An absence of ground beneath one's feet

By a very great margin, I admit,
I would be found in the loading
dock of the Pierre with Gérard,
for breakfast today, before the
window seat at a Harlem eatery.
What I'd sacrifice in gastronomy,
economy, and sartorial bonhommie,
I'd recapture in an extraordinar-
ily superior plane, for slouching
with my elbows. The glazed quad-
rant always turns out to be more 
than the linens deserve.

But I caution myself against mis-
take. The spectacle of democracy
in America is heading promptly
into markets of ignominy as a way
of life, where the sane Party has
to summon the confidence of the
profitably abandoned. At long last,
they have the genius to ask, What
is in it for me, if I should dream
of trusting you?

The conversation, after all these
years of lullaby, has turned upon
how to live, not whether one is
welcome to a life, now plausibly
protected. The conversation has
turned to working for a decent
living, and not, as the Tories 
so bitingly say, getting it, as
if snatched from their flesh. 

There is a candidate, competing a-
gainst the figure on the right, who
has cherished the expediency of de-
nouncing discrimination. But this is
not an election about discrimination.
So advanced is the joyride of neglect,
that any number of people, across ev-
ery sliceable spectrum, and possibly
anxious to vote, are animated now.
It is an election about what one can
give to one's family, of the loveli-
ness of this world; and it is an e-
lection, about why they may not have
a decent breakfast.

I want to know, myself, what that
extremity must be like. Under the
alternatives to this breakfast in
Harlem, I may well find out. I do
not fear sharing, as confiscation.
I fear corruption as confiscation.
I fear hunger for anyone; I fear
maldistribution more than malfeas-
ance, and I want a child to know -
a gorgeous orange.

                     Si muero, 

                     dejad el balcón abierto.

                     El niño come naranjas.

                     Desde mi balcón lo veo.

                     El segador siega il trigo.

                     Desde mi balcón lo siento ..

Federico García Lorca
Despedida
1924

Al Sharpton & Bernie Sanders
The New York Times
New York, 10 February 2016

Migrant farm worker
California
1938