(the mind of mansel)
its a crisis of burden to spread
quasi-political hellhounds of the dead
pentagon militias hired away privately
these dead look nothing like you and me
neighborhoods of america waiting they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display
its an administrative change just one more
lets clean up some of that blood from the floor
this humvee don't make left turns
this civil war won't be televised by ken burns
neighborhoods of america they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display
bin laden could be in london sending back food
for all we know he could be under the unabomber's hood
maybe he's not really hooked to a machine
what is real and what's really obscene
neighborhoods of america they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display
Chris Mansel
Contact: christophermansel@hotmail.com.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Parts of Africa
It was in a country as small
as a country road stretches across an american county
that lives were taken for no other
reason than they could be taken
like wolves process for fur and meat
and the chickens allowed to run free
the shadows must be pulled from the limbs
the leaves of warfare pulled from the fruit
the bark of the machete, the stems of the aroma
wafting back upon the earth
- Chris Mansel
as a country road stretches across an american county
that lives were taken for no other
reason than they could be taken
like wolves process for fur and meat
and the chickens allowed to run free
the shadows must be pulled from the limbs
the leaves of warfare pulled from the fruit
the bark of the machete, the stems of the aroma
wafting back upon the earth
- Chris Mansel
Thursday, November 30, 2006
And Here's to Bolivia...
for Jack Random
and here's to Boliva
I've held your export in my hand
my government uses it to fund the Taliban
but it doesn't matter anyway
the U.N. changed the charter
and the weapons were never seized
that killed the Doctors Without Borders
- Chris Mansel
and here's to Boliva
I've held your export in my hand
my government uses it to fund the Taliban
but it doesn't matter anyway
the U.N. changed the charter
and the weapons were never seized
that killed the Doctors Without Borders
- Chris Mansel
Friday, November 24, 2006
Jake's Word: Hamilton Rising
x
Claustrophobia sets in.
She muscles out of the dirt.
Can she really summon the determination
to shed the wasted dollars?
smells more of bread than meat.
Too clever to read the odor’s intent,
but followed, begging
ruined sap
low and hot
growling – The wolves came
nuzzled your crotch
talking backward
until the old stairs fell
around the red maple
grown through the floor.
Take your passage then,
wallow all day in bed and
speak when summoned,
feet on cold wet floor
remembered, clutched the post
and spoke remembering –
The moths in the old stone church
glad to be done
with the Paraclete’s bickering.
Silent, finished,
roaming her legs again for grace.
Still, the mourners in a line proceed,
scarfheaded and faking it
in digital clicks
like teeth broken in
bread not meat.
Welcome to quicklime and virus
and the coming green.
Jake Berry 11.6.06
Claustrophobia sets in.
She muscles out of the dirt.
Can she really summon the determination
to shed the wasted dollars?
smells more of bread than meat.
Too clever to read the odor’s intent,
but followed, begging
ruined sap
low and hot
growling – The wolves came
nuzzled your crotch
talking backward
until the old stairs fell
around the red maple
grown through the floor.
Take your passage then,
wallow all day in bed and
speak when summoned,
feet on cold wet floor
remembered, clutched the post
and spoke remembering –
The moths in the old stone church
glad to be done
with the Paraclete’s bickering.
Silent, finished,
roaming her legs again for grace.
Still, the mourners in a line proceed,
scarfheaded and faking it
in digital clicks
like teeth broken in
bread not meat.
Welcome to quicklime and virus
and the coming green.
Jake Berry 11.6.06
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
KING JOHN & GEORGE
According to historical lore, King John (circa 1215) was a little man, out of touch with the affairs of state and so recklessly ineffectual that nearly he lost hold of Britannia’s golden crown.
Humankind was the beneficiary of King John’s incompetence. Compelled to sign the Magna Carta or risk losing both his throne and his head, that document was the essential beginning of a new era in government: the age of human rights.
At its foundation was the principle of Habeas Corpus: The right to challenge one’s imprisonment by requiring that the government produce evidence before a court of law.
Nearly eight centuries later, a little man from Crawford, Texas, out of touch and recklessly ineffectual, has somehow parlayed a mandate of fear into a repeal of Habeas Corpus in the most powerful and influential democracy on earth.
History is filled with ironies but this is an irony of epic proportions.
Memo to Congress: Repeal the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and restore the judiciary to its rightful role as the ultimate check on executive power.
JRandom
Humankind was the beneficiary of King John’s incompetence. Compelled to sign the Magna Carta or risk losing both his throne and his head, that document was the essential beginning of a new era in government: the age of human rights.
At its foundation was the principle of Habeas Corpus: The right to challenge one’s imprisonment by requiring that the government produce evidence before a court of law.
Nearly eight centuries later, a little man from Crawford, Texas, out of touch and recklessly ineffectual, has somehow parlayed a mandate of fear into a repeal of Habeas Corpus in the most powerful and influential democracy on earth.
History is filled with ironies but this is an irony of epic proportions.
Memo to Congress: Repeal the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and restore the judiciary to its rightful role as the ultimate check on executive power.
JRandom
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Coronado
(With respect to Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer”)
Well they came across the ocean
With a dream of finding gold
And they marched across the mountains
To where the buffalo once roamed
And the Black Robes went before them
To turn heathens into stone
And they gave them poison blankets
And they promised to take them home
Where are all the warriors?
Where have they all gone?
And where are all the leaders
To right what we have wronged?
[Drumbeat of the warrior.]
Geronimo roamed the desert
Crazy Horse roamed the plains
And they vowed to fight forever
While the blood flowed through their veins
So they took them all to prisons
That the white man calls reserves
And they fed them moldy biscuits
While they laid waste to the earth
Where are all the warriors?
Where have they gone?
And where are all the leaders
To right what we’ve done wrong?
[Drumbeat of the warrior.]
Copyright 2006 Jack Random.
Well they came across the ocean
With a dream of finding gold
And they marched across the mountains
To where the buffalo once roamed
And the Black Robes went before them
To turn heathens into stone
And they gave them poison blankets
And they promised to take them home
Where are all the warriors?
Where have they all gone?
And where are all the leaders
To right what we have wronged?
[Drumbeat of the warrior.]
Geronimo roamed the desert
Crazy Horse roamed the plains
And they vowed to fight forever
While the blood flowed through their veins
So they took them all to prisons
That the white man calls reserves
And they fed them moldy biscuits
While they laid waste to the earth
Where are all the warriors?
Where have they gone?
And where are all the leaders
To right what we’ve done wrong?
[Drumbeat of the warrior.]
Copyright 2006 Jack Random.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Thomas Merton on Democracy
"It is no exaggeration to say that democratic society is founded on a kind of faith: on the conviction that each citizen is capable of, and assumes, complete political responsibility. Each one not only broadly understands the problems of government but is willing and ready to take part in their solution. In a word, democracy assumes that the citizen knows what is going on, understands the difficulties of the situation, and has worked out for himself an answer that will help him to contribute, intelligently and constructively, to the common work (or "liturgy") of running his society.
"For this to be true, there must be a considerable amount of solid educational preparation. A real training of the mind. A genuine formation in those intellectual and spiritual disciplines without which freedom is impossible.
"There must be a completely free exchange of ideas. Minority opinions, even opinions which may appear to be dangerous, must be given a hearing, clearly understood and seriously evaluated on their own merits, not merely suppressed. Religious beliefs and disciplines must be respected. The rights of the individual conscience must be protected against every kind of open or occult encroachment.
