20150830 (population growth)

Beware of world population clocks

Like the national debt ticker it won’t

Stop you’ll get very dizzy

You don’t know who dies on the second line

Nor any idea who the new babies are

I knew of Oliver Sacks who died 

Yesterday which one of the blips he was

No one knows in that torrent of finalities

I know one added baby showed up

A month and a half ago his parents 

Were likely too busy to note

When his number flipped over

Mind boggling when you consider

Molecules there are so many more 

They spread so fast I was taught 

In high school chemistry we have probably

Breathed in some of the same oxygen

That once sustained Christ Homer

Shakespeare Avogadro likewise

Torquemada Genghis Kahn Hitler 

The Borgias interesting that we all

Have that in common but it doesn’t

Leave a bad or good taste in my

Mouth not knowing was somewhat

Comforting I thought not like

Sharing the same air on a six-hour 

Flight to Seattle with two hundred plus

Coughers on board that’s when I’d like

The windows to open a crack

Like the side vents cars used to have

Every additional baby is putting more 

Breathers on the planet and the deaths

Are not keeping up additional faces

Mean there’ll be that much more 

Competition for what’s left especially 

Since all the new folks will want to live 

Grander than us prodigals soiling

Everything we touch refusing to make do

You’re wearing last year’s clothes

Get a new car get the latest have it all

Remember Jesus said the poor you

Will always have with you they’ll make it

They’re resourceful you can always give 

Old clothes away how do you think

Zimbabweans come by Heights soccer

Shirts in the middle of Africa they’re

Recycled that’s what you want

Plus we’re making jobs for those poor 

In Bangladesh who produce our new

Clothes growth you gotta have it 

Or it all falls apart go forth and multiply

What you’re talking isn’t sustainable

Who’s going to refuse to have kids 

Talk about selfish ain’t that the problem 

Keeping money all to yourself 

Helping nobody it’ll be a long time

Until we run out I won’t live to see it

There’ll be some kind of war or disease

To knock the numbers down before

Anything serious happens

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150831 (democracy)

My lessons in democracy of late

Have not been inspiring I appeared

For meetings with the Board of Zoning 

Appeals three times only to learn the

Case was rescheduled a wearying tactic

Whether the delays were truly necessary

Or not is speculative but suspicious as if

Litigants were testing the resolve of

The opposition if they keep showing up

We’ll have to deal with them very like 

Our complaint about loose dogs 

Who had attacked Loki and me

On the street broken into a neighbor’s 

Rabbit hutch killed her children’s pet

Before their eyes the case was postponed

Three times once because the dog owner’s 

Lawyer was suddenly called away 

To a school where her daughter 

Had gotten into a fracas which 

Clearly could have waited in view 

Of the earlier postponements

When the BZA matter finally 

Came to a hearing the appellant 

Who was seeking one hundred 

Twenty-nine variances before he could

Begin building seventeen townhouses

On a corner parking lot opposite what

Once was a YMCA which itself had been

Converted into a development of several 

One-floor condos each quite nice without

Altering the character of the neighborhood

I’m not quite sure how much you know

About development architecture but there’s

A simple reason why all the houses in

Levittown look exactly alike—moola

Why pay for more than one plan if you 

Don’t have to the developer had made 

Several other projects here and about which

Sorry to say had that cookie-cutter look

Varied only in that the basic plan 

Was widened shortened made taller 

To maximize the number of units to sell

Understand each foot of setback can be

Quantified as dollars lost from the potential

Objecting I told the board I did not

Want to use the term Bauhaus monstrosity

But the proposal crammed too many units 

Into too little space aggravating its 

Miniscule turn-around area for residents

While adding to street parking

Problems already quite evident

If the city would not insist upon

Several residential single family with

Front yards and back yards the least

They could do was require fewer units 

Of more appealing design to keep

With the Victorian flair of the block

They didn’t have to place multi-family

Everywhere just because the city 

Wants more people to tax

No sooner than we heard the decision

That our objections were upheld by

The board talk arose of rezoning the whole

Block to be rid of all those nasty variances

Giving the developer what he wanted

Giving the neighbors a hollow victory

There are many ways ultimately 

To wear down resistance 

To defeat the will of the people

In a democracy

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150829 (Katrina fatigue-American style ethnic cleansing)

Person who died at the dome and convention center, covered, and left to
rot with the living by governments, city, state, federal, scandalously unpre-
pared for an event they knew would some day come. In the ten years since
corruption and racial bias spent the money provided in improvements to
commercial and overwhelmingly white areas which did not suffer as much.
The 100,000 black occupants were flung to adjacent states, given no help
to return or rebuild

