Shadow has its Way

So tired . . . so very tired . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Shadow has its Way
Gone like a long ash from a neglected smoke is the old misery.
The boredom of healed wounds yields lazy days of lazy sleep,
And you begin to miss the heat and meaningfulness of sadness.
Mania, whose bandaged mask resembles joy, is soon exposed:
Nude, impotent, withered, harsh light on false dreams, false cure.
The drink again calls. Do you remember the old story of love?
When alone with your most familiar self, shadow has its way.
Needing bar lights on drunk faces, smokes, pool with misfits.
Nervous fingers, cramped, nothing to write but apologies to God.
Old misery had structure, beauty from which gothic angels flew.
Now the eenui of evening, addictionless, cold and numb,
Craving curses, bad sex, raised knife, and shadow has its way.













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Broken

Broken


What can we do with broken windows?
Maybe we can put them back together,
Maybe we can sweep them up,
Maybe we can ignore them completely,
or maybe we can just let them be broken.

Is it possible to mend what has shattered?
or can we just re-invent its initial purpose
In a way recycle the idea, not the item itself
Making something new out of garbage.

Perhaps everything must be broken at least once
Perhaps this is what creates need, desire and want
Perhaps all must lie within something broken
Before it can truly glow and be alive
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The Other Day


The Other Day
I felt just a little bit pretentious
Pompous and Large
Like the day I stood in front of the world and said, "Not Me"

Just at that time, the place I call home got a little smaller
My eyes refused to focus and I couldn't see my fingers
I tried to run, but couldn't even stand up

When this happened I lost my sense of being
And laughed at the mere mention of value
Where has this sentence placed it comma?
And where is the "understood" pause
I just didn't know

Just at that time, the words I call my own seemed murky
I felt like I was plagarizing my entire life
It was turning into a sad movie with sarcastic comedic satire
And I character I wanted to see dead.

My mirror has collapsed into my ideology of reason
And I can't find a pencil to jot this dream down

Scott R. Conwell
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Rinse Cycle to Hell

home appliances gone bad.


rumble, rumble
thump, thump, thump
the machine has slipped it's valve-spring pump
it whirrs and spins, going out of control
centrifugally forces it's way back to hell
shooting out bolts
popping off panels
flanges fly off to seek the heat
of the blood of the innocent
and the souls of the meek
shaking the shit out of the joint with vengeance
warping time and space to suit it's dark plans
bringing fire and death with unholy abandon
either this or clean my pants by hand
a dark cloud twists above
red, raining brimstone spun by it's malevolent drum
oh, I can remember when it was just a loud hum
detergerine demons rise up and sing
cacophanous music unmatched by the most nightmarish dream
and rain red hot sprockets down on the scene
the dial has been turned
the LED display is cast
in a viscious red grin
that glares into your soul
and you cannot hide
and you cannot run
oh good, my whites are done.

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Newsprint

just a crappy little poem


newspapers on the wall, ragged yellowing daily pulp
covers up the floor with green faces and interruptions
no privacy here to speak of but the anonymity of the printed crowd
in the washing of the machine to launder the individual dream
and the pull of the thread from the seam.
it laughs at the sock that's tossed from a height
hoping it will go way and leave tranquility in its absence
too much to ask perhaps, it's hard to function as the machine thumps
silence, silence and noise, is that too much to ask?
instead noise and silence, noise and silence, noise
noise
listen to the bag that carries to the bin the paper that's within

fin
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Self Confidence Is A Form Of Self Delusion

just the most profitable and socially acceptable form.


The esteemed self-delusion of the delusional estimation that you are better than you are I said STOP. stop and go away, stop, turn on your heel, twist your wrist in the mist and get pissed. and that's when it happens and you tell yourself that you're better than you are by far, and some poor suckers believe you, and you achieve, you, you achieve to, to meet their expectations because you've forgotten that you will always fail, so you fail to fail like you were supposed to, damnit! you were supposed to lose, you couldn't but lose, and you lied to yourself, so you fucked up even that! shoulda never tried. shoulda gone to bed and cried. coulda done your job like me and sipped of the futili-tea. you fooled yourself into thinking you could do more than decay, and that prophesy fulfilled itself and you doggedly had your day. I'm so sorry, I wish I could have done more to show you the reality of the pointlessness that we each have inside ourselves. I said stop. drop and pop. this day is slop, so spin, spin in place to face the race of humans in the misery you so selfishly forsook. but you just don't listen, do you?
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Faeries in Knots (Faces in the Trees

AP contest poem
Form: Timber

Ever seen faces in a tree trunk, only to find them gone upon a second glance?

^
Face:
lips, eyes,
sweetness and
something
hidden, like
shadows and sun,
hollows and smooth skin--
just a trick of
the light, perhaps, not
the face of a goddess,
a dryad, a nymph: nimble,
mischievous, silent, fae,
woodland wonderland secret,
portrait painted, pine-scented, brown
on a canvas of papery bark.
][

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haiku?

***





sitting at the bar
the guitarist sucks ass
i eat my crackers



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I Like to Smile

A contest poem from my account on allpoetry.com, with a given title and a limit of 10 lines, and the condition, "no bright or cheery shit."


I like to smile,
yeah, because I like to lie;
I’ve always been good
at pretending.

I like to soar,
because there’s freedom
in those seconds
before you remember
it’s going to hurt.
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Blue Funk

The beginning of yet another incomplete short story. But this one might actually go somewhere, even if it's not very far. Who knows? Input is good.
Here we have a girl, finding out that being shallow is rather unfulfilling, and going on some wacked quest to find the meaning of life. Maybe I'll make her a serial killer. Or maybe I'll have her find dragons and...stuff. *shrug* We'll see.


Finding life interesting is sometimes a fantastically difficult thing to do—but finding oneself interesting is often immeasurably harder. At least, that was Sharon’s opinion. And, she thought, the second is probably, in most cases, the cause of the first.
If asked by a friend, Sharon would claim to find herself inordinately interesting, and might even pretend to be offended. If asked by a stranger, she might have been slightly more honest. Sharon was very normal, though she most likely didn’t realize it, in that respect. People are commonly more honest with strangers than they are even with themselves.
Truthfully, Sharon found herself incredibly dull, from her name right down to her pampered, painted toenails. Thus the striving to stand out, the façade of arrogance, and the infrequent theatrical pleas for help.
Sharon’s most pressing problem was that she didn’t know what she wanted. Be different, or normal? Dark, mysterious, morose? Light-hearted, easy-going, open? She settled the matter by diagnosing herself as bipolar, and self-medicated with a variety of both over the counter and illegal drugs. She made no effort to control herself in any way, and so threw everything she had into each moment. It shouldn't have surprised her, then, when one morning, she woke up feeling nothing.
She’d burnt herself out.
The day seemed normal at first. She’d woken up very late, even for her; noon had come and gone fifteen minutes past. Groggy and irritable, she sat up and ran careless slender fingers through her uneven hair—to which she had taken her scissors but the night before, producing an extremely chopped, yet somehow appealing, hairstyle.
Yawning and stretching, she climbed out of bed. Where to begin? She took some time deciding on what to wear—the comfortable, discarded for the clean, to be peeled off moments later in favor of the fashionable.
As anorexia was her current self-inflicted illness, she avoided the kitchen altogether, reaching for her cigarettes instead. In her familiar morning ritual, she told herself that she would quit tomorrow, and proceeded to smoke three cigarettes in quick succession, while checking her various online accounts.
Upon finding no new messages, she came to the conclusion that all of her friends had either died, or were no longer talking to her. To calm herself, she hastily typed a sloppy suicide note and posted it on no less than five different sites.
“That will show them,” smugness. “And if no one responds, I’ll know that I should just go through with it,” sigh.
But Sharon still felt vaguely unsatisfied—in fact, perhaps she just felt vague in general, being a world-class fence-sitter of the worst sort. In any case, she stared out the window with a small frown of concentration, as she unconsciously strove to ignore the tiny, desperate whisper in the back of her mind: “There must be more to life than this…”

X X X

“I’m fine,” Sharon told her friends, trying her best to tell an obvious lie, but no one seemed to notice.
“I’m going insane,” she told her councilor, who spent a large amount of time spouting nonsense, and charging enough money that it must have come straight from god.
“I have sinned,” she told a priest—though she wasn’t religious in the least, confessing is such a grand gesture.
“I hate you!” she screamed at her mother.
“I need you,” she cried to her ex boyfriend.
“I miss you,” she prayed to god.
None of which did any good.
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Irony

Smells like sex and
guilt
premeditated crimes
of passion
steeped in denial
and all that came before.
Smile full of fear,
laugh of desperation,
eyes that hide the truth--
the legacy of
one unfulfilling moment:
it's never worth it,
and somehow
you're left
feeling cheated.
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Vices

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Vices


You are my Lucky Strike when you kiss
Hugging, the finest Camel filter
So craved, needed wanted damn the cost
For tried and true comfort I’d walk a mile.

Coughing up tears gasping for sense
Wheezing ecstasy I’ll never give you up.
Yet a round of wishful resolve occasionally
Passes my mind not reaching my heart.

I had a pink lunged lover for years
Eschewed my cylindrical amour what’s more
Bestowed me with his name, a golden ring
Undying love. I ground him beneath my heel.

Remembering my first Marlboro and love
Many brands and men come and gone:
Old Gold and Fernando, Frank III and Merit
Which he did for awhile, but too light.
Doral and my pal Pert, until he inhaled heavy lead.
Benson and Hedges Ultra Light 100’s damn
Was that dude’s name Slim?

New Year’s Eve I’ll blow smoke rings resembling
Our kiss sip champagne whisper your sweet name
Into bubbles trying to recall your brand
Those oddly boxed Canadian Cigarettes.

