Arizona is burning, Prague floods,
Washington wants to bomb Baghdad,
Palestinians bomb themselves,
Israelis avenge the martyrs with American missiles,
Afghanistan gets a blast periodically just for the hell of it.
The South African President says AIDS is an illusion.
Drug companies invent male menopause.
Texas collapses under the weight 
of Albanian pyramid schemes.
My Russian cab driver nods wisely.

Larry Summers, advocate of dumping our trash
in Africa, becomes president of Harvard.
George Soros, speculator and billionaire,
rich enough to fund all of Eastern Europe,
believes the market has gone too far.
George Bush and God are heroes of a mine disaster.
Trade union rights in the U.S. are at the level of Malaysia.
Dershowitz argues for torture permits.
America argues fat vs. carbs.
Martha Stewart may go to jail.

Chinese Communists set up sweat shops
in export zones, suppress trade unions,
and join the WTO. 
The U.S. continues to embargo Cuba.
Refugees in Lowell are now from Sierra Leone and Brazil.
Lary Rohter writes poison about the Workers Party 
for the NYTimes, the IMF start the squeeze,
the idea of democracy in Brasilia is so disconcerting.
In Argentina the middle class scrapes for food.
Venezuela awaits the next CIA incursion.
Central Americans are quiet, they've endured
so much.  Or work in L.A. and send home the cash.

Is this litany too much for you?
Are you counting beads, the number of children
Cardinal Law failed to protect?
Hindus and Muslims killed in Kashmir?
Sanctioned slaughter in Judea and Samaria?
Have you forgotten Ruanda already?
Where is the wailing and gnashing of teeth?
Where is Jeremiah?

Not at Foxwoods Resort and Casino,
vengeance of the Pequod tribe of Mashantucket.
Obesity rules, pasty people feed coins
into the reparations machines and
don't seem to mind.
Not a breath of fresh air, not a tree,
not a spider plant or a cockroach
to be found.
Lights flash, coins clatter,
the aisles are wide enough to handle
wheel chairs conveniently.
Wayne Newton is in Las Vegas,
but we have Presley imitators
for birthday or anniversary of his death.

There's no place to run.  The space shuttle
has room for octogenarian senators and
billionaires, but no one else.  Once
it was possible to go to the beach
and forget, but the melanoma demon
is out of the box.  Slathering chemicals
on your body seems perverse or
short-sighted.  Nothing natural,
no simplicity, no salvation, even in the short run.
Only witness.

Weinstein attacked because he thought
Jerry supported the war.  Not true.
He thought that you should oppose war
on moral grounds but expect to lose.
I could give you references but that's
not the point.  After 40 years
Jerry organizes antiwar protest from
his yoga center. Weinstein publishes
his newspaper in Chicago.  Still,
these activities have become habits.

On the way home from Foxwoods,
I saw billboards with fluttering
images of American flags, caption:
United We Stand.  We support
our boys and girls in - how many countries
have U.S. bases?  50? - Germany?
Italy? Japan?  How can we witness
when we have no idea what
we are seeing?  Okinawa?

I love the MIT anarchists,
Chomsky and associates, who sit
in the midst of the military 
and spit insults and offend
with the truth.  Why doesn't MIT
fire their distinguished linguistics
professor?  Why isn't he teaching
at Salem State?  Why are the voices
of dissent at elite universities?
Even Charlie Chaplin lived in exile.

All the years I imagined
squirrels were silent
and blamed grackles and crows
for the noise at my window.
The Empire is falling,
said the grey squirrel,
and you have no alternative
to offer.  Vote! said the grackle.
Bullshit, said the crow. 
The Empire is falling!