GROWNUP FRUSTRATION
ON BIG PINE KEY: QUARANTINED WITH WORDS
My words,
They’ve marched in on dreams,
Printed conversations with those
Who’ve mastered their form
They’ve fallen from my tongue in hailstorms –
WTFs after reading NYT’s homepage
Today, I am stuck at the intersection of
“If only” and “Where to now?”
30 minutes ago, over coffee and sunrise
I knew where I was going
Now, not so much
We walk the dog
I look for the cardinal who had
Been singing his bright red song
For weeks now
He’s gone – beating the lockdown
Finding a mate who loves his music
But I am still here
Quarantined in paradise
Wrestling with each letter
Clanging demands
Words; unheard cries
Unraveling the earth
Before it dies
QUARANTINE: Week Two
Like our electronic toys
The world has a reset button
When we ignore her overheating
She admonishes with flames
When we foul our nests
She sends the oceans in retort
And when we ignore the world’s health,
Its inhabitants’ well-being,
Choosing to chase vicious luxuries
Because – we can
She sends the enemy invisible
The virus incurable,
Barely namable
Scoffing dreams and schemes
Our world has reset
An algorithm for stimulus
Six-degrees of separation
Leaves room for empathy
We leave food for the hungry
We drive the immobile
We care for the sick
We handsomely tip the daring
Souls who venture into the
Empty streets of commerce
Bringing food to those of us with money – to eat
But, the natural world wants us
To open our eyes
She wants us apart enough
To see those lives
That will never change – even with
A conquered virus
She wants us to see the fallacy of
Putting profit before people
She wants us to see those
Who have always been
Quarantined by poverty
In spirit and in purse
Yes, the world has reset.
Sadly, the culling
Won’t be equitable
Reset people
Reset!
Aisle 17 at the Big Pine Winn-Dixie
I walk the aisle in awe
Stripped of bum-cleaning supplies
People fearless of bums rubbed raw
Toss in single and double-ply
Stocking up in preparation
For coronavirus’ hit
When needed is just separation
And reliable testing kits
Don’t tell that to these locals
Who’ve survived Irma’s rage
They’re more apt to get real vocal
And war they’re willing to wage
So I am quiet as I judge
The woman who’s caught my eye
As she swipes the last Scott Tissue
Both single and double-ply
I’ve pondered such movements rarely
Overreaction — I guess is fine
But by the time I get to dairy
I turn and head for the wine
THOUGHTS FROM THE CENTER RING
It is inaccurate to say that I hate
everything. I am strongly in favor
of common sense, common honesty,
and common decency. This makes me
Forever ineligible for public office. H.L. Mencken
I’ve written about my perception of decency and, it appears, I am writing/preaching to the choir. My friends feel as I do.
As for people who see things differently there seems no “healthy” debate available to them. So far, it’s all been name-calling and put-downs. People who want healthy debate, it appears, are having that debate somewhere other than on social media. And, honestly, I’m not so sure decency should be debatable. Aren’t there are rules already set for what is decent in a democracy?
There are recognized standards for decency. There is the recognized standard of what is proper and in good taste. And we live in a democracy in which our representatives are expected and elected to adhere to a certain standard of decency. I find it difficult to understand those who support elected officials who fail to follow even the faintest path laid out by (what used to be) our collective decency.
In 1954, as an amazed television audience looked on, Boston Lawyer Joseph Welch – after one of his associates was accused by Joseph McCarthy, of having communist ties – responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy’s career:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”
What has happened to our collective sense of decency? When did it become okay to be cruel and reckless with the lives and well-being of American citizens and other people around the world?
Where is our sense of decency?
This is a question that should haunt us because the answer will certainly define us as we move forward.
CIRCUS FAMILIAR
I’ve come to accept the spectacle
The morning face that stares back at me in the mirror
Large pores packed with night-sweats and frustration
There’s lots to do but nothing to say
That will ease the guilt of not doing
Most likely I’ll clean my keyboard
remove the fingerprints
angry smudges that dappled my screen with hope.
I’ll open the Times app before adjusting a pillow behind my aging back
I’ll sip some tea as I consider the tilt of the screen and font size
I’ll search for good news as if
I’ve not already thrust my chin up to the edge of humanity
To improve my view of its destruction.
CIRCUS FAMILIAR
I’ve come to accept the spectacle
The morning face that stares back at me in the mirror
Large pores packed with night-sweats and frustration
There’s lots to do but nothing to say
That will ease the guilt of not doing
Most likely I’ll clean my keyboard
remove the fingerprints
angry smudges that dappled my screen with hope
I’ll open the Times app before adjusting a pillow behind my aging back
I’ll sip some tea as I consider the tilt of the screen and font size
I’ll search for good news as if
I’ve not already thrust my chin up to the edge of humanity
To improve my view of its destruction
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
I don’t want your liberal guilt
Your shocked alarm at blood long spilt
I truly don’t want your dismay
To matter more than a racist display
What I want when you’re alone
Standing among those blood and bone
Not a defense of my right to BE
But a defense of my right to take a knee
Scour your own heart of stereotype
It sieves through all the “tolerant” hype
I know when you think I’m not enough
When my vocabulary tends to call your bluff
I will know when the racist BS ends
When in absence I am just your “friend”
You’ll understand my anger at a human race
Those who won’t rise above limited base
And you’ll feel easy in the skin you own
Knowing we are ALL simply blood and bone
All working toward a peace un-shattered
Where there is no offense that our lives matter
G. Davis-Feldman ©2019
Thoughts From the Archives of Past Failures
The mind and the heart do a silken dance of deception as we answer questions of the decade with such rapidity as not to allow the worst possible scenario to come to pass. We organize the details of our lives for ease. We run from those who would infect our skin with want, moving to the woods, the shores and hills to breathe fresh air for the last time. We know this. Yet we move anyway. We leave our cities, our works of art to those who’ve sold them to the curriers of chaos.
The mind is an enchanting stadium filled with the lies we tell ourselves because, if we know anything, we know our hearts. Do we? Are we not the same flesh and bone that steps over the bodies of babies washed up on our hostile shores? Are we not the masters of our own lives – the very lives we allow the heartless to fill with fear and hatred? What can it mean when we exhaust ourselves shifting our lines-in-the-sand of decency? What can it mean when, in a final heat, our feet will slam an earth that will crack open under the weight of our finish?
We cannot run fast enough to escape the fact that our fates are tied. And we just may perish under the truth that we are lead by the worst in humanity. The worst in the world. The worst in us.
Gwen Davis -Feldman ©2017
