More Sad

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The firing

of bullets and dropping of bombs 

is a familiar cruelty

on TV screens

these days

why do I feel more sad

for the businessman I see 

in his office? This man of habit, craven 

and long past the age of retirement

in his glassed-in corner, hunched over his desk

barely moving

like a pet turtle who couldn't outgrow his tank;

his days should be devoted 

to pastoral pleasures or culture,

playing golf or learning to abstract paint,

but there's nothing left to express,

no inner reserves from which to draw

inspiration, the only occasional rise he gets

is fist-pounding rage

when company sales are down, 

or the value of his portfolio plummets.

He's ditched the suit and tie, 

I'll give him that, can't stay home, 

can't stand his wife nor she him,

(on that they agree) so he

still comes to the office every day,

arrives at 7 and sits there until lunchtime,

reads emails, circles letters 

in the daily Wonder Word upwards 

downwards backwards forwards 

and fantasizes about fucking the Chinese interns

in accounting

younger than his granddaughters.

Despite the triple-bypass

he steals the occasional smoke, 

not 'Craven A' like before, Cohibas 

'he doesn't inhale', the big "C" 

always in the back of his mind

(so many he knew are now gone).

Along with a statin and a beta blocker, 

glucose is lately a concern

but controllable with diet,

so at the stroke of 12

like Cinderella fleeing the ballroom,

he's off to the local eatery

where all the businessmen go -

he'll show them his powers are not slipping

away, he hasn't lost a step,

still makes deals they can envy.

His car is washed weekly,

he over-tips his barber and manicurist,

the local rabbi comes for a donation

and he gives, (just enough each time 

to keep him coming back) he cares 

about what people say,

and for how much he leaves behind,

but not for the sadness of others

he's never had much use for sadness

(or happiness for that matter)

only anger and fear, emotions

that take you places.

At home in the evening

he watches the latest dispatches 

of the war on cable news, he's hooked 

on the TV fetish for violence and suffering,

the peddling of atrocity and injustice  

to the numb addicted audience,

he kicks his feet up on his Laz-E-Boy recliner

and sips Crown Royal on the rocks,

soothed to be safe from the world's general shittiness

and gently stoned he slowly drifts off to sleep.