Conditioned Response

GARY BECK

Conditioned Response

Conditioned Response A project developed by Nazar Look Attitude and Culture Journal of Crimean Tatars in Romania www.nazar-look.com

Conditioned Response

by Gary Beck

Constanta, 2015

Descriere: BECK, GARY Conditioned Response / Gary Beck. Poetry Collection.

Constanta: 2015 ISBN 9781517260934

ISBN-13: 9781517260934 ISBN-10: 1517260930 BISAC: Literary Collections / American / General Volume editor: Taner Murat Artwork: Sagida Siraziy (Sirazieva)

Copyright Š 2015 Gary Beck

Gary Beck

Gary Beck new york, usa garycbeck@yahoo.com www.garycbeck.com www.facebook/AuthorGaryBeck

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Conditioned Response

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater.

He has 11 published chapbooks. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press), Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways (Winter Goose Publishing). Perceptions and Displays will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press) Acts of Defiance (Artema Press). Flawed Connections has been accepted for publication (Black Rose Writing). His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.

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Gary Beck

Contents The Western Front..................................................................... 11 A Glimpse of the Past ................................................................ 12 Faces of Fear ............................................................................. 13 Log On....................................................................................... 14 Brief Freedom............................................................................ 15 Northern Mariners ..................................................................... 17 Irony ......................................................................................... 18 Ode to the Man in the Moon ...................................................... 19 White Interlude ......................................................................... 20 Overdose ................................................................................... 21 Avian Hierarchy ......................................................................... 22 Ways and Means........................................................................ 23 Attrition..................................................................................... 26 Modern Warfare ........................................................................ 27 Misguided Education ................................................................. 28 Red Alert ................................................................................... 29 Bequest ..................................................................................... 30 Air Supply .................................................................................. 31 Civil Rights ................................................................................ 32 Statecraft .................................................................................. 33 Too Much Comfort ..................................................................... 34 Distress Call............................................................................... 35 Historical Struggles ................................................................... 36 St. Patrick's Day, N.Y.C.............................................................. 37 Alternative Housing................................................................... 38 Final Enactments ....................................................................... 39 Personal Zest............................................................................. 40 Indictment ................................................................................ 41 Feeding Cycle ............................................................................ 44

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Conditioned Response Recipe ....................................................................................... 45 Tones ........................................................................................ 46 Big Parade................................................................................. 47 Spring Fever.............................................................................. 48 Climate Change ......................................................................... 49 Small Town Concerns ................................................................ 50 Cash Cow................................................................................... 51 A Citizen's Descent .................................................................... 52 Circus Act .................................................................................. 53 Affliction.................................................................................... 54 Afghan Warrior.......................................................................... 55 Aging Process............................................................................ 56 Pandemic .................................................................................. 57 Casus Belli................................................................................. 58 So Fleeting ................................................................................ 59 Unplanned Obsolescence........................................................... 60 Splash ....................................................................................... 63 Afghanistan Holiday .................................................................. 64 Urban Oasis ............................................................................... 65 Breech of Faith .......................................................................... 66 A Bewildered People.................................................................. 67 Cognates ................................................................................... 69 Frequent Fliers .......................................................................... 70 Welcome to Afghanistan ........................................................... 71 Troubled Land ........................................................................... 72 Gutenberg Weeps...................................................................... 73 Perilous Nudity.......................................................................... 74 Parasites ................................................................................... 75 Chain Reaction .......................................................................... 76 Final Solution ............................................................................ 77 Detached Vision ........................................................................ 80 Vulnerability.............................................................................. 81 Ethics and Morality.................................................................... 82

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Gary Beck Maintenance Chore.................................................................... 83 Promises Unkept ....................................................................... 84 Get More.................................................................................... 88 Differences ................................................................................ 89 Night in the City ........................................................................ 90 Advice to the President.............................................................. 91 Early Spring ............................................................................... 93 Ode to the City .......................................................................... 94 The Lack of Parity...................................................................... 95 Dark Factors .............................................................................. 96 Current Events........................................................................... 97 Fade Out.................................................................................... 99 Casualties................................................................................ 100 The Public Trust....................................................................... 101 Adaptation............................................................................... 102 Nearing the End....................................................................... 103 Arbitrary Code ......................................................................... 104 Contentious Land .................................................................... 105 Press Relations........................................................................ 106 Departure ................................................................................ 107 The Decline of America ............................................................ 108 Premature Signs ...................................................................... 109 Somnambulism........................................................................ 110 Substitute Target..................................................................... 111 As the Light Fades ................................................................... 112 Seasonal Choice....................................................................... 113 Pernicious Abuses.................................................................... 114 Unexpected Loss ..................................................................... 115 Yearning for Illusions .............................................................. 116 Remorseless People................................................................. 117 Early Bloom ............................................................................. 118 Lost Chances ........................................................................... 119 Harbinger, 2010 ...................................................................... 122

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Conditioned Response Corruption Road ...................................................................... 123 Turning Point .......................................................................... 124 Choices.................................................................................... 126 Disruptions.............................................................................. 127 acknowledgements.......................................................... 129

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Gary Beck The Western Front

The Western Front Explosions rend the night.

People fall, bleed, scream, sirens shriek piercing the smoke, echo in debris-filled air, responders arrive, treat the injured, carry out the dead.

