A Farewell for the Welfare Client

(October 2, 2012)

I endure the twisting anxiety

quite understandably as I await

the end of the weight within the

waiting room of the gargantuan

entity, Welfare. “Oh, God!”

I climactically scream into my

mind’s ear with my mind’s shrill voice,

“My stomach’s pulling itself out of my

abdomen and forcing its way forwards

as though pushing its way straight ahead

into the future”—into what I’m going

to suffer when my name’s eventually

called for by Welfare. I weight intensely

while waiting the time, the second that

I’m finally called, my presence belatedly

requested; and I follow Welfare down

the myriad corridors (straight, left, right,

right, left, straight) before entering Its

inquisitive office, one with a large number

of Welfare’s clients’ names, ages, addresses,

SINs, employment histories (or lack thereof),

assets, marital statuses, etcetera …

In Its office—desk, walls, filing cabinets,

computer and papers—Welfare cheques

a multitude of informations to ensure that It

has no reason (excuse?) to deny me my “benefits,”

to refuse me “government monies,” taxpayer

dollars …… “Oh, sorry,” Welfare says to me with

tainted crocodile tears and feigned sympathy,

“but you didn’t include your SIN on your check

stub last month. $orry. Next check issue date is

three weeks from now.” Glaring at me, Welfare’s

eyes tell me that I may indeed leave, and I rise to depart.

“Farewell,” Welfare wishes me in closing

the fruitless meeting—one of callous

red tape entangled with apathy and false hopes,

“Farewell … And don’t forget about your

Annual Welfare Review early next month … ”

Frank G Sterle Jr

Ode to the Placebo

“Praises!” proclaimed the man, “I’m truly cured!”

and in this more so he couldn’t believe

for the injection him would not deceive,

“It’s not like I’ve been but foolishly lured,

as I’ll feel healthy the nurse me assured

since the vaccine in me I did receive”;

thus from cruel ailment he’d attained reprieve

though it’s to be due to what he’d but heard.

For, more than the vaccine he had the word

of a nurse thus his faith was not impured

by notions of placebo-cures absurd;

indeed if through fake-fix shots he’d achieve

health as though from his senses he did leave

it was to his mind’s strength his health did cleave.

 

Frank G Sterle Jr

Ode to the Placebo

“Praises!” proclaimed the man, “I’m truly cured!”

and in this more so he couldn’t believe

for the injection him would not deceive,

“It’s not like I’ve been but foolishly lured,

as I’ll feel healthy the nurse me assured

since the vaccine in me I did receive”;

thus from cruel ailment he’d attained reprieve

though it’s to be due to what he’d but heard.

For, more than the vaccine he had the word

of a nurse thus his faith was not impured

by notions of placebo-cures absurd;

indeed if through fake-fix shots he’d achieve

health as though from his senses he did leave

it was to his mind’s strength his health did cleave.

 

Frank G Sterle Jr

Save the Earwig!

We protest whilst demanding that all life,

all living creatures, have the right to live

but we humans in ways still primitive

readily cause so much life so much strife

until our misdeeds cut like a knife

our deserving conscience since we give

naught towards the creatures’ cause, dismissive

are we of our apathy so rife.

But the creatures about which we don’t preach,

the bugs that can’t bring us to them adore,

their ugliness our hearts they can’t reach,

their lives we don’t at all care to restore

—instead we stomp on them, their ‘rights’ we breach—

the creepy crawler lifeforms we’ll ignore.

Frank G Sterle Jr

Too Smart to Understand

They admit they’ll never know how much sand

lays upon the beach though they will not depart

from their belief in the secular art

of scientific fact rich or bland

almost all listeners can understand;

they stick to their thought instead of their heart,

it’s good for them not that they’re too damn smart,

their mind’s closed to that their Maker has planned.

They, the scientists will basically brand

theism as hocus pocus then start

telling their hard-fact followers how grand

is the schooled bull’s-eye hit by the smart dart

which is why large grants are at their command

—that, and how God’s the one pushing the cart.

Frank G Sterle Jr

ODE to the Infinite, the Finite and Our Foolishness

Life’s irony’s the view we benefit

from physical, material delight

as though naught counts but what’s felt or in sight

while ignored our souls are desperate

for what should count the most—the infinite;

yet we’ll go on till it’s too late, despite

much instinct in us of what’s truly right,

that life’s content is so inadequate.

Regardless, to that same life we cling tight

since but the physical seems definite

thus for material matters we fight—

like the blind-mind addict’s barbiturate—

while Great Hereafter’s placed post-the-finite,

so skewed are values foremost we’ll permit.

(Frank Sterle Jr.)

I Faced My Demon

A young boy, I watched it though it would stun

me bad as I was too young to place my

eyes on such horrific scenes, to defy

my thoughts’ urge to ‘leave before it’s begun!’

to my room, don’t watch the dominion

of the devil on TV nor act sly

with The Exorcist who goes on to die

at the film’s end though for noble reason.

Trauma strewn years passed as did each season

of the witch, till I’d re-watch it and try

uncensored, uncut, to face my demon,

not shutting my eyes, again—no more: why

am I scared without having any fun

to go with it? to which I did comply.

Frank G Sterle Jr

His Bones They’d Find on the Stones

As his worried mother miserably moans,

only she can know such burden’s bleak kind,

‘If he’ll see yet more days, may I go blind!’

not quite valued as the queen bee her drones

he was rather amongst countless troop clones,

straight into the military he’d signed

during a much too hasty state of mind

—then one day a live mine shattered his bones.

Conscious of only his great pain he groans,

his fatigues blood drenched, his tight teeth clenched grind

thus for him his multi-pronged wound postpones

the war; no more land mines he’d soon find,

for his raw warring he instead atones

and when again told to fight, he declined.

Frank G Sterle Jr