Kelly King
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Snotty Savants, Terrible Parents, and Rachmaninoff

Portland Youth Philharmonic: Stupidity and Hubris


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Snotty Savants, Terrible Parents, and Rachmaninoff
Hurrying down the sidewalks, the echoes of my close-toed shoes carried off and quickly muted by a cold Portland wind, I harbored no illusions about the potential dangers awaiting me at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall tonight. It was the Portland Youth Philharmonic’s Spring Program., ostensibly a special performance, being the conductor’s (Mei-Ann Chen’s) finale after 5 years, and a night to be much remembered for the graduating class of young musicians, most of whom were soon to be slated for successful orchestral careers. For the participants it might have been all that, but for me this “special” evening devolved in a most disappointing, farcical way. What follows is one man’s experience of, and reluctant immersion in, said farce.
Act 1: Send in the Clowns. After House Manager Bob’s usual thorough militaristic briefing during which he declared that a seat was pulled for a wheelchair at alpha epsilon uno (section A, row E, seat 1 for we civilians) the chimes tolled followed by Bob’s gruff voice calling the staff to their positions. I was on aisle 4 with one of the few smart ushers. Shortly I would discover that if there were smart patrons in the theater tonight they weren’t coming through my door. More chimes. The public poured into the lobby. The shitstorm begins. As my fellow usher and I tried to converse (we had 30 minutes until the seating area opened) about the farfetched idea of retirement, agreeing that the word would never be applicable to us, the crowd thickened around our door. I tried not to look anyone in the eye but someone said, “When can I go in?”
“In about 5 minutes sir. There’ll be a PA announcement.” Grumbling he moved to the side to study his watch. This opened the floodgates of stupidity. The crowd pressed in, forcing me to say that the door would open as soon as the announcement was made. “It’s been 5 minutes,” the man said a minute later. I did not respond. My fellow usher issued a false apology. Finally the announcement, and the ingress began. Suffice it to say it was a thirty minute nightmare. I’ve never had to deal with a more cognitively challenged crowd. Half of these idiots didn’t know left from right. I’d quickly glance at a ticket, and say, “Row P on your left about halfway down,” and the patrons would slowly weave down the aisle, looking left and right, obviously confused. At this moment I realized with perfect clarity that every study I’d ever read linking financial success with intelligence was wrong. This was the moneyed class, capable of sending their kids to elite schools, able to afford the best music mentors for their coddled brats (more on them--the brats--later). Often I had to go down and intersect them to re-clarify. Most of the patrons of the PYP are related to, or are otherwise acquainted with the performers and treat us (the ushers) with contempt. This wouldn’t be so bad if they were capable of thought. Many of them breezed past and promptly sat in the wrong seat. This sin of arrogance is usually not discovered until the lights are down and late seating begins.
Adding to the usher’s burden this night was a worse than usual Ticket Master fiasco. Aisles and sections didn’t correspond, resulting in whole groups who belonged on the other side of the theater entering our door, and wasting time. Of course many of those who blew past us, apparently not needing assistance, sat in the wrong seats. This was discovered as usual in the dark. Finally, the last minute rush. Half the house seems to think it’s a good idea to wait till the last minute, many of them wielding mixed drinks, fueled with alcohol and hubris. Bottled water only in the seating area I said again and again. It’s always the same. “But--” the patron would say. “Sorry,” my indifferent reply. The lights go down which is the usher’s cue to shut the doors, but twenty odd persons had squeezed in so I turned on my flashlight and started scanning tickets one by one while my cohort stood outside listening for the music to start, after which no one can be seated until a suitable break. I was able to seat all but five of these patrons quickly during an introductory speech by an official of the PYP. Now the final five. Section C, Row Z (near the back, thank God), seats 8-12. The cry of the concert master’s violin signifying the orchestra’s readiness for the first piece, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto Number 3. Fuck! Row Z’s filled with suits and gowns.
This is one of those awkward moments of a usually sweet job during which I have to interrupt the patrons’ enjoyment to check their tickets. They grumbled, silver daggers of outrage shooting from their eyes. All five tickets were for seats on the other side of the theater. A cello shrugged her weary shoulders. The piano softly wept. Idiots! I whispered, “I’ll take you around back. Let’s move as quietly as possible.” So I led them as parents do their children along the Portland streets (minus the omnipresent leash), or as nurses do their Alzheimer's patients, but these were middle aged adults dressed to the nines. After much doddering (theirs not mine) we arrived at the desired seats. Full, of course, with the like mindless. Five minutes into the piece I wasn’t going to risk bothering anyone else. In the very back row were five empty seats. I sat them there and got the fuck out.
Act 2: Terrible Parents. After hearing similar tales of undiscernment from other ushers I prepared to settle in to read a little “Madame Bovary” while listening to the eighteen-year-old pianist perform the most difficult piece in the repertoire. She did an outstanding job. The parents did not. Many loitered in the lobby, downed drinks and engaged in trivial conversation while their small children (doubtless the younger siblings of the savants) simply uh, wandered off. Baby-sitting isn’t usually part of an usher’s job. Tonight it was. Nervously, embarrassed for the parents, I had to “sh, sh” a few of these yapping brats (sound flows easily into the back rows of the seating area). Worse, a few toddlers (unbelievable!) jimmied up to the doors, and tried to open them. I had to stick an arm out, or place my body between them and the door, which could open at any second and smack them in their faces. “No, no--you could get hurt,” I’d say, and where were the fucking parents? “Oh Marcus . . . Oh Meredith . . . over here,” they’d reply if at all. Obviously, these fools didn’t think it through or count the cost before deciding to make babies. The babysitting continued throughout the concert. Berry, an older usher, turned to me during a brief respite from the ignorance. “Kids aren’t cute,“ he said. “I hate kids.” In the midst of such folly that was a beautiful moment. Fortunately my friends are good parents. Still, I am thankful that I could give one ear over entirely to the brilliant pianist, Judy Clark. She performed flawlessly and wept with joy once the performance was finished as one bouquet of roses after another was brought to her.
Act 3: Snotty Savants. Intermission went off without a hitch. In fact I had a nice polite conversation with a kind, grandparent-like couple about how inspiring it was for these young people to continue the classical music tradition. The second half wasn’t as memorable, either for the quality of performance or for the elements of drama which make for good storytelling. There was a piece by Debussy. Another by Bartok. It was pretty dull. I went out for a smoke with Berry. We laughed at our experiences of confronting stupidity and both having beers in the fridge to run home to, shared a desire for a quick end to the evening. It wasn’t to be. The concert ends. I went down a side aisle to watch the curtained exit which leads to a shitty ally behind the posh Heathman Hotel. Sometimes patrons ask where the exit leads. That’s why I’m there. Amid raucous parental applause the orchestra bowed as usual and the conductor did likewise, and that should have been the end. The patrons should’ve filed out, after which the ushers check for lost and found, then wait to be dismissed. Those beers were calling. I glanced at Berry who stood frowning at his door. Something was wrong. The applause didn’t stop. The conductor stood bowing and grinning, bowing and grinning, and then a fourteen-year-old violinist stood and whispered into the conductor’s ear. Uh oh, I thought. Several other musicians got up and vanished backstage. The rest applauded, beaming at their conductor.
Depending on perspective what follows is either heart-rending or obnoxious. One after another the young virtuosos re-emerged from behind the curtain, bearing bouquets which he or she presented to the conductor. Each then launched into a long-winded speech (10 minutes each, no lie), extolling the virtues of their conductor, and their musical educations under her tutelage. These pampered high schoolers from suburban candyland clearly loved their conductor and parts of the speeches were truly moving, but what struck me was the pompous, self-congratulatory tone. Each made allusions to the sparkling careers awaiting them in orchestras around the world. These kids made no allusions to overcoming adversity or humble beginnings. They did express gratitude for their conductor in flowery language and she did weep at these sentiments while bowing and smiling all the while yet I got the impression that these spoiled chosen ones had clearly been isolated from any “real” world I’ve ever heard of or experienced. In their defense I might have felt the same at fourteen or sixteen. In criticism their oratory was over the top, the cockiness in which they elucidated their dreams and desires offensive not only to myself but to the other staff (ushers, gate attendants, janitors, food and beverage servants) in the theater, the vast majority of whom will work hard their entire lives sans the fanfare and comforts that these kids are bound to receive. After forty-five minutes it ended and the dunces left, self-satisfied to chat and backslap in the lobby. Berry found a quarter with his flashlight. “Thanks for the tip, fuckers,” was all he said. The beer that night never tasted so good.


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Man in a Pan

Another poem by Kelly King.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Swedish Massaged meatballs
Sliced Salty Tongue
Boiled beats a heart
That sticks between your teeth

Sweet honey honey sweetbreads
Peking Duck me, suckling pig
Marinading tenderloins come for Belly
Eggs in Bellingham

Kissing collar bone greens
Paypaypa pie high
Not a minute steak but prime rib Eve
When we next meet to meat


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Acceptable Loss

Good thing I'm not a prophet 'cause I smell shit on the horizon . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Acceptable Loss
Drinking again with tooth pain, my thoughts apocalyptic
Foresee rainlessness of three years browning and making
Needles of the grasses as bare feet bleed and scurry for shade.
Electricity winks a final time her harlot's neon eye and dies,
Rendering our modern and cruel business existence moot.
Is the cave of our salvation just over the next hill of litter?,
Or beyond the glitter and stench of the next oil-dead river?
We clench and covet the girls but forget about the books.
Libraries, failed temples of hope, burn in pure blue flames.
Newspapers feed the communal bonfires of the last days.
From one boundless cloud the ash of men and snow flutter,
Tiny remnants of bones and feathers cover eternal winter.
Yes, the prophets ranted as usual the usual message in vain:
Turn from the sin of reason and profit which separates
Forever self from Other and embrace the ancient simplicities.
But no. The nuclear phalluses knew the penetration of earth,
A billion children scalded out of life's illuminated manuscript,
Violence upon violence and not a healthy drop to drink,
Screams upon screams to deafen the ears of daybreak
And not a towering or tender thought to think.
Time to keep warm now so we huddle close despite our stink
And burn dumpsters of money to heat our frostbit feet.
Time to find what's precious: a cave, a fawn, a flame, a woman
Whose ovaries have not been roasted dead from the inside.
Time to embrace your neighbor, not your television or career,
For the terror of night is here, the ice creeps, and don't sleep.
Slick and syrupy speech is now extinct. The poems are lost,
But so is the posturing and arrogance that led to total loss.
Dave scratches the snarls of his beard, spits out a tooth and says:
"Me thinks these words be devils: acceptable loss."


