Another Moment on the Soapbox

Hey, would you lend me your soapbox for a moment? Thanks.

I just read an article that made my blood curdle and my eyes tear up. A Virginia schoolboard voted to restore Confederate names to two schools. The schools had been previously named after Confederate Gens. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby. They were changed four years ago in what I feel was an appropriate vote to remove the vestiges of the Old South and the history of racism and segregation.

                Now they have voted to change Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School back to their former Confederate names. Because it’s 2024 and the history of the South should not be forgotten, apparently. Proponents of the plan to restore the names stated, “I ask that when you cast your vote, you remember that Stonewall Jackson and others fighting on the side of the Confederacy in this area were intent on protecting the land, the buildings and the lives of those under attack,” said a woman urging the board to restore the Confederate names. “Preservation is the focus of those wishing to restore the names.”  And “that revisiting this decision is essential to honor our community’s heritage and respect the wishes of the majority.”

                Which is the stupidest pile of crap I have ever heard. The Confederacy lost the war. They were traitors to the Republic and Democracy. Losers don’t get buildings named after them. They belong in the history books as the losers of the war and that is it. There was no honor in their cause. It was to keep slavery as an American institution. Which is an absolute moral wrong. Without question. The bondage of humans by other humans is abhorrent and vile and we should not honor those that wanted to sustain that institution.

                The Lost Cause narrative espoused by the Daughters of the Confederacy in the early 20^th Century is absolute nonsense and any “honorarium” for traitors should be resoundingly rejected. The romanticism of the Civil War by Southern revisionists should be absolutely rejected.  It was wrong then and it is wrong in the 21^st Century.

                Yet, I’m not surprised by this disgusting move by the “majority” in Virginia. It fits part and parcel with the current wave of nostalgia politics. This strange yearning to go backwards in time to remove women’s rights, return to segregation, expel those different than White Christians and basically a want for days when white men could do whatever they wanted with impunity. It’s a baffling trend in this country and frankly if you believe any of those things are good, then quite frankly, you’re an asshole who should be shunned and set adrift on an iceberg. While on fire.

                The worst kind of asshole too, pockmarked, and oozing smelly puss, while smeared with diarrhea.  The worst of the worst of the very and absolute worst. That Grinch song, it’s about you.

I’d rather you just curled up into a festering pile of dog shit and fucked right off. Because if you think you’re better than anyone, or think the Country was better in the 1950’s, or your rights as an American supersede the rights of other human beings, then you can just go to hell.  

                I’m really exhausted by these assholes and their “All for me and none for thee”, attitudes. I can’t contain my absolute disdain for them. I can no longer try to see the other side of the conversation. Any side that actively advocates for the Lost Cause, White Christian Nationalism, the politics of division, or that sews hatred, bigotry, and nostalgic whimpering for the “good old days” can just go fuck themselves. I won’t waste any more time on them.

                Okay, here’s your soapbox back. Thank you for letting me borrow it.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/09/us/shenandoah-county-confederate-school-names-reaj/index.html

Nearsighted

I have been near-sighted
my entire life.
For the earliest parts
of my life though, it wasn’t
readily apparent that I needed
glasses.
So I squinted my eyes and contorted
my face in squished up circles
to try and see what was in front of me.

This contortionist type way of seeing
the World; a blurry, fuzzy sort of
amorphous shaped place;
gave me a certain perspective.
I either had to be hyper focused on what
I was trying to see, or I would nearly
completely ignore it since I couldn’t see it.

Sometimes I could just make out
what it was I was supposed to be seeing,
other times, when the squint was failing,
I just had to give up and let it be whatever it
was without ever knowing for sure what
I saw.

I can only see to my knees
when I look down.
My feet are a little blurry.
I can almost see to the ends of
my fingers, but have to adjust it
in and out to see it clearly.
Yet, it didn’t bother me really.

I just let the World out of my field of
vision be the World that it was, without
my bearing witness to it.
There was something about it that became
philosophical, that I could only control
what I could see, and what I couldn’t see
was simply out of my control.

