Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I

Today, I will be brave.
I will admit to the fact that I still haven't found that happiness I've been searching for.
It could be the fact that I haven't looked hard enough, or maybe I've just been looking too hard.
It could be the fact that there's a hormone in our bodies called serotonin, but my therapist says that I don't produce enough and that's why I have this thing that she calls depression.

So I take pills to make me feel better and that might be weird, you can think that if you want because the truth is that I think I'm weird too. Sometimes I think my weirdness is good, I can make people laugh if I really want to and I think that's pretty cool but there's also a bad weirdness to me that makes me feel really sad even though my life truly isn't all that bad but I can't help it. I can't just tell myself that everything's going to be okay because sometimes I don't even think I believe that anymore.

But today, I will be brave.
I will admit to the fact that yes, I have scars. But you know what? I have a birth mark on my right leg. I have freckles on my arms, I have ten fingers and a heart that pumps blood into my lungs and my lungs help me breathe. I have brown eyes and approximately one hundred and fifty hairs growing out of my eyelids that protect them from dust.

Yes, maybe I have purposely tried to hurt myself but so what? People say that whatever doesn't **** you only makes you stronger. Well I must be pretty **** powerful because every day is a war between life and death and I may not think that I'm beautiful, or smart, or worthy, but I have a broken heart that's still beating and a terrifying mind that is still able to think about the children in Africa and the people suffering from cancer and the lonely girl in my class that I wish I had the courage to talk to and tell her that we are all human. We may not feel that we deserve to be alive but we have blood coursing through our veins and purity in our souls and mouths that are capable of speaking every single language in the world and brains that hold an infinite amount of knowledge and bones that allow us to move and hearts that can love.

So please, be brave.
Put the gun down. Step away from the bridge, throw the pills away, untie the knot and stay with us. Use your bones to lift your hand and place it to the left of your chest and feel the vibration of the most important ***** in your body pulsing, keeping you alive. And that, my friend, is called purpose. You are still here despite everything that's ever happened to you. You survived the day when your best friend stopped calling and the day you waited two hours for that person who never showed up and the day you got picked up early from school to have your parents watch you get beat up on the playground and that's the day when they realized that their daughter is a loser but it's okay because you survived. You ignored the monster in your mind that is constantly knocking on doors but never being let in because you had the courage to say "stop. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to feel good about myself."

You are not a freak. You are not a loser. You are not fat, you are not ugly, you are not stupid. You are sixty percent water, sixty-five percent oxygen, eighteen percent carbon and one hundred percent human. Do not hate your body, you're beautiful. Do not hate your scars. Love them. Learn from them. Be the person who can say "yes, life was a battle and I didn’t come out untouched. I was beaten down and torn apart and bleeding from the skin and the heart. But I won." You conquered the bloodiest war, and you are so brave.

Yes, life is full of grief, and tragedy, and so much pain. Life is full of evil people and sickness and days where all you want to do is just get out of this place with so much hatred and cruelty and unfairness. But I have seen someone helping a stranger on the sidewalk, children holding doors open for the elderly, and love. So much love. And that's gotta be enough. We have to find a reason. We have to discover that one thing that will save us; that one good thing in this world that will give us hope. Hope that some day, things will be better.

But today, we will be brave.
Braver than yesterday, yet not as brave as we will be tomorrow. We will wake up with a smile on our face, and we will look in the mirror and say to ourselves:

"We are not our parents, we are not our siblings, or our teachers, or our friends, or our enemies. We are only ourselves. But one day, we will become doctors, we will become writers and lawyers and activists and dancers and rock stars. We will be mothers and fathers and lovers. We will not be perfect. But one day, our bruises will heal and our scars will fade and our pain will lessen and our smiles will become genuine. We will admit to the fact that bad days happen, but we will have so many good days and those are the ones that matter. We will not be our past, we will not be our mistakes, we will not be our fallen tears or our heart aches. We will be human, and one day, we will change the world."

Nine months after I was born, the Twentieth Century began to collapse.
East Berlin,graffiti-mural concrete, a jutted enigma scratched
on ordinance maps, the sort found
landscaping westernized Primary School walls.
Where within, labored in real time, the television told my parents
(and everyone else given to social conservation in 1989) that a wall falling down
would bring an end to the gap between the working and the working poor.
Freedom waited for many on the other side.
But of course, History draws up different plans.