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City Faces

We take ourselves wherever we go . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
So tired of passing by these city faces,
The groans of the undiscerning making babies,
Pulling triggers,
Spending and dying spent,
Their expensive books covered with dust,
The fine china dinner plates cracked,
Photographs of exquisite parties yellowed.
Faces passed with eyes never looked at,
Staring at feet, each making love in separate dreams
To separate ideas of what those dreams may mean
And I with my own idea of what "I" may mean
And fearing your face, beloved, confused
When I tell the truth after drinking,
Fearing the drinking and what anything may mean.

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Hopeful at Powell's

Wrecking!


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

I was looking for a book called "The Pathology of Civilization."
Daydreamed in the aisles a while, figuring I'd run into it.
The employees' faces seeemed as stupid as the customers'.
Asking for help had never seemed more absurd.
So I tried some educated guesses which didn't work,
Cursed myself for being stubborn and wasting time.
I could be home by now, scribbling words, getting off, getting drunk,
But damnit, I wanted to find my nihilistic birthday gift myself.
Of course, I finally gave up and glanced at the information desk.
The young girl there was reading a biography on John Adams.
She didn't look too dumb.
She wore glasses.
I was hopeful.
Maybe she was single.
I straightened my posture, smiled, walked up
And stood directly in front of her,
Ready to ask my question in a confident, sober voice.
She yawned and turned a page.
I walked away.









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Angels Fly Out of Trailers

Sometimes the best parts of ourselves are squelched for the foolish learning of the moment . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Angels Fly Out of Trailers
Angels fly out of trailers sometimes with whiskey breath,
And the white residue of crushed Vicodin in the nostrils.
We had fun I think.
Maybe it was the weed or the drink
Or the full-bellied laughs that made us forget the next day's bondage.
People told me you were slow.
People are wrong.
For when I thought you were trashed
And my fingers found the white edges of your bony thighs,
You seemed quite perky, elucidating at length on
The ancient, mind-controlling dolphin-pigeon alliance
For world dominion, and how the mummified remains of Jesus
Were guarded by Templars in a secret Vatican vault.
People say you don't work hard.
People are wrong.
For when my shot was gone,
And my wondering hands cupped the little snow cones of your tits,
You worked overtime to convince me
That Hitler was worthy of sympathy for his undescended testicle,
That Carroll was a pedophile and 'Wonderland' his sick manifesto,
That I better leave
Unless I wanted my own genitals to be munchies.

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Third-Grade Girlfriend

Where the trail of tears began . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Third-Grade Girlfriend
Holding hands was foreplay for us,
And the pendulum of our bodies on the swingset,
With you on my lap, face to face, our fucking.
In that warm childhood wind, I courted you
With dandelions and clover and stuttered words.
You were the cartoon princess I'm still in love with,
First light flicked in the addictive brain, first link
Of the chain of drink and losing you in every face.
You became so beautiful the boys
Would scribble you notes in code, and you'd flip
Your braids of gold, giving back a stern womanly look.
Their attentions never made me jealous,
For I considered our exchange of colored birthday
Cards our wedding vows, and though you flew
Away to a place of no goodbyes, I still have mine:
Nine crayon candles on a cake, and love Laura.

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Through the Eyes of a King: Negro Perspectives on the American Dream

 

The American Dream may be defined as the opportunity to pursue a better life unfettered, and unimpeded, according to one’s ability and ingenuity. This “dream”, hinted at in “Harlem”, and delineated in Martin Luther King Jr.’s, "I Have A Dream" speech, the American Dream; was, and for Negroes, had always been the American Nightmare. For Negroes, the American Dream was jealously and viciously guarded by the system of Jim Crow, by white lawmakers, and by the Ku Klux Klan.

All of that would change on May 17, 1954, with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Ks. Supreme Court decision in which the Court found segregation in public schools to be “unconstitutional”. This landmark decision ignited a storm of protest from white Americans and gave birth to the black Civil Rights Movement, which reached its zenith in August of 1963, with the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Today, if you ask most Americans, even black Americans, what was the name of the March, they will tell you the “March on Washington”—people forget that it was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King was unable to tackle both issues of the March, so he settled on the issue of greatest import, civil rights, and equality, and gave it everything he had. He was a true believer in the American Dream, so much so, that he likely reasoned that if the Negro had his freedom, the Negro would use his unfettered and unimpeded opportunity, and his ability and ingenuity, to secure a job and pursue a better life. In short, King wanted, not what whites at the time claimed Negroes wanted— special treatment under the law— but for Negroes to have equal access to the American Dream, and equal treatment in all aspects of American life, under the law.

By understanding the cultural context for the issues presented by Martin Luther King, in his "I Have A Dream" speech and by Langston Hughes, in his poem “Harlem”, we may be able to uncover the source of the deep and bitter resentment, dire desperation, and burgeoning rage bubbling underneath the surface of these authors’ works—works, that seem to say, “We too, dream that dream, so why can’t we have it?”

“What happens to a dream deferred?” Langston Hughes posed this question in his poem “Harlem”. In the poem, Hughes asks the reader, “Does it dry up…Or fester…Does it stink like rotten meat?” Hughes then shifts to a tone of resignation—“Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.”—yet he ends the poem with this cryptic, even prophetic, warning: “Or does it explode?” Hughes does not answer this question for us; instead, he allows us to mull over the issue: to decipher his meaning and evaluate for ourselves the meaning of his insinuation. (Hughes)

In “Harlem”, Hughes appears to be commenting on the condition of racial inequality that existed in America at the time—a condition that had existed since the institution of slavery in America in 1640, when the state of Maryland became the first colony in America to institutionalize slavery.

Prior to 1640, Africans in America were indentured servants—laborers who were bound by law, to serve out and repay their debt of indenture—but who had the legal right to be freed once that debt had been paid. By 1641, beginning with the state of Massachusetts, laws were passed and instituted, declaring that bondage was “legal”, and African laborers suddenly found themselves considered “chattel” under the law—slaves—who were the “property” of their masters, and could be bought and sold as the master desired. This condition of forced servitude; the enslavement of the Negro race in America, existed in its legal form until January 1, 1863, when president Abraham Lincoln actuated the Emancipation Proclamation, and legally ended slavery in America. Later that year, on November 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, where he resolved,

[T]hat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (King) 

On August 28, 1963, one hundred years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and gave the Gettysburg Address, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivered what was to become his most famous speech: the I Have a Dream speech, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C., with a throng that numbered at least 250,000, a fifth of whom was white, King laid out in graphic detail, the grievances and continued suffering of the Negro people. The purpose of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as it was called, was to dramatize inequities between whites and blacks in labor and civil rights. Prior to the March, President John F. Kennedy had proposed a bill that would have provided equal protection under the law to blacks, but the bill had been stalled in Congress by Southern Congressional members, all of whom were white, who resisted the idea of granting to blacks, equal status with whites for any reason.

In a gathering that included labor leaders, members of the clergy, film stars, folksingers, as well as citizens from all walks of life, King opened his famous speech by paralleling the language in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He then reminded America that,

One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. (King)

Throughout the speech, King reminds America of the promises guaranteed to all Americans in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and lays out in stunning, and eloquent detail how these promises have yet to be granted to Negroes. King states,

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. (King)

By reminding Americans of the promises granted to all citizens of America, and that Negroes are also citizens, King attempts to establish a tone of commonality with the American white majority, implying that the aim of the Civil Rights Movement is not to force America to grant special privileges to Negroes, but rather to grant Negroes the privileges due them as citizens of the country—privileges denied them since the founding of the nation.

From the beginning, King knew that this was a historic moment: in his opening lines King noted,

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. (King)

Of Abraham Lincoln he says,

[A] great American, in whose symbolic shadow [referring to the man and to his massive statue seated as if sitting in judgment, in the background], we stand today. (King)

Of the Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln; 1863) he says,

[It] came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. (King)

…reminding Americans of that great promise that was made to blacks in the Emancipation Proclamation, but not kept. King then states in no uncertain terms that,

[O]ne-hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. [T]he Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. [T]he Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. [T]he Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. (King)

Though he is careful not to alienate his audience, King does not pull any punches as he lays out for America, and the world, the crime of discrimination. He reminds America that in its inception as a nation, America made a promise to its citizens that it is honor-bound to fulfill; a promise, which he and the people gathered there, had come to collect. Using language taken directly from the Declaration of Independence King states,

In a sense, we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (King)

King then blasts every citizen who considers him or herself to be a real American, with the following words,

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. (King)

That day in Washington, D. C., King was a man with a divine mission: to make America become in reality, that dream that was set on paper at its founding. King said,

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off, or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. (King)

referring to President Kennedy’s, and other sympathetic liberals’ persistent urging to be patient; instead, King threw down the gauntlet, stating,

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice, to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. (King)

King then issues this eerie warning to the white power structure in America and anyone else who might attempt to put this genie back in the bottle, or ignore, or marginalize the meaning of that day’s events—

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hoped that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest, nor tranquility, in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. (King)

 

This is not the Martin Luther King that we have always heard about in school: the peaceful orator who preached non-violence went to jail and was beaten, without ever lifting a hand to harm his fellow man. Although he was not advocating violence with his statements, King was making a critically important point to the entire nation—Negroes had had enough! That the practice of racial inequality must come to an end! Implicit in King’s warning was the same cryptic, prophetic, explosive situation posited in Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem”; and Hughes’ question, “Or does it explode?” had a very real chance of being answered if America did not take the March seriously, and do the right thing. (Hughs)