Neighbors yanked from sleep line dangerous streets, trembling in apprehension expecting attacks, yet this is not Baghdad, Bombay, Beirut, foreign and disorderly, but civilized New York City entertaining terrorists, instead of tourists.

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Conditioned Response A Glimpse of the Past

A Glimpse of the Past Early settlements in America, completely preoccupied with the struggle for subsistence, required constant effort to ensure survival, allowing little time for pursuit of the arts by frugal people intolerant of frivolous activities.

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Gary Beck Faces of Fear

Faces of Fear Worried families huddle in polluted waiting rooms in devouring hospitals consuming loved ones, despite hope and prayer.

They wait, sit, twitch, pace, fret, dreading the news to come that husband, father, wife, son, will not reappear.

Overburdened staff ignore suffering support groups, barely able to contain the daily flood of demand to ease pain, cure disease, heal injuries.

Apprehensive families hover traumatically, wishing for life, preparing for death, helpless to alter the course of illness.

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Conditioned Response Log On

Log On Newspapers are departing replaced by the internet providing information, accessible entertainment electronically delivered to the home, workplace, any personal outlet, making relics of print users genetically chained to pulp of the past.

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Gary Beck Brief Freedom

Brief Freedom Our pet house finch, Mr. fuzzy pate, perches in his cage singing doleful songs.

One spring morning wild finches sang nearby and Mr. fuzzy pate burst into joyous song.

My daughter felt sorry for the confined bird, in a moment of kindness opened his cage and off he flew.

He tried to join the other birds, but they quickly rebuffed him.

He followed them all day, but they chased him away.

As darkness fell he remembered his warm cage, food tray, water dish, but couldn't find the way home.

He tried to hop

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Conditioned Response Brief Freedom into the wild finch's nest, but they pecked and pecked the unwelcome intruder until he flew off, panic stricken, and didn't survive the long, cold night.

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Gary Beck Northern Mariners

Northern Mariners My family sailed the Barents Sea for generations.

My great grandfather perished in the ice serving the Tsar.

My grandfather perished in the ice serving the Soviet Union.

My father survived the ice serving the Russian Republic, but was permanently crippled.

I will be the first not to fear the ice, thanks to global warming.

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Conditioned Response Irony

Irony The farmers in Afghanistan grow poppy that makes opium, which is turned into heroin that finances the Taliban, who face our troops who fight and die, while folks at home are getting high.

American drug users support our enemy, as they erode the fabric that sustains reality.

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Gary Beck Ode to the Man in the Moon

Ode to the Man in the Moon American astronauts made a few brief visits to your welcoming smile, but couldn't hang around since they needed to breathe and your hospitality didn't include oxygen.

Fanciful writers and wishful scientists mumble about colonies under dome habitats, which are far beyond current technology that consumes our resources in unproductive wars that make space travel unaffordable.

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Conditioned Response White Interlude

White Interlude An unexpected snowfall covers the city with clean, white quilts, quickly obscuring dirt, grime, stains, rust, urban excrescences combining avidly, resurfacing the filth temporarily submerged by nature's decorator.

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Gary Beck Overdose

Overdose Man reproduces faster than productivity, at least the poverty class that competes voraciously for diminishing resources, limited food supply, outbreeding many species with rampant consumption in the shared environment that will not sustain the increasing hordes.

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Conditioned Response Avian Hierarchy

Avian Hierarchy My terrace is a study of the laws of survival, as the birds struggle daily for the limited food supply.

Sparrows chase finches, blue jays chase sparrows, doves chase blue jays, pigeons chase everyone.

My guests who relax outdoors, enjoying a taste of nature in a city of concrete, all suggest liberally that the birds should just get along.

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Gary Beck Ways and Means

Ways and Means As America goes broke, burdening citizens with crushing loads of debt for unprofitable wars, financial exploiters breed old-fashioned corruption propelling us to the future without opportunities.

Millions lost good jobs that never will return, while the service sector offers enticements to flip burgers, wait tables, pack shopping bags, fringe benefits of higher education.

Many home were foreclosed so forlorn families huddle in dank apartments yearning for their former rooms, squat in abandoned buildings jeered at by mocking rats reluctantly sharing

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Conditioned Response Ways and Means living quarters.

Others cower in homeless shelters commanded by the kindless, or linger in tent cities, with or without law, sanitation services, peaceful family nights in front of the tv, distant memories eradicated by interference, neighbor's dark noise, belching, puking, farting, yelling, screaming, cursing, disrupting emissions conspiring to exhaust remaining resources.

Where are the best and brightest?

Why have they abandoned us to abusers of the public trust?

Have they all sold out to the private sector, leaving us the dregs lacking in ability for elected office, or tools of special interests?

How will we rebuild the foundering ship of state with weak navigators?

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Gary Beck Ways and Means Our schools have filled our heads with myths of honorable men who served the nation capably.

The people who once said: "Can do", are retired, laid off, expired, abandoning us in desperate need of master builders to prevent the collapse of crumbling foundations, while we find architects to draw up plans for new construction.

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Conditioned Response Attrition

Attrition Almost all living things are losing their habitat to multi-pronged assaults, double envelopment by man and nature, strong enough when combined to diminish species, endanger survival of fellow passengers on spaceship earth.

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Gary Beck Modern Warfare

Modern Warfare Our troops go into combat without bulletproof vests, considered too expensive for ground forces, when billion dollar planes take priority, allow prosperity for the arms industry.

