Jewish Young Professional "JYP"

American Pie

Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

This country is a pie, the crust too flaky

to support its filling, overbaked

in a pressure cooker oven

till the smooth dough façade cracks

like continental fault lines,

angry fruits bubbling up like lava

to its gerrymandered, fractured surface.

***

Using someone else’s birthdate (Jan 16, 1972), on which “American Pie” by Don McLean charted #1 for dVerse

72 comments

    • Things are out of hand. There was a novel written in the 19th Century called “Erewhon” by Samuel Butler. He satirized Victorian culture and in is fictional world, criminals are treated with compassion, while the physically ill are punished and shamed. Fast forward 150 years and viola! Our country is becoming like Erewhon.

      When I lived in Spain, Spaniards told me about how ballot watchers in many parts parts of Spain made sure you voted for the “correct candidates” or you and your family would suffer. I said we, in the US of A, had an honest, impartial voting system. What an ignorant fool I was.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

        • To you JYP, and to David as well. A two party system is a feud, while more than two is a discussion, but more than three is likely bordering on confusion, even chaos. If either of you has not read any books by Jeffrey Sachs, I recommend one he wrote in 2015 entitled, “The Age of Sustainable Development”. Exceptional logic! I have also read “ A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism”. Additional mindful insight. I am about to read “ The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions”. I do not consider myself an intellectual, and I am mot usually drawn to books of this type – I am unabashedly a poet and artist. However, I find these books undeniably profound in their vision, so thought I’d share the titles. The world has a long way to go to find balance, and the jury is still out regarding the likelihood it will achieve such — but if enough people of international influence would spend some time with Jeffrey’s reasoning… we might begin to get there? Peace to both of you.

          Liked by 1 person

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  11. Clever comparison…..flakey crust indeed. And the angry fruit filling is boiling over.
    I will say this….I have always been an optimist by nature. My daughter once said to me, “Mom, every movie can’t be the Sound of Music.” to which I replied, “Why not?” I think many times we can not control what is happening, but we can control our attitude and response toward it. Oh yes….I get very frustrated by the state of politics these days. My personal frame of reference for when everything seemed to really shift, blatantly shift was at President Obama’s State of the Union address before congress when one senator (I believe) shouted out LIAR and interrupted him. That had never before been done. Yes, people on opposing “sides” would look bored, or not have eye contact with the president speaking, remain seated when the opposing party gave a standing ovation…but never had anyone done anything so blatantly disrespectful. That individual was later censured by Congress and apologized to President Obama….but I truly believe that lit the spark in many ways to the rapid departure of civility on the political scene. I also believe we need term limits for Senators and Representatives. Senator Grassley, at age 88, just announced he will run again. Need I say more about term limits? I choose to concentrate on the Stacey Abrams of this political age….the Mitt Romneys for his sense of ethics and morality. I may not always agree with him on issues, but I do know he has the country in mind and will do the ethical thing. I think we must have hope.
    At any rate, I hope it’s a fresh fruit pie, not made with canned fruit that has been on the shelves too long….and that the crust is not tough from being overworked and sitting out too long.
    And perhaps we should just shift to birthday cake? 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • The fruit may be fresh, but the political rhetoric is canned and trite. The crust needs to be reworked, I think, more so than overworked.
      I am a pessimist by nature (although I love The Sound of Music as much as the next person!), so I admit my bias. I think the problems in this country go beyond a particular party. Sen. Feinstein (age 88) is arguably just as guilty of abusing term limits. One could make the case for the breakdown of political civility starting earlier with the response to President Bush. I almost think pinpointing the origin matters less than figuring out where to go from here.
      I agree that Stacey Abrams’ response is much, much more productive than most.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  19. “gerrymandered, fractured surface” — Indeed!

    And great inspiration. The song was out when I attended SUNY at Buffalo. Not that you couldn’t figure the lyrics out anyway, but they were put in the student newspaper, which was pretty cool.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. You packed a full can of the filling (and feeling) into your pie allegory. Fresh, funny, and on point. You have a good knack for this (and don’t deprecate yourself about what is a real talent and fresh eye).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  23. i like this, very concise, pulling no punches “angry fruits bubbling up like lava” lots of anger out there, the story never changes, the powers that be sabotage each other (and us) to gain and maintain power using us as weapons and shields, and we cheer them on for it… good times

    Liked by 1 person

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