When We Endorse the Noise of Conflagration
In living room sanctuaries,
evening news repeats
washed-out images
of ancestral turbulence
in “shit-hole” countries.
On Main Street,
demonstrators carry torches
to proclaim their liberty
in a dogmatic battle between
founding-fathers’ freedom and
the right to hate their neighbor.
Pepsi Light quenches our thirst,
as we watch swarms of protest
in faded pixels of satellite color.
In the absence of labels,
foreign zocalos renounce narcissism.
On inhabited hillsides
taste for hedonism
fuses sympathetic thoughts
with hot-tub spirituality.
The indulgences of leisure
block blighted images
of remote skirmishes.
Drums of sacrifice echo
from far-off mêlée
to battle hymns
of skinhead pride
through coast-to-coast
dinner time.
Not even the weather report
serves up equanimity
in these pandemic days.
Plastic in the wallet satisfies
temporal yearnings.
It clings to what importance
technology gleans.
Challenged by the indifference of avarice
the heart ignores its call to care
the mind does not create means
to follow distant struggles
or feed the hungry
across the street.
Turn off the TV
drink a cup of tea
in silence.
Espresso
I live where trees are planted in concrete,
where cars circle one another
like cats marking territory.
I wake to a prattle of radio talk,
take my blood pressure medicine
from bottles found next to the espresso maker
in the un-mopped kitchen of my apartment.
One pill each –
orange to slow the muscle
blue to flush the fluids
– regulate the flow through veins
like a river of traffic,
log-jammed and tight
at the usual intersections.
The steamer’s milky pressure starts my day.
thick espresso with a touch of froth
A pumping piston under fragile tin hood,
I stumble out the door
—laundry, papers, commuter cup in hand.
Driving a car too hot
on a freeway too slow,
vinyl and glass reflect
while piles of worry
sit in the briefcase
on the back seat.
The cell phone calls with ex-wife’s gripe.
Brakes squeal at orders I am already late to fill.
I tap the steering wheel over another report
not yet filed.
Papers fly in the breeze of traffic that blares
past the open window.
Inside the car park,
where status is
marked in rows of yellow lines,
I disembark to find that
my coffee has gone cold and bitter.
Through fluorescent corridors
of cubicles and documents,
the offices of complaint,
charged and caffeinated
I come to agitate your day.
December 14, 2012
Cloud shadowed day
absorbs light
from scrubbed faces.
Impending rain
won’t wash
sanguine flesh
from violations
of pounding lead.
Dark hail
tears up
young dreams
and purpose.
For Sandy Hook