King then, in a brilliant stroke of diplomacy, perhaps born out of a legitimate fear of inciting the nation to riot, quickly acts to quell the tempers of the more militant members of the gathering by reminding all present of the policy of non-violent protest that had brought together such an unprecedented assembly, in such an unprecedented show of support, that crossed all racial, religious, and ethnic boundaries for an American ideal, common to them all. King astutely acts to acknowledge and include all people who extol the values of brotherhood, justice, and equality: thereby calming, and unifying the crowd in their common purpose. King says,

[I]n the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. [W]e must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous, new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. (King)

King next announces to America that the old ways of doing things have died:

[W]e cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto, to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied, until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness, like a mighty stream. (King)

Perhaps evident of the death of the old ways, and the transformation of the American collective consciousness into a mind that has learned of the concept of civil rights, is the fact that King himself, at the very moment when he is speaking of conditions that occur only to Negroes, ceases to refer to Negroes, and instead addresses “the devotees of civil rights”; thereby including all Americans who value equality and justice in every aspect of American life. King then tells the crowd to go back home, and to take with them the faith that somehow, something will change;

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can, and will, be changed. (King)

King has just introduced a new concept to the American collective consciousness—a concept, so common to us today, that we can scarcely comprehend its impact at the time it was first said. Prior to King making the above statement, Americans as a whole, and white Americans in particular, did not understand what the Negroes were doing. Even many Negroes didn’t understand what those Negroes were doing! They did not understand why those Negroes were angry, what those Negroes meant by freedom, and why those Negroes were allowing themselves to be jailed, hosed, beaten, and killed because very few Americans truly understood the concept of “civil rights”; they had never seen it! Up to that day, in the history of this country, civil rights had never been a reality.

The ‘March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom’, was truly an act of revolution: it was a changing of the guard; a regime change from the old ways, symbolized by Jim Crow, to a new enlightenment, symbolized by the eclectic representation of every stratum of American society gathered there at the Lincoln Memorial. White Americans were terrified by the sight of so many Negroes who, at least as best as they could understand it, didn’t want to live in America anymore! Black Americans who opposed the March, often did so because they were either fearful of mass reprisals from whites, or out of a cynicism that white America would never grant Negroes equal rights, so why not just separate from white America, or rise up? Martin Luther King had dropped such a bomb on the nation with the size, and diversity of the people gathered there at the Lincoln Memorial, that he had to comfort everyone within earshot, and within view of a television with the reassurance that,

[S]omehow this situation can, and will, be changed. (King)

For the first time in American history, Americans got to see the power of passive resistance; they were slapped square in the face with the fact that massive protesting held a real possibility of forcing America to change whether it wanted to or not. But to what?

With their minds now prepared, King finally arrives at the true purpose of this gathering—the raison d’être—his “dream”. He starts out with a message of faith before he teaches America how Americans will make this change occur—in short, he teaches America the basic tenets of civil disobedience, and in the process, the meaning of “civil rights”.

[T]his is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. (King)

[A]nd if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi – from every mountainside. Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring - when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics - will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (King)

With these words, America entered its second infancy. America would be reborn as a nation where legal discrimination against a person because of his or her race, would no longer be tolerated by society as a whole. Americans would soon realize that they did not have to believe blindly, everything the government said, and follow the President without question, to prove their love of, and loyalty to, the country. American youth, an amazing number of whom were affluent whites, would soon rebel, and take to the streets in droves to protest the drafting of mostly poor white, black, and Hispanic men to fight in the war in Vietnam. The behavior of American soldiers in Vietnam, as well as the escalation of the war, would be called into question—and the uncensored broadcasts of the war on American television, would lead to a rash of violent protests throughout the country. Langston Hughes would die of cancer, in 1967, without ever seeing the American Dream become the Negro reality. The year 1968 would become one of the most violent years on record in American history, as over 100 riots raged throughout the country, and threatened to tear the nation apart. And by the end of the decade, President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Minister Malcolm X, and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., the linchpins of the Civil Rights Movement, would all be assassinated as America erupted, and the foundation of the old society was ripped apart.

Langston Hughes’ “dream deferred” and Martin Luther King’s quest to partake of the “American Dream” are foreign concepts to us now. In this age of massive consumerism, and harried, fractured, cell phone-driven lives, we know only that something is missing, but rarely do we know what is missing. In many important ways, the dream expressed by these two men was for us, simply a birthright. Most of us did not have to march, or be jailed, or be beaten, or struggle to receive the fruits of that dream—we needed only to be born. Most of us have never known an America that was anything like the America in the time of Hughes and King.  In our America, we are, for the most part, judged by the “…content of our character”, and “not by the color of our skin.” The success of the Civil Rights Movement secured for us the right to pursue health, wealth, and education with such unobstructed ease, that we give nary a thought to the bloodshed and suffering, and utter, sore travail our forebears and our traumatized nation suffered to provide us with these luxuries that we consume with such flippant ease.

In the end, I suppose that it is the tragedy of all children that we must live in the shadows of our forefathers. If they be great, however, then great be our offenses if we do not advance the handiwork that they have so nobly set before us. We do not seem to dream today the way that Hughes and King dreamed of the society that presently surrounds us—and that may be the greatest tragedy of all.

A Historical Note:

A fact that is not commonly known, but is, nevertheless, an interesting footnote of the ‘March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom’, is that Martin Luther King had not planned to give the "I Have A Dream" speech that day in Washington, D. C. He had been planning to give a more standard speech, and was about to ascend to the podium when Mahalia Jackson, a famous gospel singer of the time, shouted out to him as he was approaching the podium, “Tell ‘em about your dream, Martin!” King took a moment to reflect, and then, drawing upon several of his older speeches, he formulated the "I Have A Dream" speech. King was clearly moved by a force greater than himself. The power of his oratory, the eloquence of his message, and his thundering delivery of the speech shouted down the walls of Jericho of the “separate, but equal”, racially discriminatory system in America forever. His willingness to include whites and other races in the movement made the issue the problem of all Americans and gave the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom the power to transform our national identity forever. We owe a debt to those who fought, suffered, and died to bring us one step closer to embracing the true American Dream of harmonious equality.

Read more!

Blood On A Black Body

How many times,
has this ancient song been sung
over the sons and daughters of Africa?

How many days, have ached
with the wailing and mourning?

How many jewels have been silenced and forgotten—
covered with lies,
with time,
and bitter earth?

We wake.
But we cannot awake from our dreaming.

We rise.
Just to bend to the plow again.

We rage!
But our raging becomes our undoing.

We flee!
Into an acceptance
of our unequal station...

Blood on a black body! And no one to take the blame.
Blood on a black body! And the people are strangely silent.
Blood on a black body! Tells us what we are worth to the world:
And that no one loves our children
until they bleed. Read more!

This Servitude

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE yep, it's a bitch, and little turquoise birdies flutter and sing elsewhere . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
This Servitude
Before the Fall, the final sickness of manic fever
Burning blisters in the mouth of dawn, the devil's phone
Screeching in time with facial twitches, the blizzard
Of memory frostbiting the fragile buds of restoration
Forbiding all input but the bantering elves of insomnia,
The mad reel of monochromatic dreams flickering
With indecipherable subtitles and cryptic laughter,
Came the woman, and the boy who came to love her,
And turquoise was her favorite color.
April's fickle demons blew the chanting of her name
Into his brain, beneath the sheets divine carnality came,
And the boy was but a stream, waveless and green,
Who by the whimsical grace of Furies and Fates
Was given to nurse upon the breast of a turquoise sea.
He suckled long and deep their brief, enchanted spring-
Time, and from the perfumed crush of springtime's body
The boy came to know the dark intimacy of "smother,"
And turquoise was her favorite color.
So it is now written, for the boy cannot speak,
The rusted windpipes have sprung a language leak,
Let the sad wincings of the Word stand as memorial,
(Wet petals on a pillow, wet as their once mingled sweat),
Black ash of abandoned poems the element of burial,
The untainted blood of his worship drips forever forth
As dust of incomplete dreams dies in her candleflames.
Bedecked in flesh: master and mother, lizard and lover,
And turquoise was her favorite color.
The boy chose never to leave the turquoise room,
Wandered long in the turquoise fog, couldn't leave it,
Attempted to choose, weakened, just couldn't leave it,
Limped with his coffee cup and his turquoise cane
And his silver-maned age, gazed into her picture,
An ancient and oft-visited pose, pale callous fingers
Clutching a turquoise rose, blew a kiss with wistful
Lips. This servitude has been an angel's gift,
And turquoise was her favorite color.

Read more!

Invictus (Unconquerable)

Who will teach this child
to sing?
To revel!
When adversity stomps

the life from his dreams,
and tramples

the very essence

of his humanity?

When his heart is weak!
And the road is long.
And the wait
interminable...

What new lies
will we sell him
to silence
the steady seeking of his soul;
when we've run out of answers,
in this world
that does not
love him?

When the razors of his reason
are no longer silenced
at the gate
by the awesomeness
of his uncertainties—
and his bitter tears
falling...

Who will teach him how
to stand?

Who will surge boldly forth
when the brute squad comes
kicking down the door?

When they are coming
after him!
Who will clap like thunder with his own life?
declaring:
"THIS    IS    NOT    RIGHT!"

...Or who will drive him from the depths
of the murky waters
and shout:

"Rise, oh fallen warrior!
Rise up,
and make your stand!"

Death cannot kill courage,
for courage
is remembered.

Sing!
when your heart is weak.

Revel!
when the road is long.

Dance!
when the wait is interminable...

Lies cannot dissuade you,
they only stop you
for a time.

As we slip into this darkness,
know that 'trying'
is the death knell
of uncertainty...

Nobody but YOU,
can defeat this!

Nobody but YOU,
can achieve this!

