A Wintry Mix

For Christine Stansell

Chongyam Trungpa

Steve Davis and all

The other mentors

Real or imagined

Who taught by example

 (good and/or bad)

About the dangers

And rewards of

Mixing the personal

With the spiritual

And political realms

How the Lotus of Life unfolds

In the most intricate of ways

Please understand

From now until

New Year’s more

Than a fortnight hence

I have no frigging idea

On any given night whether

I'll end up in bed alone

Gnashing my teeth

Blessed or utterly stoned

Which was the very same

Wintry mix displayed

On the streets

Of Midtown yesterday

A surcharge of the craziness

We’re lately awash in

Anguish and insight  

With an antic twist
It's a two-step line dance called
The Armageddon Shuffle

In this case arising as a

Column of protest marchers

Chanting that Black Lives Matter

Made its way up 6^th Avenue

Into the heart of Herald Square

Where a phalanx of Drunken Santas

Had already laid claim to the turf

In their riotous good cheer

They careened about

Under the street lamps

Swaying and cantilevered

Undeterred as the

Marchers proceeded

Uptown and East

While helicopters

Hovered overhead

And a cordon of cruisers

With blue and red flashing lights

Sealed off all alternate

Routes of escape

Hemmed in

On all four sides

Of the barricades

We were laid bare

In the urban grid

 Drawn and quartered

By the same police power

Those of us angry

And those of us willing

And those of us

Besotted too

All of us could

Suddenly see

Exactly where

Things stood