Longing is the taste of our
gregariousness
lacking.
Longing is nada.
Longing is no response
no call
no one to call.
Longing is the fullness of need at work:
the root of our need to make contact.
Longing is the proof we are human,
of a species
that recognizes our own uniqueness,
our need to be accompanied anyway.
Longing is the impetus for schools
schools of fish
herds and prides
coveys and swarms
flocks and blooms
rooms and brooms
florists
forests and prairies
aeries and oases
partnerships and villages
townships cities and states
nations homes and domes
crones and bones
loans & phones
coffee and scones
busy tones and my jones
for your moans: Us:
Longing is me without you.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Dear Friends, Poets, Cointelpros, Masters of the Universe: © 5/10 jimmy.mankind@gmail.com
>1
All the previous games are over. This is either the end or the next thing to it. The ocean is an organism and it can die. We need oxygen. It needs oxygen. Plant plankton. Life in the ocean is our life. No idolators, ideologues, or idiots need apply. Open your hearts to action.
Our petty individual absurdities are either sublime innoculations against reality or irritating inanities. So drop everything.
Study this event. Know they wish they could do it better next time. [And do it over and over again.] And yes, there is more oil down by the molten core of the planet, where it's so hot our myths tell us the Devil dwells. He, Beelzee-bubba, bathing in our desire.
So great! Soon as we fix this one mistake, let's drill for more! The Arctic anyone?
How about forming a new limited liability Arctic Oil Co [Arcoco? Has a ring to it! Let's have a naming contest! Yo! Miss Palin? Drill Baby, Inc. Maybe you could write that down and drop it off...?]
I hope everyone who reads knows realizes ...something for themselves and their loved ones.
That's all. There are three parts of GOD. The god of destruction (usually of ignorance) and called Shiva.The god of preservations (like say, Greenpeace, the Nature Conservatory) called Vishnu.The god of creation (some say Monsanto is a bad example for its weird new life forms in our crop world) called Krishna.
As we evolve we assume these duties ourselves.We have achieved so far only the first one....
>2
Take the universe, which is laughing immensely at our relentless sense of self-importance.
Here it goes: we begin to tamper seriously. Tamper, tamp, tamp...tamper.
Let’s say they use a nuke to blow it shut, down at the 5,000 foot muddy bottom (there will be blues records about this), and it blows it OPEN! Instead. whoops. Obama immediately resigns and runs off to Switzerland. This is the Danny Glover role.
[An explosion pressed agasinst some resistence will head into the solid. Air or water, in some counter-intuitive reality absorb and cushion leaving no outlet for the fury: now ain’t that a social breakthrough. Maybe it’s why women live so long.]
The bomb blows all the way down into the core--remember we're talking 7 miles deep, and as it passes its fire and brimstone through the vast reservoir of oil, which ignites of course, and then blows like a mad leviathan whale of Mythologic design...it comes up like a huge boil in less than half a minute. It raises the level of the Gulf like a dome–a fast-growing tumor on the face of the Earth, sending a shit-kicking ripple in all directions, ruining everything man ever thought about, every plan, hope/dream, from up-side the mountains protecting Mexico City out through all the islands and across the Atlantic to low-lying Africa, south through most of Venezuela Panama and Columbia--all of Central America is washed over the hill to the Pacific. Up north as far as Memphis, Atlanta, (soon to become Atlantis), and across Texas to the Red River Valley and up the Rio Grande wiping out Ciudad Juarez, the advanced waters lapping at Arizona's high plateau cattle ranches near Bisbee.
So everyone agrees Obama was the lucky one. Minutes after he leaves, Cheney declares himself president, but gets shot right away by about 16 right wing whiners who were still wearing their prizes from the Phil Gramm skinning e-vent held just days before.
The fire won't go out. Radioactive steam just keeps rising and from under the Gulf comes a huge volcano released from the molten core of the planet, sending a putrid smelling mixture of ash, steam, dioxin, gaseous pcbs, and radioactivity up into the jet stream. Oil falls like rain over Africa first, then the EU, China, and around. The air gets so fouled we cannot see the sun from anywhere except Nome..., when the hurricane season starts...augmented by the intense heat of the steaming simmering Gulf of Mexico.
And those cowboys who haven't lost all their fingers already--this gas seems to attack the fingers of the opposable thumbed--begin to write very somber songs about what the angry Gulf did to innocents like the 8 year old grrl in the red dress in the food line of Haiti's pissed.
Californians asleep at their wheels wake up about a week later--not that anybody can keep track of time anymore--to see the Richmond and Sunset torn from the continent in the granddaddy of all quakes. As days and nights run together in murky filthy beige as the carcinogenic defeats the cerulean.
The bars stay open all night due to popular demand. As the laws we liked to groan about collapse we live within our own consciousness of right and wrong from now on out.
Fools get shot quick. No wise asses allowed to power trip. No mas.
An old guy says, waving his gun. i hope there's some one Rip-uglican left out there cuz ima gonna shoot his fuckin eyes out.
No, says the young guy. Hit his knees and knock him down in front of a TV. Make 'im watch what his god hath wrot.
what god?!
his god: the god of selfishness.
>1
All the previous games are over. This is either the end or the next thing to it. The ocean is an organism and it can die. We need oxygen. It needs oxygen. Plant plankton. Life in the ocean is our life. No idolators, ideologues, or idiots need apply. Open your hearts to action.
Our petty individual absurdities are either sublime innoculations against reality or irritating inanities. So drop everything.
Study this event. Know they wish they could do it better next time. [And do it over and over again.] And yes, there is more oil down by the molten core of the planet, where it's so hot our myths tell us the Devil dwells. He, Beelzee-bubba, bathing in our desire.
So great! Soon as we fix this one mistake, let's drill for more! The Arctic anyone?
How about forming a new limited liability Arctic Oil Co [Arcoco? Has a ring to it! Let's have a naming contest! Yo! Miss Palin? Drill Baby, Inc. Maybe you could write that down and drop it off...?]
I hope everyone who reads knows realizes ...something for themselves and their loved ones.
That's all. There are three parts of GOD. The god of destruction (usually of ignorance) and called Shiva.The god of preservations (like say, Greenpeace, the Nature Conservatory) called Vishnu.The god of creation (some say Monsanto is a bad example for its weird new life forms in our crop world) called Krishna.
As we evolve we assume these duties ourselves.We have achieved so far only the first one....
>2
Take the universe, which is laughing immensely at our relentless sense of self-importance.
Here it goes: we begin to tamper seriously. Tamper, tamp, tamp...tamper.
