I Am Reminded/A Poem

Above Social Media poster has no bearing on the poem that follows.  It is about the Financial System.  I last completed Warren Mosler’s book “The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy”.  Read an article by Michael Hudson on Naked Capitalism and wrote a letter comment there earlier this day.  I see the requirement of a Gov. of Govs.  John C. Mearsheimer wrote “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics”. That means everyone needs nukes.  There is no World Police for the Peace between nations.  He just says there is no Gov. of Govs. to call.  He is right for the UN is toothless.  Having no armed forces of its own means the US, or China, or France, or some nation like Russia will get its way.  They can really just have all the nukes they want amongst themselves, have all the wars they want.  The Econ Wars usually become battlefield wars littered with body parts.

 

I AM REMINDED

I am reminded when I see your name.

Is that you Carol, with that byline?

You were so depressed.  I don’t think you are alive.

The Chicago sidewalk all dust blonde of it.

I’d never seen you look so bad.

You said I could have just stayed in the City.

Did you think I was welcome?  Really?

& something made me think of Elizabeth.

You don’t answer through Linked in.

I get 16 Searches a week there.

No joke.  I wanted to be hired to be on the Board.

If I gave them 4,000 dollars I could be a

Board member.

Panavision got sold, but they are keeping Kim.

I’m not too happy about it.

“You’re young, and I’m not.”  is the thought

when I see the young alone or in groups

on the sidewalks.

I ought have left Elaines that damp

Tires whooshing night when invited by

that handsome guy with a few women

he was entertaining, squiring.

I’d have had to ask him to “loan” me

money.

I only had 15 dollars left.

It was cash, and they were going to a club.

In NYC you can spend 100 dollars at a Club

quick.

The price of a beer was all of a sudden 8 dollars.

At a neighborhood place, by ’94.

The Guiding Light didn’t pay much.

Sonja, you had such green eyes.

I ran into you in Battery Park City

Nearby Gristedes and Modern Head.

I know you were no extrovert.

Whatever happened to you?

There is Nancy who is a rich woman last

known to be playing polo in Wilmington.

I regret I have no photograph.

Something on the radio makes me think

Harry Dean Stanton.  When will I see his last movie?

“Make yourself at home in my heart.”  It was a

beautiful song I found in the stacks at the radio station.

That never led to anything either.

My god!  I met with the goth girl in Winston Salem.

Play Misty for me, and damn right run.

Too young.  I was crazy.

So glad I’ve never been famous like famous people.

I wasn’t an all out gentleman till I was 40.

The other day I thought of my contribution to Aviation.

Well not exactly.  I created a checklist for the FBO

About how to wash a plane.  It was a money maker.

They probably threw it away once I was gone.

(Clean the insides first.)  Can we make that allegorical,

or is it metaphorical?

Everyday all the time moving through the liquid

that is life.

 

 

In the Normal Sense

It did not make us crazy in the normal sense.
But there was always a blanket of struggle to our lives,
At least I remember it that way with the always hiking.
Not running but trying to get there faster walking,
and we knew we were always walking a long way.

At least I did.

At least I felt that way,
and felt that way
as that
was what I was made to feel.

Dad said I made him feel some way about the garden.
Like because I didn’t want to work in his flowers
I didn’t love him.

In love songs I heard about how people made them feel.
We had it like that in those songs as if it was OK.

I read the short story in the college short story collection.
Some girl wrote about a tom cat getting on top of her for sex as a lover.
I got it. It was clear enough.
I was a bit confused wondering about what the college was really like.

She must have been an outsider.

There was the band of leather and motorcycle longhairs
Singing “Salty Dog” on the Main street when they opened the bar full of dried wood and dust and I saw it right there, an early glimpse of the revolution.

The main guy like other main guys had the right black leather vest,
A black beard and a black helmet and a black Triumph.
He’d be going somewhere same time as me 6 O Clock or 6:30 AM up the hill by the RR tracks, trailing vapor like a high bomber and jets.

We weren’t crazy by normal standards at all,
Just wary and oppressed knowing we lived in a town of enemies.
Every day, pushed into a fight.

At least for me it was that way.

I told my brother it was okay to deny he was related.

One day he just stopped being the happy one.

A couple of years ago it got to me to be glad my father
Had the opportunity in the war to kill the enemy.
NAZIs were as much his enemies as they were enemies of the Jews.

He was really bi later, after he was married.
He said it was great for the first 7 years, and then there were 7 more.
He volunteered for what they call conversion therapy now,
It’s just stupid and you never ought let enemies see you weakened.

You’ll never make anyone happy.
You’re not the bank for their feelings.

