Their latest covers.

And that’s H-I-N-D-ley as in HIND TIT, which certainly isn’t what you get with these folks.  They sure do bring it back. 

ALL OF IT.

 

 

 

 

As can be seen, China’s claims violate EVERY OTHER COUNTRY’S CLAIMS in the region.

Oh, guess who’s playing HEGEMON now?

POEMS, PHOTOS, NOTES

Below 14th

Lost in the welter
Of others retooled
Or by nuts winging by
On the fly,
I study the city --
Syncretic, detoxed --
Its contours, my scholar's
Remit.

Streets now re-fleeted,
Are surging ahead,
The moment unsummoned,
Resumes.
Passels of sundresses
Tease women's hips.
Sidewalks respond
With applause.

JAD, 2021

If socialism kills incentive, capitalism kills itself.  Slavery and feudalism last.

Remember the Dylan song, “From a Buick 6?”  Well, that’s not what we have here.  No, this commemorates Stephen King’s novel, From a Buick 8.  Me, I’ve never known from Buicks, but I do like this car.

My cousins had one, and I remember admiring its black GLEAM as it sat there parked in the street.  We kids always played in the street around parked cars.

I was walking through Millerton where I’d gone to run some errands when I noticed it parked near the rail trail.  Must photograph it, I thought.  I mean, there it was — and ode to the 50’s.  The world before Southeast Asia. 

Funny how the back of it reminds you of a woman’s hips in a Victorian bustle.  I’ll go with that.

The Moment Sees

Is sadness now 
Descending
Or stillness in its wake?
Has time at last 
Recast its face?
What flourished dwindles fast.
The moment sees
Its image best
When gamely shining through.
Beyond this fleshless,
Networked maze,
It's easing into view.

JAD, 2021

With any form of money, utility value precedes exchange value.  Bitcoin’s utility is as a payment system.  Is that utility enough?

Lakeville

What causes a
Body of water
To soothe and settle
The soul,
To smooth the surface
Of silence,
And to ease the will
As it stills?

JAD, 2021

The irony of the unsaid.  Or in this case, the undepicted. 

It’s not the notes you play but the ones you don’t play.  It’s as true of angles in photos.  What you don’t show is just as important.

Addition by subtraction.

Half full or half empty?  Both.

What Angels Sense

The acid ever after,
The oscillating tide,
The marginal perception,
The riddle of the night,

The saturated symbol,
The marinated beef,
The mercantile intention,
The moon above the beach,

A cavalier apprentice,
A chromium facade,
A toast to Saratoga,
A tabby in the yard,

A message in a muffin,
A treatise over tea,
A Romeo on Cyprus,
A penny for a breeze,

When love is in the docket,
And pride aligns with pain,
And hate abates too slowly,
And now, it's getting late,

Where some may see a pattern,
And paraphrase the shrewd,
And galvanize the merry,
And mesmerize a few,

A miscreant in hiding,
A mendicant at peace,
A mission unaccomplished,
A marriage in a vise.

A terra cotta terrace,
A vigilante priest,
A tapestry of Venice,
A vexing expertise,

The laminated laurels,
The urge to disappear,
The gulls above the river,
The climax drawing near,

The after-party fever,
The misdirected spite,
The faltering discretion,
The middle of the night.

JAD, 2021

The world is both one and at hand.

Within that imminent unity, difference defines what’s there.

Difference is as well an aspect of unity.

Perceiver and perceived are the same.

Dimension measures and is measured.

The glass is half full and half empty.

I both have . . . and am . . . a body.

Nature and nurture are inseparable.

Bone on Bone

Where are cushy buffers,
Those puffy, air-filled bags,
Those foamy chairs
And mattresses --
To sugarcoat the years?
When none of them are 
Plush enough,
It's down to bone on bone.

JAD, 2021

Metal on grass.

To glean from figures abstractions.  To build from abstractions figures.