Generals still prepare to fight major battles against opposing armies in enormous clashes with thousands of casualties, while our troops fight limited wars, small scale engagements that don't sate the appetites of ambitious officers hungering fast promotion, difficult of attainment in brief skirmishes with determined insurgents, who don't appreciate planner's preferences.

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Conditioned Response Misguided Education

Misguided Education Purchasing power demands respect from envious people financially challenged, who have been conditioned to the tao of acquisition and measure accomplishments by material landmarks.

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Gary Beck Red Alert

Red Alert Illness or disease strikes suddenly, catching us unprepared for the burden of despair following pain and suffering, as we're brutally informed by aching, failing bodies that we may not continue.

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Conditioned Response Bequest

Bequest Mythology insists the sins of the fathers who commit dreadful crimes descend on the sons.

Religion offers the hope of forgiveness in the after-life, relieving atoners of inherited burdens.

Science proves genetic traits are handed down, permitting children to blame parents for inherent failure.

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Gary Beck Air Supply

Air Supply Urban emissions of noxious substances are usually ignored by city residents too congested to be distracted by limited breathing.

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Conditioned Response Civil Rights

Civil Rights Civil disobedience is never appreciated by government institutions staffed by servants of the people accustomed to the status quo, captives of bureaucracy obsolete or detrimental to the public well-being, preferring anonymity in carrying out policy enriching the minority, betraying the majority.

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Gary Beck Statecraft

Statecraft Yesterday's enemy is today's friend, until it's preferable to be an enemy again.

Today's enemy was yesterday's friend, no longer concerned with good relations.

Our country makes plans often denied attainment by insufficient power to achieve objectives, because of opposition, military, economic, to national policies confusing everyone, except stratified practitioners.

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Conditioned Response Too Much Comfort

Too Much Comfort Snow falls on the city distressing inhabitants resenting interference with daily routines, work, shopping, entertainment, drug dealing, stealing cars, mugging the vulnerable, activities thwarted by sudden climate change, taken personally by indulged citizens.

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Gary Beck Distress Call

Distress Call Emergency services desperately required for rapid intervention between life and death, unavoidably delayed by budget cuts, approach fatal depletion.

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Conditioned Response Historical Struggles

Historical Struggles Ancient cities fell into decay from war or famine, often disappearing without a trace.

Modern cities may survive longer, despite weapons of mass destruction, very effective on glass constructions, until global warming rapidly increases and floods the earth.

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Gary Beck St. Patrick's Day, N.Y.C.

St. Patrick's Day, N.Y.C. The sun finally came out again, the birds are happily singing, the Irish are happily marching, a few louts unhappily drinking, except for nearby sirens shrilling emergencies it is remarkably quiet on my midtown terrace.

The pigeons sulk resentfully when I chase them, allowing blue jays, finches, doves to eat without being bullied.

Escape to illusion beckons and I briefly forget wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, millions without jobs, homes, as I enjoy this strange interlude of brief tranquility, before resuming my usual concerns with the state of the world.

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Conditioned Response Alternative Housing

Alternative Housing A perverse species constructs prisons, containment shells for undesirables judged unworthy to exercise freedom in the world at large, many maintained for life at public expense, an unproductive tenure for keepers and kept alike.

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Gary Beck Final Enactments

Final Enactments The last survivors of a doomed species wither away exposed in nature, concealed in a cave, remaining moments only protected by human indifference, creating no stir lacking the means of retribution for their harsh fate, yet without the need to destroy everything, the last consolation before extinction.

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Conditioned Response Personal Zest

Personal Zest Bursts of passion enliven relationships expelling ennui, stimulating nerve ends, refreshing attitudes comfortably adjusted to ordinary routines, vital for maintenance of daily obligations highly detrimental to romantic inclinations.

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Gary Beck Indictment

Indictment From sea to tainted sea we deplete tomorrow with chemicals, biologicals, poisoning the earth with fossil fuel emissions, then delude the public with hope of alternatives, vegetable ethanols, an additional drain on overtaxed soil already reeling from the rush of greedy profit seekers who care not what harm they do.

Our porous borders scream for relief from invasions of illegal drugs, welcomed by our people determined to escape boundaries of reality, unconcerned with funding crime, corruption, terrorism, if it doesn't interfere with the consumer's choice of a narcotic menu

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Conditioned Response Indictment deviously designed to detach users from responsibility.

Legislators rant and rave claiming to be concerned with the needs of the public, a much abused public that has expended trust, suspended expectations, assaulted on all sides by private exploitation of the small investor, so easily deprived of minimal resources to the benefit of the few who extravagantly spend, then cry for reimbursement from the taxpayers they defraud.

Our troops bleed and die in wars for democracy, in lands of theocracy where tribal obligation always takes precedence to creating a nation of unification, similar in structure to a democratic system, but just like ours, conflicts of interest,

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Gary Beck Indictment dishonest officials, prejudiced citizens, greedy capitalists sow so much confusion that general agreement will not be reached.

The roster of enemies domestic and foreign, seeking destruction, limited or total of our way of life, national purpose, continued existence by any means possible, attack the fragile fabric binding a people together, dedicated to opposing reasonable compromise regardless of consequences, will only be content when our aspirations turn to ashes.

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Conditioned Response Feeding Cycle

Feeding Cycle The blue jays come each day, puff up their feathers, shake, cry, caw, yell, demand that my wife serve cashews.

They stuff their beaks, fly off without thanks, unobligated, return later, repeat feeding requests, only rewarding us with their company.