"Democracy cannot exist when men prefer ideas and opinions that are fabricated for them. The actions and statements of the citizen must not be mere automatic "reactions"-mere mechanical salutes, gesticulations signifying passive conformity with the dictates of those in power.
"To be truthful, we will have to admit that one cannot expect this to be realized in all the citizens of a democracy. But if it is not realized in a significant proportion of them, democracy ceases to be an objective fact and becomes nothing but an emotionally loaded word.
"What is the situation in the United States today?"
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystanderby Thomas Merton,
New York: Doubleday & Co, Inc., 1968 edition, p. 100-101
__________________________________
Submitted by: Jon Berry
Project Editor, The University of Alabama Press
"For this to be true, there must be a considerable amount of solid educational preparation. A real training of the mind. A genuine formation in those intellectual and spiritual disciplines without which freedom is impossible.
"There must be a completely free exchange of ideas. Minority opinions, even opinions which may appear to be dangerous, must be given a hearing, clearly understood and seriously evaluated on their own merits, not merely suppressed. Religious beliefs and disciplines must be respected. The rights of the individual conscience must be protected against every kind of open or occult encroachment.
"Democracy cannot exist when men prefer ideas and opinions that are fabricated for them. The actions and statements of the citizen must not be mere automatic "reactions"-mere mechanical salutes, gesticulations signifying passive conformity with the dictates of those in power.
"To be truthful, we will have to admit that one cannot expect this to be realized in all the citizens of a democracy. But if it is not realized in a significant proportion of them, democracy ceases to be an objective fact and becomes nothing but an emotionally loaded word.
"What is the situation in the United States today?"
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystanderby Thomas Merton,
New York: Doubleday & Co, Inc., 1968 edition, p. 100-101
__________________________________
Submitted by: Jon Berry
Project Editor, The University of Alabama Press
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Profiles in Cowardice: The Nominees
A recent Jazzman Chronicle described the state of American politics, on the eve of the midterm elections, under the heading: Profiles in Cowardice.
Here are the leading nominees of both parties, in alphabetical order, subject to modification:
1. George "Makaka" Allen (R VA). Here is a candidate who shamelessly played the race card and got caught on tape. Rather than coming clean, he claimed to have invented the derogatory term out of thin air.
2. Hillary Clinton (D NY). Mindful of her reputation as a liberal (whatever that means), the Senator has refashioned herself a moderate, teaming with John McCain to ban flag burning (a burning issue!). She voted for the war, for the Patriot Act, and watched the death of habeas corpus without a whimper.
3. Bob Corker (R TN). He exemplifies the awkward duplicity created by McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. The RNC takes responsibility for a race-baiting character assault while Corker distances himself from the mud -- just as he distances himself from an unpopular president and an unpopular war.
4. Mike DeWine (R OH). Another Republican taking big money from the White House political machine while proclaiming his independence. What war? George who?
5. Mark Foley (R FL). Mendacity had a new champion until the Ted Haggard revelation came along.
6. Harold Ford (D TN). He hands out a calling card with the ten commandments on the back. Fine. Another lesson for Democrats: Republican light is a losing strategy.
7. Bill Frist (R TN). Remember Terri Schiavo?
8. Tom Kean Jr. (R NJ). Start up the sludge machine and run away from the White House.
9. John McCain (R AZ). He called himself a friend of John Kerry. He was a victim of the Bush sludge machine himself, yet when it came time to pounce on Kerry for a botched joke, he could not even wait for an explanation.
10. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R CA). There is a word for remaking yourself in the image of your opposition: It is not pragmatism, it is pandering.
11. Michael Steele (R MD). Let's blame it all on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
12. Jim Talent (R MO). See Mike DeWine.
Nominees for Profiles in Courage (a short list):
1. Sherrod Brown (D OH). He came out against the war strong when it counted most: In the beginning. He remains one of the most principle antiwar voices.
2. Russ Feingold (D WI). He also came out against the war when it counted -- a lonely position in the US Senate. He has refused to take a stronger position on getting our troops out -- a position I disagree with but it takes courage to buck a growing tide that would have placed his name at the top of the presidential candidates list.
3. Bernie Sanders (VT). Bernie never pulls his punches. He has been right (left) on all the issues no matter how much derision he has had to suffer. A candidate to watch.
4. Jim Webb (D VA). A military man takes an antiwar stand and refuses to disavow his work as a novelist. Likewise, he takes responsibility for sexist statements he made decades ago. He does not look or act like a politician. Whatever our views on policy, the man possesses courage.
Jazz.
Here are the leading nominees of both parties, in alphabetical order, subject to modification:
1. George "Makaka" Allen (R VA). Here is a candidate who shamelessly played the race card and got caught on tape. Rather than coming clean, he claimed to have invented the derogatory term out of thin air.
2. Hillary Clinton (D NY). Mindful of her reputation as a liberal (whatever that means), the Senator has refashioned herself a moderate, teaming with John McCain to ban flag burning (a burning issue!). She voted for the war, for the Patriot Act, and watched the death of habeas corpus without a whimper.
3. Bob Corker (R TN). He exemplifies the awkward duplicity created by McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. The RNC takes responsibility for a race-baiting character assault while Corker distances himself from the mud -- just as he distances himself from an unpopular president and an unpopular war.
4. Mike DeWine (R OH). Another Republican taking big money from the White House political machine while proclaiming his independence. What war? George who?
5. Mark Foley (R FL). Mendacity had a new champion until the Ted Haggard revelation came along.
6. Harold Ford (D TN). He hands out a calling card with the ten commandments on the back. Fine. Another lesson for Democrats: Republican light is a losing strategy.
7. Bill Frist (R TN). Remember Terri Schiavo?
8. Tom Kean Jr. (R NJ). Start up the sludge machine and run away from the White House.
9. John McCain (R AZ). He called himself a friend of John Kerry. He was a victim of the Bush sludge machine himself, yet when it came time to pounce on Kerry for a botched joke, he could not even wait for an explanation.
10. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R CA). There is a word for remaking yourself in the image of your opposition: It is not pragmatism, it is pandering.
11. Michael Steele (R MD). Let's blame it all on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
12. Jim Talent (R MO). See Mike DeWine.
Nominees for Profiles in Courage (a short list):
1. Sherrod Brown (D OH). He came out against the war strong when it counted most: In the beginning. He remains one of the most principle antiwar voices.
2. Russ Feingold (D WI). He also came out against the war when it counted -- a lonely position in the US Senate. He has refused to take a stronger position on getting our troops out -- a position I disagree with but it takes courage to buck a growing tide that would have placed his name at the top of the presidential candidates list.
3. Bernie Sanders (VT). Bernie never pulls his punches. He has been right (left) on all the issues no matter how much derision he has had to suffer. A candidate to watch.
4. Jim Webb (D VA). A military man takes an antiwar stand and refuses to disavow his work as a novelist. Likewise, he takes responsibility for sexist statements he made decades ago. He does not look or act like a politician. Whatever our views on policy, the man possesses courage.
Jazz.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Iraq: Get Out Now
We have to get out.
We have to get out before the tide turns again, before Karl Rove gets his groove, before a Tonkin incident triggers a new invasion, before the tactical nuke is fully deployable, before the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of civilization, is filled with Iraqi and American blood.
We have to get out before another half million lives are lost and the ghost of Vietnam rises from the sands of ancient Mesopotamia.
