Rigors

Gary Beck/Rigors

 

Disorder

Gunshots echo again

as we huddle on the floor

hoping the street battle

will be over soon

before bullets penetrate

the walls of our apartment

in public housing.

Almost every night now

shooting starts after dark

so we don’t dare go outside

at risk of getting shot,

except for emergencies.

If my children get sick

and need a doctor,

no matter how dangerous

the trip to the hospital

I have to do it for them

because ambulances

don’t come here anymore.

 

 

Resources

The big storm finally came

and blew out the power.

The streets are impassable.

I’m stuck in my apartment

without electricity

so I can’t charge my phone,

my laptop, my kindle.

I don’t know anyone

in this building of strangers,

so I can’t visit someone

to pass the time away.

I’m going out of my mind

because there’s nothing to do

and I can’t help worrying

what will happen to me

if the power doesn’t come back.

 

 

Beauty

I see the tarnished city

streets overflowing

with legions of the lost,

homeless veterans

yearning for their uniforms,

illegal immigrants

hope ignited at the Rio Grande,

extinguished at the detention center,

the mentally ill, the criminals,

the endless victims of poverty

circumspectly ignored

by citizens of abundance

subtracted from humanity,

guilty of the primal sin

abandonment of the children.

All these horrors parade

before my scavenged eyes,

then I turn a corner,

walk past a neglected park,

halted by a flash of orange

a Monarch butterfly,

a visitor of beauty,

a feast for my famished soul,

a momentary fantasy

of pollenating away

the pestilential ugliness

that pollutes the urb.

 

Choices

I lived with my husband

for six pain-filled years

of constant abuse,

verbal and physical,

until I divorced him.

Then he started death threats.

First were unsigned letters,

words cut from magazines

promising torture.

Next were obscene phone calls

vowing he would kill me.

I went to the police,

talked to a detective,

showed him all the letters,

described all the phone calls,

but all he could suggest,

an order of protection

that he said wouldn’t do much good,

which left me only one choice

to get a pistol

and learn to use it.

 

 

Housing Crisis

The inexorable plan

of the corporate magnates

to gentrify the cities

continues relentlessly,

lower income residents

forced out of their apartments

by inordinate rent hikes,

until all they can afford

are outer borough buildings

far removed from former jobs,

so travel is too costly

for them to go to work,

leaving urban centers

as the playground for the rich,

labor imported daily,

not allowed to live there.

 

 

Greed

The glaciers are melting.

The seas are rising.

Storms get bigger,

far more destructive.

Wild fires get wilder,

drought across the land,

natural disasters

increasing daily,

but the powers that be

will cease to profit

if we take urgent steps

to avert climate change,

preferring the collapse

of our environment,

rather than give up

exercising power,

wallowing in comforts.

 

 

Economic Threat

American railroads

once the only sure way

to cross the country,

have been mostly replaced

by impatient passengers

with airline travel.

But railroad owners

are making record profits

hauling vital freight

that keeps the nation going,

yet they will not fairly share

the money that enriches them

with railroad employees

who get almost no sick time

while giving their best

to demanding jobs.

Though most unions in our land

have lost power to the bosses

if the railroad workers strike

they will paralyze the nation

still struggling with inflation,

as well as other burdens

in a time of division.

 

 

Last Stop

When I was young

I could not foresee

how I’d end my days,

barely conscious

in a hospital bed,

in a nursing home

for the indigent,

staffed by the indifferent

of minimal service

to the ebbing lives

consigned to their care.

I can still cognate

sometimes when I’m clear,

but looking backwards

cannot determine

what I should have done

for a better ending.

 

 

Polluted Minds

It’s midterm Election Day

and unlike years ago

when people did not know

who they would vote for

until the last minute

when they reached the polls

today we are certain,

the country so polarized

most of us are decided

not always for good reasons,

some full of anger and hate

spewing ugly theories

of evil conspiracies

plotting to enslave them,

encouraged by a few

who want to end democracy,

replace it with autocracy,

so they can tell us what to do

then compel us to obey

either with illegal laws,

or unjustified arrests,

urgent to shatter the idea

of a free society.

 

 

Systemic Failures

Winter will be coming soon.

We lack fuel for power, heat

and our leaders are away

on luxurious vacations,

or going through the motions

of pretending to govern.

We don’t know how to get help

as our suffering gets worse.

When freezing weather arrives

many of us will perish,

especially the aging,

while righteous politicians

continue their promises

of aid in our time of need.