Not Satisfied!

Not satisfied with my last post. I want to convey something difficult to relate.

When I was a kid, the mean older boys played a game with us. We were to run while they threw darts at our bodies. The kind of darts meant to be thrown at a board. Maybe they did not intend to actually strike us, but I was struck, as I ran, in the back of my left calf. That metal point did not penetrate too deeply into my skin. The dart did fall out, but not before leaving an indelible blue/black scar I carry to this day. In times of great stress I pick at that old wound. Today I made it bleed.

This memory has sparked a meditation on cruelty. The ignorance and short shortsightedness inherent in harm. The police officer, whose life is as ruined as the family of the victim, believed he was doing his job. This was not like a gun going off. Not instant. But a sickening horror which will linger.  Why does this continue to happen?

Is there one definitive response?

I think my hero Bob Dylan may have done us a disservice when he sang...


"...the answer is blowin' in the wind."

We must find an answer. Say no to hate. Stop the war. War is over. If you want it. 

It's Official!

My friends who understand, it is a goal of mine, however naive, to craft posts and responses which are thoughtful as well as thought provoking, without insulting. These are my choices and the only way forward... forward for me is to appeal directly to the humanity inherent in all. Fully aware we can't please everyone, the deep divides in our country are not healing but getting worse. Calls for unity fall on deaf ears...

it's official, we have gone from difficult times to turbulent times where violence threatens life and property. 

You cannot wrap yourself in MY flag and do evil. You cannot advocate for violence and call yourself  "Leaders of the Free  World." 

This "Tough Guy" nonsense has to stop. You are not free, nor are you brave if you feel the need to strong arm the people, to silence them, to mock them, to bully them into submission. You are prisoners to your own delusions of moral superiority. 

It is no longer a matter of good or bad in people. It is about those of us willing ready and able to obey the law and those who are not. It is increasingly difficult in exponential ways to police those unwilling or unable to comply with the rule of law. This includes any President.

Violence will neither subdue the oppressed, nor will it soften the oppressor. Where we need wisdom...we get threats...where we need calm reassurance...we get derision. This is not leadership, but a bunker mentality fanning the flames of anarchy.



You enlightened ones are my beacon of hope. Please rise in a unified voice of reason. 

 Thank you for listening

19 TRIES (A Rant)

19 times

19 tries

That’s a lot of tries

That’s a lot of lies

April is the cruelest month

Shanti, shanti, shanti

The mummified remains of

All my boyhood American hero’s

were found in a cave

West of Wuhan

Where the air finally cleared

As the virus neared 

 

BUT

Not here —air would not clear

where Neo-Nero

Fiddled with conspiracy theories as fire burns down his revolving

White House door

Government no more

Print that money, print that money, print those dollar bills

Bankrupt morality

Prove government only works

For Politicians

Destroy the foundations

Under the Statue of Liberty

Topple that torch in favor

Of letting her fail

See if she can pull herself up by her bootstraps

Even though you know

she has no boots

(I never heard of a Master Plan

that didn’t involve slaves. )

And here we roll back

The PPE

The Perpetual Protection

of the Environment

Not so fast, not so fast

Not so fast to last

(MAGA =Wrap that shit in the American Flag so we all have to choke on it)

We've seen the lights go down

On Broadway

Dimmed to darkness

Where only ghost lights

Glow

We see our theater-going Public 

protesting in Times Square with 

placards demanding their

Right to breathe contaminated

Air -

No - wait that was the South

Rising again

In Michigan

Where armed confederates

Storm the capitol

And Clean Water Acts

Roll back in repeal

How can you repeal a clean water act when Flint Michigan is still Flint Michigan?

No. We gonna fight

For our right

To party

The god given freedom

To our stool at the bar

Where we can malign every thing, 

and every one

Except John Wayne

He’s OK. He’s dead.