Never content to just go out with a bash, or to
fleetingly drift by leaving
in its absence an underwhelmed lull
The bloodiest century yet
left the new world entrenched
in an odyssey of hatreds
handed down from the past
right about the time human suffering became a bit dull
and the peaceful countries were too busy
tripling their money instead.

What does History really teach us and what are the real benefits
of being free, or freer than you were before?
Human ambition, which burns it way out of any oasis of calm,
which calls children out of sleeping in the night
Always seeks out the exhaustible
An inveterate Black sheep leading astray
the ever susceptible ****** lamb
Delusion’s strange bedfellows are the worthiest adversaries
to run away from, to reserve contrition for.

Unlike the inevitability of uprooted animal migration
during a monsoon swell
Can a people with an invested addiction
to the pursuit of happiness
Ever truly be prepared
for the inevitability of rapid change?

I will not attribute honor



to the bloodiest of games



to cold, condoned killings



faceless murders without blame.



War is to the green-clad



a state-sanctioned game



I will not call that thing honor



for which good men should feel shame.

I wish you'd miss me too.

Kisses like candy, soul like poison.

One hard ******; down I went.

Because alcohol tastes better than tears.

Still waiting on your return home.

We're all trying to forget someone.

Your scars will never wash off.

I'll choose happiness every **** time.

Not feeling gets easier over time.

I love you. Sorry. It's complicated.

I asked. You answered with silence.

He's the enbodiment of toxic masculinity.

We turned out tomorrow's into yesterday's.

The bloodiest battles are fought within.

Six words can't bring them back.

One ticket to anywhere but here.

So close and yet so far.

Mind says left. Heart feels right.

Admiring the view. Going through hell.

We climbed higher, I fell further.

How fast fade most pinkest trees
How digits dance 'neath Catalpa breeze
Ignoring last October's deadest death
They arrived on time then took last breaths

Scattered seeds among their foes
Had no need of planting earthen work
As cycles shadow ploughman's dream
The fickle fruitless cherry grows

He rode rough crests over wildest waves
His ship stayed unsunk under skinny toil
His family landed and held holiest hope
Now blossom buds over grassy graves

Darkness darkened darkest health
Metal sheets broke bones full force
Lungs would not get the care of air
But hours still channeled wisdom wealth

She bent the knee for sacred loves
She scraped it on the firmest strife
Her pies nor pulchritude but soul inspired
Now stillness stays beneath starry moves

When bloodiest blood ****** didn't produce
It drained itself from veins and strained
Veiling valleys making mountains make-believe
But sharpest tongue emptiness refused

What meagre maggots worthless worms
Are those of us who never yearn!
We rarely learn to live so well as they
Who gave us genes and grace and days

All I offer oft only when I try and I work
Nothing else can I do nor more can I hope
This most modest shallowest honor to give
Of them in springtime remembering is

Whisper vices in your ear
While I paint you in virtues
There you are, my poison apple
Shining with a red of bloodiest hues

Dear underclassmen,
You will learn so much.
You’ll learn that when seniors tell you the main stairs are only for upperclassman they’re lying, that freshman Friday isn’t a thing, and elevator passes aren’t actually real.
You’ll learn WWII started in 1939 and it was the bloodiest of them all.
You’ll learn that sometimes, things don’t have to be ****** to be painful.
Sometimes sterile wounds heal the slowest.
High school will teach you to love with a vigor you didn't see coming and to hate with a passion you never saw possible, and you’ll find that after feeling them both so deeply, it sometimes becomes impossible to tell the difference between the two.
You’ll learn about drugs- that they don’t always come in little ziplock bags or orange pill bottle.
You’ll learn that often times, they don’t come in powder or pills at all- they come in words on a page or in blue eyes staring at you through wayfarer glasses that are so clouded you find yourself wondering how they can even see the world around them.
You’ll find your drug- everyone does. You’ll know you’re addicted because to you, it's what keeps the earth spinning on its axis; it's what puts the stars in the sky; it's what you see when you hear the word love.
You'll get addicted to something, and you’ll lose it, and you’ll move on.
You’ll learn that things can change in the blink of an eye, which is just as fast as we are to post our emotions in 180 characters or less, just as fast as we are to scrutinize others for who they love, what they wear,
and what they’re addicted to.
Things change as fast as the speed of sound: 186,282 miles per second.
I learned that in chemistry.
I also learned that Fleen Dog wasn't kidding when he said if you lean in too close to a Bunsen burner your hair will catch on fire.
I've learned that if you don’t stay in the inexhaustible realm of school dress code, you’re a delinquent, but if you wear hoodies everyday, you’re a scrub. If you don't, you're a try-hard.
I've learn that for some reason the word try-hard is an insult.
I've learned that stares can be so heavy you can physically feel the weight of their eyes pushing down on your back as they watch your every move, but more importantly I've learned that those stares only matter if you actually let them.
You’ll learn that often times- there is no correct answer and sometimes you just have to choose what you believe is the most right option because it’s better to guess than to do nothing at all.
You'll learn that even in science, not everything is black and white,
that sometimes the best way to learn is by diving in head first, and if you feel your skull crash into the bottom of the pool, know that you will resurface.

