From:
-Sophie Scholl, The White Rose Society
"There is an active resistance forming in the United States. It’s young, it’s unemployed, it’s creative and it has potential.
Recently I sat down with two of the young adults who organized and led the Egyptian resistance movement that overthrew Hosni Mubarak. The media narrative said it took 18 days, when in fact, they had been organizing for over five years.
According to these young men, the moment they knew they had won was the day Mubarak’s government shut off the Internet and blocked cellphone communications. When people could no longer get updates about what was happening in Tahrir Square, they had to come out of their homes and see for themselves, tripling the size of the protests in one fell swoop.
The global plutocracy is terrified of dissent. In some places, the war on dissent is being fought with bullets. In others, the war on dissent targets social media and mobile communications, while repressing and deceiving communities of struggle. It’s already happening."
Friends:
Chile, Spain and Greece lead the way. Iceland votes not to pay back the banks. WE should have said the same thing. What the first 3 have in common is they have had dictators in recent familial memory.
Mom and Dad remember, so the kids can still go out at night after throwing bricks all day.
In Chile, the richest man is now President. Pinera. His approval rating is 26%. Obama is at 39%.
Google Camila Vallejo only if you want to see the face of Chilean Student resistance, or if you understand Spanish. Dilma Roussef was a guerrilla marxist living in the jungles of Brazil under the Generals' Junta. She is now president. She is the second of the first two female presidents in Latin American history to also have been tortured in prison. The other female torture victim/president is Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Christina Fernandez is leading the election for Argentina's president. She is the incumbent. She was not tortured, and was President Kirchner's wife until he died in office.
[You should see Oliver Stone's documentary on---mostly--Hugo Chavez. Esp. the scene where Geo. W. informs Sra Fernandez, that if she has an economic problem she should try a war. that's the way i did it, he said. You should see the look on her face. It is reminiscent of Merkel's response to his weird shoulder massage at the G-8.]
Women marxists abound...wherever there was fascism, the reaction to IMF austerities is strongest. We should all read the Open Veins of Latin America before our own are opened.
McGraw-Hill owns Standard and Poor--a clear case of slavery since it has been illegal to own a person in America since the Emancipation Proclamation.
Mr. McGraw is a campaign mgr. for Romney.
This is how Mussolini did it.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
pieces of taxi
Pieces of Taxi
1. Briefcase
Woman gets in back. Oriental. Chinese probably. Slender. Pretty. Nice biz suit.
Briefcase.
She tosses the briefcase on the seat ahead of herself as she slides in.
Where to?
The Richmond, she sighs.
Have a nice day?
It was OK.
So, what did you learn today?
[I’m always asking questions of the day. Political usually, sometimes philosophical, you might say. Anything to stir the pot. I can’t drive all night to various nowheres without some connection to somethin’. I already feel we are the most alienated society of all time. I think what we need now is a giant national Woodstock the size of Iowa.]
I learned, she said, that there is no such thing as constructive criticism.
Free ride.
—o—
2. Three suits.
Three business types hop in at the Regency–two men, one woman. All in wool business suits. Headed for a restaurant in North Beach for dinner.
They ride in Silence. I’m thinkin’ like this was gonna be a hard one.
I sort through my repertoire of conversation starters. Brain-files marked politics, economics, religion, or sports. I disqualify sex since the woman is out-numbered. I only bring up sex when I’m out-numbered. Or it’s even, of course. That doesn’t mean the roles are the same: I get to risk and they to decide. Equal but different. Funny, how life emulates computer science. Antogeny recapitulating philogeny, I guess. Man is like a river of electrons. Woman the switch.
Since they’re business people, I go ahead and ask, How’s biz?
Not bad, answers the man from the right rear.
So, I go, what do you guys think about the bailout?
Messy. They’re lost. The two men go. It’s gonna be a long time coming…he trails off.
Trying to figure out what that meant I toss out a feeler: Might it be the end of capitalism? I go. A bit cocky, but at the same time, tentative.
Well…uhh, goes one. Uhmmm, uhh…, goes the other.
You know, I continue. Communism–our other economic religion–is blown away.