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Gary Beck Recipe

Recipe Basic ingredients of deterioration coincidentally combine for imminent decay of the body politic, contagiously assaulted from without and within, until resistance crumbles and the once healthy corpus completely collapses from endless afflictions fatally terminating remaining resistance.

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Conditioned Response Tones

Tones The human voice, a peculiar instrument badly played by most can produce beauty, making us wonder why so many assault fragile ears.

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Gary Beck Big Parade

Big Parade The Fighting 69th marches up Fifth Avenue moderately in step to military music, entertaining the crowd, most sporting green for St. Patricks Day. It is difficult to tell if the parading troops think of their comrades, who were wounded, bled, died, in Iraq, Afghanistan, miles and years removed from peaceful celebration.

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Conditioned Response Spring Fever

Spring Fever The sum is shining brightly and we have come out of our warrens shedding layers of garments, eager to leave behind the storms of winter for outdoor enjoyment before nostrils flow with seasonal snivels.

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Gary Beck Climate Change

Climate Change Some of the tension of winter in the city seems to abate on the first warm days that bring dreary people out of hibernation, once again preparing for the national pastime, increased drug transactions.

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Conditioned Response Small Town Concerns

Small Town Concerns One of my neighbors, an intense sort of fellow, worries about his lawn, crabgrass, dandelions, disrupting the green, while the Chinese are busy getting ready to send men to the moon.

Another neighbor, a regular church-goer, frets about the newcomers who moved in down the block because they don't speak English, while millions of Americans are losing jobs, homes and don't know what to do.

The folks across the street, respectable, law-abiding, complain about the teen-agers hanging out in the square disturbing the peace, while all over the world wars are destroying lives and property.

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Gary Beck Cash Cow

Cash Cow As long as suckers seeking cheap thrills are willing to lose, casino gambling eagerly provides bed, board, booze, broads, that continue to flow as long as the house continues to win.

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Conditioned Response A Citizen's Descent

A Citizen's Descent I bought a new home, but the mortgage was too big, so when the economy collapsed the bank quickly foreclosed and I was evicted.

I moved into an apartment but lost my job and couldn't pay the rent.

I stayed with friends, but wore out my welcome then slept in my car, but the city towed it away.

Now I live on the streets, a hand to mouth existence and don't know if I'll survive until things improve.

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Gary Beck Circus Act

Circus Act Only master jugglers can understand the complexity of running a country that always keeps multiple objects in constant motion, rarely achieving success, always risking disaster if they drop a ball.

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Conditioned Response Affliction

Affliction Illness is abstract until it affects you or your loved ones, then it brutally attacks, assaulting comfort, security in a frightening rampage that weakens resistance, erodes endurance, breaks down self-defense, leaving you vulnerable to treacherous disease.

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Gary Beck Afghan Warrior

Afghan Warrior The foolish Americans wasted many years before recruiting my tribe to fight the Taliban.

As long as we are paid and the infidels remain and our men aren't killed we will be loyal.

When the tide turns against the foreign dogs we will reconcile with our brothers and show our devotion to the will of Allah, until once again we are free to kill each other.

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Conditioned Response Aging Process

Aging Process Forgetful moments alarming indicators of the relentless approach of deterioration, subtracting the senses from continuation, the short supply of data rapidly diminishing ability to function.

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Gary Beck Pandemic

Pandemic A plague of poverty swept across the land, born in chambers of commerce clinically indifferent to fractured dreams of people learning hunger, surgically separated from homes of comfort, while bankers reveled immune from contagion, prophylactically protected by a tainted government that forgot its obligation to an ailing nation.

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Conditioned Response Casus Belli

Casus Belli War is seldom fought for causes and from the clash of swords to strategic bombing, the soldiers who marched to battle, combat lovers, careerists, citizen volunteers, reluctant recruits, shed their blood in war after war to defeat enemies, preserve civilization, acquire territory, amass treasure, slaves, rewards, civic recognition, deceptive motives that conspire to conceal the age old desire of domineering leaders to exercise power.

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Gary Beck So Fleeting

So Fleeting Love is as fragile as an icicle in temperate clime, shimmering a moment then melting away in the sun's quick glance, a brief remembrance, a fading memory remembrance that glittered, departed.

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Conditioned Response Unplanned Obsolescence

Unplanned Obsolescence It once took months to sail from Europe to the New World, until steam replaced sail, as months became weeks as ocean travel boomed, creating new fortunes in expanding trade, escape from old constraints to new settlements.

The war to end all wars extended travel, commerce, over much of the globe and harbors became swollen with the vessels of transit.

Ship owners laughed loudly at the first passenger aircraft that would never compete with large freighters.

World War II reached every continent, opening the sea lanes to military traffic, transporting entire armies,

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Gary Beck Unplanned Obsolescence endless supplies, equipment across vast distances, finally culminating in atomic destruction of helpless cities, making nuclear war globally impractical.

Swift luxury liners carried passengers everywhere as weeks became days to cross the Atlantic, while aircraft became larger and the size of their cargos grew until they could deliver further and faster than commercial vessels.

Suddenly the plodding ships were too slow for travelers, fresh produce, luxury goods hungered for by consumers.

The transport revolution changed days to hours and time-sensitive items were delivered daily by larger and larger fleets of hi-tech aircraft, leaving rusting ships at crumbling piers

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Conditioned Response Unplanned Obsolescence in harbors of decay, now only useful as condominiums.