A grill like bared teeth.  I bet it once snarled.

Lines of time to infinity.

East River Beach

Though its glacier-carved shoreline
Cuts close to my door,
Don't call it a river.
It's not.
Think channel or inlet
Or arm of the sea
Or ESTU -- um -- ARY.
That's it.

They don't allow swimming.
There's no place to change
Or sunbathe at lunchtime
Or gaze out to sea.
Just savor the breezes
And maritime tang,
And picture the beaches
You've loved.

JAD, 2021

We don’t need partisanship but balance.  And what’s diversity worth without harmony?

Talent sets limits, but confidence frames outcomes.

How does nothing become something?  Or is there always something?  And does something ever become nothing?

His death astonished people.  Crucifered by green vegetables.

Intelligence grounded in indifference.  Is it not the basis of consciousness?

We need guts to experience, smarts to discern and poise to decide what to do.

Running on Fumes

Me, I mix things up.
You here to pour or what?

I am.

Well, Jesus Christ, don't say!
An Anglo-Irish Angle
With a Balkan-Slavic twist.

Sir, that's one stiff drink.

Except I always drink them.
Mix it up.  J'ai soif.

Yes, sir, coming up!

And a Mulled Manhattan
Chaser.

Mulled, sir? Q'uest-ce-que c'est?

I drink Manhattans mulled
These days.
I mull them as I drink.

Sir, that sounds straight up.

What are you -- a poet?
A writer testing life?

Sir, I just tend bar.

Time you read Walt Whitman
Or better yet, Hart Crane.
You have that haunted something
Look.  But do you even read?

Sir, I read a bit on line
Though now I own some books.
I take it, sir, you're good.

Good but always better.
You're the one needs help.

Sir, I try to do my best
Then hope that it's enough.

Try some Wallace Stevens, too.
Some Yeats or Ezra Pound.
They're hard, but that's the point.

Sir, it's clear I need some scope.
I plan to read them all.

JAD, 2021

Being There

We line the moment
With plausible fears,
Strum them and harbor
Them close.
We're haunted by what
We can't sense.
Triumph unthinkingly
Pays us a call.
We're grateful but
Quickly beg off.
Fortune reverses.
We've learned.

JAD, 2021

Unlicensed.

Rusting.

Tarnished.

Buick Eight.

August Light to Night

It was one of those gentle
Midsummer nights
When the world in its way
Seems to stop.
As though it were merely
A wrinkle in time,
Yet poised on the edge
Of a doubt.
Maybe a writer's or
Desperate priest's
But there for the moment
As is.

That late fading light
That falls on Manhattan --
That's fallen on decades
Of Augusts before --
Fell in a way that
Collected them neatly
Including the ones 
That I've known.
Light's bold finale,
It's last angled rays,
Flooded the cross streets
At eight.

JAD, 2021

I Know You

Here I am, the commandant,
Botswana Benny, stoked;
Diner Gus, re-Socratized,
When Eiffeled Yves salutes.
I've seen you clop through
Union Square,
Your sharpened four-inch heels.
I'd swear I've seen them kill.

Spare the swank and sacrosanct 
Who skirt your storied reach,
Who storm your taunts
And metaphors,
Who lyricize your teeth,
Who've seen your nerve on
Full display --
I'd swear you've made them think.

Rivals, avaricious now --
Or merely stocking up --
Are angling for that pedigree
Your scented greed corrupts
As hustlers from the neighborhood,
Those after-hours husks,
Catalogue your platitudes.
I'd swear they've seen you drunk.

Freed from rolling aftermaths
Of shards of guttered glass,
You're shopping up on
Madison,
I know -- I did the math.
Despite your fetching
Attributes,
I'd swear I made you up. 

JAD, 2021

Following up on yesterday’s post on how the US swept the Tokyo Olympics, THE REST OF THE ANGLOSPHERE — the UK and its COMMON LAW/PARLIAMENTARY PROGENY — did extremely well as well.