Ten years ago the world watched 

Humankind signaling desperately 

From the roofs of their houses 

Flood waters having pushed them 

Into attics hands tore at weak spots 

Until they’d made a hole 

Large enough to crawl out

Everything below a complete loss

Possibly a family member missing

How they stayed for days without food

Water everywhere filled with feces

They waited for boats helicopters

To lift them away the clothes

On their back likely soiled 

Badge of victim status

Dependent for everything on

Strangers yet by comparison

With those sequestered in the 

Superdome convention center

The evacuated truly were blessed

Extracted from wreckage given 

Dry clothing meals access 

To a toilet stripped of every good 

At least retained some dignity 

As the dome’s convention center

Shelter space quickly festered 

Open sore of mislaid people

Given nothing but empty promises

Hungry thirsty crying babies 

Children to whom parents could not

Explain why after a horrific week

Of torment in darkness then marched

Into buses by helmeted armed abusive

Soldiers as if by existing they

Had done something wrong 

Now to be punished taken to unfamiliar

Far away cities dropped like hot bricks 

Told to manage without funds without meds

Penniless recordless refugees thrust

Without planning onto unprepared 

Foreign charities soon overloaded 

They couldn’t know if they still had jobs 

Any claims for their losses 

Their government saviors underfunded 

Run by a dunce rewarded for gathering

Campaign money for the dunce-in-chief

Botched almost all they attempted

The dominant local racial hatred

That for years sought to be rid of them

Seized every opportunity to block

Their path red-tape every relief

Dehumanized them before the nation

Who for a week watched in horror

Then overcome by Katrina fatigue 

Forgot them moved on 

To who knows what

But it doesn’t end there 

What unfolds is unbelievable 

Deceit corruption vanity theft of the help 

First ordained for the suffering

But given only to those who remained 

Wretched thousands thrown to the diaspora 

Were cheated of any possible help

New Orleans hoped they'd just

Stay out of sight

c. J.S.Manista, 2015 

For those who need reminding read the article linked:

http://carolineheldman.me/2010/08/25/the-truths-of-katrina/

20150828 (legal drug dealing)

Google had no image satisfactory for "down and dirty small neighborhood bar."
Even these glasses look too clean.

None of my family were entrepreneurs

Not a butcher baker candlestick maker

In the lot but if you include in-laws

Two I remember a cousin’s young

Husband who after the failure of two of his

Companies killed himself and an uncle

Of checkered history who ran a corner

Bar-grocery in the old neighborhood

Bodega’s much more descriptive 

To protect it from thieves he had a gun

Knew how to use it kept it 

Quite close as he bartended

He lived in the apartment above

The rear entrances guarded by a 

Great Dane so ferocious they penned

Him inside of two fences if he

Ever leapt over the inner he’d not 

Have room to charge the outer

I was about ten when I met the dog

Whose slobber would soak my shirt

Whose bark seemed to come 

From deep in the earth standing 

On his hind legs he towered 

Above me his massive paws curved

The fence top his nails like bent spikes

There was another uncle-in-law who ran a 

Gas station for a while but sold out to the 

Oil company then managed it for them

Two other uncles-in-law were independent

Insurance men not quite the cutting edge of

Corporate capitalism back to liquor sales

Apparently the bar was more profitable

Supported grocery losses my aunt

Too generous to the poor babchi

Whose pensions came up short

The end of every month she failed to check

Petty theft by kids this was long before

Cameras even mirrors would have helped

A church-goer she took loads of crap from 

Fellow hypocritical pew fillers

How her church money was tainted

From whiskey and beer

If one of my uncle’s patrons overdid it 

He’d call the family to get him

If they refused he’d drag the inebriant 

Out the door prop him up against the steps

He refused family requests not to serve them

It’s my business he’d holler it’s a free country

He’s got money let him spend it as he wants 

The bar served them well all drove new cars 

Bought a nice house in the ‘burb down the road 

Retired to warm California when

Their son joined the navy

Had you asked them if they were drug-dealers

They’d loudly protest as loudly complain 

They were not bourgeoisie either 

They lived let's say unexamined lives

I never asked him 

If in sunny San Diego his dreams 

Ever were troubled with the faces of 

Familiar alkies drinking their disability

Retirement dollars down every month 

One shot and beer at a time

c. J.S.Manista, 2015