Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.

Could be I’m on a mission:
Convince the entire world
I am the World's Greatest Living
English Language poet;
Of course, genius such as mine
Goes generally unrecognized until
The posthumous crowd weighs in.
And yet, wouldn’t it be nice?

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Yes, wouldn’t it be nice?
(The Nobel Prize,
Tribute at the Kennedy Center,
A MacArthur Grant,
The Presidential Medal of Honor,
Reverent BJs from hipster groupies . . .
The Poet Laureate in his vicarage,
Enjoying my sweet twilight celebrity.)

(Cue “Guys & Dolls” soundtrack: “What's in the daily news?
I'll tell you what's in the daily news.”)
23: Beheaded at Nigerian Election Rally!
Amanda Knox Gets Away with ****** Again in Italy!
Kung Pow: Silicon Valley Penisocracy Crushes Ellen Pao
German Crash Dummy Co-pilot Flies Jet into the Alps!
Hilary’s Emails Are *****!
Sierra Leone Ebola Lockdown!
Iran: Kooks with Nukes!
Sri Lankan President’s Brother Dies from Ax Wounds!
Saudi Diplomats Evacuate Yemen!
Stampede at Hindu Bathing Ritual, Bangladesh Kills at Least 10!
Simply put:  THE WORLD IS IN A STATE OF ****.

Perhaps it’s time we turn again.
Seek solace in poetry—
“Yeah, chemistry,” insists my Sky Masterson,
My “Guys & Dolls” alter ago.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be.
All poets are gamblers & moonshiners.
We polish our chemical craft,
Sweet-talking the distillation apparatus,
Getting us, getting at linguistic essence.
Cunning linguists are we.
(Colonel Angus, are you back?)
Oyez! Oyez! The gavel raps:
“The Curious Case of Sam Hayakawa.”
We open this hearing to determine
Whether or not S.I. Hayakawa—guilty of
Numerous crimes against humanity & other
Professional Neo-Fascist “entrechats.”--
Whether or not he merits a kinder, gentler
Wikipedia BIO.
(Wikipedia ( i/ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdiə/ or  i/ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ WIK-i-***-dee-ə) Wikipedia)
We open this forum, focusing on his
Courageous stand against the
SDS & Black Panthers, part of
An unlikely coalition: The Worker-Student Alliance
& It’s rival, Joe Hill Caucuses.
Da Name of the Place:
(“I like it like that!” Hot Chelle Rae-“I Like It Like That” lyrics| Metro Lyrics www.metrolyrics.com Lyrics to 'I Like It Like That' by Hot Chelle Rae. “Let's get it on, yeah, y'all can come along/Everybody drinks on me, buy out the bar /Just to feel like I'm.”)
The name of the place: San Francisco State,
1968-69, the longest student strike in U.S. history,
Led successfully to the creation of
Black & Other Ethnic studies programs
On campuses across the country,
And, one could argue,
Gave the green light to
Osama Hussein Obama,
Our first Uncle Tom President.
But I digress.

ACTING SFSU President, Dr. Hayakawa—
Perpetual audition, the pressure on,
Feisty, independent-minded & combative,
Screaming at that skeevy student mob:
(Skeevy as in “He bought the thing from
Some skeevy dude in an alley.")
Declaring “A State of Emergency,”
Calling in the SFPD, whose
Inexplicable slogan says”
“Oro en Paz,
Fierro en Guerra.”
Archaic Spanish for
Gold in peace,
Iron in war, by the by,
For you holdouts,
Those of you who still
Think the “English First Movement”
Breathes life still.
I’ve got more news for you:
That crusade died long ago,
Locked up, dark & shuttered,
Bank Repo thugs, their thick
Neck muscles flexing from side to side,
Sashaying across the parking lot,
Like John Wayne on steroids,
Right up to the front door.)
The SFPD: San Francisco city fuzz,
(As they were known at the time) &
The California National Guard, as well,
Obstreperously, generously catered by
Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan,
(Early stage, Alzheimer’s at the time.
But still very much “The Gypper,”
Still chipper in Sacramento.)
Ronnie--keenly interested in
The Eureka State’s congressional clout,
Lassoes a seat in the U.S. House of Lords:
AKA: The U.S. Senate, SPQR.
It’s still hard . . .

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Still hard to believe that California was once
Rock solid in the clutches of the GOP,
Gripped tightly in the Party’s
Desperate talons. But the grip slipped,
Slipped in the slip-sliding 1970s.
It got harder and harder . . .

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Harder and harder to remind
Leroy & the rest of his ebony posse,
That it was Abraham Lincoln—
“The Great Emancipator” himself—who was,
Our first Republican President.
The Emancipation Proclamation:
That toothless rhetorical flourish,
Based solely on Abe’s
Constitutional authority as
Commander-in-Chief,
Not on a law passed by Congress.
It was just Abe blowing smoke
Up their ***** again,
Just an egalitarian blast from
His Old Kentucky past,
A youth spent splitting rails,
Busting his *** just like
Any plantation ******,
A stark plebeian commonality,
Too deeply etched to be ignored.
Poor Abraham Lincoln:
Probably a **** Creek crypto-Jew,
Neutered by the opposition:
His very own Republican majority Congress,
Another example of the GOP
Shooting off its own foot, right up there
With Mitt Romney’s "47 percent of the people,”
The rhetorical gaffe which cost him his
Second & final shot at the White House.
But I digress.

Senator Sam S.I. Samuel Hayakawa:
That inscrutable Asian fixer, is now U.S. Senator,
Republican, California, 1976-83
Pulpit-bullying his Senate colleagues,
Fiercely opposed to transfer of the
Panama Canal & Panama Canal Zone to
Panama: a diplomatic no-brainer; Duh?
Their freaking name is on both of them.
Senator Sam, obstinate & blustering:
"We should keep the Panama Canal.
After all, we stole it fair and square.”
And Hayakawa, later the driving impetus
Behind the Far Right “English Only” movement.
His co-founding an "Official English"
Advocacy group, U.S. English;
Their party line summarizes their belief:
“The passage of English as the official language will help to expand opportunities for immigrants to learn and speak English, the single greatest empowering tool that immigrants must have to succeed."
That’s how they sold it, anyway.
In sooth: just old-fashioned nativist
Anti-immigration hysteria.

Hayakawa: always the high achiever.
Hayakawa: The Great Assimilator,
Preaching his xenophobic Gospel:
“Immigration Must Be Reduced!”
Aryan rhetoric, of course,
A bi-product of radical authoritarian nationalism,
A movement with deep American roots.
Senator Sam: a Japanese-Canadian-American,
Always tried too hard to fit in.
Sam, comfortable in Chicago during WWII,
Not personally subject to confinement,
Advocated that Japanese-Americans
Submit to FDR’s 1942, Executive Order 9066.
“Time in camp, will eventually work to Japanese advantage."
Later, during the Congressional debate over
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 . . .
(Passed the House on September 17, 1987 (243–141)
Passed the Senate on April 20, 1988 (69–27, in lieu of S. 1009)
Reported by the joint conference committee on July 26, 1988,
Agreed to by the Senate on July 27, 1988 (voice vote) and
By the House on August 4, 1988 (257–156,
Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan 8/10/88.
He opposed $reparations for WWII internment:
“Japanese-Americans should not
Be paid for fulfilling their obligations."
Some guys, I guess, would say, or
Do anything for Bohemia Club membership.
Plagued by night terrors, nonetheless,
His Manzanar nightmares, his vivid
Imaginary experience at other Japanese
Internment Sites: Tule Lake & Camp Rohwer.
Stalag (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtalak])
Stalags, infamous still,
“Stalags ‘R Us,”
Still palpable memories for
Issei ("first generation")
& Nisei ("second generation").
See: 323 U.S. 214. Korematsu v. United States
(No. 22: Argued: October 11, 12, 1944.
Decided: December 18, 1944.140 F.2d 289.
The opinion, written by Hugo Black,
Chief Justice Harlan Stone, Presiding.)