Nobody but YOU,
can face the terror,
and be the example...

You are a MIRACLE
Little Brother!
For you
have a
MIND!

Read more!

Lethologica

The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want to use. As part of a writing assignment in college, I had to locate interesting uses of English words and phrases, and comment on them. It was not a creative writing class, so I found creative ways of commenting to keep the class interesting. The following poem is an acronym as well as an illustration of the word lethologica.


Leaving
Every
Thing
Heretofore
Observed, pondered on,
Languished over, or
Omitted--
Given
Inherent
Conditions,
Absentmindedness is, in a word; uh... Read more!

It All Boils Down

Introducing Kelly King! I asked my friend if I could post this, and thankfully she said yes.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
It all boils down, once properly heated

The coming to a boil is the exciting part
Hot licks on lips, flush on the face
Steaming sentiments spoken.

It all boils down, roux to rue
Rich gelatinous stock or
Pithy watery remains

Love Consomme` is strained for clarity
Seasoned with differences
Both past and possibilities cling
To the discerning palate

It all boils down once properly heated
Passionate bubbles breaking the surface
Covered and simmered gently

Cream of Desire base exceeds
Dreary starched milk mixture
Time, Thyme and attention
Turns it into the main course

It all boils down, once properly heated
The fire, the water
The fire, the water
From the Earth into the air


Read more!

The Most Exciting Thing (Disappointment)

Fitting in
as the days creep by
and life becomes a slideshow
of Photoshopped faces and recorded words:

pixilated plastic playground lifestyles
of the young and faithless.

A wagon wheel, face down in the rut,
around and around again,
on a dusty trail to Nowhere
at the slowest pace imaginable:

Middle-class mediocrity,
grayscale nights and watercolor days,
tawdry and smeared like after-party make-up—

here’s the comedown,
crash-and-burn let-down,
disappointment,
a slow poison
whose effect is cynical lethargy.

The bruises that used to mean something
just blend in now,
like nothing smiles and a high pitched laugh,
all the same,
each as worthless as the rest:

every kiss is bland,
every sigh is empty,
the sparkle-and-shine is all gone.

And somehow I’m left alone,
in the rain,
all dressed up and nowhere to go,
my soggy reflection and tired voice
keeping each other company
on the window's mirror-surface,
as Life stands me up again.
Read more!

Furry Shoe Story (A Writing Exercise)

This snippet of a short story was created using a writing technique I like to employ (usually at work) whenever I'm bored, or just can't come up with anything to write about, but I really want to write. I'll ask whoever is around me to name a person, a place, a thing, an action, a description, and a time. I then have five minutes to create a story idea from the words they have supplied.

In the following example, the words were "teacher", "school", "shoe", "jump", "furry", and "8:15am".

What follows, then, is an example of how a handful of seemingly unrelated words can be used to stimulate the creative process, and help one to extend beyond one's writing comfort zone.

I can always tell when I'm going to have a lousy day. I wake up in the morning, and I can't find my furry shoe. Not that I actually wear my furry shoe, I don't, but like a good friend, it has always been there--reminding me that all will be well. It has been this way since I was four years old...

I am completely lost without my furry shoe. You may think I'm nuts, but I really am! Hey, everyone has their quirks, and this is mine. Ok, one of mine. I also name my shoes. That right, I name my shoes! I'm such a freak! My furry one is named Jump-Jump. Jump-Jump the Furry Shoe! It sounds so regal to me.

Ok, so here's the thing, its 8:15 am, and I'm late for school, again! Mom's all yelling, "Come on! We're going to be late! Which really annoys me, since we're already late! "I'm on my way!" I growl back. And Mom's all like, "Get in the friggin' car, now! You're gonna make me late for work!" Parents. What a waste! So all the way to school, I'm like a sad, wet puppy, because I know the day is going to suck.

Anyway, its period two and I'm in my biology class. Melvin, Melvin Mackey, my biology teacher, (who names their kid Melvin, anyway?) is giving some boring lecture on the bones of the inner ear. Meanwhile, I'm goofing off doodling, just doodling, mind you, and he totally blows a friggin' gasket! "Miss Campbell, he says, "I realize my class is just a major interruption in your otherwise illustrious life, but do try to humor me with at least the pretense that you are paying attention. Can you show me that modicum of respect, Your Exalted Highness?" Your Exalted Highness? What a pig! So I raise my head up to smart off at him, and my entire face is covered with black magic marker! I had been holding the black one in my hand, while I was coloring with the red, blue, and gray ones, and I got distracted, and I got it all over me. The whole class starts laughing, and I end up crying and running out of the class. Life. Why do I even bother? Read more!

Worthless

Be mean to me.
Use me.
Use your power over me 
so that I
cannot leave you,
or love myself.

Berate me till I feel
trapped,
and anxious,
and need your
approval.

Till I dread
the good things
and the bad
with equal vigor:
knowing that our misery
will end up
my inevitable
fault.

Show me continuously,
that I am
fallible.

Warm me, when it profits you,
or when you are moved
to do so,
by whatever force
guides you.

Render me helpless,
so I cannot love you
as I want,
or make you love me
as you should.

Control me, so that I
agonize over each joy
I take
that steals even a moment
away from you.

Deny me warmth.
Deny me sex.
Deny me the joys of being
a woman,
a mother,
and a mate.

Make my every wish,
a trial.
A betrayal of you,
or the sanctity
of our union.

A symbol of
my lack of faith in,
or lack of trust in
you…

Blatantly use me,
and then make me
defend you
to avoid fighting
all the way home.

Kill my desires
to improve
myself.

Stifle my attempts
to flourish.

Remind me that I can do
nothing
without you.

That I can be nothing
more than
your fuck-toy and
underling;

second-best,
or not even
in the running.

Humiliate me,
and leave it all
in my head,
and then label it
'low
self-esteem'.

Make your opinion of me,
my opinion:
so you can feel secure,
and I can feel
worthless. Read more!

Come To Me Only In The Night

Come to me only in the night;
when darkness shields
the liar’s eyes:
and truth is made irrelevant,
by passion’s weight—
...and loneliness
abides.

When all my virtue is no comfort,
and my diversions
are empty too—
come to me under cloak
of darkness;
for all I need my friend,
is you! Read more!

Love

Love is what you cannot touch, but touches you.
Cannot embrace, but embraces you.
Cannot comfort, but comforts you.
Cannot warm, but warms you…
Love is having all the sympathy, but not the cure.

Love is glaringly imperfect;
The wrong man for the job,
The scum of the earth, and the runt of the litter.

Love is ugly (but kind),
Love succeeds, when it should fail,
And fails, to keep from winning…
Love is not what gains, but what loses,
Graciously…

Love bears up all things,
Nourishes all things,
Believes in all things,
And hopes for all things…

Love teaches us to adore that which is present
As we grieve for what is not. Read more!

The Cobwebs Only Seem to Fill the Sky

will the real mc guimond please stand up, please stand up, please . . . uh, sorry folks--not waving but drowning.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

The Cobwebs Only Seem to Fill the Sky
The world is nuts but we are still alive and the cobwebs only seem to fill the sky. We are each a world and our continents are shaped according to our chosen identifications. On my world which I call Freedom there is a whole hemisphere called Love where even the moonless night causes the flowers to dance in the fertile soil of my singing. This is the experience of reverie not an arrogant declaration. Fearless and fulfilled, all of my friends are there. And so are all notions of the holy. On my world there is a continent called healing for those who need it, no passport needed. Another continent is Authenticity. Off the coast of the nation of Leisure is an uninhabited, waste of an island called Work. In my world no one ever goes to Work. But every woman, man, child, animal, plant, and rock rejoices in the paradise of Play, a synonym for Freedom, a synonym for World. Anti-cities dot the landscape of the entire globe. I call these anti-cities Solitudes. All inhabitants are welcome in the Solitude of their choice whenever they wish. One may take up permanent residence in Solitude if one wishes but few make that choice. We respect our monks while the rest of us have fun with others.
There is no law. There is no duty. Raised in Freedom there is no need because the food is not locked behind cages or counters. Raised in Freedom there is no need because the children are not taught to hate in educational prisons, and adults are not taught to hate in occupational prisons. There is no prison if you don’t identify with it. Anyone seeking to imprison another in body or mind is asked, politely at first, to leave the world of Freedom. There is no second warning. The incorrigible are simply booted through the goal posts of Canada. This happens so rarely as to be the stuff of myth. So with solitude the words come, and with words we reconnect with the authentic, and with the authentic comes the freedom to be ourselves and the respect towards those who are different, that is everyone because everyone is free from the opinions of others. Freedom is free as laughter is free, as breath is free. There is no word for desire. There is no need for a word when desire is actualized in everyone and is never obstructed. Though this world is not manifest externally in the world we wake to it can still be real in the world within if we decide. We will write the worlds we’ve been given to write about. And we will continue to love the beloveds that this world has wind-fallen upon us. And we will be ok. And we will skinny-dip in the lake in the land called Healing. You will find me there with a six pack of cheap beer. And we will be sane. The scriptures written in purest gold in every soul are each too voluminous for one to read in a lifetime. But I will read as many as I can.
To laugh with another in joy is the wisdom of the ages. To embrace another in suffering is to know the secret name of God. And to struggle with another in the process of mutual understanding is the grand plan of this and every age. Freedom is the wind that clears the cobwebs away, and love, the child of freedom, rises over the horizon known as clarity. My story is a circus tent. I have lain and named my stakes. One is called Muse. Another Mom. Others include Julie, Sarah, Mayor, Robyn, Sam, etcetera. And all are fastened by a thousand ropes, each named for a thousand significant (and never minor) others who have laughed in my story, or wept in my story, or pushed me in my story, or pulled me in my story, or who simply smiled when I needed a smile, or who simply held me when I needed to be held. For all souls in a story comprise the story, and without one the story is less. May we each honor our stakes, our ropes, our strings, and may the wind continue to blow so that we may continue to see so that we may continue to love so that we may continue to write about it. It is good at times, this life. So let’s live our stories on the worlds we decide to live and live them well.

