For A Regular Guy
(Written after reading
the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in
Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show
the house to a prospect.)
Three
bedroom 2 bath
garage
backyard lawn
rambling
family style
home
for kids pets. 1957.
Needs
work
refinancing
available
forbearance
provided
for
small fee.
A
sunny southern Cal
kind
of Monday
in
Westchester.
Realty
Modern
shows
same home
once
bestowed
with
bank notes
loans
interest rates
derivatives
credit-default
swaps.
Brokered
down by
adjustable
rates
pre-payment
penalties.
Now
liberated by the
free
market.
Lien
holders
mean
holders
of
bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready
to buy
best
terms
and cheap!
But,
oh dear!
What’s
a 45-year-old
dead
man doing here?
Didn’t
we clean this
property
up?
Who
could
miss
the odor
of
late payments ?
The
gruesome smell
of
maxed out credit?
The
stench of the
unemployed?
What’s
an agent to do?
This
regular guy
laid
off. Laid out cold
in
the family room.
Second
mortgage borrower
ravaged
by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no
public offering
for
him. No gold man of stocks
no
Fed unreserved no inside track
no
parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien
holders
mean
holders
of
bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
But
not foresworn.
Anticipate
more dead folks
in
foreclosed homes. Should
they
perish in vain?
Wall
Street speculates:
How
many dead regular guys
can
we bundle together
securitize
and insure
sell
to city suckers and old timers
and
bet those regular guys
will
rise and leverage eternity?
Lien
holders
mean
holders
of
bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
FORLORN.
FORGOTTEN.
Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach
July
20, 2009
A Visit (After
Javier Sicilia)
(May 6, 2011--In Mexico, nearly 35,000 people have died in the war against
drug cartels — and the violence seems to be getting worse. In March, one
24-year-old victim was found dead, wrapped in masking tape, in a vehicle near
the resort town of Cuernavaca. That young man was the son of Mexican poet
Javier Sicilia. Since his son's death, Sicilia has abandoned poetry to fight
the drug violence. He is now leading a silent, three-day protest march from
Cuernavaca to Mexico City.)
I cannot go
anywhere
anymore
say
maybe
Cuernavaca
to visit the
poet
and
talk of love.
Weed blocks
the way
army in my
face
death
in the gardens
down a
slippery slope
of
blood
commingling
with
lost dreams.
I cannot cross
the border
to see my
neighbor
guns
steal the day
screams follow
the night
into pits of
former selves
my
colossus must be fed
its children
never satisfied
always wanting
more
ready to pay.
I do not see
the answer
for I have
marched too in
my
country right or wrong
walling itself
off
from feral
reality
delusional
number one
adrift
in white powder.
I cannot cross
that road
for fear wears
my cloak
danger
ties my shoes
sadness stops
me
at the line
between
me and you
in a
labyrinth
of solitude.
Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach
May
24, 2011
Bearing Ursidae
Solitary golden bears
stare
at each other
across a boulevard,
wooden comrades
from a grizzly past.
One cradles a sign
GARAGE SALE TODAY
the other drifts off
wistfully
remembering still air
of only bees at work.
Ursi Americani Californici
black or brown
great bear and little bear
once major now minor
natives to this zone
of rock plant sky.
No more
sold short
Polaris grieves.
Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach
September
26, 2009
O Moon
O Moon
midnight
meddler
mingling
in mortal moments.
O manager
mending mismanhaps
how you
must mock
the metal
marching round you.
Staring with
rigid roundness
on flat
forces fumbling
teasing
man
to tread
on your terrain
rumple
untouched tresses.
Can you
stop the stampede
to enslave
you
the search
to sneak
into your
perch
leaving
you in a lunar lurch
displaced?
Pioneering
on your rugged face
soon
sewage
freeways
high rise
steal your
space.
Once a
romantic overseer
no longer
will you leer
at lovers
launching
life’s career
for man
from atop
on you
will peer.
The end
will come
for humans
to chant
what a
marvelous moon
Pant!
Pant!
Think of
the moo
with no
moon to jump
she’ll
simply select
a nice
green hump
one of
your hills.
Does it
give you the chills
to
consider the loss
O time-honored
boss
of night
to feel
the exploit
of the finite
adroit?
Make way
for the earthly rude
snatching
up your solitude.
On
manacled moon-in-mourning
shackled
doom-shine
make us
lovers all again
lest we
forget you when.
Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach
November 10,
1969
(Written at the time the USA first landed on the moon)
