On Doing Good in America

On Doing Good in America
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“If you are born poor it’s not your mistake, but if you die poor it’s your mistake.”- Bill Gates We admire the philanthropist for "giving back" and ignore what they first had to take away. It is a sin to need help and a blessing to offer it; there is profit in not asking too many questions:

“How does one with no boots pull himself up by his bootstraps?”

“Why teach someone to fish then deny them access to the lake?” We are only 4.25% of global population, and yet we own 28% of Covid-19 fatalities. But don’t worry, our billionaires, dying to restart their factories, donate to food banks so the underpaid don’t starve. But we do not weep for the hungry—this is America! We are each one sixty-hour workweek away from striking it rich. We refuse to quarantine our dreams; If 200,000 perish, that’s the price of freedom. Someday we’ll erect an immaculate monument to those who died for the good of the economy.

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poetry

Diary

Ages ago I kept a diary in a hand legible to
none but me. I read it on my knees as just-fallen

rain clings to pinecones like wet feathers,
the evening slips into its velvet gown,

and starlight pitter-patters on my head
like drops of gallium. I am thankful

the day is dying, for I have forgotten how
to live. Who wrote those words belongs

to an empire that collapsed under its
own grandiose weight, its high priest

· 1 min read
poetry

Enlightenment

I was seventeen when I read Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen
a couple pages at a time, putting down the book to observe
sunset drape itself over my mind, falling asleep thinking
of not thinking, hearing a flock of birds and imagining myself
flapping against the sky and recalling that I am sky. Once,
the book well-thumbed and creased and read twice over,
I felt an ant crawl the length of my arm like a nagging
sense that

· 1 min read
poetry

Foul Weather Friend

I am a foul weather friend, dear poetry.
I have paid you no mind when spring rains
wash clean the marble statues of gods
and a cheery sun
reads aloud your sweet inscriptions,
nor when awed children skip through museums,
nor accordion-song fills the subway,
nor a stranger does another stranger
a kindness,
nor blueberries are so ripe they bleed sugar,
nor velvet chocolate cake knocks you dizzy with love,
nor, after making love, my wife’s perfume
clings

· 1 min read