With my eyeglasses on,
I see too much.
Too much I don’t like.
Too much that causes pain.
Too much definition in the blurry,
gray areas, that never bothered me before.

In the blurry World,
there’s a blissful ignorance;
a sort of dumbed-down, muted,
fuzzy edged beauty to things,
that when brought into focus
seem to lose their unfocused luster.

But once you see the World,
and all its hard blemishes, scars,
and sharp edges,
you can’t
unsee
it.

Another Turn in the Ring

Another tussle with
the words I want to
use to convey my thoughts
onto this wretched blank
page; this canvas of
pugilistic wordplay.

Do I say fear?
Or Terror?
Do I devote myself to complete honesty here?
Or do I withhold some shred of truth?
Do I say I am sad?
Or Disappointed?

It’s a bare-knuckle brawl
on the tarps,
blood spraying from busted
lips and open cuts around the eyes,
as the crowd yawns.

A Left,
No! A Right!
Another Right!
A Left hand lead!
But the shadow on the wall,
still steady on its feet.
My feet?

Provocative or alluring?
Sexy or erotic?
Complacent or resigned?
Domestic or Imported?
Reeling around the ring,
in pointless pitched punches.

I want to express how
worried I am, with…things…
the world…
the politics…
but the boxer in me,
just wants to brawl endlessly
with the right words.

Because I don’t know
what to say,
and I don’t know how
to say it.

The Ruthless Country

The ruthless country,
where nothing seems to grow
but disillusionment and
a lingering mélange of tragedies,
where good ideas find no
fertile soil, and bad ideas
blight the dirt.

A pitch-dark patch
of corrupted mud,
mixed with treasonous bones
and phony martyrs blood,
topsoil for lies,
and mulched with grease.

Nothing grows in the ruthless country,
barren wastes, pot marked with
foxholes and rusting barbed wire,
lonely winds swirl, stirring the
shadowy soil into clouds of
conspiracy.

The rot of the ruthless country.
A moldy odor, fogging the senses,
blinding the eyes with the stench,
burning the nostrils, and clogging
the ears, wretched and wafting
decomposition.

The ruthless country,
has no patriots,
no memorials to false prophets,
no valued treasures of a lauded
history,
only dirt and dust,
muddied, sullied,
and ungiving.

The Ruthless Country,
begging for the soil to be turned,
the muck re-mired;
but redemption cannot be
grown there,
it’s ruthless.

Rise

Above the rabble,
we should rise;
beyond lowly dubious
discourse or disingenuous
diatribes, and
elevate to honorable
heights.

We should rise away from
the screaming throngs
demanding their idiotic
voices be heard, because
they are comfortable yelling
with their own, and too deaf
from their own shouting crowd to hear
anything but their own screaming.

Rise, towards lofty dreams,
and worthy goals,
together, an esprit de corps of
humanity, bonded by our desires
to be better, kinder, empathetic,
and less divisive.

The fires of Hell are hot
enough without the burning
contempt, hatred, mistrust
and denial of the truth or facts;
espoused so often and so rudely,
by fork tongued charlatans,
fanning the fires beneath our very feet.

I do not want to burn my feet,
I want to rise above the very,
burning coals of hate and
flames of lies, and cool off
in clouds of optimism and
truth.

Basking in the cool stillness and peace,
only found in those souls who recognize
our collective humanness, above
any ideology or religion, and choose
to rise with it on thermals of good.
Above the Rabble and their rabbling.

https://www.masterworksfineart.com/artists/rene-magritte/lithograph/golconde-golconda-1953-series-3/id/w-2861

A Little Bit of a Rant

There’s a long list of things I’ve been meaning to write about, but time is a cruel task master, and she’s
been whipping me into the mundane tedium of “life as normal” with devious intent.

Not that I mind normalcy, the regular everyday-ness of life; it’s not too bad most of the while. But there
are times when the madness scales the walls of mediocrity and must stand on the corner in ragged
robes, proselytizing about the terrors of a normal life.

Let me just fix my tattered robes and get on my soapbox, which is cardboard now, and is smushed under
my weight, so forget that. I’ll just do this on the sidewalk in front of the old paint store.

