Tuesday, August 31, 2021

A Man Walks into a Store


A man walks into a store
And yells about masks
The cashier says ok sir You have to leave sir
That’s just our policy sir
The man yells freedom! Nazis!
Nazis! Freedom!
He pushes over a display
And walks out the door
The man walks back to his truck
He changes his shirt and hat
And drives down the road
He walks into a coffee shop
And yells about masks
The manager says ok sir You have to leave sir
That’s just our policy sir
The man yells Hail Fauci! My rights!
My rights! Hail Fauci!
He kicks a chair
And walks out the door
The man walks back to his truck
He changes his shirt and hat
And drives down the road
He walks into an airport
And yells about masks
The guard tells him ok sir You have to leave sir
That’s just the law sir
The man sings some lines
Oh say can you see
By the dawn's early light?
He rips down a sign
And walks out the door
The man walks back to his truck
He changes his shirt and hat
And drives down the road
He walks into a hospital
And yells about masks
The man falls down
The nurses pick him up
They put him in a bed
He yells freedom! Nazis!
Nazis! Freedom!
The man falls asleep

He drives down the road
And walks into a cave
He sees a tall bird
Standing still in the dark
The bird says hello
The man says hello He does not wake up





Wednesday, August 25, 2021

The Politics of Cuelty

He felt as if he couldn’t escape the politics of cruelty. It was like a vast, urine-soaked sheet draped across the continent.

The gratuitous cruelty of the internet jagoff.
The lowbrow, flamboyant cruelty of Donald.
The paycheck, crew cut cruelty of the tv “military expert.”
The stumbling and sputtering cruelty of the “proud boy.”
The high school essay cruelty of the right-wing news chud.
And it was all so embarrassing. To see men try to project an aura of strength, but transmit such idiocy - like watching a toddler take a crap in a sandbox.
Charlie Watts died yesterday. He thought how there was more grace in one of his bass-drum-to-snare hits than one of these fools would manage in a lifetime.


Friday, August 20, 2021

patriot [ pey-tree-uht ] noun

in American speech

1 a person dedicated to the maintenance of the hyper-individualist, white supremacist, misogynist, hyper-materialistic, ecology-hating, self-pitying and maudlin traditional American order.




Thursday, August 19, 2021

The Virus and the Unreal

No vaccines. No masks. No business closures or regulations. Nothing. Just let 'er rip because... it is not real. The acute pain, the gasping for air and dying alone in plastic tents, the weight of a grand piano on the chest in the testimony of hundreds of thousands, the other ER cases who cannot get a bed, the medical staff reduced psychologically to fumes and shards of burnout, the shattered families, the virus patients crawling back from death's door, the hundreds of thousands plundering through that door - their lungs topping out with fluid and drowning being their final experience on this mortal plain... none of it is real. Not real. Or unreal. Irreal. The only reality is what the believer asserts. Stand them in the ER of an Alabama hospital for the night shift today, August 18, 2021. Let them witness the chaos, the despair, the bewilderment, the howling pain of patients battling a hungry virus -- children, teenagers, college kids, butchers, bakers and businesswomen crushed by the thing from a bat or a lab. Let them watch the nurses and doctors and paramedics try to hold it together as they relive the exact hell they lived one year ago, almost to the day. Let the ideologue watch all of it and still they will say: IT IS NOT REAL. 




Two Squirrels

Two squirrels playing up and down a tree trunk. One with an crab apple in her mouth. One always on one side and the other always on the other. Claws on bark, winding up and down the tree like a lunatic ribbon. Playing that game in the black-and-white movies where the guy on one side of the wall looks for the lady on the other, craning his neck around the edge, just in time to see the empty space left by the lady, craning her neck around the edge trying to spy him.




The Father Spends a Lifetime Trying to Understand the Son



The father spends a lifetime trying to understand the son. The son spends a lifetime trying to understand why the father does not understand the son. He looks out the window. A small red bug walks across a leaf. The son thinks he must just say to the father - I am but the stranger version of you. The you who sat at my bedside and told me adventure stories straight from your head - Bortu the Giant Squid, Andy and the Time Machine. That’s who I am.

Monday, August 16, 2021

From the Point of View of Others


Moby Dick from the eye of the whale
King Lear from the dew near Dover
Jack and the Beanstalk from the white of the bean
20,000 Leagues from the waving coral fans
Apocalypse Now from the dark of the river
Stagecoach from the ribs of the horses
2001 from the fire of the stars