Let’s say they use a nuke to blow it shut, down at the 5,000 foot muddy bottom (there will be blues records about this), and it blows it OPEN! Instead. whoops. Obama immediately resigns and runs off to Switzerland. This is the Danny Glover role.
[An explosion pressed agasinst some resistence will head into the solid. Air or water, in some counter-intuitive reality absorb and cushion leaving no outlet for the fury: now ain’t that a social breakthrough. Maybe it’s why women live so long.]
The bomb blows all the way down into the core--remember we're talking 7 miles deep, and as it passes its fire and brimstone through the vast reservoir of oil, which ignites of course, and then blows like a mad leviathan whale of Mythologic design...it comes up like a huge boil in less than half a minute. It raises the level of the Gulf like a dome–a fast-growing tumor on the face of the Earth, sending a shit-kicking ripple in all directions, ruining everything man ever thought about, every plan, hope/dream, from up-side the mountains protecting Mexico City out through all the islands and across the Atlantic to low-lying Africa, south through most of Venezuela Panama and Columbia--all of Central America is washed over the hill to the Pacific. Up north as far as Memphis, Atlanta, (soon to become Atlantis), and across Texas to the Red River Valley and up the Rio Grande wiping out Ciudad Juarez, the advanced waters lapping at Arizona's high plateau cattle ranches near Bisbee.
So everyone agrees Obama was the lucky one. Minutes after he leaves, Cheney declares himself president, but gets shot right away by about 16 right wing whiners who were still wearing their prizes from the Phil Gramm skinning e-vent held just days before.
The fire won't go out. Radioactive steam just keeps rising and from under the Gulf comes a huge volcano released from the molten core of the planet, sending a putrid smelling mixture of ash, steam, dioxin, gaseous pcbs, and radioactivity up into the jet stream. Oil falls like rain over Africa first, then the EU, China, and around. The air gets so fouled we cannot see the sun from anywhere except Nome..., when the hurricane season starts...augmented by the intense heat of the steaming simmering Gulf of Mexico.
And those cowboys who haven't lost all their fingers already--this gas seems to attack the fingers of the opposable thumbed--begin to write very somber songs about what the angry Gulf did to innocents like the 8 year old grrl in the red dress in the food line of Haiti's pissed.
Californians asleep at their wheels wake up about a week later--not that anybody can keep track of time anymore--to see the Richmond and Sunset torn from the continent in the granddaddy of all quakes. As days and nights run together in murky filthy beige as the carcinogenic defeats the cerulean.
The bars stay open all night due to popular demand. As the laws we liked to groan about collapse we live within our own consciousness of right and wrong from now on out.
Fools get shot quick. No wise asses allowed to power trip. No mas.
An old guy says, waving his gun. i hope there's some one Rip-uglican left out there cuz ima gonna shoot his fuckin eyes out.
No, says the young guy. Hit his knees and knock him down in front of a TV. Make 'im watch what his god hath wrot.
what god?!
his god: the god of selfishness.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
...such odd musings...
...such odd musings...
say, "arise, mejicanos! Avec solidarite, fraternite, egalite, liberte."
say, "die free! save mama!"
say, "don't tread on me! i'm too small to bail?!"
I should keep you informed:
poets need a scoop. Cochabamba? you might know already? no? well, it's rights for everything! mice, bugs, sand, soil, rocks, trees, outcasts, trolls, water (just think!) even air. the people have spoken (power to the people! all people young old past and present and as yet unborn...)
earth, mother earth, Gaia, pachamama...the unborn of the unborn of the unborn of the unborn to the nth power and to you and me and our friends relatives teams gangs states parties pets homes farms and everything we know about anything and every idea we can imagine and have forgotten and not used by busyness and the things we have kept and that which we leave behind, the trials the trails and the thrills and the failed, the freedoms found and the jailed, the church the mosque the temple and all the lost who think they're found...the bound, the downed down, the brought down clowns the beaten down brown black yellow white taking back their rights making their sound heard round their world!
This glorious cacophony.
This is the loudest cry for freedom ever not heard in the history of Us and Them as We Forever and not scared to share anymore of the things that do not matter because matter no longer matters except to material thugs who think they matter more than the insignificant immaterial matter they worship...as you'me'us'them' all are nothing but WE created hell on earth on our deaf dumb and blind paths to heaven thru death, deathness, darkness and Our (mutually regarded) ancient fears of Others.
finally: nothing is final! everything we do see think feel is starting over and lasts forever! [if Isis can last this long] as we worship life! not death. Let's deny heaven-after-death and instead bring it on down here and now, blue cow pow! where we can use it before--in the nick of time--
we forget this chance...for our nepenthes.
yeah!
On Niceness
Dear Off-the-gridders, Furry-tree-huggers, and Noble savage wannabes:
If you can make it up, you can be it!
We are on the cusp of a major re-thinking of our society and our places in the world. This letter seems to corro-berate that thought. There is a major meeting in Cochabampa, Bolivia going on. They are attempting to put that new idea, this unfailed as yet world-view (as Greenspan admitted his was) in place on paper in writing signed and vowed to by everyone in attendance. Poets should know. Poets should be on the cutting edge. We should be outcasts in fact, off-the-grid, out-lawed, shunned and beaten down, because any new idea comes from the fringes of the known and is suspenseful and greeted by xenophobia. We threaten the static quo vadis.
People laughed at every new invention. newness needs to learn to walk. at first it staggers and falls. then it gets up stronger.
Imagine! poets imagine! inventors do too, although within the boundaries of science, and regimens, and rules of scientific law.
Law is therefore half the problem.
Laws of trademark and copyright and property and property rights. we cannot attack ownership rights by attacking ownership rights so...
Today rights are being expanded in Cochabampa. Listen up!
Limitations to our empathy are backing off. Squirrels now have rights. Fish have rights. All birds. Wolves. Even the wolf at the door! Molecules have rights. Light and dark have rights. Night is equal to day! Darkness is faster--finally admitted by Thinkiers del Nuevo Edad--than the speed of light! How do we know? Because darkness is always there waiting, having arrived first...there is no end to darkness, yet it only appears to us in the light. So we think of even the universe as having limits. Ha. We just cannot see them in the darkness...which we a priori believe in ! Dud!
We do not know enough to limit any expression anywhere, not of life or word or sight or sound, nor to order silence nor to move it around. that is what the system does to us. all systems are built on hate and distrust.
