It might have been my clothing.
My personal dress code calls for causal,
Tending toward seedy,
Somewhat understated for business meetings.
Then there was the monthly newsletter.
It was not my idea to call the guy a putz.
(A putz is a schmuck without earmuffs.)
I didn’t write the article.
True,the newsletter was my responsibility.
And yes, I did applaud creative writing.
Expressing frustration with management’s
Incompetence was, I thought, fair game... pick, pick.
Now as I consider the guy’s outrage
I should confess to ignoring him
When he visited our office
On one of his royal reviews of the troops.
Still, it is not my fault the creep is thin-skinned.
I didn’t make him short, fat and ugly.
If he can’t take some really poignant insight,
I guess I’ll have to suffer his slings and arrows.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Fifty Cents A Head
Once upon a time
There were many poor people in the city.
The Rich hired protection.
While the Poor went hungry.
What if the mayor of New York
Decided to impose a fifty cent penalty
On those in a courtroom
Where he was acting as the presiding judge?
Legend suggests this may have happened.
Fiorello La Gaurdia heard a case
Where the defendant, a mother with two starving children,
Admitted to stealing bread.
The Mayor cited allowing the Poor to starve
As a crime.
Hence the fifty cent fine.
He personally gave the baker $10.00 as reimbursement.
This a parable.
Could it happen tomorrow?
I think, "Yes, maybe, just maybe, it could still happen".
To say "no" is to mourn our passing.
There were many poor people in the city.
The Rich hired protection.
While the Poor went hungry.
What if the mayor of New York
Decided to impose a fifty cent penalty
On those in a courtroom
Where he was acting as the presiding judge?
Legend suggests this may have happened.
Fiorello La Gaurdia heard a case
Where the defendant, a mother with two starving children,
Admitted to stealing bread.
The Mayor cited allowing the Poor to starve
As a crime.
Hence the fifty cent fine.
He personally gave the baker $10.00 as reimbursement.
This a parable.
Could it happen tomorrow?
I think, "Yes, maybe, just maybe, it could still happen".
To say "no" is to mourn our passing.
High-line Park
From the right spot,
(12th Street & Gansevoort works)
There's an historical view of the great city's
Evolution from 1860 to now.
Slave ships and slaughter houses
Coexisted for 150 years before the arches,
30 feet off the ground,
Became home to railroad deliveries
Maybe a clever developer
Saw a fast buck to be made
By selling the collapsing unused tracks
To a city hungering for park sites?
Now, while wild greens add to recovered space,
Retailers who can posit name recognition,
Offer cool by understating their presence
With small iconic signs on stores beneath the park.
Surely some higher power
Must have intervened in preventing
The last slaughter house from leaving the street below,
It is the veal processing plant that gives the space its authenticity.
(12th Street & Gansevoort works)
There's an historical view of the great city's
Evolution from 1860 to now.
Slave ships and slaughter houses
Coexisted for 150 years before the arches,
30 feet off the ground,
Became home to railroad deliveries
Maybe a clever developer
Saw a fast buck to be made
By selling the collapsing unused tracks
To a city hungering for park sites?
Now, while wild greens add to recovered space,
Retailers who can posit name recognition,
Offer cool by understating their presence
With small iconic signs on stores beneath the park.
Surely some higher power
Must have intervened in preventing
The last slaughter house from leaving the street below,
It is the veal processing plant that gives the space its authenticity.
Public Enemy
It was a very unimportant event.
Lunch at the coffee shop
Was not planned as a rumble.
Go figga.
Ray backed into a spot.
Not quite right.
Forward and back, forward and back
Not quite right. Good enough!
Shutting the car door
He was greeted with:
Diane: “You hit my car!!”
Ray: “No I didn’t.”
Diane: “You’re a liar!”
Ray (softly) “I didn’t hit your car”
(Several more choruses.)
Diane: “Clem he hit the car”
Clem: “You hit my car!”