December is the cruelest Moth

Where in Wuhan news broke

Of a new hoax

No,January is the cruelest month when borders finally closed, but not much else got done

No, February is the cruelest month

Where nothing happens

Except at sea on Carnival Cruises

stranded without a port to call upon 

and an unarmed black African American man

is shot in cold blood fighting for his life, liberty

and the right for white intelligent senators 

to unload their stocks on insider information

No, March is the cruelest month

When we were both sick in a Brooklyn hotel room with cough and fever before they closed the bar and we could no longer go lobby, lobby, lobby at intermissions between acts of plays and musicals, before when

stock market plunges in an economic vote of

“no confidence”

Trimming the only peg a comb-over had to hang upon

Now the economic recovery engineered by

A “previous administration” is

Gone

Along with those who may have

Read the pandemic playbook, and the pandemic response team

Who made use of the a fore mentioned newly minted revolving door before it

Exploded in fire from spinning so fast

It’s OK. The environment is not made to last. The gift from our parents, loan from our children, is ours to exploit for fun and

Profit (the Saudi's don't believe in climate change, it messes with their fossil fuel)

Ah, longing for the days when

April was the cruelest month

Breeding contempt for left wing activists out of the dead ground

But April was cruelest for the 70,000 souls 

departed in a hoax

of mass burial

The one million sick due to fake

news

April is perpetually cruel to lilacs

Waiting—still waiting to bloom

Spring is late this year, even in the South where she arrives early and is quickly replaced erased, fired by Summer heat and hum did-ity.

The Fire sermons have been silenced. 

But sermoners have taken to the web ways to spew anti-government hate

In the name of Jesus

And the constitution.

What the thunder says: Who cares about nursing homes or prisons or hospitals or schools or churches? Let them gather and lather each other in the corona covid Wuhan influenza epidemic of 1918

Cruel spring, unfeeling unknowing uncaring

Unbelievable.

I have lived long enough to see Haley’s Comet which I missed like a second plane 

hitting the World Trade Center (because I was north of the building)

Hurricanes and twisters

Earthquakes and presidential indiscretions and hate, always hate at the center of each of the...

 

how many wars since I have been born?

And nothing done

The pendulum swings to the right

And nothing done

The pendulum swings to the left and nothing done

Finally Space Force has been assembled

to begin an escape from a planet doomed

to collapse in upon itself because nobody listens

Anymore

Shanti, shanti, shanti

Shanti

Engage Your Core!

We have been doing Yoga With Adriene on YouTube since January. One of her catch phrases is "Engage your core!" As I go out into the yard and move my body, I find myself engaging my core.

She also has a phrase which reminds: "How you move your body matters." These two mantras follow me around all day and keep me from getting into trouble physically. This morning during my mediation, I thought of how I can also bring my mind and spirit into line with these two sayings.

Engage my core. My core beliefs of faith, hope, and kindness. Out in the world, how I move my body matters in how I can wear my mask, and keep social distance, while not judging others who don't do the same thing.

It simply has occurred to me that "Freedom" means different things to different people. Folks are free to scoff, to mock, to debase and to basically hate whatever they want. The difference between truth and lies is meaningless. And though it hurts to witness this, it is their right to do so. I don't have to agree, or maybe it matters not what I do.

This time of pandemic is an introvert's nightmare. But the weather has been amazing here. Warm days and cool nights, things growing, bugs still sleeping. All this seems to be an affirmation: Engage Your Core. Remember your values and let not the seeming willful ignorance of others enrage or inflame an already fraught situation. Don't let the political divisions of this once great nation tarnish your own love for family and country.

I say it is a "once great nation" because in my 62 years I have never seen such bitterness between parties. It's like watching your parents fight and head for divorce while you're powerless to stop them. And only you can see what they cannot. James Dean said it best in the film "Rebel Without a Cause."

"You're tearing me apart!"

For me, I would rather be "too sensitive," then the alternative. My cause for rebellion is at my core. Do not conform to hate. Though I may die tomorrow, I keep my focus on that center of my spiritual and intellectual being.

Namaste everyone.