Ground Zero

At trailer parks in weedy yards
on sun beaten dirt roads
way past where the rich live
their housemaids and groundskeepers
the maintenance men, single moms
and the girls who work part-time
for six bucks an hour
at food joints in strip malls.

On Worth Ave in Palm Beach
on the immaculate city streets
designer shops
top brand boutiques
bougainvillea climbing walls
dog walkers in gold bling
plastic women doing lunch drinks
while men in Bermuda shorts
wait in idling Bentleys
the sun in glassy eyes.

Down side alleys and inside
through wrought-iron gates
the girls arrive
in singles, pairs
twelve, sixteen, seventeen
they giggle, whisper, chew gum
from purses and backpacks
you can smell their shampoo,
their nails painted with stars.

They do what they’re told
these good girls
for two hundred bucks
they treat all the men
the way they treat him.

The Reckonings

The first reckoning
goes undetected
when the asset
gets a light slap
on a Rolexed wrist
a free pass to come
and go from his cell
a special case, protected
pampered, massaged

Culture shifts the plates
to a volcanic eruption
shaking the foundations
me too me too

This time the reckoning
sends a lava spill downhill
and his ass is grass
arrested, jailed
lawyered up, beat up
his co-conspirator missing
with millions in cash

Culture shifts the plates again
the madam is dragneted
her photo appearing
à la In-and-Out Burger
where she poses with fries
and a curious book
on the multiple deaths
of CIA operatives

Meanwhile the victims
kept in the dark, hands bound
with gag orders and NDAs
nightmares from childhoods
ruined by such reckonings
me too me too

The Dangle

The allure of the finest minds
he collects like trading stamps
the smartest guys in a room
in a rented office he’s gathered
Nobel prize winners, Harvard profs
scientists and big dogs
in the elite world
of world-changing
men in search of funding
he dangles before them.

A visiting fellow, he plays
intellectual in a crimson hoodie
and upscale house slippers
the double college dropout
a regular on Cambridge campuses
laundering his soiled reputation
at the ivory towers
at the private events
at celebrity dinner parties
where he countersignals
his disdain for the elite
pretensions he shares
in his jeans and tees
serving caviar by the pound.

He tells them his passion
for the study of transhumanism
his plans to manage
to selectively inseminate
dozens of young women
to bring eugenic progeny
to the dangerous dangle
over the yawning abyss
that is his
handmade
cockeyed
Satyricon world.

Imposter Syndrome

In the rogues’ gallery
of under the radar
over the top sleaze
his name keeps popping up
while the media fawns
still doe-eyed, enamored
or confronted, intimidated
made afraid to reveal
the man behind the curtain.

His sweetheart plea deal
the future cabinet member
shook hands on in a bar
allowing slow hand massage
in bubblegum rooms
and impunity for a decade.

His black book, black box
could bring down leaders
of countries, industries, private
lives exposed, private
details filed away
his Rolodex worth more
than all of his Rolexes
to some very scary people
who very much want him
dead.