Plus, any system hates it's poets first. because poets are rule-breakers. inelegant outcast freakswho upset rulers and their rule-makers, and scare the gramlinmarians. then after they die--they build statues to the dead poets. trusting they haven't left any fireballs unpublished to tear down the ruling shibboleths.
And they place them in darkness, under viaducts for the homeless trolls to stare at in wonder of how they too are not so memorialized not even by a beer and a burger to their name nor even in their name although that's not thier game. how about a Homeless Burger? Or a new fad honoring troll-wear? A faint commercial kudo for not rising up and killing us all!
i'm dropping out of politics myself. i tried and i lost. it's tearing me up. i move now instantly into philosophy, satire and the joy of curmudgeonhood. viva jimmy. and thank you all for the use of your training ground. let nobody like me anymore. no more hero worship--i crave rejection! i desire only beer bottles at my head! boos cascading down from the rafters so full of illegals waffling between work and revolution. send me hate mail! i'll know that i was heard. i down your religions, your values, your pitiful dreams, your sorrows, your lusts, your heroes...ohhh, how i loath your heroes and your cliques. your groupings, allegiances, cluster-fuckers, unities, Klans all, disgust me.
There'll be days we'll stand together, but there must be nights we sleep alone.
DO and act alone with blind faith that nothing will be done unless you do it and you will fail valiantly and love the process for your own reasons and never retire from sounding off in truth or shy away from being not sorry for trying and embracing losing. because poets know that losing shall be winning until winning matters and then it too will become losing and only the planet mama, via her Daughter Gaia will reward you for losing so valiantly and truthfully with a strong heart and a ringside seat at the Scene of the Demise.
[should anyone applaud i shall take it as a sign that i didn't say enough rightly!]
p, l, pttp,
jimmy
keep your eye on the ball for it does not know where it's rolling.
follow that.
go to the darkness.
you'll have all the light you'll need.
say, "arise, mejicanos! Avec solidarite, fraternite, egalite, liberte."
say, "die free! save mama!"
say, "don't tread on me! i'm too small to bail?!"
I should keep you informed:
poets need a scoop. Cochabamba? you might know already? no? well, it's rights for everything! mice, bugs, sand, soil, rocks, trees, outcasts, trolls, water (just think!) even air. the people have spoken (power to the people! all people young old past and present and as yet unborn...)
earth, mother earth, Gaia, pachamama...the unborn of the unborn of the unborn of the unborn to the nth power and to you and me and our friends relatives teams gangs states parties pets homes farms and everything we know about anything and every idea we can imagine and have forgotten and not used by busyness and the things we have kept and that which we leave behind, the trials the trails and the thrills and the failed, the freedoms found and the jailed, the church the mosque the temple and all the lost who think they're found...the bound, the downed down, the brought down clowns the beaten down brown black yellow white taking back their rights making their sound heard round their world!
This glorious cacophony.
This is the loudest cry for freedom ever not heard in the history of Us and Them as We Forever and not scared to share anymore of the things that do not matter because matter no longer matters except to material thugs who think they matter more than the insignificant immaterial matter they worship...as you'me'us'them' all are nothing but WE created hell on earth on our deaf dumb and blind paths to heaven thru death, deathness, darkness and Our (mutually regarded) ancient fears of Others.
finally: nothing is final! everything we do see think feel is starting over and lasts forever! [if Isis can last this long] as we worship life! not death. Let's deny heaven-after-death and instead bring it on down here and now, blue cow pow! where we can use it before--in the nick of time--
we forget this chance...for our nepenthes.
yeah!
On Niceness
Dear Off-the-gridders, Furry-tree-huggers, and Noble savage wannabes:
If you can make it up, you can be it!
We are on the cusp of a major re-thinking of our society and our places in the world. This letter seems to corro-berate that thought. There is a major meeting in Cochabampa, Bolivia going on. They are attempting to put that new idea, this unfailed as yet world-view (as Greenspan admitted his was) in place on paper in writing signed and vowed to by everyone in attendance. Poets should know. Poets should be on the cutting edge. We should be outcasts in fact, off-the-grid, out-lawed, shunned and beaten down, because any new idea comes from the fringes of the known and is suspenseful and greeted by xenophobia. We threaten the static quo vadis.
People laughed at every new invention. newness needs to learn to walk. at first it staggers and falls. then it gets up stronger.
Imagine! poets imagine! inventors do too, although within the boundaries of science, and regimens, and rules of scientific law.
Law is therefore half the problem.
Laws of trademark and copyright and property and property rights. we cannot attack ownership rights by attacking ownership rights so...
Today rights are being expanded in Cochabampa. Listen up!
Limitations to our empathy are backing off. Squirrels now have rights. Fish have rights. All birds. Wolves. Even the wolf at the door! Molecules have rights. Light and dark have rights. Night is equal to day! Darkness is faster--finally admitted by Thinkiers del Nuevo Edad--than the speed of light! How do we know? Because darkness is always there waiting, having arrived first...there is no end to darkness, yet it only appears to us in the light. So we think of even the universe as having limits. Ha. We just cannot see them in the darkness...which we a priori believe in ! Dud!
We do not know enough to limit any expression anywhere, not of life or word or sight or sound, nor to order silence nor to move it around. that is what the system does to us. all systems are built on hate and distrust.
Plus, any system hates it's poets first. because poets are rule-breakers. inelegant outcast freakswho upset rulers and their rule-makers, and scare the gramlinmarians. then after they die--they build statues to the dead poets. trusting they haven't left any fireballs unpublished to tear down the ruling shibboleths.
And they place them in darkness, under viaducts for the homeless trolls to stare at in wonder of how they too are not so memorialized not even by a beer and a burger to their name nor even in their name although that's not thier game. how about a Homeless Burger? Or a new fad honoring troll-wear? A faint commercial kudo for not rising up and killing us all!
i'm dropping out of politics myself. i tried and i lost. it's tearing me up. i move now instantly into philosophy, satire and the joy of curmudgeonhood. viva jimmy. and thank you all for the use of your training ground. let nobody like me anymore. no more hero worship--i crave rejection! i desire only beer bottles at my head! boos cascading down from the rafters so full of illegals waffling between work and revolution. send me hate mail! i'll know that i was heard. i down your religions, your values, your pitiful dreams, your sorrows, your lusts, your heroes...ohhh, how i loath your heroes and your cliques. your groupings, allegiances, cluster-fuckers, unities, Klans all, disgust me.
There'll be days we'll stand together, but there must be nights we sleep alone.
DO and act alone with blind faith that nothing will be done unless you do it and you will fail valiantly and love the process for your own reasons and never retire from sounding off in truth or shy away from being not sorry for trying and embracing losing. because poets know that losing shall be winning until winning matters and then it too will become losing and only the planet mama, via her Daughter Gaia will reward you for losing so valiantly and truthfully with a strong heart and a ringside seat at the Scene of the Demise.
[should anyone applaud i shall take it as a sign that i didn't say enough rightly!]
p, l, pttp,
jimmy
keep your eye on the ball for it does not know where it's rolling.
follow that.
go to the darkness.
you'll have all the light you'll need.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Angel in a Texaco Tow Truck
Angel in a Texaco Tow Truck j r hammond © 08/07
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
the highway was empty, hard snow was a-fallin’
so I was a-hugging that long yellow line.
When all of a sudden my rig started failing.
It all came to me as an ominous sign.
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
White steam was a-hissin’, my pants I was a-pissin ’.
I knew that that night I would not travel far,
and that sweet girl that I longed to be huggin’ and kissin’
was sittin’ alone in some warm country bar.
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
At thirty below, I was about to be frozen.
My life passed before me; I was ready to die.
I was sure that my soul God had a chosen,
when out of the darkness the Texaco tow truck came by.
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
Now I ain’t a braggin’, but I’m known as a rounder.
Coming or goin’ I know what to show.
But this truck-driving angel was a three hundred pounder,
a hot-blooded drinker and raring to go.
I got out of my rig in the wind and the sleet.
She got out of the tow truck with a bottle of Jack.
She said, "You come and sit a while in my truck...in the heat,
or you ain’t a-gonna ever get back!"
Well, I’uzs schtuck late that night ‘tween Weed and Yreka.
My rig broke down; I could not find out why.
With shhh-know and the lightning..., thing could not have look bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Tess-aco tow truck came by.
Now good ol’ jack black is one of my favorites,
but I just can’t drink with a woman who reeks.
But I sure changed my mind that nite near Yreka.
She was warm, we was drunk, and she laughed like a minx.
Chorus:
(Last one...finally. Now falling down drunk.)
Wall, I wash schtuck late a night a-tween Weed and Yreka
my rig all broke down...not finout why...
Snow and lightnin’...
Ahhh...heck with it...we got married!
—all done here—
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
the highway was empty, hard snow was a-fallin’
so I was a-hugging that long yellow line.
When all of a sudden my rig started failing.
It all came to me as an ominous sign.
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
White steam was a-hissin’, my pants I was a-pissin ’.
I knew that that night I would not travel far,
and that sweet girl that I longed to be huggin’ and kissin’
was sittin’ alone in some warm country bar.
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
At thirty below, I was about to be frozen.
My life passed before me; I was ready to die.
I was sure that my soul God had a chosen,
when out of the darkness the Texaco tow truck came by.
I was stuck late that night between Weed and Yreka.
My rig had broke down; I could not say why.
With the snow and the lightning things could not have looked bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Texaco tow truck came by.
Now I ain’t a braggin’, but I’m known as a rounder.
Coming or goin’ I know what to show.
But this truck-driving angel was a three hundred pounder,
a hot-blooded drinker and raring to go.
I got out of my rig in the wind and the sleet.
She got out of the tow truck with a bottle of Jack.
She said, "You come and sit a while in my truck...in the heat,
or you ain’t a-gonna ever get back!"
Well, I’uzs schtuck late that night ‘tween Weed and Yreka.
My rig broke down; I could not find out why.
With shhh-know and the lightning..., thing could not have look bleaker.
"Til the Angel in the Tess-aco tow truck came by.
Now good ol’ jack black is one of my favorites,
but I just can’t drink with a woman who reeks.
But I sure changed my mind that nite near Yreka.
She was warm, we was drunk, and she laughed like a minx.
Chorus:
(Last one...finally. Now falling down drunk.)
Wall, I wash schtuck late a night a-tween Weed and Yreka
my rig all broke down...not finout why...
Snow and lightnin’...
Ahhh...heck with it...we got married!
—all done here—
red spot t-shirt
© jimmy.mankind@gmail.com 08/06
"Haight and Fillmore. Pick up."
"1-8-7."
"8-7, check."
I was driving up Haight with just a twenty to my night;
It wasn’t late but my hand was pretty tight.
Suddenly a fresh-faced blond kid, maybe twenty-some,
held up a shaky arm and signaled me to come.
He stood too long in one place for me to tell.
(There is a ritual for catchin’ cabs, y’all.)
Suddenly he reeled back into the pole,
Leaned there uncertain, not like he would chill.
He wore a pair of jeans, the uni of the night,
and a white t-shirt that looked a bit too bright...in the flourescent blue-white light.
I raised my hands to him, in the universal, Well, what?
When at that moment he sat. He fell phump!
and slid down his back against the pole.
His grrrl friend screamed at me, "Please don’t go!"
She tossed her head up, down, to and fro,
Jumpin’ at my door and jerkin’ towards her beau.
While his face turned into some angelic kinda glow,
Her screams rose as if I was something slow,
but I’d pulled over, opened up the door, all set to go.
It was he who wasn’t movin’, seemed somewhat outa flow.
When she tried to lift ‘im I could see the whole
Of a tiny spot of red to the left of center
Below the patch where ciggies go.
It started out real small like that and then began to grow.
His head fell over, the wet spot spread and white went red.
I hit the mike and screamed, "I think he’s dead!"
"I mean," I said. "Mayday! This kid gone red!"
"Corner of Haight and Steiner, send the man!"
"The kid’s been shot! He barely understands."
"Don’t worry ‘bout findin’ us. Here they come!"
Two gangs, I spose, incitin’ fightin’ without bendin’.
Ran by cross the street and veered toward downtown’s ending.
We’ll need an ambulance, two shots a ‘drenalin,
This could be the bitter pill.
He’s twenty-some, looks real ill.
Grrrlie’s screaming at me.
Her boy can’t talk.
I said, "Just hold his hand. Tell ‘im how you feel.
If he can’t hear you, I think it’s time to kneel.
They’ll be here ‘fore we could lift him up."
She turned to him–and stared–her mouth all stuck
Big red spot from clavicle to down to where he opened
She dreamed of one more chance...with any luck.
But that dream faded as the EMTs arrived.
Seconds later cops strolled ‘round to find that he was not alive.
The big red spot now filled his shirt.
His Grrrl all covered with his dryin’ stain.
Sobbin’. Lookin’ up at me like she’d been hurt.
I nodded her way. Through all her pain.
