Ballroom

 

Ballroom

Nero fiddled as Rome was burning down
And Marie Antoinette, when told the plebes
Had no more bread and so were discontent,
Asked why they did not switch instead to cake.
 
The truth or falsity of tales like these
From long ago cannot, perhaps, be found,
But surely, we have heard of other words
The senseless ones have spoken in our times.
And some might well have paused on hearing these,
As others shrugged—or willingly agreed.
 
The saying “Walk a mile in another’s shoes
Before you judge him.” has its wisdom still.
It’s only when we’ve suffered or have seen 
How others suffer that we wake from dreams.
 
How much of hubris humans long have seen,
How much of shameless ignorance and greed!
How brief and transient, social memory!
How easily we’re led astray by lies!
 
******
 
I often wish a strategy were found
To place our “leaders”, with their “donors”, in
The village huts, the urban slums, the mines,
The sweatshops, ceaseless mills and factories—
 
And in the camps or fields where refugees 
Are huddled, drenched by rain and pierced by cold
Or scorched and parched by sun and heat. That’s where
The young and old can't sleep and even die 
From illnesses and burns and injuries, 
Or shock and trauma as the bombs explode,
While others still must live and carry on
And try to care for self and family—
  
While Trump extends his ballroom with delight.
 
******
 
It will be Christmas soon and some will feast
As others starve or wait in line for food,
While knowing they might well be killed for this
And add to tens of thousands killed before,
As others wish they’d died to join with these.
 
And here, within this homeland, Winter blows.
As subsidies for vital things subside,
Our migrant workers still are hunted prey
And every week we hear of people killed
In worse-than-pirate acts in southern seas.
  
Our glorious leader lacked in decency 
Throughout his public life and now exceeds
In words and actions all his past misdeeds.
He trumpets war and flings his falsehoods wild.
He orders murders and he issues threats,
As all that once was sacred lies defiled.
 
******
 
We now see golden glitter line the walls
Within the rooms so full of history,
With all their glories and their tragedies,
Where other leaders--each with virtue, vice--
Had made decisions, faulted though they were,
Maintaining still some shreds of dignity.
  
It is as if a mad cartoonist seized
Our works of art, revered, and drew on these
His mustaches and beards and penises,
And urinated then upon the canvases. 
 
2025 Dec 20, Sat.
Berkeley, California

The Remnant Snow

    
The Remnant Snow
 
In Mecca, Muslims circle 'round about
A cube of black, within which sits a stone –
The object of a worship that was old
Before Muhammad heard the desert's call.

******
 
The snow is rotting on the sidewalk still,
Its marble turned to hues of dark decay.
On milder days, we see the trickling pus,
And then are grateful that it has no stench.

But deep within, there still is solid ice,
As hard as rock of grayed and sullied salt.
The broken blocks are piled on corners still,
As if a glacier left a dark moraine.

On a very cold and windy night,
Beside a crossing, by the station-house,
I stopped and shivered by a heap of ice
That looked primeval, as I stood in awe.

******

One monstrous block was like a meteorite
That rested, massive, on yet more debris.
I saw no crater – but, on looking up,
Beheld a moon that shone with frigid light.

And looking ‘round, I saw, through soot and grime,
The crystals sparkling like a diamond dust.
The wind was blowing fiercely – and the cold
Was such that I could barely feel delight.
 
And so I kicked, with full frustrated force,
That great gray rock – and winced in sudden pain.
It hadn’t moved.  And though I kicked again,
The winter’s hard, misshapen spawn sat firm.

*******
 
A meteorite?  Or shattered comet's chunk –
Or screaming jet-plane’s frozen fecal-mass...
A piece of something, even larger, that
Had crashed and splintered?  Or this winter’s waste...

And yes – I thought its origin was this: –
Those crystals – they had joined to make this ice.
And this, compressed by traffic's weight, and glued
By melt from salt – had then been broken up.

For cities move – and that is paramount.
Without that movement, engines all would halt.
And so, the solid, rock-like ice must yield
To sleepless garbage-men in monster-trucks.

******
 
The comets, arcing in from cold and dark,
Appear as torches as they near the sun.
Upon such comets, dust and ice are mixed –
And blocks and specks are floating 'round like gnats.
  
And as the comet tumbles, day and night
Are harsh relief, with sudden heat and cold.
So summer ends.  In winter, ugly moons
And fireflies swarm – and stream across the dark.

I wondered whether straying comets brought
Our water, frozen, to this orb that spins
So near the star that vaporizes all
Such substances, on which our swarms depend.

*******
 
I stood, transfixed and shivering, before
That kaaba-stone, besmirched by urban filth,
And yet, with all its hideous shape and size,
An icon bleak of much that went before.

2014 March 5th, Wed.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn