At Will

 

“Choices We Make” by Lynne Taetzsch

 

term of art

social contract

default preservation

of natural rights

an enshrinement

of two-party choices

enabling a freemarket

freehand employment

it underscores truth

about systems of

capitalist economics

that freedom is risky

acknowledging

he who has earned

the most choices

possesses real power

Tiananmen

“Tiananmen Square” photo abstract by Pep Ventosa

 

I was there well before the massacre
watching kites soar their silent affront
to repression that glowed in Mao’s eyes

now the square bears a network of cracks
left behind by the weight of those tanks
undermining the communist state

new drama plays over those paving stones
stealth reengineers their ethical cant
with surprising aggression and speed

the kiteflyers no longer languid
chase capital fuel for igniting
new socialist market economy

entrepreneurs now own property rights
nearly free enterprise races beside
state run industries belching new vigor

Beijing is flush with our down dollar debt
while the Chairman observes from his perch
the demise of American reign

Manhattan Reverie

“Abstract Manhattan” by Brian Carter

metropolis sculpted

from granite ambitions

each skyscraping statue

erect in its embrace by

an armature of commerce

deep mercantile canyons

their enterprise shimmers

in swift racing glide on

the grain of two rivers

converged at the battery

southernmost outpost

of free aspirations

here history found him

and gave his sharp mind

clever means to discover

and climb secret paths

from the sun deprived

pall of collective endeavor

attaining a rarefied place

among peaks of the skyline

enlightened and warmed

by his own private sun

Hong Kong

 

“Hong Kong Panorama 2013” by Tim C. Wong

 

 

maritime crossroads

commerce and cultures

collide and connect

here the occident

married the orient

hybrid metropolis

hugging the harbor

prolific of highrise

in spirit and stone

an autonomous jewel

of the south china sea

markets free in full

flourish the first of

the four asian tigers

society teeming with

aptitudes ancient and

modern successful

beyond its own dreams

despite ominous fleeing

of ghosts from a dead

british empire chased

by the looming dark

communist shadows of

mainland encroachment

 

 

From my book Onionskin

Shanghai

“Red Reflection”
Painting by Yehan
From accuracyandaesthetics.com

economic reforms
virgin middle class womb
ancient shikumen
stand place of honor amid
modern highrise ambitions

Uptown

“Uptown”
Painting by Tommy Buell McDonell
From fineartamerica.com

the motionless swagger of limestone façades
fringed epaulet shoulders guard citadel luxury
intimate supper clubs cater to gilded sensibilities
here where the splendid grandiloquent dwell
high above asphalt moats in their capital keeps
working levers of commerce and rum aristocracy

why is success a disparaged degenerate quality
when admission is discriminately priced by due
measures of merit and providence winning is not
some mean character flaw wealth and power have
neutral morality motives and methods however are
certainly worthy of judgment in all parts of town

Once Upon a Time in Chicago

 

“Chicago – The Oak Beach Skyline” by Kathleen Patrick

 

 

architectural winds
swept the lake
looped the river
whose banks pulsed
with cattlemen bloodlines
magnificent mile
hosting retail nirvana
in shimmering towers
preserved beaux arts piles
that housed bearded barons
of manifest destiny
easy of manner consistent
with midwestern ethics
the homespun affinities
pulled from belief in the
power of personal enterprise
strength of frontier
personality settled in
perfect-laid gridwork
of four-square ambitions
enriched by the teem of its
immigrant waves adding color
and character wellsprings
of garrulous idioms
shouting in unison pride of
their separate achievements
to both remote ends
the old right and new left of a
continent firming its center
the heartbeat of heartland
ingenious creations of myriad
markets in capital freewheel
that energized industries
wealth to be had
for the muscular will
and the diligent hand

 

and yet now
against lessons of wise
ancient scholarship
flouting experience
gained in the rise and the fall
of great civilizations
allowing itself to be caught
in the crippling embrace
of its ill-chosen system
of socialist principles
spurning the man for the state
yielding rampant
mismanagement
inbred corruption
the decadent politics
spawned by a retrograde
errant philosophy
now is the great city lost
institutions in spasms
the skyline in judders
of fiscal implosion
of fast-spreading moral decay
chilling harbinger sending
cold signal to urban America

 

 

From my book Small Noise

South Street Seaport

“South Street Seaport”
Painting by Anderson Tyler
From artvalue.com

docks built by Dutch traders
old Schermerhorn Row moving
indigo spices the spectrum of teas
pearls and porcelain finding
exchange among English goods
drawn to the busiest port in
the colonies fortunes amassed
in conversion of cargoes to
specie and gold futures won
just as easily lost on the turn of
one voyage that fickle Atlantic
whose now and then baleful
eyes poured out most punishing
weather this maritime rowdy
casino of commerce dealt hands
steep with risk and reward
its deep pilings supporting a
capital system that grew up
to skyscrape the lofty ambitions
of liberty’s greatest experiment

Singapore

Photo by Truc Quan Tu
From group7isis100.com

island clusters who cling
to the Malay peninsula
mandarin maritime hub
gleaming capital jewels
color driving careers
with a light that can best
be described as exuberant
collage of cultures who
love their pristine ancient
bearings their pride highly
polished with personal
wealth of achievement

Tomfool

Illustration from
tradeforexmakemoney.co.uk

suckling at tumescent teats
of campaign contributors
government bails out failed
business a politics lewd with
self-serving expedience rising
to flood-level wholesale
corruption anathema to
institutional clockworks of
capitalist economics by
transferring marketplace
risk from those private silk
pockets who willingly play
in the commerce of chance
to beleaguered hunched
shoulders of unwary citizens
taxpayers living their careful
drawn lives by the numbers

the putative leaders who
practice such brazen chicanery
undermine risk-reward ratios
demean the importance of
prudence and license the
profligate ill-made transactions
that steepen the crashing
decline of great nations