I hate the mask I wear
Behind my paper lines,
I hate the mask I wear
And all my un-rhymed rhymes.
I hate the fact that I'm some ghost
Who bleeds black ink onto my white host!
I hate the fact that I harbor my words
To the ships out at sea that all go unheard!
I hate the fact that I am a mess
And all I have left are these words of distress!

I hate that I try to make my self depressed
In order to write a poem that will truly impress!
I hate that I have to sit here everyday
Trying to write my problems away
Only to find
That behind the smeared lines
That I still am battling with my old demons!
That I still am battling with doubt!
Oh I hardly take time to care about the seasons
I just care about the problems I have going on now.

-And even at my best I'm just someone who can't write
And all my poems are a mask for my bloodiest fights
But tonight
I hope someone turns on the lights
And finds my dead corpse rotting off to the side,
I hope that for once it will all be fine
And my heart will stop beating before I start losing my mind-

I am so tired
of fighting with
my own mind

“Lord help us remember that freedom isn’t free.” -Anonymous

Ready
Aim
Fire

End of the Civil War.
President Abraham Lincoln dedicates a day to remember those brave men who have fallen on the field of battle in a pool of their own blood.
For their country.

Ready
Aim
Fire

World War 1.
Soldiers come home in body bags
Or without their own legs.
Arms.
Or eyes.
Men come home with stories they’ll never tell or ever want to think about.
Most men stay where they have fallen.

Ready
Aim
Fire

December 7th, 1941
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor killing well over 2,400 soldiers.

June 6th
1944
American boats touch the soil of Normandy Beaches.
73,000 pairs of American boots run along the trenches.
Most of them never leave.

Ready
Aim
Fire

1950 to 1953
Americans were shot at and killed in Korea.
Hidden in the bushes,
Korea only battled with ambushes.

Ready
Aim
Fire
A conflict in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975.
“Do not shoot unless shot upon.”
One of the bloodiest wars American’s have seen.
Men came home to be welcomed as villains
To be littered on and verbally **** upon.
Many men committed suicide.

Ready
Aim
Fire

September 11, 2001
Hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center’s and the Pentagon.
War has broken out against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other armed rebels.
War is out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A shot in the dark for those men and women who get shot in the dark,
Peacefully in their sleep.
By men they have trained.
Vehicles blow up and lives are taken every day.

Ready
Aim
Fire

During an average day in 2013
22 war veterans commit suicide.
Every day.

Thank you.

Ready
Aim
Fire

Hey, Mr. Rager! Mr. Rager!
Tell me where you're going!
Tell us where you're headed!

This is an ode to all the lungs you've burnt, all the times you knew how hurt I was and am and how my heart bruises the inside of my chest, beating the **** out of me, trying to burst from my body, frantic, afraid. Oh- credit card fingers, syringe tongue, bloodiest of Sunday's, show me how to roll it, show me how to make origami of my bones.

I'm off on a adventure.*

To the fickle space between the folds of your brain, to the indecision, to the gentle curve of your shoulders that I trace with my palm, to the gaps in your happiness.

Mr. Rager!
Tell me some of your stories
Tell us of your travels
Hey, Mr. Rager! Mr. Rager!
Tell me where you're going!
Tell us where you're headed!

To the untouched spots on your cheeks, to all the noises that frighten you, to all the things that go bump in the night, to starving, to all the stucco paint, to acid flashbacks, to paranoia, to my knuckles, ****** from beating myself up.

I'm on my way to Heaven.

To the rolling back of your eyes, to ******* nosebleeds, to drunk driving, to the ***** all across your chest, to your mother's mother, to the way your eyes soften when you look at me.