The poor guy with the lobotomy that wandered the streets
Showed me about the girls, no better than the boys.
I saw them on the side street having caught him out alone
They held up what they had of breasts and cat called to his
Far away and terror stricken face with laughter and delight
His pained and confused face the writ of the horrors of a scrambled mind.

They had been serious about fixing that man.
Didn’t they start with an ice pick in your brain?
They went after the thinking part.

They weren’t joking about the “non conformists” or how “You have a bad Attitude.”
With Hoover and “Death from Above”, or some righteous claim on whatever way someone else walked,
It was all to be fixed for their feelings.

It did not make us crazy in the normal sense.
Us kids.
Brother and sisters not born in town and then their babies.
But Targets as soon as seen in town where there was no way
to drive so fast to even be a stranger that way.

From the first day at school there were was tight clique
that all reported their discoveries back to
on the TV
Peyton Place looked like a better neighborhood.
Some did what was a distraction while another
smashed you in the balls from behind.

From behind, from behind they would come, or attack your sister.
We were having fun there with the rest in the snow at the town hill perfect for the sledding. Like in those prints, dusty browned paper that you know will crack easy.
We were not going to be allowed to have fun with the rest of them, and were only part as apart.

So you make me feel anger, and have put in me
a bank of feelings.

Wary, I hear every bump and have the necessary weapons, along with some for ceremonies.

I know where the South is all the time.
Someone thinks I deserve to be hurt, and around me it’s assumed
They are my betters.
Don’t hurt their feelings.

You are their bank and they can draw on your life for their piggy bank of emotional needs. They must be looked up to. Their family has been here a long time. They were there owning everywhere before you. They get more rights for that.

You are an invader.

Mom and Dad had the cars and were somewhere around. There were pancakes, OH Boy!, Spaghetti and “I want a meat ball!”

We didn’t turn out crazy like the funniest clown of the class who I was told in hushed tones by the sheet rocker who drank two 6 packs of Coke a day. “He hung himself in jail. Something about he set fire to a house.”

I one time called in my thirties to the guy that opened the first real bar on Main Street. He said he was old and bald then. I think some things were really getting confusing, again. I was happy alone and video taped it.

Not at all crazy in comparison to the mob like some hostile village, as if a Jew in Europe during the plague that must be same for invading from the North.

A rally, a rally “Rally” Give ’em the Rebel Yell! The suicide led the team. I was always picked last.

There was the most beautiful baseball field of weathered wood. It was a magical place, now gone.

Everything and everybody was real close like nature made it to be so you could be watched till out of sight in the woods of farm roads and whatever else a mystery of dirt roads by fields where insects were loud.

I really don’t remember talking with Mom, and it felt like something was wrong with Dad no matter what.

Lighting the grill was the best thing ever. Us kids watched our parents drink, and we took turns throwing the match on the gasoline soaked briquettes, a word on a bag that must have been gourmet charcoal hadn’t come along yet.

We got meat and equal shares of a Coke.

So I feel alright not buying all their lies and Not opening my heart to the lies and myths, from people that would be surprised at the concept of “peeping Tom”.

“Commodehead” they called the girl that looked like Ava Gardner. There was all this hate just spread like peanut butter on bread in the commercials so thick it was hard for the actor kid to hold it to his smiling face.

“Hit him.”

You don’t even need to hear the story of the circles they make.

I can hardly remember a conversation I was glad I had with anyone I knew. There weren’t that many around and when you saw anybody they hit you or pulled the trigger on their .22 rifle repeatedly staring.

They all came over to a summertime kids party, like as if they were friends because you are supposed to be friends, and they beat me up.

There is a good pile of anonymity, as is best, in Cary. Everybody is in their condo, or just in.

Better everywhere to only know the people at work, see some at a well lit bar with tables and servers and stay in the isolated world of TVs and cars.

Good weather for driving so goes by over and over, some faster foot who thinks signaling is too much trouble and just is at flooring it and racing and the race is to the burial, memorial service, somewhere in another state.

People know about you, as here now.
Yankees making expensive drugs and the software campus.
The money came from up North. They could see it.
Making all the world look like Stanford or RIT.

I saw my home town a few years ago. Everywhere I went looked more beautiful, or more ugly, like the prettiest trees died and were never replaced.
Willow trees had still been growing and they need lots of water.
The Maples were gone.
There was a parking lot where the yard used to be, and an apartment building where we had a wild place of ours we needed.
The college had succeeded in sucking the life out of the town around it.
The rest, for 50 miles in two directions could only be painted on 70 to overcome its ugliness.

I’m sorry since there are great swaths of reality not ever to be escaped by all strangers and one dumb fate after another.
Only destiny and fantasy of better, better somewhere else keeps us from being the normal crazy of the Serling reverse O Henry.

