I.

School is out:
throw the texts aside, 
sleep late, 
relax in bubbles, 
play with the cat!

If only I were a true teacher,
I would relax with novels and books of poems
all day and into the night,

but I have been sneaking romance,
inside the hygiene book a classic comic,
risque novels in brown paper cover-

So I do not deserve this release from duty.
I have not been dutiful.
I have been enjoying my seniority.

II.

I no longer read newspapers or other
ideological tracts.  I can invent
as well as any Times reporter, I can sit
in Boston and spin tales like a barfly
in Caracas or Sao Paolo.  Liars
without shame write for me as though
I were oil or fruit or liquid capital
seeking a drowning country.
If anything, I prefer the Wall Street Journal,
a community newspaper.

III.

Today the oil workers' union in Venezuela,
creature of the CIA as everyone in labor knows,
strikes to bring down Chavez.
Perhaps these roots are so obvious, 
journalists think not worth reporting.

IV.

Shame must be a pre-modern phenomenon -
Modernism was about sharp edges,
accumulation of money and power, towering
Manhattan, nuclear Chernobyl.  And now -
the Empire rules far Afghanistan, 
battles France over Iraqi oil.
Shameless.

V. 

A new kitten plays in the sink,
fascinated by the drain through which
all matters of interest disappear.
Shall I tell her the Dispose-all
is a fierce creature, not merely resistant
to her youthful counter-hegemonic impulse,
but dangerous?

VI.

I'm reading Galeano this morning,
which may explain old-fashioned conscience
rising like a harvest moon, orange:
Walked with guerillas, friends disappeared,
valiant, bitter, sexy as Havel,
speaking truth to the face of power.

VII.

I suppose I maintain the illusion of choice
to ease daily life.  After all,
my (sic) president seized office in a Florida coup,
my (sic) country now subject to emergency powers
because of imperial war, the enemy
is everywhere.  The military menu is
dominated by a special of the day,
tomorrow liver with onions, next week
Korean kim-bob.  Seventy percent of electorate
stays home, tv blares victory, never asks
why most didn't bother.  Some choice,
they said, some choice.

VIII.

Some days my wife says I look like a turtle,
round face, receding chin, wattles
that accumulate with age.
I wonder if turtles thrash around
beneath their shells, perhaps at night
when the sky is clear and sharp
and their impotence most apparent.
Of course, the Empire is not the universe;
sometimes it just seems that way.

IX.

Oh Lord, how am I to accept this life of privilege,
when Your world of violence and tears,
Your bloody world of Oil and Empire,
requires that I bear witness -- at the very least.