Read more!

Thus Spake the Muse

This desperate positivity; clearly I'm clinging to a crackling branch high, far too high, in a tree that I had no business climbing in the first place . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Thus Spake the Muse
Sweating at the precipice, do not jump. Instead heed the advice of that small still voice that has never left you. It is my voice, and I am your Muse. Lay your sorrows on my breast or forget about them in my lips. You can still write despite everything that has happened, is happening or is yet to occur. If I can sustain Kafka and Vonnegut through their brilliant miseries then I can sustain you. I speak to those who know me and are known by me. Those who do not know me, gird up your loins and leave the classroom please. Ok now. Everyone’s in who should be. Beloveds, consider the works you’ve already written. Consider the tales of the Grails you’ve found in your soul and shared with each other. Surely there’s more to sing before the swan song. I say identify with your highest guises, those of friend, lover, writer, mentor (inner angels of wealth), not as worker, slave, failure, whore (inner demons of poverty). You know it’s wise to watch the labels you affix to yourselves. You know this already I say, and I am your Muse.
Rant if you will, I say, but rant in the service of she whom you love. Love me. I who love you despite and because of your addictions and weaknesses. Love me. I will never threaten to leave you, or ask you to change to suit my desires. You are my desire. I betrothed myself to you in the womb, and soothed your childhood hurts with a dream of becoming, and wedded myself to you fully in young adulthood once I decided you were worthy of my love. You are worthy of my love. You may have once called me God, or mom, or by the name of a particular human lover. I encompass all of these entities as well as the starry night and the grass, concrete, or hardwood floor beneath your feet. I am with you now, and you are perfect and beautiful and wise, and I am your Muse.
My darlings, can you not see that you’ll never be without love because I love you, and my love loyally follows whatever and wherever your path, and beyond death, and whatever worlds or non-worlds may follow. Love me, and be angry in my service, and be tender in my service, and those emotions will never be misdirected as they are with the humans you love. It’s good to love the humans you love, but do not idealize them, worship them, or expect from them what’s not in their power to give. That is what I’m for. Touch and taste and feel and fuck. See and record the secret testaments of the human soul, and listen with an ear attuned to pity and suffering to the hymn of all that I am which is the hymn of you too, and everyone else who has ever known intercourse with life. You are love and pity and anger and suffering. You are life, and I am your Muse.
Do you think you were alone on your journey of loving the women or the men you’ve loved? Did you not feel my breath, smelling of your favorite flower, on your ear, on your neck, on your genitals as they did or did not rise or moisten to meet love’s occasion? Did you not feel my fingers tenderly kneading your neck and shoulders as you quit the things you needed to quit that made you nervous and sick. I am your source of health And I am love, your love, and you are all I’ve ever desired, and you are the man or the woman I desire to grow old with. And won’t our autumn be lovely? And you may have other beloveds as long as you come home to me. And your other beloveds are to respect me for loving you so that they can share in the love. Tend to me, water my roots, caress my stalk, kiss my petals and they will bloom for you. I am not a jealous Muse. I am your life, but I do not demand all of yours--just a little time so that I know you love me for the words I give to you. I have many more words to give you, and I am your Muse.
We are lovers, and I am bound by monogamy, but I place no such constraints on you. Just remember who you return home to, and give me water and kisses so that I may stay beautiful for you. Love others and stay grounded, but save a tithe of love for me. Love is made of particles and waves and so are you. I who have wept with you in your confusion am with you now. I who have laughed with you when you’ve had ah-hah-hah moments and have laughed at yourself am with you now. I who have known pain and madness when you’ve known pain and madness am with you now. Through mother, God, sundry lovers and all human-angels remembered and forgotten, through cigarettes and booze and you know what, through the bad and good and neutral I am with you. I am yours. I am all things. Now go forth and write about it. Love me and write about it. Love always, your Muse. Read more!

My Poor Mother's Lover

And so she died,
for love lent not its hand:
but lust decreed
that mindless time
should end—
That she should grow so mindful of the times
when lovers mate;
and she was only three:

and four...
and five...
and on till she was ten...

And still, he came:

For mother didn't see;
the gentle creeping
of his roving hand—
or heard the shriek
to,
"Stop it,
or I'll speak!"

...So on he roamed,
till on his journey's end,
his eyes fell mute:
his lips could hardly
shriek!
When she revealed the 'savior'
that she owned:

And put her mother's lover
fast asleep! Read more!

View From The Bottom Of The Pit

Within
there exists
an invincible summer,
joyful at the death
of a thousand
angry springs.

Racked,
yet so much better
for the pounding!

Bruised,
yet grateful,
for the chance
to live—

bound not by doubt,

nor swept
by disappointment,

nor chain
by fear,
to pain,
whose time has past:

I stand defiant
of my palled
condition:

long as I live and breathe,
I'll rise again! Read more!

The Anthologist: Story 1: The Prettiest Girl

Even if all of my shitty idealistic Green Anarchist opinions were implemented the human spectacle would still be awful . . .
THE REST OF IT GOES HERE They call me the anthologist, but I didn’t ask for the title. I am Earl of the tribe of anarchist scholars, surviving amid the ruins of what once was known as Eugene Oregon. My vocation of the past twenty-five years has been that of a recorder of tales, collected from the oral traditions of various tribes and collectives I’ve encountered in my wanderings. Most groups have welcomed me with warm curiosity. Others have not. Their stories will stay among themselves. At times I’ve barely escaped with my life. Why do I do this, you ask. Because some day reading and writing may return, and I do not wish the stories of the post-revolutionary generations to be lost. Each story is of a different group of survivors, each story reveals a unique glimpse into post-revolutionary life. Each tribe I’ve encountered has found their own way to live in the world, but there is one similarity. They all tell tales of their tragedies and triumphs. They’ve all generated myths through which they comprehend their place in a new, uncertain world.
The first tale comes from the Forest Park Primitivists who lived near old Portland.
Mistrustful of my intentions at first, I eventually won them over by telling stories of my own, some truthful, some fanciful. I asked them if I could stay a few days to rest up for my journey to old Seattle. My usual cover story. I never tell the truth of my vocation. Most people still associate writing with the decadence of Civilization, a dangerous production of symbolic thought, and the Forest Park Primitivists were no exception. Had I put feather and ink to bark, and produced but a single word it would’ve been my last. So I memorize the tales as I go, and only pen the words upon returning to the safety of Eugene. The following tale relates events that took place about fifty years ago, but it seems to reveal the essential character of these people, even today. The story-teller’s name was Eric. I’ve recorded his words to the best of my memory. Only the footnotes are mine.

Michelle loved Gilbert’s eyes more than the Revolution, and the dark crystals of having loved three women glittered with heroic sadness from the moonlight beaming through the ancient pine like the eye of freedom. Every human’s hands were stained with blood, every mind haunted with the horrors of die off, but the danger had passed. Children played naked in the creek, and the little village boasted seven earthen shelters, sturdy and secure for the rainy season to come. The State had passed. History itself had passed and the children were chided to never speak its name.
Gilbert felt the shift of Michelle’s body, and he shifted in turn to hold her. Twin parentheses of skin melded together on the cool wild grass beneath the starry negligee of night. The light pollution was gone. Gilbert would warn the next generation of feral boys and girls. By consensus vote he was honored with the role of storyteller. He and everyone else would forever follow their natural inclinations, guided by that northern star in each unique and treasured soul. Soul was a word they would keep. Again, consensus.
Michelle sighed as Gilbert cupped her breast. "Do you think they’re still growing," she whispered above the sound of gently stirring leaves. Gilbert squeezed gently. "Yes."
A sudden swoop of wings and a high-pitched shrieked caused Michelle to gasp and curl her knees tightly into her abdomen. "Gilbert!"
"Just an owl, honey,"
"I thought it might’ve been--I’ve had nightmares," she said. "Is that so wrong?"
"No, darling. They’ll fade in time." He kissed the soft ivory curve of her shoulder. "And you have never looked so beautiful to me than tonight." He kissed the base of her neck twice. "My hero," he said.
"We’re all heroes, silly," she said.
"Yes, but before all that, you saved me."
"So you remember the lessons, Gilbert."
Splashing in water. The fish were breeding like crazy again. The ancestral memory of freedom had awoken in a flash and sparked vigor in their loins. "Love myself,"
Gilbert said. "And all that has followed has sprung from that. You taught me that."
"And you argued with me, silly fool."
"But you won the day, and the Revolution flowered."
Over the milky horizon of Michelle’s thigh Gilbert watched the sky awaken pink with sunrise. Silhouette of a doe in profile, beneath which a fawn fearlessly nursed.
The villagers, numbering forty-five now with the recent birth of Free Gaia, milled about leisurely, or chatted around the crackling morning fire. A few adolescent boys were charged with task of cooking last evening’s catch of a dozen plump hares for breakfast.
Skewered on sharp sticks, the skinned animals flesh slowly beaded with juice and browned in the heat as the boys laughed amongst each other, turning their sticks. The aroma wafting from the rotisserie summoned everyone to huddle around the fire. The children ran from the stream with bulging deerskin flasks of water. No one had gotten sick off the water for some time now. It was another cause for celebration. The water had healed itself.
Michelle wandered into the woods of alders and spruces. When she could no longer hear her comrades, about half a mile in, she stopped and unknotted the rope of her little rabbit fur purse. Of course she wasn’t supposed to think of it as a purse, but only as a utilitarian container for food or simple tools like grinding stones, arrowheads or flint. Nervously, and with guilt mixed with defiance, she took out two tiny blue pills and silently thanked the gods that she was able to get the laser surgery done on her facial hair before the Revolution. She looked around. Safe. They think I’m engaged in the morning toilet.
She looked at the pills in the cup of her sweaty hand. Pharmaceutical estrogen, seized from Walgreen's in a daring clandestine raid in the terrible times of looting. An act of desperation that could have cost her life. She swallowed them and headed back. She could smell the sweet, wild meat, and as her stomach groaned and led her she softly sung. It was her song, known only to Gilbert, who alone knew of her crime.
I’m the prettiest girl in the whole wide world,
Ain’t nothin’ gonna stop me now . . .
Michelle was served a hearty portion of hare along with assorted edible wildflowers and huckleberries that thrived in thick bushes on the bank of the creek a mile south of the camp. Emily, who had just turned eleven had christened it Rejuvenation Creek. Everyone was happy with the name, and happy as well that Emily hadn’t yet entered puberty. A Harvard University* study before the crash revealed just how badly our bodies had been poisoned by industrial agriculture and animal husbandry. Due to antibiotics, hormones, and various other toxins in milk and meat--not to mention the pesticides contaminating the

