He is a Native American alcoholic,

bi-polar poet, whose stories are his

God and not the Hebrew,

Christian, Muslim nor even the Native

American God or Gods – Mother Earth,

Father Sun, et. al.

He is an angry prophet mad for his

people but mad at his people, too – all of

them who have killed

themselves with booze including most of

the people in his family, clan, tribe, nation.

He reminds me of my late

friend, a German American, alcoholic, bi-

polar genius with an encyclopedic mind

and poetic voice haunted

by the suicide of his father thirty years

before my friend put a gun to his head

and pulled the trigger —

an angry Lakota, an angry German Amer-

ican from North Dakota – a lonely Native

American poetic voice for

justice, a now silent poetic, operatic voice

of exquisite beauty heard only in the hearts of

his conflicted loved ones

– the two separated only by a hair’s

breadth or more vividly a hare’s

breath on the frozen Dakota

tundra.

Are we more interested in the biography,

The life, the history, the incidents than

The work?

Are we so curious yellow and National

Inquirish?  Apparently, we want to know

About but not know.

We say we want to know. They say

Knowledge is Power; a high school

Has it as its motto,

But the fiftieth reunion revealed

That fifty years later the graduates

Don’t want to know,

In fact, they don’t even want to know

About – you. They just want to tell

You about themselves.

So, the reunion was about chatter

Bouncing off of the walls and not

At all about knowing

Or even the lesser — knowing about.

And so much for the wisdom that

comes with age.

The kid said his parents were enablers.

He wears a gray, hoody sweatshirt;

He has bangs and he just sold social

Technology for a billion plus and

He’s being interviewed on late night

T.V.  He said he gives completely

Everyday to enabling art and film

Forward whatever that means and

The enabling goes on and on. He

Seems like a wonderfully nice kid

Addressing his frustration and

Addressing his career and his legacy

At twenty-eight or maybe something

Short of that, and that’s interesting.

What will he be thinking in forty-

Years when he is sixty-eight, if he

Makes it there?  In a moment of

Candor, he did say he knows nothing

Of history. When will the ever elusive

Sophia be interviewed up close and

Personal instead of the kid with bangs

Posing as the Oracle of Delphi who

Has been enabled by his parents,

Left school and made a gazillion dollars

Overnight and brags that a former

Presidential cabinet member and professor

Who didn’t drop out of school in eighth

Grade but went on for his Ph.D. uses

That site, as if to give it credibility?

In a commercial on T.V., they’re

extolling the virtues of being able

to watch T.V. wherever you are

due to modern technology – like

in a city park where the viewer of

the T.V. missed the activities in the

park or like on the beach where

the viewer missed the water and

the horizon beyond or like the

bathing suit clad beautiful young

woman who sat on large rocks

on a seashore staring at the screen

and missed the seashore for a really

important commercial about how

you can watch T.V. wherever you

are and whatever you might be missing

of God’s glorious creation for a T.V.

commercial about really great modern

technology.

He saw a scene on T.V. and the

victim of rape, a young, minority

female in a hospital had a necklace

with a relatively small unobtrusive

cross on it, and he began to wonder

about the cross.  Some say, it means

that God’s anger against humanity

was satisfied with God committing

the ultimate infanticide by killing

off God’s son – negative, no matter

Augustine’s and Anselm’s credentials,

and then he thought about tragic,

premature death that has had him, from

time to time, in a maelstrom sucking

him down into darkness and then he

thought about standing in a small

kitchen all by himself and screaming

bloody murder and lifting his clenched

fist and arm in anger to the heavens

and then seeing, in his mind’s eye, the

cross, one that looked a lot like the one

worn by that T.V. young victim of rape

and knowing then and all these years later,

that we are loved and we will persevere.

What more do we need to know that T.V.

is phony-baloney than the image of a

beautiful couple in bed,

waking, stretching, embracing,

open-mouth kissing and

talking face to face?

Excuse me, darling, while I grab

four Listerine breath strips —

two for me and two for you

before heading to the finals.

They were interviewed in their

kitchen. Actually, we were, too.