Mr. Rager!
Can we tag along? Can we take a journey?

You're asleep in my arms, my hand in your hair. The world is turning a little slower.  

*When will the fantasy end? When will the heaven begin?

Sometimes
the bloodiest battles
with the greatest number
of
casualties
are the ones
fought within
the confines
of our own
warring
souls.

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.
To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.”

    “Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell

Joseph Gallo was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,
Also known as "Joe the Blond."
That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)
“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .
They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table, normally a serene table
At Umberto’s Clam House.
Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umbertos Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com) In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.
Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
*“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

I like to create toxic winds
to blow your at your scabbed kneecaps

and spit week-old spearmint gum
aiming for the shine of your work shoes.

It must be cruel to be me,
your arrogant smile hurdles over

the human sized mouse trap
a naive and sweet girl left on your driver’s seat.

Don’t worry, you tender, soft darling
of Satan’s bloodiest creation

I’ll be every cosmic speck
till someone sinks you back to earth.

I was part of the crew of a Sloop-of-War
That had sailed in the Caribbean,
We were caught asleep in the port one night
By the crew of a Brigantine.
They loosed a broadside, seven guns
As the Skull and the Bones flew high,
And I was dragged to the pirate ship
Where they said, ‘You’ll serve, or die!’

There wasn’t a choice to be had back then,
So I climbed aloft on the mast,
Setting the rig of the fore topsail
And making the halyards fast,
They made me stay in the Crows Nest then
To be swept by the wind and rain,
With only a couple of tots of ***
To deal with my aches, and pain.

I kept lookout on the pirate brig
For His Majesty’s ships, and land,
They knew we wouldn’t stand much of a chance
As a Privateer Brigand,
We sought to shelter within a cove
In an island, not on a chart,
And rowed ashore in a longboat there
With the bosun, Jacob Harte.

Captain Keague had stayed on the ship
With the bloodiest of his crew,
The rest of us had been pressed to sea
To do what we had to do.
We filled our barrels with water from
A rill that flowed from the hill,
And gathered fruit that we’d never seen
From trees with an earthy feel.

The trees had tendrils that waved about,
And trunks that were black and charred,
Just like a fire had raged there once
And left them, battle-scarred.
A voice rang out in a clearing there,
‘Hey mates, head back to the sea,
Don’t let the tendrils fasten on you
Or you’ll all end up like me.’

And deep in the trunk was a human face
With its skin all burnt and black,
The pain was etched on his weathered skin,
‘Look out, these trees attack!
We tried to burn them away, but they
Caught every one of the crew,
That fruit you carry is poison, mates,
They’ll be the end of you!’

The tendrils whipped and the tendrils slashed
And they wrapped round Jacob Harte,
He hadn’t much time to scream before
They seemed to tear him apart,
And each of the crew was tangled there,
Was absorbed into a tree,
I made it back to the beach that day
Though I’m anything but free.

The roots of the trees had reached on out
To the Brigantine in the bay,
Curled like manacles round its decks
And torn its masts away,
They dragged it up on the sandy beach
And they crushed it to a shell,
Caught the crew in their tendrils too
And Captain Keague as well.

I’ll put this note in a bottle, send it
Floating off in the sea,
Hoping that someone picks it up,
It’s the last you’ll hear from me.
Don’t let them seed in the world out there
These tendril trees are cursed,
And keep this Island from off the map,
If not, I fear the worst!

David Lewis Paget

Somebody out there
Is fighting a war
And that war is over nothing
But the perceived imperfections
That they find in themselves

Discovering problems when none are there
Without realizing the lack of substance
Just created villains out of air, not understanding reality
But for them, the problems were always there
And they weren't self made, they just occurred

And the war over that which is not real
Is the bloodiest conflict in history
With casualties every day, battles every night
Men and woman, adults and children perish
Fighting for a cause they don't understand
That those on the outside can't see

Because this war is in hell
And hell is a state of mind
And when there, every moment is a struggle
To stay alive and hold back the demons
Swarming through your mind