*An elite institution of higher brainwashing in which the last vestiges of wild thought were eviscerated in the minds of the young so they could become servant-cogs of leadership in the meat-grinding machine that constituted the American Dream. A main purveyor of the propaganda of occupation economics, called Capitalism, Harvard promulgated the status quo value of domination over nature and over the human resources (sic!) who dared to challenge this rotten pyramid of haves living off the labor of the have-nots. Thanks to Gaia the final attack of the living-dead against free humans, free animals, and free plants of the Revolution failed. Today all learning is rooted in sustainability of the land base. There will be no more Harvards. --from the oral chronicles of the elders

crops or genetically modified strains and god-knows-what in the panoply of drugs pushed on us by allopathic (psychopathic) medicine--sixty percent of girls under the age of eight grew breasts and/or pubic hair. Five percent of girls under three. Furthermore, the breast milk of every mammal on the planet contained dioxin. It was hoped, and everyone thanked the Earth for this, that Emily’s natural maturation would once again be the norm.
Michelle ate wildly, licking the sweet grease off her fingertips and occasionally wiping them on the long grass. Gilbert was telling stories again, mostly for the children’s benefit, secondarily for the tribe at large. His stories were mostly true, but spiced with pedagogical embellishments, befitting his style. Every tale was regarded as informing myth, essential to tribal identification, giving context and meaning to who we were as humans, and how we related to the various lands of our wandering, and to the greater Earth, the mother that nurtured us, the mother that gave we-the-remnant a second chance. Fact and fiction were categories that had passed. Michelle chewed on a sprig of peppermint to clear her palate. Gilbert’s voice bellowed in stentorian pride as he described the evils they’d left behind.
"Ten years we’ve been in the clear of monstrous civilization, my friends. Ten years we’ve been clear of the gnashing teeth of master machine, and after much travail,
spilt blood, and madness, finally our minds our easing into the peace that is the birthright of all wild and free humans." Jubilant cheers and clacking of wooden spoons on stones arose from all but those too young to remember the past ways. Most of the children sat together, and Gilbert tried his best to focus his nearsighted gaze at them. His glasses had been crushed in an alleyway fight in old Portland during the month of terror following the loss of electricity. He glanced back at Michelle. He had fought to protect her. He killed two men that night. Glasses would never be manufactured again. Trading blurry vision for freedom was a bargain he never complained about. To the young he lowered his voice, and assumed the affect of a kindly grandfather.

"Kids, I’m curious: are you ever bored?" **

**Boredom was pervasive during the many thousands of years of humanity's domestication. It's a notion that's difficult to convey to those who've never experienced the horror of its domination. It was an empty state of soul in which the afflicted individual could literally not think of a thing to do. The key to understanding this malady is the word think. They couldn't. The bored person was stripped of basic community-engendering play such as gathering or hunting for food, stripped of the communal play of storytime around the bonfire, and sundry other activities that forge bonds between us that we take for granted. Worse, the bored person couldn't even summon the creativity to entertain herself with her mind. Worse, the bored person often felt no relief even in the presence of other animals or humans. Imagine the horror! Of course, the System of death used boredom to tighten the collars of the slaves. Pornography, alcohol, nicotine and gambling only scratch the surface. The System with all of its resources did not lift a finger to cure this disease. Instead it dished out empty trinkets, empty toys, and that soul-draining magic box. Boredom was a valuable tool for a culture that needed its citizenry to look without for meaning, to waste any and all free time on addictions, and to never question the tacit assumptions of a civilization that dominates from the moment of conception. --Ibid.

Everyone laughed. The question had been rhetorical. "Let me ask another question: is life good?" After more laughter Jimmy, a nine-year-old, answered for the group.
"We play together and eat together and sleep together. The Earth takes care of us, and we take care of each other. How could life not be good?"
Gilbert looked to the adults, their faces wet with joy. "One more question: aren’t any of you afraid of the dark? afraid of getting hurt or sick? afraid of dying?"
Brandon, age eight, spoke up. "But those are natural things. Why should we be afraid of anything natural? The Earth or Gay-uh."
"Gaia!" Emily said.
"Gaia protects us," Brandon said, beaming. "And when it’s time to return to Gaia,
we return to Gaia."
"But what about pain?" Gilbert said, noting the uniform looks of awe on the adults’ faces.
"I broke my arm once," Julie, age seven, answered. "It hurt pretty awful, but the plants that John gave me to eat made it better. And all of you loved me, and that made it better. I am not afraid, or maybe I don’t understand."
Gilbert, through his tears. "Ah but you do understand, Julie. All of you kids understand better than I, better your parents, and better than the vast majority of all human beings whose misfortune it was to live through the terrible ten thousand year interregnum between Edens." The adults nodded, some gushed out "yes!" and "that’s right," and some were too wracked with tears and frozen in awe to communicate further.
"What’s wrong?" Billy, age three, asked with more of a look of curiosity than concern.
"Nothing’s wrong, Billy," Gilbert said, pawing his eyes dry. "It’s right. It’s so right that we older folks can hardly believe it’s true. Yours is the first generation in five hundred to live in a world free of a dominant culture that systematically spread its tentacles across the planet, subjugating the land and all that lived upon it. There is no dominant culture now. Instead there are ten thousand or more, all living in harmony with their environments, all figuring out their own ways, and none--as far as we’ve heard--daring to impose their wills and lifestyles upon their neighbors. Can any of you kids tell me the one and only rule of Gaia?"
It was Tammy, a brunette of four years with hawkish, intelligent eyes. "Balance! Whoever takes has to give back. Balance is the way of Gaia."
"Thankyou, Tammy. Thankyou, everyone. Thankyou, Gaia. May we each have a day of abundant life. May we let the past be, and take no care for tomorrow."
It was a perfect autumn day, and the burning logs emitted a sweet smoke which mixed with the crisp air and made each inhalation an experience redolent of all things delightful. Enough food was gathered and caught in three hours to feed the tribe for three days, including two large whitetail bucks and bucketfuls of meaty steelhead from Rejuvenation stream. The sky past the trees was vibrant blue, and adorned with irregular patches of fluffy clouds. There were no contrails to mar the expanse with crisscrossed exhaust, and no machine flying or otherwise drowned out the twittering polyphony of songbirds. Gilbert returned from fishing humming contentedly. He found Michelle sitting alone on rock, far from the dwelling, pouting.
"Not feeling well?"
"Do you think I’m pretty?"
"You know how I feel."
"Do you think I’m pretty?
"Yes, what’s happened."
"I was washing clothes with Teresa and Nadine. We were topless. They’re more pretty than I am, aren’t they."
"Michelle, look at me. What is it?"
Michelle didn’t look at him. She kicked at a root, looping out of the soil beneath her feet.. "They said." Michelle sunk her teeth into her lower lip. A tear streamed down and glistened on her left incisor. "They suggested eating plants with estrogen. They weren’t being mean, I think. It’s just. Gilbert--do you think they know?"
"I don’t care. I love you, and we are free."
"But we’re not free, Gilbert. Don’t be ignorant. There’s a general agreement that all things unnatural*** are forbidden a place in the new paradigm, and don’t tell me you haven’t thought this through."

***After the collapse of civilization tribal groupings became the norm, usually consisting of forty to seventy-five humans. Many tribes adopted hard lines regarding what to keep in their communities and what to discard. Central to this decision were delineations between definitions of 'the natural' and the 'unnatural.' In some cases death was meted out quickly upon anyone deemed to have indulged in 'unnatural' activities or even 'unnatural thinking.'

"Michelle!" Gilbert seized her protectively by the bare shoulders and kissed her between the eyes. "That applies only to technologies that abuse the land base. That applies to power, and domination, and separation from nature, not to free beings like us. We live in harmony now."
"No," she shook her head amid more tears. "I’m not like other girls, Gilbert. Have you forgotten?"
"You’re the woman I love. You’re the woman I killed for."
"I’m the transsexual you killed for. You’re a part of the queer community, and finally it’s time you’ve come to grips with that."
"But you’re perfectly passable, Michelle. And you’ve had the surgery. You’ve had the laser. And why don’t we just tell everybody already."
"You couldn’t even tell your parents. You were ashamed of me. Worse, you were ashamed of yourself."
"Well they’re dead now, and we are free to be ourselves now."
"What about the pills, Gilbert? Industrialized medicine is prohibited."
"But it’s only estrogen."
"No," Michelle’s forehead crinkled, her eyes were dark liquid slits. "They wouldn’t understand. They would kill us."

Half a mile away Emily and Brandon crouched at the bank of Zerzan**** pond, watching various species of turtles bobbing along or sunning themselves on floating logs.