Hayakawa: a strange duck, of course,
But we mustn’t ignore his strong credentials,
And I’d like to disabuse anyone here
Of the notion that it was anything
Other than his academic record
That got his case to this Forum.
Oyez! Oyez! The gavel raps:
“The Curious Case of Sam Hayakawa.”
So begins this fractured Pardoner’s Tale,
This petition for forgiveness,
The Capo di Tutti Capi,
Presiding: the original Italian mafioso,
His Eminence--the Vicar of Jesus Christ,
The Supreme Pontiff
Pope Paparazzi of Rome!
Roma: the only venue large enough to
Dispense dispensation of this magnitude.

Hayakawa: everyone says his C.V. is “impeccable.”
But did anyone ever freaking Google it?
Just where did Professor Sam go to school?
Undergrad? The University of Manitoba,
Truly, by any Third World Standard
A great bastion of intellectual rigor;
Grad school? McGill and U Wisconsin-Madison.
He was a Canadian by birth,
His academic discipline was Semantics.
(As in “That’s just semantics,”
That all-purpose rejoinder in any argument.)
Professor Hayakawa, The Semanticist,
He taught us: “All thought is sub-vocal speech.”

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Hmmm? We think in words.
The medium of thought is language.
If you grok this for the first time,
Let’s stop to celebrate our enlightenment,
With a cultural nod of respect,
We salute our Islamic brethren.
Radical Islam: the new bogeyman,
Responsible for keeping lights on in Alexandria,
Paying the defense & intelligence bills,
Sustaining that sinister
Military-Industrial complex
Ike warned us about.
Hang in there, Mustafa, old buddy.
Like the Cold War, this insanity
Will eventually blow over.
Orwell’s Oceania will reshuffle
Its deck of global grab-***, and a
New enemy will suddenly appear.
Big Brother, as always,
In the full-control mode,
Simply put: on top of the situation.
So Hurrah!
Allāhu Akbar. “God is Great!
The Takbīr (the term for the
Arabic phrase: usually translated as
"God is [the] greatest.")

“All thought is sub-vocal speech.”
What a simple, yet profound insight!
Just a short hop, skip & jump to the
Realization that, perhaps, the clarity
& Power of our minds can be groomed,
Improved upon by mastery of—
In Sam’s case, anyway--the English Language.
Was this, perhaps, the germ of U.S. English,
The political lobbying organization
He co-founded, dedicated to making
English, the official language of the United States.
Hayakawa: a wooly conservative of his own design;
No wonder Governor Reagan loved him.

Dr. S.I. Hayakawa, a colorful and polarizing
Figure in California politics during the 1960s and 70s.
Can we forgive his daily afternoon naps.
Asleep on the floor of the U.S. Senate,
Leaving California so pathetically,
So ostensibly under-represented.
Senator Sam’s comatose presence at
Washington-on Potomac; the
District of Columbia.
A long time ago,
In a distant galaxy . . .
Far, far away.

TEAR GAS.
Alas, long before he got to Washington,
Long before ever setting foot off campus,
He called for tear gas to
Disperse those pesky college kids.
I repeat myself for emphasis:
He authorized the use of tear gas at SF State.
Tear gas: a lachrymatory agent?
Actually, a potentially lethal
Chemical agent . . .
(Yeah, Chemistry!
To wit: Sgt. Sara Brown,
Referencing “Guys & Dolls” again.)
Outlawed for use during wartime,
Banned in international warfare
Under both the 1925 Geneva Protocol; & the
Chemical Weapons Convention;
“Tear gas:  a weapon of war against
The people. We believe that
Tear gas remains a chemical weapon
Whether used on a battlefield, or city streets.”

Thus, history will be your judge,
You unleashed tear gas on college kids,
So I wouldn’t expect a rep makeover
Any time soon, Ichiye-san, my ichiban friend.

All the policemen, saloonkeepers and efficiency experts in Toledo
  knew Bern Dailey; secretary ten years when Whitlock was mayor.
Pickpockets, yeggs, three card men, he knew them all and how they flit
  from zone to zone, birds of wind and weather, singers, fighters,
  scavengers.

The Washington monument pointed to a new moon for us
  and a gang from over the river sang ragtime to a ukelele.
The river mist marched up and down the Potomac, we hunted
  the fog-swept Lincoln Memorial, white as a blond woman's arm.
We circled the city of Washington and came back home four o'clock in the morning,
  passing a sign: House Where Abraham Lincoln Died, Admission Cents.

I got a letter from him in Sweden and I sent him a postcard from Norway ..
  every newspaper from America ran news of "the flu."

The path of a night fog swept up the river to the Lincoln Memorial
  when I saw it again and alone at a winter's end, the marble in the mist
  white as a blond woman's arm.

N.  N is for neurologist.  
What does the neurologist say?
“Nothing seems to be wrong.
Your net recall seems normal.
You seem to remember most nouns and the news.
Nothing serious,
No need to worry.”

I don’t quite remember driving here.
This is Bethesda, right?
And your name is…?

P.  P is for psychologist.
The P. is silent.
So is the psychologist.
I talk and talk.
My energy level is high today,
even though I got no sleep last night.  
I want to write a poem and run a partial marathon.
I love people.
People are so beautiful.
“Only connect,” said E.M. Forster.
Am I talking too much?
How does that make me feel?
Just great!  Not like yesterday,
when I wanted to jump into the Potomac
from Key Bridge.
P is also for Potomac.
The psychologist speaks.
I need a new pill.

E. E is for endocrinologist.
What does the endocrinologist say?
“Eat. You’re an enigma.
You are losing weight.
We don’t know why.
We’ve checked everything
and can’t find evidence
of enemies in your endocrine system.
Enjoy some eclairs, eggplant, eggs benedict.
Life is short, endulge!  
Hopefully not too short.

O. O is for oncologist.
Oh.
Oh oh.

596

When I was small, a Woman died—
Today—her Only Boy
Went up from the Potomac—
His face all Victory

To look at her—How slowly
The Seasons must have turned
Till Bullets clipt an Angle
And He passed quickly round—

If pride shall be in Paradise—
Ourself cannot decide—
Of their imperial Conduct—
No person testified—

But, proud in Apparition—
That Woman and her Boy
Pass back and forth, before my Brain
As even in the sky—

I’m confident that Bravoes—
Perpetual break abroad
For Braveries, remote as this
In Scarlet Maryland—

THE BRIDGE says: Come across, try me; see how good I am.
The big rock in the river says: Look at me; learn how to stand up.
The white water says: I go on; around, under, over, I go on.
A kneeling, scraggly pine says: I am here yet; they nearly got me last year.
A sliver of moon slides by on a high wind calling: I know why; I'll see you to-morrow; I'll tell you everything to-morrow.

