Ruthless
Being ruthless at chess,
clearing the checkered field
of battle leads to victory
and all the people and horses
return unharmed for the next match.
Being ruthless at football,
playing to injure your opponent
only leads to escalating violence,
carried off on a stretcher
sometimes never to play again.
Being ruthless at politics,
behaving at though it’s a game,
a tribal Armageddon where your rivals
are evil instead of merely wrong,
is how we’ve fallen into this mess.
Politics is not war nor a horse race,
despite the television news,
it’s how we organize society,
it’s about win-win solutions,
it’s why the thoughtful tend to lose.
(From today’s Living Poetry prompt.)
WordPress let me know recently that it’s been five years since I started this blog. Happy birthday to me, I suppose. Since I first started blogging to help promote my first book, 
This quickly approaching Sunday afternoon at 2pm, I’ll be one of the featured readers performing at McIntyre’s Books as part of the 
The Sorting Hat
A few months ago, I received an owl from Hogwarts. Secrecy being what it is, I could not reveal the true reason for my recent trip to Britain until now.
While I was in London, I was a little distracted so I missed that my poem 
For example, today I visited the homes of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot and on the way I ran into the house where Sir Charles Stanford lived. I had to look him up on my phone before I realized that I’d heard some of his compositions on the classical music channel I listen to most mornings.
I had to ask a helpful shopkeeper where to find Mr. Pound’s house. It seemed like she’d been asked before. The street he lived on is very short and it looks like there’s an apartment building now with his street number. Instead his front door was hidden off a little alleyway. Seemed like a nice enough place, none the less.
Earlier this week I also found a blue plaque for the place Gandhi lived while he studied law in England. He has at least two statues in London, one in Parliament Square Garden, a nice contrast to the rest of the admirals and generals there.
