The Most Malignant Star

The Most Malignant Star

The ways of men and women aren’t free
Of vices that are praised as virtuous things.
We listen, look around and hear and see
The devils fly about on angels’ wings.

And if we dare to say that things are not
The things that they’ve been long proclaimed to be,
We then are targeted and left to rot,
As each is hung from each convenient tree.

******

The labels that we use are weapons too
And so are potent, just as bullets are.
For sticks and stones can injure me and you,
But words alone can start or end a war.

So when a virtue is condemned as vice
Or vice versa, this can ripple far
And then, no matter what the sage advice,
The hordes obey the most malignant star.

************

Ahuras and asuras are the same
And dewas, devils may be twins as well.
So one gets credit and another, blame,
Although they both, within the other, dwell.

The black and white and all the shades of gray
Are captured in the photographic frame.
And yet, some only hark to yes or nay
And label all with one or other name.

******

Who renders certain proof of distant things
Or certifies what happened in the past?
Was that a bird or a bat that flew on wings
And vanished as the light was ebbing fast?

And so it is that humans fashion feints
To make, of what was first, the very last.
So scoundrels sit in palaces, while saints,
For all their labors, are in dungeons cast.

 

2018 August 8th, Wed.
Brooklyn, New York

Reality

Reality

Do pardon us for holding up
Our hands at yet more pukes.
Denuclearize? Let's start with those
Who have the most of nukes.

WMD's? Who's got the most
Of these? And has used them too?
So why this game of make-believe
That lulls both me and you?

And why is that pundits rant
When leaders try for peace?
They did it to Obama. Trump
Is getting now his piece.

Fanatics? Who’s been backing those
With funds and arms and more?
How many lives have been destroyed,
How many nations more?

Democracy?  Is that our aim
In ventures far away?
Or is it power and money?  Who
Has guts to rise and say?

2018 August 3rd, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York
  

Bay Lights

Bay Lights

The past few days were hot and humid both, as the dog days often are, this time of year.

I’d wondered if the breezes by the ocean might be cooler than the air that rose from heated streets.

And so tonight I walked down to the Bay and saw the distant lights reflected from the tops of waves.  These swept towards the shore and softly splashed—again and yet again.

And all the rest was dark, as waters are on moonless nights—with stardust spread above.

But city lights had hidden much. 

I only saw the stars of Coney and of Staten Island, with the glowworms crawling on the Verrazano  Bridge—as fireflies slowly rose and arced from JFK.

And faraway, beyond the Jersey shore, from time to time I saw the lightning flash and set ablaze a bank of clouds—without a sound.

And walking back, before the thunderstorm, I saw the headlights speeding on the Belt, in obvious haste to go to—where they went.

The breezes?  Yes, they’d cooled me down a bit.  They freshened as I walked towards my home.

I’d read that LED’s make more of light and less of heat.  On Brooklyn’s sleeping streets, they’d turned the night, in parts, to pallid day.

The storm?  It never came.  It still is hot.

But I remember walking through the night and seeing then the lights, by Gravesend Bay.

And that is still relief.

2018 August 1st, Wed.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York.