Here are the combined medal numbers for the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Gold

Out of 340 awarded, the Anglosphere snared 92 or 27.1%.

Silver

Out of 338 awarded, the Anglosphere won 81 or 24.0%.

Bronze

Out of 402 awarded, the Anglosphere grabbed 95 or 23.6%.

NOT A BAD FORTNIGHT’S WORK FOR THE HEIRS OF SHAKESPEARE’S ENGLISH.

 . . . in Olympic Sports.

So, no codpiece for you, China.  Just that same old People’s Republic jock strap.  We beat you at the buzzer again.

CONGRATS TO TEAM USA!

If the Delta variant gets loose in China, all bets — global economy speaking — are off.

Will it happen?  Who knows?  We don’t think like totalitarians yet.

Yes, I said “YET.”

Sung to the tune of “What the World Needs Now” by Dionne Warwick.  Gallows humor, you say?

Oh, you be right on with that!

You see that last number? Crime and violence in the US? It’s the lowest major concern by percentage of any of the countries listed here, BUT IT STILL SPELLS TROUBLE FOR DEMOCRATS.

You better look sharp, Democrats. The Midterms are coming for you. Ditch this woke nonsense, or it could be Speaker McCarthy. How’s that for our next national travesty?

POEMS, PHOTOS, EPIGRAMS

Jazz:  The unacknowledged music of the unacknowledged self. 

Seeing Is Erasing

When we see what we wish
To see in each face,
What we don’t wish to see
We erase.

JAD 2020

So What

So What, indeed, now play it.
Naked notes spawned naked nights,
Skyline lights we lived for.
I see in girlish,
Smiling snaps
What winter wonders blazed.
The moment rising, 
Briefly thawed;
That swelling in your chest;
That point in time
You thought you owned;
That snow in frozen clumps.

JAD, 2021

Passing

Nights I went home alone,
I’d always cab to
Third Avenue; 
Scarf down two franks,
Some jus de papaye as
Proof that I’d always be young.
To stand there rekindled 
In neon relief – 
A quick-bite more sober
And almost myself –
Assured me that nothing 
Had changed.

JAD, 2021

Their Marks

Days assemble, pass, re-mass – 
Then pass again as fast
As slings from angels
Winging past
Imperil shallow sleep.
Some have flinched though 
Most have not,
So, don’t expect a rout.
No humbling truce or 
TKO,
No fixed or cancelled bout.
Despite dismay,
A microbe’s arc,
Most have earned their marks.

JAD, 2021

OCD Update

Amid the words and phrases
That mask the simple truth,
You’ll find us crossing T’s.

Beneath the psychic tensions
That steer us towards AA,
We’re cheering on AI.

Convinced by scheming cynics
That more is all we need,
We’re hoarding IOU’s.

Despite the sullen musings
That suffer subtle lies,
We’re happy dotting I’s. 

Evolving ever faster
Down tracks we can’t foresee,
We’re mixing P’s and Q’s.

Forever out-finagled
By sneaks retailing dreams,
We’re ripe for MMT.

Granola-fed and fattened 
And tethered-fast to taste,
We’re food for GMO’s.

Hellaciously tomorrow,
More hellishly in time,
We’re spreading STD’s.

Immuno-academics  
Who vitiate free speech
Have cancelled Q&A.

Jocasta-blind Medusas  
And Joes who never vote
Have stoked the GRU.

Kaleidoscopic bigots
And Rightists wronged by right
Have joined the KKK.

Leander-like romantics 
Who play at CEO
Have emailed BDO.

Meander, son of Ocean,
His tweets in knickered-twists,
Has texted AOC.

Neglected never-Trumpers 
Who deftly proved their case
Have marked it – QED. 

Opining open-minders
With reckless false-aplomb
Have licensed BLM.

Pedantic codependents
Who troll your every thought
Have censored MTV.