A reporter asked to interview us,

newly wedded widowers, seven-

teen years ago. We said sure. He

took a photo and the article appear-

ed in the human interest section

of the weekend edition of the

local paper. This, however, was

about a T.V. ad with incredibly

attractive actors trying to look like

ordinary, middle-age folk just hang-

ing out in their super cool kitchen

while being a bit disheveled, but

still really, enviably, cool looking

while extolling the virtues (Was

that a twinkle in his eye and a

smirky smile on his face?) of a

vitamin for the over fifty-five

crowd. I wondered if a film crew

would show up in our very contemp-

orary kitchen, much more contemp-

orary than the one in the photo seven-

teen years ago, to film me and my wife

if we started consuming these vitamins.

Um, probably not.  No, definitely, not,

but, hey, we had our day in the sun,

really, informally, disheveledly cool

for our little town.  I still have a

copy, somewhere. I think. Honey!

What is it with some

Animal shelter

People?

They seem so abrupt,

In a hurry and

Defensive,

On top of everything

They expect in

applications.

Are these the best

Society has to

Offer

To be caring for

Strays, and the

Abused?

They are rude if

You don’t hurry

Up

And do things

Their

Way.

Maybe, they are

War weary and

Have

Developed a hatred

Of the very

Species

That could offer

Safety and succour —

Homo sapiens.

Yes, the species that

Inflicted the damage

In

The first place. Maybe

Animal shelter

people

Are shell-shocked and

Strike at the ones who

Could

Help — maybe they are

The medics of the

Animal

Kingdom suspicious

Of the motives of

Those

Waving the white flag.

Maybe, they have

Been

At it too long and

Have seen too

Much

And suffer from post-

Traumatic doggie

Shock

Syndrome. I’ve been yelled

At by dog shelter

People

For not standing attention

And saluting –

And

All I wanted to do

Was rescue a

Dog.

I tried to tell them,

I’m not the bad

Guy,

Who did the damage,

But I’m so confused;

Maybe

It’s my past catching

up and it’s karma

again.

We all have some

Things in our

Past….

I’m so sorry; all

I wanted to do was

Adopt

A lonely dog. Maybe

They are saying,

“Wait,

Just a minute, Bub.

We know human

Nature.”

So, I yield and so

Do, you,

Too.

When we met for coffee, he was excited

to tell us of his daughter, the recent

high school grad, who had just finished

top of her basic training class.

He glowed as he described that military

graduation and especially the heart warming,

inspiring Protestant worship service. They

filed in, straight-backed, disciplined kids

marching to the beat of the only drummer

in town, sat, stood and sang hymns and

when the “Individual Salvation in Jesus

Christ” chaplain made the earnest, somber

altar call, “Every-head-bowed-every-eye-

closed-just-as-I-am-time” in the service,

the wet behind the ears, impressionable

kids so full of themselves but reverent and

humble and emotional in the moment hit

the sawdust trail. When the call was over

and they had committed to Jesus as they

had just previously committed to Caesar,

they marched back to their seats to shouts

of  “Ooowaah” from their previously sanctified

comrades and awkward, muted cheers from

some obstinate, hold-out comrades. Dad said

he was really, really touched.  I thought to my-

self, now they can go off to war to kill Muslims

in confidence of  eternity and perhaps be blown

to bits by an I.E.D. with the reward for their

efforts on behalf of Caesar, the Christian version

of paradise, that being for ever and ever with sweet

Jesus. The radical fringe jihadists, on the other hand,

promised seventy-two really great looking virgins

to keep their gullible kids occupied forever and ever.

I don’t know about his daughter, but for the nineteen-

year-old, gung-ho guys that might be a tough call.

I wanted to ask if the recessional hymn was “Onward

Christian Soldiers,” but my wife gave me the look

and I just sat there and kept quiet.

Sometimes something I

think newsworthy

comes my way,

and I break a rule

not to bother

e-mail friends

and so I send some-

thing their way

and nothing

comes my way

telling me to just

post a blog

and not bother

anyone that

way,

reaffirming why

I wrote what I

did that other

day.