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Gary Beck Splash

Splash Surfers ride the big waves encouraged by the shrieks of bikini-clad bunnies, decorative trophies who do not brave the deep, feeling vicarious thrills as their heroes rush shoreward, eager to receive the favors of the groupies and collect their rewards for conquering the sea.

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Conditioned Response Afghanistan Holiday

Afghanistan Holiday The Marines have landed in Helmand province to fight the Taliban, if they can find them.

Harassing sniper fire, deadly ambushes, improvised explosive devices combine to claim the lives of young volunteers with rudimentary ideas why they are fighting, all looking forward to sending their sweethearts Valentine's Day videos.

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Gary Beck Urban Oasis

Urban Oasis Each day the birds come to my midtown terrace, cardinals, jays, doves, somehow surviving in the harsh city, their visits an exchange of food for beauty.

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Conditioned Response Breech of Faith

Breech of Faith Snow-covered tree limbs extend their arms to heaven in clean, white prayer for continuance of a mechanistic, materialistic congregation, valuing money more than a visit to the temple of reason.

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Gary Beck A Bewildered People

A Bewildered People American detonations resonate across the globe, Iraq, Afghanistan, torturous zones of conflict, as friends and foes alike scrutinize as we dwindle from proud hegemony to faltering giant, now more hated than feared.

Our ongoing ignorance, traditional naĂŻvetĂŠ, blinds us to reality; no one likes a conqueror.

The nation states that evolved from squabbling, fractious tribes are as vicious, treacherous as their primitive forebears, greedy, cunning, deceitful.

Yet Americans expected to be loved by everyone for bringing democracy and could never comprehend that we often intruded on other's territory with occupying troops

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Conditioned Response A Bewildered People disseminating culture, Hollywood, coca cola.

We give generously in times of disaster, which is quickly forgotten as soon as the gifts run out and the crisis is over.

Then resentment resumes for our domineering ways that offend friends and foes.

There is no way to explain to a suspicious world that we are decent people ruled by hidden masters, corporate or private, who bought, manipulated, our basic way of life and determine policies that decide our fate.

Throughout human history an elite ruled the many, but at least the people knew who was in charge of their lives.

In our once promising land we do not know who controls the destiny of our children and can only watch helplessly as the few consume our future.

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Gary Beck Cognates

Cognates The poet and plumber awaken one spring morning and go about their tasks.

The poet lectures at college to mostly bored students, miseducated by tv, lacking respect for the masters, the rest eager to deconstruct traditional poetry, confusing innovation with infinitely tedious personal revelations.

The plumber stops leaks, saves people's belongings reduces stress, inviting comparison to the detached poet immersed in aesthetics, beyond caring about current events, as solutions to our problems go down the drain.

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Conditioned Response Frequent Fliers

Frequent Fliers Airline passengers assume the pose of indifference to the miracle of flight, absorbed in books, lap-top computers, deceiving naps, but are instantly alert at the slightest tremor of their vehicle.

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Gary Beck Welcome to Afghanistan

Welcome to Afghanistan The circling vultures seeking meals ready to eat prefer violent cultures for the caterers they meet.

American troops will provide modern ammo and arms to tribesmen who reside so close to war's meat farms.

There is a tradition that tribes sting like vipers and fight best in position when they can be snipers.

Loyalties are stratified, bought, sold, or traded away after being ratified by those who prevail that day.

The war for democracy is an arrogant invention that deludes our society in a wasteful intervention.

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Conditioned Response Troubled Land

Troubled Land Citizens sleep fitfully roiled by recurring nightmares, abrupt awakenings from gunshots, explosions, endless false alarms combining to shatter hopes of law and order provided by others allowing comfort, refreshing rest without pharmaceuticals.

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Gary Beck Gutenberg Weeps

Gutenberg Weeps Our legions in Afghanistan, many other lands, gradually subside from public awareness, so the death in combat of one more soldier is barely noticed by the media, too busy fighting the priority war, newspaper versus tv, control of the viewers the ultimate prize of victory or defeat.

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Conditioned Response Perilous Nudity

Perilous Nudity Winter having run its course despite groundhog predictions, we shed layers of garments until it's warm enough to bare sun-deprived skin that must be protected from ultra-violet rays with cancerous intent, eager to penetrate artificial shields.

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Gary Beck Parasites

Parasites Politicians don't gargle to remove the taste of speeches of deception designed by cunning craftsmen, because it's part of the job to deceive the people.

They have personal contracts that further special interests heavily invested in acquired legislators, purchased at bargain prices for mutual benefits that exclude the public from vital services, no longer affordable since available funds were already expended by elected officials.

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Conditioned Response Chain Reaction

Chain Reaction Citizen X lost his job.

Citizen Y lost her home.

Their children are hungry, but no one seems to care.

Dumb or greedy bankers lost billions of dollars, and officials rushed to replace the squandered money, while bankers rewarded themselves for their colossal failure.

Citizen X has no job.

Citizen Y has no home.

Their children are still hungry, yet no one seems to care to adjust the imbalance.

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Gary Beck Final Solution

Final Solution Almost as perverse as nazis efficiently exterminating social undesirables, American vandals ravish a bountiful country consuming beyond reason the generous inheritance that provided generations with ample sustenance.

