Excerpts from Mortal Coil
by Gary Beck

 

 

Winter Warning

 

Winter descends on New York City,

colder than expected.

The t-shirts and shorts

are packed away

until Spring thaw.

 

Some tourists are departed

seeking warmer climes

to spend their Euros

on designer labels

too expensive at home.

 

Those who stay

take photos, videos,

with expensive cameras,

operated so easily

that almost anyone

can take great pictures.

 

Chilled bodies with dour faces

trudge dreary streets,

apprehensive

the next snowfall

will paralyze the city,

no longer accustomed

to Nature’s rigors.

 

 

 

 

Interactive Dynamics

 

Lust permits

momentary satisfaction,

pleasure fleeting

without personal impact.

Yet emotions

cause involvement,

sometimes beyond

managerial skills

of participants

in strained relationships.

 

 

 

 

Warning Signs

 

The media keep telling us

the economy

is doing better,

yet the millions

who lost jobs, homes

in the great recession

are not doing better,

abandoned, then ignored

by those who should help

they suffer silently,

voiceless in a troubled land

that no longer understands

unfavorable omens.

 

 

 

 

 

Give Until…

Once again

in a fat, dumbing down land,

Christmas is coming.

Greedy shoppers,

urgent to acquire

the latest smart phones,

rush to the stores

babbling tech talk,

pouring out wealth

for material things,

never foreseeing

the coming cyber storm

will eradicate

electronic devices.

 

 

 

Illegal Entry

 

America,

Land of…

Home of…

was once wide open

to immigration,

if you could afford

ship passage.

 

Some folk

were desperate to escape

oppressive conditions

and indentured themselves,

became slaves for years.

 

When freedom came

they had a chance

for a new life,

a piece of land

to call their own,

a prosperous trade

that allowed a family

comforts unheard of

in the old country.

 

But the population grew

and settlements spread,

cities flourished.

After the great land grab

from weaker Mexico

we began to run out of room

for newcomers,

except in the cities,

whose endless appetite

for cheap labor

was never sated.

 

Then big business ruled

and the children of small farmers

tired of the demands

to work the land

fled to the cities.

 

 

 

As the nation became crowded

regulations constricted

easy immigration.

No matter how much

the middle class complained

about the decline

of America,

opportunity

was still better

than in Mexico.

 

So millions swarmed across

a porous border

risking death en route

for a safer life,

a job, a livelihood.

 

The fear of coyotes

by the illegals

was nothing

compared to the dread at home

of the drug cartels,

prospering

by pouring their filth

across the border

into the arms and snouts

of the weak, foolish, stupid

who sustain crime and violence,

consuming the products of evil.

 

A confused land accepts

the illegal flow of drugs

destroying the fabric of the nation,

yet arrests

the illegal flow of immigrants

eager for honest work.

 

 

Rate this poetry.

Copyright is reserved by the author. Please do not reproduce any part of this article without consent.