Who Profits?

             
Who Profits?
        
In the mathematics, that we learned at school,
We could be sure that two-plus-two was four,
And when we measured, in the physics lab,
The strength of “g”, we found that it was so.

But in our lives, and even more in what
We read and hear – and even watch on-screen,
There seems far less of certainty.  Indeed,
We couple true and false in ways obscene.

How simple is the sly and easy lie,
How facile are the ones that lead to war!
Our falsehoods, oft repeated, stand as truth.
Homo mendax – that is who we are.

So how can we then disentangle facts
From all the myths in which they tangled lie?
I do not know, but this I surely do –
For every falsehood, there's a reason why.

And for the sake of brevity, let's say,
Before believing what we haven't seen,
“Who profits from this 'fact' and our belief?”
Let's ask – so we're not led to where we've been.

But should we then be cynics in all things?
The things we see for selves, before our eyes,
We can believe, if we have eyes to see.
All else is suspect, often being lies.

But then, there's heart, which now is ridiculed.
And some have hardened theirs and some have not.
With senses, heart and logic we proceed.
For in the end, that's all that we have got.

But as we learn yet more disturbing facts,
For which we often have no strength or time,
The picture takes a shape we draw ourselves,
That's closer to the truth than all my rhyme.

2013 December 15th, Sun.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
  

Not I

          
Not I
          
The sky is dark – and it is snowing.
The winter's here, with blizzards blowing.
We walkers crawl along the streets,
From Brooklyn's usual briskness, slowing.

The knifing wind is iced and chilly,
Sure to numb a jogger's willie.
But, of runners, there are none.
Haste would now be really silly.

But cars, that race on roads, are seen.
We hear their sluicing – loud, obscene.
It seems this season still can't hinder
Those who must, in cars, careen.

I shiver now in sad defeat,
While watching where I put my feet.
The memories of falls I've had
Remind me – I should be discreet.

For ice, that's glazed on hard cement,
To those, who walk, is inclement.
It slyly waits and slips the weary,
Laughing then at the incident.

And now I have to cross the street,
As snow and rain combine in sleet.
It's better, yes, than freezing rain.
I slip and slide on sneakered feet.

A car, at speed, does cruising go.
It sprays me with the slush and snow.
I wipe the stuff away from glasses,
Hear a honk and jump towards shore.

I land, instead, within the gutter,
Stumble, fall – and curses mutter.
My socks are soaked, I'm bruised and hurting.
Passers smirk at words I utter.

I'd rather dangle from a rafter
Than bear another season after
Autumn.  Yet, while I am sulking,
I hear, behind me – raucous laughter.

It's a trio – youth and maidens,
Striding, all, in cheery cadence,
Smiling, laughing...  So does Wisdom
Tell the cheerless, “See?  Have patience!”

For that, which makes me sad and tearful,
Clearly makes these others cheerful.
While I shiver, cold and lonesome,
They are marching, warm and beer-full.

So, says Wisdom, “You're dejected,
As Fall is by this Beast ejected.
But watch, how those, of Nordic tempers,
By laughing, easily deflect it.”

And so, although I still am peeved,
With effort, I have this achieved:
I've postponed, awhile, my hanging,
Thinking one might be bereaved...

And just as mortals, born, must die,
So this season too will fly.
And some will laugh this winter through.
And some will smile or shrug.  Not I.

I trudge along, upon my way,
And though I'm far from waxing gay,
I still take solace in this fact:
December is.  But then, there's May.

2013 December 14th, Sat.
Brooklyn

http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/05/may.html
  
  

Benediction (On Muns and Hex)

          
Benediction (On Muns and Hex)
   
When we were young, we were admonished,

By priests at school:  we would be punished

If we indulged in certain pleasures

That led to spillage of our treasures.

     

“A salmon mates – and having mated,

Starts to die, for this is fated.

To salmon, humans are related.

If you’ve had sex, you’ll be negated.”

So yogis sought to save their seed,

And so, to vital engines feed,

In hopes that this would give them strength,

And lives of more-than-usual length.

******

  

So priests and pundits warned, in schools,

That such indulgence was for fools –

That those, with carnal pleasures sated,

To exits, quick, were relegated.