Agriculture ruled the land, until labor from dawn to dusk, drought, crop failure, poor markets, led to divorce from the farms, as industry summoned the people to the constriction of cities, dependency on new masters far removed from compassion for drab factory workers.

Then the toilers met together and engaged in a new union.

A marriage of convenience to bargain with the bosses for increased benefits in order to provide

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Conditioned Response Final Solution a better way of life for struggling families, a future for their children.

But bosses begrudged sharing and the high cost of labor diminished the master's profits, so they abandoned factories, transferred capital abroad, leaving cities rusting away as workers tightened their belts, divorced from manufacturing as they were from agriculture.

Then menial occupations opened to needy job seekers except for the best and brightest, sons and daughters of privilege, the few who advanced by merit, as the rest were harshly consigned to the waiting arms of service, not quite indentured as of old, but a prison for the hopeful.

Now America resembles the ancient order of Europe, our biggest source of heritage, where a small group of the wealthy consume most of our bounty, a small class of artisans exist with basic comforts,

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Gary Beck Final Solution as a great mass of servants strive to achieve subsistence.

The once proud blue-collar class that gave an honest days work for an honest days pay, is diminishing in number and receding in value, becoming superfluous when a plastic society discards broken appliances rather than repair them.

And the thriving middle class that attained levels of comfort only imagined in the past, amassed all kinds of treasure, indulged themselves in pleasure, neglecting their obligations to the nation, their children, confusing material gifts with responsibility.

The financiers and brokers hid when the economy collapsed, but their hirelings in government stampeded to bail them out, while the rest of the country lost jobs, homes, security, bankers danced the night away on lavish super-yachts anchored in immunity.

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Conditioned Response Detached Vision

Detached Vision High above the troubled earth a lone outpost circles the globe in a distant orbit that allows some of us to take comfort in scientific achievement that places humans in space.

Yet most are indifferent, involved in demanding tasks, earning a livelihood, suicide bombing, educating children, ethnic cleansing, so absorbed in their own needs they cannot conceive of an astronaut's perspective, the simmering cauldron below.

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Gary Beck Vulnerability

Vulnerability Vital fluids easily leak from human vessels barely protected by evolution from penetration by intruders interfering with the flow of sustaining liquids, allowing contamination of the body politic.

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Conditioned Response Ethics and Morality

Ethics and Morality Many legislators who should serve the people avoid their duty, grossly preempted by special interests preoccupied with profit, avoiding obligations to a struggling nation.

The few who attempt to do the right thing are often tempted by seductive appeals to concealed appetites that allows them to forget their duty.

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Gary Beck Maintenance Chore

Maintenance Chore The rain falls on a spring evening allowing us to breathe clean air laundered by nature trying to correct chemical imbalance, toxically interfering with vital respiration.

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Conditioned Response Promises Unkept

Promises Unkept The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other wars rage on compelling reappraisal.

Could my fears for the future possibly be wrong?

There's no way to win when we don't know friend from foe and can't afford enormous costs when we're mired in debt.

Yet the military gets advancement, combat experience, respectful attention, despite being doomed, once again to defeat and retreat.

And the contractors who provide the means of war are happy as profits soar

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Gary Beck Promises Unkept for diverse products, consumed or thrown away, others used for decades, as long as there are enemies, real or manufactured, to bomb into submission.

But we no longer fight patriotic wars, so mothers and fathers have no satisfaction at the death in battle of irreplaceable children.

The politicians thrive supporting the war, or opposing it, comfortable in office, while the people struggle to endure deprivation, undiverted by speeches promising improvements.

The wealthy are content wallowing in their pleasures, certain they can get away on luxury yachts, on luxury planes when disaster strikes our endangered land.

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Conditioned Response Promises Unkept Could my pessimism be wrong?

I hope so.

Can we build, or rebuild industries that make things and give the people jobs, allowing them a share of prosperity?

Have we lost the will to compel change from a disastrous course that will lead to our undoing, while the prosperous flee, aristocratic rats abandoning the democratic ship?

Have things become too complex for simple solutions to endless problems beyond the comprehension of burdened citizens absorbed in tv, the internet, permanently divorced from the will to take action?

Are we plunging to the end of the American way, too shell-shocked to stop the fall, or will we find redeemers

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Gary Beck Promises Unkept to restore the promise of former high ideals?

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Conditioned Response Get More

Get More Consumer lust never sated with acquisition is always tempted by something bigger, glossier, more envied, never realizing sterile objects only define empty dwellings.

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Gary Beck Differences

Differences The planet earth is divided, continents, oceans, religions, poverty, even skin color keeping us apart, trapped in prejudice, the internet the only bridge able to cross distant borders.

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Conditioned Response Night in the City

Night in the City Gunshots reverberate snatching us awake.

Screams pierce the night stabbing us with fear.

Sirens jar nerve ends denying tranquility to cowering households tensely imagining mutilated bodies, blood stained ambulances, pain-filled emergency rooms, final destination the city morgue, then drifting off, urban agonies blissfully forgotten in the return of sleep.

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Gary Beck Advice to the President

Advice to the President Pack up our military, civilian advisors, private contractors, get out of Afghanistan.

Leave the tribes to settle their differences by traditional methods, peaceful or violent.

We have not stopped the flow of drugs across our borders, so we shouldn't care about opium production.

The way of life is mostly primitive, so we should forget about democracy, ending illiteracy.

The alien culture completely removed from western values, doesn't want video games,

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Conditioned Response Advice to the President porno on the internet.

