The sergeant didn’t save the baby
from the burning building.
His partner did, but irony or ironies,
the partner was under cover
and couldn’t show his face.
So, the one who didn’t save
the baby had to sacrifice himself,
do the honorable thing and be
heralded as the hero. How hard
must it have been to stand
on the podium in front of all those
fellow cops and an adoring
public not to mention going home
to a wife with a whole new
revitalized, energized libido for
that hero husband?
What’s not being said
except all over Rev. Al’s
face?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
except on the white GOP
faces?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
directly anywhere in
public?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
except everywhere in
private?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
except through veiled
codes?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
except bar tossing and
birthers?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
except he’s really a
foreigner?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
except stop the
aliens?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
about white on black and
brown?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
about fear, hate, jingoism,
xenophobia?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
except everything but the
n-word?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
about Revere’s new panic
ride?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
about fear of the rainbow
invasion?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
about all being scared to name
it?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
about the truth of what Carter
did say?
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
is what the President can’t
say.
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
is E Pluribus
Unum.
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
is that all this is
racist.
Political Civil War
What’s not being said
is “Lord, have mercy upon
us.”
Life Is Not the Movies
Life is not the movies.
It needs better writers,
spoke
the screenwriter and I
thought about politics
(and popcorn
and previews and wished I
was in the aisle seat about mid-
way back
in the dark watching a great
political thriller, but here I am).
A political writer
said this is the most vacuous
campaign in memory.
(Maybe an
espionage flick like the most
recent Bourne would be even better.)
Ivy league
educated candidates who
can’t seem to utter a cogent
statement of
substance on any issue affecting
the masses yearning to be…(Hmmm,
yeah, maybe
that’s why the guys with numb tongues
are stuttering through the summer) free?
Maybe that really
is just another word for nothing left to lose
now that the house is gone — another phrase
I heard someone else say —
with my own apologies to the Oxford scholar who
wrote the song and the King of the Road and Janis who
sang it at different times —
one with a twang and the other with a scream.
Where is Ambrose Bierce, H.L. Mencken, Mark
Twain and, of
course, the ever quotable, “Unsinkable” Molly Ivins
when you need them (no, not the Comedy
Central guys),
not to write the memorable lines for the candid-
ates, but, at least, to give us something substan-
tive upon which
to chew and make us laugh and cry
while we ate our popcorn?
I’m breathing well;
my chocolate lab is not —
my asthma, his throat.
I know how he feels –
inability to breathe
freely and deeply.
Panic lurks close by,
always ready to attack —
shallow breathing, fear.
Our baby Boomer
panting, slurping water,
begging for relief.
Maybe another
doggie prozac will help him
settle down and sleep.
Now I lay me down
to sleep. I pray the Lord
Boomer’s life to keep.
If he should die be-
fore I wake, I pray his soul
to heaven does take.
Listening to Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz,
did I hear correctly?
The soprano sax guy said we are the youngest
of the species?
And he listens to humpback whales and other
creatures of the sea and land
for inspiration for his environmental music? He
rides the rapids
of the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand
Canyon with his jazz
quartet recording the sounds of the river and the
soprano sax and bass
and drums and keyboard as the music echoes off
the ancient walls.
I wondered how they kept the instruments dry not
to mention kept
the stuff in the boat. At the time I was belching out
CO2 and air pollutants
on a beautiful Saturday morning drive to buy microbrew
beer and La Vieille
Ferme, a French friend of my son told him it’s a great every-
day wine, in red, rose
and white for my nephew and his family visiting from Chicago.
I’d forgotten to buy those
things along with a loaf of rye bread yesterday on another
rum run. So there
I was, a member of the youngest of the species, doing
my part to bring
to an end the short and happy life of the youngest
of the species
while listening to the soprano sax guy’s beautiful hump-
back whale, Colorado
River, Grand Canyon environmental music. Sometimes the irony
of things just smacks
me upside the head. Do I get a pass for being a member of the
youngest of the species, and,
therefore, not necessarily
the wisest
of the
species?
I didn’t think so.
Call me clueless, he said,
I read your blog. Congratulations on selling your house. I’m wondering if you are serious about cutting other ties to where you sold your house, like our friendship.
Call me clueless.
I’ve been thinking about you and wondering what the heck went wrong with our relationship.
Call me clueless.
I have known you for about a decade, all the years good from my perspective until you apparently wanted to end the relationship for reasons unknown to me. Was it the time I proffered, watch your ego?
Call me clueless.
I know. We are not creatures that take kindly to advice, especially when not requested. But I thought a decade would help weather the storm even if such a storm blew in hard from the west across Lake Michigan or perhaps just from your eyes and into my face.