We have to get out before the cry of mourning becomes a cry of vengeance that overwhelms and buries wisdom and reason.
We have to get out before a terrorist incident, real or invented, uncovers once again the dark side of the American character.
We have to get out before it is too late to negotiate a compromise, before the passions are so inflamed that no one talks and no one listens.
We have to get out before the next Iraqi strongman rises from the ranks to impose order with the iron hand of despotism and oppression.
We have to get out before nuclear technologies yield nuclear weapons that place the human species on the edge of extinction.
We have to get out before a new American president plays the patriot card and persuades the masses that “victory at any cost” is the national destiny.
We have to get out before Afghanistan implodes and a new Osama bin Laden is hailed as a liberator and a prophet.
We have to get out.
Now.
We have to get out before the tide turns again, before Karl Rove gets his groove, before a Tonkin incident triggers a new invasion, before the tactical nuke is fully deployable, before the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of civilization, is filled with Iraqi and American blood.
We have to get out before another half million lives are lost and the ghost of Vietnam rises from the sands of ancient Mesopotamia.
We have to get out before the cry of mourning becomes a cry of vengeance that overwhelms and buries wisdom and reason.
We have to get out before a terrorist incident, real or invented, uncovers once again the dark side of the American character.
We have to get out before it is too late to negotiate a compromise, before the passions are so inflamed that no one talks and no one listens.
We have to get out before the next Iraqi strongman rises from the ranks to impose order with the iron hand of despotism and oppression.
We have to get out before nuclear technologies yield nuclear weapons that place the human species on the edge of extinction.
We have to get out before a new American president plays the patriot card and persuades the masses that “victory at any cost” is the national destiny.
We have to get out before Afghanistan implodes and a new Osama bin Laden is hailed as a liberator and a prophet.
We have to get out.
Now.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The Neocon Playbook
Up Against the Wall
The trouble with the neocons is: You never know when they’re playing.
They started by flashing their trump cards. They wanted all players at the table to know what was coming. The axis of evil jive was more than rhetoric, more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, it was a warning: Get out of the way or we’ll take you down with our designated enemies.
They put a down payment on Afghanistan, flipped it to NATO, and the put the real money on Iraq. When they were still flying high, cruising through elections with an unlimited gold card (make that platinum), they flashed a hold card, the big one, the tactical nuke.
Things look different today than they did two years ago when little George had some capital to play with. Deuces came up against threes, jacks against queens, and aces against straights. Little George is on a losing streak and he can’t stop playing. He never could.
Little George and the neocons are up against the wall and they’re likely to do what any compulsive gamblers would do: raise the stakes.
The only votes that count in the next election belong to Diebold, ES&S and Hart InterCivic voting machines. The only card the neocons have left is the nuke.
Hang on, folks, its going to be a rough ride.
Jazz.
The trouble with the neocons is: You never know when they’re playing.
They started by flashing their trump cards. They wanted all players at the table to know what was coming. The axis of evil jive was more than rhetoric, more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, it was a warning: Get out of the way or we’ll take you down with our designated enemies.
They put a down payment on Afghanistan, flipped it to NATO, and the put the real money on Iraq. When they were still flying high, cruising through elections with an unlimited gold card (make that platinum), they flashed a hold card, the big one, the tactical nuke.
Things look different today than they did two years ago when little George had some capital to play with. Deuces came up against threes, jacks against queens, and aces against straights. Little George is on a losing streak and he can’t stop playing. He never could.
Little George and the neocons are up against the wall and they’re likely to do what any compulsive gamblers would do: raise the stakes.
The only votes that count in the next election belong to Diebold, ES&S and Hart InterCivic voting machines. The only card the neocons have left is the nuke.
Hang on, folks, its going to be a rough ride.
Jazz.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Jefferson in Hell by Jake Berry
Cough.
Flagellation.
Requiem.
We have seen the process heaving.
He can’t suffer it again,
another cold alabaster mannequin
disrobed
& trailed in gray debris.
Trapped inside her petticoats
Venus sneezes, barks and wheezes.
Who’d believe if she confessed
a low rebellion in Storyville.
The fishmonger sold his grave
to Marie Laveau
who rolled the dice to thieve
him grace.
The feast of crescent
deadlight Ramadan –
16 chaingang
republicans bleached
in Plato’s toilet
if you can bear the newsprint stench.
Come down to mama
Come down to mama
Come on down to your bone sad mama
and drink the good Lord’s tit.
Jake Berry 10.5.06 7:40 am
Flagellation.
Requiem.
We have seen the process heaving.
He can’t suffer it again,
another cold alabaster mannequin
disrobed
& trailed in gray debris.
Trapped inside her petticoats
Venus sneezes, barks and wheezes.
Who’d believe if she confessed
a low rebellion in Storyville.
The fishmonger sold his grave
to Marie Laveau
who rolled the dice to thieve
him grace.
The feast of crescent
deadlight Ramadan –
16 chaingang
republicans bleached
in Plato’s toilet
if you can bear the newsprint stench.
Come down to mama
Come down to mama
Come on down to your bone sad mama
and drink the good Lord’s tit.
Jake Berry 10.5.06 7:40 am
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
A Poem by Ivan Arguelles
[jihad]
it was a inflammatory thing very
the pope read quoting a palaeologus
Michael II emperor of byzant about
the holy war proclaimed by the Prophet
in the year who knows when and
all around are fires burning are
moats being considered around Baghdad
are the very ramparts of are
nothing is pure the stratosphere
is a hell of pollution waste gas
noxious fumes of human thought
rising from the abscess in the tooth
being employed by presidents of
Moloch with his jaws churning in
dream the oval office rose tinted
and will appoint as generals
Gog and Magog on either side
money is the fuel for love are
ardent desire to overcome bad sleep
habits when passing through deserts
it says in the Bible what are
the envious doing here what are
the thing is about the eglantine branch
the dogwood in flower the white
intense upon white before bleeding
the insane who are kept inside
Jerusalem who cannot explain mother
who assume father is the target
raising the blazing scimitar high
to cut the dove neatly in half
wonder in what century it will end
can it end the hypothetical iron
now rusting inside Shulamit’s breast
it will end the nerve defiant
in the resembling Eye! motionless
the wave immobile the wind senseless
the north of sky toward which
crawls the Beast unerring in song
are then others so removed from
is such the capacity of man to
why is the garden thus laid bare
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
painted universe descried from afar
out of control in its infinite gyres
does then the sheep cote sink in dark
the hundred asbestos angels are quick
in their flashing quicker still Krishna
passing silently through 3000 brides
“be thou my Love, still the beating heart”
for each constructed city a paragraph
of ire and spite for each other side
the reckless banks of sand collapse
are fortune and its Hollywood a reality
as is no more the small drugstore
where for a magazine of powder one
could purchase the end result
fallen to the curbside and armless
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
which is the century of the Golden Horn
and which the minute past caesar’s death
why it matters on the flickering screen
who dances in red beside a dread japan
who eats china in a repeated trance
why are they at the door why are
for this brief instant the multiples
of history shine like malibu neon
but for the sluggish ethiop stream
psychiatry metempsychosis lethargy
why they are not with us this day
the fabulous planets of Poesy
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
plunge then the tinsel Primavera
into her dry well, suck out the soul
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
dynasties like argent cobras pass
through migrations of awful dust
one is there who but none instead
stand outside the cycle in review
watching unidentified armies clash
watching each still point dissolve
it is never resolved but brain dead
in palo alto trying to match Boolean
ciphers the world of intransigence
some small some lesser yet and some
