american healthcare

(haiku)

i don't know a soul

who gets medical treatment

they are happy with

(tanka)

everyone complains

doctors treat us all the same

like we are cattle

herded and categorized
at their holy convenience

who knew

(tanka)

now i'm seventy,

never thought i'd reach fifty,

it just goes to show

you can do everything wrong

and still end up an old man

(haiku)

it's almost a curse

i can afford anything

but i want nothing

but another breath,

maybe another twenty

years doing nothing

the eclipse

(tanka)

wouldn't it be funny

if the eclipse didn't happen

and we all found out

scientists just made it up

like they did global warming

*

but everyone knows
it is going to happen
cuz science says so

yet some, like our president
believe science is a hoax

getting old is weird

i know all these other old people who say they have copd

they say it like they think they're special or something,

like they belong to something, like they're apart of the team,

like they are team players taking their pills for the team

i don't know what copd stands for cuz i mute all commercials,

especially the pharmaceutical kind they bombard us with

through out the evening news or other prime, old people shows

to suggest all old people play along like it's a kind of game

like sickness is a game we can all play and enjoy like the people

who rollick in those commercials and with the right help, 

good god, you too might find yourself surrounded by loved ones

who are always so damn happy you bought the right pills 

don't know what it is

(tanka)

i don't even think

it can be called a human,

it's too different

i suspect it's alien

from another dimension

-

two dimensional,

up and down but has no depth,

a cartoon human,

a life size cardboard cutout

that looks real but lacks feeling

apocalypses are fun

end of the world movies always conclude

on a positive note,

  

a vaccines discovered, aliens are defeated,

people regain their senses

and strong, goodhearted, hero types lead

everyone into a glorious,

hugging and teary eyed happily ever after  

but not much is ever said

about the backbreaking task of rebuilding 

another soon to end world

cuz that isn't all that much fun i suppose

baby boomer blues

(tanka)

you worked all your life

at some run-of-the-mill job

just to make ends meet

yet you are somehow convinced

your life is better than most

-

like a slave you worked

and you followed all their rules

only to find out

you were played for a dummy

by a system that doesn't care

the helpless majority

(tanka)

i don't want to write

about our failing system

but i can't break loose

from the despairing feeling

if i don't, i help it fail

-

but that's not to say

the words i write mean a thing

cuz the sad truth here

i like most have no control

over what is said and done

our children's children's children

(haiku)

someday they'll look back

and analyse what happened

to america

and why it gave up

it's claim on the future good

so damn willingly

and how it could trade

it's sense of truth for folly

and love doing it

they will read and gasp

at how easy it was fooled

by clowns and tv

the dummy plan

(tanka)

the no healthcare plan

is probably the best plan

they can come up with

which we'll end up paying for

because it sounds like a plan

breaking down

(haiku)

i'm finished with this

trying to make sense out of

all this senselessness

and it's not just here

it's going on everywhere

and no one knows why

-

too many people

standing on all these platforms

with rickety legs

for a moment there

(haiku)

i have to admit

it felt good watching grown ups

question a grown up

then came their reply

and once again i slipped back

into kiddie land

my haiku

these snippets of me

i admit crudely degrades

an ancient format

but nevertheless

serves my own definition

of true poetry

which is to express
the wonder of everything
in a word or two

-

awestruck i'll mutter

before the great throne of god

a few feeble words

what i hate

(haiku)

i hate algorithms

determining what i like

or what i should buy

and auto-checkouts

asking me if i'm finished

when i hesitate

and the soulless push

down into technology

i can do without

simple haiku

america first

really means america

will blow you up first

*

you got bad good guys

and a lot of good bad guys 

swaying the masses

to and fro they bend

like trees on the horizon

far, far over there

elementary

(haiku)

like raising children,

you tell them this will happen

and they ignore you

then when it happens

they can't believe it happened

and get mad at you

*

when it is proven

they are totally inept

and ineffective

they will turn on them

who whole heartily believed

every word they said

four years in

(haiku)

i wanted substance,

a depth of understanding

that could rival mine

but when i arrived

i saw learned men playing

on the monkey bars

and great orators

lip syncing nursery rhymes

for they had no voice

i saw small people

hunting down smaller people,

both scurried like mice

and i knew somehow
the world i was once fond of
no longer exists

daily haiku

surfing the channels

commercials on all but one

the one i don't watch

not like in movies

where they turn on the TV

right to the right show

but we have to wait

till the commercials are done

more and more we wait

*

i don't like titles
they always seem so contrived,
so after the fact

in the quiet of old age

at seventy you wonder 

what kind of monster lives in the cellar

making itself known

as it slowly ascends dry squeaky stairs

ever so slowly it creeps,
a limp, a groan, every breath a wheeze

and you try to ignore

this thing that might be coming for you

just a thought

(haiku)

very well could be

a high tech society

cannot be governed

by low tech ideals

whenever it's attempted

chaos will erupt

*

jesus said it best,

new wine into old vessels

causes them to burst

same as it ever was

i look back through my life 

which is all i seem to do in my old age 

and i relive these memories 

that unfold like chapters or episodes 

lacking a happily ever after

and i think to myself 

if only i knew then what i know now 

but if that were true 

shouldn't i be a lot happier right now?