Current Poem

DOUBLE DIP POEMAfter last months existing home sales started sagging,
Wall Street tumbled all day. Analysts attributed the 
housing dip to ten million potential home buyers
trapped in a Chilean copper mine for the last seventeen
days.

Realtors are struggling desperately to reach prospective
buyers. Drilling bore holes, sending down phone lines,
texting, telepathic messages, fortune cookies. Anything 
to facilitate bids for homes on the market since 911.

This is sacred ground insisted a trapped home buyer.
Any attempt to build a mosque or validate the Muslim
experience in this copper mine insults the victims who
died in the Twin Towers.

Likewise new car sales took a beating. After numerous
critics claimed SUVs could explode at any time. Christian
Conservatives welcomed the news. Because gay marriages
will decrease if the groom and groom get blown up on their
way to the wedding , explained an industry spokesman.

Financial analysts dont expect the economy to improve
before next December, when trapped home buyers will be
free to unleash pent up demand for sellers now stuck in
sagging homes underwater in what money managers call a
Double Dip Dog And Pony Show.

     Tokyo, Friday, 08/27/10

CAN-AMBeing Canadian, I grew up on John Waynes horse, Mickey
Mouse ears, Blue Suede Shoes and Kresges lunch counter.
During the Fifties, we lived in a spit level in Calgary where
my Dad sold insurance, drove a Dodge and my Mother used
an Electrolux to vacuum the wall-to-wall. I watched Hockey
Night In Canada but preferred the Chicago Black Hawks to 
the Toronto Maple Leafs. My sister had a hula hoop and
sometimes pretended she was Tinker Bell.

God knows Ive had plenty of reasons to feel bad about
America. Vietnam. The Kennedy assassinations. Watergate.
Carter. Reaganomics. The New Coke. Howard The Duck. Iraq.
Trivial Pursuit. Limbaugh. W. WAL-MART. Texas. Country
music. But I dont. My faith in Americas future remains
unshaken. Solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.

When I taught Political Science at McMaster University in
the Seventies, the place was full of CIA spooks and American
hard-liners. But I understood. How could America be safe
without Guatemala death squads, napalm and capital
punishment?

Burroughs and Ginsberg came later, and even after reading
Howl and Naked Lunch, I knew somehow America would
prevail. The best minds eating hot turkey sandwiches at 
Kresges, Glen Beck, Savings & Loan bailout, Fantasy Football.

Oh, I know. Right now Americas a mess. Looks scruffy,
hopelessly divided. Budweiser. Mixed Martial Arts. Cheney.
Gaming. Prayer Breakfasts. Anchor babies. Tiger. Mel Gibson.
Afghanistan. NASCAR. Homeland Security. Playboy. Gun nuts.
Corporations as citizens. The Marlboro Man. Zionist lobby.
American Idol. Larry Kudlow. Threat to itself and the rest of
the World. Because thats the beauty of America. Dangerous.
Unpredictable. Great under pressure.

     Tokyo, Saturday, 08/21/10