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On Cruise of Illusion

M/V ‘America’ slipped its mooring
now tossing like a cork on roughest sea
Crew, brainwashed, chants: “Sea calm like flooring
we’re no sailor serfs but well fed & free”!

All but entertainment is a bore
so grant us bantering & glee
by those who us gullible adore:
The Celebs we so pine to be

But hold the laughs! Check the ship’s wake
the helmsman doesn’t know sailing
wake looks like a slithering snake
In bilges no one bailing

A nation on a cruise of illusion
course plotted by a Seasick Master
immune to Reality intrusion.
Just below horizon: Disaster!

Safe on the upper deck
proclaims The Power Elite:
“So what if looms a wreck
we own the whole lifeboat fleet!”

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Hands off, TSA! Out of my way!

Valiant armchair warriors’ voices shrill
Treasury depleted by trillions
Hapless young soldiers sent to maim & kill
feckless foreigners by the millions

Though that ‘underwear bomb’ blew no hole
the Homeland Industry grows, rocks
A dud as well that ‘bomb in a sole’
still we’re here lined up in our socks

Here’s the ridiculous rub:
no more risk risk to fly
than slipping in your bathtub
Where did we go awry:

Distant countries laid in ruinous states
while TSA pats down our ample waists

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Fades life’s rosy bouquet

Withers life when nears the end
fades its rosy bouquet
What was once a stirring blend
now a sagging souffle

Sensory life squall after squall
tiring & worn from the grind
while pretenses mercifully fall
fleetingly we find peace of mind

Leaving behind the mundane
saved from banality
heading into the arcane
welcome finality!

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Wings feebly flapping, in armchairs flopping

Once perhaps eagles, now wobbly geese
ages passed since we looked strapping
Now spectators of silly & sleaze
in armchairs flopping, tongues flapping

In our sugar & fat fueled rut
guzzling, chomping fast food junk
outwards bulges that beach ball gut
no bounce left for cheery spunk

Not letting inequality
or climate calamity
spoil our fun & frivolity!
Busy on screens, can’t you see?

Rather ‘amusing ourselves to death’
than fighting for working democracy
we’re consuming, wheezing out of breath
in willful ignorant hypocrisy

+)
‘Amusing ourselves to death’ = (1985) book title by Neil Postman

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Clogged compassion’s fountain

Some found driven to exert control
to pile up goods, to hold power
Others languish in more modest role
for just more time in the shower

While our own mole a mighty mountain
other’s mountain a measly mole
Clogged many a compassion’s fountain
merely sprinkles the beggar’s bowl

How come we keep hoarding excess
and coldly transgress for ‘success’?

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A life un-examined

Socrates suggested that “the un-examined life is not worth living.” That was then, and it still ain’t. And here is how now:

She: “Recently been thinking a little about the Meaning of Life …”
He: “Honey, why we don’t we google it?”

Boundless affinity for distraction
in vain attempts to handle it all
knee jerks to superficial attraction
one click away or found at the mall

But to lessen Life’s steady pains
must we not all squarely face
how helplessly our vigor drains
caught in Reckoning’s stern gaze?

while our lives us increasingly perplex
by hi-tech growing evermore complex

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Affinity, so what of it?

Sally’s nose, prose & fashion
how she’s just too cloying
Frank’s political passion
ain’t he too annoying?

But bothering with affinity
surely pure prickly vanity?
Best left to saints & divinity
not fallible humanity

We shan’t change them: She’ll sally forth
while he’ll keep on thinking he’s Njorth

+)
Njorth = (Njörðr in Norse mythology) god of the sea, winds and prosperity

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Of diets & workouts loath

Some 50 percent  of U.S. dogs and cats are now overweight or obese shows a recent study conducted by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. But dogs and cats do have some catching up to do. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the percentage of human adults age 20 years and over who are overweight, including obesity, now stands at 69.2 percent (2009-2010)

On their chomping paths unswerving
lazy pets & owners self-coddling
plumb bodies waddle, out-curving
in ‘putting on weight’ role modeling

Hey humans, wheezing, grasping:
“Eat less, walk & don’t kvetch!”
Hey pets, out of breath gasping:
“Get up, out, run & fetch!”

Clearly pet & owner both
of diet & workouts loath

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On planet frayed our children betrayed

Splurging on carbon speeds global warming
in solipsistic cupidity
Indignantly we waive off all warning
thrashing in torrid acridity

Earth’s plight worsens with rapidity
as we hide behind denial’s fig leaf
most arguments mired in quiddity
While turpitude bolsters beyond belief

… as we indulge & betray
what our children can’t defray

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Swam only where shallow

By diffidence tormented
midst misgivings flurried
Absence of peace lamented
for own comfort worried

In life he turned ‘marshmallowed’
swam only where shallow
In cowardice had wallowed
thus aged while still callow

While guilty of many a faux pas
so at least he doesn’t expect applause