They have no desire to become Americans, so all we can give them is widespread destruction, artificial institutions.

With all our obligations, domestic and foreign, a growing array of threats, please, Mr. President, conserve our troops, wealth, for a better cause.

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Gary Beck Early Spring

Early Spring One warm day lures growth impulses from winter hiding and opulent magnolias burst into blossoms, filling the nostrils of city dwellers with startling aromas, yanking somnolent senses into sudden awakenings.

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Conditioned Response Ode to the City

Ode to the City The esprit of a city expands, contracts, in dynamic flux, or is trapped in stasis as the industrious strive, exploiters and lunatics thrive, and do-gooders try to endure in the peculiar mĂŠlange of the metropolitan hive, throbbing, pulsing, urban horde, ambitious, ruthless, kindless, the frothing ingredients of juxtaposed existence indivisible from its components.

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Gary Beck The Lack of Parity

The Lack of Parity Kindness, or compassion resonates not as loud as meanness, cruelty, the attar of goodness dissipated by negative actions.

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Conditioned Response Dark Factors

Dark Factors Everywhere we go we see threats lurking, poised to pounce like dumb predators on the unwary.

Paranoia, dementia, overactive imagination, all find menace not all man-made wherever there is life, while the evil men do horrifies us more than acts of nature.

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Gary Beck Current Events

Current Events I sit on my terrace in midtown Manhattan ringed by gritty buildings, visited daily by doves, jays, cardinals.

A captive woman rests on the side of a path in a Congo jungle as the Lord's Resistance Army decides her fate, sex slave, or slaughter.

A young Iraqi man lurks near the roadside not far from Baghdad, waiting to detonate an improvised explosive device at targets of opportunity.

A North Korean soldier. who joined the army to avoid starvation stands at the launch site of nuclear-tipped missiles and cannot conceive

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Conditioned Response Current Events he could start World War III. A French naval officer, comfortable at his desk in Paris headquarters, orders the release of Somali pirates captured on the high seas while attacking a freighter, because he lacks jurisdiction.

The evil that men do is always more visible than good deeds, the adhesive of civilization.

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Gary Beck Fade Out

Fade Out Lost images from a clouding past fog consciousness, as concerns of dwindling atrophy the will to endure diminishment.

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Conditioned Response Casualties

Casualties The death in combat of any soldier should be remembered, not because of heroism, but for the dedication of the human race to the institution of war, planned, started, carried out by managers of waste, conspicuously consuming generations of youth.

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Gary Beck The Public Trust

The Public Trust Political parties with their agendas often conflict with the common good, since their priority is reelection of representatives, whose primary loyalty is to their benefactors, not the needs of the people

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Conditioned Response Adaptation

Adaptation Urban birds feel more stress than rural birds, but don't show it the way humans do.

They don't sing as loud when they're happy, they don't brood when they can't find food, or it gets too cold.

They don't seem to care about city noise, polluted air, lack of water, doing what birds do, mating, nesting, reproducing, despite interference with nature's way.

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Gary Beck Nearing the End

Nearing the End Submerging into idleness, expectations departing faster than respiration sustains continuation, aspirations diminishing stimulating apprehension of imminent conclusion.

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Conditioned Response Arbitrary Code

Arbitrary Code Preservation of species, nature's imperative, is a genetic message requesting continuation that cannot consider interruptions, not conditioned to radical changes altering environments, completely unprepared for drastic disruption, the evolution of man.

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Gary Beck Contentious Land

Contentious Land Americans are concerned with endless issues, vital or mundane, passionately approached as if of equal value, unwilling to concede that other agendas are as important as their own.

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Conditioned Response Press Relations

Press Relations Our troops are wounded, bleeding, dying, killed in far away lands, sufficiently removed from our daily concerns so the deaths in combat of our volunteer children are completely unnoticed by voracious media, completely engrossed in the commercial struggle to retain the attention of the fickle audience.

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Gary Beck Departure

Departure Lilacs are the pain striking recollection of unintended separation from a lost loved one, an unexpected rejection flowering in shock, smashing continuation of rich interludes.

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Conditioned Response The Decline of America

The Decline of America We grow less capable, more manipulable by the perjurious media, obeying corporate masters in a cancerous system absolving individuals of responsibility for depriving the people of economic well-being, rewarding perpetrators with conspicuous bonuses, in perverse payback for costing our citizens jobs, homes, security, dreams for their children, while we lack the means to demand justice.

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Gary Beck Premature Signs

Premature Signs After a blanketing blizzard covered the cowering city for a cleansing interlude, warmer weather snuck in, deluding gullible birds who began to sing happily that hungry winter was over.

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Conditioned Response Somnambulism

Somnambulism The new hundred years war, America versus terror, intermittently declared when there's provocation, sufficient motivation, is not really understood by a soft nation of limited concentration, courtesy of the system of poor education, overexposure to tv, sedentary indulgence in computer games, making our citizens so removed from reality that we confuse terror with criminality.

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Gary Beck Substitute Target

Substitute Target New Yorkers complain about the weather, an ongoing tradition a feeble protest against climate conditions beyond their control, a convenient scapegoat for urban frustrations by helpless citizens unable to resolve recurring crises.

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Conditioned Response As the Light Fades

As the Light Fades Some bright college students mentally stimulated in a safe environment ask philosophic questions about the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, or life on other planets, exercises of the mind that may or may not produce a marketable product, but still should not be dismissed as foolish speculation in a commercial country that does not appreciate youthful indulgence in thought.

