doing *not* much

there was work to get thru obviously and this morning as two homeless guys passed me as i was crossing the street one stops and say, excuse me sir, my name is [?]. i said, sorry man, in a hurry and i don't have any cash. the dude replies, everyone says that and walks away. feeling guilty about it i head off toward the office. then walking home another homeless man asks for 55 cents. i say, again, don't have any money. which is almost always the case. i very rarely have cash on hand. yet the guilt is there just the same. a liberal guilt sure but no less authentic for it being so. a friend and gifted poet is having a rough time composing work in these fucked up times. make no mistake about it, these times are very fucked up. you read and watch the news. you know the score. there's a meanness in our culture that is if not unprecedented then certainly not seen in a very long time. politics suck and we have taken so many dumps on the environment that the needle and the damage is done. probably. what the fuck do i know but to be silent, for me, is not a solution. i like life and i love language. i love putting those two together not for fame, or ego, mostly, but for the fact that i am alive and, to quote another poet, can think. i can't do much. or anything at all. i can use language. that's not enough. it isn't even a response to these times. that's no excuse but a hard fact. for that task i'll need several lifetimes. which is more than enough.