now, dammit! Lust? Need? We’ll assuage
Both. Consume! No limit, no slim rations.

Goodyear tires, China Wok, Monthly Mailer
(Stuffed with coupons), those Yummy Groceries
(Delivered in thirty minutes!), tailored
Tours fitting ev’ry whim. The most eerie?

A thirty-two page catalog: Bearwear
From UCLA! Logoed stuff—ah me—
Football beads, hoodies, tailgate tents, game gear—
No trace of physics, math, or poetry.
                      (8/13/09)

Posted in Bullshit, Greed

What’s It All About?

     “George Sodini seethed with anger and frustration toward women.”
                Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2009

     For S.A.S, Patsy, and, I suppose, G.S.

You reach a certain age, settle, look back—
Find your head moving, lightly, side to side—
Soundless words contemplate the trashy wrack—
Your wrecked life’s debris, polluting time’s tide.

A man I know, executive editor—
Energetic, wise, master on life’s flute—
Lady-dumped! His bruised heart, grim predator,
Gnawed itself, sent him on a week-long toot.

Alcoholic stupefaction never
Works. The man came back. Ardent women flocked!
Even bruised hearts heal. The truly clever
(Turbulence be damned!) reach haven, unmocked.

Another man is in the news this week.
Twenty-five years without a date—he grieved,
Enraged by women—saw himself perceived
As slug. His self-mocked soul escaped the bleak,

Unbearable confinement, dark construct
Of that slippery abyss—his fucked head.
Free, at last, to spite the world, run amok,
He wounded nine, killed three—shot himself dead.

Ah, smashed esteem will dig a moral pit—
For George, a mortal, sucking quicksand vat—
For Steve, an opportunity—his wit
Hoisted his heart, led him to darling Pat.
                          (8/8/09)

Posted in Today's News, Wisdom

Found Poetry V

     Lines overheard here and there

[Harvey to Robert: “Why would they talk to you? You’re just the patient.”]
[José to Harvey about Robert: “He lives alone—he does a lot of thinking.”]

Face it, Bob was always somewhat manic,
Talked, it seemed, incessantly. Tormented,
This day, he described his ER panic—
Something about clogged veins, critical stent.

His modest heart attack outraged our Bob—
Not so much the pain as indignation
That the doctor spoke to others—macabre
Scenario—reduced Bob’s dire station

To inspected meat! Relatives informed,
But not Bob! Harv explained: “Why would they talk
To you? You’re just the patient.” But, Bob stormed:
“I’d like to cold-cock that damned, callow doc!”

Unconstrained, he rambled—we must hear it—
Unedited account of wounded spirit.
José explained Bob’s anguished, rapid blinking:
“He lives alone—he does a lot of thinking!”
                            (7/28/09)

Posted in Friends

Found Poetry IV

     Lines overheard here and there.

[Billy Fairweather proudly announced: “I read anything with Ted Williams in the title.”]

Larger than life, and way colder than death,
Ted Williams1, in Scottsdale, Arizona,
Famously resides, pickled, without breath,
In liquid nitrogen—chilled to the bone.

His head floats in one jug, skull (sadly) cracked—
The body (in its own cold bath) awaits
Technology that will permit unpacked,
Revivified frozen flesh to abate

Stupid death. People who bat four-o-six—
Suck out one hundred forty seven walks—
Slug seven-thirty-five—leave no skeptics!
And with only twenty-seven Ks! Gawk,

Stunned by decades-old shimmering numbers.
You don’t cremate, inter such magic folks—
Ted’s flaming life authored awe-filled summers;
Alas, his frozen flesh impels snide jokes.
                       (7/20/09)

1. In 1941, Boston Red Sox player Ted Williams batted .406, and achieved a slugging percentage of .735. He died July 5, 2002. His family had his body decapitated—head and body are preserved in liquid nitrogen.

Posted in Death, Sports

Pop Poking Son Elicits Serious Reprise!

     [slightly edited by Pop—with Dan’s permission. That’s what Pops do.]

I was drifting—unfocused and idle—
Then Rachmaninoff made me feel vital.
I could play it with verve,
So I got up the nerve
To perform in a small “pre-recital.”

Those nerves would not quell, they were fraying—
My clunkers and gaffes were dismaying.
I thought, “What the hell,
They don’t know the piece well.
They won’t notice how sloppy I’m playing.”

Some parts sounded great, I’ll take credit—
I feel plenty proud (there, I said it!).
The music was tough.
I played well enough.
Though I wish I could go back and edit.
                Dan Kael (7/16/09)

Posted in Family