“Violence and death

are a huge challenge

to meaning,”

said the acclaimed poet who,

when twelve, accidentally

shot his kid brother

to death

while hunting

and the man’s mind

ran to his father

stepping in front of a train

when the man

was a teen,

then his wife’s veins 

exploding in her brain

while she sat in vain

on the

commode

thinking that would fix it all

before she dropped to the floor,

never to get up,

silence, slamming, screaming, slow

motion,

distance, wandering,

groping,

clawing,

and then after months

and months hoping

and life happening

and then (Was it a year or two?)

actually

realizing that life was happening

and then, impossibly,

once again, caring

and seeing the

colors.

The rain replenished

the earth, the

garden, the new white

pines

designed

to replace old red

pines more at

home farther north.

The Chocolate Lab

still huffed and

puffed his way

through the

thunder and

lightning

not knowing how

important the rain

is to the backyard

he loves to roam.

The blasting and shooting have

saturated by osmosis

to the marrow of our bones since

black and white Red

Rider and Hopalong Cassid-A

and the scores of cowboys

who now appear

in the mov-A

with heavy

artillery and shoot

from their crotch, killing all the

bad guys, when, in

realit-A,

they are just blasting forth

from their limp

manhood in the most misogynistic,

homophobic death

celebrating, sick-assed way,

which we, celebrate every day

as we stroll to the mov-A

without knowing what’s happening

this, that or any other way.

Lord, have merc-A,

Kyri-A

e-LAY-

son.

They took off along a new, local trail for a jog on the morning

of their nineteenth wedding anniversary, having had

fifty-years of marriage experience combined before their late

spouses died, very, very, young. They hadn’t been

able to jog at this particular trail all summer because part

of the wetland trail had been under water. This

day, their Chocolate Lab led the nine a.m. jog along the now

mostly dry trail. Wearing bug spray (including the dog),

they ventured forth with as much adrenaline flowing as what

might have flowed through the veins of world-class

adventurers to places north and south to the poles, up McKinley

and Everest, down the Amazon. He was glad

he had his compass because they got lost a time or two along

the way on what was supposed to be an easy,

straight, out and back path, but which, in reality, wasn’t marked

very well and which, in another reality, was just fine with

them because they loved the feeling of being lost if only four miles

from their home. When they made it back to the

parking lot, they high-fived, kissed a sweaty kiss and slapped a

congratulatory slap on the Chocolate Lab’s butt.

My mind flashes: projects left undone,

Tools in disrepair, latches broken

All these are discarded in favor of

New discovered challenges.

Situations are analyzed; solutions

Are never easy

Wind blows mist in from the lake

The very sound is relentless and wearing, as

Foggy air shrouds what I should see clearly

The sun is vacationing on this day of labor

Fitting for my state of mind:

Scattered, unfocused and jumpy

I look to others; they look away

As if to say “You’re in this alone”

They are correct and before

I walk away I bow and bid “Namaste”

Time for me to wake up and

Get down from my high-horse

There are no villages to conquer

Just details seemingly insignificant, but

Important in the bigger picture

Vince Lombardi would say

“Run to daylight”, but it is gray and

The wind is still blowing

Time seems to stand still on these days

I look at the clock; realize I failed to

Swing the pendulum after winding

My notepad is handy and a list is made

I start the clock and myself

Significant and well-timed

Stanislaus Kuperski the Firski

September 1, 2014 ^

By September 11, 2014, there will have been approximately 585,000 deaths on U.S. roads from automobile accidents since September 11, 2001.

There have been approximately 3,000 – 3,250 deaths from terrorism on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

That is approximately, 581,750 more deaths in the U.S. due to auto accidents than from terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001.

That’s an average of 45,000 deaths per year from auto accidents, the total of U.S. soldier deaths in all the years of war in Viet Nam.

That’s an average of 250 deaths per year from terrorism, 3,000 of all deaths having occurred in one fell swoop on 9/11/2001.

So, seriously, given the statistics, what are your chances of dying in a terrorist attack as vs. your chances of dying in an automobile accident?

Yet, the media is all about terrorism, terrorism, terrorism.

Question: So, why are T.V. news shows (mainline, conservative and liberal) talking incessantly about terrorist attacks and not incessantly about the real danger to lives in America, that is, traveling by car on the roadways of the country?

Answer: Scaring the bejesus out of people keeps them watching and sponsors love that. The marketing experts know we do buy the stuff we see advertised over and over and over.  Keep them scared, keep them watching, keep them buying.  Buying to alleviate fear?  Feeding our fears?

Since the start of the war on Iraq in 2003, the war effort in Iraq, a country, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the 9/11/2001 attack, has resulted in a total of approximately one million deaths (according to a Johns Hopkins study).