Right? Since they tore down that wall in ’89. Now us. (I say us). Won’t happen tomorrow, I suppose. But the unbridled laissez faire-style robber baron stuff is probably over. Don’t cha think?
I’m driving thru Chinatown as I say this.
Right rear goes, you might be right.
It’s a huge waste, says the Middle guy.
But then, the Middle guy goes, I think it’s the only way to go.
Not referrin’ to nothin’.
We need to keep free enterprise, I answer. I mean people need to start something they like. Something something they can depend on…with maybe a life expectancy less than the immortality of corporations. Maybe they should all have one function only, and not be able to buy other companies…? End of the Big C’s, I go. Chattering a bit. No commies, no robber barons, no…I dunno….
Then the lady speaks, as if from a self-imposed dormancy–ok, she sounds tired.
The next economic system, she says, will be Chocolate.
—o—
3. The artiste:
She slipped in the back-right in no hurry. Somehow we both managed to recognize and say we were writers. So I asked her the stupid question I always get. But she said she didn’t want to get published.
What’s up wit dat? I asked.
She loved the process…of writing, she said. The choices, the constant cuts, with the bright surprises, but that, she said, wasn’t it as much as:
A. I don’t wanna be the court jester, she said. The joker who makes ‘em laugh and forget Truth.
And,
B. I don’t wanna be the messenger who’ll tell ‘em the Truth either. Cuz they’d kill me. Things only go smoothly when you’re not getting anything done. When you truly create, all hell breaks loose.
Sister, you’re an artist. You just earned a free ride
At her destination, as she slides out of the taxi, with one foot on the street, she turns to smile at me.
An artist, she says, never gives ‘em what they want.
—o—
I drive away thinking. I wanna express the truth as I see it. My vision.
If I only try to please, what am i? A decorator? So leave it alone. The world’s already pretty enough. The demand is simply too great.
So we have to make ourselves smaller.
—o—
And one more, measuring 900 wds+ just for fun:
4.
The Greatest Couple (in the universe)
[Pieces of taxi # 76]
In the foggy cool of what otherwise would have been a hot summer’s night any place else (south of Nome) a snapping and pouting couple got in the taxi on a street of fine Italian restaurants.
Man first, he slides in from the right rear across the back seat to sit upright firmly pouting arms crossed over his heart like a wall behind me.
His mate, his mistress, maybe his wife, a partner on this mite’s team in this two-person team sport they’re playing, did the most graceful knee-swing entry and stretched for the door. I half wished I’d run around to close for her. But I prefer to watch women move so I did not help. In stead, I appreciated.
We are dancing on the open covers of our gaping tombs. Nevertheless, moments of beauty….
“You are stupid and should not have the right to any opinion,” her hubbie said.
An ominous void of silence followed, leaving me no other recourse but to say, “Could you sit on the other side, sir?”
“Beg yer pardon!”
“Men to the right rear, man.”
“What?!” he yelps.
“Well, are you a robber? You could kill me easily from there!”
He’s not that kind of a robber,” she uttered calmly.
“Good then. Having cleared that up, where to, folks?”
After a few more dullish moments filled with the ostentatiousness of their self-indulgent expressionism of pouting, she smiled into the rear view, and asked, “why don’t you ask Mr. Know-it-all?”
OK. Yes.
Well?
I mumbled as I punched the meter.
They gave me their addresses—leaving me to decide the matter.
So we cruised off to make the choice as we rolled along in silence.
A silence which she soon broke by saying, “You are too stupid and should not have the right to any opinion.”
“Ha!” he went, unswqyed by her retort, identical to his starter phrase.
“YOU are too stupid and should not have the right to an opinion!’ he blurted out warmly.
“You should not…!”
“You should not….”
“You…”
Suddenly, I had heard enough!
Forced to interject simply for my peace of mind—I felt some risk of becoming collateral damage—I recommended, “Why not say, WE are stupid…et cetera…?”
There ensued a long silence.
During which I went, “Huh?!”
“We used to,” she said. “We used to say, ‘We are too stupid to have an opinion. But he changed it one day…one fine male chauvinist day!”
She spat the letters, c-h-o-w v-i-n-ist day.