for whom a lunar madness fits
for whom the
attach
slumbering Air
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
resist the Call
ivan arguelles
09-17-06
See 9th Street Lab: http://9thstlab.blogspot.com
it was a inflammatory thing very
the pope read quoting a palaeologus
Michael II emperor of byzant about
the holy war proclaimed by the Prophet
in the year who knows when and
all around are fires burning are
moats being considered around Baghdad
are the very ramparts of are
nothing is pure the stratosphere
is a hell of pollution waste gas
noxious fumes of human thought
rising from the abscess in the tooth
being employed by presidents of
Moloch with his jaws churning in
dream the oval office rose tinted
and will appoint as generals
Gog and Magog on either side
money is the fuel for love are
ardent desire to overcome bad sleep
habits when passing through deserts
it says in the Bible what are
the envious doing here what are
the thing is about the eglantine branch
the dogwood in flower the white
intense upon white before bleeding
the insane who are kept inside
Jerusalem who cannot explain mother
who assume father is the target
raising the blazing scimitar high
to cut the dove neatly in half
wonder in what century it will end
can it end the hypothetical iron
now rusting inside Shulamit’s breast
it will end the nerve defiant
in the resembling Eye! motionless
the wave immobile the wind senseless
the north of sky toward which
crawls the Beast unerring in song
are then others so removed from
is such the capacity of man to
why is the garden thus laid bare
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
painted universe descried from afar
out of control in its infinite gyres
does then the sheep cote sink in dark
the hundred asbestos angels are quick
in their flashing quicker still Krishna
passing silently through 3000 brides
“be thou my Love, still the beating heart”
for each constructed city a paragraph
of ire and spite for each other side
the reckless banks of sand collapse
are fortune and its Hollywood a reality
as is no more the small drugstore
where for a magazine of powder one
could purchase the end result
fallen to the curbside and armless
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
which is the century of the Golden Horn
and which the minute past caesar’s death
why it matters on the flickering screen
who dances in red beside a dread japan
who eats china in a repeated trance
why are they at the door why are
for this brief instant the multiples
of history shine like malibu neon
but for the sluggish ethiop stream
psychiatry metempsychosis lethargy
why they are not with us this day
the fabulous planets of Poesy
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
plunge then the tinsel Primavera
into her dry well, suck out the soul
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
dynasties like argent cobras pass
through migrations of awful dust
one is there who but none instead
stand outside the cycle in review
watching unidentified armies clash
watching each still point dissolve
it is never resolved but brain dead
in palo alto trying to match Boolean
ciphers the world of intransigence
some small some lesser yet and some
for whom a lunar madness fits
for whom the
attach
slumbering Air
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
resist the Call
ivan arguelles
09-17-06
See 9th Street Lab: http://9thstlab.blogspot.com
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Keith Olbermann's 911 Rant
In the event you missed it, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered the most eloquent, heart wrenching and profoundly truthful tribute to the fallen of 911. It was presented only moments before the president took the stage at the White House and gave the nation yet another push for war in the name of the dead. The full text is posted on Common Dreams (9/12/06) and the MSNBC web site. A brief excerpt:
"Five years later this space is still empty.
"Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.
"Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
"Five years later this country's wound is still open.
"Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.
"Five years later this is still just a backdrop for a photo op.
"It is beyond shameful."
Olbermann for President!
"Five years later this space is still empty.
"Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.
"Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
"Five years later this country's wound is still open.
"Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.
"Five years later this is still just a backdrop for a photo op.
"It is beyond shameful."
Olbermann for President!
Thursday, September 07, 2006
The Most Dangerous Politicians in America
From time to time in the next two years, we will consider the candidates to succeed George W. Bush. This installment considers those on both sides of the aisle most likely to continue the neocon fantasy of endless war.
The midterm election looms and the prospects for 2008 are staking their grounds. On the left are Russ Feingold, Albert Gore, John Kerry and John Edward. In the center are Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani. On the right are Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and John McCain. The classifications are subject to change as the candidates seek a winning path through the unfolding political maze.
Though everything is in flux, some matters are resistant to change: For example, a candidate’s position on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terrorism. With that in mind, the following represents my current ranking of the most dangerous politicians in America (in reverse order):
6. Rudy Giuliani.
The hero of 9-11, America’s mayor, he marched bravely to ground zero, projecting confidence when our president was still bunkered down. He stood strong and urged New York’s finest to stand with him. Did he ever really say (“spontaneously like”), “Thank God George Bush is president!”? No one knows. Only later did we learn that Rudy was somewhat culpable for the tragic events of that September morn. It was his decision to place his command and control center in the towers – a known terrorist target. Rudy also contracted incompatible communications systems so that New York’s finest could not talk to each other in a catastrophic emergency.
What would Rudy do as president? Exactly what his advisers told him to do. Rudy knows how to play the game.
5. Dick Cheney.
He is the only certified neocon elected to office and the elevator in the White House runs straight from Cheney’s bunker to the Oval Office.
Could a man with a crooked grin, who looks like a cartoon personification of evil, ever become president of the United States? Yes. At this juncture, it would be difficult for Cheney to be elected dogcatcher in Orange County but there are other ways to ascend to power. If the Democrats get ahead of themselves and impeach the president before the vice president is safely shunted aside, Dick Cheney would not hesitate to fire a barrage of tactical nukes at our enemies. Nuke them all: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Spain!
If his heart holds out, Cheney would make a nice running mate for a new war president. He could keep the bunker.
4. Condoleezza Rice.
Is it even conceivable that the woman who failed to foresee the possibility of 9-11 despite a mountain of evidence, the woman who warned of a mushroom cloud from the evil Saddam, the woman who seconded every lie and deception the president ever delivered, could overcome all that baggage to become Commander-in-Chief? Ironically, the only thing that holds her back is her race and sex in a party that depends on the white southern fundamentalist vote. Despite the odds, if anointed, she would likely bring the Bush Doctrine to its illogical conclusion: a bankrupt nation and a collapsed empire.
3. Joe Lieberman.
He would rank higher if there were anything more than a whisper of a chance that this whining, rightwing Republican in a Democratic suit could win the White House. Then again, what were the odds that the most outspoken Democrat to impeach a Democratic president for a blowjob would become the party’s vice presidential candidate? No, Joe, we really don’t care what your record on civil rights is. What about civil liberties? On foreign policy, you’re as right and wrong as they come. One gets the impression that old Joe is suffering from macho envy squared. Nuking Iran would be such sweet sorrow if only Israel would nuke Syria first.
2. Hillary Clinton.
Hillary was for the war before it was popular to be for the war. Why not? Husband Bill set it all up for little George to knock down. It was Clinton who set the policy of regime change in Iraq. It was Clinton who first implemented the low casualty war plan, bombing from 15,000 feet in Bosnia even though it meant a lot of dead civilians, bombed media organizations and an occasional Chinese embassy. It was Clinton who kept the pressure on Iraq with deadly and criminal sanctions [1], periodic bombing and a cat-and-mouse game of weapons inspections. “Wag the dog” was a Clinton specialty. Everything that Clinton did was a logical extension of what the elder Bush did and a logical precursor to what followed. It would only be right to let Hillary finish the job.
