an optimist calls this a sunny sunday morning
coffee, cats, colson whitehead’s latest
a pessimist ruminates on gaza
the ukraine, sudan, republicans

we older american jews relate to israel
we were indoctrinated as kids
israel good, nazis bad
israel good, arabs bad
why would those bad arabs attack israel?
the palestinan problem is that they existed
before israel, unless you go back ten million years
and they’re still here to get pounded
israel doesn’t make it easy on the jews either
it’s so insistent on being a jewish state
that saying anti-zionism is not anti-semitism
does not compute
we’re gonna get smashed in righteous fury for eons
for this particular genocidal moment
like we need a new target on our backs
it’s like learning your uncle is a serial killer
you make excuses
you remember his good side
and there was plenty of good
but that dang serial killing…

life is a series of triumphs
every breath is a victory
but we dwell on defeat
we remember the moments
of weakness and incompetence
failure and rejection
the ones who slipped out of the net
not the ones we caught
maybe if we stood upside down
we’d get a clearer view

all the options compete
for a sliver of my attention
which is split thinner and thinner
but if i’m captured and amused
it’s cool, it’s a good deal
i come out ahead
it’s contended incessantly
that my attention is utterly monetized
subliminally
but i don’t care
i say it’s a bargain
it’s like selling your soul
when you know you don’t have one

the hospital is a maze
built in confusing sections
but that’s just the start
the people i deal with
are a maze within a maze
patients, families, nurses, doctors
other respiratory therapists
and superimposed on all this
is another maze
the conundrums i try to solve
a fella fell off a cliff
a jehova’s witness fell off a roof
a 16 year old shot himself in the head
my strategies for keeping them breathing
or not
every one a maze
and i’ll never find my way out

the nurse called in security
because the patient was all worked up
about getting discharged

patient:  "if i go home and have another seizure
i’m coming back here and slap everyone"

security:  "you can’t make violent threats, sir"

patient:  "i ain’t making violent threats
i’m just gonna slap’em"

just had a patient kiss my hands
for helping her out in the ER
never happened when i gave guitar lessons
though it should have