Today probably marks one of the final occasions
Upon which I will visit my grandfather
Long years have made him weary
A war drawn through many winters
He is deceptively small, hardly more than five feet
But like an iceberg his hidden self is vast
Travelled the world on military campaign
He does not speak of this part of his past
My family makes prompts in asking
How he crossed the Channel, entered Germany
The frontline combat that ensued
Has never escaped his conscience
At the slightest mention of the Battle of the Bulge
His face glazes over, and he is brought back
He relives instantly, right in front of me
The soldiers who died, friendly or not
I never asked if he killed anyone
And he would never tell me
The men of his time were moved to terrible actions
They returned home numb or wrapped in plastic
I cannot imagine such an experience
To be held so near my age
Spent several fortnights living in a foxhole
The bloodiest battle, taken by surprise
My father’s father like many fathers
Did what he had to do
He remains a soldier to this day
My respect is endless for the mighty

I love you
To the deepest
Bloodiest degree

With all my wants
and all my needs

You are everything to me

But you don't know it
Because I don't show it

And I'm good at hiding things

But one day I won't hold it
And even you will know it

You think you've got what it takes green man
You're short
You're weak, your strength is only a year old
And you've been pampered by the melanin in your skin and the love around you
You think you can understand what adversity means?
The few tests of masculinity you ******* paid for left you tense and fearful when the weapons were made of plastic
When reality was there to test you, the words you should have fought against you let slide like a *****

You think you deserve a right to fight?
You may desire it, but you are too small and too stupid to fight for anything in this world
And what you desire to fight for is muddied in hypocrisy
Because democracy is built on blood and sin
A world of wolves ****** each other with claws and ***** for sheep like you
When you sheep wander into our battleground, you bleed better than us
With tears and families and a lack of skin that Darwin fought the churches to emphasise
The stupid and the sociopathic know our fight the best
Because they accept the simple truth we give them, or are willing to profit from the lie
But you just men, sheep who give up and wolves who die
You can't keep up with this

What do I say to all that?
To our history that is so muddied in the darkest greys
Bloodiest battles fought continously, so I can live under laws that I don't agree with
As much as they let me do what I want to do

I have to take the coward's way out, and defend my tribes in my ***** *** deluded little way
And despite every need to be carved out of stone as a man who is too soft to fight as hard as he wants to
That fight doesn't exist
And if it did
It wouldn't need me

You think you are the only one with rage?
Rage is not new.
You did not invent rage and you are certainly not king of it
Tender.
Like a bruised, oozing, rotting peach. That is something you cannot
do.
****. you. with my tears.
Tear you until you are nothing but a mangled corpse.
Bleed. Can you bleed?
BlEeD.
Stick my fingers into the softest, fuzziest, bloodiest
and lick your warm
salt. That's when I. will. believe. you. are A
live.
My ****. heart. beats sawdust for you
inside my vapid ribcage.

-EL

Amnesty.  the 11th hour, the 11th day, the 11th month, the year 1918
A knock upon a large closed door.
A lady awaiting news on her son.

Seven days pre before was the time he was no more.

Flags and banners waving fiercely,
Horns and whistles, shouts and cheers.
A welcome end to the bloodiest war,
Celebrations for peace, we’d won.

But for this fine lady, of a fine young son,
On this fine day for some.
She had waited, then through post discovered,
her son was lost to war,
Just seven days pre end before.

A man of the field he had been,
Reporting in words all he’d seen,
Gruesome accounts of the highest scale,
Not no tale,
But truth and sincere his word his actions, his doing.
All in order to settle a score and record what happened through four long years in war before.

My pen my gun, my ink my bullets,
I fire onto canvass to create an image,
Of four long years of the gruesome war
and all the gruesome scenes within it.

And upon reflection on your completion,
Please remember our finest sons.
Of which Wilfred Owen was one
and as a wartime poet was penning,
as he was fighting in it.



Robert Kingston 17.10.14

so, you're back..
again..
seeping into corners..
like a venom casting ghostly shadows onto the nape of my neck..
i never see you coming
criss crossing on a serpentine platform
of "i miss you's" and
" i didn't mean to hurt you's"
child like memories
drawn in crayons of the deepest,
bloodiest reds..
i don't remember myself there..
that's an existence i'm done sharing..

While American and Israeli officials
Clink their champagne glasses and schmooze
At an embassy in Jerusalem,
One thing is barely making the news:

Over one hundred twelve° Palestinians
Have been killed at the Gaza Strip
Since March 30 by Israeli soldiers
Demonstrating their marksmanship.

Over 13,000° have been
Injured, having wounds that consist
Of large, gaping holes in the victims--
Bullet holes the size of a fist.