Huhm, he pursed his lips in a way I found decidedly unattractive and pompous. Then began stroking his chin professorily. “I remember it differently. I remember having my degrees disparaged as, and I quote, ‘unrealistic, over-priced ivory-tower opinionationisms…’”
What!
“…yes, and brainwashing. I believe yo said that also.”
Why! You! You know you were talking about the limitations of the female brain! Math and science…in my face. How?! I aced physics!”
“Yes, you who strike the first blow, Madame Curie! Can dish it out, but…”
“Dish it? Sexist! You degraded my mind! My choices. That’s what started it.”
“You attacked.”
“I defended…!”
“You…!
“You!”
“WAIT!” I screamed. “Stop it!”
They crossed their arms over their hearts and got their pouty little kid thing going again.
“Let’s go get some ice cream,” I suggested.
Vanilla. He said.
Chocolate. Stupid.
OK. Wait! I shouted. I know where that comes from: gimme something hot and cold and black and white, demanded the petulant princess to her cook. Or it’s gonna be off with your lousy head!
The next day, he brings for desert, a first, a great big hot chocolate sundae. And so proved vanilla and chocolate were made for each other. Dig?
And it don’t matter who started it.
See?
Whenever a cabbie gets up a dead end, he stops, turns around, and goes back to where he came from. To where he began to get lost.
We reset. Restore.
Start over.
Or we escape a place.
Drive down hill, to the river. Follow the river to the sea. Across the sea is either France or China. So you’re never really lost. The big sky up above, land under your feet. Or tires.
So remain seated and listen up!
You guys taught me something: we’re all too stupid to have the right to an opinion! We should seek out facts.
“He said ‘first’ first!” she butted in.
“You started it off.”
“well, you said the stupid part.”
“I remember saying, ‘opinion.’”
“I’m just as sure you said…”
“That’s your opinion!”
OK! I shouted at the windshield.
Guys! Dudes!
We’re almost there.
It’s a team game. Let me believe yo can do it again. Create something else together…besides, say, rancor.
You’re not really stupid, y’know.
So. Tell him.
Tell her!
They then mumbled something inaudible to their own selves.
10 bucks folks! …and skip the tip.
Here’s 20. You keep it.
20?! Why did you…
…I was already around the back about to open the door to the side walk. “Hey,” I went. “Did you slide across to save her the inconvenience? I mean, to wipe off the seat of any untoward taxi juices for her lovely dress.”
“I do like to kinda swipe off the seat with my pants,” he said. “Y’know, just in case.”
“He always does that,” she smiled.
Save that opinion, I thought, smiling at them, jimmy-jamming my 100% tip into my filthy cabbie pants.
–omtatsat–
1. Briefcase
Woman gets in back. Oriental. Chinese probably. Slender. Pretty. Nice biz suit.
Briefcase.
She tosses the briefcase on the seat ahead of herself as she slides in.
Where to?
The Richmond, she sighs.
Have a nice day?
It was OK.
So, what did you learn today?
[I’m always asking questions of the day. Political usually, sometimes philosophical, you might say. Anything to stir the pot. I can’t drive all night to various nowheres without some connection to somethin’. I already feel we are the most alienated society of all time. I think what we need now is a giant national Woodstock the size of Iowa.]
I learned, she said, that there is no such thing as constructive criticism.
Free ride.
—o—
2. Three suits.
Three business types hop in at the Regency–two men, one woman. All in wool business suits. Headed for a restaurant in North Beach for dinner.
They ride in Silence. I’m thinkin’ like this was gonna be a hard one.
I sort through my repertoire of conversation starters. Brain-files marked politics, economics, religion, or sports. I disqualify sex since the woman is out-numbered. I only bring up sex when I’m out-numbered. Or it’s even, of course. That doesn’t mean the roles are the same: I get to risk and they to decide. Equal but different. Funny, how life emulates computer science. Antogeny recapitulating philogeny, I guess. Man is like a river of electrons. Woman the switch.
Since they’re business people, I go ahead and ask, How’s biz?
Not bad, answers the man from the right rear.
So, I go, what do you guys think about the bailout?
Messy. They’re lost. The two men go. It’s gonna be a long time coming…he trails off.
