Carrington

Carrington Event -
one errant keystroke
closer to thee

Independence Day --
shore to shore, all the way,
one boat to the next

straw man

Someone: mad verse

I don't want to sign up, sign in, register, log in/or out and I'm not rollin' over - I eschew your f'in' Help button - it's a dreamer's madhouse, really, the paying customers subjected to tiny harpies with booming voices demanding, " Did this answer Help?" - a hundred monkeys equipped with Android apps could deduce the meaning of life and publish a NYT best seller before that happens.
So why limit ones self to overt manipulation?

Don't ask me. I don't tally the votes. As though anybody has control over my problems, let alone their own. But for those psychopaths, those crazies from the Sales Department - mutineers all, I dare say - they've taken apart the hoopty of human decency, run it into the ground, drained the oil and loosed the screws, jacked the tires but call it do God's work - chanting Mandalas of Infinite Solicitation slapped together from spare parts left on the shelf, then re-submitted, re-labeled, trotted out and offered again with the same old promise - it's New, Our Materialism, who art in Marxism, strange as they may seem ... Amen. If duct tape is already a gift from the God's, how then do you bend her to your will? You needn't bother.

Could it be the herding instinct, or an ill nature of Cycles that makes us adapt, their TVs and their radios, far out and solid state, embracing scraps of the dead and dying from digitalia exposed full frontal to weaken our already mutant resolve, to run away, catch up, heinous acts of repetition, and follow follow follow follow follow the ultimate obscenity so gruesome it's impossible to look away from. Just try ducking those errant microwaves - primal, raw, they'll eat your brain if you let them -  isn't it easier that way?

Give up and surrender. Leave just enough cells to plead and cajole, begging for sweet, sweet mercies and then asking for MOAR.

It's different this time - You've pressed Enter - without removing your card, here, have some kibbles washed down with Likes - wait for it! Anathema or instant gratification, what the fuck you gonna do about it? Well, feel lucky, punk? Fill out this form - while you're at it, click on these other offers, ,,, #aumf  Look! Another false flag to justify another war for another millennium and another dead and another maimed and legions upon legions of dead dead dead . . . (yawn)

Even now, our only comfort, through prayer and worship to their inestimable Gods, is lying in wait and raking it in. Bernays has finally delivered Ganesha - his downfall due to the ultimate weapon, a Feedback Loop Set to Infinity Approaching Inertia - how do I look? OK? They're waiting to harpoon your unsuspecting Self, claiming they're here to help, so they say

then bid you Death by a thousand sharpened pencils, shamelessly,  just one nibble at a time, the miasma lurking in Rain Forests of fine print, the final offer directing you to conformity - I won't roadie in that traveling circus, so put that Kool Aid away, Missie, lemme see your hands and then show us your tits. You might earn Goebbels beatific smile, or another persuasive erection ... feel better now? I don't.

I reject your FAQ's, you sick bastards, try to hide an answer and I'll lower your standards while I raise the alarm. I escaped the Labyrinth long, long ago, a penknife and Idiom to defend and sustain me yet nearly succumbing, caught in a web - all of it, it's yours, will be yours, what's mine is yours - while you stood there, posing in clown shoes, polished uppers and blackened souls your best advantage, a squirting flower pinned to your wide lapel, batting those Emmett Kelly's primed with vitriol in baby blue, talkin' smart and recitin' the Mantra, was it tin pan alley or just another ruse?

The Clown Boxer's contention, a ring of black velvet on a green screen backdrop, those wistful bruises and yellow eyes pasted in, certified Organic and quick to anger, unsweetened rabbit punch and cauliflower ear the only things on the menu and a door prize of perception rendered in charcoal, anime of Whizzo behind bars - Free Whizzo the Clown! - a chance of a lifetime, but there's a catch, a trade off, cheap thrills for what you truly desire, a year's supply of pratfalls and a laugh track all its own thrown in - all entries are shall be rewarded with the Slap and Tickle administered by a glove with four fingers, more than a whiff of rot embedded within; an unwavering ability for deflection, to determine someone or something, a projection, a different entity, made from scratch, an invention of make believe, just anybody at all on who they can place the blame.