Sunday but no bells yet,
we'll get them later and
a sermon from the Padre.

I have an opinion on his opinions
his minions do too,
my opinion turns the air so blue
he thinks it's the sky
his minions do too.

But he's harmless enough which religion and
biblical stuff is not usually so.

I pass go and
collect
two hundred
one hundred for me and
the remainder for the
offertory.

And it's the monopoly
that'll topple me from this
****** thorny crown.

Sunday may be or not a lot of good,
I'm always open to suggestion and
willing to question
should
the need arise.

As the blue moon climbs over the Potomac River,
I lay my tired body down next to the planted field.
Momma tells me that I’ll turn 13 tomorrow; my birthday wish….to be free
Like brail, the scars on my back speak to the humility in my life.
My dog Jip lays beside me and with a warm tongue conveys everything will be fine.

It’s the early fall here at Georgetown University
My name is Cornelius, Cornelius Hawkins and I write these words so you know my plight.
Here with me are my father, mother and 2 yr old sister.
We toil the field from dawn to dusk…the salt herring and cornmeal give us strength.
And my hands are forever clinging to this rosary and I pray God will hear my prayers.

I can’t begin to tell how afraid I am each and every day.
I try not to dwell on our strife and struggles, but day dream of downright happiness.
My family and our ancestors before us have been confined to slavery for 200 years.
Momma always says “There is no slavery, just ignorance”.
I hold her words near and dear to my heart and I never give up hope for a better life.

Until tonight they were separate specialties,
different stories, the best of their own worst.
Riding my warm cabin home, I remember Betsy's
laughter; she laughed as you did, Rose, at the first
story. Someday, I promised her, I'll be someone
going somewhere and we plotted it in the humdrum
school for proper girls. The next April the plane
bucked me like a horse, my elevators turned
and fear blew down my throat, that last profane
gauge of a stomach coming up. And then returned
to land, as unlovely as any seasick sailor,
sincerely eighteen; my first story, my funny failure.
Maybe Rose, there is always another story,
better unsaid, grim or flat or predatory.
Half a mile down the lights of the in-between cities
turn up their eyes at me. And I remember Betsy's
story, the April night of the civilian air crash
and her sudden name misspelled in the evening paper,
the interior of shock and the paper gone in the trash
ten years now. She used the return ticket I gave her.
This was the rude **** of her; two planes cracking
in mid-air over Washington, like blind birds.
And the picking up afterwards, the morticians tracking
bodies in the Potomac and piecing them like boards
to make a leg or a face. There is only her miniature
photograph left, too long now for fear to remember.
Special tonight because I made her into a story
that I grew to know and savor.
A reason to worry,
Rose, when you fix an old death like that,
and outliving the impact, to find you've pretended.
We bank over Boston. I am safe. I put on my hat.
I am almost someone going home. The story has ended.

There is no dusk in this city
penetrated by the raging Potomac,
Night just crams itself in and
rapes the day dry -
lays her flat against the horizon.
Mothers and children run for covers
and put each other to sleep;
in a few hours
harlots and nighthawks will do the same.

Sweet Siren
You are this city
Petticoated and pretty,
Cunning and stunning
Winking and blinking
Red
Yellow
Green
eyes popping open like sunken headlights,
Ready for the night.

I hear your wailing
red-flashed and flaming
like an open heart,
piercing the black with it's plea.
I feel your pulse-pumping red corpuscles
thrusting me deep into
lusting for things forbidden and hidden
Somewhere inside this neon wonderland.

Sweet Siren,
Sing your teasing tunes for me
Deliver me from your shelters and streets,
Where infidels and angels
Fall at your feet.
Sweet Siren,
Deliver me to the
Trembling shelter of your sheets.

Liars and their lies
roam this concrete jungle
begging for love and razors
and other disposable items.
You go screaming passed them though,
determined to save at least one numb drunk ***
in some rain cleansed back alley of vices;
only to fool your own conscience
with the lithium laced smile of charity.

Sweet Siren
Quiet your angry shrill to a hush
The tarmac and taxis are tired of us
And your princes and saviors have fled this town.
Sweet Siren,
It's time for us to burn this city down
And leave the ashes
For the thieves and the clowns.

THE DOME of the capitol looks to the Potomac river.
  Out of haze over the sunset,
  Out of a smoke rose gold:
One star shines over the sunset.
Night takes the dome and the river, the sun and the smoke rose gold,
The haze changes from sunset to star.
The pour of a thin silver struggles against the dark.
A star might call: It's a long way across.

A Father for a Nation

A lot of knots now show in our discord but in our great beginning the great living God went into the
****** pristine forest and plucked out one of uncommon character and dignity from this choicest

Material a people would be brought forth that would be the admiration of the world so George
Washington with the common materials of only a quill and parchment set in motion a new course

That abridged history and chartered a course for this unique land a trek was begun across a vast frontier
Many obstacles and difficulties lay ahead the king and tyrant’s angry words would blast you into action

They would come sweeping across the Potomac whipping and lashing until men of devotion and devout
Faith could no longer ignore their substance or their intent a struggle began its clamor would reach and

Deafen the English crown that tried in vain to squelch freedom’s infant cry in places like Yorktown White
Plains and Long Island musket ***** would run up the tally the individual cost in human souls for a

Required season agony were paid their demanded sum into the chasm of ugly death marched the
Gentle souls of our fore fathers paying a price so that we could be free not free to do as we please

But to carry on this proud heritage that was given to us by their great sacrifice oh mortal soul on self
I did not bestow to another one day I will be careful to behold his face trace it well make sure it shows

Peace for with him you are to dwell I have not been a man of war it was the responsibility of others to
Defend my rights on the field of battle they knew unspeakable horrors walked the thin line between

Sanity and madness sacred honor held them from going over the edge to them in everything I owe them
Profound thanks we use to say the pledge of allegiance George but now lip service is even too much

Our national monuments were made of marble the idea was to build them from an enduring material
We go and gawk and gush and say how marvelous all the while our actions have eroded these precious

Symbols of freedom the true picture is marble that is in a state of decay pock marked chipped bits and
Pieces piled at the foot of what was once a great edifice for freedom the statutes of bronze who

Symbolize our national heroes take on the guise of doddering foolish old men that don’t know where
They are or what they are doing this our reality not theirs in each generation it falls to individuals to

Arise To the occasion and meet the need that reality prescribes I believe the God who gave us George
Washington will lift up a leader with the power to pull us from the quagmire that we find ourselves in

It will only be by His mercy in every other time He has never failed all is needed is humility and prayer
As the portrait shows George kneeling in the snow in his generals uniform he knew where his victory

Would come from as well as Abe who said we don’t count on our bristling battlements but on the
Righteous God who loves freedom and is the true source of it endurance we in true humility say thank

You Heavenly Father and thank you father of our indebted and grateful nation with grateful hearts
Thanks and happy birthday to you remembering you gives us a connection to the past and to each other
That is Profound

This is being posted late in the day as a tribute for the father of our country but it isn’t late this was
Written in ninety six I picked up a car and a old royal typewriter here in Illinois on the way back home I

Held up in a Motel in Flagstaff Arizona for two days watched hours of the history channel and wrote this
And other Pieces those old royal type writers were what the soldiers hiding behind enemy lines used to
Send their Communiqués back to the front I’m very proud of it I try to do honor by it when I write

The gravel of the driveway shifts under my shoes
While I lift my eyes to the horizen, like the evening before.
The sunset never waits for me, but I pretend it will.
I've always been a dreamer, but that's not news.

