8.5%

“Money does not merely matter,

Wisely administered it cures most ailments.

We can, if you bring that $500,000 into play in Tennessee,

Change the results, making you the nominee.

It will increase your vote total from 45% to 53.5%, an increase of 8.5%”

Are you not staggered by that assertion?

A nonfiction belief in cause and effect

That reduces you from intellectual independence 

To a product of TV  repetitions,

Spawned by commercials that assure you of the disaster awaiting a poor choice.

As if 8.5% talks of choice.

Two Strollers

One Fox Terrier in the stroller.

A second  leashed, walking alongside, sniffed Rose’s tail.

I spoke to the Terriers care giver,

Doing everything but exchanging photos.

Fifty feet down Orange Avenue

Another stroller was being pushed

With great effort, by a small woman 

Wearing an aged, oversized,

Slightly frayed brown Army winter coat,

Gloves, scarf and boots on this warm summer day.

Her face was deeply lined, hard and decidely unhappy.

Her stroller held an overflowing

Large black garbage bag,

With a small brown dog wedged alongside.

Pulling Rose I hurried past the woman.

Truth

“I don’t know what you are hearing,

But I do know what I am saying.”

This conundrum, knowing half a truth,

Assails the most honest of men.

As for the others:

You and I do not always offer words

That are not given to ambiguity.

Indeed our intention may be to leave room for doubt.

Nor can we absolve all from 

Comments that offer a dishonest accounting.

Sadly, we also know that yesterday’s meaning

May escape us on the morrow.

Are we not left with the possibility that,

Unless we wish to tell of our love or hate,

All communication can, at best,

Be an invitation to explore for a truth,

Miscasting

John Wayne may not have stormed many hills in life,

But in death President Carter recalled him as a “genuine hero”,

And Orange county renamed their airport in his honor.

If not in deed, then in the theatre, John fit role.

In American politics the role of leader

Likely goes to the candidate who 

Portrays a strong, uncompromising,

Champion of “right”.

This year the role of the Republican nominee

Will fall into the hands of a man

Who has negotiated well and succeeded 

In getting people to accept compromise.

Tragically, the process of gaining the nomination

Has required Mitt Romney to repudiate himself.

His casting as an obdurate John Wayne character is,

At best, ill fitted.

Mitt, sadly, announces he is “severely conservative”

And in the process repudiates his history.

His failure will be ours, if reasoned dialogue is lost to “severely”,

And we will ultimately pay for this chimera.

Touching

It has become ritual.

Two in the morning Rose moves,

First placing her front paws on my left leg

To ease access to the space between my calves.

Over time I have moved from complete rejection,

Pushing her to the unoccupied space near my feet,

To  coupling her desire for closeness

With my feeling of connection.

If, by two-twenty I had not fallen asleep again,

My feelings became somewhat ambiguous

Because her weight on the blanket

Makes any movement on my part impossible.

For the next five minutes I will try

Turning onto my back and moving my left  leg.

Failing to do either I’d twist my head

And encourage her to relocate.

Inevitably, I would claw my way up the bed,

Thereby allowing me to get one leg

Over her head,

Freeing me to consider relocation.