Saturday, May 30, 2009

Recount


“Solomon, come over here dear friend,” he said. “I want you to see this.”

With cautious steps Solomon made sure to walk along the lines so as not to disturb the boards that creaked with even the slightest pressure. When he was younger he had nightmares of his bedroom floorboards opening up and swallowing him whole. His imagination had let him be taken in by the bubbling, glaucous goop that existed beneath his floorboards and within his head. It was toxic to him – all of it.

“Dear friend, I fear that the request you have given me cannot be fulfilled,” Solomon said. “I forgot to eat lunch just this past hour.”

“Mother always told me you were a picky eater, Solomon. You should work on that I tell you. Start with the blinis if any are left over – Mumsie said they were divine.”

Solomon gradually nodded his head but his eyes remained transfixed on tangent with the voice in the chair. He turned around, walked in a hurried manner and forgot completely about the floorboards. By the time he had reached the salver on the dining room table, he realized that his dear friend had played quite the trick on him.

“Mumsie didn’t bring us blinis!” he mewled. “All that is left is that dreadful champagne and those silly little pearls of onyx salinity!”

“Oh my, little Solomon,” said the voice sitting in the chair. “You foolish little twit – I must’ve eaten the last bunch. Apologies I do say, apologies.”

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Solitaire



What are burnt ashes and cracked wood,
But pieces sitting on the ground.
Darkened and chalky they will sit,
Soaking water, dew or the rain.

It is all the same they will say,
It is just a matter of words.
Semantics will only bother,
Forget meaning and thought for once.

These are not to be worried for,
Let them sit and be carried on.
Wind blows on like the life we live,
Use it to your will and your needs.

To fight what is burnt takes much more,
You can’t create with just one tool.
You’ll need far more than that my friend,
Listen but do not burn so soon.

Give it time and let it sit slow,
New light comes with every day.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Churl






“We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream, and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death.”
- F.B.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Tumefaction





E.C.C.
III I IX

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones,
and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain has the worker from his toil?


Time for dinner.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Equinoctial






MUSIC
By Our Generation

Gotta get-get, gotta get-get
Gotta get-get, gotta g-g-g-get-get-get, get-get

Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get

Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom pow
Boom boom

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Jardiniere





I can hear the raindrops but they don’t bother me. I can feel the sprinkles as they soak into my sweater. They come yet I have no umbrella to stop them. A puddle sits in the middle of the road. I step in it. The water soaks into the leather of my sole then leads into the even softer leather above it. My laces can’t protect me no matter how tight I tie them. My woolen sock cannot wick and my skin surely cannot protect the coldness that is to hit it. My toes curl; the soggy wool squishes between my toes. It’s raining outside and I just stepped into a puddle. Could it have been avoided? Could I have walked in front of the car instead? I can imagine the sight of a shoe – or even two – flying through the air only to land on the sidewalk. A kid might pick it up or maybe a dog might sniff it. Good thing I put some deodorant on this morning. Otherwise, all of this could’ve turned quite afoul. Smelly rain, oh smelly rain – who has won this silly game?

Friday, May 15, 2009

Lee Waves






Waves

Speak softly and carry a big stick,
Once said a dear friend, err, I mean dick.
They offered kool-aid and punch for all,
Tropical and such, I do recall.

Bastions of whores scattered the fine scene,
Mingling and mangling seemed so routine,
Mud turned to blood and blood to dark foam,
A mansion cum palace de la holm.

Piglets strapped abound, tramped all about,
Spurts of stupidity came by flout.
An inkling seemed terribly tempting,
The drupe was already consenting,
Flings and dings and bangs go all abound,
Crashing and booming, thuds on the ground.

It awoke in the hours of bright,
Curled in acts that came with hindsight.
Champagne and caviar was in need,
Never this seemed a merited deed.

Whispers to vespers bring shouts to screams,
Cloudy confusion brings our worst dreams.
Slowly, surely, sun come to me here,
This shit blows my mind, whirs in my ear.

It happened without a single thought,
Tempted I ask, or merely store bought.
Questions, I say questions are with me,
I didn’t mean, I mean no, yes, please.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Helical






“It’s a full, rich mouthful that hits me with a rush of pleasure akin to hearing the curtain whisk close behind me as I walk into a plane’s first class cabin.”

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Helmed






Now all the ladies in the place
If you got real hair, real fingernails
If you got a job, you going to school
And y'all need nobody to help you handle your business
Make some noise

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Percolate






1830

It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it Promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid.

It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community. These consequences, some of them so certain and the rest so probable, make the complete execution of the plan sanctioned by Congress at their last session an object of much solicitude.

Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people. I have endeavored to impress upon them my own solemn convictions of the duties and powers of the General Government in relation to the State authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by the States within the scope of their reserved powers they are not responsible to this Government. As individuals we may entertain and express our opinions of their acts, but as a Government we have as little right to control them as we have to prescribe laws for other nations.

With a full understanding of the subject, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes have with great unanimity determined to avail themselves of the liberal offers presented by the act of Congress, and have agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi River. Treaties have been made with them, which in due season will be submitted for consideration. In negotiating these treaties they were made to understand their true condition, and they have preferred maintaining their independence in the Western forests to submitting to the laws of the States in which they now reside. These treaties, being probably the last which will ever be made with them, are characterized by great liberality on the part of the Government. They give the Indians a liberal sum in consideration of their removal, and comfortable subsistence on their arrival at their new homes. If it be their real interest to maintain a separate existence, they will there be at liberty to do so without the inconveniences and vexations to which they would unavoidably have been subject in Alabama and Mississippi.

Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and Philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated or has disappeared to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there anything in this which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the conditions in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?

The present policy of the Government is but a continuation of the same progressive change by a milder process. The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual.

Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did or than our children are now doing? To better their condition in an unknown land our forefathers left all that was dear in earthly objects. Our children by thousands yearly leave the land of their birth to seek new homes in distant regions. Does Humanity weep at these painful separations from everything, animate and inanimate, with which the young heart has become entwined? Far from it. It is rather a source of joy that our country affords scope where our young population may range unconstrained in body or in mind, developing the power and faculties of man in their highest perfection.

These remove hundreds and almost thousands of miles at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival. Can it be cruel in this Government when, by events which it can not control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement. . . .

May we not hope, therefore, that all good citizens, and none more zealously than those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to the laws of the States, will unite in attempting to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true condition, and by a speedy removal to relieve them from all the evils, real or imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may be supposed to be threatened.