Belle Weather

If your sister
Acted like this weather,
You'd have her committed
Faster than we both could say
"Bipolar."

If her doctor
Told you her behavior
Was a natural cycle
Would that make for
Better living with her?

If you'd admit
The hardest part would be
To change the things you do
To make her crazy,
It'd be a start.

Weather and the Girl

You might blush
If it were only whispered
At large family gatherings,
And no drinks
Or other secrets spilled-
We might get by with thinking
It's nobody's problem
But our own.

I remember the wedding,
When she smashed the ice sculpture
We didn't stand around pretending
She and it weren't melting down
In front of us.

Having seen it happen here,
If your sister bounced
This sharply up and down
By days or weeks
A little more each year,
You'd have her off to rehab,
Back on meds, or stuck in therapy,
Or something-anything-
But letting anyone else see.

So why, if everyone with skin
Can feel the bipolarity-
That's blowing in the wind,
Melting with the icecaps-
And rising with the tide,
Do we so snidely eschew insularity,

Pretending- now of all nows-

That we don't all live on a tiny island
Where everybody's business is co-owned?
While I hate to crash a party
I think it's started crashing down on us.

Ego, ergo Eco

Frogs float in a saucepan
Giggling at the bubbles
Ignorant in increments

Gum-flappers on CSPAN
Twaddling ideologues
Impotent in dependence

Polar bears strand themselves
On frozen funeral shelves
As the arctic circle melts

Facebook narcissism
Deepening the schism
Between the faceless billions

Unwired, unwitting, hired
(For cheap but not for keeps)
So artificial revenue
Growth unfettered can continue
Leaping greatly forward,

Nevermind us waking from
This Somnium Americana,

Uneasy with extremes
We dream of tropic paradigms
And hot springs hoping
Not to stir this slumber
While the numbers bear the tidings
To our coast-along habit.

Assume blind justice serves us later,
Last, or not at all (the end's always
Depending on your means)
Please just assimilate us faster
In this melting (boiling) pot
Of man's self-made disaster.

Idling Thoughts

While my car heats
On freezing mornings
I develop theories
To explain to the doubters
How "global warming" is
A misnomer but
Not a mistake.