Trying to figure out what that meant I toss out a feeler: Might it be the end of capitalism? I go. A bit cocky, but at the same time, tentative.
Well…uhh, goes one. Uhmmm, uhh…, goes the other.
You know, I continue. Communism–our other economic religion–is blown away.
Right? Since they tore down that wall in ’89. Now us. (I say us). Won’t happen tomorrow, I suppose. But the unbridled laissez faire-style robber baron stuff is probably over. Don’t cha think?
I’m driving thru Chinatown as I say this.
Right rear goes, you might be right.
It’s a huge waste, says the Middle guy.
But then, the Middle guy goes, I think it’s the only way to go.
Not referrin’ to nothin’.
We need to keep free enterprise, I answer. I mean people need to start something they like. Something something they can depend on…with maybe a life expectancy less than the immortality of corporations. Maybe they should all have one function only, and not be able to buy other companies…? End of the Big C’s, I go. Chattering a bit. No commies, no robber barons, no…I dunno….
Then the lady speaks, as if from a self-imposed dormancy–ok, she sounds tired.
The next economic system, she says, will be Chocolate.
—o—
3. The artiste:
She slipped in the back-right in no hurry. Somehow we both managed to recognize and say we were writers. So I asked her the stupid question I always get. But she said she didn’t want to get published.
What’s up wit dat? I asked.
She loved the process…of writing, she said. The choices, the constant cuts, with the bright surprises, but that, she said, wasn’t it as much as:
A. I don’t wanna be the court jester, she said. The joker who makes ‘em laugh and forget Truth.
And,
B. I don’t wanna be the messenger who’ll tell ‘em the Truth either. Cuz they’d kill me. Things only go smoothly when you’re not getting anything done. When you truly create, all hell breaks loose.
Sister, you’re an artist. You just earned a free ride
At her destination, as she slides out of the taxi, with one foot on the street, she turns to smile at me.
An artist, she says, never gives ‘em what they want.
—o—
I drive away thinking. I wanna express the truth as I see it. My vision.
If I only try to please, what am i? A decorator? So leave it alone. The world’s already pretty enough. The demand is simply too great.
So we have to make ourselves smaller.
—o—
And one more, measuring 900 wds+ just for fun:
4.
The Greatest Couple (in the universe)
[Pieces of taxi # 76]
In the foggy cool of what otherwise would have been a hot summer’s night any place else (south of Nome) a snapping and pouting couple got in the taxi on a street of fine Italian restaurants.
Man first, he slides in from the right rear across the back seat to sit upright firmly pouting arms crossed over his heart like a wall behind me.
His mate, his mistress, maybe his wife, a partner on this mite’s team in this two-person team sport they’re playing, did the most graceful knee-swing entry and stretched for the door. I half wished I’d run around to close for her. But I prefer to watch women move so I did not help. In stead, I appreciated.
We are dancing on the open covers of our gaping tombs. Nevertheless, moments of beauty….
“You are stupid and should not have the right to any opinion,” her hubbie said.
An ominous void of silence followed, leaving me no other recourse but to say, “Could you sit on the other side, sir?”
“Beg yer pardon!”
“Men to the right rear, man.”
“What?!” he yelps.
“Well, are you a robber? You could kill me easily from there!”
He’s not that kind of a robber,” she uttered calmly.
“Good then. Having cleared that up, where to, folks?”
After a few more dullish moments filled with the ostentatiousness of their self-indulgent expressionism of pouting, she smiled into the rear view, and asked, “why don’t you ask Mr. Know-it-all?”
OK. Yes.
Well?
I mumbled as I punched the meter.
They gave me their addresses—leaving me to decide the matter.
So we cruised off to make the choice as we rolled along in silence.
A silence which she soon broke by saying, “You are too stupid and should not have the right to any opinion.”
“Ha!” he went, unswqyed by her retort, identical to his starter phrase.
“YOU are too stupid and should not have the right to an opinion!’ he blurted out warmly.
“You should not…!”
“You should not….”
“You…”
Suddenly, I had heard enough!
Forced to interject simply for my peace of mind—I felt some risk of becoming collateral damage—I recommended, “Why not say, WE are stupid…et cetera…?”
There ensued a long silence.
