At the Auction House

The public is invited to

The auction house before

The art is bid on, sold and then

Is carried out the door.

 

Since I live close, I love to go

To check out the display

And wonder ‘bout the patrons -

All that money they might pay.

 

I couldn’t really picture

A Picasso on my wall

Next to pictures of my family –

That just wouldn’t work at all.

 

Plus, some modern pieces, which, to me,

Were boring or bizarre,

Were expected to fetch millions;

Famous painters raise the bar.

 

Still, I felt so privileged just to see

What private owners hold,

Even though it won’t be me

To whom the auctioneer yells, “Sold!”

Real Life Rescue

Yesterday, while walking home,

I saw some people who

Were gazing past the river rail,

But why? I had no clue.

 

Two cops were there as well and so

I looked to where they leaned

And saw the body of a man;

That’s why they’d intervened.

 

More people gathered and I learned

That he was still alive.

He’d either jumped or fallen;

No one knew if he’d survive.

 

Within mere minutes, boats arrived,

The rescue underway,

The efforts of our civil servants

Proudly on display.

 

They carried him onto a boat

Then to a nearby dock

Where an ambulance was waiting

For the stretcher down the block.

 

Up close, I saw he wasn’t young

And injured on his head.

I never learned if he pulled through

Or passed away instead.

 

It felt like watching as they filmed

A TV cop show, but

The victim, sadly, didn’t move

And no one shouted, “Cut!”

On Hold

When you are away,

No matter for what,

Reality’s paused or on hold

And waiting at home,

With the mail, are the chores

And the problems you need to unfold.

 

Some you might have let wait,

Others simply popped up

But once back, they are all within reach

And you quickly forget

Your hotel or your tour

Or the days that you lolled on the beach.

 

Though a break from your life

Is important, you know

It has limits and goes by so fast

That as soon as your plane

Touches down, you can hardly

Remember the time that just passed.

Pier-less

The hurricane was weeks ago,

Yet now I get to see

The damage, or what’s left of it,

That was described to me.

We walked the route we always take

When down here for a visit,

Past lovely homes with water views,

Expansive and exquisite.

The local park’s in ruins 

And some trees and plants have died,

But the lovely pier we strolled on

Shows destruction magnified.

Staring at its buckled surface,

Twisted into quite a mess,

Tells me when it will be walkable 

Is anybody‘a guess.

Early Morning Uber

Before I watched a movie,

(On the plane, which I enjoyed)

The day began with an event 

Which more than just annoyed.

At 4 a.m. our Uber driver,

On the FDR,*

While in the far left lane decided

He would stop the car.

Now at that hour, traffic’s light,

Yet we were still in luck

That a speeding auto hadn’t,

Into our stopped Uber, struck.

We yelled out to the driver

Who complained he couldn’t see,

For the brights were on the car behind -

That’s pure insanity!

In a minute, though, he hit the gas 

And we were on our way,

A slightly stressful start

To what would be a busy day.

*a six-lane highway in Manhattan

Reading the Paper

I’m reading the paper real fast;

Don’t know just how long this’ll last

But my gut gets inflamed

When the culprit (unnamed)

Fills the page with his awful bombast.

 

By and by, there’ll be news I can read

But no politics, that’s guaranteed,

Or I’ll stick to my books

Where, if there are some crooks,

They get punished for each dirty deed.

For the Next Four Years

For the next four years, with fingers crossed, 

I’ll hope that all the joy we’ve lost

We can recover, at a cost

That we can all afford.

I do not pray, but if I did,

I’d ask that somehow we’d be rid

Of all the hate that made us skid

Right off the deepest end.

The days ahead will seem unreal,

Yet all the pain and fear we feel

Will, hopefully, begin to heal

And help our souls to mend.