1. John McCain.
The man never saw a war he did not like. Never. He wants to be king so bad he will swim through the muck for as long as required if he believes it will enhance his chances. He portrays himself a straight-shooting Joe with simple, unassailable values yet he bows on command to the most extreme leaders of the religious right. He will alter his positions on right to life and decry homosexuals as mortal sinners. He will begin and end every speech with “praise the lord” if he thinks it will win the Republican nomination. When and if he wins the White House, toss out all the pandering on social issues: It’s all about war.
I have a vision of McCain riding the nuke into the great beyond like Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
The US military has engaged in four major wars and dozens of military interventions since the end of World War II and the only criticism John McCain has ever uttered is that we did not go far enough. In Vietnam, we should have killed a million more “gooks” – only McCain is allowed to use racial slurs in deference to his prisoner-of-war status.
If McCain were president today, we would already be at war with five nations and the ultimate showdown would be rapidly approaching. Radiation would fill the air and military conscription would fill the ranks.
Manna from heaven for the fundamentalist doomsayers but pure hell for the rest of us.
[1] Recall former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s infamous reply to a question concerning half a million dead Iraqi children: “We think the price is worth it.”
SEE CHRIS MANSEL’S RANDOM INTERVIEW: www.interviewsbychrismansel.blogspot.com.
The midterm election looms and the prospects for 2008 are staking their grounds. On the left are Russ Feingold, Albert Gore, John Kerry and John Edward. In the center are Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani. On the right are Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and John McCain. The classifications are subject to change as the candidates seek a winning path through the unfolding political maze.
Though everything is in flux, some matters are resistant to change: For example, a candidate’s position on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terrorism. With that in mind, the following represents my current ranking of the most dangerous politicians in America (in reverse order):
6. Rudy Giuliani.
The hero of 9-11, America’s mayor, he marched bravely to ground zero, projecting confidence when our president was still bunkered down. He stood strong and urged New York’s finest to stand with him. Did he ever really say (“spontaneously like”), “Thank God George Bush is president!”? No one knows. Only later did we learn that Rudy was somewhat culpable for the tragic events of that September morn. It was his decision to place his command and control center in the towers – a known terrorist target. Rudy also contracted incompatible communications systems so that New York’s finest could not talk to each other in a catastrophic emergency.
What would Rudy do as president? Exactly what his advisers told him to do. Rudy knows how to play the game.
5. Dick Cheney.
He is the only certified neocon elected to office and the elevator in the White House runs straight from Cheney’s bunker to the Oval Office.
Could a man with a crooked grin, who looks like a cartoon personification of evil, ever become president of the United States? Yes. At this juncture, it would be difficult for Cheney to be elected dogcatcher in Orange County but there are other ways to ascend to power. If the Democrats get ahead of themselves and impeach the president before the vice president is safely shunted aside, Dick Cheney would not hesitate to fire a barrage of tactical nukes at our enemies. Nuke them all: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Spain!
If his heart holds out, Cheney would make a nice running mate for a new war president. He could keep the bunker.
4. Condoleezza Rice.
Is it even conceivable that the woman who failed to foresee the possibility of 9-11 despite a mountain of evidence, the woman who warned of a mushroom cloud from the evil Saddam, the woman who seconded every lie and deception the president ever delivered, could overcome all that baggage to become Commander-in-Chief? Ironically, the only thing that holds her back is her race and sex in a party that depends on the white southern fundamentalist vote. Despite the odds, if anointed, she would likely bring the Bush Doctrine to its illogical conclusion: a bankrupt nation and a collapsed empire.
3. Joe Lieberman.
He would rank higher if there were anything more than a whisper of a chance that this whining, rightwing Republican in a Democratic suit could win the White House. Then again, what were the odds that the most outspoken Democrat to impeach a Democratic president for a blowjob would become the party’s vice presidential candidate? No, Joe, we really don’t care what your record on civil rights is. What about civil liberties? On foreign policy, you’re as right and wrong as they come. One gets the impression that old Joe is suffering from macho envy squared. Nuking Iran would be such sweet sorrow if only Israel would nuke Syria first.
2. Hillary Clinton.
Hillary was for the war before it was popular to be for the war. Why not? Husband Bill set it all up for little George to knock down. It was Clinton who set the policy of regime change in Iraq. It was Clinton who first implemented the low casualty war plan, bombing from 15,000 feet in Bosnia even though it meant a lot of dead civilians, bombed media organizations and an occasional Chinese embassy. It was Clinton who kept the pressure on Iraq with deadly and criminal sanctions [1], periodic bombing and a cat-and-mouse game of weapons inspections. “Wag the dog” was a Clinton specialty. Everything that Clinton did was a logical extension of what the elder Bush did and a logical precursor to what followed. It would only be right to let Hillary finish the job.
1. John McCain.
The man never saw a war he did not like. Never. He wants to be king so bad he will swim through the muck for as long as required if he believes it will enhance his chances. He portrays himself a straight-shooting Joe with simple, unassailable values yet he bows on command to the most extreme leaders of the religious right. He will alter his positions on right to life and decry homosexuals as mortal sinners. He will begin and end every speech with “praise the lord” if he thinks it will win the Republican nomination. When and if he wins the White House, toss out all the pandering on social issues: It’s all about war.
I have a vision of McCain riding the nuke into the great beyond like Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
The US military has engaged in four major wars and dozens of military interventions since the end of World War II and the only criticism John McCain has ever uttered is that we did not go far enough. In Vietnam, we should have killed a million more “gooks” – only McCain is allowed to use racial slurs in deference to his prisoner-of-war status.
If McCain were president today, we would already be at war with five nations and the ultimate showdown would be rapidly approaching. Radiation would fill the air and military conscription would fill the ranks.
Manna from heaven for the fundamentalist doomsayers but pure hell for the rest of us.
[1] Recall former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s infamous reply to a question concerning half a million dead Iraqi children: “We think the price is worth it.”
SEE CHRIS MANSEL’S RANDOM INTERVIEW: www.interviewsbychrismansel.blogspot.com.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
How We Leave The Beaten In The Well by Chris Mansel
A vengeful act born out of necessity, a scholar's translation born of prejudice and ending in legislation. The vengeful act originating from the ancient text those that are parasitic and agitated who have enjoyed and profited from these acts can and will suffer the growth of this industry. No matter your belief system, the margin to discredit has been abscessed. If you have grown to accept death in front of you, on television, death by the hundreds, by the thousands, by the millions then are you as guilty as the text, as guilty as the translator? The act of killing was easy to learn and easy to teach and so history has been translated into every language known to man and woman. Now, every man and woman not only knows how to kill but accept it.
We leave the body in the well and wait for it to rain? We leave the body in the well because we want someone to find it? The body was already dead? Pre-destined? In terms of political reality it really doesn't matter. How many wars have been started in your lifetime and what was the body count?
But wait, you're not dead yet. So while you await your death you'll have to keep a steady count, concentrate now.
- Chris Mansel
See The Mansel Report: www.themanselreport.blogspot.com.
We leave the body in the well and wait for it to rain? We leave the body in the well because we want someone to find it? The body was already dead? Pre-destined? In terms of political reality it really doesn't matter. How many wars have been started in your lifetime and what was the body count?
But wait, you're not dead yet. So while you await your death you'll have to keep a steady count, concentrate now.
- Chris Mansel
See The Mansel Report: www.themanselreport.blogspot.com.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Rumors From The Mansel Report
I've heard that Condi Rice's per diem includes a small plastic baggie of salted fruit and a dispenser of face lotion easily allowed on Air Force One.