Not of any consequence. A pipe dream.

The night will come when it will come.
I guess I'll get used to that someday,
but for now the sun is sinking over the potomac.
It scares me how the shade can make me numb.

Hold on to the light. Catch the very last beam.

With the passing of day, night steals in.
Suddenly, every ghost on every corner is you.
Whenever a shadow falls across the street it's you.
I try to call out, but don't know where to begin.

I can smell you in the rain. A pipe dream.

But there is nothing on the street for me to find.
No eyes, no hair, no smile or warm touch.
In fact, there's nothing much to be seen at all.
I breathe in deep; the victory of a calm mind.

The sun sets over the potomac. Catch the very last beam.

Sitting at a bar
In a palace built by
Nineteenth-century slaves,
And the back of my shirt
Is soaked from the
Hundred degree weather.
I rub my neck,
Wipe the hot perspiration
From it with my hand,
Only to pick up
My glass of beer
And get it's cold sweat
All over my palm.
I ask the bartender
About the nets
Obstructing my view
Of the gold-flaked,
Hundred foot ceilings,
But he doesn't know
Why they're there,
Or just doesn't care
Enough to humor me.
Happy hour prices
Segregate me and my soul
From the charcoal
Suits shuffling past
As they head to
The trains that will
Deliver them to
Their BMWs
So they can drive to
Their wine cellars
And plastic wives.
The history of this place
Is suffocating me,
It's thick in the air,
As are the dialects
Of dozens of states,
Shouting to each other
Or to themselves
Or to god.
I pay our tab
And dive into
A red line train
Like a CVS syringe
Into a ******'s arm,
And rush away from
the city's heart
With the other cells,
Through tunnels buried
Beneath the birth and death
Of the American scream.
If I fall asleep,
I'll never wake up,
The dream will replace
The reality I've created.
The steady thrum of
The train croons to me,
But the acidic stench
Of July humanity
Keeps me locked
In this scenario.
The darkness flees
As we breach the
Border of daylight.
Jetskis on the Potomac
Remind me of what
I don't know.
Dreaded beards
On weathered sacks
Of human decay
Perched on plastic seats
Remind me of what
I've painted as real
In my underexposed brain.
I'm exhausted,
All my water has
Evaporated, risen,
And I'm a Little drunk.
My eyelids are heavy,
And move like
Hurricane barriers.
Open:
Same scene,
Different passengers.
Closed:
Spiral staircases
Of neon fibres,
A religious maven
Spitting his canon,
Fleeting images of
Hardwired memories
I've grown old
Trying to erase.
Open:
He's staring right at us.
The man in the
Periwinkle shirt
And the bronze
Kmart tie.
His sweat shines
Like young paint
On an Oldsmobile,
His double chin
Is tanned to
The color of his tie,
And he knows too much.
He knows more than I do,
More than I can take.
His eyes shine
With the knowledge,
The stupid grin
Plastered on his
Greasy face
Knocks me out.
Closed:
The sky is vast,
And unscathed by jealous clouds.
The crystal clear water holds me up,
Its pressure on my back
Is as refreshing as it is comforting.
Max and Andy splash and laugh to my left.
The pond water in my ears
Distorts their sounds,
But the mushrooms in my blood
Explain them.
Jesse is coming,
Doing well at keeping his cigarette dry,
Swimming with one arm.
I feel something unlock inside me,
Forget it's June,
That I'm floating
In this lake
For the first
And last time,
That I'm still
In Rhode Island,
That the love
Of my life
Is in Virginia,
I forget my limbs,
My hair,
My skin,
My ****,
My heartbeat,
The stellar iron in my blood,
And as the water fills my lungs,
As the shouts commence
And sight fades,
I am reborn,
I am the microbes I am swallowing,
I am the glow of the nearest star
Glinting off the rippling surface,
I am the sand beneath me,
I am the air pushing the pine needles,
I am alive,
I am open:
I am still on a train
In Washington DC
And this ******* guy
Knows too much.
His lips are wet with it.
It's written in the part
Of his thinning hair,
In the way he's thumbing
the pages
Of the book he isn't reading.
I can't contain the shout,
The burst of wasted pride,
The "*******!"
The "What do you see that's so ******* interesting?!"
I can feel Ali's hand
And the eyes of
All the passengers in the car
Fall upon me,
And the pressure
Caves in my skull.
From my sunken face:
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."

Four score and seventy one years ago,
fifty thousand men, in blue and gray
divided, became one, in red united
to consecrate the ground where we
now stand.  From the Shenandoah
Valley, and the Potomac banks they
marched, and fell at Cemetery Hill,
Little Round Top, and Devil's Den.

But on this day, they rise to give
meaning to their sacrifice; they leave
behind their sabers and their musket
rifles, their cannon silent, their battle
done; they rise in peace at Gettysburg,
they rise at dawn with the morning sun.

Traveling (with Frost) down the lightly trodden path,
with shoed soles sauntering over thawed earth,
twisting down the narrow trail,
away from the prying eyes of tour guides—

Encompassed by flowery heads who mirror the sun,
who burst forth with fluorescent green necks
craning from the dirt,
delineating our path in cascades of springing splendor.

Sensing the ostinato of ambulant waters crescendo,
we soon break from the budding foliage—
To be greeted by gentle winds
and the lapping of placid waves

who break onto the languid shore
onto shoed and socked feet,
who sense holy ground and immediately
kick off their bindings—

To sink into the earth,
and gritty sand reaching up between toes;
the water deceptively inviting,
is greeted with delightful shrieks in its refreshing chill.

Secluded in our cove,
we gaze over the waters where to our right
rests a breathing reconstruction of the Dove;
we stand awed before these waters
both the settler and the native.

What gods were praised on these lands,
and in these woods,
and in these skies,
and in these waters?

And on March 25, 1634,
in the promising onset of spring,
what had they to sing in the calm airs
as the settlers crossed the threshold of the Potomac?

She whispers,
“Funny how the water appears green on the shore,
and clear on the river.”

--St. Mary's City, March 10, 2016.

I have this
theory about
irony, tyranny
and irrational
national emergencies
you see, when
the foul wind
blowing south out
of Washington DC
fails the smell test
but compares well
with, say, *******
cat ****, radioactive
batshit contaminants
but, hey, try any
old way, you still can’t
iron any wrinkles out
of the fact that what
lies in the murky bottom
of the Potomac
our leader drinks in
also flow through
the faucets to sink, then
down the *******
of our so-called democracy
and into the lagoon
down on the links
of Mara-a-Lago.

Is your heart still wild;
I wonder,
as fog silently lifts off the Potomac.
I am not sure when
the rains started,
but the noise
falls into the fog.

