Money’s Funny Fecundity

Some things you absolutely cannot do
Without—like food.  Other amenities
Are nice: a snug bed, a toilet, a roof,
A decent set of wheels.  Calamities

Succumb to funds (a nice levee against
The sea of troubles that can, sometimes, drown
Us all).  Thus, when you have enough defense,
And surplus too, you’ll never need to frown

Again.  Money’s funny fecundity
Kicks in—that surplus grows and grows and grows—
Forces us to confront profundities—
To worry about spending all that dough!

Of course, we give the kids what law allows,
But that hardly dents the trove.  We might trade
Our staid old Lexus for a hot high-brow
Ferrari.  Why bother?  The car runs great.

Upgrade?  We already shop at Gelson’s,
Whole Foods, but prefer Trader Joe’s—somehow
Bargains make the food taste better—welcome
Reward, independent of our cash cow.

Well, charity then.  The mail brings fifteen
Requests a week: large-eyed animals, tear
Stained African kids; the air, the Earth seem
Doomed unless we give. Right now!  This year!

We’d do it, you know, except that we’re con-
vinced charities’ execs take the cash—bowls
Of thin gruel for unfortunates.  We’re stunned
By the meretricious and banal howls

From eleemosynary vultures’ beaks!
Politics then?  But even if we find
A decent candidate, our money leaks
Into obfuscating sound bites designed

Not to clarify, but mislead!  What then?
Perhaps we’ll give it all to homeless bums
For drugs and alcohol.  The more we spend
The sooner they’d OD and then succumb.

And thus we clear the streets.  Our recompense?
Such charity replaces pain with joy—
Such gifts reveal, untainted by foul ploys,
The force of money wickedly well-spent.
                            (2/12/07)

Posted in Affluence, Poverty

The Guys In The Back Room Come To A Decision About This And That And The War in Iraq

                                           I

We’ve talked it over, Scooter, hard and deep;
This shit won’t go away.  Answer our call—
We must divert attention to one creep;
Be a teammate—step up and take the fall

Posture all you want; prancing to the tune
Of outraged dignity, cry partisan
Muck!  Dirty politics!  Assert how soon
The court will find the truth, redeem the man

You are.  But Scooter, there’s another truth
We cannot bear—they mustn’t find the key
To that Pandora’s box crammed with the ruth-
less lies we sold to float this cash-filled spree.

A trial exposing us—that cannot be—
We’ll fund you, but you gotta cop a plea!

                                           II

Dammit Scooter, now look at what you’ve done!
We told you we’d take care of things if you’d
Take one for the team, cop a plea!  No fun,
We know, but we saw it as your duty!

What a spectacle!  Now you’re blaming Rove—
Who works for Bush—and the whole CIA—
And Cheney’s bare ass exposed to view above
The horizon, emblazoning the day

With blinding new embarrassments.  My god,
Must you insist on taking us all down?
What happened to simple loyalty?  Odd
That you’d create havoc, adopt that frown,

Refuse to staunch the muck and save your friends.
Without Hope, your trial sets free Pandora’s
Fiends—Envy, Vanity, Slander, Greed—ends
Our bent aspirations, and all for what?

We’re all ruined now, become a laughingstock—
Pawns chained to Cheney, ridiculed and mocked!
                                       (2/5/07)

Posted in Politics, War

Ph.D Oral Exam—1957

Nothing so challenges serenity
As the prospect of an oral exam.
Our academic life’s amenities
Shrink before that specter.  And, as I crammed

And crammed, and crammed—convinced no effort would
Suffice—prepped my family for failure,
Suffered Freudian dreams in which I could
Not escape a dark, stalled train—insuring

I would not arrive on time.  But I made
It to the site, endured three hours pained
By questions I should easily have aced,
Reflected on my hapless soul, flayed, maimed.

And then, “Please, just step outside Mr. Klotz.”
Strangely, no apprehension, no hell,
In the corridor, no oppressive knots.
And then, “Congratulations, you did well.”

No joy, no triumph—deflation—the air
Whomped out of me.  I turned to my mentor,
“Join me for a drink?”  Mild impatience pent,
He said, “Can’t.  Must catch the train to Montclair.”

