Dear Dirty America

(originally posted at 100 Peculiarly Useful So-Called Poems)

50 years ago
I played poker all one night & won 33 cents—
basement of Fred Graske’s house
pool table down there, too—
then I thought,
What am I doing? I can’t afford to lose!

Still, I’ve been gambling ever since
all I’ve had or ever would have
on surviving & achieving
despite playing the game that is no game
in competition with those who give up
caring about anyone
except those who can & will help them score—
without doing likewise.

Sometimes, I want to blame the unscrupulous
& they deserve blame
for my frustration—
but I’d fail that way—
all I can do is become more effective
than they can imagine the necessity of
tho I begin weak & frightened as anyone.

I often feel I’m the weakest, most frightened.
All I can do is learn more & apply it better
or, when I’m overwhelmed, camouflage—
but, then, emerge, initiate a gambit
designed as best I can—
& persevere, & gain, & change the odds—
if it’s not a game, it’s war—
& if I haven’t died, the outcome’s undecided—
I don’t expect to see its end.

Eric Chaet, The Turnaround Artist, born Chicago, USA, 1945, raised on rough South Side, pre-computer factory, office, & warehouse jobs. Some teaching, some independent self-taught technical consulting. 1974, Old Buzzard of No-Man’s Land, poems, Toronto, Canada. 1977, Solid and Sound, vinyl LP of songs, Lee’s Summit, Missouri, USA.  Mid-80s to mid-90s, silkscreened, hitchhiked, & stapled 1500 cloth posters to utility poles along American highways.  1990, How To Change the World Forever For Better, brief prose philosophy, Greenleaf, Wisconsin, USA; 2nd edition, 1994.  2001, People I Met Hitchhiking On USA Highways, mostly narrative prose, De Pere, Wisconsin, USA.  Lives in Wisconsin, industrialized dairy farms & cows, remnant cheese & paper factories & factory hands & outlaw mammals & birds, post-construction boom, reactionary politics & obsolete machinery, a smattering of professionals & millionaires.  Poems published, over 50 years in many USA states, plus Brazil, Cuba, Ireland, Scotland, England, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Nepal, India, China, Singapore, Korea, & Taiwan, often in translation. 

You can contact him at the Leave a Reply box on each page of his website, 100 Peculiarly Useful So-Called Poems, <http://www.ericchaet.wordpress.com>.

Find Chaet’s book, People I Met Hitchhiking USA Highways, and read a review written here. See also, There’s still a little breath in the old American Revolution, On Job Creation, and Stalin.

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