The district seems sleepy,
and I am tired too.

When is it time?
When did the food lose it's taste?
When did adventure
get replaced by routine?

It was 3:00 a.m. in Bowie Maryland in the year of our Lord, 1861.

A drum roll passed by in the night not more than a mile away, and Billy couldn’t tell whether it was coming from the Yanks or the Rebs. Both of Billy’s brothers had left home in the past two months.  His oldest brother Jeb having joined the Army of Northern Virginia, while his next oldest brother Seth was now fighting for the Union with Major General George G. Meade in the Army of the Potomac. Billy’s family was like a lot of other families in Maryland, and the Western Shore of Virginia, with some men choosing to fight for the North while many chose the South.

Billy was just about to turn sixteen and still had not chosen his side.  He had friends and family fighting for both and knew that the time was getting short for him to choose.  He couldn’t imagine fighting against either of his older brothers, but once he decided the possibility would definitely be there.  Billy pulled the bed covers over his head and thought back to a more pleasant time — a day when his two older brothers had taken him fishing in Mayo along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

His brothers couldn’t have been more different.  Jeb was large and domineering with a personality that fit the profile of the typical soldier or warrior.  Seth was more studious and would rather have his nose stuck in a book than behind the sights of a Springfield Rifle Model 1861.  The 1861 was the most widely used rifle on both sides. The south called their version the Fayetteville Rifle, and Billy’s Dad had given his to Jeb just before he died last year.  Billy had never fired the big gun and had only carried it for his father and brother when they went on their weekly hunts for deer and small game.

Billy Finally Drifted Off To Sleep …

The next morning, his mother told him that Union soldiers had passed by in the night under the command of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth.  They were on their way to Alexandria Virginia to join with Colonel Orlando B. Wilcox in an attempt to retake Alexandria and drive the confederates out.  It was just too close to Washington D.C. and had to be secured. For several months confederate troops had been infiltrating Maryland and sightings had been reported from Hagerstown to Anne Arundel County. Billy wondered about the fighting that would take place later that week and hoped that wherever his brothers were engaged they were safe and out of harms way.

After breakfast, Billy decided to spend the day fishing along the Patuxent River just southeast of his home.  He rode their old Tennessee Walker George as his blue tick hound Alfie ran along side. It took Billy an hour to get to the river and he used the time to once again try and decide what the right thing was for him to do.  He had sympathies for both sides, and the decision in his mind was neither black nor white.  He wished that it was because then he could get this all over with and leave today. Billy was famous in his area for being able to get across the water. Whether it was a makeshift raft, dugout canoe, or just some drift lumber available, Billy had made it across long open stretches of the Chesapeake Bay — never once having been deterred.

He Was An Early Day Chesapeake Waterman

Billy returned home from fishing that day and found his house burned to the ground.  His mother was standing out front still in tears with her arms wrapped around Billy’s little sister Meg.  A rear-guard unit from Ellsworth’s column had gotten word that Billy’s brother Jeb was fighting for the South and just assumed that the entire family were southern sympathizers. Billy’s mother tried to tell the soldiers that her middle son was fighting with the Army of The Potomac.  No matter how hard she pleaded with the sergeant in charge, he evacuated all in the house (Billy’s Mother, Sister and Aunt Bess) and then covered the front porch in coal oil, lit it with a torch, and then just rode away. He never even turned around to watch it burn.

That Union Sergeant had now made Billy’s decision crystal clear, at least for the moment.  Once he got his mother, sister, and aunt resettled, he would make his way to Virginia and join with his older brother in the confederate cause. He remembered his brother Jeb telling him that the Confederate Soldiers had more respect, and he couldn’t imagine them doing to his family what the Union Army had just done.

It took Billy two weeks to get his Mother resettled with family up in Annapolis.  He then packed the little that remained of his belongings, loaded up old George, and said goodbye to the life he knew.  It would be a week’s ride to get past the Union Camps in Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia, and he knew he would have to stay in the tree line and travel at night.  If caught by the Yanks, his only chance of survival would be to join up with them, and he couldn’t imagine fighting for those who had just destroyed his home. His conviction to get past Fredericksburg was now determined and strong.

All Billy had to arm himself with was an 1860 percussion squirrel rifle that his brothers had bought him before going off to war.  It was only.36 caliber, but still gave Billy some feeling of security as he slowly passed through the trees in the dark. His plan was to hug the western shore of the bay, as far as Charlotte Hall, and then take two short ferry rides. His first would be across the Patuxent River and then one across the Potomac on his way to Fredericksburg.  He prayed and he hoped that the ferry’s he found were not under Union control.

Billy spent his first night in Churchton along the western shore. It was quiet and uneventful, and he was actually able to get a good night’s sleep.  He had run out of oats for George though, and in the morning needed to find an understanding farmer to help fortify his mount.  As he approached the town of Sunderland, he saw a farmer off to his right (West) tending to his fields.  Billy approached the farmer cautiously making sure he rode around in front of the farmer and not approaching from the rear.

The farmer said his name was Hawkins, and he told Billy there were oats over in the barn and two water troughs in front of the house.  He also said that if he was hungry there was a woman inside who would fix him something to eat.  He then told him that he could spend the night in his barn but since it was still early in the day, he said he was sure that Billy wanted to move on.

Billy thought it was strange that the man asked no other questions of him.  He seemed to accept Billy for all that he was at the moment — a young man riddled with uncertainty and doubt and on his way to a place he still wasn’t sure was right for him.  The look in the man’s eyes pointed Billy in the direction he now needed to go, and as he turned to thank him for his hospitality the man had already turned back to his plow.

In the barn were three large barrels of oats and five empty stalls. Two of the stalls looked like they had recently been slept in because there were two empty plates and one pair of socks still lying in the stall furthest to the left.  Billy fed George the oats and then walked outside.  Everything looked quiet in the house as he approached the front door.  He knocked twice, and a handsome looking woman about his mother’s age answered before he could knock a third time.  The woman’s name was Martha and as she invited Billy inside, she asked him when was the last time he had eaten?
Yesterday morning Ma’m, Billy said, as Martha prepared him some cold pork and cooked beans.  Billy was so hungry that he thought it was the best thing that he had ever tasted. Martha then told Billy to be careful in the woods because both union and rebel forces had been seen recently and there were stories of atrocities from both sides as they passed on their way.  Martha also said she had heard that Union forces had burned a farm up in Bowie a few weeks ago.  Billy stayed quiet and didn’t utter a word.

Billy Remained Quiet

After he finished his meal, Billy thanked Martha who had packed salt pork for him to take on his way.  Billy walked George to the water trough and waited as George drank.  He looked across the fields and he could sense what was coming.  This tranquil and pastoral scene was soon to be transformed into blood and gore as the epic struggle between North and South finished its first year. It was late fall in 1861 and Billy’s birthday was in two more weeks.  This was never the way he envisioned turning sixteen to be.