The Secret Service agents say her thrust is all-wrong but she pays for the room. They really can't keep the earpieces in when she is going on the downbeat but it's a good duty.
George Bush is upset that Cindy Sheehan bought some property adjacent to his in Crawford, Texas. What he is upset about the most is that she used the money from the insurance policy from her dead son to buy something. Now the Washington press core is in shock that the President now wants to enlist his daughters into military service because he has his eye on some property in Havana.
The FBI has set up a scenario in case there is a problem with John Mark Karr. A crime scene negotiator has been placed on call. The negotiator is none other than Clay Aiken.
The armed suspect arrested yesterday at the University of Virginia campus it has been discovered was asking passersby if they knew the home address of Don Blankenship because he was running low on ready cash.
After hearing of the dinner John Mark Karr enjoyed on his flight the focus will now be off fava beans and will now be on Prawns?
- Chris Mansel
The Secret Service agents say her thrust is all-wrong but she pays for the room. They really can't keep the earpieces in when she is going on the downbeat but it's a good duty.
George Bush is upset that Cindy Sheehan bought some property adjacent to his in Crawford, Texas. What he is upset about the most is that she used the money from the insurance policy from her dead son to buy something. Now the Washington press core is in shock that the President now wants to enlist his daughters into military service because he has his eye on some property in Havana.
The FBI has set up a scenario in case there is a problem with John Mark Karr. A crime scene negotiator has been placed on call. The negotiator is none other than Clay Aiken.
The armed suspect arrested yesterday at the University of Virginia campus it has been discovered was asking passersby if they knew the home address of Don Blankenship because he was running low on ready cash.
After hearing of the dinner John Mark Karr enjoyed on his flight the focus will now be off fava beans and will now be on Prawns?
- Chris Mansel
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
A Change of Routine by Joe Speer
The Investigating Magistrate asked Mr. Eugene Groat to explain the circumstances of his outbreak. Groat talked loudly, making wide circular motions with his arms. The magistrate listened, wrote in his file, and said, "Start before the troika appears."
"Maybe if I start before the fight. It might help explain."
"Please do," said the investigator, "start at the beginning."
"I'm not sure where to begin. I'm usually told what to do. When I was young my parents me told what to do. Teachers at school told me when to do it. In the work place the boss and company policy told me how. I never had to think for myself, you see.
"I had a job in a bookstore. Then one day the manager got onto me about zoning my area instead of reading from random books. My spleen turned mauve. That same day I had a dispute with a co-worker. Yeah, I raised my voice a few decibels. I was fired that day. All this zero tolerance.
Without direction the only places I know to go are the public library and my post office box. That was enough excitement for me, accessing my mail late at night. A press in Berkeley printed one of my chapbooks and we sent proofs and whatnot back and forth.
I was distraught so I called a friend from work. He asked, "What up? I heard you wigged out."
"Oh, my emotions are overthrown!"
I told him I'm reading "The Brothers Karamazov". It makes me so agitated and resentful. It really bothers me because Dmitri is sentenced to twenty years in Siberia. The patricide he is accused of he didn't even commit. I think the father's rigor mortis is a cleansing of the community. He is a dissolute no-count money lender. Granted, we can't have people on a busting heads spree, but the old viper used his son's inheritance to coax his own girlfriend away from him. The old bugger had 3,000 rubles with her name on it. I'm outraged over all this injustice. The whole situation has crossed the line into my everyday life. It caused the scene in the bookstore. I asked him what I should do with myself and he said I could do whatever I wanted. I thanked him and hung up.
This advice put my life in a new perspective. I was excited and rushed about the apartment doing whatever I wanted. I piled books all over my bed and urinated in the sink. I felt free, but knew I would have to test myself to see if it was a true feeling. I could feign in my own apartment because no one was watching. I had to go out into the street and see what would happen.
I promised myself for the rest of the day no one would tell me what to do.
I hadn't gone anywhere for a long time. I became excited about just exploring different parts of the city. I left the apartment and when I got to the street corner I encountered my first test - a red stop light.
Here, already I was being told what to do by a an innate object. I thought about crossing the street, but I cowered, the cars were rapid and it looked like they would not stop for a misplaced bibliophile . I pretended to search the ground for lost change. But that was only kidding myself. Besides, it was only a red light, a stupid machine, and it didn't count because I could smash the lights out if I wanted. It was only people I wasn't going to listen to. The light changed green and I crossed the street.
I tell you I was angry with the judgment against Dmitri. All the brothers knew who killed their father. I'm so sorry Ivan has brain fever. He is so brilliant, having conversations with the devil and such. After walking several blocks I saw a woman leaning against a doorway. Round, bulging breasts, thrust out onto the sidewalk, loosely fitting sack dress smiling and touching herself. She asked if I wanted a date. She put her hand on my chest, undid a couple of buttons, and began to massage my stomach. Smiling, she told me to go upstairs with her. I refused.
Well, she wasn't really telling me what to do she just moved her hand down past my navel and lead me through the doorway by my belt. A man inside said I had to pay twenty dollars for the room. I refused.
He looked angrily at me, but the girl smiled him away. I followed her up a staircase and into a little room. There was a single bed against the wall, threadbare chenille spread lay on the mattress. She told me to take my clothes off. I refused.
Her hand went to my zipper as I stood looking at putrid stains and yellow spots. She inserted her fingers into my back pocket and moved into me with her hips. I stood looking at a crack in the wall, my arms dangling flaccidly at my sides. She was perturbed and asked what was wrong with me.
Suddenly two men burst in through the door. They were big with padded shoulders, sleeves rolled up, scowling beetle-browed. One of the men asked me what was I doing with his wife. I asked what was she doing with me. He got angry and told me to give him all my money. I refused.
They started after me and the woman coaxed them away. She told them I was crazy. They let me go and I hurried down the stairs and out into the street. A couple of small boys on the sidewalk pointed and laughed at me - small, impish, laughing through missing teeth. I pulled up my zipper and walked away.
Several blocks on down the street I entered a bar. Dark, tinny music hung in the air, smoke floated over two-toppers, sounds of glasses clicking, and ice drinks stirring, audible under music. I sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a Harvey Wallbanger.
Two men in suits were next to me talking in low voices but I couldn't help overhearing parts of what they said. One man said the heist was set for ten o'clock that night and the only people they had to worry about were on his payroll, ... he stopped suddenly.
I looked in their direction and they were staring at me. The man told me to move to another stool. I refused.
He reached into his coat and the other man stayed his arm. He said I must be crazy and motioned with his head. They both walked away. I felt good, had been tested twice and found worthy, felt my brain expand, felt I could encompass all the world, felt that space was not enough to contain me.
I had a few more drinks and walked back out into the street. I cut through an alley and halfway through it I saw a gang of boys circled around someone crumpled on the ground. Fists flying, shoes flashing, blood streaming from corner of mouth, eyes swollen puffy, cruel shrieks and demonic laughter. I walked past them quickly and out through the other end of the alley.
Back on the street I saw two men standing near a car. Looking about warily, prying at vent with tool, dropping tool in disgust, crowbar, broken glass, door flung open. I walked away and circled the block so as not to pass them. I walked tiredly in the direction of my apartment. The feeling of power was gone. I felt like I no longer lived in the world much less encompassed it. The world was something inscrutable I wanted to forget. I wanted to close the door and be left alone.
