Divided (previously published in Cat Ladies Against Fascism from Anomaly Poetry)

 Divided

Oh, America! You carry the burden of the words of your founders,
All men are created equal, perhaps, but destined for inequality, certainly.
 
Oh, America! Land of plenty, in which countless thousands starve in
Tent cities or sleep fitfully on your sidewalks, discarded and alone.
 
Oh, America! Land of the free who squander their freedom
On trivialities and self-destruction and hatred of the ‘other.’
 
Oh, America! Home of the brave who cower in the comfort
Of their homes, anesthetized by the ghost-light of televisions and computer screens.
 
“Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Never were less sincere words
inscribed on such a monument.
 
Oh, America! In all the annals of time, has there ever been a more hypocritical nation,
Whose reality was less in tune with it’s supposed constitution?
 
Oh, America! Can we truly not afford to care for our sick, our old,
Our heroes, while always finding the funds for the next bomb or plane or ship-of-war?
 
Oh, America! How can we justify the obvious fact that our athletes
And movie stars are worth more to us than our children?
 
Oh, America! Where is your heart, where your sympathy and compassion,
Where your so-called love for your brothers and sisters?
 
This house, so long divided against itself,
Somehow still stands
But for how long, and for whose benefit?

Snake Oil Cabinet

Snake Oil Cabinet
            
In days of old the snake
oil salesman travelled
the backroads and country sides,
horse-drawn, pulling
behind him his wagon
full of nostrums, creams,
lotions, dried leaves,
charming the rubes with promises
of relief from their suffering.
 
Today he occupies 
the highest office
in the land, beamed into every
living room, office,
even the palm of every hand.
 
With oratory banished,
crudity mistaken for honesty,
he installs his cabinet
full of charmless
fear-mongers, greased
and ready to sell or be sold.
 
It’s the age of marketing
and branding,
led by a spray-tanned
billboard advertising nothing
but his own emptiness.
 
The line between news
and entertainment
obliterated long ago,
the con artists now assail
the line between government
and salesmanship,
and no one stands a chance.

Eat Here, Get Gas

This poem was part of Visual Inverse, an ekphrastic collaboration between the Plymouth Center for the Arts and Poetry the Art of Words. The piece of art which inspired it is also called "Eat Here, Get Gas", and is a multimedia collage created by Becky Haletky. 

Please click here to visit Becky's website: http://www.artbecko.com/

 

Eat Here, Get Gas

Crushed stone crunches under rubber tires, signal bell rings
once, then again, as a pair of overalls, ‘Billy’ stitched
on the chest patch, asks, “Fill it? Check the oil?”
“How’s the coffee?” I nod toward the door.
“Strong enough to defend itself,” grin drier than gravel.
 
Inside, air thick with sweet maple syrup, sizzling pork fat,
and coffee — nutty and bitter and welcoming coffee.
Already filling a mug for me before the door has closed behind me,
hair the color and shape of an Egyptian pyramid balanced precariously,
she’s shouting into the kitchen, “Crack a pair, keep ‘em sunny,
hash and toast, don’t burn it,” her voice holds everything
that’s ever been worthwhile, the inside of the world in her eyes.
 
Her patch to match Billy’s, “Grace,” fits her as well as her dress
once did, before life filled her and damn near killed her, as it does.
I settle on a stool, cracked plastic over too-thin cushion,
“Let me have some pancakes and bacon.”
Grace hollers to the chef, “I need a stack, three
strips on the side. And tell Horace that Ford needs
an oil change when he finishes washing those dishes.”
 
It could be thirty miles outside of Bangor or
deep in Appalachia, a swamp west of Tallahassee or
a mile high on the road out of Denver,
the only difference the roundness of the vowels,
the temperature of the morning air.
‘Eat Here, Get Gas,’ a joke as old as beans,
as true as biscuits and gravy, as honest as Billy and Grace.
A stop here refuels more than your car.
Never pass up a chance to be filled.

No Threat

 

Verse 1, in which I walk ‘cross town after dinner

at my favorite tavern, toward an evening

of fellowship with like-minded creators

on a sunlit early evening in July,

full of nothing but a sense of peaceful well-being.

 

Verse 2, in which I enter the public walkway,

stroll past the smallest park I’ve ever seen

(only a few benches, a dog-shit-bag dispenser

and a trash barrel), and spy a young woman

at the other end of the path, walking toward me.

 

Verse 3, in which she becomes aware of me,

slightly changes course, moves to the far edge

of the pathway, forces me to realize that,

despite my sense of myself as unthreatening,

she sees some darker potential.

 

Verse 4, in which we each make every effort

to avoid eye contact, me out of a desire

to give no cause for concern, no reason for fear;

she, I presume, to give me no excuse to speak to her,

to intrude on her space, her peace, her safety.

 

Verse 5, in which I would wish to draw some

profound conclusion, but realize the women

among us know all too well the truth here

revealed, a truth the men among us could

never understand, much less explain.

Her Skin Rearranges the Light

 

Her Skin Rearranges the Light
 
What more could I wish
than to adore and be adored by
such as the one who calls me “baby”
as she breathes in my ear;
 
She who bathes in moon-rays
while her skin rearranges the light,
and she anoints me
with the holy oil of her reflection.
 
No more could I hope for
than her emeraldine gaze,
and to remain forever in her grace
is far more than I deserve.