Billy thanked Martha, put the salted pork in his pouch, and remounted George. Martha said:  Whichever side you are riding to, may God be with you, young man.  Billy thought it was strange that she knew where he was heading without him telling.  He then also thought that he was probably not the first young traveler to stop at this farm for some kind words and sustenance. He rode back out in the field to thank the farmer, but when he got to the spot where he had met him before, the farmer was not there.  Billy wondered where he could have gone.  As he rode back down the cobbled dirt road, he noticed a sign at the end where it reconnected with the main road — Billett’s Farm. That wasn’t the name the farmer had told him when they were first introduced before.

Hawkins He Had Said

Billy worked his way towards Charlotte Hall.  From there he would head East to Pope’s Creek and try to get on the short ferry that would take him across the Potomac River and over to Virginia. Then Billy was sure he would finally be safe.  Tonight though, he only made it as far as Benedict Maryland, and he again needed to find secluded shelter for the night. Benedict was right along the banks of the Patuxent River where the farming was good, and the fishing was even better.

It was getting dark when Billy spotted what he was looking for.  There was a large farm up ahead with two large barns and three out buildings.  Billy sat inside the trees and waited for dark.  It was inside the outbuilding furthest to the east that he intended to stay the night.  As darkness covered the fields, Billy walked slowly towards the large shack.  He led George behind him by his lead and hoped that he would remain quiet.  George was an older horse, now fifteen, and seemed to always know what was required of him without asking.  Not that you can really ask a horse to do anything, but George did just seem to know.

Billy got to the outbuilding and put his ear to the back wall to see if he could hear anything from inside.  When he was sure it was safe, he walked around front to the door, opened it, and he and George quickly walked inside.  In the very dim moonlight, Billy could see that it was about 20’ X 20’ and had chopped wood stored against the back wall.  There were also two empty stalls and a loft up above about 10’ X 20.’  Billy decided to sleep downstairs in case he had to get away fast, and after tying George to the furthest back stall, he laid down in the stall to its right and fell fast asleep.
Billy doesn’t know how long he had been asleep, but all at once he heard the sound of clicking and could feel the cold hard press of steel against his left temple.  He woke up in a start and could see five men with lanterns standing over him in the stall.  As his eyes started to adjust, he noticed something strange.  Three of these five men were black.

Whatcha doin here boy, and where you headed, the biggest of the three black men asked him?  Billy knew that how he was to answer that question would probably determine whether he lived through the night. I’m headed to Virginia to try and find my older brother. Our farm was burned a few weeks ago and my mother and baby sister are now living with relatives.  I need to let my brother know, so he will know where to find us when the war is over.
I think this here boy’s fixin to join up with the Rebs, another of the black men shouted out.  Tell the truth boy, you’re headed to Richmond to sign up with old Jeff Davis ain’t you?  Billy lied and said he wasn’t sure of which side to fight for and that he had a brother fighting for each.  With that, the biggest of the three sat him on a barrel in the corner and began to talk again …
What you done tonight boy is decide to camp in a rural spot of the Underground Railroad.  You know what that is boy?  We have a real problem now because you knows where it’s at.  We can’t trust that you won’t tell nobody else and ruin other’s chances to get North and be free.  Billy just stared into the man’s face.  He had a strength mixed with kindness behind his eyes and for a reason Billy couldn’t understand, he felt safe in this man’s presence.

Son, we is makin our way over to Preston on the western shore where we catches a train to the North.  We have one more stop before there and that’s at the Hawkins place just thirty miles up the road.  Billy then knew why the stalls back at Martha’s barn had looked slept in.  He still wondered why the sign at the farm entrance had said Billett instead of Hawkins.  The black man then said: My names Lester, and those two men over there are brothers named Rayford and Link.  By now, the two white men were gone and only the four of them were left in the stall.

Since you say you haven’t made your mind up yet about which side to join, let me help you a little with your choosin.  Lester then went on to tell Billy that Rayford and Link had five other brothers and two sisters that were all killed while trying to escape to the North.  Not only were they killed, but they were tortured before being hanged just outside of Columbia South Carolina.  Lester then asked Rayford and Link to remove their shirts.  As they did, Lester took his lantern and shined it over both of their backs.  Both were totally covered with scars from the several lashings they had received on the plantation where they had worked back in South Carolina.  Lester said this was not unusual, and no man should be treated that way.  This was worse treatment than the slave owner would ever do to any of his animals.

Lester then said again: It’ll be a shame to have to **** you boy, but for the better good of all involved, I’ll do what I gots to do. With that, the three men walked outside, and Billy could hear them talking in hushed tones for what seemed like an hour.  Lester walked back inside alone and said: What’s your name son?  We’ve decided we're taking you with us up the road a piece.  You might come in handy if we need a hostage or someone with local knowledge of the area as we make our way t’wards Preston. Go back to sleep and we’ll wake you in an hour when it’s time to go.

Billy couldn’t sleep. It had been a long day of interrogation and darkness was again approaching.  He heard the men talking outside and from what they were saying, he realized they did all of their traveling at night hiding out in small barns and shacks like this during the light of day. He wondered now if he’d ever see home again.  He wondered even more about his previous decision to fight for the South.

In an hour, Lester came in and asked Billy if that was his horse in the stall next to him.  Billy said it was and Lester said: Get him outside, we’re going to load him with the chillens and then be on our way.  When Billy walked outside he saw eight other black people in addition to the three he had previously met.  It was a mother and father and five children all aged between three and eleven.  Lester hoisted the three smallest children up on George’s back, as the other two lined up to walk alongside.  They would make sure that none of the younger ones fell off as they maneuvered their way North through the trees at night.  The mother and father walked quietly behind, as the three large black men led the way with Link scouting up ahead for anything unforeseen.

Just before dawn, Billy recognized where they were.  They were at the end of that farm road he had just come down the day before, but the sign now read in faded letters Hawkins.  Billy looked back at the sign and he could see something written on the back.  As he squinted into the approaching sun, he could see the letters B-I-L-L-E-T-T written of the back of the board.  Billy was now more confused than ever.  Lester told them all to wait in the trees to the left of the farm road, as he took out three small rocks from his pants pocket. The sun was almost up and this was the most dangerous part of their day.

He approached the house slowly and threw the first stone onto the front porch roof — then followed by the second and then the third.  Without any lights being lit, the front door opened and Lester walked inside.  In less than a minute, he was back in the trees and said:  It now OK fo us to makes our way to the barn, where we’s gonna hide for the day.

After they were settled in the five empty stalls, Lester decided who would then take the first watch.  He needed to have two people on watch, one looking outside for approaching strangers and one watching Billy so he wouldn’t try to escape.  What Lester didn’t know was that Billy wasn’t sure he wanted to go anywhere right now and was starting to feel like he was more part of what was going on than any hostage or prisoner.

In another hour, Martha came in with two big baskets of food: Oh I see you have found my young friend Billy, I didn’t know that he worked for the road.  Lester told Martha that he didn’t, and he was still not sure of what to do with him.  Martha just looked down at Billy and smiled. I’m sure you’ll know the right thing to do Lester, and then she walked back outside toward the house. Lester told Billy that Martha was a staple on the Road to Preston and that without her, hundreds, maybe thousands of black slaves would now be dead between Virginia and Delaware.  He then told Billy that Martha was a widow, and both her husband and two sons had been killed recently at the Battle of Bull Run.  They had fought on the Confederate side, but Martha still had never agreed with slavery.  Her husband and sons hadn’t either, but they sympathized with everything else that the South was trying to do.

