Right Now

The roofs all team with Mexicans who sweat
To raise the roofs, celebrate, pay each debt.
The cold Pacific waves chill children's toes;
Along the boardwalk, spandex-covered hos
Make money for their pimps; moms look away.
The Congress passed a health care bill today.
A man sells children heroin at home.
A biker on his Harley revs to roam
The highways filled by semis lines like train
Cars, belching sulfur. Look, it smells like rain.
A man steps up to put his order in:
"Hamburger, fries, a scratch-off -- Did I win?"
A large committee, self-appointed, votes
To try to get a ban on coats of stoats
And goats, for fur is death and cats are slaves.
A surfing couple ride Hawaii's waves.
White steam erupts out of the nuclear
Volcano sending out its kitten purr
That hides the violence controlled within.
The Baptist preacher yells, "Repent your sin!"
A student dusts away the dirt to show
Tyrannosaurus bones, a fossil toe.
Talking on his new cell phone in the sun,
The father tries to get a tow; his son
Is getting sued by his coworker who
Became offended at a joke she blew
Off when she had a crush on him a week
Before, before he turned away his cheek.
Supporters of the President ask him
To pardon them their crimes -- but it looks grim.
Protesters fill the streets, demand tax cuts.
A man stands back, checks out the women's butts.
A woman left alone at a hotel
Calls up her boyfriend, wondering what she'll tell
Him since she can't get home. The clerks both laugh.
The skin of a man's eaten up by staph.
Some children play on monkey bars at school;
The saddest kid there always plays the fool.
The shift change idles car production not
A bit in Ford's new factory, the bot
Production line is moving fine; the men
And women working there are making ten
Times what the retail worker makes who stands
As long and has to deal with dumb demands.
The college students sit in silence, hope
The teacher asks them nothing; they can't grope
For answers out of what they haven't read.
The mayor's mistress just slipped out of bed.
The T.V.'s showing hockey, basketball
On CNN, whose painted, dressed-up doll
Delivers all the news in mere gabfests
That no one listens to, just watch her breasts.
A school commissioner has moved some cash
Into his bank account, strokes his mustache.
A pregnant twelve year old is visiting
Her baby's daddy, twenty-eight, their fling
Encouraged by her mother in the car.
An alcoholic stumbles from a bar.
A woman goes out for her interview
In miniskirt and tube top, though she knew
She'd never get a secretary job.
Some testing teens in town form a flash mob.
Police find pot they planted in a car.
A preteen dreams he'll be a football star.