Quixotic correspondents
Who cultivate new cults
Are loose on AOL.

Robotic reenactors 
Who like to trade in pelts
Are gutting M&A.

Subverted Sandinistas, 
Soprano Sons of Sam,
Are shilling MIT.

Totemic diabetics –
Now sugared half to death – 
Are hoarding m&m’s.

Usurping master-builders
Of money’s honeyed traps
Are hawking CLO’s.

Vindictive, arch-resistors,
Wheelmen bred off-road,
Are trashing SUV’s.

Whenever pols or pundits
Start speaking from the heart,
They’re thinking CYA.

Xerotic zero-summers
Who frown on equal shares
Rely on OPM.

Yogistic in her thinking,
Holistic in her hips,
She’s rated Triple-A.

Zymotic in his changes,
Affixed to what exists,
He’s run from A through Z. 

JAD, 2021

As COVID continues to spread, patrons of makeshift outdoor cafes are giving me serious pause.  They remind me of royalty rightly deposed who still living smartly risk being jailed.

We’re Not

While life always offers us 
All that it is,
We can only partake 
Of so much;
Soft-shoe so nimbly
The breath in and out;
Heat-exchange tango,  
Nonstop.

As will, chasing fortune,
Decouples, declawed,
And prospects diminish,
Untried – 
Blindly, we question --
Jesus, what’s this?
Angels, I’m sorry,
We’re not.

JAD, 2021

REM XXXV: Come the Reckoning

McSwarthy piggled 
And haggled his heath
In the clamor of
Of cliffs coming down.

The piddling pedantics 
Protested in vain,
When clipped as they were
By DiMag.

Was there motive, a mission,
A missive of note?
Had the earth even
Harbored a move?

Came flotsams of ocean;
Be-muggered small-frisks,
The ethos post-partum
Of prime.

Then nuggets of Niners,
Sublime inner chimes,
The triumph of sound
Over sense.

Had Chomsky foreseen it?
Was Chaucer clued in?
Had Lennon re-riddled
His wry?

Chardin quickly sensed it,
De Montfort demurred,
The three Kings of blues
Struck a chord . . .

Albert to B.B.
To Freddy – Be ready –
Plucking their strings
Through the wheeze.

Lennon decanted,
Revisioned his worst,
Extracted from rubrics
His runes.

He’d carried the weighty,
Come martyr-dumb numb,
A-sundered the rub
‘Cross the Mirthy.

McSwarthy, untethered,
Though hardly unhinged,
Stood trial for
Reckless gross-piggle.

The parceled, the prickled,
The pickled, the probed,
The precious and
Patently pilled . . .

The pillars of posh
And High-Piffle – 
Declared his acquittal
A sign.

Chaucer, a-chortle,
Re-chanting his words,
Re-cantered the buried
To Beckett. 

Try as he mighty,
In Lennon’s own writey,
He pled for his royals
And frees.

Hungered by heartburn,
Hurdled by hope,
I hammocked the
Hemlock of haste.

JAD, 2021

REM XXXVI

I retrieved all my gauntlets,
Removed them from time
And left them to
Steep in my spleen.
Many had done this.
I’d seen that it worked.
I had just as few quirks
As the saved.

The clownish attachment
To passions and highs,
The underground rage
Of the beaten,
The fevered adherence
To fleeting accord
No longer cemented
My schemes.

Drifting through wonder,
I’d toyed with the grift,
Refining my mission
To trips –
To Paris for fabrics
Still milled in Milan,
To Rome in
Malingering fits.

Fortune saluting,
Had lunged for my bags.
I’d nailed her in
Photos and scores.
But who’d borne the interest?
The runaway costs?
In time, I found out
It was I.

JAD, 2021

Did the Center Not Buckle?