No wonder you scare the children.

lilacs

Phillip Quinn

I ever tell ya 'bout the time I marched with the Indians? It was for that young fella ... o' man, I done forgot his name ... I have the video I took, but it's too long to upload. I'd put up a snippet but I don't know how.

Anyways, some fella from BLM was there to advise us. I don't know how he got there. The brothers of the young man were taciturn and serious. The mother ...

... she was a feisty woman. At one point they'd tried to grab her but she broke free. Amidst the shouts and cursing she stumbled up to me, grabbed a hold for balance, but before I could put my arm around her to - make her feel safe, she went off to comfort a young girl who was crying ...

That dude, the advisor? He suggested we make a scene, go out on the Interstate. It runs clean across the country, from the big woods to the east, then west, clear across the prairie, the Missouri River and Badlands in between.

Fuck that. We were going to the Court House, down one of St' Paul's seven hills. With the railroad close by and the northern most port on the Mississippi, a mile or so from the State capital, you could see it all laid out like a postcard. Justice was contained in a modern building, one of many I'd helped to build.

As we departed from the burial mounds on the river bluff, lo and and behold, it was as if the police were trying to direct us there to the highway with a blockade laid before us, yet we marched on, a rag tag group of all persuasions.

Some wag shouted, "Hey! Will this mess up my probation?"

I just laughed and went on. It was approaching the weekend, and I knew if we were arrested we'd spend it in jail before the judges and clerks returned with James J. Hill's summit aerie looking down on the city and it's tiny old worker's housing surrounding.

All our cell phones were jammed but that didn't stop us from filming. The fella I'd given my last cigarette to marched beside me beating a drum. He sang a song in some ancient language as we approached the phalanx in blue. We wore denim, old t-shirts and dirty shoes.

For a moment I lost track of time and then ...

I found myself behind the blue line, the others as well, just as the peace keepers turned, some of them dumbfounded.

They had our life histories, our wrongs and mistakes, all our records and their consequence, Stingray, facial recognition, license plate readers and a mysterious white truck full of electronics and gadgets I can't or wouldn't imagine.

All we had was the Great Spirit.
`
country western
and native songs -
a circle round the drum
.

gravy

meals served at curbside -
a little cornstarch added
makes the gravy shine

rocketman

no puzzle this
the rocketman's
infinite calculation

summer clouds

Moonfly and me took a walk through our three acre wood today. I don't know what drew us. I just followed her lead, she taking me by the hand out of my lethargy. We first skirted the perimeter, peering into it's darkness and then, for a lack of caution, walked right in together as though it were an everyday occurrence.

We kept a sharp eye for wildcats, jaybirds and poison ivy (not to be confused with Ivy, the neighbor's daughter, or, trailing ivy on a blue mail box). I wore long pants and a dead man's shoes, forging ahead to clear the vague trail overgrown in green shadow, twisting south to north with others of uncertain origin intersecting here and there. Arriving at a fork, naturally, we chose the high road.

We bypassed the reed bed, where many a crawdad or rollie pollie might wander to for a swim or drink. No deer or unicorns were spotted. Moonfly was able to easily escape the branches and switches that I had to duck and dodge, flitting beneath while I crashed through above.

A far piece, 100 yards or more distant, and a perilous traverse atop a block wall on our return home, though we managed to check ourselves for ticks and chigger bugs when we arrived. Where's a Opossum when you need one?

when I was just a boy
I counted to a thousand -
summer clouds

lost

lost
on wildwood road
waterlilies
directionless

jump out boys

 jump out boys
stare into the azimuth -
first summer day

rally

Day four and now cars on fire on the highway in Minneapolis. News anchors practically begging the governor and mayor to *just do something*.

Really? Not at all an uncommon theme in this day and age.

Then all the Minnesota plates in Hudson, Wisconsin, smack dab on the border 20 miles beyond are stuck, too, since they could close Interstate 94 again and first Minneapolis, then St. Paul, got the curfew. But most the new arrivals came from the East, Chicago to the Rust Belt, a surge and a sight to small towns on the way and this outpost between civilization, the big woods and rolling prairies.

30 white kids at the riverfront park and downtown packed, all 3/4 mile of it. An odd mix, revolutionaries and tourists. No place to go in the Twin Cities. Everybody had shut down for fear of the barbarians in the metropolitan, urban centers. You couldn't even buy a tank of gasoline despite pallets of bricks placed strategically in the hot spots by someone, or some organization, unknown.

