Glimpses

Gary Beck/Glimpses

 

Coincidence?

We survived the Cold War,

though a few times

obliteration murmured

and defeated the Soviet Union

by outspending the big, bad, bear.

Yet ongoing threats

to American security

changed the nation,

gave the oligarchs

opportunity

to consolidate wealth,

move industry offshore

so we no longer made things,

moved the people off the land

into unwelcoming cities,

subsistence taken for granted,

as long as trucks keep delivering

food, other necessities,

power keeps flowing

to sustain cliff dwellers

dependent on electronics.

The bond of community

is perilously frayed,

except for dwindling

good citizens

who want to help neighbors.

We eat in isolation rooms

diverted by tv, the internet,

less active than our fathers,

less willing to face the fascists

overturning our society,

vandals eroding the constitution,

thugs violating the law,

crumbling infrastructure

eroding travel, country

and our non staturous leaders

can not turn the tide

of incipient disaster.

 

 

Disease

Traditionally,

doctors knew best

and for a while

we obeyed their instructions,

except for the stubborn,

the dimmer resisters.

Then insurance companies

inserted themselves

into health treatment,

determining how much they paid

medical practitioners,

severing direct relations

to payer and payee,

restricting how much

insurance paid,

thus changing a profession

once independent

now servants of actuarial tables.

 

 

Criminals

I’m not as bad

as Vladimir Putin,

Kim Jong Un,

many others.

What I’ve done wrong

cannot compare

to men of great evil,

yet my wrongdoing

weighs heavier on me

than the great crimes

inflicted on the innocent

by human-rights abusers.

 

 

Excursion

I was walking on a mountain side

brooding about my failures,

dissatisfaction

the primary motivation

for a new direction,

answers elusive,

spurring frustration,

oblivious

to a beautiful Spring day,

when I came upon

a wild blackberry bush

bursting with large berries.

I picked and picked,

ate and ate

until sated,

went back to my cabin

nothing resolved,

but filled with great feelings

for Nature’s bounty.

 

 

Confusion

One day it’s warm

and the sparrows sing:

“It’s Spring. It’s Spring.”

The next day it’s cold

and the sparrows cry:

“What happened to Spring?”

In early January

the trees were budding

though winter was young.

So many of us

bred on concrete streets

do not notice

seasonal disorders,

or we’d surely know

the climate is a changing.

 

Glimpses is an unpublished poetry collection that takes brief looks at some of the problems that disturb us in this conflicted world:  ‘Coincidence', 'Disease', 'Criminals', 'Excursion', 'Confusion’.