I tried to say...something any...
Way. Then the bulls walked in between. Asked, who are you?
I called it in. I called for you. So don’t play me to diss. I’m the ride he missed.
There came a squawk from my machine:
"1-8-7! You OK?"
"Yeah...," I heard me say, as I reached back to close the door. "Haight and Steiner, no ride here. 1-8-7. Free and clear."
–omtatsat–
© jimmy.mankind@gmail.com 08/06
"Haight and Fillmore. Pick up."
"1-8-7."
"8-7, check."
I was driving up Haight with just a twenty to my night;
It wasn’t late but my hand was pretty tight.
Suddenly a fresh-faced blond kid, maybe twenty-some,
held up a shaky arm and signaled me to come.
He stood too long in one place for me to tell.
(There is a ritual for catchin’ cabs, y’all.)
Suddenly he reeled back into the pole,
Leaned there uncertain, not like he would chill.
He wore a pair of jeans, the uni of the night,
and a white t-shirt that looked a bit too bright...in the flourescent blue-white light.
I raised my hands to him, in the universal, Well, what?
When at that moment he sat. He fell phump!
and slid down his back against the pole.
His grrrl friend screamed at me, "Please don’t go!"
She tossed her head up, down, to and fro,
Jumpin’ at my door and jerkin’ towards her beau.
While his face turned into some angelic kinda glow,
Her screams rose as if I was something slow,
but I’d pulled over, opened up the door, all set to go.
It was he who wasn’t movin’, seemed somewhat outa flow.
When she tried to lift ‘im I could see the whole
Of a tiny spot of red to the left of center
Below the patch where ciggies go.
It started out real small like that and then began to grow.
His head fell over, the wet spot spread and white went red.
I hit the mike and screamed, "I think he’s dead!"
"I mean," I said. "Mayday! This kid gone red!"
"Corner of Haight and Steiner, send the man!"
"The kid’s been shot! He barely understands."
"Don’t worry ‘bout findin’ us. Here they come!"
Two gangs, I spose, incitin’ fightin’ without bendin’.
Ran by cross the street and veered toward downtown’s ending.
We’ll need an ambulance, two shots a ‘drenalin,
This could be the bitter pill.
He’s twenty-some, looks real ill.
Grrrlie’s screaming at me.
Her boy can’t talk.
I said, "Just hold his hand. Tell ‘im how you feel.
If he can’t hear you, I think it’s time to kneel.
They’ll be here ‘fore we could lift him up."
She turned to him–and stared–her mouth all stuck
Big red spot from clavicle to down to where he opened
She dreamed of one more chance...with any luck.
But that dream faded as the EMTs arrived.
Seconds later cops strolled ‘round to find that he was not alive.
The big red spot now filled his shirt.
His Grrrl all covered with his dryin’ stain.
Sobbin’. Lookin’ up at me like she’d been hurt.
I nodded her way. Through all her pain.
I tried to say...something any...
Way. Then the bulls walked in between. Asked, who are you?
I called it in. I called for you. So don’t play me to diss. I’m the ride he missed.
There came a squawk from my machine:
"1-8-7! You OK?"
"Yeah...," I heard me say, as I reached back to close the door. "Haight and Steiner, no ride here. 1-8-7. Free and clear."
–omtatsat–
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
in the face of murder
in the face of murder
by jimmy.mankind@gmail.com 3-23-10
i can't be funny unless someone laughs at my jokes. it upsets my sense of humor when there is someone in the room and i'm the only one laughing. or speaking. or warning. or making suggestions for reparations to the daughters of the slave gender or for re-invigorating our dead plastic soil so drenched in disappearing oil.
it's kinda like writing a note to someone and not getting one back.
poetry police have struck me down.
the answer is not here. there are gremlins in the woodwork. between the walls of wills and wishes. waving little flags of futility and fruitlessness.
[Do we poets lack the alacrity required to be the leaders of the losers? The difference is, when the Establishment loses with its anachronistic shibboleths, its worn excuses for the con-job of Greed Forever, we lose the planet. If poets lose the Upper Ten Thousand get soap. So we poets are worth saving.]
poetry police have married me against my wishes to the outcasts of the outcast mob of the outcasts.
i am the maverick of poetry which is the out-casting of writers who are the outcasts of culture.
i have no hope for established venues, methods, masters of pedigreeds, of ever rising above their training--they're too proud of their cavil to become uncivil...in the face of murder.
i have no hope for any of this. in like two days or two weeks, two months or two years, we will have passed nature's tipping point and ripped Gaia's patience out of her gut...and she will begin the great puking of the human species from her shores. Head for the high ground folks, and hope you can plant up there. and that the rain falls gently in the hot months, for you'll be living closer to the sun.
i have seen the armies of the poor and ironically they are fighting for the rich.
i have been inside the gilded meeting rooms, my head upon their walnut desks, and i have heard their evil orders flying through the veins of loathing. i have mumbled through their oaths, so secret and unopposed. venal. no deal that we'd have closed.
the deal is cast upon the steppes and down into the seas.
up-wells the cunning meth to make lost hot memories of youandme.
we'd most likely join them if we could...pretty grrrls form lines to enter into the house of maidens, so ripe for sexy offers. *
men with callouses stand over there...by the buses.
soon to be led to voluntary slaughters.
[The abattoir has surely gotten smarter.]
Now they have a choke-hold upon things we used to barter,
preferring to make of us more oil than working harder.
If your body contains six quarts of gasoline, some ash for N, P, and K, and water,
you’re worth more dead to them than what you may think you oughta. **
–economics has become religion–
–religion has become a business–
and when capital has won there will be nothing left for sale.
whatever spoils remain will be theirs only for the taking.
—o—
* Pretty is in the eye of beholders, because it’s only skin deep. Yet pretty is thoroughly embedded into the minds of its holders, those self-conscious little air-heads on cell phones.
Addictively Waiting for their beeps. Read Alwater’s Handmaiden’s Tale.
** One and ½ gallons of gas would be about 6 bucks as I breathe and write this. They would have to support you, with a steady dose of room and board, and oh yeah, health care, while you remained what Kissinger so aptly termed-out as "useless eaters." You can see they’ve reached this conclusion some time ago. That quote came while Sukarno ruled Indonesia–a bad man, evil, in fact. But one of our evils. One of our lives in a way. A keeper, because of the way he did so much that is "useful."
by jimmy.mankind@gmail.com 3-23-10
i can't be funny unless someone laughs at my jokes. it upsets my sense of humor when there is someone in the room and i'm the only one laughing. or speaking. or warning. or making suggestions for reparations to the daughters of the slave gender or for re-invigorating our dead plastic soil so drenched in disappearing oil.
it's kinda like writing a note to someone and not getting one back.
poetry police have struck me down.
the answer is not here. there are gremlins in the woodwork. between the walls of wills and wishes. waving little flags of futility and fruitlessness.
