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 Natures 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.
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