Jane A. Rug

referencing an ancient mariner
a braggart boasting
to his landlubber brethren
sailing across the seven seas,
when in truth
the number of sizable water bodies
populating planet earth
no single universally
agreed-upon number
because a "sea"
(sometimes defined
as just a subdivision
of an ocean,
experts, geographers,
and the National Ocean Service
generally recognize
between fifty and
one hundred seas worldwide
the discrepancy linkedin
to nonstandard naming conventions
predicated on various and sundry

naming traditions encompassing

great swaths of aitch two owe
nowadays referencing
and used poetically
to refer to the world's
five major oceans
(Pacific, Atlantic, Indian,
Southern, and Arctic)
along with the division
of the Pacific and Atlantic
into North and South.

 

In my humble opinion (with no academic credential in economics), I believe we (incorporating thee entire global population) exhibits the greatest monetary disparity between the haves and the have nots, one of which person includes mister word smith here, a Caucasian heterosexual latitudinarian, nonestablishmentarian, Pennsylvanian, proletarian, sexagenarian and Unitarian typing these words, who ofttimes feels sorely tempted to strike up a Faustian bargain in an effort to accumulate adequate legal tender, but would shudder to deliver misfortune on the heads of me wife and mother of our two grown daughters, the eldest exceeding far beyond the economic range of her dirty deeds done dirt cheap to render me dirt poor, and I asked Google is the disparity between the financial haves and have not most acute today? and the unsurprising response - Yes, the financial disparity between the rich and the poor is at a modern peak. In the United States, the top 1% holds roughly $55 trillion in wealth—equaling the combined net worth of the bottom 90%. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households hold just 2.5% of total wealth.


 

The forefathers/mothers would be aghast
how soon to be minted
trillionaires would blast
every cotton picking
socially progressive program classed

for the less fortunate or lucky enough
to win PowerBall
or Megamillion drawing

kept invisibly glassed

within a virtual encasement
and impossible mission
to break free and clearly hast
(an archaic English verb
meaning "have" linkedin
to second-person singular
present tense of the verb "to have"
(e.g., "Thou hast" means "You have")
ist mostly obsolete,
and frequently encountered
in older literature, poetry,
and religious texts
like the King James Bible
original document mostly
preserved within icecast

and air tight chambers
cause they would
most likely disintegrate
in open air and possibly
be nibbled by mice

which critters would inadvertently
find themselves as holy creatures
and revered in Nice
fetching quite a handsome
chunk of cheese
far exceeding the general price

to eat for any cracker.