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Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, United States

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Hubris

A demigod stumbles;
Icarus flies too near the sun.
Deep seated problems are intractable.
Support begins to crumble.

You cannot rob the rich to save the poor.
Even Robin Hood could not convince the nobles.
Our nobles are upper middle class professionals,
Or semi affluent retirees; they all vote.

You cannot take away what people already have,
Or hit them with a tax on benefits they now enjoy.
Benefits go with the job; that is the bargain.
Otherwise, their wages would have to be a lot more.

You cannot tell the old folks that you are limiting care,
That they will just have to check out sooner.
You cannot cure cancer and heart disease
With weight loss programs.

Medical care will always be distributed unevenly.
The down and out will always be with us.
King Canute could not command the waves.
Nor politicians achieve equality of outcome.

There is still room for charity at the local level,
Where charity should always begin.
Let the support bubble up from the bottom,
And health care for all will be closer.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Nobodies

Kander and Ebb wrote a show-stopping number
for Chicago, called Mr. Cellophane.
You can walk right by me, see right through me,
I'm Mr. Cellophane.
In short, he is a nobody, a man of no distinction.

Obituary writers find it difficult to pad the
resumes of nobodies.
Yet the world functions by the efforts of nobodies.
They get the job done, with no glory,
and little praise.

Sometimes a nobody is in the course of history,
Like Neil Armstrong, who credits
The people who got him to the moon,
But avoids personal attention.

A nobody finishes school, gets a job, marries,
stays out of jail.
Psychologists call that normal behavior.
A nobody wakes up, gets to work on time,
does what is asked.

If a nobody lives long enough to retire,
He or she looks back at life, and says,
I did that, whatever it was,
That made the world a better place.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Sarah Palin


A fire which cannot be contained.
Ambition burning within a beautiful exterior.
An infuriator of educated women, who say
She should not be allowed to be what she is.

Politician, straight shooter,
Too close to God, too close to the people.
She sees the reality of our lives,
And tells us we should manage ourselves.

Sarah is a danger to the glitterati, the cognoscenti,
And all other shades of hypocrites.
The people are not fooled by empty promises
That cannot be fulfilled without fearful cost.

Think of all the the public figures
Who were ridiculed when they emerged.
They said things can be done that others gave up on.
Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush.

Ignored as simpletons for proclaiming simple goals.
And vilified for achieving them.
Get out of the way, Sarah Palin is at large.
An extraordinary talent is about to be unleashed!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Tie Wall

Do you know what a tie wall is? Neither did I.
It is a retaining wall composed of interlaced railroad ties.
Installing or replacing a tie wall seems to be a lost art.
Finding someone skilled in doing so is a challenge.

Given the economic conditions of homeowners,
Landscapers are desperate for business.
So they express interest in performing work
That they don't really know how to do.

We have a tie wall, next to the driveway, that has collapsed.
Phone calls to some landscapers went unanswered.
Some have looked at the job, then were not heard from again.
A few quoted a price, but did not describe what they would do.

We received deep lectures from the knowledgeable,
Who did not exactly agree with one another.
Personalities ranged from the servant of the rich,
To the scaggy workman who would himself get down and dirty.

Most charming was the little brown Brazilian,
Who spoke very little English.
We were concerned that he might vanish in the middle of the job,
And be unreachable thereafter.

We accepted a bid, and received a reply:
Hi, Barbara, you will love the results,
Bobby is phenomonal (sic) at rr tie wall.
Thanks, Jen.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Try And

Try and
Try and what?
Try what, and?
Try and do what?

Try and something,
And do something else?
Or try to do something,
And try and do something else?

Is the try superfluous?
Can the do stand alone?
Is the try sufficient?
Never mind the do.

Are we a nation of try anders?
Or a people of doers?
Do we try and, only,
But never do?