I’ll just come right out and say it; we are facing an existential crisis to Democracy in the US and abroad,
and action must be taken to defeat fascists, dictators, autocrats, and anyone who thinks Putin is a swell
guy. He’s not. He’s a despot bent on dominating the West in an antiquated view of Imperialism and,
frankly, I don’t know what his ultimate goals are. It’s a mystery to me why in the modern age any country
would make a land grab. I think men in power miss World Wars sometimes and want to etch their names
into some immortal history at the bottom of a forgotten landmark in some empty field.

Donald Trump is a narcissist ass-munch who is a direct threat to the actual American way of life.
Do not vote for this circus of a human being. He is the epitome of everything wrong with the US.
He only cares about himself and not the American people. He craves power and nothing more. He is
driven by his own lust for authority, or maybe his Dad didn’t hug him enough, I don’t know. But I do
know that his serious overtones of self-congratulation, impossible thinking, and clear misunderstanding
of the fundamentals of the American Republic makes me think he’ll want construction to start on a
Death Star next. You know, with Space Force.

A true man of the people puts the people first, he does what he can to help raise people up, facilitate
progress, and generally help the Country achieve the lofty goals of a Republic; not divide and insult
whole groups of citizens through the worst insensitive foulness I’ve ever heard. Politics is a nasty
business, but those individuals that sacrifice their personal ambitions for the ambitions of a unified
citizenry will almost always get my vote. As a representative of the people you must forego your personal
beliefs about religion, social order, religion again, mostly religion, and do what is best for the people,
rather than for just your base. I don’t care if you don’t like unwed teenage mothers, you should still do
everything you can to help them get the assistance they need to be fruitful members of our society.

It really sickens me at times, the state of my Country and I’m sadly terrified of the future. I was once
extremely optimistic about what was to come; now I don’t even want to leave the house for fear of some
gun-toting racist idiot will start shooting up the 7-11 because they’re filled with hate over some abstract
belief about something they don’t understand or care to try and understand. Because Conservative news
outlets told them so-an-so was evil or cultivated their hatred into action by not condemning the actions
of those in power who say or act in ways unbecoming of a tolerant and progressive society.

There are problems in this Country, I’m not so naive to think everything is wonderful. I know we have
serious economic, educational, and social issues to address, but I’d rather have an elected official
working towards finding reasonable and rational solutions with any eye towards progress, rather than
trying to drag the country back to 1958. It is not normal to want to go backwards to a “simpler time”. It
was not simple. It was not easier. It was not a Golden Age. Looking at history through Rose-colored
glasses only make you blind, not wistful.

I am baffled by the assault on women’s rights. That somehow women, again, cannot be trusted to make
their own decisions about the reproduction of our species. I was raised to see women as equals without
condescension or recriminations. So I can’t understand this right leaning stance that women cannot be
trusted, and States need to enact legislation to “help” women make decisions about their own
reproductive rights. The end of Roe V. Wade by this Supreme Court made me sick, and it shows the
cowardice of Conservative ideology. To let people have any control over their own lives is akin to
blasphemy as far as Conservatives believe and I find that reprehensible.

I am a firm believer in the Separation of Church and State. I believe religion has no place in the halls of
power. Any religion whatsoever. So I’m disturbed when individuals in power use it as crutch to justify
legislative strategy. The King of England, King George, was allegedly placed in power by God and we had
a whole rebellion against him and in the aftermath, we made damn sure that no elected official could
ever claim that they had been appointed by God and were therefore “infallible”. God is not a politician.
God or Gods are an abstract concept to explain the things we do not understand.

I will fight for a man, but not his God.

This street corner is getting chilly, and my robes are fluttering in this strange winter/spring breeze. So I
will step off my smushed soapbox for now. I feel better getting a lot of that off my chest. I hope my
ranting and raving can help expose the warnings of complacency in these “normal” times. We have to
continue to fight for the true freedoms we have, for the rights of the marginalized, oppressed and
forgotten. We have to embrace each other with kindness, humility, and patience, since none of us are
getting out of this normal life alive.

