Sock 1

It's  a 20-year-old photograph.
I am returning from the net.
In blue shorts, my head bent,
Racquet hanging limply,
I most have lost the point.

Except I know better.
Such vanity, attempting humility,
Seeking no applause,
I will graciously accept victory.

I am baaad!
Yet, there is a joker loose on the court.
When I feel superior I need
Merely turn my desk chair and look at the photo.

All my imagined stagecraft
Undone, as I look at my self-abasing feet.
True, my steps seem appropriately downtrodden.
If only I had worm matching socks.

Kaylee

Animated.

Fresh from an epiphany called Israel

This young woman

Has dreams.

She has found something beautiful

In the people and the country

That gives her an identity.

Kaylee has discovered a cause.

Just returned from a place

Where  politics and geography

Are the common currency,

Exceeding the value of money.

She told of joining a protest

That called on the government

To return Israel from a place of millionaires

To its more socialistic roots.

Yes, there is a boy in this canvas

That makes her desire to return

To that brave small country

A matter of urgency.

Today, I imagine Kaylee 

Finishing her schooling in Israel,

Doing two years of army service,

And living on a Kibbutz with chickens and bomb shelters.

Roshomon Revisited

When the tale is told 

It is transformed from the original experience.

Yet I know with a certainty that transcends reason

That the retelling is weighted with Leonard’s needs.

I was the victim of the outrage.

Surely I knew and remembered the disappointment

That consumed me.

I could not be mistaken.

His story is so distinct,

So unreconcilable with the truth,

That he must be lying,

Or has created a fantasy to align with his self-image.

Herbie, who dropped a large rock

On my head,

Has lived sixty five years with the near tragedy.

Nightmares visit his sleep.

I wish Herbie a belief that the rock

Was merely a pebble slipped from his hand.

Why do I begrudge Leonard his fantasy?

Because he has not suffered... or is it that his memory is not fictitious?

Cheers From the Sideline

I hate metaphors 

That posit a ball game,

Any kind of ball game, as the equivalent

Of a raging storm or a lost dog.

My least favorite arises when cancer is eradicated.

“I beat cancer” sounds too much like a pro-wrestling match,

When the opponent, pinned to the canvas,

Hears the referee declare the blue eyed hero the victor. 

If death could be annihilated it would stretch the sport jockey.

Time travel might drive brain-dead comparisons

Into surrender.

Or lead to the creation of a new sport. 

Suppose a tennis serve were returned 

Before the server struck the ball.

What metaphor would assail the viewing audience?

“The shot unheard around the world”?

Saving Grace

If I  wished for company

In the hot tub it was certainly not 

In the form of a bee,

Flapping furiously in an effort to rise.

I remembered his brother,

Might have been his twin,

Same size, body structure,

And unfriendly attitude.

That nasty son-of-a-bitch

Decided to take his anger,

At the current state of Bee affairs,

Out on me.

What had I done to him?

OK, I did spray the nest.

But, that was years before,

When that punk stung me.

Now I watch his brother,

Exhausting himself in a futile effort

To get out of the hot water

So that he could continue his pointless, miserable, life.

I’m sure the Queen would not miss

This one little misguided wretch.

Any Bee stupid enough to get trapped in a hot tub

Can’t be a very efficient.

I could easily splash the Bee

Out of the water, but what would I earn:

His undying gratitude, in the form of sting?

Nope, I did it in the hope the fool might bring me honey. 

Who Gets Hurt?

It is the measure that Jeremy Bentham offered,

“The Greatest Good For The Greatest Number”,

Has been pilloried by countless churches And politicians 

For the last 180 years.

Its detractors propose it is communist doctrine,

And will inevitably lead to the fall of man.

It may work well in heaven

But among frail mortals it must fail.

Perhaps they are right.

Asking a superior person to share

The bounty of his achievement 

With those of greater needs is not fair.

Irrespective of the initial distribution 

Surely the more clever thinker,

Will endow the larger number with his efforts

Thereby lifting all.

It is possible to imagine 

The loss of progress engendered 

When the gifted creator abandons

His trial for want of appreciation (or compensation).

What great loss is inherent or inevitable 

When the man singularly profits 

From his good fortune or cleverness?

Does not society gain from the next great machine?

I find the answer to be a resounding “maybe”.

If your effort is primarily founded on material profit

Then it is merely the luck of the draw

That decides whether the result is greater freedom or enslavement.