oh, man
I am having
a really good time here
all by myself,
making a lot of noise
to make up for
the silence

I saw him there alone at his task
upon his pedestal.
It was large enough
for him to turn
in short little steps
and still keep his balance
but no more than that,
as he turned and he turned,
and always kept turning.


Just a hand
on the pedestal
would have been trampled
by his continual turning,
in short little steps
around and around,
alone at his task
as he turned and he turned,
and he turned, always turning.


His clothing a veil
that couldn't conceal
the glow on his face.
And the strength
so apparent
in the task he performed
as he turned and he turned
and he turned and he turned,
and he turned and he turned,
always turning.


With his strong arms
bent slightly,  
he held a rope firmly
in sinewy hands
with thick fingers gripping,
he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
always turning.






A strong muscled back
and large and sure legs
bent and locked at the knees;
he leaned back with the load
his arms stretched taut,
he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
he turned and he pulled,
always turning.


And as the rope
came by where I stood
I saw why he turned,
for licking around him
was a lake of fire burning
that lit up his face
as he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
he turned and he pulled
always turning.


At the end of the rope
was a large basket full,
of children all weeping
with nowhere to go,
too heavy to pull in
with arms stretched taut
as he turned and he turned,
and he pulled and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
always turning.


They looked at the fire,
then earnestly to him
with eyes full of fear
as he held them perpetually,
above the flames;
In the glow of his face
I now recognized him
as he turned and kept turning
and turned,
always turning.





It was the father
who held them
and called them and told them
and pulled them and told them
that he couldn't pull them in,
there just wasn't room
on the pedestal for them,
but he would keep turning
and turning and turning,
and never stop turning,
no, never stop turning.




And he sang them a song
as they turned
and they turned;
he sang, "little children,
go around and around
and around and around
and around and around
and never stop turning."

I want to get so drunk
that I forget to eat,
even though I’ve been
working on my poor soup
all day, and try not
to remember the turkey
with all the stuffing
and the mashed potatoes
and gravy, the green bean
casserole, and the pies,
oh, my, those pies,
but I am the Christmas
outcast, the one who
denied the historic Jesus
his Saturnalia adoption,
and hurled Him and me
into this oblivion.

Silence,
  though sometimes golden
  is now awkward;
I came to you
  longing
  to drink
  from your fountain,
but you knew
  you could never fill
  this emptiness that is me,
    and you demurred,
    and sighed,
    and held me
  in your sad eyes,
    and wet my lips
    with a single kiss.

(Be sure to read my previous post, Chapter One, first)

As the story continues to unfold in newspapers all around the world, Raul and his mother and their cat sit bewildered at their kitchen table. The window is blown out and flies are everywhere. The old hawker’s cart lies in rubble on the street, the old man face down in the dirt beside it. The laundry still remains in the upper windows but is tarnished by soot. The old dirt street has been shredded by the tanks’ treads and buildings with gaping holes in the brick tenuously stand. No one is moving in the town, only Raul and his mother and their cat.
“Tell me this is all a dream,” says Raul’s mother, but Raul can’t. He can’t even speak because he is so choked up with tears that words will not come. He gets up from his chair and comes to stand by his mother and rubs her shoulder tenderly. She drops her head into her arms and sobs.
A Paris newspaper headline declaims, LES REBELLES DEFERLENT SUR L’AMERIQUE DU SUD. And another in Berlin, DIE REBELLEN FEGEN UBER SUDAMERIKA. The President of the United States issues a stern warning while privately wondering if he can marshal a strong enough protection at his southern border to prevent the rebellion from spreading. He has totally forgotten about the large Canal in Panama. He picks up his private phone and calls Raul’s mother. “How did you survive the attack?” he asks. She doesn’t understand it, how her phone is still working, and where the tanks have gone. “No se,” she replies. “No sabe,” echoes Raul. She doesn’t know. Raul doesn’t know and POTUS doesn’t know either, having been fully preoccupied with thousands of drones flying in over the Canadian border with smiley faces painted on their undersides, and the stubborn refusal of the prime minister of Sweden to answer her phone. FRILLIP he writes on a notepad on his desk, not even understanding what the letters mean. The word had appeared to him in a dream, and now a skywriting plane was writing it up in the clouds out of the window behind his desk. And by now you are wondering what the old man who is writing this is getting at with all his gibberish. The answer to this question is, “Absolutely nothing!” He is just wasting time on another dreary winter day. He stands away from his computer, goes to his kitchen and brushes his teeth, then pulls his pajama legs out of his woolen socks, disrobes and heads for a hot shower.

As I lay these things out for you to understand, please do not pretend that you do. These words are full of tricks. Like taking you to a place you have never been, and making you feel like you know it, making it all feel familiar. I called the place Argentina, but it was no further away than my writing desk. Do you understand now?
You think you can see children playing in the street and laundry hung from high windows, a street vendor honking his wares from an old cart, a cat lounging in a sunny doorway. But what was really there was a bowl of nuts on an old wooden table and a man dressed still in his pajamas, his pant legs tucked into his woolen socks, shaking his pen to get the last few drops of ink down before he consigned it to the waste bin and got another from the kitchen drawer. The coffee that was steaming on the stove might have been from Argentina and the weather could have been balmy and not frigid like the old man’s heart as he tells you his tale.
The old man’s writing had been previously thwarted by his children as they taught him to believe that he was destined and doomed to stay in that lonely old clapboard house forever, but he had escaped to a faraway land. The cat got up and wandered slowly in the trafficless street looking for something to eat. A child with a stick and a hoop came running by and the cat scurried out of the way. A very low rumble filled the air which smelled of cinnamon. No one knew the noise was from tanks because no one there had ever seen one before. A woman with a puffy dress that made you wonder what she looked like underneath it cocked her head out of a kitchen window. A steaming pie beside her revealed the source of the spicy smells. A flock of starlings flew by.
“Raul,” she called, “bring that cat to me. I have some milk for it.” The boy threw his hoop and stick down and chased after the cat which eluded him effortlessly by darting under a low wagon. The barker laughed and held out an apple for the boy and distracted him from his mission.
The old man groaned again and shifted in his chair and sipped his coffee wondering whether he should stop writing with his pen and shift to the keyboard because the pace of the story was about to pick up dramatically and go from a leisurely day in a small old town to full scale war. The old man pushed a button on his keyboard, but nothing happened. He remembered that he had unplugged it the night before and reached down from his chair, groaning again, and nearly fell out of it reaching for the plug. His elbow hit the coffee mug and spilled it all over a stack of bills waiting on the table to be paid and a stream of invectives flew from the old man’s lips. A woodpecker pecked loudly on the side of the old man’s house, and the same flock of starlings flew by his kitchen window. Are you curious enough now to go ahead and turn the page and see what happens in chapter two?

most everyone has
something to say, a
criticism, an observation,
an opinion, but I know
a girl who just runs around
encouraging everyone,
how wonderful is that?