Power surges, the energy in my veins. We have the right to change. Things don't stay the same, after all, life is only a game. Prepare your hearts for this is war, it's time to even the score. We will win, and that's a promise I'll give.

Spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

On the morning
of March 16, 1968, American soldiers
from "C" Company came
into the village of My Lai…
-Conti's testimony, he stayed
Second tour he got arrested,
he was an armorer for First Cav,
I know a guy who knew him
when he got arrested, on duty.
About 1970, before Cambodia.
Back at the itch to think about 1968
from 16 MAR 68,
spooky was a DC3 with six miniguns,
spending nickles by the ton.
spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

The next day, these toes
on the end
of me,
touched the tarmac
at Bien Hoa, beginning this memory
of instants, impressionistic
at best, something like YouTube shorts
taken
from chronological context
to fit the news between ads
for aging related aches and pains past
and present.
mehr spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

In my 20 year old self,
in quest of lines showing duty done,
on my political career Résumé of fitness
to lead, to  me being mentored by Newt,
in American History, as he saw it, true,
Newt forsaw the EMP threat, and
scored an audience of told yous,
proud to have learned bullet
making after school… at the NRA clubhouse.
und mehr//
-ping ping ping

Triumphs and Indians, ' never saw a flathead Harley
until the summer of 1969, I saw the wreck, a Harley
wrung young Jimmie Hudgins neck, and he lived,
but he never went with us who did, and came back
as different as night and day, other people,
through and through,
truly on another trail, beyond the reason used in war.
fur spukhafte Fernwirkung
we took to spirit warring, with quarks
on our side, holding this thought

Pop, we inhabit bubbles as big as we imagine.
I long believed we live in bubbles of all we know.

I was wrong.
Become unmazed, unentangled, literally
free to define what you leave be true,
testy, feisty, wanna fight?
Or phuckaround with physics and spells,

Hallowed has meaning, yet, amen?

Even odds, live to the end…

Revelation
See, I had been infected,
seeing as I held
memories and lines,
I took for testimony Stephen Crane
put to ink, made me link that
now, not then, to a canvas,
Ms. Butler's Roll Call,
any
one approaching
the age where children are taken for war,

National Religio Significado duty accepted
as each pledged aliegiance, under God,
or else the communist spectre
brought unspeakable
horrors of HIROSHIMA!

Downwinder's loved to watch the flashes
- line on  crypto classification;
- subject locus south of river
On my DD 214, I was eligible to live on
Partaking of Largesse I earned by being
still alive and secretly, something
of National Pride Proving Passage right,
my nation, now,
pays me to breathe,
and learn until I die or ever happens,
Popt to your situation, reading
not involved,
after all
way beyond ever
after that revelation,

this is it, we did not die, nowhat,
Put on this mind, think these words,
you are you at last phaze myelination,
or your signals are phading,
but we got clear text 5 by 5, read on
seem
a survivor
of a specified exposure
to war,
a year, was deemed enough, and enough
to share
on circumstantial instances
when you think
okeh, what good could I do if
I accepted the truth
of the tree
of knowledge teaching only permanently

through experience passed through
and seen from this side… so then

I freely say, I know, what this is…
my life's cache of idle words, accounted for,
and activated
wise decision weighs against luck,
choosing liberal arts and sciences
to become a force made right
by the blood of Jesus to fight
any enemy
so declared,
by God's local employees
and the men He arranged
to be shaped
into wielders o
f carnal weapons, so awesome
cost for the risk not taken
2024 chances, short odds
of the answering invention's wise domain
above all answering witty inventions used

- to blow our little holy relics to dust

to make boys believe there is glory
found in fighting
for Nobel aspirations,
for asking noble questions, much glory
-+- does peace made
with words earn,
to deal with
all ra' adversity to intricately, functionally
beautiful towb be left to become the message.

God's chosen Nation's policy of people use.

