Letters of happiness (Fast cars, Pt 3, for Olga)

It seems traffic cameras

are a drag everywhere
in Russia when you've speeded
or run a red light
you get a letter of happiness
in the mail
reminding you you've sinned

I don't know what they are called here
but $365 is quite a toll

and must surely evoke
more than happiness
for those who are used
to making those signature
California rolling stops
and never got used to being ticketed
or towed

there must be some
enjoying the cameras and the chance
to change other people's behaviour
but I haven't met them
not even one
perhaps I will one day
but in the meantime
puzzle over the the psychology
of elastic band snaps
and salivating dogs

and the great battery
of stimulus and response
to which we are treated
in the course of a walk
or a jaunt

somewhere Kant
whether you can go there
or even if you can't
is slumbering
not yet stirred or wakened
from the terrors of men
who are laws unto themselves
I wonder about the race of devils
lurking on the margins
of any good critique
waiting their chance
to do what they like
not just because they can
but because doing things that way
promotes their own flourishing

and we thought
the making of the autonomous man
or woman too was

a worthy objective of education
a paideia to rival
the epic re-enactments of Homer
that move us to empathy
or the sniffer dog memories
of Simonides

that point the way
and show us the place
where dinner guests are buried
that they might be excavated
and properly laid to rest

but like so many calculi
Bentham's just measure of pain

Machiavelli's political calculus

or Hobbes' greatest possible evil
summum malum

the height of human striving
can't subsist
in such low motives
for long

but for now
we have our little letters
of happiness
and bills to pay
or give up driving
and learn to walk.