**** John Zerzan was a leading philosopher in the anarcho-primitivist movement in the decades just prior to the Revolution. A friend of the so-called Unabomber, Zerzan offered a compelling, systematic critique on the essential elements of civilization. These elements included technology beyond the stone-age level which leads to the domination of the machine over the human, agriculture which leads to a dependency on place and over-production, division of labor which leads to a dependency on specialists, mechanical time which dominates the individual by creating proper times of day to engage in activities, numbers which turn the universe and all of its manifold glories into abstraction, and even language itself and its concomitant, symbolic thought which deprived humanity of immediate, animistic relationships of the I-Thou type, replacing them with the tyranny of the I-it. After the Revolution Zerzan's call to refuse these elements won the day across the Earth.
Nearby, Larry, who was generally considered to be weak in the brains was passionately engaging in his singular talent: chipping stones into cutting utensils. His implements were particularly useful in slicing through animal hide. Brandon tapped on one the turtle’s shells with a stick and giggled at the creature’s reaction. "Where’d he go?" he said.
"She," Emily accentuated the pronoun, "probably thinks you’re going to eat her."
"I could eat her if I wanted."
"Of course," Emily said. "We often eat Turtles from this pond, but not too often."
"I want to eat turtles everyday," Brandon said, and gave the shell another jolt.
"If we were to eat too many turtles we might upset the balance in this pond."
"So what! I want turtles."
"If we upset the balance of this pond," Emily said, "the turtles might disappear--forever. You wouldn’t want that, Brandon. Not if you like turtles."
Larry looked up at the children. "I like turtles."
"We all like turtles, Larry," Emily said. "That’s why we’ll obey Gaia, and not farm the turtles out of existence."
"Farm is a bad word," Larry said.
"Yes it is Larry--farming is a bad thing. It creates imbalance. It takes more than it gives back."
"Don’t say that bad word anymore," Larry said, holding his meaty pink hands over his ears.
"Sorry Larry," Emily said. "I was just trying to instruct Brandon."
Larry resumed his stone-chipping, his face flushed, his brow sweating. "When’s he gonna stick his head and legs out again?" Brandon said, tapping the shell again.
"As soon as you leave her alone for awhile," Emily said. "And if you keep hitting her, never." Across the pond, a full moon hung between gnarled arms of an oak tree. This created the illusion that the branches held the moon in place. Brandon furrowed his brow.
"Emily, what is the moon?"
"It’s a world, Brandon. Like Gaia is a world."
"No world but Gaia," Larry said.
Emily lowered her voice. "Daddy tells me there’s lots of worlds."
"Where are they?" Brandon said. "I don’t see them."
"You’ve seen the stars at night, right Brandon." Emily kept her voice low, eyeing Larry in her peripheral vision. Brandon nodded. "Well, around those stars are other worlds, far away, too far to see, but once upon a time we could see."
"How did people see the invisible worlds, Emily?"
Emily’s eyes widened with curiosity. She stood up and pointed to the sky above her head. Her volume rose as did her excitement. "Once we had a great machine in the sky, Brandon. Past the sky in space. The machine was called telescope, and it could see the invisible things, the other wurl--"
With a sharp crack of bone, Emily fell to ground, her blinkless eyes facing the sky.
Larry rubbed his hands through greasy red hair, then cupped Brandon’s mouth to silence the child’s screams. "She said bad words," Larry said. "She taught bad things."
Emily’s wake was attended by everyone. Hers was the first unnatural death since the community came into being. Her naked body was laid in a bed of red and yellow leaves, her platinum hair was adorned with violet wildflowers. Everyone in turn spoke with praise about Emily’s unique contributions to the tribe, and of how she had touched their lives and would never be forgotten. Upon unanimous agreement Larry was banished from the community. He was allowed to take his spear and a bag of blackberries. He was told that he must never return or face execution. At nightfall the children were told to go to bed early so the adults could hold a special meeting around the fire.
Jeremy, the oldest member of the group, fingered the wild ropes of his grey beard, and spoke. "What Larry did, taking justice into his own hands, was inexcusable. What Emily said to Brandon was equally inexcusable."
Emily’s father, Richard stared into the fire. "We raised her well. We warned her about the old ways. It’s not our fault."
Emily’s mother, Gail, added, "I raised a smart child. I raised her to love the Earth.
But she kept asking questions, and like a good mother I answered them. She was fascinated by the old ways, and I told her not to infect the others."
Michelle snapped. "Not your fault! Told her not to infect the others! Are you crazy? It’s Larry’s fault. Has the outcome of revolution come to this--that we’d rationalize a child’s murder because of fear that her healthy curiosity would drive us back to civilization. If that’s what we fought for, if that’s the price of our victory, then maybe it would’ve been better if we lost."
There was much commotion around the fire. Arden shouted for silence. "The children will hear us. Let’s be reasonable. Sister Michelle, you know the bylaws upon which this community was founded. We agreed that the children would be taught to respect and live in accord with nature. We agreed that children would to be taught that the old ways lead to death. Should we allow the death culture to rise again so soon after its dismantling?"
"Should we exchange a global death culture with a local death culture? Emily was killed for mentioning telescopes. Telescopes!"
Jeremy dipped his staff into the fire, and raised its burning tip high above his head.
"Emily died because she forgot what must never be forgotten. That the technology and the path of empirical, mechanized inquiry that results in telescopes also leads to empirical, mechanized weaponry, leads to rationalized genocide and ecocide, leads to rationalized wage slavery*****, leads to the rationalized, pathological system whereby an elite few control the rest of us. Is that what you want, sister Michelle?"

*****Perhaps the most insane premise of Civilization was that it was proper to lock up the food and force people to work for it. One exchanged labor for pieces of paper, called money, which was then exchanged for food. Money represented labor's wages and individual laborers were slaves to them.

"Yes, yes, and your justification for murdering the innocent sounds quite rational.
Don’t you realize that the only hope we have of humanity not choosing the path that leads to slavery and domestication is by example of living good lives, healthy lives, fearless lives, feral lives. Don’t you realize that your attitude is enslaved by fear, that your fear which leads to murder will turn the children’s hearts against the revolution if anything will?"
Jeremy considered this. "Gilbert, do you agree with your woman?"
"I don’t own her, and yes I agree. Emily died for a thought crime. By condoning this action the Revolution is lost. We’ve become the new oppressors. Let us learn by this tragic mistake. Control in all of its forms, no matter how well intentioned, leads to slavery."
"I would’ve agreed with your idealism once," Jeremy said. "But the pre-revolutionary idealism doesn’t match the present reality. We’ve sacrificed too much in freeing the Earth to just stand by, hoping that our idealism will transfer from generation to generation. We need discipline."
Michelle started to weep.
"I won’t live under that yoke," Gilbert said. "You should all be ashamed."
"How dare you shame us," Emily’s mother said. "What would the childless know about raising healthy children in this world?"
"She didn’t even have a chance to be a woman," Michelle said.
"And neither do you!" a woman shouted to Michelle’s left. It was Nadine, who had earlier, along with Teresa, suggested that Michelle should eat plants with estrogen. Teresa was sitting next to her, smiling. Michelle was too stunned to respond. An expectant hush fell upon the tribe.
"What are you talking about?" Gilbert said.
"Yes," Jeremy said. "Please tell."
"Something’s different about her," Nadine said. "I’ve been watching. She’s not like the rest of us."
"Are all women supposed to be cut from the same mold? Is that what we want," Michelle said, clutching her little bag. "Brave new world."
"Well, Nadine?" Jeremy said. "What’s your accusation?"
"She’s awkward around us, and tries too hard to fit in--it’s as if she were harboring a secret."
"What are you talking about?" Gilbert said.
"And she clutches that bag like it was money or drugs in the old days."
"We’re all entitled to a few personal items," Michelle said.
"It’s unnatural," Teresa added. "I agree with Nadine. What’s she hiding in that bag. We’re one community. We deserve to see."
"This is crazy," Gilbert said. "Do we now distrust each other? After all we’ve been through together?"
Jeremy made an arc through the air with his flaming stick. "All in favor of Michelle turning over her bag say ‘Ay.’"
Everyone but Michelle and Gilbert shouted in the affirmation. Michelle clutched the bag to her chest, but Steven jumped up, and after knocking Gilbert aside, seized the bag.
"Open it," Jeremy said. Steven opened it, discarded walnuts, sprigs of mint, the dried head of a rose that Gilbert had found, and finally clutched onto something small and round, examined it, then held it up high.
"It’s a pill," Steven said, his voice trembling with shock. He peered into the bag.
"There’s hundreds of them!"

The next morning Gilbert and Michelle made their way safely around the ruins of Portland and headed north toward the Columbia river. Both were grateful that the tribe had granted them a final feast of venison before banishing them forever. Michelle was grateful that they allowed her to keep the pills. She had made a passionate appeal, citing her shamanic benefit to the people over the years. And when that didn’t work, a miracle. Gilbert, despairing at first, was glad to be free again, though secretly he wished that cigarettes still existed.
"You really gave it to them," Gilbert said, plodding on with his walking stick. "Like you always do."
"Did I scare you?"
"You scared them. You were brilliant."
"Gaia was with me. When I sent the call I didn’t expect a Grizzly bear savior."
"And when you threatened to send in the pigeons******, and the looks on their faces when you asked the bear to desist, and he ambled over to lick your hand--priceless"
******In the last years of the old order a breed of assassin-spy pigeons was bred by the Office of Homeland Security. Billions of these birds were unleashed on dissidents during the times of terror. Pigeon scouts would report on the whereabouts of our rebel strongholds, and then the hoardes would descend to peck us with beaks infused with genetically-modified poisons. After great slaughter, resulting in the near extinction of the Resistance, Gaia came to our rescue by sending crows, hawks, eagles so numerous as to blacken the sky, to slay the unnatural plague, and pave our way to freedom.
"Well, of course, Gilbert, my little monkey. My people have been in communion with the animals for thousands of years."
"Hopefully our next community will be a little more enlightened."
"Monkey?"
"Yes, honey?"
"Do you think I’m still pretty?"
Gilbert stopped and kissed her between the eyes, the third eye, then burst into effeminate singsong, "Your the prettiest girl in the whole wide world, ain’t nothin’ gonna stop you now."






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