I didn’t know you were beautiful Commodehead. I knew the town was mean and hated the Blacks and Yankees, and we were good enough,from somewhere else.

A bad attitude near a sneer, sad for all that didn’t get out of town, if only 50 miles, and long later when it seems same as it ever was over and over going backwards towards 1348 in France with Priests selling dispensations.

There are people with real investments in your sins. You made them feel angry, so they get to burn you at the stake and take all your things.
They will succeed at running you out of town.

“We freed the slaves and now we just rent them.” As if “We” was them giving permission since the Yankees left and there were reasons Blacks didn’t. “We.”

They get so happy when their team wins.
You’d think it mattered.
It would be unfitting to just pay for them to bounce the ball
or hurt each other strategically.
So every thing is built up on fraud and appearances.

I’d rather go to a strip joint, and think we need one in this town I live in. I went to the one in Little Rock where the girls dance in a boxing ring, which must mean something about that Capital town.

So it is late in the history of the world from my studies as a scholar. A scholar I can declare myself. No easy books out of me of even the easy ones, not even the heartbroken photographs and captions.
Beauty is truth.

Which feels better? The lies that you pay for, or unnoticed what is missing?

Russell

VictimsKillThemselves

Truth is the Target

My Arsenal, Marker on panel fixed about 24′ by 32′. or Truth is the Target

From War

From War come victims. Victimhood will fuck up tough guys.
I know that because of what happened the second bar fist fight.
I got through the first fight, which was three on me and a night in the hospital,
and Three days seeing Double,
and then sat bruised up in my long bathrobe, seeing double,
knowing beat detective movie scene would be longer hiding
which of one Clint Eastwood movie is about the right for any recovery time.

Now myself I am the best in 5 years as a thing for at a managed level of broken and repaired.
After the ROC Club Zero movie master, VJ of ’87 beating Cheryl and them and even family helped me move to NYC.
Whereas the work done to advanced levels and status was great, the business being beat and then another beating and the back wrecked I did Aviation for a year in Fort Lauderdale living more victim out there under the condemned flight path, and then burnt selling bum papers Sun Times Union what all on 440 Powerline when I rode the motorcycle then.

Poor boy motorcycle life like an Asian was mine there in sunny FLL. I got to fly left seat the DC6 766 Whiskey Charlie. Crew moves of a Kubake orange genny cause it was dangerous forklift work and then Tom was impressed and angry I made them pay me for the work. Pilot Captain was Dave Mason I think. Best thing of the whole year. Flying around does fix victimhood psychosis.

It’s in my logbook.

I’ve been writing one Bio after another for the BASIC Bulk distribution of books I’ve done.

But now the international warning I give you all in the world of power and wins and losses in days of Apocalyptic Riot for the Palistinians and Israelis. Whatever people as individuals and as a group that is a nation with a shared myth then they will lose and experience and do victimhood, which is fights with loved ones, divorces, physical wreckage, like back gives out etcetera, business failures and travels like Carriagivio, the painter’s end.

I love my sword, knowing my knife is as advanced as his sword that he was too good with, as it was a good sword. There were some great swords. You can still get one, but people would react in fright to see a sword good on your side all the time. Guys can carry a gun in a holster better.

Most of the time all you really need when you are small is a good long sword.

Modern everybody carries a phone.

Now that I am old and vulnerable I want to be near my weapons at least.
The saber needs a horse.

The law of unintended consequences meant that when founding Transcendia I had to accept war, and the potential for war. The great study of secret wars gets to be weighty in ways of the accreted spirit. Losing takes forms for the spirit when even the treasure are still kept under the control of the looks like the winner.

Chinese and Russian theft of Intellectual Property in the final insult that is the F35 Chinese version leaves the US standing there as smartest to buy the Chinese version of the jet.

The most damning part of the tale is the resolution factor for the helmet being so that eyesight is better like how writing in space with a pencil is a good simple solution to the problem, though I really know there is something missing to the andictodte antidote. andectodt fuck it.

Hiding the R&D as the key to winning the Cold War is a fascinating case in the espionage wars where aviation tech is the top of the game.
Getting the nation into victimhood syndrome there is a terrible compromise of the Defense possible.

Russian runs towards creating good excuses to more militarize outer space don’t look good as likely to come out of the aggressions circled first the great secret sub port.
SEvestapol. I love my Sub Hat!

Boats and Airplanes where the two good things in life according to Nevil Shute.
In this Bio blast did you catch a sliver there of the wild wise drift to up high at peace moving power machines?

Read: Round the Bend. Read Round the Bend and you will get it.

Cry For Me

Now I cry for me.