During which I went, “Huh?!”
“We used to,” she said. “We used to say, ‘We are too stupid to have an opinion. But he changed it one day…one fine male chauvinist day!”
She spat the letters, c-h-o-w v-i-n-ist day.
Huhm, he pursed his lips in a way I found decidedly unattractive and pompous. Then began stroking his chin professorily. “I remember it differently. I remember having my degrees disparaged as, and I quote, ‘unrealistic, over-priced ivory-tower opinionationisms…’”
What!
“…yes, and brainwashing. I believe yo said that also.”
Why! You! You know you were talking about the limitations of the female brain! Math and science…in my face. How?! I aced physics!”
“Yes, you who strike the first blow, Madame Curie! Can dish it out, but…”
“Dish it? Sexist! You degraded my mind! My choices. That’s what started it.”
“You attacked.”
“I defended…!”
“You…!
“You!”
“WAIT!” I screamed. “Stop it!”
They crossed their arms over their hearts and got their pouty little kid thing going again.
“Let’s go get some ice cream,” I suggested.
Vanilla. He said.
Chocolate. Stupid.
OK. Wait! I shouted. I know where that comes from: gimme something hot and cold and black and white, demanded the petulant princess to her cook. Or it’s gonna be off with your lousy head!
The next day, he brings for desert, a first, a great big hot chocolate sundae. And so proved vanilla and chocolate were made for each other. Dig?
And it don’t matter who started it.
See?
Whenever a cabbie gets up a dead end, he stops, turns around, and goes back to where he came from. To where he began to get lost.
We reset. Restore.
Start over.
Or we escape a place.
Drive down hill, to the river. Follow the river to the sea. Across the sea is either France or China. So you’re never really lost. The big sky up above, land under your feet. Or tires.
So remain seated and listen up!
You guys taught me something: we’re all too stupid to have the right to an opinion! We should seek out facts.
“He said ‘first’ first!” she butted in.
“You started it off.”
“well, you said the stupid part.”
“I remember saying, ‘opinion.’”
“I’m just as sure you said…”
“That’s your opinion!”
OK! I shouted at the windshield.
Guys! Dudes!
We’re almost there.
It’s a team game. Let me believe yo can do it again. Create something else together…besides, say, rancor.
You’re not really stupid, y’know.
So. Tell him.
Tell her!
They then mumbled something inaudible to their own selves.
10 bucks folks! …and skip the tip.
Here’s 20. You keep it.
20?! Why did you…
…I was already around the back about to open the door to the side walk. “Hey,” I went. “Did you slide across to save her the inconvenience? I mean, to wipe off the seat of any untoward taxi juices for her lovely dress.”
“I do like to kinda swipe off the seat with my pants,” he said. “Y’know, just in case.”
“He always does that,” she smiled.
Save that opinion, I thought, smiling at them, jimmy-jamming my 100% tip into my filthy cabbie pants.
–omtatsat–
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
system is the problem
…SYSTEM IS THE PROBLEM.
We cudda had it all.
But we could never get enuff.
We coated ourselves w/ the pelts of torture.
The warmer we made our bodies the colder we became inside.
We are like doctors in the death camps:
Saving the babies only for them to be executed in their own coal mine.
(We have run out of songbirds long ago.)
You...
cannot work for change within the system when the…
[repeat it until you gt it...]
We cudda had it all.
But we could never get enuff.
We coated ourselves w/ the pelts of torture.
The warmer we made our bodies the colder we became inside.
We are like doctors in the death camps:
Saving the babies only for them to be executed in their own coal mine.
(We have run out of songbirds long ago.)
You...
cannot work for change within the system when the…
[repeat it until you gt it...]
a little old lady
a little old lady (died today) © jimmy.mankind@gmail.com
All more than replenished by her unfailing love of family.
And their love for her.
A little old lady died today.
But not exactly.
She was killed.
She was somebody’s mother.
She was somebody’s grandmother.
But she was also a poet who wrote funny, pretty stories for her children
and her grandchildren
she wrote stories and songs for babies to sleep by
she wrote lullabies
she knitted and she sewed
so many gifts of time and energy
All replenished by her unfailing love of family
And their love for her.