He cyphered surveillance,
Survivaled defeat
And severed all tithes
From the Tome.
The sun having scorched 
His accomplice,
He peddled his pewter
To priests.
Semantics concerned him,
Pedantic reviews;
There were efforts to
Scupper his writs.
The gods wouldn’t have it,
They told him no-go.
Relieved, he retired
To breathe.

But how now to pivot,
Distinguish, disarm;
Re-pattern the matter
At hand?
He’d tightened the braces 
Supporting his knees,
His brain now reporting
Decay.
Did it start with pandemics,
Despotic new flus?
Did the center not buckle,
Come hell?
Grievance had gathered
To linguists’ dismay
When language, now ruptured,
Tore free.

JAD, 2021

We all have that one appointment that given the choice we’d skip.

Bogus

You more than most
Understand this
As you learned it much harder
Alone.
First, comes the moment,
The backlash, the rage;
Who gets it; who doesn’t;
Who cares.

When the mission sufficient
But minted too soon,
Turned dull like an
Infant’s bronzed shoes;
When you hadn’t an inkling
Your road-test had failed –  
Your thinking left many
Bemused.

All you’d promoted 
Turned back on you fast,
Came rippling in wavelets 
Of doubt.
From quotas to codas
To cummerbund feints,
You’d known it was bogus
The moment you flinched.

JAD, 2021

I Ask

You thought you’d outwit history
But now know well decline.
Shorter cycles tersely state
What seasons paint at length.
But who’s that dishing out
That fish?
Who issues loans as loaves?
Have Bronze-Age rites
Been bowdlerized to
Bronze the right’s buffoons?
The pseudo-just are
Muzzling us,
Policing wayward words.
Who sanitizes speech,
I ask,
But those who can’t take pain?

JAD, 2021

Into Blur

Momentum cascades
Towards recurring regret,
Reverts to assuming
Fresh debt.
The rational minders
Withdraw their support,
The vicars of conscience
Concede.
What lives have we wasted
In willful neglect,
In spasms of fury
And spite?
Might angels or martyrs – 
If only this once – 
Relieve us of weight
We can’t bear?
The solemn pronouncements
We hear from the wise,
The lies we exalt
And exhale,
Racing together like
Claimers for stakes,
Must falter and fall
Off the pace.
The venom, the rapture,
The concretized fear,
Revealed and correctly
Assessed,
At length coalesce 
Till they blend into blur
As the moments uncaring
Stream past.

JAD, 2021

A professional can perform handily — even handsomely — absent inspiration.

Traditions are as vital as values.

Countdown

Don’t sweat the gauntlet
We’ve rubbered the road.
The hardest fall softest
The hardest.

They thought I could do it.
I’d studied the part.
They suited me up.
I scammed them.

The 60’s derailed us.
Awareness went wrong.
We’ve never been
Serious since.

What did I tell you,
And what will you do
In the vacuum of
Limitless space?

Sartre had it right:
Condemned to existence.
Camus then explained
How to spin it.

We played all the angles,
Took bank shots galore.
It’s written, I wrote it.
There’s more.

We’re chasing an endgame
We’re certain will end
But don’t have the
Courage to stop.

I’m searching for answers
I’m sure I once found
But wary of those
That I missed.

Immune to psychosis,
I’m mortally well.
So, how do I scuttle
This angst?

What mission escapes us,
What fathomless goal
That threatens to mortgage
Dead souls?

The music grows louder.
I don’t know the words.
I don’t like the patty-cake
Beat.

The evening consoles me.
By morning, I’m tense.
The countdown continues,
No less.

JAD, 2021

Early developers often stall, finishing strong as late bloomers.

