Four Poems

I.

The Orange Line-- to take it

Is to plunge into the abyss

A hellish labyrinth of passages

 A Babylon of writhing limbs

Until out of it

One is yanked

Like a wide-eyed plate-bound fish

Into the polite and sunlit world

 And one's only sincere wish 

Is to take it never again, but alas

One is duty bound to ride 

  The orange line of life

Regardless of one's pride 

And while the smiling faces hint

  (Once one has gained the other side)

That the orange line does not exist, must be a myth

  For is it not too thoroughly belied

By the calm individuated spaces

   In which the others seem to abide?

One knows while one is on it, and in it--

One's knees jammed to one's chest

That it is the Orange Line that is the real

And the lie? -- 

  Is all the rest.

II.

“’Proud of My Father’: Trump’s dramatic U-turn on air strikes in Syria ‘was sparked by daughter Ivanka’s heartbreak after gas attack’”

            ~ The Sun, April 8, 2017

What a grotesquely scripted domestic scene

Between the bestial Donald and the princess of mean

And one, I need not add, that never occurred

And wouldn’t tempt Chicken Little to credit a word

Unless we are to believe that children only evoke tears

When they are harmed by other’s fathers; one rather fears

That Ivanka and her brood of chillingly coiffed mods

Spared no sighs at all for the Syrian “child of God”

Turned away at the airport by the odious orange pelt

Known as her father --  why did she not melt

At the thought of the toddler separated from her dad

Because he was deported forever – was she not sad

At the thought of the Central American Minors, the many who applied

And waited for a year (or longer) to learn that the U.S. had lied

Where is the heartbreak for the hundredth civilian woman or man

Who died in Mosul a week previous – except by our hand?

If Ivanka’s tears really are such life-saving pearls

One wishes she could spare them for other Syrian boys and girls.

III.

Why is it that deep within me

  is this hungry need

Just when things are going well –

  to let it all go to seed?

And in the very moment when a compliment,

  Long dreamt of, is given

To turn strangely sour? – I must be driven

By a cruel maudlin conception

Of life’s just deserts

  Finding fortune’s blessed me

My senses cry alert

This is the time, it foretokens

  For the Gethsemane kiss

And I’ll peck my own lips before I just

  Enjoy bliss

IV.

Why is it that within me

Is this terrible rage?

That either burns like a fire

Or stings like a cage?

And which must be let loose somewhere

  Lest I become a grump…

Fortunately it’s found a target

  Who deserves it -- i.e., Trump