I
Occasional Verse
     Inauguration—2009

Face it, “occasional” poems suck—the Queen’s
Birthday, the Prince’s new-born child, triumph
At the Battle of This or That—pralines,
Candied words, trivial verse, crud-lumps—

Laureates’ labored hatchlings birthed to earn
Thin sustenance laureates live upon—
A hogshead of wine, modest cash return,
Herbs, perhaps, for a nourishing tisane?

But hist’ry bludgeons us from time to time.
When folk distil from the fermented mess
(Plutocratic soup, politicians’ crime)
High proof spirits, pure, rich in intellect—

That labor cries for gnomic, verse filled tomes,
Breeds awe—shakes loose occasion-nurtured poems.
                                       (1/23/09)

                            II
Exceptional Ethics
     Executive decrees (with waivers)

Contrariwise, what happens when the thuds
Of power-born expedience crash down?
“Lobbyists banned!” our saintly leader said—
Day one—Genesis—those corrupt, uncrowned!

Day two returns to old reality.
It seems, of all three hundred million souls
Just one can be our defense deputy—
A well known lobbyist and K Street troll.

So Revelation still trumps Genesis,
And Gog, Magog still ravage (endlessly);
Obscene proclaimings (undermining bliss),
Satanic lapses trash our pious pleas.

We all know (sort of) what sane ethics means—
We understand manipulation—greed.
We cheered the ban on hands employed to feed
Those glutton maws, assuage those tender spleens.

So tell us, please, how can we honor this
Retreat from honor (wholly gone amiss)?
However inconvenient, how can you
Simply waive, by fiat, simple virtue?
                      (1/24/09)

                         III
Monday Morning
     January 26, 2009—one week into a new presidency.

The forecast promised plain misery—
Rain, wind, chill.
But it was wrong.

I limped down to the beach
Under a bright, unlikely sky.
The flat sea,
Radiant with gray-blue gravitas,
Promised order, righteousness.

Warmed by an ebullient sun,
I watched the early tennis games,
Uneasy,
Turning, in my sluggish mind,
Words to animate darkness,
Betrayal, fear—
Above all, disappointment—
Again, again, again.

Coiled, python-like,
Crushing all that hope
And promised change,
The poem I started yesterday
Would mockingly display
The baleful face of grim reality,
As principles,
That storied file of dominos,
Toppled into years
Of blasted dreams.

But the sun smiled.
The sea smiled back.
Returning home,
I passed the front yard
And turned into our walk;
A profusion of camellias
(Unprecedented for twenty years!)
Insisted on themselves.
To the left, our lemon tree
Engorged with ripened fruit,
Smirked playfully,
And on the right
My favorite rose,
Fragrant, orange-tinted red,
Bloomed,
In January!

I charmed that serpent
Off my heart,
Gave up the rant I planned,
And reveled in the sun and sea,
Fruit and flowers,
That neither politicians, lobbyists,
Nor all the hedge fund managers
Can take from me.
                 (1/26/09)