Fast Food Jazz Hands Sonnet

Jazz Hands in front of President Lincoln
Re-enact our cultural heritage
We think it was “darkies” we were punkin’
But it was ourselves that we disparaged

We thought we could belittle the minstrel
But it was ourselves blackface diminished
For America’s the joke cultural
Even when “Amos & Andy” finished

For the minstrel show that we once laughed at
Has become “Pravda,” state television
Operated by Fox-Securitate:  
The free-market’s pathetic reduction

In the curtained wings of the world’s grand stage
Our nouveau-riche land is showing its age

Subway Slashing Sonnet

There are two unfortunate souls right here
The pregnant woman whose young face was slashed
Thinking about being a new mother dear
(& how to keep herself together lashed)

The other’s ridden life’s roller coaster
Hoping the bottom of the descent’s near
When younger, perhaps she was a “toaster”
Angel Dust, Dope: starting with pot & beer

So onto train ventures the mother new
Avoiding she that’s fighting her demons
(Beelzebub says: “don’t let her dis you!”
Sitting elsewhere was what that was seemin’)

Into her bags she reached for the bright shiv
Payback for dis was what she did give

http://nypost.com/2017/05/28/woman-slashed-on-subway-platform-at-grand-central/

Endless Sonnet

  

Each wave is identical

Also completely unique

Repetition: practical

Their differences oblique
Each person watching waves

Is completely different

But like banister staves

Cooperate in bent

I sit by the river

Of autos driving by

Observing, I wonder

If there’s a reason why

Why do I consider

The altar of nature?

Morning Sonnet 8-10-15

  
The morning arrives, an un welcomed guest

Demanding attention, telling stories

Into their conflicts & feuds you are thrust

Each dawn brings you it’s own set of worries
The world never needs to know my feelings

My opinions of people’s shortcomings 

Do not need to infect all my dealings

& interfere with my life’s smooth runnings
Tolerating existence’s problems

And leaning from difficulties’ drama

Builds immunity, a special nostrum

That makes me just like the Dali Lama
I accept all the dawn’s difficulties

The tolerance that they build makes me free

Abyss Sonnet



Into these temporary abysses

Merrily we fling our bodies & souls

As if this misery would dismiss us

From human’s* self-imposed soul sucking holes

The deeper we venture exploration 

The more absence and nothingness we find

The harder it is to play our station

And dream of some mortal human justice

We find within existence’s vortex

Only artifacts of our endurance:

Despair’s abysses will stun the cortex

& synthesize spiritual assurance

Don’t seek the abyss of nothingness yet

Life, humbly-well-lived, will better get

Old Photos Sonnet



Old photos are fountains of youth

Capturing happy memories 

Keeping our histories as truth

The past is kept: caged canaries

Fading images we look at

Strongly remind us of those times

When we made choices: no regrets!

(Decision-less times are “life-prime”)

Awkward pose & outdated clothes

(Compensated for with smooth skin)

Emphasize happiness youth knows

(That search for original sins)

Treasure all those old photographs

They can keep you laughing youth’s laughs

“Inside Job” Sonnet



“Happiness is an inside job”

No one but ourselves can please us

Don’t look to wealth or churches’ God

“Worldly Pleasure” insults Jesus

True happiness is fulfillment 

It’s found deep within your being

It’s not another installment 

Or product you can go buying

If you want more than just freedom

Your goals are pro’lly not your own

Happy with less is not treason

Greed: into your heart has been sewn 

Look to your heart & soul & find

True happiness is “peace of mind”

Spending Time On Facebook Sonnet (8)



Time on Facebook Sonnet (8)

I love spending time on Facebook

& seeing the things that matter 

To my friends (remade electric)

(Relaxing digital patter)

Loves, causes & those outrages

That inflame us without moving 

Anything outside our cages

(On my couch I sit there grooving)

All the selfies changing faces

Background or foreground images

Tell me I am going places

(Even if just women’s rest rooms)

I stalk the life I used to have

With my social media half

Racism’s Reason Sonnet



Racist outrages shock our consciences
Shootings, lynchings & incarcerations
Call into question myths of justice’s
True mechanical machinations 

Shortcomings continue year after year
Confounding well intentioned people
But it doesn’t take demographers near
To see that this system’s been unequal

Reform never gets any real traction
Because this constitution benefits
Our Caucasian affirmative action
Which, good white people quietly admit

Racism is no accident for us

It is white people’s social insurance



The Bottom Sonnet Seven



Struggling for the Bottom

I reach for something solid

Weightless waterlogged flotsam

This environment’s squalid

Nothing is clear down below

& nothing comes easily

These circumstances bestow

This clarity queasily

But I must reach these dark depths

Though salvation’s up above

‘Cause what matters more than rest

Is all my guilt to absolve

So struggle to stand erect

The righteous aren’t too select