Shadow Play

Of course, it’s sound and fury.
Of course, the center won’t hold.
The bell only tolls for
Those who can hear it.
You’re left with your hostess.
Get used to it.
But no matter how tender
Or tragic the night,
It’s likely the sun
Will still rise.
There are miles to cover
And roads not to take,
Though some have booked through
To Samarra. 
Many were chosen
Though few anteed up.
They had Coney-like
Islands in mind.
Yet, we still have to be – 
Have we not?
My kingdom has fallen – 
I’ll still need that horse – 
But call off the charge
On St. Crispin’s.
From nowhere to nowhere,
I’m just passing through,
So it’s not just the notes
You don’t play.
Do nothing whenever
In doubt or dismay
Be it whimpers or
Flashbangs to come.
Yes, something just happened.
The horse knows the way.
If you’re not dead already,
Then prove it.

JAD, 2021

REM XXXVII: The Harvest

Revelry roams
Through rioting hills,
Aflame after dark,
Unfueled.
The flutes of forgiveness,
Fruits of despair
And fractured surrenders
Keep time.

I’m girded for gridlock,
Grimaced from pain,
Insane with unflinching
Regret.
Don’t call the boatman.
We don’t need him yet.
My stasis still plays
Like resolve.

Cryptically, cynically, 
Phantoms depart,
Each leveraging link
To the past.
The holies of madness
And sexual theft
Have conjured the
Jurors of time.

Consciousness streaming
Unfiltered in fits
Has rummaged through
Rabid remorse.
When came the moment,
The end of the spell?
I flinched at the turning.
Now comes the test.

JAD, 2021

Going Back, Are You?

Images muster
As if to sound off
Down all-mirrored 
Hallways re-found.
Sometimes, more telling,
Sometimes, obscure – 
They dazzle like
Visions still fresh.

Each single image
Or sequence restored
Can suck you through
Wormholes of loss.
What greets you beyond them
Will always feel real,
Suggesting the past
Still exists.

It’s just an old gambit
To fluster the brain.
To poison good sense
With false hope.
You’ll notice each journey
Has conned you again
The moment it rips
Out your heart.

JAD, 2021

Approaching Times Square

Sprung from the thicket
Of morning-less night
And into these
Sodium beams --
Past cyclists now streaming
On dozens of screens --
I scavenge the leavings
Of lure.

Caterwauled sermons
Ascending from hell
Resuscitate renegade 
Charm.
I’m Jaweh’s own flaming
Archangel-enfant,
His swiftness turned
Terrible sword.

Endemic, pandemic, 
Pedantic, panned-out,
Bin-Ladened, done-been-there,
Bespoke –
The world in its witchcraft
And magical woke,
Is grinding through wormholes
Un-lubed.  

Is it friction a fraction
Too fierce for the fleeced?
Does it trigger the
Weak and the dissed?
Are the learned unwilling
To gentle the gist?
Sherlock, don’t shit me
Then no-shit-me not.

JAD, 2021

Night Walk

1.

Towering structures
Humble these strides
Decoupled from
Ambient night.
Wistfulness wars
With fresh wishes.
Purposeless futures
In search of the past
Collapse from regret
Or dismay.
Hemingway’s terror
Turns real.

2.

Readers of writers
Who’ve written for coin,
Those writers who no 
Longer read,
Painters committed
To painting through pain,
Scholars secure
In their creeds – 
When naked, look
Lamely the same.
May their atoms 
Return to the sun.

3.

Fortune’s own fortune,
Its probable flow,
Its patterns unfathomed
And counting – 
The flushes and fades,
Unending parades –
Are of little concern
To the wise.
Wedded to nothing
And quick to concede,
They accept that the moon
Merely glows.

4.

Canyons of April,
Of evenings refreshed,
Of winter’s dark presence
Deleted, 
Of spring’s solemn mission
Remounted at last,
Of gratitude 
Signaling peace –  
I return to this turning,
This semblance of grace,
This moment unbounded
By time.

JAD, 2021

April Indelible

The city restricted
To where I can walk –
Reducing my sidetracking
Range,
Now limits the reach
Of my brain.
April encouraged, yet
Duly constrained,
Submits to the virus’s
Will.

What will it feel like
On warm afternoons?

