The idea that it is so easy for whatever we have built to crumble, if it is indeed made of wood, stone, brick, steel, and glass, rather than on more lasting materials. The notion that we vote to protect our privilege and don't challenge institutions once the plaster is applied to the edifice. These are some of the themes that Gary Beck addresses, cleanly and without varnish, in the four poems below.
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks and 3 more accepted for publication. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines & Tremors (Winter Goose Publishing). Perturbations, Rude Awakenings and The Remission of Order will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance (Dreaming Big Publications). Virtual Living will be published by Thurston Howl Publications. His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press), Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing) and Call to Valor (Gnome on Pigs Productions). Sudden Conflicts will be published by Lillicat Publishers and State of Rage by Rainy Day Reads Publishing. His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
The Work of Hands
When disaster strikes a city
Susa, San Francisco,
any complex human hive,
resources for survival
are determined by wealth.
If there are insufficient funds
to rush in food, water, medicine,
emergency housing
for a displaced population,
continued existence
of the metropolis
is seriously impaired.
We who have built great centers
of wood, stone, brick, steel, glass,
of property and privilege,
are reluctant to recognize
that all our construction
is a fragile creation
easily blown away
by natural or man-made
forces of destruction.
Presidential Election
Americans went to the polls,
many idealistically,
hoping for something better
than rule by the wealthy,
and though one candidate
may be preferable,
both spent a billion dollars,
$1,000,000,000,
for the highest office
in a land of growing poverty,
that cannot afford
a secure future
for most of its children,
while politicians,
the privileged,
live in comfort.
Aristo Myopia
The privileged,
mostly sheltered from disaster,
natural, man-made,
are too comfortable
to see the threat
to continued safety
if the system collapses.
Foreign investments,
offshore bank accounts,
delude the owners
into false security,
too ignorant to know
after Rome fell
civilization dissolved,
there was no refuge
for the wealthy
in the barbarian world.
Circus
Disaster swept the land,
millions huddling in darkness
trying to ward off the cold,
while football games go on
in the very cities
where people are suffering,
yet the cries of indignation
are insufficient to halt
sports entertainment.
