A Fair Trade

From spent years on Pacific islands
Bob had become a flaming Socialist
Bearing witness to land traded
For a pittance of its market value.

He saw properties, with the potential
To become ocean front condos.
American developers offered pennies
To Islanders unaware of the value.

I wondered, “What was stolen”?
How much ignorance warrants intervention?
As a buyer is there an obligation
To share my most positive assessment?

I shan’t defend the buyer.
Indians sold Manhattan for a few dollars' worth of trinkets
If the price was inadequate
What of the seller, who did not own the property?

In a successful trade sometimes all parties
Are left uneasy,
Thinking they surrendered too much.
Should we conduct ourselves accordingly?

Should the tenant insist on paying above the market value
Because the market was once higher?
Should the landlord offer a price lower than market
Because the market was once lower?

If we can not live ethically in a market driven world,
What will define fair?
If not the buyer and seller,
Who will define fair?

We Want Our Country Back

America wont get the 2016 Olympics. We cheered.
(Reassuring to know there will be a 2016.)
An example of the prevailing socialistic tendencies.
We want our country back!

Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize.
Another example of evil forces at work.
He is not really an American.
We want out country back!

Keep your hands off my Medicare coverage.
Socialized medicine? Not in the U.SA.
Don’t kill my granny.
In Russia they wait 2 years to see a doctor.

Obama hates whites.
It all started with his mother.
Wants to brainwash our kids.
Kept my boy out of school.

Remember all that applause he got in Germany?
Tells ya something right there.
Everything was fine before he got in.
We want our country back!

A Quiet Walk

Its not comfortable,
This quiet walk with a stranger.
My words seem forced,
Subject to critical review.

Quiet stretches awkwardly and I’m averse
To making any additional effort.
We just don’t seem to fit,
This stranger and I.

I know this man.
His features are easily recalled.
Yet he remains a stranger
Never entirely visible.

We seem to be wary of each other,
Circling, looking for an opening,
Trying to avoid an impulsive lead
That might prove humiliating.

Two characters from a play by Kafka,
Each finding the script that was promised,
Far from fulfilled,
Both stumbling with a banal dialogue.

Hope is constantly suggested,
A lightening of the struggle,
Acceptance of a heart-felt hug,
Only to see the others eyes, flameless, cool.

Nothing confrontational,
No accusations flung in defense.
Too long have the characters relied on insulation.
No redemption to be found in the last act.

The Game

For 13 years, we played every Wednesday.
Low stakes, dealer’s choice,
Lots of wild cards.
Royal flushes would tie for high.

10 years ago Harold joined the game
He added something;
Off-the-wall bets, occasional business calls,
And.. complaints about uncomfortable chairs.

Every week, for 10 years Harold shook hands,
Spoke of the politics of the day,
Complained about the room temperature.
Every week, for 10 years.

6 or 7 men took turns hosting,
Breaking for bagels at 8,
Game over at 10:30.
It lived somewhere between religion and tradition.

Jay set the rules.
Tired of Harold’s eccentricities Jay added a new rule.
Harold, was disinvited to the game,
Via a phone call.

Later, 4 players said they hadn’t realized
What Jay was doing,
But none called for reconsideration.
10 years and done.

Like mine, Harold’s world
Is not built upon fortune cookies,
But there are givens, many not articulated,
Including the constancy of friends

Past the anger lies the humiliation.
Beyond that is the annihilation.
“They don’t want me in their fucking game” becomes
“They don’t want me”.

Mom's Passing

Mom’s Passing

Too late to receive the call,
I retrieve the message.
Mom is in the hospice.
She probably will not last the week.

I’d not thought about this expected call
These last few weeks.
Mom’s in comfortable storage,
Not part of my life.

One of Margret Sanger’s early clients,
Mom had opinions and desires,
Maintained her checkbook until 91.
Now at 99, long past her prime, she leaves.

Her body, or her ashes will go to Brooklyn.
To be buried next to Dad’s.
Maybe Maddy will visit the site once a year.
Perhaps I will too, but not for long.

Now no one will sit between me and death,
And whatever comfort she provided will be gone.
Perhaps my boys will come for the burial.
Their lives have other priorities.

She outlived herself these last years,
Saw little of life, and understood less.
I should get the picture for my office,
Mom holding a cigarette, though she never smoked.

Hummingbird

It starts down from the leafless tip
Of a Magnolia tree.
Dropping, not in response to gravity’s insistence
But for a closer look.

Fixed on its objective,
This magical creature changes its descent
From that of commercial aircraft approaching a runway
To a kamakazi dive: straight down at warp speed.

Disappearing behind an obscuring bush
It must inevitably lie dead on the hidden ground-
Yet as I imagine its broken body
It rises above the bush, hovers, circles and moves on.