Motifs | Gary Beck

Hard Times

On many street corners
of my fair city
the homeless sit
resources exhausted,
the tattered cardboard signs
requesting aid
the last connection
between abandonment
and termination,
alternate options
totally expended.

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Lunacy

Another school shooting.
Some of us grieve
for the lost children.
The President visits,
gives us thumbs up,
grins for the cameras,
another photo op
to tell us he cares,
but he just makes things worse.
Crazies cite the second amendment
as their right to buy automatic rifles.
Our leaders don’t understand
authority in the constitution
isn’t for nazi supremacists,
but was originally conceived
for the men and boys
who rushed to arms in 1775
at Lexington and Concord,
a well-regulated militia,
not like the nuts 
who allow AR-15s
to get into the hands
of demented shooters.

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And the Children Shall Lead Them

Let’s put the kids in charge.
They can’t do much worse
then the current leadership.
They’re not venal and corrupt.
Maybe they’re inexperienced,
but it’s hard to be more ignorant
than the men and women
who can’t keep our government running.
Someday, the children of our young people
would like to breathe clean air,
not be helpless victims
of economic exploitation,
live in a safe land
where automatic weapons
weren’t the catch of the day.
It is painfully obvious
the system isn’t working,
except for the privileged.
Perhaps it’s time for an experiment,
select high school seniors on merit,
test them, find out what they know,
what they’re willing to learn.
We should design special courses
in government operations,
economics, the list goes on.
Let them run things for a while.
If it’s a disaster
we’ll go back to the old ways.
Let anyone with money,
influence, or connections,
purchase high office
however unqualified,
and not serve the people.

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Poetry ©2021 Gary Beck
All rights reserved