New York Primary Battle Sonnet 18

The Cuomo machine ran the table

It’s not the result I wanted to see

But this will make the move left more stable

(I’m tired of Stars & Celebutardy)

So although Hochul defeated Williams

& I am sad Jumaane did not win

The progressives made some major inroads

That will disrupt the republican swing

The movement is strong & will continue

We must stay energized & keep working

These elections were swept in one venue

Now let’s see Moneyed Democrats twerking

The defeat of the IDC will force

Well fed Cuomo to modify course

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America & Americans Sonnet

I wish I could clearly sing the praises

Of America & Americans

Whom the high bar of decency raises

Even after our recent concussions

Although we jump out of a checkered past

The rules of our game were fairest back then

& our best impulses try to hold fast

To those ideals of the enlightenment

I won’t focus on insecurity

That short-sighted fear & greed nurtures

Our greatest wealth is our humanity

(Liberty’s carcass circled by vultures!)

Right now I am told to fear the others

But in my heart I know they’re my brothers

Broken Foot Sonnet 8-31-18

I am wondering if will ever

Rejoin the standing tribe of the upright

Who are pedestrians that incur

People unmediated by cars’ blight

Will I ever, stride, saunter, or just walk

The byways where people simply exist

Freed from status markers of Detroit’s chalk

I am a New Yorker & must resist

As I lurch on with my crutch-prosthesis

Collecting the side-eyed stares from others

I curse & lament this new genesis

Realizing that oddity me smothers

This temporary handicapped voyage

Reminds me that many live in steerage

Sanctimony Sonnet

Am I happy being right all the time?

Does this certitude make me feel better?

(Certainty’s a higher pay grade than mine

Remember, opinions our souls just fetter)

So, as wittily as possible, we

Try to tear down others’ Peoples thinking;

It’s mostly for our vanity, see

(•Ecclesiastes• described our shrinking)

So we squeeze onto righteousness’ bus

Rush Hour, in traffic: sanctimonious

We defend our banal opinions: tough

(It is for identity that we thrust)

We’ve completely forgotten who we are

By staring down Smart-Phones hand-held st

Disjointed Immigration Sonnet

I wonder how the administrators

Who separate fathers from daughters

& mothers from sons, feel about their chores:

Parts of the machine of fam’ly slaughter

How does it feel to somebody else lie

Who doesn’t understand the king’s English

(I’ll bet it’s like being cruelty’s bright spy

Enforcing the decrees of injustice!)

&, coming out of His church on Sunday,

The Baptist bureaucrat just smiles

For He is rendering onto Pilate

The laws of man, in lawyer-ese, by miles

& we who watch these crimes aghast smugly

Know that at their heart, our laws are ugly

The Slow Professor Sonnet

I’m reading the book •the slow professor•

That explains capitalism’s model:

The academy is unlike before

Productivity will not thought coddle

Reading it I see how metrics demand

Professors’ short sighted efficiency

Administrators get the upper hand

Experience becomes redundancy

The monastic tradition of learning

Contemplation & then meditation

Is from most Americans receding

Replaced by cheap wealth’s fetishization

Not ev’rything that counts can be counted

Nor every peak need be surmounted

Brooklyn Murder Suicide Sonnet

When Falling In Love we ourselves extend

Hearts sending out tender capillaries

To fertilize love for a sweeter trend

& dodging loneliness’s vagaries

But maybe one cannot live up, you know

To the amorous baggage therein

The dream Cupid looses from his bow

Is a strange love song on a theramin

What becomes of amorous delusions?

Reality rumbles from the tunnel

& all that remains are his illusions

His dreams & her body are then pummeled

Brooklyn Subway Murder-&-Suicide

Pulls to eternity the lies they tried

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-metro-couple-killed-train-murder-suicide-brooklyn-20180727-story.html