Montclair, that’s where he lived, and he did say
“Sorry.”  But I felt his great need to dash
Laid bare the folly of my holy day;
Wet-eyed, I felt myself a heap of ash.
                                             (1/26/07)

Posted in Vanity, Wisdom

At The Faculty Dining Room—1967

  Joan

Divorced, thirty-seven, predatory,
I used to chat up the women at lunch
In the faculty dining room.  Glory
Goes with pain, you know, and playing hunches 

Might, just might, enliven my lonely life.
I met Joan—inadequately married—
Shamelessly hit on her, babbled as if
A flood of words, would do the trick, carry

Her to my bed, until, exhausted, said,
“I should shut up, just sweep you off your feet.”
And that was that, until again we met,
When, eyebrow arched, she said (grave, but cheeky)

“Why don’t you take me to your place tonight
And sweep me off my feet?”  Damn it! I’d made
A date I couldn’t break—sucked air, felt fright—
And, as I murmured sheepishly, I prayed

She wouldn’t huff rebuff—“I can’t tonight,
Would tomorrow work?”  Her steady eyes, blue
Flame and ice, met mine.  Smiling, she said “Sure.”
She came, embraced, undressed; we loved.  That night

The die was cast—trajectory and shape—
And tumbled through some 40 years of grace.
                                         (1/24/07)

Posted in Joan

At The Gym—IV

    For S.L.

                         I
Riding the stationary bike, I spy
A comely woman on the treadmill—slim,
Of a certain age.  Well endowed, yet trim,
Strangely named—Is it Heaven?  Dawn?  No, Skye!

Once, I tried (hoping for notice no doubt)
A compliment, ”Skye, you’re getting too thin!”
“What!  Too thin! If your cock was in my mouth
You’d pull it out because I was too thin?”

This with slit eyes and barely suppressed grin.
Words—my breath, my life’s sustenance—lay slain.
Flushed, overthrown, I mumbled some inane
Response: “Probably not, your not that thin.”

But Skye, as usual, had won the field.
She’s in the game, both managerial
And otherwise, I hear.  Ethereal
Women attend her seminars and yield

Themselves to her insight into pleasure—
Buy devices, learn those sensual arts.
She was a big time stripper once, broke hearts—
Knew how sex both shaped and weighed our measure.

                              II
But that’s not all—there’s more to life than bed.
She understands our other appetites,
And ministers to them as well.  The night,
Perhaps, allures, but daytime must be fed.

And so she feeds us all with home-cooked stew.
With cakes and candies, cunningly creates
And sates still other passions, shrewdly mates
Mouths, stomachs, groins in one tart-flavored brew—

Hits the gym (aromatic pots in hand)
With a wicked smile or a ribald gibe,
A rich and fecund cornucopia—
Awakened from a new apostle’s trance.1
A dawning heaven, after all, our Skye;
Our mother goddess; our utopia.
                                       (1/20/07)

 1 See The Acts of the Apostles, 10:10-16.  “He [Peter] became hungry and desired something to eat; but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heaven opened, and something descended, like a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth.  In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.  And there came a voice to him, ‘Rise Peter; kill and eat.’  But Peter said, ‘No Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.’  And the voice came to him again a second time, ‘What God has cleansed, you must not call common.’  This happened three times; and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.”

Posted in Beauty, Inspiration

At The Gym—III

   For T.O

A part-time front office guy at the gym
Used to work in the industry.  A bit
Player—TV and film—he made a thin
Living—enough to pay the rent, raise kids.

When young, he trained, developed the buffed bod
That brought him west from Brooklyn seeking fame.
One time, he told me, they went on a job
Up north—cast and crew, two planes—for some lame

TV film.  When done, anxious to get home
The cast raced to the nicer plane—a treat.
All spots occupied, laughing, they faked groans,
And tardy Roy was banished—no more seats!

Disconsolate, he mingled with the freight
Piled on the other plane.  Somewhat abashed,
He mused a bit upon the nasty fate
That kept him from his friends.  But their plane crashed.

Talk about your nasty fate!  For twenty
Seared years Roy has not ventured on a plane.
Borrowed years, invested in life’s plenty,
Returned merry smiles and wide eyes.  Unfeigned,
His zest for life is easily explained.
                                           (1/10/07)

Posted in Luck