Street People

Move quickly, don’t look at them.
Sun still up at six o’clock,
Coats, cushions off long dead couches,
Plastic sheets laid out for five.

20 feet off the highway entrance
On a once grassy incline
They are overdressed
There are two shopping carts.

Three squares and a shower before sleep
Are not on their busy agendas.
Safety and maybe some sleep
Are as good as it gets.

Needles, rock-gut are not visible
Maybe a sharpened kitchen knife
Lie among the detritus.
Who will say tonight’s prayer?

Expletive Deleted

No matter how outraged, no matter how justified,
Or how good it feels, “fuck” cannot be used.
Thus the “Supremes” have decided.
And who can question their wisdom.

That holds for “fucked”, “fucking” and “fuck-up”.
How many sexual outrages were committed
Under the influence of a screamed obscenity?
Change “fuck” to “intercourse” and rapes drop 50%.

Of course army sergeants will have difficulties.
Basic training is conducted under the “fuck” commands
Changing “fucking recruits”, idiots, push-ups, etc
To “intercoursing recruits”, seems a little weak.

What is the need for the offending adjective or adverb?
Why a fucking disaster?
Others might counter, does the description “fucking disaster”,
Set off primal desires?

It’s the lewd, coarse edge to the word
That makes “fuck” anathema to gentle, right thinking, people.
Children should be protected from such vulgarity,
Or is that poverty and abuse?

Dogs in a basket

Did Moses look as cute as these pups?
His basket, woven of twigs,
Might not have been any larger.
What hope had that weaver for her progeny?

I’ll pretend I don’t see it.
A dog in a basket, maybe two,
Half-hidden by foliage near the brick wall.
Perhaps it will be gone when I return.

Damn! basket still there,
Mom and 8 pups inside.
A tag, attached to mom’s collar ,
Explains the nine dogs arrived from Mexico
In the hope that they might find homes.
A gift from the poor to the wealthy?

I hesitate,
If left, most, maybe all, dead by morning.
Babes a week old, or less.
Mom malnourished, feeding starved pups.

There was choice.
They exist because I see them.
There are far too many mutts,
Be quiet and gone.

Would Kitty Genovese have lived?
What made the dogs my business?
Someone put the dogs in a nice laundry basket.
Stopped their car and placed the dogs with care.

I need only call Animal Services
Police will hold them until tomorrow
A vet will examine and decide their fate.
If healthy they will live.

I have a phone.
What’s the downside?
Sick pups carrying disease?
Make the call, make the god-damn call!

We Have Found the Enemy

We have labored to find the source.
Billions here, billions there.
Until today nobody seemed to find the culprit.
But it now is clear.

We have the U.A.W. to thank for the mess.
They, the auto workers, are the villains!
Albeit theirs is a small, nay tiny,
Share of the trillion we will pay.

Yes, A.I.G received 140 billion, ... and counting,
And the bankers have used half of a 700 billion fund.
We have no idea were the money has gone,
And dare not ask, for asking speaks of interference.

But we commie bed-wetters, will ask for
And soon demand controls,
This leads to enforcement, which spells SOCIALISM,
Religion of the devil.

Yes, yes! what do the unions bring but demands?
Whereas a free market brings better mouse traps,
Universal wealth and equal opportunity.
In the words of the famous Alan Greenspan,... “oops!”

Toby

First graduate from The Habilitat Treatment Center,
Toby had spent 3 years in the program,
2 in treatment, his last year as an employee.
With endorsements and blessings in place,
He would start working in my business on Monday.

As board chair of the program I had spent time with Toby since his admission.
Reviewing budgets and fund raising brought us in frequent contact.
As with just about all the 150 people living within The Habilitat’s sheltered embrace
Toby had a long history of self destruction. Unresolved sexual ambivalence,
Drugs, and the inevitable thievery had lead to jail time.
Paroled to the Habilitat, on condition that he stay clean,
He adjusted well to the verbal pummeling of his ego.
Encounter games, reprimands, kitchen duty seemed to help.


When Raphael, my exiting bookkeeper , said Toby was ready,
I, a true believer, accepted him as a full time employee.
How clever, how quixotic! Toby would thrive.

I chose to disregard evidence that he did not understand our billing.
Pointing out some curable errors, I finished preparations for a month long trip.
I failed Toby because to do otherwise would have inconvenienced me.
No London, no Paris.....

Toby was bright and had made it through a tough rehab program.
But he had come from a womb,
I offered a job, some encouragement and ... some distance.

Upon returning I found Toby had floundered and sunk,
Stealing very little, and leaving a clear path to his door.
The problems he had created were handled without the police.
Toby returned to the program.