Tune next time when I might go pack to writing a poem about, I don’t know…, cats maybe.

Buckle Your Hats

The Pilgrim’s classic
buckle hat is fiction.
No buckle hat ever existed
and no Pilgrim ever
wore one.

A buckle-hatted,
white male,
standing a long table
thanking the Natives
for not letting them die.

It is, however, that image
that so permeates the
Thanksgiving Holiday,
that we simply accept the
myth as canon and eat.

I imagine that Pilgrim winking
to the other Pilgrim’s
the whole time, nudging others
with a knowing wry smile,
saying, “Thanks, but we’ll take it from here”.

It is our nature to believe
the legend over the truth,
since legends are often far more
interesting than the cold,
hard facts.

We’re a culture built on myth,
mysteries and stories,
ready to believe there’s a monster
under the mountain, belching
lava and destruction, rather than the truth.

Despite our mythologies,
we are thankful,
for those that abide by the truth,
and keep us from running off cliffs
in panicked frenzies.

In our buckle-hats,
waving muskets after vicious turkeys,
as the Natives point, and laugh, as
we careen over the edge of the
abyss, towards legend.

Happy Thanksgiving 2023

Learned Anything

I agree with some poets
who say it’s difficult to
write poetry in difficult
times.

The effectiveness of the words
is infantile and helpless,
when global doings are
transpiring.

What great deed can be accomplished,
with the meager strings of
vowels and consonants,
so timidly conspiring in the dark?

Will trench poetry emerge as the
salve, soothing the injuries inflicted
by despots and territorial
pissings?

The afterthoughts of afterthoughts,
written in blood, smeared on hospital
walls, as warnings, as condemnations,
as epitaphs.

Flag waving and heavy footfalls of
militaries marching, through deserted
streets, the music of lost souls, echoing
through alleys and history.

Graveyards alive with flags for
the fallen, flapping in foul breezes,
with a few sad words hastily written
on tombstones.

The poetry of the now,
seems too weak to fight the onslaught
of the present, and it’s perhaps only in
memory, wherein peace resides.

The future, reflecting on our words,
will be the judge of history, so maybe,
the difficulty will be worth it, and what seemed
ineffective, will be remembered.

Although I’m not sure we’ve learned
anything yet.

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Photo: https://clarkcrenshaw.photodeck.com/media/857a4301-751f-460d-96f5-cb0d47ad1a19-old-
school-room-2

The Good

The Good,
has been hard to
see lately. You have to squint
your eyes to make sure
it is there.

It comes into focus
like some Magic Picture,
barely discernable from
the dizzying dots across
the image.

The Good,
buried under rubble,
covered in darkness and
dirt, lost in the backdrop
of horrors.

The darkness in the
hearts of men,
makes my heart heavy,
with agonizing grief,
looking for the Good.

It is there though,
slightly ignored,
corrupted to mean different
things to different people,
rather than a moral Good.

The Absolute Good,
the unquestionable Good,
children’s happy laughter
or a rainbow after heavy rains,
the Good in life and nature.

Obscured in murky black
spiral smoke of fires and
twisted in hateful speech,
The Good, begging, searching
for its place.

I hope we can find it
soon. And feel the warm sun on
our sickly faces.
And see The Good, Be the Good,
I know we can be.

Fire Dancing on a Pinhead

While Angles were
dancing on the head
of a pin, things
went and got a little
crazy down here.

It seems there’s only
so much punching at
the air I can do,
or so much keyboard
pounding I can muster.

The World put on
some insanity pants, a fruit headdress
and started an
apocalyptic cha-cha
to the rhythm of our own muttering.

A haunting cadence of
voices, cold and muffled,
chanting some ancient gripes
in modern times, hoping
things will fix themselves.

We may have started this Fire
Mr. Billy Joel; we really may have,
been the bringers of our doom,
amidst our myopathy and self-involved
self-involvement.

So many fires,
so little rain,
so many opinions,
has so many people,
acting insane.

I’ll use this pin,
to post this message,
hoping not to disturb,
all the Angels Dancing,
to the same sad fiery beat.