Ray: “You weren’t here.”
Diane: “You hit my car & you’rea a liar.”
Ray:“Why would I lie?”
Diane: “Because your a liar.”
Ray (not so softly)“You want to make something out of this”
Clem: “Yeah”
Ray:“This is ridiculous, your car hasn’t been scratched.”
Clem:“Where you going?”
Ray: “Lunch”
Clem: “Leaving your car here?”
Ray: “Yeah, why?”
Clem: “I may hit it.”
Ray: “Hit it”.
Lunch at the coffee shop
Was not planned as a rumble.
Go figga.
Ray backed into a spot.
Not quite right.
Forward and back, forward and back
Not quite right. Good enough!
Shutting the car door
He was greeted with:
Diane: “You hit my car!!”
Ray: “No I didn’t.”
Diane: “You’re a liar!”
Ray (softly) “I didn’t hit your car”
(Several more choruses.)
Diane: “Clem he hit the car”
Clem: “You hit my car!”
Ray: “You weren’t here.”
Diane: “You hit my car & you’rea a liar.”
Ray:“Why would I lie?”
Diane: “Because your a liar.”
Ray (not so softly)“You want to make something out of this”
Clem: “Yeah”
Ray:“This is ridiculous, your car hasn’t been scratched.”
Clem:“Where you going?”
Ray: “Lunch”
Clem: “Leaving your car here?”
Ray: “Yeah, why?”
Clem: “I may hit it.”
Ray: “Hit it”.
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”.
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”.
Monday, August 6, 2012
The Invidious Plot!
Twice, yes twice in 5 days,
Riding the subways
To places not visited in years,
I was transformed from a
Youthful 70 year-old into an old man.
Two young women
On separate train rides,
On consecutive morning trips
Offered their seats.
OK, the first woman, a 20 year old,
Could have made a mistake.
Maybe my eyeglasses were too far down my nose,
Or my ball cap added years?
Now we come to the stab in the heart.
No doubt sinister forces were at work.
What are the odds that Diana gets a seat
And I don’t, on two consecutive days?
Add the fact that again I am left standing,
With another 20 year-old seated before me.
Consider the probability that any New Yorker
Would offer you her seat on a subway.
Most New Yorkers would have killed for the seat.
Think of the statistical impossibility of repeating the scene.
With a newspaper, magazine or Ipad held close to her face
No crippled 95 year old, in the midst of a heart attack, need be seen.
Granted we were approaching the Jewish New Year
And the stars might have been misaligned,
Unleashing a magnetic force that influenced the train’s orientation.
Even then, it could not have happened.
It must have been a subversive plot.
The two girls were working for an alien.
There may have been others involved.
They were out to, and succeeded in, destroying my sense of self.
Damn you Ming the Merciless!!
Riding the subways
To places not visited in years,
I was transformed from a
Youthful 70 year-old into an old man.
Two young women
On separate train rides,
On consecutive morning trips
Offered their seats.
OK, the first woman, a 20 year old,
Could have made a mistake.
Maybe my eyeglasses were too far down my nose,
Or my ball cap added years?
Now we come to the stab in the heart.
No doubt sinister forces were at work.
What are the odds that Diana gets a seat
And I don’t, on two consecutive days?
Add the fact that again I am left standing,
With another 20 year-old seated before me.
Consider the probability that any New Yorker
Would offer you her seat on a subway.
Most New Yorkers would have killed for the seat.
Think of the statistical impossibility of repeating the scene.
With a newspaper, magazine or Ipad held close to her face
No crippled 95 year old, in the midst of a heart attack, need be seen.
Granted we were approaching the Jewish New Year
And the stars might have been misaligned,
Unleashing a magnetic force that influenced the train’s orientation.
Even then, it could not have happened.
It must have been a subversive plot.
The two girls were working for an alien.
There may have been others involved.