I was eager to get back to the quiet of my room. I wanted to finish the novel and see if there was a chance for Dmitri to escape his character. It is the way he acts that makes him culpable. I walked on the opposite side of the street until I was about a block away from my apartment. I crossed in the middle of the block and saw the steps of my apartment and a troika appeared. A driver reined in the horses, leaned out, and asked me if I thought Dmitri was guilty. He is innocent and why wouldn't you believe the word of an ex-monk over circumstantial evidence. "Stop!" a voice shouted. I refused. A hand touched my shoulder. I swung around, my fingers in his throat. I stabbed him with my jackknife. Then I attacked a second person. I struck out against the legal system's misguided judgments. I hammered his head against a post.
There were witnesses from my own apartment building. The police found me with a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov". I had just finished the part at the funeral of the young boy. Dmitri's fate is still doubtful. It was a long shot but maybe he could be happy one day. That's all there is to tell about my outbreak."
There was a noise at the cell door and the iron bars slid back. With notebook in hand the investigator walked out of the cell. The heavy door slammed closed and he said, "Just do what you are told and we won't have any trouble."
Joe Speer
contact: beatlickjoe@yahoo.com.
"Maybe if I start before the fight. It might help explain."
"Please do," said the investigator, "start at the beginning."
"I'm not sure where to begin. I'm usually told what to do. When I was young my parents me told what to do. Teachers at school told me when to do it. In the work place the boss and company policy told me how. I never had to think for myself, you see.
"I had a job in a bookstore. Then one day the manager got onto me about zoning my area instead of reading from random books. My spleen turned mauve. That same day I had a dispute with a co-worker. Yeah, I raised my voice a few decibels. I was fired that day. All this zero tolerance.
Without direction the only places I know to go are the public library and my post office box. That was enough excitement for me, accessing my mail late at night. A press in Berkeley printed one of my chapbooks and we sent proofs and whatnot back and forth.
I was distraught so I called a friend from work. He asked, "What up? I heard you wigged out."
"Oh, my emotions are overthrown!"
I told him I'm reading "The Brothers Karamazov". It makes me so agitated and resentful. It really bothers me because Dmitri is sentenced to twenty years in Siberia. The patricide he is accused of he didn't even commit. I think the father's rigor mortis is a cleansing of the community. He is a dissolute no-count money lender. Granted, we can't have people on a busting heads spree, but the old viper used his son's inheritance to coax his own girlfriend away from him. The old bugger had 3,000 rubles with her name on it. I'm outraged over all this injustice. The whole situation has crossed the line into my everyday life. It caused the scene in the bookstore. I asked him what I should do with myself and he said I could do whatever I wanted. I thanked him and hung up.
This advice put my life in a new perspective. I was excited and rushed about the apartment doing whatever I wanted. I piled books all over my bed and urinated in the sink. I felt free, but knew I would have to test myself to see if it was a true feeling. I could feign in my own apartment because no one was watching. I had to go out into the street and see what would happen.
I promised myself for the rest of the day no one would tell me what to do.
I hadn't gone anywhere for a long time. I became excited about just exploring different parts of the city. I left the apartment and when I got to the street corner I encountered my first test - a red stop light.
Here, already I was being told what to do by a an innate object. I thought about crossing the street, but I cowered, the cars were rapid and it looked like they would not stop for a misplaced bibliophile . I pretended to search the ground for lost change. But that was only kidding myself. Besides, it was only a red light, a stupid machine, and it didn't count because I could smash the lights out if I wanted. It was only people I wasn't going to listen to. The light changed green and I crossed the street.
I tell you I was angry with the judgment against Dmitri. All the brothers knew who killed their father. I'm so sorry Ivan has brain fever. He is so brilliant, having conversations with the devil and such. After walking several blocks I saw a woman leaning against a doorway. Round, bulging breasts, thrust out onto the sidewalk, loosely fitting sack dress smiling and touching herself. She asked if I wanted a date. She put her hand on my chest, undid a couple of buttons, and began to massage my stomach. Smiling, she told me to go upstairs with her. I refused.
Well, she wasn't really telling me what to do she just moved her hand down past my navel and lead me through the doorway by my belt. A man inside said I had to pay twenty dollars for the room. I refused.
He looked angrily at me, but the girl smiled him away. I followed her up a staircase and into a little room. There was a single bed against the wall, threadbare chenille spread lay on the mattress. She told me to take my clothes off. I refused.
Her hand went to my zipper as I stood looking at putrid stains and yellow spots. She inserted her fingers into my back pocket and moved into me with her hips. I stood looking at a crack in the wall, my arms dangling flaccidly at my sides. She was perturbed and asked what was wrong with me.
Suddenly two men burst in through the door. They were big with padded shoulders, sleeves rolled up, scowling beetle-browed. One of the men asked me what was I doing with his wife. I asked what was she doing with me. He got angry and told me to give him all my money. I refused.
They started after me and the woman coaxed them away. She told them I was crazy. They let me go and I hurried down the stairs and out into the street. A couple of small boys on the sidewalk pointed and laughed at me - small, impish, laughing through missing teeth. I pulled up my zipper and walked away.
Several blocks on down the street I entered a bar. Dark, tinny music hung in the air, smoke floated over two-toppers, sounds of glasses clicking, and ice drinks stirring, audible under music. I sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a Harvey Wallbanger.
Two men in suits were next to me talking in low voices but I couldn't help overhearing parts of what they said. One man said the heist was set for ten o'clock that night and the only people they had to worry about were on his payroll, ... he stopped suddenly.
I looked in their direction and they were staring at me. The man told me to move to another stool. I refused.
He reached into his coat and the other man stayed his arm. He said I must be crazy and motioned with his head. They both walked away. I felt good, had been tested twice and found worthy, felt my brain expand, felt I could encompass all the world, felt that space was not enough to contain me.
I had a few more drinks and walked back out into the street. I cut through an alley and halfway through it I saw a gang of boys circled around someone crumpled on the ground. Fists flying, shoes flashing, blood streaming from corner of mouth, eyes swollen puffy, cruel shrieks and demonic laughter. I walked past them quickly and out through the other end of the alley.
Back on the street I saw two men standing near a car. Looking about warily, prying at vent with tool, dropping tool in disgust, crowbar, broken glass, door flung open. I walked away and circled the block so as not to pass them. I walked tiredly in the direction of my apartment. The feeling of power was gone. I felt like I no longer lived in the world much less encompassed it. The world was something inscrutable I wanted to forget. I wanted to close the door and be left alone.
I was eager to get back to the quiet of my room. I wanted to finish the novel and see if there was a chance for Dmitri to escape his character. It is the way he acts that makes him culpable. I walked on the opposite side of the street until I was about a block away from my apartment. I crossed in the middle of the block and saw the steps of my apartment and a troika appeared. A driver reined in the horses, leaned out, and asked me if I thought Dmitri was guilty. He is innocent and why wouldn't you believe the word of an ex-monk over circumstantial evidence. "Stop!" a voice shouted. I refused. A hand touched my shoulder. I swung around, my fingers in his throat. I stabbed him with my jackknife. Then I attacked a second person. I struck out against the legal system's misguided judgments. I hammered his head against a post.
There were witnesses from my own apartment building. The police found me with a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov". I had just finished the part at the funeral of the young boy. Dmitri's fate is still doubtful. It was a long shot but maybe he could be happy one day. That's all there is to tell about my outbreak."
