20150827 (foreclosures)

Made the mistake of trying 

To get on ML King to get home

From church last Sunday

Orange barrels blocked every

Access momentarily disoriented

I toured Cleveland’s east side

Neighborhoods near St. Clair

Superior like so much of the city

Once stately and proud

Large homes with period details

Now a mixed bag some

Lavished with care over the years

Still beautiful next to others boarded

Porch roofs caved in I had accompanied

Mailmen on their routes on many

Of these streets twenty or more years ago

When they had not suffered so much decay

The foreclosure crisis since two thousand eight

Seemed still strongly in place wrecking

Property families school districts

As powerfully as any huge concrete

Weight swung from a crane

If you had managed to avoid

Job decimation kept your house

Up with proper paint good roof

Gutters grass the rest but around you

Neighbors lost their jobs

Suffered illnesses took on those

Home equity loans pushed

By sleazy mortgage companies

Their equally prevaricating agents

With fine print boilerplate designed to

Steal equity with high fees

Then the house when they faltered

All the value you thought you were

Building the American Dream 

Own a house Dubya urged 

Now you couldn’t sell it if you had to

Sure it’s nice but look what it’s beside

Can’t all have been crack houses

To ruin a neighborhood this quickly

I’d be scared to let my kid play outside

The place next door is supposed to be empty 

But I see people sneaking in out 

All day all night homeless maybe 

Looking for a place to sleep

I hope they’re not using the bathrooms

The water’s been shut off for months

Hope the gas too not like that place

On the west side that blew like

A bomb when something or

Someone too close made a spark 

Knocked the houses near it off

Their foundations shattered windows

For blocks around 

Yeah who’s going to live here 

Me ‘cause I own it with its 

Good paint great features

The Katrina that wrecked this wasn’t

A hurricane not for me but you’d

Thought a powerful water wind swept

All the rest away

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150826 (capitalist citizenship)

Teach everybody economics

Old young men women straight gay

Religious irreligious disabled blind etc

Leave out the comatose for now

Until we determine if they can learn

In their sleep then we’d have some

Good policies because everyone

Would understand what’s at stake

How while there’s no free lunch

Likewise nobody could confuse us

About where money comes from

Or why some have more

And others much much less

We could decide what’s the most 

Efficient use nobody could claim

They didn’t understand risk

People would take arithmetic seriously

To know what they have what

They spend what they owe

Nobody could flim-flam us to say

We’ve got money for war but not schools

Or health care or birth leave we’ll

Teach people what’s bought when we

Pay for crops not grown to distinguish

Welfare for the rich from welfare for the poor

How government services earn their pay

That without taxes of some kind

Nothing governmental gets done

Because you don’t want 

Self-appointed volunteers

Making crucial decisions for you

They would owe you clear explanations

Of what they did with the money

Not cover up spy services with

Open-ended question marks or 

Disguise influence payments with an 

Invoice for six-hundred-dollar hammers

Just like you should know what

See E Ohs get who decides 

How that’s decided get a report of 

What your congressman’s

Earning in salary plus perks of

Lunches vacations hookers plane trips   

In company jets promises of retiree 

Employment we’ve got computers

It’s possible now just enter

The facts and their votes don’t

Forget their wives and relatives

To keep them honest every night

There could be an evening news brief

To keep you up to date or an app

On your Personal Assistant Device

That would buzz to clue you in

When something goes awry like

Investing unspent campaign funds

Or sales of votes in committees

At least that might keep the reps

At an equitable price since they’d

All know how much the chair was getting

Teach everyone economics first

Then let them vote

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150825 (bureaucracy)

Steven Root as Michael Waddams an addled employee in Office Space a
character with whom I identify and at that time resemble

Once when they sent me home for a week 

Mostly because my boss refused

To see things my way rather than sink 

Into the slough of despond 

That was disciplinary suspension

I looked back into my files for a

Period when I had served honorably

The powers at the top authoring

Their speeches responding to complaints

Founding editing their newspaper

Conceiving advertising and guiding

Their reorganization plans the 

Mechanicals of how I fell from grace

Are still unknown but it clearly 

Involved no longer having access 

To the highest ear in the system

My connection severed I was assigned

To become a futureless functionary 

I carried my apparatchik demeanor

In what I thought satisfactory performance 

It may have had something to do 

With once going over the head of

A regional official to complain he 

Was screwing me locally by not 

Responding quickly enough to 

My correspondence an excoriating

Telephone call resulted in which I

Was advised that my status would

Soon be such as to envy worms who

Consumed the eyes of the dead

How dare I depart from the chain

Of command he seemed irritated

Without so much as a how do you do

I soon found myself in the sticks 

Assigned to replacing a man 

Who chose to gracefully retire

Than be removed from the rolls 

Of the employed that’s what they called firing 

For ever so gradually going nutso on the job

Trying to get my bearings for the work

I ran across all sorts of evidence he

Was wack needed to be ousted

He left me no tidy administrative

Trail to follow to fulfill my new tasks

Nor was there good guidance from above

In fact all of us in that particular

Section were persona non grata

Totally peripheral to the mainstream 

Of the business authorities above us 

Wobbled in out from death retirement

Nothing settled or well-defined

Just don’t fuck up they offered 

Bring undue attention to hand 

Keep things rolling until I get out 

Were all organizations governed by 

Sucking up as this bureaucracy was

You needed the script from

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

To know you whether you were

Dealing with a patient or the staff

I later heard the guy who tried to fire me

Not just once but twice moved to Texas

Where he continued pissing everyone off

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150824 (l. thoughts; h. topic)

In the last day of Pompeii

Do you think some were thinking

As they dashed thither and yon

Seeking shelter from the boulders

Ash gases lava I could have bought

That property off Cerberus and XXIInd NE

With the little grove of olive trees

The beautiful marble portico

Far away from Vesuvius

No I wanted to be close up on the 

Safe side of the mountain you 

Couldn’t beat the price the view 

Was magnificent black and 

White checkered patio

Overlooking the Mediterranean blue 

Stretching to the horizon close to good schools

A ramp at the beach for my boat

Some it is said embraced as they fell

Encased in ash dead from suffocation

Could they have said a last I love you

Unable to make a word perhaps they

Gripped each other tighter out of fear

Or devotion the last signal to the other

Before they expired how oft reenacted

The final fear that all of us face whether 

Alone or with an entire civilization

What shall we be thinking in those last

Days hours minutes seconds some

Won’t have time to worry Tony Soprano

Didn’t even feel it some go in their sleep

If you are aware long enough to notice

And consider your options self wife family 

God country mother the flag 

Apple pie Rosebud sex the joke 

You would tell at your funeral

Those closest to you able to read 

Your stiff lips and laugh a vile 

Offense to those quietly grieving

If you went down in flames did you

Think wow this hurts like hell

Or if you bled out on the street

Did you last till the cameras filled

Your shrinking circle of vision

WKBC Action News 7 your last 

Perception while you have time

If you care for your loved ones at least

Make a list of your favorite hymns

For them to consider discard 

For something they prefer

Don’t make a video to say things

You think you’ll want to say when

You’re dead when you’re actually

Dead you may change your mind

Want to say something totally different

Disavow your will leave it all

To the dog the pet sitter and some girl

You met on a bus

You might want to spoil it

Tell them it’s not bad at all 

Or maybe it hurts like hell

Just to be funny

c. J.S.Manista, 2015