I'm not the man I used to be.

Frozen in my nighttime tracks.

I go ahead and cry for me.

I'm not the man I used to be.

It makes me feel better.

There's just not much more to do.

It's really got nothing to do with you.

You are just a witness.

Pushed now back to childhood wonder.

Hurts that aren't supposed to be.

What a shock it happened to me!

I didn't see this coming.

TV news is just patent medicine reality.

Now I cry for me.

I'm not the man I used to be.

Real Love

Sharing selfish passions, prostate

of spit and ashes.

Real love

Stakes a claim, sale

Knowing it's a dream.

All the pretty words that try to gloss it over,

Just get in the way, get someone crying

"You don't love me."

We will never do it perfect,

I'm no saintly Jesus,

Pretending ain't my thing.

05 as well face it, I'm keeping at my claim.

Course I really can't force you

You're still a moving target.

Yeah, I like to watch you dance.

I'm takin a chance.

I've had some dreams before.

Near filed 'em at some office,

But backed out the door.

Want to go all the way?

Do it our way?

Just roll with the truth,

Yah gottah stake a claim.

Know the passion burns to ashes consuming all illusions.

Sharing selfish passions with abandon,

Cause otherwise there's no thrill.

We can wait for later, when we're over the hill.

But I feel like dancin now.  That's enough talkin.

Let's just build a fire.  What more yah gottah really know right now.

Yeah I Hit Him

Oh yeah I hit him.

What'd yah expect me to do?

He had his arm around you.

He kept saying he was sorry.

He had something to be sorry for, medicine

So I hit him.

What'd you expect?

You're a little trouble maker you know.

You're a hot little flirt sometimes.

I mean sometimes I like it.

When it's coming my way.

I think I hurt my hand.

Come on kiss it and make it feel better.

I didn't kick him that hard.  He'll be all right.  What a night.

Think you can drive?

We gottah get out of here.

Somebody might have called the cops.

Yeah I hit him.

What'd yah expect!

He said he was sorry too much.

rather be dead than mean all the time

 

 

 

 

 

I'D RATHER BE DEAD THAN ANGRY AND MEAN ALL THE TIME

You hear me and you can say

I want you to have some fond memories left after I die.

Being angry and mean everytime I try to make my vision come true

Ain't fair to you.

 

I'd rather be dead than angry and mean all the time.

It's coming from pain everytime there is rain, health

And I might just be a barometer, treatment ready to break.

Just glass and poison.

Sorry fate and destiny are two different things.

I didn't see this coming.

Still with the music right and loud,

I might be sweet again.

Best thing for a man to be.

Gentleman is what I want to be.

I'm so hurt and angry and mean I'm ready to try or die.

 

 

Rainy Day in the Library

…seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, generic let us run with patience the race … Hebrews 12:1

11 enters, decked in drifting mist. Unsmiling pilgrim, somber faced and gray, It does not know- or care – that on this day Some call to mind the often nameless list

Of saints and martyrs who have gone before. The faithful gather at each hallowed shrine To sing their hopeful hymns of those who shine In glory on some other, better shore.

But in this quiet place no chants or prayers Rise up. I sit alone where, row on row, A silent cloud of witnesses looks on. Another sort of sanctity is theirs: The sometimes skeptic wisdom that they sow Shall still bear fruit, though they are long since gone.

Note: 11 1 is All Saints Day among Christians.

Beyond Seventy

The smallest things are where the menace lies: A clock's remorseless ticking, capsule measured, stark, Its second hand, scorning to compromise, Moving by millimeters toward the dark;

The devastation mirrors calmly show; The idle hours combing a lonely shore For memory's flotsam, wrack of long ago; The slow decay we struggle to ignore.

Such are the givens of our failing years. We can endure them since, in fact, we must. Our one true pain? Those who would share our tears Have one by one gone down to muffling dust.

Our solace? That the darkness which we dread Shall seem like light: it holds our sacred dead.

Erato Oversleeps Again

But these are not the words I had in mind. Those I’d imagined pulsed with subtle light; These fit like sculpted stone, apt of design, But grounded, not quite capable of flight.

Should I then wait her pleasure, she who stints, Content to learn a patience that I lack? Or shall I, like Deucalion gathering flints, Collect dead words and cast them to my back,

Hoping by sweat and dogged diligence To wrest from her the gift she will not give. Is it enough to strive for sound and sense, Trusting the words to rise at last, and live?

Coy, she flees whenever I pursue; I’ll turn my back – what else is there to do?

"Erato Oversleeps Again" refers to Deucalion, the Greek Noah, who after a universal flood was told to gather stones and throw them over his back. As they struck the earth they sprang to life as living men and women.