Tag: Social Commentary

well-lit monuments
can be full of crowds
but still

empty.

cities, like ancient temples:
conspicuous opulence
in service of

our objects of worship.

the sight of
something no one person could do,
set to reinforce

the significance and power of the many,

encouraging us
to stay in our pack,
with the other wolves, or ants,
carefully ignoring that
we may be a totally different

type of animal.

there are those who value individuals,
and those who most value society,
and frequently we find
the latter pretending to be

the former.

for if you must think as the crowd thinks,
there is no you;
all these glittering lights
are just warning signs around the perimeter

of a glorified

stockade

The ivy comes, and chokes to death
A forest in its glory —
Shall we pass by and barely see,
And yawn, “the same old story”?

We hardly feel the difference
As boundaries are ceded —
The slow and the inexorable:
They’re almost undefeated

And then, it’s happening to us,
We find ourselves surrounded —
Why didn’t we do anything
When others were confounded?

The ivy comes, and devastates,
And does it without fuss —
And we had better kill it now,
Ere it takes care

Of us

The Guelfs come raining down,
The Ghibellines run free,
The Hatfields and McCoys are here,
As they will ever be.

Behold, the truth is splintered
Into something less than fractions,
As daily news is overrun
By ever-warring

Factions

we spent our days in painted chairs
beneath the drunk and dusty sun,
and waited for the n.f.l.
to tell us who had won —

the blue, with johnnie walker red,
the pink, slow with a stillhouse black,
were ready for the games to start,
to see who got the sack —

the summer turned to early fall,
we left our painted chairs behind,
while those who aired their grievances
were idolized and fined —

though seasons change, the conscience can’t:
we only reap the things we plant,
and each must move as best he dares
or else we’re all just painted
chairs

The present seems implausible,
Yet it appears to be —
It’s hard to reconcile with
Mere probability

I know that we can’t know our fates,
The things life has in store —
But we can’t even figure out
The present

Anymore

the fields of dispossessing
have passed to other hands,
that is, i think,
tradition in these lands

and all lands, actually

the summer rains are sweltering
and we've been helter-skeltering
and sheltering
and harboring our fears,
but those we packed up with

the little bit of pride that we had left.

there is no steinbeck here,
no chronicle of what we had and lost,
that's somehow lyrical

it's just a bunch of mud
and

generations