A little old lady died today.
But not exactly.
She was killed.
She was somebody’s mother.
She was somebody’s grandmother.
In her later years she was a writer for grown-ups.
She wrote about life’s foibles with an inborn sense of humor.
She wrote a cookbook: she sold it through various shops in the bazaars
Throughout Baghdad.
She studied Rumi although she was brought up Sunni and
Rumi was from Persia which is now called Iran,
which is Shiite.
She studied all the religions over the years.
Covertly, of course.
She didn’t want her husband, who was Sunni, to get the wrong impression.
She decided that all religions were good and
All were flawed.
On that subject she kept her own council. As a woman would in Islam.
She was writing a novel when she was killed.
She was somebody’s mother.
She was somebody’s grandmother.
She was walking home
Her arms dragged down
By the weight of vegetables and bread and soap
From the marketplace.
She had sold four books that day:
2 of children’s songs. what she called poems.
1 cookbook.
1 storybook for children.
This little old lady died today
well, not exactly.
She was murdered.
The smell of gasoline. Some other similar chemical...
[A child running–a girl from the abstract shape of her charcoal stick statuette–
arms outstretched to greet her grannie.
Diminutives,
in a village of
miniatures.
Charcoals on a canvas of sand...
from 10,000 feet.
From 2 miles up one sees landscapes of sandy curves studded w’ squares, rectangles, lines, shadows, disappeared into a large zone stirred by dust devils.
Not god’s werk. D.O.D. for sure, not GOD.
Here. No god.
Would. See.
A grannie’s carbon remnant posed as a black replica bent over in the act of setting down her grocery bags...the little girl running arms outstretched still. now. forever. the dust. beginning to swirl on the breeze...filling in for the rising heat...striking the fragile charcoal figures...spoofing their lives as in modern epiphanies they crumble.
To dust. They. Return.]
As the Gringo * flyboys call it in, they reminisce: (We used to strafe their free range chickens for fun. Creating feasts for the farmers. Every day a holiday! New weird toys make new weird games to play. Like Gog, Magog, DOD, our god, their god, all the gods there ever were.)
The US DOD pays 5,000 for a man,
2,500 for a woman
500 for grannie or a child.
..if any soldier and his translator has the temerity to lift the knocker to the door of a charcoal house in a half-mile wide circle of death.
These numbers are not publicized.
Control information; you control this poison dust.
To dust we shall return: some sooner than others, some over and over again, creating more of it.
Here, fate is our call. We apply it randomly for fairness sake, and balance.
Of course. In case they’re out when we call, we make the land radioactive...dust blows.
The soldiers say. But that’s another story.
A little old lady died today.
White heat came over her like a hot flash.
She’d felt plenty of those welling up from within in her life. What with having six children...in
Her lovely, innocent life.
This flash came from without.
It took off her robes and her skin as quickly as it blinded, muted, and deafened her.
It gratefully benumbed her
As it sucked the oxygen from around her from above around and below, yes, down below her feet even six inches into the soil and removing O2 and H and all the roots ryizomes fungi dueling dancing so long and peacefully with their enemy bacteria worms, detritus, the stalks barks trunks leaves and out of her lungs and out of the water molecules of her body as if she was turning into a dried sprig of rosemary or sage in her own oven
in her own kitchen
in her own home
in her own village.
She became a stick figure: black and crisp and much smaller than she was.
They’d conjure later that this was not her, must be the body of a child.
When they found her. It could not be her.
But it was her. Known...
Because of the melted gold that formed a droplet in the middle of her char-coaled hand.
No child would carry gold.
For this mistake the Americans paid her children and her grandchildren (those left alive for their fate of living in a village distant from this week’s carnage) $2,500.00
[Something for her husband who died three days later of no discernable military-medical cause.]
The American who brought the money seemed sincerely sad and chastened.
[Her children and her grandchildren said he never told them America was sorry.]
He said it was an accident. That she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
[A place she’d been in almost every day at any time she pleased for over sixty years. A place Americans had been for seven years. Time enough to have earned degrees, married, started families, if only the schools hadn’t been targeted. Seven years of the worst nightmare imaginable, the worst seven years of any being who ever lived in Mesopotamia and worse than that for any living soul that wound up burned maimed bereft alone amid the degradation, squalor, pain of war, the nada caked upon idiocy and hubris and the useless, dangerous indifference.]
