Where hides the gentle days gone bye
When we watched the World begin to cry?
Or chance that smile, when indiscreet
Or warmly greet when strangers meet?
Where lies legacy's charity play
For the lost in nether worlds' grim foray?
What the intent when your mind shuts the door
When pleas echo forth from those that implore?
Where lies your will to build on the don't,
Or the courage to do it, when all others won't?
What's the guts, my hesitant man
Cos' this old World's trying, to understand?

M.
16 September 2021

What God has put asunder, I have joined together.
He chuckles at this somewhat self-consciously,
His clientele comprised primarily of gentlemen of a certain age,
Most of whom have stepped off to the altar
Twice or thrice, some even more,
Whose wives will be, at least pro tem,
The mistresses of the Moorish bastardizations
Being commissioned by their husbands,
Vaguely Iberian grotesqueries
Christened Sin Cuidado and Villa Tranquilla
Festooned with cornucopias of cornices and cupolas,
Featuring vaulted cathedral ceilings and open-prairie floor plans,
Impossible to cool in the ninety-degree dawn of August
Or heat during the all too frequent cold snaps,
(Such being noted to him by a visitor
From a staid Boston architectural firm,
To which he replied, Save that for the classrooms, pal.
I give the people what they want, dad,
And these folks are first, last, and forever
All about the façade.)

It is not, however, his effort to turn Florida’s East Coast
Into a giant movie set for the stories of Don Juan or El Cid
Which inspires him to utter his inversion of the marital vow.
He has moved beyond being a mere designer;
He is a man of substance, a builder in the larger, cosmic sense,
And so he is here, in this sticky, sweltering venue
Which disappointed Spaniards named after a rat’s oral cavity,
To make a new Venice, complete with electric gondolas,
Cloisters which would put any in the Old World to shame,
Gesturing, bellowing, and cajoling,
A Prospero of sawhorses and steam shovels,
As displaced Seminoles and colored laborers
Sweat and swear and stumble
As they dredge swamps and hack down stumpy mangroves
In the service of his vision, the aggrandizement of his bottom line,
Arm-twisting the caprices of drought and hurricane
To serve the pricier whims
Of a gaggle of DuPonts and Wanamakers.
It’s not that I don’t believe in a higher power, he will demur,
I’m simply not averse to some slight enhancement of His plans.

It is rather unremarkable,
Or at least as so as such a pane may be,
Depicting a trinity not mentioned in Scripture,
Though their handiwork would likely merit approval
From any member of the trio cited therein,
As they went forth humbly,
In humble carriages in service
Of an ostensibly prosaic task
But certainly on the side of the angels,
As must have been noted
In each of their respective services
(Closed-casket affairs, one presumes
Given the state of the remains
After they were extracted
From the earthen dam site where they were discarded)
And their particular Caiaphas
Dispensed with sending their cases onward
For further consideration
(He too a man of the cloth, but also a mill operator,
Producing two-by-fours worthy of use on Calvary)
And after he had passed sentence,
Leaving matters to take course,
One assumes he went home, washed up
And made his usual rote recitations
Asking for Him to watch over his and his ownself.

Roiled in his writhing way
Mankind's ****** in manic play
Hurled forth to War's lament
All, once valued, sadly spent....
Pedantic though that beast may be
Enthralled by battle's fantasy
Of how it led in lethal boast
To death within appeals wry host,
Was this the way our world must lie,
Engorged, as bloated watchers cry?
Be this our fate in humankind
Where sighted saw whilst being blind?
Un-guided, now, this way of God
Where Caesars ghost, once sought and trod?

M.
September 12 2021
Planet Earth

September has become
the cruelest month

reassembled
Hollywood disasters
at their worst
flipped into reality

as if
   we had needed that
as if
   we had not known
      that life is fragile
      and tall buildings
      can collapse
   taking thousands
   to sudden death

what is the point?

to prove
   that one can bring
   disaster
   to the undefended?

to demonstrate
   that minds bent
   on destruction
   can succeed
   if they plan long enough?

what a waste
   of lives and minds
and more to follow
most likely

does wordless violence
solve anything?

the heartless deed
the glamorous sacrifice
that calls for more
   and more
and more
neurotic spirals
of destruction, retaliation
and revenge
instead of global peace
now looms spectral war
born from self-righteous pride
the need to strike out
   fast and hard
against whoever fits
intelligence-created data
transferred to screens
   meticulously marked
coolly oblivious of the people
   who work and procreate
         and live
   in those fluorescent blips

domesticated energy
serves the omnipotent

   two millionaires’ sons
   turned public enemies

upon whose final global showdown
depends
the fate of yet more
   women
        men
           and children
to satisfy the need
for a just universe
where power flows
    undisturbed by laughter
   and the sounds
   of real people
        living
   in a real world

Accrue, I do
With vivre and flair
Despite the
Handicaps, apparent there.
Accrue as ardently
As I can
In lieu of
Limitations span,
Ingestion of
This days hard knocks,
The parody’s
Through induced shocks…
The ins and outs
Of life’s travail
To trample that
Which helps to veil,
Obscenities,
That intervene,
Through contemplation's
Selfish screen……
Yet all for one
And one for all....
Could prove, accruals,
My downfall?

M.
8 September 2021