They were out to, and succeeded in, destroying my sense of self.
Damn you Ming the Merciless!!
Metaphor
Great metaphors last beyond their enunciation
If you start a comparison with
“Like” or “ya know” it probably won’t make it
To tomorrow.
I still don’t understand the intonement
“There is nothing to fear but fear itself”,
But at least it was not preceded by “ya know”,
And it did have a war time President’s authority.
There is a rumor circulating
That conscious thought is possible only
Through the use of Metaphor.
Like, ya know, I can’t just spit out what I’m thinking.
Of course if I can’t simply say
“You look fat”
It will take a long time and considerable delicacy,
Including some hand and arm motions, to let you know... ya know.
If you start a comparison with
“Like” or “ya know” it probably won’t make it
To tomorrow.
I still don’t understand the intonement
“There is nothing to fear but fear itself”,
But at least it was not preceded by “ya know”,
And it did have a war time President’s authority.
There is a rumor circulating
That conscious thought is possible only
Through the use of Metaphor.
Like, ya know, I can’t just spit out what I’m thinking.
Of course if I can’t simply say
“You look fat”
It will take a long time and considerable delicacy,
Including some hand and arm motions, to let you know... ya know.
Socks
They fall into a different dimension
Along with the library book
That disappeared on a plane,
Never found.
There’s a place known to exist
On an oblique.
It absorbs matter
Without leaving a trace.
It is not entirely rational
And will, on a whim,
Return a book or a sock...
Or not.
When I was a child this "other"
Would steal my earmuffs.
A winter was incomplete
Without eight or ten such thefts.
I thought to outsmart this prankster
By moving to a warmer climate,
But neither maturity (otherwise known as aging)
Or earmuff abstinence stopped the fiend.
Now, in my dotage, it is socks and baseball caps.
This plague has brought me to a desperate pass.
I am determined to rid my life of all non-essentials.
Tomorrow I walk naked, for the first day of Forever.
Along with the library book
That disappeared on a plane,
Never found.
There’s a place known to exist
On an oblique.
It absorbs matter
Without leaving a trace.
It is not entirely rational
And will, on a whim,
Return a book or a sock...
Or not.
When I was a child this "other"
Would steal my earmuffs.
A winter was incomplete
Without eight or ten such thefts.
I thought to outsmart this prankster
By moving to a warmer climate,
But neither maturity (otherwise known as aging)
Or earmuff abstinence stopped the fiend.
Now, in my dotage, it is socks and baseball caps.
This plague has brought me to a desperate pass.
I am determined to rid my life of all non-essentials.
Tomorrow I walk naked, for the first day of Forever.
Saturday in NY
Sitting on a rotating display
That, for the moment, stands quiescent.
I share the display with three manikins
Dressed for fall.
Warm materials
Draped over plastic creatures
Suggest you too can embody
A life of comfort.
If it's a fraud there is no innocence,
And the need to play is serious.
Who would choose estrangement,
Looking through a cool glass partition at success?
Someone gets killed on the subway...
Over his IPod, or his cool Nikes.
I get little attention from the shoppers.
I might be mistaken for the "before" portion of the display.
If not for my IPad I'd be asked to leave.
Do I resemble the successful businessman
Who said wearing sandals in a chauffeured limo
Represented wealth & understanding?
That, for the moment, stands quiescent.
I share the display with three manikins
Dressed for fall.
Warm materials
Draped over plastic creatures
Suggest you too can embody
A life of comfort.
If it's a fraud there is no innocence,
And the need to play is serious.
Who would choose estrangement,
Looking through a cool glass partition at success?
Someone gets killed on the subway...
Over his IPod, or his cool Nikes.
I get little attention from the shoppers.
I might be mistaken for the "before" portion of the display.
If not for my IPad I'd be asked to leave.
Do I resemble the successful businessman
Who said wearing sandals in a chauffeured limo
Represented wealth & understanding?
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