Call me clueless.
You just sat there, shook your head no and said what you do, you do for Jesus and in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. Was it my frown of doubt? The storm must just have churned inside. Do you practice that hide?
Call me clueless.
I hate investing that much time in a relationship just to have it end abruptly.
Call me clueless.
That is to say, perhaps I could understand the ending if I understood the reasons. Was that it? The caution, the warning, the look out/watch out? What is it I’m not understanding?
Call me clueless.
Why do I feel that you can so easily just kiss a friendship goodbye. Is it that way with others, too? Is there history here? You’d think I’d know after ten years. You’d think,
Call me clueless.
and if that is the case, why does that disconcert me besides the fact that no decade long relationship should end so glibly? Are you that callow of a fellow at your age?
Call me clueless.
I told someone that you apparently just cut off the relationship and he simply asked, “Well, what is friendship, anyway?” Nicely put, Socrates.
Call me clueless.
My question exactly. Others have asked why I would even bother. They say for all those years it was all about you, no two-way street in the town of our time together.
Call me clueless.
I thought I was being a mentor. Then, I thought we had moved into friendship. There were clues along the way they say.
Call me clueless.
You preach love, compassion, forgiveness, justice, peace and yet, when it comes to practicing such things with someone who was a friend for so long they seem to fly out the proverbial window. Intimacy issues? I’m groping in the dusk or dawn not dark here.
Call me clueless.
Perhaps it is easier to write a newspaper article about those Jesus things than to be those things in the flesh and blood with another person. Where did incarnation go, long time passing?
Call me clueless.
You get a by-line and I get a good-bye line.
Call me clueless.
You get a photo in the paper and I get shoved out of the picture.
Call me clueless.
Apparently, I have a harder time leaving friendships behind than you do and as a result, I’m feeling very vulnerable, opening myself up to another rejection from a friend of all those years, but it is a risk I am willing to take,
Call me clueless.
if for no other reason than, I believe Jesus calls me to take it, the Jesus who befriended us all and made us friends of all but doormats of none. Eyes wide open.
Call me clueless.
After all these years, I would like to know something one way or another either to keep the relationship going or regretfully to say goodbye to the runaway guy.
Call me clueless.
In either event, I wish you nothing but the best (Yeah, I’m not being exactly truthful) as you seek to follow the way of peace and justice. I leave you with another of your sayings from your blog:
“Surprise! When you are present, you are a gift.”
Don’t call me clueless.
Just call me sad and, in all honesty, a little mad, but this, too, shall pass and I’ll get on with getting on because I think that’s a calling, too, he said.
He Cut His Teeth
He cut his classical music baby teeth
on Debussy while in the a/v room
of his community college
where he worked to make a few dollars
to help with the cost of his books having
received a scholarship which
paid for his tuition but which meant he would
have to live a couple more years with
his less than agreeable mother
after his lovable but very troubled father died
prematurely at his own hand at the age
of fifty-six. He listened to C chords
and sharp chords not knowing to what he was
listening and what one critic acknowledging
the 150th anniversary of Claude’s birth
dubbed a piece of Debussy’s music “as if
a tectonic musical plate has shifted.” He
didn’t know that. He just knew he
had shifted in his seat in the a/v room when
he heard it. He didn’t have a clue about
that tectonic shift having listened
mostly to The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and
Mary and the unbelievable harmonics of
The Beach Boys, not then appreciating
the classical music talent of the boys anymore
than he understood Debussy. He just loved the
storm of La Mer, the waves rolling high
and violent and feeling so much like Lake Michigan
a few miles away on the Chicago, Illinois side
originally and then the Michigan side
directly across from Racine, Wisconsin
and the image of the deer stopping in the
woods in his imagination near Lac du
Flambeau, Minocqua, and Indian Lake in
Prelude to the Afternoon of the Fawn.
He just learned that the tectonic
genius who was ambivalent about being
an Impressionistic composer but also
ambivalent in love and lust
having bedded several, leaving one
to attempt suicide and then fathering
his only child, a daughter, by a
married woman. “Oh, Claude, what am I to do
with you?” he called to the heavens on the
anniversary of Debussy’s birth.
Nothing, absolutely nothing anymore than
He would do to the Kingston Trio as he
strummed MTA and Tom Dooley
or Peter, Paul and Mary as he worked
an arpeggio from B minor to E minor
in “The Cruel War.”
He put the guitar down, sat back and thought
about PP and M at the McCormick Place concert.
Peter said he was no disciple, Paul said he was
no apostle and Mary said she was no virgin.