But what of those, who weren’t sinners,

Who prayed before they started dinners –

Those nuns, whose entrances were gated,

Who chastely, for their Lord, had waited?

Would nuns, upon this planet, linger –

Who hadn’t even known the finger,

And only in their dreams had dated –

Till they, with Him, their Lord, had mated?

******

    

But since we know that nuns do die,

Could their chasteness be a lie?

Could it be, though some resisted,

From pleasures banned, they’ve not desisted?

But hark!  As I am penning verses,

I hear the Host-in-Heaven’s curses.

These lines, on which I have persisted,

Have made me, on a memo, listed.

“Re.” it says, “the agitators

Who seek to know if nuns are maters,

With men or selves, the Lord insisted –

‘Target action!’   Team has missed it.”

******

    

But while I’m waiting for the lightning,

Which really isn’t all that frightening,

I’ve begun to question whether,

To truth, these teachings have a tether.

Could each, perhaps, live slightly longer –

And even wax a little stronger,

If she partook of sizzling spices,

Which sadly have been cast as vices?

So now, I’ve learned it’s all a fiction!

We all need more, not less, of friction,

Where it matters.  A nun’s addiction

Is, in truth, her benediction.

    

2013 December 14^th, Sat.

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn

     

A Hell on Earth

                
A Hell on Earth

We live in times, when all across the world
The people and their nations turn insane.
And some may say that this was always so,
But in our madnesses, there are degrees.

Wherever there are wars that do not end,
Wherever there is endless violence,
It’s clear that reason’s fled – and minds and hearts
Are sickened by a plague that feeds on men.

But even where the slaughter is far less,
At least of humans, in our cities, towns –
And even now in furthest villages,
Our evil scourges are alive and well.

For humans live as captive zombies might.
They run through hectic lives, in mindless haste,
Or fall in spells of utter, sad, despair
And even seek to exit life itself.

******
 
Amidst this madness, some might dare to say,
“Let's stop this thing, for this is cruelty,
A mad stampede that tramples those who’re frail
And those who pause to question or reflect.”

They're ridiculed or persecuted and
Are silenced soon enough by those who rush
To play the games that lead us all to hell.
The oven’s doors are closed to those within.

And in that oven, humans bake and burn.
They cannot think or speak, from murderous stress.
For even as we burn away the Earth
And all its species, so we murder selves.

So how, within this fatal fever, can
We find our peace, our bit of sanity?
Or is that mission too a sad defeat,
That lets the sickness work its evil more?

******
     
For if the nations and their peoples have
Been so possessed by madness that we turn,
To this, an eye that’s blind – and only seek
A shelter for our selves, then can this end?

Can Ms. or Mr. Lemming pause and yet
Remain alive?  Can nations not “progress”?
I do not know – and so I ask you this,
And pray you will not take it as remiss.

For wealth can never equal happiness,
And poverty is made by those who race.
And till we find the time and strength to ask
The questions that we don’t, this will not end.

But few have time – and even fewer, strength.
With workers squeezed, who still has leisure left?
And those retired, or those who’re affluent
Are either tired – or profit from the stress.

2013 Dec. 11th, Mon, 2:24 am
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
     

It’s Time to Buy

           
It’s Time to Buy
          
The summer was a pleasure – but, with fall,
The schools reopened and we labored much.
The touch of spring, with ardor, we recall,
But shiver now at winter’s freezing touch.
    
******
     
It’s winter and the sun is slanting low.
The oils are thickened and the gutters freeze.
It’s now December.  So it’s three months more.
And I may groan, but others are at ease.

A season has its pleasure and its pain.
The solstice comes, with Christmas and with snow.
In winter, those from milder climes complain,
But winter’s children move with season’s flow.

It’s dark, although it’s only afternoon.
The sun is setting, though it’s just past four.
The speakers carol, “Shopping’s ending soon!”
For that’s the message, when it starts to slow.

It’s winter – and the leaves are gone.  They’re dead.
But commerce thrives.  The city is alive.
The squirrels sleep, and all the birds have fled.
But people stay up nights for deals – and jive.