{https://www.rct.uk/collection/405915/the-roll-call}

summer to summer
year to year
moment upon moment, I remember you
unveiling the open secrets of your heart
like leaves upon a tree
cascading upon me
in the fall
I read you
your tongue wrote my sorrows
my pains you kissed with pleasures untold
within your realms of beauty
I basked
and I forgot myself
forgot the aches of time and temper
how hot the summers had become
how dry they became with no lover to bear
but you
you were more than lover to me

pure... inspiration

a forbidden flower, nested
'pon yonder peak, in meadow's midst
treacherous though the journey
in my mind, the ease was paltry
for we met on bridges between us
in visions of grandeur
visions beyond vision
where your flesh was as my flesh
for when I caressed myself, I felt you
your hand was my hand
and your words were my night song
and your grace was my quilt
in the terror of being alone
you covered my nakedness
my fear of a life lived alone, dying alone
you wed me with wonders of

what if

and I paced at the doorstep of desire
bouquet of dreams in hand
before me, as though a fencer
but no walls between myself and thine
and though my thorns may *****
and my beauty be that of a man
a woman's touch I'd unsheath in greeting you
to profess knowing you as you
so deliciously
know yourself
to touch you as if you wert my teacher
and tame you as a man tempers his heart,
should he dare
trust a woman with his soul
and yet

these are naught but fancies,
my dear

naught but frightful desires
unkempt
off the shelf of the gorge between us

still

were I more than I am
I would guard these artful mementos
of heartfelt wanting
as a promise to you
despite your
forlorn embrace

and in the moment of meeting
we would speak these words together
because you'd always have known my thoughts
how could you not,
since you are
the woman
of my dreams...

I grab my pencil
everyday

Shaky hands
bring down the lead tip
barely touching the paper
in anticipation
of inspiration

Bombs explode outside  
clouding the sky

I call my muses
to work
but
they fail to clock in
because
the road between
the heart and the mind
has been
bombed

~
You are
the river that runs
beneath this city.

You lend
the beautiful but empty
buildings a beating heart.

And the buildings were essential.

They were a part
of the lives unfolding
in their shadows.

Sometimes it
almost seems like
they are listening.

I'm sinking inside them.

Tell me a story
about an outgoing road,
the house where you grew up
near the Sea of Azov.

I think
I flew there once.

The birds
that perch inside my chest
sing loud, sing soft.

Maybe they
will sing again for us
tomorrow.
~

There is no pity in Berlin,
a place of prickly wounded pride.

A city of angels
who fell like scars of lightning
from gunmetal grey skies.

I watch old silvered rolls of film
and see flying columns of seraphim
as they march on by
row upon row
eyes ablaze
flaming swords drawn
in a parody of paradise.
They descended into hell
and are seated
at the left hand of the Kaiser:
Gott mit uns.

This sullen scene of no regret
stains the present with the dead and past:
It fits the flinty nature
of the blunt Berliner
under the ashen skies of winter.

I trudge across a gravel path
in the bowels of Berlin,
hear the grinding crunch
of brittle bones below,
and gird myself for the grim winter ahead.

Perfect on a first glance
On the inside, I built a fence
A fortress and summoned soldiers
While you threw your pain
On my shoulders.

Prepared for the war,
You didn't think I'd go this far;
I now live to outshine
The day you killed me inside.

The year is 2060.

When I was a kid the future was everything. All the films about flying cars by the year 2000 and cool toys and transportation. Lightning speed teleportation. Meanwhile the world freaked out at midnight thinking this new technology would end itself because we didn’t know if the computer knew what to do after 1999. We didn’t know if they could process. That’s how dumb we were. We were afraid a computer we created wouldn’t compute that 1 + 1999 = 2000 on a digital calendar. How ugly it was that our intelligence allowed these reindeer games, and for the first time, very publicly.

It happened to all of us. All of whose parents didn’t stay together, all of us who didn’t have enough money growing up, all of us who were afraid to say anything without being yelled at, all of us who needed to feel anything after a lifetime of never knowing the world before the internet.

We stole. We stole here and there from companies that didn’t support human rights. We stole from companies that had enough money but didn’t pay their workers enough. We stole food, clothes, art supplies so we could sustain being alive before technology took that, too. It was two decades of job losses, the worst homeless crisis anyone had seen. The real aftermath of a worldwide plague.

I spent my early 20s watching people I cared about die overnight or over the years. I watched them suffer mysterious ailments.

Public shame and fear turned us into one of those trending TV shows. We always said “how could that happen?” But it did. It was gradual, that’s why we didn’t notice it.

It started with fingerprints to unlock your phone, Face ID. It started with identifying ourselves before we knew who we were. It was the left. It was the right. It was the undecided. It was the world.

Door cameras to communicate.
Online groups sharing videos and stories of strangers.
Misinformation.

America armed Israel as America had always done out of guilt for turning away the boats of Jewish families begging for help from the US before WWII.  
The world begged for a ceasefire. Russia sent submarines to Cuba and no one noticed. America put their big show on to distract the world while they silently began the process.