The pleasures of movement,
The melding of myth,
The mystical, manacled
Self – 
Entangled in corridors
Once labeled streets – 
Are seeking to 
Neutralize death.

How many corners
Are minus their store?

The sumptuous music
The young hear in spring,
The cadences sung,
Now renascent,
Encourage that chorus
Of all that still turns
And with it, my
Budding resolve.

Show me the few who 
Oppose me?

A cantering stanza,
From Eliot's spring – 
My 70’s yearning
Returns –
The sky in transition,
Easterly clouds,
And just as was augured,
The witness I am – 

Now with my journeys
All taken and stored.

JAD, 2021

Listening to jazz is like reading a novel.  You’re required to make an investment.

How Many?

How many springs,
Ignored resurrections
And scorned destinations 
Have passed?

And how many women
Dispatched?

Have I hollowed the hallways
Of corporate excess
With agendas conceived
On my own?

Have I looted the
Crudest of lies?

I wander this district,
Regrouping on Sixth,
Where gold-plating thins
As I age.

Are there any who trade
In rare metals?

I’ve mastered these measures,
Concocted this past
And now must assemble 
These lines.

Are there any who
Still seek instruction?

How many springs,
Repressed perturbations
And fogged contemplations
Stream past?

And how many heartaches,
Rehashed?

JAD, 2021

Your Past

Unless you block it
By blasting your brain,
Or your brain rebrands you
Itself,
Your past tends to dog you
And fuel your distress
When remorse is your
Torture of choice.
Is this how you reckon
You’ll purge yourself clean?
It’s never too late
To let go.

JAD, 2021

REM XXXVIII

Your measured mercies
Masquerade
As missions more than less.
You mock your victims’ pain.

The ease with which
You shed regret
Assures a gnawing dread.
You do it nonetheless.

The sacred sauce
Of secret selves
Seeps slowly through your skin.
You out yourself routinely.

Your bent is breaking
Bronco wills
And carving out your turf
You’ve seen your tides recede.

Though seldom one
To help a friend
You're quick to strike a blow.
You feel it makes you strong.

Who still evades
The cavalcade
Of all you still may try
Is wiser by the day.

JAD, 2021

The East 60’s

There came that instant
Second sense,
Some stronger intimation,
A thrilling surge
Of sentiment
You’d never felt before.
Your first Manhattan
Side-street spring,
The play of heat and light
You cupped those days
In trembling palms
And swore to not let go.

JAD, 2021

Sisters II

Novels and theories
And music in waves,
The pang of a
Heartbreaking smile.
Five-story walkups 
With green-painted halls;
The call of the night-
Crawling street.

Who were we really –
We purest of heart,
We marchers and
Agents of change?
Merely consumers
Of camouflaged debt,
We lovers of Keynes
And cocaine?

I picture you walking
Up Broadway that night,
Your sister and you
In your moods.
No money, no family,
No merciful God.
I grinned through my shock,
And you knew.

There for the taking
Were each of you – both.
I’d only to curb
My compulsion.
Did I ever attempt it
Not in those days.
And yet you had talent
And understood love.

But none of that mattered
As both of you died
While, numbly, I
Stumbled along.
You wouldn’t have changed me.
My soul never formed,
Though I’d learned what I wasn’t
And never would be.

It wasn’t so tragic –
What never occurred
As that kind of wound
Can be treated.
What crippled us finally
Despite our designs,
Is what couldn’t have
Happened at all.

JAD, 2021

Golden moments or a chance at repose?

Published by Rand McNally in 1931.

Question is — Where is the US’s SPEND going.  And to WHOM.  In other words, how much of this is DEFENSE CONTRACTOR/LOOTING?

One can make a career — and a LOT OF MONEY — from “contract overruns.”

And then, of course, we have all of these ex-military senior officers sitting on the boards of aerospace and defense companies.

It’s the POWER and MONEY tango.  America’s favorite dance.