[Do we poets lack the alacrity required to be the leaders of the losers? The difference is, when the Establishment loses with its anachronistic shibboleths, its worn excuses for the con-job of Greed Forever, we lose the planet. If poets lose the Upper Ten Thousand get soap. So we poets are worth saving.]
poetry police have married me against my wishes to the outcasts of the outcast mob of the outcasts.
i am the maverick of poetry which is the out-casting of writers who are the outcasts of culture.
i have no hope for established venues, methods, masters of pedigreeds, of ever rising above their training--they're too proud of their cavil to become uncivil...in the face of murder.
i have no hope for any of this. in like two days or two weeks, two months or two years, we will have passed nature's tipping point and ripped Gaia's patience out of her gut...and she will begin the great puking of the human species from her shores. Head for the high ground folks, and hope you can plant up there. and that the rain falls gently in the hot months, for you'll be living closer to the sun.
i have seen the armies of the poor and ironically they are fighting for the rich.
i have been inside the gilded meeting rooms, my head upon their walnut desks, and i have heard their evil orders flying through the veins of loathing. i have mumbled through their oaths, so secret and unopposed. venal. no deal that we'd have closed.
the deal is cast upon the steppes and down into the seas.
up-wells the cunning meth to make lost hot memories of youandme.
we'd most likely join them if we could...pretty grrrls form lines to enter into the house of maidens, so ripe for sexy offers. *
men with callouses stand over there...by the buses.
soon to be led to voluntary slaughters.
[The abattoir has surely gotten smarter.]
Now they have a choke-hold upon things we used to barter,
preferring to make of us more oil than working harder.
If your body contains six quarts of gasoline, some ash for N, P, and K, and water,
you’re worth more dead to them than what you may think you oughta. **
–economics has become religion–
–religion has become a business–
and when capital has won there will be nothing left for sale.
whatever spoils remain will be theirs only for the taking.
—o—
* Pretty is in the eye of beholders, because it’s only skin deep. Yet pretty is thoroughly embedded into the minds of its holders, those self-conscious little air-heads on cell phones.
Addictively Waiting for their beeps. Read Alwater’s Handmaiden’s Tale.
** One and ½ gallons of gas would be about 6 bucks as I breathe and write this. They would have to support you, with a steady dose of room and board, and oh yeah, health care, while you remained what Kissinger so aptly termed-out as "useless eaters." You can see they’ve reached this conclusion some time ago. That quote came while Sukarno ruled Indonesia–a bad man, evil, in fact. But one of our evils. One of our lives in a way. A keeper, because of the way he did so much that is "useful."
Monday, March 29, 2010
pieces of taxi
something about afghanistan:
jimmy.mankind@gmail.com © 2010
Trip 459-2010. old vet, new vet
...what you whinin’ for?
Your terrifyin’ chemwar and yer spdrs and yer slot-ls in redux? Sheesh!
We fought back in the day where they had mosquitos! Fer cry-eye!
We didn’t even had no war. They called it "police action." One that cost 50,000 ‘Merikin boys dead and buried. Check it out. All they names on a big black rock a half mile long in DC.
That qualify?!
So yer stupid winless "war" on terror cost us 5,000 boys [and some grrrls] dead and buried.
Desert wars are EZ.
I hear tell we both killed about the same # of non-combatants–you call collaterals. Geez-sheets!
What kinda word is that?!
2 million each.
Ours took longer, and they’re still dyin’.
Count ‘em.
Course, gotta admit yours’ll die for centuries, y’know, that DU stuff. Un-depleted you ask me. UDU. Or, you do. Voodoo. Sheesh! We used white phosphorous on peephole too.
Or you can drop a Daisy Cutter: you go an’ toss some fine spray napalm from a plane and kill ever’body ever damn thing that lives or breathes in a big circle. From six inches deep to twenty stories high. In a dome of death. That’s not war!
Don’t know the name...wanna call it a Daisy Cutter.
But that ain’t war....
Trip 56-2010. whippersnappers.
Young guy gets in my taxi at the airport with his wife and a little girl. He’s got a big black halo ‘round his head on stiff little poles attached to his shoulders. After a better look I can see the "halo" got some sticks stuck right into the skull and same for the shoulders. Sheeee-aye! When he turns to talk, which ain’t often, he has to turn his whole body. So his neck won’t swivel.
He’s got the Marine cut so I ask him. He says yeah. Get that apparatus from the Afghanis?
Wife blurts up first, "Yes, he did. IED. It killed his best friend and nearly killed him!"
Did not expect that outburst.
Shrapnel just missed my spinal cord. He explains. By a quarter inch.
I look the situation over as we pull out of the airport. Pretty hectic behind us tonite. Pretty wife to die for. I pause to check out with the mag card press it to the reader screen. Look back at the little girl about 4 hugging her dolly. Boy! I go. Sort of losing it. Sorry. But I say, Prettiest little girl I ever seen! What’s your name, angel? I fergit what she said. I flash one more glance at the wife–I swear. By this time. 10 seconds the A-hole driver behind me is honking. I flip ‘m off out the window so the young wife don’t think I’m a jerk. We head out.
Spent five and one fucking half hours waiting for planes here. If they don’t get their shit together...I dunno...tomorrow we gotta be in Fresno.
Why you gotta be in Fresno?
Everybody’s waiting.
Relax. I tells 'im. One, you’re a national hero. The airline company is heartsick about your inconvenience, and I’m as sure as hell [on this planet is where you came from] about that. They are probably sick about disappointing you. But they do not want to kill you with a plane with mechanical difficulties or some other kind o’ dangerous flight when you are about two days away from paradise. You hear me, Marine?
He looked at me stern and full of macho indignation at me telling him shit. Any kind of shit.
Nobody has a better shot at happiness than you right now, I go on. Just look in that back seat! I was not lying and they all knew it. A woman knows how good looking she is...and how good she wants to be as a person as well. She spoke:
He got hit on the road. Just driving along. We are so happy to have him back with us...
And she trailed off.
I didn’t want this to get saccharine, nor worse, theoretical. For all I knew the wife was a lazy, ego-maniacal heroin addict whore. All I’m sayin’ is she did not look like that...and dammit I wanted it to have a chance as if some dumb cabbie’s tough love is gonna add to their chances...and not detract.