Billy’s head felt like it wanted to explode.  Here was a woman who had lost everything at the hands of Yankee soldiers and yet was still trying to help runaway slaves achieve freedom as they worked their way through Maryland.  Billy wanted to talk to Martha.  He also wondered who that man was in the field the previous morning when he had stopped to introduce himself.  He was sure at the time it had been Martha’s husband, but now Lester had just said that she was a widow. More than anything though, Billy wanted to talk to Martha!

Billy asked Lester when he returned from his watch if he could go see Martha inside the house.  Lester said: What fer boy, you’s be better off jus sittin quietly in this here barn. Billy told Lester that if he mentioned to Martha that he wanted to see her, he was sure she would know why and then agree to talk with him.  Lester said: I’ll think on it boy, now go get ya some sleep.  Oh by the way, did you get somethin to eat?  Matha’s biscuits are the best you’ll ever taste.  Billy said, Yes, and then tried to lie down and go to sleep.  His mind stayed restless though and he knew deep in his heart, and in a way he couldn’t explain, that Martha held the answer he was desperately in need of.

In about two more hours Martha returned with more food.  She wanted to dispense it among the children first, but three were still sleeping so she wrapped theirs and put it beside them where they lay.  After feeding the adults, she walked over to Billy and said: Would you help me carry the baskets back up to the house? Billy looked at Lester and he just nodded his head.  On the way back to the house Martha said: I understand you want to talk to me. I knew I should have talked with you before, but you were in such a hurry we never got the chance.  Let’s go inside and sit down while I prepare the final meal.

Martha then explained to Billy that she had been raised in Philadelphia.  She had met her husband while on a trip to Baltimore one summer to visit relatives.  Her husband had been working on a fishing boat docked in Londontown just south of Baltimore.  It was love at first sight, and they were married within three weeks.  Martha had only been back to Philadelphia twice since then to attend the funerals of both of her parents.  She then told Billy what a tragedy this new war was on the face of America … with brother fighting brother, and in some cases, fathers fighting their own sons. It not only divides us as a nation, but divides thousands of families, especially those along the Mason-Dixon line where our farm is located now.

She also told Billy her name was Billett, but they used Hawkins at night as the name of her Railway Stop along the Road. Hawkins was Martha’s maiden name and to her knowledge was not well known in these parts. Hawkins was also the name distributed throughout the South to runaway slaves who were trying to make their way North. Martha felt that if they were looking for someone in her area named Hawkins, they would have a hard time tracing it back to her.  The Courthouse that she and her husband had been married in burned down over fifteen years ago and all records of births, deaths, and marriages, had been consumed by that fire.

By reversing the sign at night to Hawkins, it allowed the runaway slaves to find her in the darkness while protecting her identity in the event that they were caught.  Under questioning, they might give up the name Hawkins while having no knowledge of the name Billett which in these parts was well known. Martha also told Billy that she had nothing left to lose now except her dignity and pride.  Her two sons and husband had been taken at Bull Run and now all she wanted was for the war to end and for those living imprisoned in slavery to be set free and released. Her dignity and pride forced her to try and do everything she could to help.

When Billy asked Martha … How did you know the right thing to do? she said: The right thing is already planted there deep inside you.  All that’s required is for you to be totally honest with yourself to know the answer.  Martha then turned back to her cooking.

Lester then walked into the kitchen and said: Martha Ma’m, what’s we gonna do wit dis boy?  Martha only looked at Billy and smiled as she said, Lester, this boy’s gonna do just fine.  Lester then looked at Billy and said: Somethin you wanta say to me son? Billy asked if he could go feed his horse and then come back in a few minutes.  Lester said that he could but not to take too long.

When Billy walked back into the barn, George was tied to a wall cleat in the far left corner.  He walked him out to the water trough in the dark and then back inside where he gave him another half- bucket of oats.  He looked in George’s eyes for that surety that George always had about him.  Just as he started to look away, George ****** up his head and looked to his left.  The youngest of the black children was walking toward George with something in her hand.  She was with her older sister, and she was carrying an apple — an apple for George. George took the apple from her hand as he nudged the side of her face with his nose.  Billy looked at the scene, and, in the moment’s revelation, knew instantly the right thing for him to do.

Billy went back inside where Lester and Martha were drinking coffee by the fire.  Billy told Lester that NOBODY knew these backwaters like he and his brothers. He also told Lester that by joining his cause he would never be faced with the possibility of meeting either of his brothers on the field of battle.  This seemed to strike a nerve with Lester who had a brother of his own fighting for the south somewhere in Louisiana.  In Louisiana, many of the black’s were free men and fought under General Nathan Bedford Forrest where they would comport themselves with honor and bravery throughout the entire war.

Billy then told Lester he had never agreed with slavery, and his father had always refused to own them.  This made the work harder on he and his brothers, and some of their neighbors ostracized them for their choice.  Billy said his father didn’t care and told him many times that … No man should ever own another or Lord over him and be able to tell him what he can or cannot do.

Lester then asked Billy what he knew about these backwaters.  Billy said he knew every creek and tributary along the Patuxent River and all the easiest places to get across and get across safely where no one could see.  Lester said they had a friendly ferry across the bay to Taylors Island, but many times the hardest part was getting across the Patuxent to where they were now.  From here, they would then decide whether to go across the bay to Preston or head further North to other friendly stops along the Road to Delaware. Billy said he would be most helpful along those stops further North and on this Western side of the bay as he knew the terrain so well.

For four more years Billy worked out of Martha’s farm hiding and transporting runaway slaves on their way North.  He would make occasional trips back to Bowie to fortify the barn that the Union soldiers had not burned when they torched his house that day.  His family’s barn would become the main Railroad Stop before taking those last steps to freedom that lay just 100 miles beyond in the free state of Delaware.

After reconstruction, Billy went on to become a lawyer and then a judge in Calvert County Maryland.  Martha had left Billy the farm in her will, and he now used it as a haven for black people who were freely emigrating from the south and needed a place to stay and rest before continuing on to the Industrial cities of the northeast.

When Martha was dying, Billy asked her who that mysterious farmer was that was out tending her field that morning when he first stopped by so many years ago? Martha said:Why don’t you know; that was my father, Ethan Hawkins. He worked that field every day since my husband and two boys were killed.  I’m surprised he let you see him.  I thought I was the only one who ever knew he was there.  But, but, but, your father died many years ago I thought.  Martha looked at Billy with those beautiful and gentle eyes and just smiled …

Seeing him that day had changed Billy and the direction
of his life forever, making what seemed like King
Solomon’s choice — the right and only one for him.


Kurt Philip Behm

It’s a forever New York out there,
with high rise chimney tops
and siren's scare
that wakes the birds from their sleep.

It’s a endless Chicago beyond the roofs,
bitter and fierce;
wrap up warm let not
the ice penetrate and pierce.

It’s a waiting Washington way over there,
where the ***** tubes of the
Potomac, Anacostia meet and kiss.

It’s my land where every day
is a day out.
No one holding you back
telling you that you can’t walk about.

