Good Night & Good Luck
—Apologies to Edward R. Murrow
News anchors mystified by “cool brat” meaning
utter misleading titles & sound bites they can’t control:
Australian Surfer’s Leg Washes to Shore;
Disciplined Army Reserve Officers Admonished;
Wolf of Airbnb Defrauds NYC Landlords.
…Good Night & Good Luck.
Relinquishing the role of trustworthy reporting
to shock jocks, podcasters, DJs & tweeters,
information floats across fancy monitors
dominates social media platforms,
drops freely from misinformed lips during
water cooler conversations where people discuss
sensationalized headlines repeat false, distort facts
& elevate falsehoods couched in phrases
dominated by dangling, misplaced modifiers:
Student Excited Dad Got Head Job;
Soda Cans Exploding like Delta Airlines “Little Bombs”;
Man Stands on Motorcycle Seat Driving 104 MPH;
Starving, Olympic Food Bar Devoured;
Olympic Athlete Eats at Food Bar With a Tattoo.
Child Swallowed by Python in Red Pajamas;
Police Warn Man with No Arms & No Legs is Armed & On the Run.
…Good Night & Good Luck.
Editors & webmasters relegate updates on war torn countries,
indigent families & suffering citizens to back pages
in the New York Times or between 60 Minutes commercial breaks,
filling empty space, perpetuating toxic memes, animating
the uncomfortable hush caused by slack wagging tongues.
…Good Night & Good Luck.
Arc de Triomphe Pilgrims
High school voyagers,
premarital couples,
& collage dropouts backpack
through Normandy fields,
nibble on exotic cheese
sample cuisine, contemplating
a side trip to the Aquitaine
in search of Limousin beef,
duck foie gras, rich, red Bordeaux
wine & a chance to explore
historical landscapes
from the French Alps
to the Pyrenees always atop
Charlemagne’s shoulders
each day celebrated
like St. Crispin’s feast,
Agincourt groupies,
rambling towards Paris
trekking like bicyclists
across the Champs-Élysées.
Wistful Entreaties
Take me back to cherry tree orchards blossoming
throughout Santa Clara Valley in the 1960’s,
that inspired time before birthing Silicon Valley
replaced fertile fields and fruit bearing groves with glass,
steel, cement, tar, high technology, and computer chips.
Free me from yesteryear’s idealized social diaspora
perceived through a senior citizen’s vantage point;
mindful of lessons learned, responsibility accepted,
swing wide youthful curiosity, advancement’s doorway,
acclaim achievements true, own up to virtue questionable.
Help me ignore shadows, recalling bad decisions,
regretting dump yard expeditions, adding rubbish to landfill—
future housing track foundations—major source
of toxins, leachate and greenhouse gases, tolerating
Eichler’s radiant heating, San Jose’s mounting smog.
Let me recall small budget pleasures frequenting
drive-in movie theaters dotting the valley’s
agricultural perimeter, where Steven’s Creek Blvd
gave rancher’s a thoroughfare and the Winchester
Mystery House marked the edge of town.
Grant me childhood bliss hiking amid Alum Rock hills,
searching for treasure filled caves—Joaquin Murrieta’s haunts—
or exploring abandoned shafts inside the condemned
New Almaden quicksilver mines, oblivious
to dangerous rotting timbers and poisonous cinnabar ore.
Permit me quaint mind expansion…just limit my high to Geritol
enhancement; shorten day long treks through San Jose
to mailbox journeys, and venerate fingertip entertainment
as a respectable alternative to clubbing it, theatre premiers,
lowriding kicks, or Mount Umunhum trysts in parked cars.
