American Exceptionalism

There was a time when I believed

My nation could still operate;

When I would have become aggrieved

If any said it wasn't great;

When I considered it our due

To be exceptional; when I

Thought we were better-run than you

And that I knew the reasons why.

I was a child then; but now

I find my understanding grows:

I don't believe I should kowtow

To one who still believes he knows

Our country is somehow well-led:

We have a hundred thousand dead.

Shelter In Place

The church is an essential space

For all the folks who worship there;

It is the place they learn to care

For everyone of every race.

It is the perfect sort of place

To learn that God is everywhere:

That every inch of earth must share

In holy sempiternal grace.

If you cannot conceive a church

(A synagogue, a mosque, a shrine)

Without the people gathered in

It's you, not they, who thus besmirch

The name of holy, or divine:

To threaten lives is always sin.

Content

Deep in the darkness, down where no one dwells

Except the animals, who shouldn't count,

I found a mystery. Now, that shit sells:

They love when secrecy is paramount,

When no one knows what they will know but you.

Take careful notes. Pretend to be opaque.

Don't let them see what they're about to do

And they will thank you. For your own sweet sake

Act like it matters, even when it doesn't;

Then they will think you're made of solid gold,

That every word you said was true (it wasn't)

And that your stories aren't threadbare and old.

Or you can just yell loudly. That can work

But sometimes they will notice you're a jerk.

Ordinary Spies

I watch her when she doesn't think I do;

Not through the windows, or by secret means,

Like hidden cameras or a pinhole view,

But by observing when her head's in screens:

When phone, TV, and laptop take away

Awareness. I look up when she looks down

So I can see her when she is at play,

Her thumbs akimbo and a little frown

Creasing her forehead. I watch to see

The million ways that she is still the same

As when we courted. She won't notice me

Because she is absorbed within a game

But sometimes she'll look up, and catch my glance

And that is what I know of true romance.

Clutter

Nobody thinks

Of anything good

Not that I could

With these time sinks;

Everyone drinks

(Not that they should)

I think I would

Except that beer stinks.

Quarantine seems

A half-world haze

With no law left.

Now all is dreams

In empty days

Meaning bereft.

Tale

Tell me a story of the older days

When people cared about society.

Allow me to pretend that there could be

A grassy lea on which the cattle graze

Without fracking beneath; a subtle haze

Floating in the air pollution-free;

A civic discourse individually

Considered--not the constant blaze

Of flame-war. All of this, alas,

I do not think I ever really knew

Despite the promises our teachers swore.

Perhaps there was a time it came to pass

Or maybe they in turn once missed it too

Nostalgia passing on forevermore.

AO2.0

Consider, if you will, the fanfic writer

Trapped in a maze of others' words and phrases;

Trying to express somehow a tighter

More carefully constructed set of mazes;

Honing a blade already sharp as sky

Until reality itself is bitten;

Filling in unanswered how and why

In ways the copyholders hadn't written.

Compare them to those writers who wrote first:

Whose fond creations are their subject matter;

The fanfic writer claims they are the worst

But I believe those boundaries must shatter:

What is a fiction, but a fanfic hurled

Against the horror of the real world?

Libertarian

If liberty means anything, it means

Responsibility. If it did not

We would be nothing more than libertines

Slowly strangled by our own garrotte.

True freedom lies in true society

In placing others' needs above your own;

We band together best when we are free

And tyrannize the worst when all alone.

With freedom comes no power to do ill

Or if there is, it is a strength unused;

It is not mere extension of the will:

To solipsize is to be self-abused.

Such liberty well-planted ever grows:

The freedom of my fist ends ere your nose.

Simple Fixes

We cannot let these deaths obscure

The other deaths we also could

Avoid. We do not have a cure

For COVID, but I think it would

Be nice, for once, to see a fall

In those kinds of mortality

That we could fix, since after all

So much comes from stupidity.

So much death lies in human hands:

We could do better. Let us drive

Safely on the road; let's eat

More carefully; let the demands

Of coal and gas no longer thrive;

And don't shoot black men in the street.

Hamlet in Quarantine

I thought I could be bounded in a shell

And count myself a king. But I was wrong;

A nut in theory is a notebound song

That needs the touch of instruments to tell

What is in key, and what is tuned unwell.

The worries I have hoarded all along

Return when I'm alone in horrid throng

And make my home a self-sustaining hell.

To rule here, as in hell, is mockery:

I cannot step a foot beyond myself

And every thought repeats what I have thought.

For mere sensation I destroy the crockery

And push my tumblers off of every shelf

Until I drink from mugs my uncle bought.