There was a time, perhaps, when seasons brought
Their blessings, which were special then to each.
But since they’re now, in the nets of finance, caught,
“It’s time to buy!” is what their changes teach.
        
******
     
But when we strip away the layers new,
There still remains the winter of the past –
For some, like me, a payment that is due
For all that was, that simply couldn't last.

So no more walks beside the sounding sea,
No feeding now of squirrels or of birds.
No laughing skies and warming sun for me,
Whose only solace now is rhyming words.

But winter has a flavor of its own.
What some find bitter, others savor most.
And when the madness of our times is gone,
This season still will blow along this coast.
    
2013 December 7th, Sat.
(first stanza & last three stanzas added 8th, Sun.)
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
       

What Still Remains?

What Still Remains?

Whatever be your credo or belief,
At times, you'll need some solace, some relief,
For that, on which you based your hopes and dreams,
Might be, in time, your aspiration’s thief.

For who can live for long without a loss,
Or never, racked and torn, tormented, toss?
Whenever we may think we’ve mastered life,
It turns and swiftly shows us who’s the boss.

The very things for which we’ve labored, fought,
Have focused on and all the rest forgot,
Those things, as life unwinds, may turn to dust,
And all our strivings then be set to naught.

And what remains, when all appears amiss,
When we, who’ve labored long, are still remiss?
Remember then, there still remains the dawn,
And in the darkness, smile and blow a kiss.

And when a faker, in a tie and suit,
Demands accounting, in his mad pursuit,
Then bow and hand to him a chit, on which
It says, “We’ve quit the race, so all is moot.”

For when our life’s account is drawn and closed,
Then what remains, of all we once supposed
Was worth the life we offered as its price?
“This question,” we are told, “is poorly posed.”

What then remains is still the work we did,
Though this, with time, will be in cobwebs hid –
But more than that, and lasting still a while,
The love we offered, though we weren’t bid.

Though falsehoods live, while truth appears to die,
And most accede, and few still question why,
And though the cause appears as hopeless, still
The truth remains the truth, and not the lie.
    
Let all coercion and compulsion be
Dissolved by that, which lives within a tree
And lets its branches, in the sun, delight,
That joy that makes us each, for a moment, free.

So in the valley deep of sorrows, sigh,
But never, to your courage, say, “Goodbye.”
There lives, in us, the stillness and the fire,
And these will live, though you and I will die.

2013 December 6th, Fri.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
 

The Walmartization of the U.S.A. – Part II

        
The Walmartization of the U.S.A. – Part II
                                                
The rebellion here against the king began
in earnest with the document which held
that "life and liberty" were "rights" of "men"
and so was the pursuit of “happiness”,
that word that Jefferson had changed from “wealth”.

Of course, by “men”, it meant a certain class,
of a certain “race” – and women weren't "men",
and even less were those of African
or "Indian" descent.  And even "Whites"
would first need land – and only then be "men".

And so it was that men of wealth could vote
and make the laws that others then obeyed.

On "ownership" it rested, all that those
who'd ventured forth from Europe's thrall now built,
the ownership of land, of slaves – and more.
For this, they saw, was how they could pursue
the founders' goal of wealth (read "happiness").

So Africans transported here in chains
would work as slaves to feed the founders’ dreams,
and natives would be massacred, till next
to none remained – in this new paradise.

And shortly after revolution here had won,
the French rose up against their king and court,
but there the banners that they raised declared,
“Liberty, equality – and 
fraternity” for all.  And so we see
the ends were not the same – except the first,
and “life” for France’s old “nobility”
was not a right, as all that followed showed.

And nor did those, who led the masses here,
consider brotherhood and equal rank
for all as goals for which they fought, believed,
but rather as the very things they feared
the masses might then glimpse and dare to reap.

And this is evident in what they wrote
in letters – or discussed, with records kept,
and less in public documents, unless
one studies how they argued every line.

And so those leaders labored mightily
to keep the greater public in their place.

And till the civil war would pit the North
and Industry against the South, the ones
who owned the land (and plenty of it),
wrote the laws to suit their land-lord-schemes.

< to be continued >

2013 December 1, Sun.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
    
The Walmartization of the U.S.A. -- Part I
    
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-walmartization-of-usa-part-i.html