The American officer seemed to say, “Here, take this as a token of our sorrow, our pity, our empire, our pride, our bad aim. It’s our place to pay.”
Which meant to them–her children and her grandchildren–something smarmy in their culture,
“It’s the price we pay.”
which in American ears, would sound like accidentally tripping someone in a soccer game.
Or spilling coffee on the homework. Or sewing too close to the fireplace or the dog hit by a grenade, shrieking home, your youngest run over by a truck, shrieking in the street, your fruit trees knocked down by tanks in search of places to park.
So sad to free your land.
She might have been number the millionth, as that total’s never in the news.
[Since they refuse to tell us, no one really knows.]
A little old lady died today.
Well, not exactly. She was murdered. She was somebody’s mother. She was somebody’s grandmother. She was a wife and she was also a poet. She wrote funny, poignant stories and pretty poems for her children and her grandchildren.
She wrote lullabies. She hugged babies to sleep as she sang to them.
She knitted and she sewed:
So many gifts of time and energy.
A little old lady died today
Well, not exactly.
She was murdered coming home from market.
Along with a grand-daughter, a husband, nearly seventy, some neighborhood kids whose names she would forget in that moment, and a daughter...she wondered about her daughter...
And if she was murdered too. In that same flash, or some other, and if she would see any of them in Heaven.
She didn’t have time to wonder if Heaven really existed...her eyes locked on her purely innocent angel’s eyes as she running arms out-stretched laughing, to greet her grannie...
last thing she saw was the light shining in the eyes of the bright adoring face of her
baby grand-daugh…then she died instantly. So she died happy.
...but knowing, in that split second, Hell existed.
Right here. Where she had been.
–omtatsat–
All more than replenished by her unfailing love of family.
And their love for her.
A little old lady died today.
But not exactly.
She was killed.
She was somebody’s mother.
She was somebody’s grandmother.
But she was also a poet who wrote funny, pretty stories for her children
and her grandchildren
she wrote stories and songs for babies to sleep by
she wrote lullabies
she knitted and she sewed
so many gifts of time and energy
All replenished by her unfailing love of family
And their love for her.
A little old lady died today.
But not exactly.
She was killed.
She was somebody’s mother.
She was somebody’s grandmother.
In her later years she was a writer for grown-ups.
She wrote about life’s foibles with an inborn sense of humor.
She wrote a cookbook: she sold it through various shops in the bazaars
Throughout Baghdad.
She studied Rumi although she was brought up Sunni and
Rumi was from Persia which is now called Iran,
which is Shiite.
She studied all the religions over the years.
Covertly, of course.
She didn’t want her husband, who was Sunni, to get the wrong impression.
She decided that all religions were good and
All were flawed.
On that subject she kept her own council. As a woman would in Islam.
She was writing a novel when she was killed.
She was somebody’s mother.
She was somebody’s grandmother.
She was walking home
Her arms dragged down
By the weight of vegetables and bread and soap
From the marketplace.
She had sold four books that day:
2 of children’s songs. what she called poems.
1 cookbook.
1 storybook for children.
This little old lady died today
well, not exactly.
She was murdered.
The smell of gasoline. Some other similar chemical...
[A child running–a girl from the abstract shape of her charcoal stick statuette–
arms outstretched to greet her grannie.
Diminutives,
in a village of
miniatures.
Charcoals on a canvas of sand...
from 10,000 feet.
From 2 miles up one sees landscapes of sandy curves studded w’ squares, rectangles, lines, shadows, disappeared into a large zone stirred by dust devils.
Not god’s werk. D.O.D. for sure, not GOD.
Here. No god.
Would. See.
A grannie’s carbon remnant posed as a black replica bent over in the act of setting down her grocery bags...the little girl running arms outstretched still. now. forever. the dust. beginning to swirl on the breeze...filling in for the rising heat...striking the fragile charcoal figures...spoofing their lives as in modern epiphanies they crumble.
To dust. They. Return.]