I infiltrated the protest to get a feel for the grievances, the postures and imposters. Provocateurs abound in America, real and imagined, some just figments of their own imagination.

I got the latest narrative, "we come in peace, and we deny property damage as a response". I've lived through the The Civil Rights Act and know the motivations run much deeper than that. Heard from a big, likeable Swede talking to a La Raza lookin' character on the fringe with two mugs in tow.

"I don't see colors", he stated proudly.

Holmes and I both blurted, "What? Are you color blind?"

I'd worked with enough undocumented over the years to understand caution. Me and the small, quiet hombre, Central American by the looks of him, shared a wary respect. We both knew the other was a spy.

One professional agitator ran the show, I didn't get his pay master's name, but I knew mi vato and his homies weren't there to shout slogans - but the po po had 'em outnumbered. I never seen so many blues in this little village before.

They weren't really much different than I, similar in importance and status, we who cared not for repression - why does someone have to pay absurd fines for BS like possession of marijuana or driving while suspended to support executive bonuses and parachute clauses for those who oversaw failed pensions and bailed out boondoggles? We're all opportunists in that regard, migrants from The City of Thieves.

A couple of National Guard boys (so they said) in civvies and open carry seemed all jacked up talking smack with no where to go. The one gave it away. Too fuckin' nervous. First time he carried in public, I reckon. Likely as afraid of the police presence as any scofflaw or knucklehead, though the cops I'd spoken to were fairly laid back, enjoying the overtime and mild atmosphere.

Their polite audience, as I'd eavesdropped, some well to do married couples from Golden Valley, that far suburb in the sunset on this beautiful, summer like eve, had no where to dine out but here. One of 'em said I looked like Sam Elliot and took my picture. I'd gone without a haircut for weeks.

At one point, as I interviewed the sign spinners, I heard a ruckus above the chants and horn honking. Jesus Christ was walking through the midst of the group shouting "Heil Hitler!" with his arms raised in defiance. They just asked him to leave ... an appropriate response.

"JC", to the locals, got the nick name for his appearance and eccentricity. I know, because I'd met him once, but I can't say I know him personally.
`


 apple blossom white -
 placards and pamphlets strewn
across the commons

The Fall Of Guge

within view
of the sacred snow mountain
prideful spring flowers
denied burial in the sky
flung from the ramparts


guge

'Cisco: yotsumono

in forest's verdure -
to each its separate branch
squirrels natter and nag  

a check mark by "climate change"
on every certificate

canvass and leather
an even trade
for nylon and Velcro

before he moved on
'Cisco was a friend of mine

Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank

I still have this powerful mental image of Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank.

I don't recall any one photo in particular. Vaguely, perhaps ...

I imagine him aged and weakened by his own political chicanery and alcoholism.

The latter is rumor, not substantiated by more than the dire nature of the situation.

He'd nearly sold the country out from under its citizens to the New York banking cartel.

His Dachau, security and family were assured, from his share of IMF loans diverted to he and the accomplices. '98, wasn't it? Shortly thereafter, the banker's cabal lost their asses as well as their shirts, only to be made whole again. The ones who survived ....

That must make Bill Browder late to the party, any trace of gravitas light in substantial proofs of his invention of the Magnitsky plot to commit tax fraud. Eventually, John McCain carried his water, loyal to whatever his captains of industry would demand. Nations followed suit, made paper tigers of their own promotion.

I can't recall the epiphany Boris experienced, if there were one, the realization he'd been horn swaggered into his own peculiar boondoggle, or, to whatever Gulag he was about to commit his fellow man.

All that was required was he maintain the Lie.

Was it the day, the field, or the realization Russian soldiers under his command were about to mow down his comrades and sovereign kin? Did he struggle through the fog of war, or had he felt struck by a bolt of lightning?

Could those grunts see past that rotten duty the angst in Yeltsin's blood shot eye, climbed up in plain sight on that spartan Russian tank, surrounded by housewives and uncles, the odd veteran waiting for the inevitable, and willful children out on a lark ... ?

Does dissent kill, or is it suicidal? On that day, neither.

a flock of 'jays

ravage through the park -

the mourning dove

silent in repose