We were all old now. We didn’t harm anyone physically. We just needed help while our country funded wars around the world so we did what we had to while we thought the government was occupied.

Elon Musk started buying television networks after social media. That’s when it really became locked in. And more billionaires followed the same. There was nothing we could do. Years went by. More and more people forgot what things were like. Advertisements were so subtle. Paying $30 to brush our teeth with dirt after a lifetime of baking soda, fluoride, and mint oil. It was so confusing.


There aren’t many of the generation that didn’t end their own lives left but after us the suicide rates did go down. They started putting a research chemical in the water. 2-oxo-pce. Trace amounts of it did bring up people’s spirits without triggering psychosis and by the time we found out no one really cared because they felt better.  It’s weird now to think it was a good idea. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out if I just finally gave up or the water made it easier to accept life as it was.  

When they came for me that must have been why I felt I deserved it.

They had it all on camera. They created AI to scan for repeating thefts. They counted the costs. We couldn’t trust AI to ban accounts promoting hate, but we trust it to recognize faces.

It was something we worried about initially but there were so many other things to consider in the world, it honestly didn’t seem as bad in comparison.

The trials were fast.  A split second snapshot of everything you took rapidly passing a screen with a print out of your debt. It wasn’t always you in the photos, though. There was no way to argue with the algorithm. It clocked me for a Mazarati. I don’t even drive.

Of course we didn’t have the money.  It was always an insane amount,  because the technology was a barracuda and we changed so much. You just had to accept it once they showed up.

Any crime committed, if documented, can be used at any time against you. Statute of limitations no longer existed.

Disease was everywhere and they needed a way to combat it faster. No ethics in science and progress. The public was worried and we were the morally corrupt past. Justice must be served. Didn’t matter if you killed someone or you stole 10,000 diapers. I just happened to be one of the people who couldn’t afford the things I wanted.  

They poisoned us. They infected us. They killed all the people in prison before they got to us but they learned so much doing that only a fourth of us died when it was our turn.

That’s pretty impressive.  

One day I was checking the mail and it felt like a month later every political leader transferred power or position. Everything lined up perfectly for a total control of the people in what they called saving humanity. Moral superiority won but for some reason it was always against the people who needed the most help. They’d find any reason to use your body and be able to rationalize it with a nation they instilled nothing but fear and helplessness into.

You never really made contact with anyone again. You spent your life with robots checking your blood, your vitals, feeding you, bathing you, drugging you, analyzing you, and keeping you alive as long as they could so somewhere in the world the results of testing could be shared to bring hope and promise for the next generations that cures could exist and that they were fortunate for our sacrifices.

The food was good. While we were shunned for petty crimes there was a large amount of money donated to keeping us comfortable. I think it was so the public would feel less guilty.

It was catered to what would extend our lives but still flavorful. Roasted chicken, low salt, lots of herbs and hearty greens. Fruit was always ripe. Healthy amount of nuts and seeds. Cheese once a week. We had endless access to literature and the news. Best medication. Gym equipment. It was like prison but you never left your room and you were taken care of. But you didn’t have love or ***. You didn’t feel anything anymore. Maybe it’s the water talking but it was kind of nice to not think for myself in some way. Realistically they didn’t really have a choice but to keep us well managed. We were going to be the last line of subjects. They had to keep us alive, the rest of the population didn’t do anything wrong.

The only comfort that could be taken in those boxes we lived in was knowing at least we died for something after a lifetime of watching senseless death from a screen. My body was used for science. I had a purpose. I committed crimes I needed to because I lived in a terrible world. The new world was better. It was kinder. I don’t hold it against the living. They only knew what they were told.

We were survivors when we were young, but by 65-70 you were something the new world couldn’t comprehend. Lack of morals. No respect for the law. They didn’t understand it was different back then.

Social media became learning platforms. There was no discourse. No name calling. They saw what was left behind and assumed there was no explanation other than we were just bad people and corporations had been working so hard to give them a livable future and maintain a habitable earth.

My generation was to be the last one that experienced the experiments. They did eventually find a cure for everything. Depression,  every flu, blood diseases, ***** failure, cancers. They didn’t use it for profit. It’s what I always wanted. We all wanted it. We wish we had it sooner.

But the day I died, humanely euthanized, something changed. The news was on. They found water on the moon last year, raving about how pure and untouched it was, and started transporting it back, and all the people who could afford it got sick with something we’ve never known before and I realized it didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do when I was young. I deserved to try moon water before I left, not them. That was the future I was promised.