The bullets shot from high-velocity
Weapons on hitting their target explode
Expanding and mushrooming inside the body.
Israeli cruelty à la mode?

People from all walks of life gathered
To demonstrate and express their frustration
For living conditions in their Gaza prison--
An abominable situation.

Conditions, in fact, are among
The worst that the world has seen.
May 14 was the bloodiest day
Since the strife in twenty fourteen.

Israelis call it "self-defense";
It's really shoot-to-injure or ****.
Are snipers keeping track of how many
Palestinian coffins they'll fill?

One uncle never imagined
That he would need a body bag.
He carried home his 8-month old niece
Wrapped in a Palestinian flag.

The people want a place that's home.
But while negotiations stall--
And marginalized by circumstances--
They live inside or outside a wall.

-by Bob B (5-19-18)

°Based on a report by journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous

I want our loneliness be tie up
I want to blind your meaningless with my love

I want to spread my sense on your skin
I want to inhale your breath with feelings

I want to rope you on my possessed words
I want to **** your melody with soap box bold

I want to tape you moaning
I want to film you trembling

I want to put spell all over your body
I want to fable up your bloodiest

He said what he had said before,
A nose not stranger to bloodiest gore,
Turned a hand to beckon closed door,
Locked and barred bendwise and hammered,
By the eyes of many battles.
They simmered with experience, drew a handbook out,
Laid before them as such options were plentiful,
Should these street hooligans, singing and playing for free,
Prove to be sorest enemy, agents of Toblin's freshly minted son.
Still hot and brash from command's ascent.
Prienne's mind wasn't one to be weighed by age alone,
His talents lead chessmasters to weeping chambers,
He'd dine at dinner wearing a bib of success,
No challengers exist for my skills to test,
A fact he had to acquiesce.
Savoring the sounds of old crones and men alike,
Unaccustomed to losing control of the light,
A candle lit as sole companion, they'd given life to master,
An art he merely dabbled triumphantly.

They spend their days applauding the rich
To keep them off the streets and make use of their glitch
Is it a disability or a glitch that snatches away their rights
Or that keeps off the sky to reach the city of lights
Where a baby can be born without a risk of a bad eye
By the simple gesture of clap turned bad whereas the birth of the baby should be celebrated with cheer and rye
But I guess that’s just the humor thicked with wryness
But we find many a homosexual whom we kindly and unknowingly address as Your Highness
The abundance of homosexual conquests to give away any hope of the lord to ignorantly receive him
Chopping off their manhood with a sword at every whim
In the bloodiest fashion reminiscent of all that’s wrong in the universe
If we could just find a reverse
It isn’t just the transgendered who feel the curse of their face
What about the acid victims bluntly speaking who won’t make it in the rat race
The media may portray them as heroines
But when the danger is past their past leads to what is simply a couple of street coins
It’s all in a visage
The idea of making money right is just a mirage
It falters with circumstance and birth right
If you were born developed enough for this world success is in your sight
Looks like transgender people have no place to go
The government should know
So why not the army so they can push the agenda of war too
But it seems like they have no country to fight for you
So don’t be afraid of them
They are born at the hem
Of a ship that signals a rough life that doesn’t soothe by a deep REM sleep
So they aren't any less capable because they still deal with deeply rooted social stigmas that would make anyone working through that weep

It is the soldier born of blood
That finds his bath irrevocably red
Crimson stains cloud his head
Not a part of him comes home unbled
But the bloodiest of wounds
The bleedings that never stops
Does not come from cut, or contusion
Not from the legions leaking lesions  
But from the dreams that wake him screaming
Turning a once wise and strong warrior
Into a broken ****** baby doll

(Cross heavy) Old found poetry by meself...A cross to bear, nails to tear thick through. Canst thou shovel thine own grave? Gravedigger art thou payed yet for thy expenses? No message's coming on in. Just burdenful sins to cut the blue made veins, where the bloodiest of stains grapple no completing. The dogs are teething as babies to the ****. ******* stay stuck in the devils inventions, none to know or mention what society seems to fail. Do we prevail? or get conquered to lost woe fears? Holy spirit shalt thou come near to be thy carriage i lay this carrion body? Claireaudience has found me barraged in darkest of flagrant sadness. Such madness have i been born into, or was the madness thrived in me? No locks nor keys to pass, Limbos fated match, Chimera's live hatched where no love has been given.......