I lay in my bed in a dark lonely room
With a combination of last nights makeup and pure gloom
Hair-sprayed tangled hair and coffee breath
Replaying the day of your abrupt death
My loneliness dwells
And although my face tells
A story that no one can believe
Of a mother-daughter bond
That went terribly wrong
The day God called you to leave.

I lay in my bed in a dark lonely room
In Potomac,MD
A long way from home
Where I used to roam
Making memories with my angelic mommy.
I wish I could tell you all about how my life has changed-
Since you went away
I just couldn't stay
In a house that's still in your name.

I lay in my bed in a dark lonely room
Of a house filled with people who don't know
The struggle I've gone through
To get where I am and to get closer to you.

These are my memoirs of a dazed and confused
Eternal optimist who feels neglected and abused
In hopes of one day leaving this dark lonely room.

Last night, I took a twenty dollar bill from my drawer
the last one
marked it with my words
in thick, black ink
grabbed a tack from the desk
and went wandering the alleys and backways and sideways of my town
scanning for the right spot
the right time
And alone on Cumberland, across from Potomac
I found a pristine telephone poll
sprouting tall and straight from the asphalt
like an urban redwood
Took the knife from my belt
the tack from my teeth
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
and I walked away, heart pounding
hoping no one heard, no one saw
leaving the twenty hanging there like jesus
like a sign
in thick, black ink
asking,
"What do you REALLY want?"

I feel like a fraud.

Marshmellowed white clouds
Over Potomac, hover
Melting sunset show

It’s the battle of Baghdad all over again.
Shiite versus Sunni, it’s them against them.
The push for a Caliphate exacts a high toll.
ISIS marches on the capital and, I fear, heads will roll.

On Potomac’s fair shores the politicos dither.
Are we going to help or just let Iraq wither?
We created a vacuum too big to ignore
And ISIS has filled it with ****** and gore

The blood of the innocent washes the streets
as the Iraqi government stares at defeat.
Feckless, our leader, abdicating his role,
is making a putt on the seventeenth hole.

Was it part of his plan to incite revolution?
Is he evil or clueless? What is the solution?
Does he take a position not based on a poll?
We have paid, blood and treasure, and heads ought to roll.

It’s a beast on the Potomac
That should inspire fear.
It respects nobody’s privacy.
That much has been made clear.
It’s appetite- voracious.
It’s goal- total control.
It feasts upon the people.
It’s coming for your guns and gold.
Concern for its’ own power
is its all-consuming goal.
It cares nothing for the little guy
Forget the lies you’re told.
What is the food that feeds the beast?
Why is it growing still?
It loves other people’s money
And it always gets its fill.

Bone in the branch,
right on the face of it,
embedded symmetry.
Tillerman's lawn chain
in a dead leaf choker,
garbling the sway.
Maple skim dip,
a patch of buttresses,
pooling October.
Inert array,
flicking cardinals,
shoal's chaotic mural nose.
So many days like this day,
indistinguishable,
crushing.

“The usual….perfessor”…asked the bartender.
“Not tonight Sam….celebrating….gonna hike it up a notch”….”Something from a bottle this time”.
“Maybe a PBR” he laughed, “…instead of the usual…draft PBR…bottle….”.
“On it’s way”….”why the upgrade”…”…it’s a whole twenty five cents more on the tab” laughed the bartender.

“Tonight, my dear sir, Tonight….was the opening of the school play…and I survived…barely….but, I survived..and I’m here to tell the tale”…”so….Tonight….we splurge!”.

“I forgot” said Ted, the barkeep. “I knew it was coming up….but, well…you are here…and not cowering in a corner somewhere, curled up in the fetal position…so, I am assuming that this year went better than last years version of “Death of a Salesman”.?”

“Better? it would not have been to tough to be better than that catastrophe…it was the best…THE BEST….out of all of the previous school plays…I couldn’t be more proud of how it turned out…..**** it..PBR and a chaser…it was that freaking good!”

“Really? In all of the years you’ve been teaching at the school you have never…NEVER come in here this happy about how the show went. I can’t believe it!”

“Don’t…It was crap. What I just did was acting. What they did, was crap. You know we did “Death of A Salesman”. Classic play. Great play. It’s been done by some of the best actors in the industry. Then, there was our version. It should have been called “Death of A Theater Arts Program”.

“Sorry to hear that Professor,  two more?”
“**** right, and keep them coming.”

“I was a working actor for years before I took this gig. I wasn’t great, but, I got by. These kids, I just don’t know, I just don’t get it.
The lights went up and they just lost it, it was more Monty Python than Arthur Miller. I mean, he must be spinning in his grave at some incredible speed right now. These kids made my brain hurt”

“It couldn’t have been that bad Professor, I mean, they did all right in rehearsal, didn’t they?”

“Sure, no family watching, no pressure at all…they did fine. But, once those lights went on and the curtains went up, it was every man for himself, total deer in the headlights on stage.  And through it all, I couldn’t do a **** thing except stand stage left thinking, “So, this is what the Captain of the Titanic felt like that fateful night”.

At this point in the conversation, the door opens and a man walks in. He hangs up his  overcoat and joins the men at the bar.

“****…what are you doing here?”

“You two friends?” asks the bartender

“Principal Paul Jackson” says the newcomer. “From…”

“Let me guess” said the bartender, “from the same school The Professor teaches at?”

“Two more…and one for him” says the teacher.

“Yes, that school. The Professor, I like that, I can get on board with that”.

“So, what brings you here? I mean, the play is over, the kids ******, and let me guess…oh, maybe you are here to dump on me, and give me my walking papers in private”

“******, I wouldn’t go that far Professor, I can call you that can’t I? It wasn’t great, but, I must say, after what we’ve had before, it was okay. I mean they tried, they were engaged, and nobody cried on stage like they did when we did Little Women”.

“Were you watching the same thing I was? They called ***** Loman “Wally”, eleven times….ELEVEN times!!! Engaged? they were so far off script, there was no way in the world we could get back. I mean, I tried, I really tried, and I thought we had it down. But, tonight, those lights went up and it was total deer in the headlights on stage, for each and every kid”.

The drinks arrive, and the bartender leaves the men alone.

“*****, Wally, what does it matter?” They winged it, and got through. I mean, it could have been worse, but, they forged ahead”.

“Forged ahead…Washington forged ahead  crossing the Potomac, these kids, wrote a whole new play on stage in real time. Nothing made sense. It was hard to watch. I was waiting for the audience to leave, which, I think…may have happened, had they been given a
chance with an intermission”.

“See…right there, nobody left. That is a plus. You have to admit that is a win right there…nobody left, and that sir is a winning program. They had to see where it went, what happened and Professor, what comes next?”

“You can’t be serious? or are you just being facetious? “, said the Professor.
“Oh, I am serious, deadly serious. You weren’t expected to put on an award winning play, just to entertain those who attended and most important, to be able to put on the play. Most times, it never sees the light of day, teachers quit the production, students quit, hell, I quit…twice. The goal was to put on a production and you did. It wasn’t great, hell, it wasn’t even good, but, it was entertaining in the way people drive slowly by a fire or a train wreck sort of way, and you did it.”

“Bartender, two more beers, make that three….one for you and more shots” yelled the Professor.

“Start picking next year’s show and no matter what happens…save these seats for the after party”.