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Gary Beck Seasonal Choice

Seasonal Choice Spring does not rejuvenate eradicated hopes in Somalia, Haiti, other devastated lands by man or nature, but uplifts the hearts of the responsive who still look forward to something better.

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Conditioned Response Pernicious Abuses

Pernicious Abuses Ignorant investors forced to rely on others for financial improvement are always at the mercy of unscrupulous advisors who place their interests before the needs of those who trust them.

Bankers, brokers, consultants, insure that they will flourish despite market downturns that wipe out the savings of the greedy, or gullible, future prospects deceived in the great recession.

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Gary Beck Unexpected Loss

Unexpected Loss Disasters strike the earth, resonate beyond borders, affect loved-ones, strangers, innocent and guilty, all swept away in the sudden onset of catastrophe.

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Conditioned Response Yearning for Illusions

Yearning for Illusions Allies support each other, enemies oppose each other to those who want simplicity, but more fiction than reality.

National interests determine policies invariably modified by special influence, almost always motivated by desire for increased profits, generating more power.

Americans prefer the absence of complexity, conditioned to indifference courtesy of tv, and have trouble day to day identifying friend from foe.

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Gary Beck Remorseless People

Remorseless People A time of struggle, a nation of the jobless desperate for relief, constantly denied redress of grievances, callously ignored by profit seekers eager to feast, while others go hungry.

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Conditioned Response Early Bloom

Early Bloom Signs of spring stir city dwellers tired of cold weather with unfounded hope for better days, optimistic, despite loss of jobs, homes, security, dreams of the future thoroughly shattered by bankers, brokers, ignorance, greed, endless troubles briefly forgotten with the first blossoms of forsythia.

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Gary Beck Lost Chances

Lost Chances We did not say no loudly enough to alarmists when we accused Iraq of seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction.

We launched an invasion that conquered the country, then firmly established the rule of chaos.

Yet all the while, Pakistan, a supposed ally was busy developing and distributing nuclear technology, assisting North Korea in building a bomb, encouraging Iran to join the nuclear club, and under the pretext of deterring India expanding its arsenal, tantalizing Al Qaeda with dreams of acquisition, tolerating the Taliban

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Conditioned Response Lost Chances hoping to inherit ready-to-use nukes, only needing delivery systems, available on order from sanctioned North Korea, to-be sanctioned Iran.

Our feeble policies don't prevent acts of aggression

by Islamic extremists who lack a state to threaten, are spreading globally, supported by friends and foes, so sooner or later they will inflict damage on open societies of sheltered citizens ignoring dangers, as greedy capitalists, always accommodating those who increase desired profits, supply anyone who accepts the terms cash and carry.

Now we're in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban who retreat to Pakistan and aspire to acquire

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Gary Beck Lost Chances a nuclear stockpile as they destabilize the weak government that when it was strong aided and abetted the spread of terror, like other Islamic lands, as long as it's not at home.

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Conditioned Response Harbinger, 2010

Harbinger, 2010 The first day of spring was sunny and warm provoking short sleeves as we yearned for ease.

Everyone felt good relieved of winter with its ice burden, promoting illusion in deluded citizens that global warming is paranoia.

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Gary Beck Corruption Road

Corruption Road The Senate and the House elected by the people to serve their constituents, national interests, are financed by the wealthy, since the public can't afford multi-million dollar campaigns, so our officials have become servants of profit supporting the privileged and frequently forget obligations to the nation, then escape the consequences of violating our trust, by accepting rewards for services rendered to obscure benefactors.

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Conditioned Response Turning Point

Turning Point The promise of the "fifties" departed in the "sixties", when children of prosperity rebelled against authority, instead of expressing doubt turned on, tuned in, dropped out.

As they grew older they weren't bolder, forgot the cause that opposed unjust laws sending draftees to fight with overwhelming might, intending to cower Asians with our power in a small, far-off land where peasants made a stand rejecting democracy, supporting autocracy.

Our political defeat and military retreat combined to disillusion a nation in confusion that renounced intervention to avoid contention,

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Gary Beck Turning Point turning our energy into making money.

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Conditioned Response Choices

Choices Tragedy often strikes without warning testing our resolve, our will to endure.

Discovery of a threat allows time to prepare revealing character defined by action or avoidance.

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Gary Beck Disruptions

Disruptions Snow clogs the city streets, wind-blown into high drifts preventing passage.

Urban dwellers complain spoiled by ample services, modern conveniences, so far removed from nature that winter's demonstration is a personal insult, unable to conceive that circumstances conspire to thwart arrivals at desired destinations.

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acknowledgements

Poems from “Conditioned Response� have appeared in:

Ygdrasil Journal, Untitled Country Review, Turbulence Magazine, The Writers Wastebasket, The Tower Journal, The Muse, The Delinquent, The Bitchin Kitsch, Stepping Stones Magazine:Almia, Riverbabble Journal/Pandemonium Press, Poetry Life & Times, New Verse News, Midwest Literary Magazine, Jellyfish Whispers/Kind of a Hurricane Press, Five Poetry Magazine/Fiction Magazine, Five Fishes Journal, Dove Tales/Writing for Peace, Diversion Press, Contemporary Literary Review:India (CLRI), Burningword Literary Journal, Boyne Berries, Ascent Aspirations Magazine and The Furious Gazelle

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