Just like that, he started a venture
Intended to salute their culture,
In his speech creating that picture;
The high hopes he did nurture
About its supportive infrastructure
And advertising superstructure…
Then, finance became the torture,
With its photo of an ugly vulture;
Inventor forcing out of his rapture,
The invented threatening with capture…
Any need now to contend that Money Matters,
As a scheme without it shatters.
Categories:
superstructure, business, celebration, devotion, money,
Form: Rhyme
I see it tied up to its pier,
steel monolith, huge and grey,
the USS Massachusetts,
now a museum by the quay.
Big sixteen-inch guns are silent,
the five-inchers point to the sky,
kids play on the forty-mil guns,
shooting phantom planes as they fly.
Tourists walk this leviathan,
product of my grandfather’s age,
he served then, in the Pacific,
might have seen the ship’s cannons rage.
His great-grandchildren scamper ’round,
one tries to lift the anchor chain,
each link outweighs him massively,
but the boy still tries all the same.
Above the superstructure stands,
a massive, armored sentinel,
as if guarding Fall River,
should any not wish the town well.
As if those big guns are waiting,
to swing up, belch fire again,
a dragon floating on water,
built proud by the hardest of men.
I know she won’t fight anymore,
by modern ships she is outclassed,
yet looking at her, most admit:
that battleships feel more bad-ass.
Categories:
superstructure, appreciation, history, imagery, nostalgia,
Form: Rhyme
Karl Marx thought that religion
Was the opiate of the masses,
Which is true as far as it goes.
In his times and in the circumstances,
He could not have thought better or worse—
Not, for instance, of the boomerang, that is,
The dialectic of Base and Superstructure,
Which could engender a hybrid like hegemony,
Which, in turn, enables ruling by consensus;
Not to speak of adjunct opiates
Like Freudian drives, drink,
Vulgar materialism and what not,
Which, in the past, have driven
Empires to break and kingdoms to crack
And, of late, in many ‘Democracies’ and ‘Republics’
Caused women, men, and parties to rise to power,
Caused (Swiss) Bank balances and vote banks to overflow!
— Ram, R. V.
Categories:
superstructure, irony,
Form: Lyric
Stretch not on me your other hand:
The tree you stretched it on yesterday;
Its leaves were off, its fruits dispersed.
The house you stretched it on yesterday;
Its beam was down its roof was off.
The vessel you streched it on yesterday ;
Her crew drifted west, her cargo east,
Hull and superstructure now water tanks.
But lay gently on me your soothing hand.
The comfort of your meekness who can grudge?
Rodents come out of their holes for your truce.
Visit me not wind the day you are hurricane;
I will be going on errand for my mama.
Keep a date with me the day you are breeze,
I shall welcome you with fanfare.
Categories:
superstructure, wind,
Form: Personification
sometimes wonder how many dark chapters are lost between the glitter of the details,
Flowers of the most beautiful bloom lay dead while artificial wreaths are being twined,
And how much do you think a poor man will have to pay to buy the smile of a rich man,
It is a sad fact that very often human happiness feeds and thrives on human miseries.
There are men prospering in stark proportion of the lesser man working for a pittance,
Some rear a superstructure of comfort on the foundations of another mans ruined hopes,
We hear hardened tales of misery in newspapers, televisions so often it has no effect,
Soul destroying factories, profit by repetitive tasks, cutting out long learned skills.
Even in these enlightened days where higher education is available to the rich and poor,
How can some of the poorer families get money to pay for their graduate's costly upkeep,
Can they purchase uniforms, books and pay for lodgings to be near the free university,
Free education is too expensive for working classes, so now we have it, nothing's changed.
Categories:
superstructure, education, education, education,
Form: Prose Poetry