As the Gringo * flyboys call it in, they reminisce: (We used to strafe their free range chickens for fun. Creating feasts for the farmers. Every day a holiday! New weird toys make new weird games to play. Like Gog, Magog, DOD, our god, their god, all the gods there ever were.)
The US DOD pays 5,000 for a man,
2,500 for a woman
500 for grannie or a child.
..if any soldier and his translator has the temerity to lift the knocker to the door of a charcoal house in a half-mile wide circle of death.
These numbers are not publicized.
Control information; you control this poison dust.
To dust we shall return: some sooner than others, some over and over again, creating more of it.
Here, fate is our call. We apply it randomly for fairness sake, and balance.
Of course. In case they’re out when we call, we make the land radioactive...dust blows.
The soldiers say. But that’s another story.
A little old lady died today.
White heat came over her like a hot flash.
She’d felt plenty of those welling up from within in her life. What with having six children...in
Her lovely, innocent life.
This flash came from without.
It took off her robes and her skin as quickly as it blinded, muted, and deafened her.
It gratefully benumbed her
As it sucked the oxygen from around her from above around and below, yes, down below her feet even six inches into the soil and removing O2 and H and all the roots ryizomes fungi dueling dancing so long and peacefully with their enemy bacteria worms, detritus, the stalks barks trunks leaves and out of her lungs and out of the water molecules of her body as if she was turning into a dried sprig of rosemary or sage in her own oven
in her own kitchen
in her own home
in her own village.
She became a stick figure: black and crisp and much smaller than she was.
They’d conjure later that this was not her, must be the body of a child.
When they found her. It could not be her.
But it was her. Known...
Because of the melted gold that formed a droplet in the middle of her char-coaled hand.
No child would carry gold.
For this mistake the Americans paid her children and her grandchildren (those left alive for their fate of living in a village distant from this week’s carnage) $2,500.00
[Something for her husband who died three days later of no discernable military-medical cause.]
The American who brought the money seemed sincerely sad and chastened.
[Her children and her grandchildren said he never told them America was sorry.]
He said it was an accident. That she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
[A place she’d been in almost every day at any time she pleased for over sixty years. A place Americans had been for seven years. Time enough to have earned degrees, married, started families, if only the schools hadn’t been targeted. Seven years of the worst nightmare imaginable, the worst seven years of any being who ever lived in Mesopotamia and worse than that for any living soul that wound up burned maimed bereft alone amid the degradation, squalor, pain of war, the nada caked upon idiocy and hubris and the useless, dangerous indifference.]
The American officer seemed to say, “Here, take this as a token of our sorrow, our pity, our empire, our pride, our bad aim. It’s our place to pay.”
Which meant to them–her children and her grandchildren–something smarmy in their culture,
“It’s the price we pay.”
which in American ears, would sound like accidentally tripping someone in a soccer game.
Or spilling coffee on the homework. Or sewing too close to the fireplace or the dog hit by a grenade, shrieking home, your youngest run over by a truck, shrieking in the street, your fruit trees knocked down by tanks in search of places to park.
So sad to free your land.
She might have been number the millionth, as that total’s never in the news.
[Since they refuse to tell us, no one really knows.]
A little old lady died today.
Well, not exactly. She was murdered. She was somebody’s mother. She was somebody’s grandmother. She was a wife and she was also a poet. She wrote funny, poignant stories and pretty poems for her children and her grandchildren.
She wrote lullabies. She hugged babies to sleep as she sang to them.
She knitted and she sewed:
So many gifts of time and energy.
A little old lady died today
Well, not exactly.
She was murdered coming home from market.
Along with a grand-daughter, a husband, nearly seventy, some neighborhood kids whose names she would forget in that moment, and a daughter...she wondered about her daughter...
And if she was murdered too. In that same flash, or some other, and if she would see any of them in Heaven.
She didn’t have time to wonder if Heaven really existed...her eyes locked on her purely innocent angel’s eyes as she running arms out-stretched laughing, to greet her grannie...
last thing she saw was the light shining in the eyes of the bright adoring face of her
baby grand-daugh…then she died instantly. So she died happy.
...but knowing, in that split second, Hell existed.
Right here. Where she had been.
–omtatsat–
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