So I asked him, "What’s goin’ on over there? What’s it like? They never tell us anything."
"It’s fucked, he said. The people are fucked. The situation is fucked. It’ll never work. I think we oughta nuke the entire country and bring everyone home. Nuke the whole place!"
I felt I was in the tilt position to be able to have some positive input–as a random source of some sort of coincidology. Just one American speakin’ to another.
I felt if not pressure, then the seriousness of my imagined responsibility. Under the gun so to speak.
I asked him. You ever hear of Malalai Joya? He said no. Remember that name, I told him.
Why?
She agrees with you. About gettin’ out anyway. Don’t imagine she’d go for the nuke ‘em part. She taught little girls to read in secret schools. When she was 18. She’s 25 or 6 now. She’s the youngest woman, of the few ever elected, in the Loya Jirga. She rocks, man. She wants us out. She says you cannot bring democracy. It has to grow up from people. And she would work to teach girls to read and vote and work and go to school like they never could before.
I went on a little roll: teach girls. That’s what you want, I bet. And let girls become all that they can. Let ‘em learn physics. Become doctors, scientists, architects, politicians. I can’t believe women would have got us into this mess...
He said yeah. I’ll look her up.
He said the hotel name they were goin’ Snarled a bit. I said, Paradise. You got one night of paradise. Great family. I had loved these guys at first sight. Man, I said, enjoy every breath of free air you get with these two angels. Take that hotel to heart. It’s free, huh?
Oh yeah, he goes.
Get smart, says I. It’s a holiday. Now tell me what’s it like.
You wanna know what it’s like?
For sure.
OK. We got a report from a farm. The guy had been having trouble with the Taliban. Stealing his food and shit.
Yeah?
So we convoy up an head out there. It’s good intel. We get into a fire fight, and we chase them away. So it’s over quickly.
Kill any?
Yeah. Several. I didn’t see the count. Don’t matter. We didn’t get ‘em all. They fade into the hills. So we return to the farm. The owner is an ass-hole.
How so?
He’s pissed we upset his schedule. Says his goats and cows are upset. Gotta milk ‘em and the chickens are over the place. His wife is crying. The Captain is trying to pacify this idiot. Then in the middle of talkin’ he spits in the Captain’s face.
What?!
Real a-hole.
I look back at the wife. She is nodding at me. Positive. About the vocab-constab-ulary or what? The whole interrogation? This is de-briefing taxi style. I’m into it.
What did he do?
Do?! He did what he had to do?
Kill the guy!?
No. He ordered the house cleared. Then he had a tank run over it. Back and forth a couple times.
Gees-says.
That shuts ‘im up.
I bet. Then what?
We left.
There was a bit of silence there. The little girl was looking out the window when I took a glance in the mirror. She was hugging her dolly and looking out her window at the night. At Millbrae, California, on the bay side of the freeway. Big expanse of darkness off to our left which was salty water.
I said, if you got time. You get up early. You go for a walk here cross this street. Big, long park. Goes for miles. I didn’t know that for sure. You can see the birds flyin’ in under the jets. See the jets flying in to come and get you outa here. I hope you come back.
Yeah, great.
Then it came to me. The farmer. The captain. Had they talked before?
Yeah. I suppose they had to. There would have been some questions. How many insurgent? Maybe some directions. I guess. Stuff like that.
And it was friendly?
I didn’t see that.
Y’know. The genius of those two is cool. We pulled into the driveway of a very nice-looking hotel. Wow! I go. I ask the girl if she ever stayed at a hotel before. Unt-huh, she says.
[I’m going bananas inside.]
But I tell the girl, "You gotta try room service and free movies and order a coke and try pancakes for breakfast...that’s what you do in hotels. Use everything. Use ‘em up!"
Mom was sliding over to the girl’s side to get out. Daddy was pulling an airline voucher for the ride. I’d seen those before. Heck, happened to me one time. I’d had an angel with me too.
Gettin’ them together like that, almost out of the taxi, I said to the Marine, "They did it so he wouldn’t get killed."
"Huh?"
I mean, you guys couldn’t be there all the time. You had to return to base. So the Taliban would’ve killed this farmer if you hadn’t knocked his house down. It was survival. Your Captain only had to wipe off some spit and knock down a crappy house. He saves a family.
You got the same choice. Only you won’t get spit on. You get loved.
You’re the luckiest man in the world. If I were you, I’d wear that thing around your head for as long as it takes to never go back.
His wife touched my arm.
He nodded.
Thanks.
Peace, I said.
Driving back to the airport and the short line, I almost cried like a baby.
Joya. I kept saying it. Thinkin’ how I forgot her first name in the tears...
—o—
jimmy.mankind@gmail.com © 2010
Trip 459-2010. old vet, new vet
...what you whinin’ for?
Your terrifyin’ chemwar and yer spdrs and yer slot-ls in redux? Sheesh!
We fought back in the day where they had mosquitos! Fer cry-eye!
We didn’t even had no war. They called it "police action." One that cost 50,000 ‘Merikin boys dead and buried. Check it out. All they names on a big black rock a half mile long in DC.
That qualify?!
So yer stupid winless "war" on terror cost us 5,000 boys [and some grrrls] dead and buried.
Desert wars are EZ.
I hear tell we both killed about the same # of non-combatants–you call collaterals. Geez-sheets!
What kinda word is that?!
2 million each.
Ours took longer, and they’re still dyin’.
Count ‘em.
Course, gotta admit yours’ll die for centuries, y’know, that DU stuff. Un-depleted you ask me. UDU. Or, you do. Voodoo. Sheesh! We used white phosphorous on peephole too.
Or you can drop a Daisy Cutter: you go an’ toss some fine spray napalm from a plane and kill ever’body ever damn thing that lives or breathes in a big circle. From six inches deep to twenty stories high. In a dome of death. That’s not war!
Don’t know the name...wanna call it a Daisy Cutter.
But that ain’t war....
Trip 56-2010. whippersnappers.
Young guy gets in my taxi at the airport with his wife and a little girl. He’s got a big black halo ‘round his head on stiff little poles attached to his shoulders. After a better look I can see the "halo" got some sticks stuck right into the skull and same for the shoulders. Sheeee-aye! When he turns to talk, which ain’t often, he has to turn his whole body. So his neck won’t swivel.
He’s got the Marine cut so I ask him. He says yeah. Get that apparatus from the Afghanis?
