Author: Gary Beck Source: http://www.polseguera.com/writers/writing-819_objectives.html Objectives Gary Beck/Objectives   Mother II I tried my best to keep the boys from getting into trouble, but the drugs got Malik, Lionel got shot in a drive-by, so now there's only Khalan. He be a good boy, stay in school, study hard, maybe be the first one in this messed up family to graduate high school.   I hate the neighborhood, gang boys on every corner, but I can't afford better. There's only some places worse. I work six days a week at Mrs. Barton's house and I always work late. Sometimes she makes me wear a servant's uniform and serve snacks to her friends.   If I could find another job I quit that stuck-up bitch. She always criticize me, but jobs be hard to find. She give me left overs when it's not the good food and I gotta take it or she tell me I'm ungrateful. I hate to admit it but we can use the food.   When I get off the subway I too tired for the supermarket, so I just get frozen meals from the corner grocery and hope no one rob it until I get out of there, don't get shot and get home safe. I'm always too tired to cook even though Mama taught me good, just glad there's enough to eat.   Somehow I keep things goin until Khalan finish school then he get a good job, we move somewhere far away from this rotten neighborhood where they don't shoot someone each night. I don't know what I do then, but I quit that stuck up bitch and her stinkin left-overs even if I have to live on welfare.     Urban Decay The streets grow dirtier, more crime ridden, more violent in poverty neighborhoods, where hope for the future has been tarnished by inequality, lack of opportunity, except for the wealthy who can afford what they want and comfortably ignore the struggles of the poor to provide for their children in the digital city where barriers for advancement only lower for the haves.     Ghost Guns Industrial progress includes innovation and once in a while a dream product arrives that elates criminals who illegally get untraceable pistols, so the way to catch them is when they're carrying. Law enforcement limits now forbid stop and frisk, the only practical way to catch weapons on the street. Racial sensitivities about who the police stop are far more important than protecting the public from illegal gun carriers, eager to demonstrate their use of a pistol.     Replacement The rise of China on the world stage threatens America who ruled economically for many years dominating countries with the power of the dollar. Then industry went abroad, no longer paid taxes until there wasn't enough cash to buy foreign governments, thus creating a void that China occupied, rich with our dollars a balance of trade, productive economy and global ambitions to replace America as the policeman of the world by investing billions in other countries, Africa, Asia, South America, building roads, tunnels, high speed trains, buying mines, local companies, until almost as hated as the ugly American, as Western exploiters became superfluous from floods of Chinese money, distantly supported by a growing military eager for action, while former rulers became cautious, fearful, divided in purpose, removing leadership creating a vacuum that nature abhors, leaving China to fill the gap and need not destroy diminishing America, just let it contract and become a relic like former empires.   Objectives is an unpublished poetry collection that reveals the demands, fears and troubles of a struggling society no longer capable of resolving difficult problems:  'Mother II', 'Urban Decay', 'Ghost Guns', 'Gathering Storm', 'Replacement'.