1. Holiday Party in San Bernardino
14 dead.
21 wounded.
Holiday party in San Bernardino.
Syed Farook and his wife
in black tactical gear spray
75 bullets all over the hall.
Our president wants to know more.
He wants the FBI to tell him
the couple's motive.
Perhaps this explains why
the Trumpeter Swan enjoys
a 20-point lead in the polls.
14 dead.
21 wounded.
Holiday party in San Bernardino.
Syed Farook and his wife
in black tactical gear spray
75 bullets all over the hall.
Our president wants to know more.
He wants the FBI to tell him
the couple's motive.
Perhaps this explains why
the Trumpeter Swan enjoys
a 20-point lead in the polls.
***
2.Two in the Soup
We’re twins.
We’ve been together
from the start.
You’re the doctor.
You know that.
She didn’t sound happy
when you told her
there were two.
We’re worried
she doesn’t want us.
See you next week
when she comes back
with her decision.
We’ll float till then.
Nothing else to do.
***
3.Remainder Bin
We write the stories
of our lives between
the bookends
of birth and death
They stay on the shelf
as long as we live
and then go in
the remainder bin
after we die.
No one buys them
and the paper’s recycled
to print the stories
of millions of people
yet to be born
except for the stories
that are never told.
They are the stories
Planned Parenthood sells.
***
4.Just for a Day
If you want to know
what it’s like to have nothing
just for a day
head for Skid Row.
Trade your suit and 20 bucks
for the attire of a resident
standing against a wall.
Buy a tin cup and yellow pencils
and go to Union Station in time
for the evening rush hour
when suburbanites with jobs
on Michigan Avenue go home
for dinner and a little HBO.
Flop down near the entrance
in your tatters with pencils and cup.
Wear Charles Bronson sunglasses
and hold high a sign that says,
“Will Work for Food.”
Count the briefcases that sail by
and see how many pencils you sell,
how many people even look at you
before the gendarmes arrive
and poke you with a baton
then walk you away.
***
5.A Milkshake Brings Advice
I bring a milkshake every other week
to an old man in a nursing home,
a refugee from Germany who paid me
50 cents to cut his grass when I was
a kid in Chicago after WWII.
I couldn’t understand him then
and I can’t understand him now
but 50 cents was big money
in 1950, 10 candy bars,
10 popsicles or maybe 5 Cokes.
Or I could mix and match and trade
Pete the Collector for a baseball card.
Now my old neighbor sits in bed
and swigs his milkshake as I tell him
that I drove by his house the other day
and the new owners have planted
roses and lilies everywhere.
Every color imaginable.
A botanical garden in bloom.
He blinks at me, smiles
and takes a final swig.
Because of the language problem
we never talk about anything
except the house he will never
see again and then marvel that
he will turn 100 soon, quite a feat.
He smiles at that as well.
But he doesn’t smile when I get up
to leave and offers me advice
in the thunder of his accent:
“Someone had better stop ISIS now.
When I was a kid in Berlin, no one
stopped Hitler the bastard then."
2.Two in the Soup
We’re twins.
We’ve been together
from the start.
You’re the doctor.
You know that.
She didn’t sound happy
when you told her
there were two.
We’re worried
she doesn’t want us.
See you next week
when she comes back
with her decision.
We’ll float till then.
Nothing else to do.
***
3.Remainder Bin
We write the stories
of our lives between
the bookends
of birth and death
They stay on the shelf
as long as we live
and then go in
the remainder bin
after we die.
No one buys them
and the paper’s recycled
to print the stories
of millions of people
yet to be born
except for the stories
that are never told.
They are the stories
Planned Parenthood sells.
***
4.Just for a Day
If you want to know
what it’s like to have nothing
just for a day
head for Skid Row.
Trade your suit and 20 bucks
for the attire of a resident
standing against a wall.
Buy a tin cup and yellow pencils
and go to Union Station in time
for the evening rush hour
when suburbanites with jobs
on Michigan Avenue go home
for dinner and a little HBO.
Flop down near the entrance
in your tatters with pencils and cup.
Wear Charles Bronson sunglasses
and hold high a sign that says,
“Will Work for Food.”
Count the briefcases that sail by
and see how many pencils you sell,
how many people even look at you
before the gendarmes arrive
and poke you with a baton
then walk you away.
***
5.A Milkshake Brings Advice
I bring a milkshake every other week
to an old man in a nursing home,
a refugee from Germany who paid me
50 cents to cut his grass when I was
a kid in Chicago after WWII.
I couldn’t understand him then
and I can’t understand him now
but 50 cents was big money
in 1950, 10 candy bars,
10 popsicles or maybe 5 Cokes.
Or I could mix and match and trade
Pete the Collector for a baseball card.
Now my old neighbor sits in bed
and swigs his milkshake as I tell him
that I drove by his house the other day
and the new owners have planted
roses and lilies everywhere.
Every color imaginable.
A botanical garden in bloom.
He blinks at me, smiles
and takes a final swig.
Because of the language problem
we never talk about anything
except the house he will never
see again and then marvel that
he will turn 100 soon, quite a feat.
He smiles at that as well.
But he doesn’t smile when I get up
to leave and offers me advice
in the thunder of his accent:
“Someone had better stop ISIS now.
When I was a kid in Berlin, no one
stopped Hitler the bastard then."
