At The Paddle Tennis Courts: Patriotism

Each day, down at the courts,
We elders shmooze.
A harmless bunch,
We argue sports,
And politics,
Watch the girls go by,
And reminisce.

One day, an elder
Blew the cool
That age tends to invoke,
And emailed everyone he knew
Demanding that we boycott
A film because
Jane Fonda played a role.

Why? Because, disturbed,
She went to North Viet Nam,
Risked her life and status
Many years ago,
Attempting to assuage
Her country’s and her own
Bruised conscience.

That foolish elder fell
Before one mindless principle:
“Our country! In her intercourse
With foreign nations,
May she always be in the right;
But our country, right or wrong.”
“Wrong,” I guess, just doesn’t count.

The famous actress,
Driven by morality,
Believed: “My country, right or wrong;
If right, to be kept right;
And if wrong, to be set right.”
Who do we honor—amoral nationalists
Or a courageous woman, firm to set us right?

Who, finally, is the betrayer
Of everything America professes to portray—
The defender of an ugly
And illegal war that killed
Fifty-eight thousand U.S. troops,
Or the brave actress
Who condemned that ugliness?
(8/28/13)

Posted in Conformity, Politics, War, Wisdom

So, What Are Poems For?

Poetry? A formal and aesthetic
Rendering of perceptions we all share.
The “formal” part (somewhat anesthetic)
Is often what gives poetry its flair.

Assonance, consonance, meter and rhyme
Grace sonnets and limericks and villanelles;
Metrical feet dance to patterns that chime,
And sometimes entrance our mademoiselles.

But “form,” most moderns find,
Is just too burdensome!
“I’ve got stuff in mind
That I must wail;
No time to fuss with rhyme
Or count out syllables—
Too damn much travail.

As for aesthetics—
Sensitivity, art, and beauty—
Give me a break!”
Lyrics, after all,
Are not the only way
We poets slake
Our thirst, vent our gall.

Notice that I ramble, reveal my doubt;
Hysterical, I versify and shout
About form, style, because I’m all burned out,
And cannot think of what to write about.
(8/20/13)

Posted in Poetry (What is it?)

Waking Up

Like everything, “waking up” evolves.
The sodden infant wakes and cries for food
The avid schoolboy jumps from bed, resolved
To breakfast, meet his mates, head off to school.

The college girl may groan—that paper’s due.
The Prof may sigh; he has to grade the quiz
By nine o’clock; and businessmen eschew
Their coffee, dreaming bonus-building tricks.

Some wake to days of opportunity
They work and garden, often volunteer—
They revel in each day’s activity;
Spend evenings with hors d’oeuvres and foamy beer.

At eighty-three, back pinched, joints scored with grit,
I wake and moan: “Another day—oh shit!”
(8/5/13)

Posted in Aging, Inspiration, Pain, Wisdom

The Human Condition

For the amazing L.K.

I’ve never quite understood what “soul” means.
There, tumultuous, underneath the skin,
Empathy and ego ebb, flow, careen
Through consciousness like unleashed yang and yin.

Just where does gratification abide—
In hot sex, wealth, nourishing our egos,
Or in empathic warmth that feeds our pride
When we diminish others’ painful throes?

Remember infantile paralysis?
At eleven, it took Len’s legs away
While in summer camp. Later, on that day,
His mom stared at the iron lung and hissed!

Judge! Which spoke—her ego or empathy,
When she wailed “How could you do this to me”?
(7/27/13)

Posted in Family, Pain, Vanity, Wisdom

Modern History

Today, in Baghdad,
Car bombs killed
Twenty-eight humans
And wounded eighty-eight more.

Yesterday,
During Friday prayers,
A bomb killed twenty-six
Worshippers—
This time Sunnis
Killed by Shiites.

Just one year ago,
Twelve pleasure seeking folks
Watching a movie
Were shot dead,
And seventy more wounded
By a nut with a gun—
The anniversary marked
By nasty demonstrations
For and against
Guns for nuts.

As I passed our garden fence
I saw a Monarch butterfly
Bouncing about,
And a busy hummingbird
Feeding at the complex purple bloom
Flaunted by a Lily-of-the-Nile.

I cannot find the words.
(7/20/13)

Posted in Death, Religion, Today's News, War, Words

Religion, Yet Again

Generated by
John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV: “Death be not proud . . .”
And Holy Sonnet X: “I / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. “

“Death, be not proud,” that holy poet sung.
“Death, thou shalt die.” How stupid could he be?
He switched from Catholic to Anglican
Where patrons dwelt in safe theology.

Like Augustine, he spent a ribald youth,
Did politics, and then became a priest;
Married, pumped out a dozen kids, sought sooth—
Gave up his sinful past for blesséd yeast.

Baked twenty holy sonnets in a row
Revealing metaphysicals quite odd—
Insisting death was not a quid pro quo,
And chastity means being fucked by god.

His quivering piety, his late life’s fad,
Would be quite comical if not so sad.
Perhaps without divinities to whip us,
We’d shed the foolish myths that simply gyp us,
Discover that we had ability
To think, and generate civility,
Stop slaughtering each other in god’s name,
And, finally, excise religion’s shame.
(7/24/13)

Posted in Religion, Wisdom