Fire Season

     Southern California, November 16, 2008

It’s that time again! Each year—when wild air
Spumes, raging east to west—bent, sullen fiends
(Devoid of skill, of charm, talent, note) dare,
Find means, make their mindless mark, nourish dreams.

Crushed by the world’s disdain, they drop a match
There, in the driest brush. With obscene leers,
They glory, warmed by anguish they dispatch,
As wind-lashed flames give birth to bitter tears.

They can’t create, but boy can they destroy;
They can’t earn love, but boy can they smash hearts.
There, crouched (and stiff, no doubt), reveling, buoyed
By ashes, smoke, their sole consuming art:

A puckered, blazing blood-red sun impearled—
{asshole}
The ravaged {rectum} of a scornful world.
{ember}
                           (11/17/08)

Posted in Local Color, Today's News

How Lucky I Am!

     For B.L., again

Bemused
By my anhedonic scowl,
Bruce, down at the tennis courts,
Challenged me:
Poeticize the therapeutic title here supplied.

Face it! I am, indeed, lucky!

First, my parents left Poland
Long before the Nazi onslaught.
Thus, luckily, we escaped
The furnaces of Auschwitz,
Unlike six million others.

And they chose America!
They could have,
As many others did,
Opted for the Argentine,
Where my own left-wing
Leanings might well have
Culminated
In a drugged free-fall
From a soaring plane
To join the other countless
Disappeared.

My 1930 birth
Enhanced the luck
That shielded me.
I slipped, undrafted and unscathed,
Through all the major
Wars that marked my century,
Though twenty million others
Were less fortunate.

That same luck held
As I matured—
Healthy kids, job markets
Opening just in time.
McCarthyism, to be sure,
Was troublesome,
But didn’t injure me—
Never mind the loyalty oath
I had to sign
Before I met my first class.

I watched as Africa
Joyously escaped its masters,
Watched as liberators
Morphed to kleptocrats,
As Hutus, in one hundred days,
Murdered one million Tutsis,
As blood diamonds justified
A holocaust,
As Darfur melted in flames,
As Zimbabwe perished,
As Congolese combatants
Without discrimination,
Raped, pillaged
Everywhere.

I watched as religion
Promised paradise
To those who killed the infidel.

And here,
In god-blessed America,
I watched,
As the richest among us,
Blessed with an abundance
Impossible to spend,
Devised poisonous
New instruments
(To serve a greed
Grown pathological)
That broke the world’s
Thin spine.

But not mine!
My luck has made me comfortable,
A sturdy skiff
Adrift upon a howling sea
Of misery,
Murderous waves,
As far as I can see.
Ah, lucky me!
     (11/13/08)

Posted in Affluence, Luck

Untimely

This maelstrom of jihad, pogroms, crusades
Auto da fes, reformation, counter
Reformation, inquisition, all crazed
Murder for Yawah, Jesus Christ, Allah—

Add in that simpler, god-damned, blood-drenched greed—
Murder for oil, diamonds, drugs, and ore.
Add in still more: imbued hatred, the need
To kill the other—brown white black tall short.

But why? Life’s best gifts are not religious
Zeal, not obscene wealth, nor fierce tribal pride.
Rooting for the home team, food (prodigious
In scope and taste), hot sex, a loving bride,

Children, caring, work, dance, and song, all these—
Rich and loosely scripted animation
Of our lives—provide ample means to please,
Nourish starving hearts, affirm creation.

Why, then, diminish joy, choose to wound, slay,
Revel in rage? We all die anyway.
                               (11/11/08)

Posted in Greed, Religion, War

Across the Walk—2

It turns out Joe travels not only to
Reykjavik, but Thailand, Rumania
And Hell itself knows not where else. A true,
New odyssey driven by mania.

Here’s the skinny: Joe’s an Art Director,
Retained (for journeys to exotic wilds)
By an ad agency. Sent to detect
(Creating subtle sights that might beguile,

By styling food those natives never saw,
Benighted peasants, easily enticed)—
His visuals would charm them to a store—
The client pleased, enriched by his advice.

But here’s the thing—the client’s Burger King!
I say again, you can’t make up such things.
                                       (11/9/08)

Posted in Illusion, Neighbors

American Election—2008

Nothing so abrades the soul, overheats
The fragile texture of our blooded flesh,
As an election. For two years, the bleats
Of candidates provoke, obscure, enmesh—

Create a holocaust of verbiage,
A sticky spider’s web, a dismal mire
Of charge and countercharge, false images,
Misdirection, obfuscation, plain lies.

“Your middle name’s Hussein!” “You pal around
With terrorists!” “You’d talk to enemies
(Just to avoid a war)!” “You’re tightly wound!”
Like a beached fish, you flip flop flip to please

The ignorant, the stunted, who devote
Their lives to mythic hate, and yet, can vote.
Democracy’s become a wormy thing—
I’d trade it for one enlightened despot
Or, perhaps, a well-educated king.
                                 (11/2/08)

Posted in Politics

Across the Walk

     For E.E., J.C., C.E.C., & B.

Erin and Joe and Cash and Blue abide,
Quietly, in a house across the walk.
I don’t know them well; I stroll by, wave “Hi,”
And, sometimes, pause for neighborly brief talk.

They rescued Blue (with eponymous eyes),
A border collie, skillful, nervous, bright.
No doubt that dog completely changed their lives,
But not so much as newborn Cash, the light

Illuminating both their toil and dreams.
They asked me (as I passed) had I the wit
To watch their house? They both are primed, it seems,
For travel-time—Joe’s off to Reykjavik—

But Erin’s bound for Boise. Who minds Cash?
Keeps Blue from wand’ring off? Why this strange dash?
I yearn to learn: why Iceland, Idaho—
Abandoning our endless Venice show?
Myriad questions, burble to the top,
Beset my soul—you can’t make such stuff up!
                                 (10/22/08)

Posted in Neighbors