Put 'em Up

 

Political punching bags,

by promising patriots,

placating in the parlance

of present times to the

peons and principalities.

 

Prestidigitation and parlor

tricks, to pacify and

plunder the poor,

the plebian and professional

persons.

 

Pointing to preposterous

pontifications,

predicated on a potpourri of pestilence,

plainly performances to pollute

and pilfer.

 

Politics by pugilism,

puffery and pomp,

plaguing the people

with poxes and infected

poultices.

 

Pursuing power for the

sake of power, rather than

providing power for the sake of

people, progress and peaceful

proliferation.

 

Progress for a more perfect

Union, preserved in Liberty,

provide for the common defense,

promote the general welfare for

ourselves and posterity.

 

Part of a Planet,

a purpose,

as people,

participating in this Republic’s

process and promise.

 

Purposely and with profundity.

The Old Summer Gods

 

The eyes of the old Gods

of Summer are getting

sleepy with each shortened

hour of daylight,

diminished minute by minute,

day by day.

 

Their yawns are the winds,

coldly blowing through the

chilling Summer evenings,

as the crackle of Summer

bonfires set in and we get

that old sweater out of the car.

 

The Autumnal Gods,

are licking their lips as

they know their time is

coming soon, and they

stretch and reach up,

tinging the leaves gold and brown.

 

Each night, the Summer Gods

doze just a little more,

just a little longer,

each morning it’s harder to

get up and roll out of the light

Summer sheets of bed.

 

The trudge to the kitchen,

more laborious, more hungover,

with the festivals, parties, and Olympic

trials, now quickly in the past.

Summer Gods too fat on the

hedonism to care.

 

Summer Gods, fading tans

and blonde hair highlights,

bikinis and trunks nearly threadbare,

almost ready for next year,

and a return to the joys of

daily Bacchanalia.

 

While Autumn waits.

Shoeless

 

While out for drive

with my special lady,

she noticed something

strange.  Or curious,

or just out of place.

 

A young man,

riding a foot powered

scooter, in only his

sock-feet, shortly

after an afternoon

rain had dampened the

streets and sidewalks.

 

“No shoes,” she said

as she pointed at him from

the front passenger seat.

 

Indeed there he was,

stopped at the crosswalk,

waiting for the WALK sign to

give him permission to continue

on his shoeless way.

 

He was dressed casually for

a Summer day, tee-shirt and

shorts, nothing too unusual,

except for the fact that he was

missing his shoes.

 

“That’s so odd,” I said.

Genuinely perplexed by this

young man’s predicament.

I couldn’t understand by

what means this young man

became shoeless on a scooter,

in the rain.

 

What fate befell this young shoeless

scooter rider? Was he robbed? Was he

making a quick getaway and

left his shoes behind before his

lover’s significant other came home to

discover their tryst?

 

It got me thinking about our

backstories, the stories that

make-up our identities and generally

define who we are and who we are

to each other.

 

So many questions, no answers.

Another player on the stage,

another mystery playing out on the streets

of Chicago for us to ponder,

with only one person that knows the answer.  

But so many stories inside. 

 

 

 

Summer Carnival

 

The Carnival of

outrage, with its

many spinning and

looping rides, may be

missing a few screws,

but you are tall enough to ride.

 

I bought a ticket for the

boardwalk, and heard the

side show talkers shouting and

shimmying for a dime,

as they picked our pockets

as our backs were turned.

 

The juggling jugglers,

juggling other jugglers,

who in turn juggled still

more jugglers up into the air,

a tower of twirling hands and bowling pins

spinning in infinite loops.

 

Seeing the two-faced boy,

floating in the brine,

under-lit with intensely bright

light, showcased oddities,

graced with glamor and

 a certain je ne sais quoi, glee.

 

The line for tent for the Ladies of France,

who dance in their underpants,

is 40 men deep, shoulder to shoulder,

it’s quiet, but simmering

with too many hands in pants pockets,

and too many hats pulled low.

 

The shows and the extravagance,

the bright lights and flickering neon,

hiding the piles of elephant dung,

flung over the wrong side of

the railroad tracks,

where I left my shoes.

 

It is best to not,

go around kicking rocks

in your socks,

or cartwheel over eggshells,

on the edge of a

Carnival of outrage. 

 

Unsteady Seas

 

Cautious,

but steady,

on rollicking seas of distrust,

I try to steady my sea-legs

against the violent surf,

and raging upheaval

of the changing tides.

 

The horizon is coming

into view, the landscape

looks less craggy and alien

than it did before,

as there’s gentle ports and

safe passage when we go ashore,

to survey the land.

 

A nauseous sort of optimism

is starting to bubble in my

belly, as if, maybe, through all

these troubles and tribulations,

there will be peace on the land

and plenty restored to those

that are wanting.

 

The Captain made a course

correction, and the ship seems

to be righting, there’s less mutinous

looks on the faces of the crew,

less sailors looking for the

lifeboats.

Yet still, cautious eyes.

 

The ceaseless storms

are slowly breaking and

Sunlight is barely streaming through,

spangled light, dappling

across the still rough seas,

but a break nonetheless,

from the pitching and rolling.

 

The winds smoother and steady,

not rageful and hateful,

not tearing the sails from their ropes

and masts, an uncharacteristic

calm, but welcome,

till we make shore.

We’ll see if there’s treasure on the beach.

It's Always Been Here

 

I’m perplexed when people

say, “there’s no place for

violence in our politics,”.

Because I’ve seen that

to be wholly untrue.

 

American history is rife

with acts of political violence,

since we were founded.

All kinds of beatings and shootings,

fires and tragedies have been political.

 

We can certainly condemn

political violence,

but that doesn’t seem to make it

go away.

It’s still there.

 

War is merely politics

by another means,

so politics itself is

inherently violent and

combative.

 

Anytime you pit one

ideology against another,

there’s the possibility

of violence, it’s as common

as a cold.

 

In 1856, Preston Brooks of South Carolina

beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts,

with a cane on the Senate floor because he disagreed with

Mr. Sumner’s unflattering characterizations

and devotion to the anti-slavery movement.  

 

It was condemned

but nothing changed,

the Civil War still happened,

Lincoln was still assassinated

several years later.

 

Condemnation is clearly

not sufficient to calm the

already ragged nerves of the

populace. 

A new affirmation of Anti-violence

must be made.

 

Or at lease everyone

needs to calm the hell

down and look with rational

eyes on the serious problems

we’re facing and determine a

cooperative path forward.  

 

Political violence indeed,

has no place in our Democracy,

trouble is…

it’s already here, and has been,

for a long time.

 

 

Cynical Dreaming

 

This collective dreaming,

about a Country,

an idealistic eutopia of

Voltaire’s imagination,

are platitudes to

conceal the illusion

of choice.

 

Dreams,

are not real;

only reality is real,

or I used to think so,

anyway. Until things

became unreal.

 

I am not dreaming

about a country,

unified against tyranny,

or a country of underdogs,

yearning to breathe freely,

in one deep sigh.

 

I am dreaming of fires,

set by zealots, acolytes

of personality cults,

running through the streets,

exclaiming how they are

the truest of citizens and

they will have the blood of

those who are not.

 

I fear Kings, Dictators,

and Fanatics, whom I thought were

only puffs of nightmare dreams

in America, but now

I am afraid of the dreams

and get little sleep under the

blanket of freedom.

 

I dream differently.

Unsettled, tossing and

turning, in anxious,

Cold War sweats

of my youth.

Cynical of Dreaming.