I would not expect you to live your life based on my life experience; DO NOT force me to live my life based on YOUR life experience.
pandemic
… the times…
man out of place
I find myself in a strange situation.
I am dead yet my body does not know it.
Looking at the world about me I no longer recognize….
What should be familiar is strange and unknowable.
There was a time when I would have relished
the strangeness and foreignness of this lifes situation….
I actually find it unnerving.
It seems that any foundation or rootedness
that would have grounded me during such times
has been swept away…
so completely and with a sense of finality
that even when I go to familiar places or spaces,
I do not recognize them. I see familiar faces and hear familiar voices
but they only seem to be echoes of a past long gone.
I may as well be a foreigner in a strange land.
Nothing matters as I am no longer connected…
I am truly a man
out of place
in space and time…
not knowing how it happened
or how to change it.
Should it be changed?
I suppose time will tell.
What will the future hold?
What will I look like
in the end?
What will the world look like
in the end?
Our humanity will be changed,
but will it be for the better
in the end?
Will we look back as through a glass darkly
and say “Who was that?”
In the end.
My life has become abstracted beyond recognition…
I put one foot in front of the other….
isolation
Isolation is like serving time
Except in this case I’ve done no crime
I choose to be alone to search my soul
To see if there is good in this heart with a hole
I had no control when I lived out there
My life became a nightmare
There is no love in isolation
All you have is your imagination
I live in a world created on my own
Contempt for the outside keeps me alone
Isolation is for me
The only way to be free
Isolation is liberation
When desperation is what you feel
Isolation is liberation
When desperation is what you feel
Isolate myself
Free myself
Isolate myself
Be myself
FUCK THE MASK!
The Mask is the law according to our State Governor. It is a law based on fear. Fear of becoming sick. Fear of making others sick. Fear of death. My conscience will not let me wear a mask. By not wearing a mask, “I quietly declare war on the State.”
“I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe- ‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. “
“When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State.”
“The authority of government, … can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. “
The quotes above are from Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience. More important now than at any other recent time in our history. All of life is a risk. Another blogger recently posted a plaintive plea to “please wear a mask” stating that 1 in every 20 people may get sick if you don’t. Well to that I add. That’s still 19 in 20 that will not! COVID-19 is natures way of “correcting” the impact of the human population on the planet. Nature always wins.
Wearing a mask does NOT mean you will not die. Wearing a mask does NOT mean you will not make others sick. Wearing a mask does NOT mean you will not get sick. Wearing a mask does NOT mitigate your fear. Your fear of death, your fear of illness or your fear of the government gives you NO right to impinge on the rights of others who believe differently.
So don’t give me your false short-sighted narratives espoused by the media, politicians and religion. The real heroes are those who are immune, asymptomatic and recovered because they are the future of the human race. In short, I REFUSE to live YOUR fear.
*if you “like” this post you either didn’t read it or your agree with it. I prefer the latter.
poem to the world
We Did It Our Way (6/14/2020)
For all those around the world
who have have been sickened and harmed by
America’s bigotry
America’s duplicity
America’s meddling
into your lives, your governments, your countries
this legacy of self-interest
“I don’t think there are any Russians
and there ain’t no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin’ with tanks”
“The child of hatred comes of age…
The sad neglect will surely take its toll…
Violent times”(*)
For all those around the world
who have prayed
prayed in earnest and
prayed continually
“A plague upon America.”
“Death to America!”
or cried out “when will it end?”
God has heard you and
God has answered
I can tell you
with more coronavirus cases
and deaths
than any other country in the world
with social unrest
caused by a pandemic, racism, inconsistent values,
police brutality and failed leadership
I can tell you
that you may feel confident
you did not have to lift a finger
you did not need to attack us
God has heard your prayers
and like the tower of Babel
Our “language” has become confused
like the walls of Jericho
all you had to do was blow your horns
we have come crashing down
the modern Rome is falling
you did not have to lift a finger
you did not need to attack us
let the ruin be a lesson
We did it our way
We did it to ourselves
* 2nd stanza quotes taken from The Call’s eerily prescient album MODERN ROMANS (1983)
arriving somewhere but not here
Never stop the car on a drive in the dark
Never look for the truth in your mother’s eyes
Never trust the sound of rain upon a river
Rushing through your earsArriving somewhere but not here
Did you imagine the final sound as a gun?
Or the smashing windscreen of a car?
Did you ever imagine the last thing you’d hear as you’re fading out was a song?All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, compromised
All of my dreams, sacrificedEver had the feeling you’ve been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught
Every thought from here on in your life begins
And all you knew was wrong?Arriving somewhere but not here
All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, compromised
All of my dreams, sacrificedDid you see the red mist block your path?
Did the scissors cut a way to your heart?
You’re the only good thing in my life
You only fuck for love
Told me you could never get enough
Posing as a Playboy centerfold
You could be my Penthouse Pet, I knowYou make me think of storms on the beaches
With all the lights offEverything is wrong, but it’s alright
You’re the only good thing in my lifeDo what your heart desires
Love is always strange when it just starts
Shouldn’t have a care left in the world
Naked, tanning by the swimming pool…Laying in the sun,
Never need to tell me when you come
Because you know that I can just feel it
Songs From The Wood
Let me bring you songs from the wood:
To make you feel much better than you could know
Dust you down from tip to toe
Show you how the garden grows
Hold you steady as you go
Join the chorus if you can:
It’ll make of you an honest man
Let me bring you love from the field:
Poppies red and roses filled with summer rain
To heal the wound and still the pain
That threatens again and again
As you drag down every lover’s lane
Life’s long celebration’s here
I’ll toast you all in penny cheer
Let me bring you all things refined:
Galliards and lute songs served in chilling ale
Greetings well met fellow, hail!
I am the wind to fill your sail
I am the cross to take your nail:
A singer of these ageless times
With kitchen prose and gutter rhymes
Songs from the wood – make you feel much better
Songs from the wood
Let me bring you love from the field:
Poppies red and roses filled with summer rain
To heal the wound and still the pain
That threatens again and again
As you drag down every lovers’ lane
Life’s long celebration’s here
I’ll toast you all in penny cheer
who wants to live forever?
There’s no time for us,
There’s no place for us,
What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us.Who wants to live forever,
Who wants to live forever
There’s no chance for us,
It’s all decided for us,
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.Who wants to live forever,
Who dares to love forever,
When love must die.But touch my tears with your lips,
Touch my world with your fingertips,
And we can have forever,
And we can love forever,
Forever is our today,
Who wants to live forever,
Who wants to live forever,
Forever is our today,
Who wants forever anyway?
... on being and becoming ... 