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.
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.
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.
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.
I haven’t felt the ink in my veins for a while, as it were. The urge to mash these words onto the page, has been, “meh” at best.
It’s okay to have a period wherein the awesome magic of prose seems to dwindle for a time. Where things don’t seem so fantastic or awe inspiring.
When things are just, “meh”, or, “So-so”, or just “blah”. Manilla, milquetoast, bland, without form or structure.
Amebic, a great sedentary blob, of ennui and laissez-faire, curling the fingers into mitts, rather than flying over the keyboard with aplomb.
I get the sense that I’ve said it before, it’s been said before, what ever it is that needs to be said, has been, to whomever needed to hear it.
Yet there’s still something, thumping in my chest, an irritated beating, a thudding anxiety, begging for my fingers, to uncurl and unleash their typing terrors.
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.
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.
Junkies and pinheads, roving the dirty, urine soaked hallways of a shuttered apartment buildings, shouting and demanding their needs be met.
Stealing and grifting their way through the night, to support their habits, their lifestyle, their unintended consequences.
A policy of plague, unleashed by other policies of ignorance, from policies of condemnation, exclusion and inequity. Shaking an empty cup, looking for change.
It’s very hard to care for a society that doesn’t care about itself. Like an addict, bent on self-destruction, regardless of the help offered.
Another rung on the ladder of society, needles still sticking from dirty arms, stepped on, in the climb to be superior, rather than be better.
I’m guilty as the next addict, hooked on my comforts, anxious without them, irate when crossed-examined about them. I offer nothing. I leave a mess.
I am, the junkie, the pinhead, and I am tired. With needs to be met.
A Minute with Michael 