Thursday, November 16, 2017

privatized medicine

Privatized medicine should be an oxymoron
Because the physician who promises to do no harm
Operates in a system that demands business profits
Delivering mistreatment to even those who can afford to pay.

When the doctors do what makes the most money for them
When the hospitals are managed to maximize return on investment
When the pharmaceuticals market their pills ad nauseum
Woe unto the person who suffers illness, injury or pain.

Sooner or later each of us needing health care must decide
In a kind of pick your poison choice what to do
Whether to take your chances with conventional medicine
Or trust in the regimen of alternative practitioners.

I think everyone has heard or lived a medical horror story
Someone who suffered unnecessarily under a doctor’s hands
Someone who would have been better off untouched
Especially when there’s no known effective treatment.

Your only hope if your condition has no conventional cure
Would be someone who says an alternate remedy exists
But because that provider exists in the capitalist system
Credulous belief in the possibility is all that you have.

My friend finds himself on the horns of this dilemma
Knowing conventional medicine offers nothing long term
Loathing the terrible side effects that impair any quality of life
Preferring to keep the faith with alternative narratives.

Not being in his predicament I remain skeptical
Having no confidence in untested or unverified methods
But my position and his position are so far removed we don’t talk
Avoiding conversation about the progression of his illness.

The distortion of science under capitalism impacts medicine
In ways that reach deep into our interpersonal relationships
Doing harm between us even as it does harm to us
When what we need is double blind experimental truth.

There is a science to testing what works and what doesn’t
Which is what matters most to socialized medicine
The obvious cure that is so desperately needed
Sadly too late for so many afflicted today.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

hard frost

Last night the hard frost dropped the mulberry leaves
Leaving a thick dark green carpet underneath
Commingling with the dead oak leaves littering the yard
Seen this morning from inside where I try to keep warm.

The scene fills me with a certain familiar sadness
Knowing it will be five long months before spring leafs out
While the ever present bare limbs stand clenched against the cold
Skeleton outlines etched against the winter sky.

Looking for something to cheer me up
I read a newspaper human interest story
How a young man found his way to be a performance artist
Becoming a living statue in Washington Square this summer.

But the cold has forced him to climb down and bundle up
As the polar vortex bears down upon New York City
As our thoughts fly south anticipating our seasonal migration
To where a body can move about with warm bones.

These days we have the choice where to reside
Leaving for months on end to follow the sun
Setting up camp in this house or that
Discovering the wildlife in the natural areas nearby.

When I was a boy I looked forward to winter
Bringing the magical ice to skate upon the pond
With lights and ornaments decorating the night
And random holidays imposed by blizzards.

I remember enjoying the camaraderie of my friend
We two who trudged about seeking who would hire us
Money earned snow shoveling soon spent
Indulging in chocolates and soda fountain excess.

Back then I did not know how everything changes
How life is a series of temporary places and people
Each one surrounding us as if in a permanent state
Making it possible to exist happily in this moment.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

back and forward

If you think you missed out on the chance think again
For the courage to confront the white supremacists
Or to put your body in defense of a woman’s right to choose
Or to mobilize to face down the flag wavers supporting the wars.

As for the rainbow of sexual orientation coming out proud
And the freedom to express gender identity openly
These rights and respect won only through long hard struggle
Threatened with new repressive laws and hateful acts.

As the old order attempts to tighten its grip
As if the clock could be turned back fifty years
The struggle against white male privilege continues
Against a backdrop of imperialist aggression.

Back then the grandiose triumphalism celebrated
America the great victor of the Second World War
Flouting dominant military industrial production
That precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The rulers exulting not so much now that China is ascendant
When every military adventure is a lingering disaster
When denial and backwards reaction represent policy
When gilded age decadence bankrupts everything good.

Knowing that the youth will make the revolution
The keepers of the flame are eager to pass the torch
To the next generation of activists seeking guidance
On how to negate the repression and seize the day.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Skylands November 7, 2017

album