There was a noise at the cell door and the iron bars slid back. With notebook in hand the investigator walked out of the cell. The heavy door slammed closed and he said, "Just do what you are told and we won't have any trouble."
Joe Speer
contact: beatlickjoe@yahoo.com.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
War Poem 7 by Jake Berry
Wasp in amber.
Christ's palms in formaldehyde.
The scribes are weeping
in the ruins of their broken vocabulary.
Comes a witch in Canaan
can speak in pure image.
The ground crawls with
maggots when she speaks.
Soldiers and
mortar gun trucks
raid the laboratories
and take the parameter.
They are figures
in a book of prayer
locked in a virus.
Her left hand clutches
the broach of Minerva –
The sea swells
and swallows them all
and the prophets with them.
The grain gone sour
in the monastery stores,
even hallucination
takes its meat and
breathes into the cameras
and satellites
Heaven is empty now
except these leeches
pocked in gravity's curve
falling toward the Capitol
collecting the populace
like teeth.
Christ's palms in formaldehyde.
The scribes are weeping
in the ruins of their broken vocabulary.
Comes a witch in Canaan
can speak in pure image.
The ground crawls with
maggots when she speaks.
Soldiers and
mortar gun trucks
raid the laboratories
and take the parameter.
They are figures
in a book of prayer
locked in a virus.
Her left hand clutches
the broach of Minerva –
The sea swells
and swallows them all
and the prophets with them.
The grain gone sour
in the monastery stores,
even hallucination
takes its meat and
breathes into the cameras
and satellites
Heaven is empty now
except these leeches
pocked in gravity's curve
falling toward the Capitol
collecting the populace
like teeth.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Flashing The Hash at the Watergate (part six)
Once Karl Rove had hit a stopping point in his mind he shoved the two women into the wet grass and began taking photographs of them. As they writhed in some kind of illicit blessing of Ronald Reagan, Rove began kicking at them in his sock feet. Agents had circled the area and had re-directed tourists away. As we tried to inch closer and closer we noticed a startled Juan Williams, the regular Fox news contributor getting out of a SUV. One thing was unusual however: the SUV had diplomatic plates.
Jack and I at seeing Juan Williams stood up and walked gingerly towards the scene. We had had several conversations in secret with Williams and whenever he saw us around town he would begin trembling, as he had been a bit too honest for his parties good. He had detailed one night how the party had during the 2000 election attempted to impregnate several Gore staffers by force.
We knew that if we could get a photo of Williams alongside Karl Rove kicking two half undressed women in Arlington National Cemetery we could get Williams to open up about the tree house in the White House as he has been long rumored to be the one with the apple in his mouth.
Rove was in ecstasy. He didn't get the warning that Williams was approaching as agents had told him. As the women were beginning to scream now, the agents didn't notice us either. As we got closer we could hear Rove's ranting, "We'll call this HR 666! Yea, take that Bay Buchanan betrayer of the chair!" The harder Rove kicked the women the louder they would chant, "Four more years, four more years."
- Chris Mansel
Jack and I at seeing Juan Williams stood up and walked gingerly towards the scene. We had had several conversations in secret with Williams and whenever he saw us around town he would begin trembling, as he had been a bit too honest for his parties good. He had detailed one night how the party had during the 2000 election attempted to impregnate several Gore staffers by force.
We knew that if we could get a photo of Williams alongside Karl Rove kicking two half undressed women in Arlington National Cemetery we could get Williams to open up about the tree house in the White House as he has been long rumored to be the one with the apple in his mouth.
Rove was in ecstasy. He didn't get the warning that Williams was approaching as agents had told him. As the women were beginning to scream now, the agents didn't notice us either. As we got closer we could hear Rove's ranting, "We'll call this HR 666! Yea, take that Bay Buchanan betrayer of the chair!" The harder Rove kicked the women the louder they would chant, "Four more years, four more years."
- Chris Mansel
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Flashing The Hash at the Watergate (part five)
Any member of the press core will tell you that if you shove the head of a baby into an airsickness bag and pop the bag immediately you will completely unsettle anyone near you. The mother will confess immediately every cock she had ever sucked and whether or not she saw what she had seen and testified what she had testified to in a case against a politician. This has been done in the case against the Bush administration. We saw the tale and we were there to report it.
Jack Random and I armed with cameras, starkly open and brutal honesty, we traveled to the tomb of the unknown soldier where we had been told Karl Rove held private conversations as tourists watched two guys in dress uniform flip around rifles in peace time and during war. Rove would appear we had learned with a hat pulled down over his misshapen ears. So there we sat waiting for Rove to appear when we noticed a representative from the Fox network we had photographed once on the balcony of a hotel in Maryland. He watched as he exposed him self to a group of Catholic priests. The Priests stood motionless in the tourist bus windows.
Waiting for Karl Rove had gotten to be a favorite pastime for Jack and I. We would sometimes pay someone to tip off the Secret Service that he had seen a photograph of one of them transporting illegal aliens into the streets of San Antonio and watch as the agent shoved the tipster against the wall. We didn?t do it too often as it usually cost us a couple thousand dollars and once it took the promise of an introduction to a certain celebrity who enjoyed urine in more than a relieving manner.
As Jack listened again to the tape from the hotel I saw a couple of tourists taking a few steps backwards. I watched closely as two agents opened one of the men?s shirts to reveal a listening device. I grabbed the camera from around Jack?s neck as he cussed me loudly. The agent took notice of Rove arriving in a sedan flanked by two women.
The man with the listening device made an attempt to punch the agent in the face and the agent was beating him senseless immediately. Every tourist eyes? went right away to the noise. Rove and the two women made their way past the tomb to section thirteen of Arlington National Cemetery. As they walked we strolled quietly by the violent outburst of several agents now subduing the individual. By the time we were in the wet grass of the cemetery they had the man down to his underwear.
- Chris Mansel
Jack Random and I armed with cameras, starkly open and brutal honesty, we traveled to the tomb of the unknown soldier where we had been told Karl Rove held private conversations as tourists watched two guys in dress uniform flip around rifles in peace time and during war. Rove would appear we had learned with a hat pulled down over his misshapen ears. So there we sat waiting for Rove to appear when we noticed a representative from the Fox network we had photographed once on the balcony of a hotel in Maryland. He watched as he exposed him self to a group of Catholic priests. The Priests stood motionless in the tourist bus windows.
Waiting for Karl Rove had gotten to be a favorite pastime for Jack and I. We would sometimes pay someone to tip off the Secret Service that he had seen a photograph of one of them transporting illegal aliens into the streets of San Antonio and watch as the agent shoved the tipster against the wall. We didn?t do it too often as it usually cost us a couple thousand dollars and once it took the promise of an introduction to a certain celebrity who enjoyed urine in more than a relieving manner.
As Jack listened again to the tape from the hotel I saw a couple of tourists taking a few steps backwards. I watched closely as two agents opened one of the men?s shirts to reveal a listening device. I grabbed the camera from around Jack?s neck as he cussed me loudly. The agent took notice of Rove arriving in a sedan flanked by two women.
The man with the listening device made an attempt to punch the agent in the face and the agent was beating him senseless immediately. Every tourist eyes? went right away to the noise. Rove and the two women made their way past the tomb to section thirteen of Arlington National Cemetery. As they walked we strolled quietly by the violent outburst of several agents now subduing the individual. By the time we were in the wet grass of the cemetery they had the man down to his underwear.
- Chris Mansel
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