Wife blurts up first, "Yes, he did. IED. It killed his best friend and nearly killed him!"
Did not expect that outburst.
Shrapnel just missed my spinal cord. He explains. By a quarter inch.
I look the situation over as we pull out of the airport. Pretty hectic behind us tonite. Pretty wife to die for. I pause to check out with the mag card press it to the reader screen. Look back at the little girl about 4 hugging her dolly. Boy! I go. Sort of losing it. Sorry. But I say, Prettiest little girl I ever seen! What’s your name, angel? I fergit what she said. I flash one more glance at the wife–I swear. By this time. 10 seconds the A-hole driver behind me is honking. I flip ‘m off out the window so the young wife don’t think I’m a jerk. We head out.
Spent five and one fucking half hours waiting for planes here. If they don’t get their shit together...I dunno...tomorrow we gotta be in Fresno.
Why you gotta be in Fresno?
Everybody’s waiting.
Relax. I tells 'im. One, you’re a national hero. The airline company is heartsick about your inconvenience, and I’m as sure as hell [on this planet is where you came from] about that. They are probably sick about disappointing you. But they do not want to kill you with a plane with mechanical difficulties or some other kind o’ dangerous flight when you are about two days away from paradise. You hear me, Marine?
He looked at me stern and full of macho indignation at me telling him shit. Any kind of shit.
Nobody has a better shot at happiness than you right now, I go on. Just look in that back seat! I was not lying and they all knew it. A woman knows how good looking she is...and how good she wants to be as a person as well. She spoke:
He got hit on the road. Just driving along. We are so happy to have him back with us...
And she trailed off.
I didn’t want this to get saccharine, nor worse, theoretical. For all I knew the wife was a lazy, ego-maniacal heroin addict whore. All I’m sayin’ is she did not look like that...and dammit I wanted it to have a chance as if some dumb cabbie’s tough love is gonna add to their chances...and not detract.
So I asked him, "What’s goin’ on over there? What’s it like? They never tell us anything."
"It’s fucked, he said. The people are fucked. The situation is fucked. It’ll never work. I think we oughta nuke the entire country and bring everyone home. Nuke the whole place!"
I felt I was in the tilt position to be able to have some positive input–as a random source of some sort of coincidology. Just one American speakin’ to another.
I felt if not pressure, then the seriousness of my imagined responsibility. Under the gun so to speak.
I asked him. You ever hear of Malalai Joya? He said no. Remember that name, I told him.
Why?
She agrees with you. About gettin’ out anyway. Don’t imagine she’d go for the nuke ‘em part. She taught little girls to read in secret schools. When she was 18. She’s 25 or 6 now. She’s the youngest woman, of the few ever elected, in the Loya Jirga. She rocks, man. She wants us out. She says you cannot bring democracy. It has to grow up from people. And she would work to teach girls to read and vote and work and go to school like they never could before.
I went on a little roll: teach girls. That’s what you want, I bet. And let girls become all that they can. Let ‘em learn physics. Become doctors, scientists, architects, politicians. I can’t believe women would have got us into this mess...
He said yeah. I’ll look her up.
He said the hotel name they were goin’ Snarled a bit. I said, Paradise. You got one night of paradise. Great family. I had loved these guys at first sight. Man, I said, enjoy every breath of free air you get with these two angels. Take that hotel to heart. It’s free, huh?
Oh yeah, he goes.
Get smart, says I. It’s a holiday. Now tell me what’s it like.
You wanna know what it’s like?
For sure.
OK. We got a report from a farm. The guy had been having trouble with the Taliban. Stealing his food and shit.
Yeah?
So we convoy up an head out there. It’s good intel. We get into a fire fight, and we chase them away. So it’s over quickly.
Kill any?
Yeah. Several. I didn’t see the count. Don’t matter. We didn’t get ‘em all. They fade into the hills. So we return to the farm. The owner is an ass-hole.
How so?
He’s pissed we upset his schedule. Says his goats and cows are upset. Gotta milk ‘em and the chickens are over the place. His wife is crying. The Captain is trying to pacify this idiot. Then in the middle of talkin’ he spits in the Captain’s face.
What?!
Real a-hole.
I look back at the wife. She is nodding at me. Positive. About the vocab-constab-ulary or what? The whole interrogation? This is de-briefing taxi style. I’m into it.
What did he do?
Do?! He did what he had to do?
Kill the guy!?
No. He ordered the house cleared. Then he had a tank run over it. Back and forth a couple times.
Gees-says.
That shuts ‘im up.
I bet. Then what?
We left.
There was a bit of silence there. The little girl was looking out the window when I took a glance in the mirror. She was hugging her dolly and looking out her window at the night. At Millbrae, California, on the bay side of the freeway. Big expanse of darkness off to our left which was salty water.
I said, if you got time. You get up early. You go for a walk here cross this street. Big, long park. Goes for miles. I didn’t know that for sure. You can see the birds flyin’ in under the jets. See the jets flying in to come and get you outa here. I hope you come back.
Yeah, great.
Then it came to me. The farmer. The captain. Had they talked before?
Yeah. I suppose they had to. There would have been some questions. How many insurgent? Maybe some directions. I guess. Stuff like that.
And it was friendly?
I didn’t see that.
Y’know. The genius of those two is cool. We pulled into the driveway of a very nice-looking hotel. Wow! I go. I ask the girl if she ever stayed at a hotel before. Unt-huh, she says.
[I’m going bananas inside.]
But I tell the girl, "You gotta try room service and free movies and order a coke and try pancakes for breakfast...that’s what you do in hotels. Use everything. Use ‘em up!"
Mom was sliding over to the girl’s side to get out. Daddy was pulling an airline voucher for the ride. I’d seen those before. Heck, happened to me one time. I’d had an angel with me too.
Gettin’ them together like that, almost out of the taxi, I said to the Marine, "They did it so he wouldn’t get killed."
"Huh?"
I mean, you guys couldn’t be there all the time. You had to return to base. So the Taliban would’ve killed this farmer if you hadn’t knocked his house down. It was survival. Your Captain only had to wipe off some spit and knock down a crappy house. He saves a family.
You got the same choice. Only you won’t get spit on. You get loved.
You’re the luckiest man in the world. If I were you, I’d wear that thing around your head for as long as it takes to never go back.
His wife touched my arm.
He nodded.
Thanks.
Peace, I said.
Driving back to the airport and the short line, I almost cried like a baby.
Joya. I kept saying it. Thinkin’ how I forgot her first name in the tears...
—o—
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