Note: Some photographs, taken in June in Brooklyn and Manhattan, are included at the bottom of this post. Those pictures are not directly related to the topic of the poem. The initial post of July 8th had also included photographs from the first few days of our trip to China in July. I have now removed all but one of those pictures, so as not to overload the reader/viewer. I will try and post them later. -- Arjun, 2016-07-23
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Fools—II
We’re living now in pressured times—
Been doing that for quite a while.
And so, we see our fellows frown
More often than we see them smile.
Where empires each extract their loot,
We hear the cracking of the whip.
We also note the racing, there,
Of mind and hand, of tongue and lip…
For “Time is money.” we are taught,
As clocks and coinage rule the lands.
The ones who rush get praise, while those
Who care and fuss get reprimands.
But here and there, among the serfs,
We find the ones who “play the game”.
They live on others’ labor and
They cheat and steal—and feel no shame.
And some among these folk may “rise”
To “oversee” the ones who toil—
To see that those “below” are squeezed,
As fish are pressed for precious oil.
And there are those who might be slow,
Who question, think and answer, “No.”
And these, we note, will never “rise”.
They’ll suffer till their times to go.
For rackets, scams are “systems” now,
With doubters scorned as “slack” or ‘slow”.
The savvy, to the systems, bow,
And paddle deftly with the flow.
So virtue now is turned to vice.
By those "above", we’re viewed as tools
Or else as problems. Swindlers thrive,
While honest folk are seen as fools.
2016 July 7th Thu - 8th Fri
Beijing, China
(1st stanza: July 5th Tue - 6th Wed
35,000 feet above the Arctic Ocean)
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To view the pictures in a somewhat larger and clearer format, please single-click on any one image. Allow some time for the pictures to load. Then, to see each picture in turn, use either the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard or click on the thumbnails at the bottom of the screen. Captions will not be visible. To return to this post and read the captions, click on the white X near the top right of the dark background. Thanks.
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| Sunset over Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, looking west along Bath Ave from 19th Ave. 2016 June 5th, Sun, 8:24 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Sunoco gasoline station, at the corner of 19th Ave & Cropsey Ave, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. 2016 June 5th Sun, 8:34 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Laundry cycle-rickshaw, at a crossing in midtown Manhattan, 2016 June 6th, Mon, 7:09 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Skyscraper, with clouds and reflections, midtown Manhattan. 2016 June 6th Mon, 7:10 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Man using cellphone while striding past displays in upscale Manhattan store windows, 2016 June 6th Mon, 7:12 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Skyscraper, reflecting buildings, midtown Manhattan, 2016 June 6th, Mon, 7:16 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Two skyscrapers, one reflecting clouds, midtown Manhattan, 2016 June 6th, Mon, 7:16 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Rearviews of Manhattanites, walking along 6th Avenue, 2016 June 6th Mon, 7:17 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Garbage can and chained lids, 19th Ave, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. 2016 June 14th Tue, 6:44 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Our Italian-American neighbor Tony's tow truck, with a metaphor and a pun, 19th Ave, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, 2016 June 14th Tue, 6:46 pm. © Arjun Janah (Single-click on the image to read the inscription. Click on the white X near the top right of the black background to return to this post.) |
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| Rear view of a woman walking a dog past a shiny blue car, 19th Ave, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, 2016 June 14th Tue, 6:48 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Our neighbor from Szechuan, China. 19th Ave, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, 2016 June 14th Tue, 6:49 pm. © Arjun Janah |
By chance, this man and his family were also once my wife's family's neighbors in Canarsie, a faraway section of Brooklyn. Their daughter was a physics student at Canarsie High School, where I taught for thirteen years, from 1989 to 2002, mostly while traveling an hour and a half each way by bus and foot. Of course, I was younger then.
The daughter is now a mother, with two boys. Her elder son is a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, in downtown Brooklyn, near Manhattan. I once also taught there, as a sabbatical replacement, for a term in 1988.
The daughter told me that her sons loved the scent of the spicy fish I used to cook in the evenings. So I gave them samples of that cooking. Her mother, also from (another part of) China, gave me hot peppers and other vegetables from their backyard garden.
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David A. Boody Intermediate School (IS 228), Brooklyn, 2016 June 22, Wed., 3:15 pm. © Arjun Janah I was one of a group of teachers who graded the NY State Physics Regents exams here: June 22-24, 4 pm to 9 pm & June 25 Sat, 8 am - 12 noon. |
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| Shadows, of tree branches and of a human with a book-bag, cast on the pavement outside IS 228, Brooklyn. Early afternoon, a day after the summer solstice, 2016 June 22 Wed, 3:16 pm. © Arjun Janah (The human's unfinished cup of coffee is on the pavement, in the shadows of the leaves.) |
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| Sunset over Brooklyn, taken through the wire-grill of a window at David A. Boody Intermediate School (IS 228), Brooklyn, 2016 June 22 Wed, 8:28 pm. © Arjun Janah |
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| Sunset over Brooklyn, with the Verrazzano Bridge to Staten Island at the horizon, 2016 June 23 Thu, 8:21 pm. © Arjun Janah (I placed my phone's camera-lens in a square in a window-grill in IS 228.) |
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| At El Charrito Jr., a Mexican family restaurant near IS 228, Brooklyn, 2016 June 24 Fri., 9:38 pm. © Arjun Janah I used to stop here after work at nights for a soft taco. |
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| El Charrito Jr., 2016 June 25 Sat., 12:11 pm. © Arjun Janah (The restaurant was not yet open for Saturday.) |
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| Fort Hamilton Parkway subway station, Brooklyn, 2016 June 28 Tue, 10 pm. © Arjun Janah (Except in central NY City, the "subway" trains mostly run on elevated lines.) I was going home after work at a federal election poll station, 5 am - 9:30 pm. |
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| Crossing over the Pole, on a Cathay Pacific flight from New York to Hong Kong, en route to Beijing, China, 2016 July 5th, 6:14 pm EDT. |
Note: a related short poem, with the same title, is: Fools
( http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/05/fools.html )
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