They brought down the house. He was with
the girl friend who he thought he would
see at the fiftieth anniversary of their high
school graduation but she died in Tucson
AZ after an unhappy marriage to
an Ivy League professor. Here all this time
since he sat in the a/v room listening to
Debussy he was just sure her life
had been magical.
The good rabbi,
being
a good rabbi,
made,
in his own
words,
a rough analogy —
perhaps, but
a smooth simile:
The fear
after 9/11
led to building up
armies and killing
terrorists.
That,
he said, is like
killing
every mosquito
to
stop malaria.
Better to
“dry up the swamps.
Dry up
the swamps
of hatred.
Dry up
the swamps with
generosity and
care.”
He follows
another good
rabbi, Jesus, who
told the
rich, young
ruler (what did
Jesus know? Was
the ruler
buttering
him up a bit?)
not to call him
good but
this good Jesus
came
to dry up
stagnant
swamps
swarming with
hatred,
to preach
love
on the mountain
so
“justice
would roll
down
like
waters and
righteousness
like an
ever flowing
stream.”
Neither rabbi
is
stagnant.
Both –
dynamic.
Tell us
a story,
rabbi.
Help us
to
see.
On Sunday Morning
On Sunday morning he got up and rode his trusty-
but-not-at-all-rusty-thirty-seven-year-old-ten-speed
five-miles to the best-breakfast-restaurant-in-town.
He rode on the bike path next to the road that takes
vacationers to rental cottages and the beach. The
Beemers, Caddies, Mercedes and one Maserati
buzzed loudly as they passed like steel-aluminum-
plastic-four-wheeled-giant hornets and wasps. Some
WASPS turned left at the outdoor worship service
but many went on to the best-breakfast-restaurant-
in-town. When he arrived he carefully maneuvered
his bike among the cars jockeying for a parking
space, parked the bike, went in and ordered a cup
of gourmet-coconut-and-dark-chocolate-flavored-
coffee and a pig-in-the-blanket and then sat
outside at one of the tables to eat, drink and read
the latest issue of The Sun magazine, but as he sipped
and chewed he watched the Sunday morning
vacationers at the parking lot version of bump
cars at a carnival, only just barely missing
bumping as they eagerly, seemingly selfishly,
speedily sought out an open parking space.
Some double parked blocking three or four
cars from getting out if they needed to
in-order-to-run-in for a take-out-order from
the bakery next to the restaurant. Some stole
spots from others slipping in like laughing
hyenas while another waited for a car to pull
out of the space. The displaced driver gunned his
engine like the lion in the MGM logo
announcing his presence with a great roar.
After they parked, the pilgrims got out of
their cars and flip-flopped in no particular
hurry up to the door of the restaurant having
secured a spot in the lot. They moved non-
chalantly as if they had been entitled to
to be where they were. All that was missing
was a doorman. He noticed that the drivers of the
cars with the Illinois license plates were the
most aggressive in their pursuit of parking and
that came to him as no surprise. It just confirmed
previous experiences he had had winding his
way through the Windy City, especially the time
he observed the road rage directly in front of
him as he drove along the Dan Ryan in the
shadow of the tower-formerly-known-as-Sears
during rush hour which he knew to be just about any hour.
Brakes screeched, bottles flew and he prayed.
He went back to his pig and continued reading
the interview with a progressive rabbi on how
there could be world peace if only nations
practiced the hesed (loving kindness) of
Yahweh and took seriously the compassion
and love and justice of Jesus and stopped
acting like uber-nationalistic, hyper-capitalistic
creatures living out of their alligator brains.
He sat there sipping his coconut-dark-
chocolate-flavored-gourmet-coffee and simply
shook his head as a Lexus flew by barely
missing a Range Rover backing quickly
out of a space. The Rover, oblivious to the
near miss, roved all over the parking lot
on its way out onto the road that would
take the passengers back to the vacation
home, the beach, maybe an afternoon
round of golf and, of course, the
eagerly anticipated happy-hour later
with single-malt-scotch and single-barrel-
bourbon before dinner before
the trip back to the city to catch
a few winks before putting on
the three-piece suit.
.
Homage to Indecipherability in Yellow and Red
Mustard swirls into volcanic dust as
Sparks fly out of yellow kayaks paddling
Up Everest angling their way around
Empty air canisters and a whole lot of
Dry, unmentionable matter
Once yellow now brown before doing
An Eskimo roll in the
Evaporated pee.
The bottom of the sea lowers itself toward
China and the four climbers without
Hygiene products keep their distance on the rope
As they swim into the rapidly flowing river of
Volcanic mustard.
The heavens close the door while
China opens its to the kayakers and
Climbers so in need of a bath of
Sulfur salts but who will descend
Into the dark holes of the
Universe to escape the green
Turned yellow earth, wind and
Now just fire.