That’s 333.3 deaths in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 for each death on 9/11/2001.

There shouldn’t have been one death in Iraq because of the 9/11/2001 attack, but given that the U.S. Administration insisted and Congress folded, what happened to an eye for an eye, the Old Testament guide from the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi as a guide, not even mentioning Jesus’ fulfillment of the law through the new law of forgiveness, prayer and non-retaliation?

Apparently, as a nation, we don’t even know how to pick the right enemies let alone have a clue about following the Code of Hammurabi let alone listening to the words of Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and tooth for tooth,’ but I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.” “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who prosecute you.”

I’m all for scaring the bejesus out of us each evening on the news programs about the mayhem on the roads of America. Show bodies being burned alive in the horror on the highways like we showed bodies being blown to bits in Viet Nam.  Maybe we would all slowdown and practice enlightened self-interest, thus saving thousands of lives a year.

By the way, anyone know the sobering numbers on Labor Day Weekend deaths in auto accidents?

Not in yet for 2014. How about 2013? Somewhere between 338 and 459, not counting thousands upon thousands of injuries.

However, by now, as horrible as it was, we have all heard about the one journalist who was murdered by the terrorist group ISIS over the Labor Day weekend.

Could we please have equal coverage for the 400 or so who died on the highways?

I didn’t think so.

The avalanche of his words bury mine

Now in an abyss, to be found some

Day or night. Profound, wonder-filled

All will think and say.

More than gratuitous handshakes after my captivating,

Uninterrupted

Pulping homilies in the absence of a pastor.

When

Conversations are claimed by them, turned away

Before I finish my sentences, miming well

The chickens I feared as a child age three. I’d

Held up my handful of corn above my head as

Gramma scattered it from her cupped apron, and so

Learned chickens could fly up, sink their feet into

My startled face to win it.

From our side of the breakfast table, when asked about

Gloria, quasi-widow,

Only we can see her realistic cow head oil looking at us:

“She stays busy. She did a portrait of Vicki,” he says with the slightest nod toward it.

They express no interest in seeing it; he

Points out her artwork within their prolix purview.

“Moo!”

Nor is it Homer nods, but that we dream.   ~~ Pope

By Vicki Hill

September 2, 2014

He had the sleepiest

eyes since

Rip Van Winkle

closed his for twenty-

years, but, in his

case, when he

opened them

with a strum

of a C-chord,

every girl in the room,

the concert hall,

watching on black

and white T.V. or

maybe the new color

ones

would swoon

and Ricky would

sell another album

ever so soon.

The seventy-year-old,

who has strummed

a guitar since he

was seventeen,

saw Rick (without

the “y”)

blink those baby blues

in ever slow motion

on a T.V. promotion,

fingered a C-chord on

his air guitar, blinked

and when he awoke

caught the last half of

a BBC mystery on PBS,

so late at night the sun

would rise soon

and he realized

he had donated two

hundred bucks to

all that 50’s and 60’s

stuff helping

to assure that BBC

would continue on

U.S. PBS T.V.

In his former life, his wife

used to tell him that he didn’t know her

at all. He knew enough to

know that was a line she used regularly

when she wanted to hurt him

a little, usually during an argument, but

sometimes it came out of the

blue. In those times, he didn’t know if it

were her way of asking for

understanding, making a declarative state-

ment of her desire ever and

always to be thought of as unique and not

ordinary as she was often

given to say or just making a terse statement

of judgment also intended,

in those, out-of-the-blue cases, to hurt him a

little more deeply. He knew she was

an introvert and he was an extrovert, so, ob-

viously, she was onto

something; but not at all? Actually, he had

a hunch he knew her better

than she ever wanted him to and it was that,

which she protested. How

much do we ever know another, the cliché

asks. He and his sister are

genetically about 99% the same. They are

extroverts and when he

thinks about it, he, grudgingly, concedes that

they are a lot alike, but

still, he wonders how much he knows her in

the inner folds of her thoughts,

feelings, fears, hopes, habits, habits leaning

toward addictions but always

just stopping short and then he wonders about

himself and then he just wonders.

He ekes out a living

in Northern

Michigan

for himself and

his three, young kids

with hands taught

by his blue collar,

welder turned artist

father

of the same

name.

He took that

training and cuts,

torch-

es and fabricates

inverted

windchimes –

tall leaves and cat

tails from along

the lake, where

he fishes so

much

that it could have

had his family

name,

blowing in

the wind

and singing

“Steel

is the Real Deal,”

a phrase that

rhymes

with his last

name,

while he hopes for

some modest, artistic

fame

he takes

the kids fishing at

the lake that one

day might bear the

family

name.