Borders

Capital crosses borders freely.

Wars do too.

Environmental chaos crosses borders freely.

Marketing does too.

Drugs cross borders freely.

The drug war does too.

Think tank ideas cross borders freely.

Shit songs, shit movies do too.

All these things and more move as soaring birds

Above the piss-drawn lines on maps.

Only you, only I, only the refugee

Chased off of her land by drought and drug gangs,

Chased out of his house by hunger and threat

Does not cross borders freely

Is rebuffed, interrogated, confined in ice boxes,

And must remain in one place

As the madness descends from afar.

  

My 70's

The singer Rickie Lee Jones and the song “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” by Steely Dan came into my consciousness around the same time and I could never separate them. They merged with the forest green carpet I used to run my Tonka trucks across and the fluttering clip sound of the Big Wheel I rode in front of the house. The way Rickie Lee Jones looked in her blueberry beret and flowing blouses. The way Steely Dan sounded like a mathematical after-hours cocaine band that I loathed but was drawn to. All dreams issued from the off-white clock radio with the ever-flipping numbers.

written on the train

poems are good

because you can

write them fast

kind of like songs

mark ribot composed

one while waiting

for a friend

to answer the door

and billy strayhorn

wrote lush life

at age 16

walking a few

city blocks

in shimmering

pittsburgh

baggypantsrich

and i

played an open

mic at a

polish restaurant/bar

in pittsburgh

and a wizened

old man

who looked

like he might be

and open mic

bullshit artist

stepped on stage

and played

rambling man

by hank williams

and then

i believed

in 2 ½ minutes

a drifter

accepts his fate

the american universe

of loneliness is

laid down in verse

like railroad lines

sunset pulled

LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE - POEM

LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

     is akin

TO WATCHING

                                                            your ancient

BELOVED

                                                            uncle

SLOWLY

      methodically

PLOT

                                                            his own

DEATH  

                                                            and carry out

THE ACT

                                                            tying the hangman’s

NOOSE

                                                            scaling the stepladder

KICKING IT AWAY

                                                            and swinging

DEAD

                                     (sculpture by glenn morris)

                                                             

Meritocracy and Its Discontents

The Gorgon blowing the fire that fuels the plot of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) is the ideology of meritocracy. We are instructed in this country that if we enter a period of need – a time when we must turn to others for support – it is because we are failures, people insufficient to the task of living. This is a myth. People hit hard times in our culture not because they are inadequate beings, but rather because the society requires need and want. We live in an economy based on scarcity. People hit hard times because the human animal is a social animal and there’s very little we can accomplish entirely on our own. Those who “succeed” according to the parameters of our society do so within a significant web of support and tutelage.

To the extent that meritocracy does function in the United States, it is decidedly not a system that functions in order to reward behavior that is good for society or for the planet and its nonhuman residents. This is because what is rewarded, ultimately, is the ability to sell and selling is an amoral action. Occasionally, the type of exchange defined by sales can be beneficial to a community, but just as often the exchange requires exploitation, manipulation and despoliation. It results in strained relations that ultimately decay into alienation. Such is the case of Willy Loman. An identity and sense of worth predicated upon one’s ability to sell is a house of kindling awaiting a match.