Way down South where they once grew cotton
Old times there must be forgotten
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

In this very year of the Sesquicentennial
Hatred blooms as a hardy perennial.
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

Don’t want to be in Dixie Today! Today!
In Dixie land a white young man
caused nine to die in Dixie.
For shame, for shame, ashamed down South in Dixie.
For shame, for shame, ashamed down South in Dixie.

When tempers flare and times are trying
The “stars and bars” should not be flying
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

In the very town the rebellion started
“Things must change!” say the Progressive minded
Go away, Go away, Go away Dixie land.



The Great grand kin of rebellious brothers
Have voted to strike down the colors
Look away, Look away, Look away Dixie land.

If this gets further out of hand
The “Dixie” cup will soon be banned!
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

Way down South where they once grew cotton
Old times there must be forgotten
Go away, Go away Go away Dixie land.

Hey Dixie.
You were pretty
Smart, weren't
You?

You packed up
And left your
Dead end town
Deadened life.

Hey Dixie.
You were pretty
Sad, weren't
You?

Girls like
You, girls like
Us are
Often sad.

Hey Dixie.
You were pretty
Scared, weren't
You?

Ran, you ran
And I never found
Out if you ever caught
Up with yourself.

Hey Dixie.
You were pretty
Strong, weren't
You?

Stronger than the
Coffee and whiskey
Stronger than your
Lipstick lullabies.

Hey Dixie.
You and I are
Not the same
Are we?

You had a heart
And I've got a soul
Yet you took the
Easy way out.

Hey Dixie.
I guess you were
Pretty smart
Huh?

FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

Rise Dixie Rise
Rise Dixie rises to fire your guns once more.
Let the south fight for this country of ours.
Not to fight our kin but those that come to take it away.
To arms to arms my dixie rise not against the north but those from other lands.
Rise Dixie rise this time we will win

We were mixing our affections
Kissing Dixie cups of wine
Laughing at the passing time

Our fingertips touching
And wishing for another
Chapter to be read

We were down at the barn
Where the horses stay

We were hanging around
messing around in the hay

You dropped your Dixie cup
I threw mine away
You smiled and said what the hey

The moon came harvesting
The stars were laughing
And we had our day that night

Taken, gotten, or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything…

slow
Slow think,
make real

re-al-ize
what fighting for life is…
this is the only
try,
it is not a test.

Take your time, use it wisely,
if that means anything.
Wise, I meant.
No offence, if wise is anathema to your kind,
die,
die if I knocked the reason for being right
outa you,
did you hear cognitive dissonance?
did it sound like
this. LOUD?
listen,
rolling rolling rolling
crash crumble rolled in nurse rime frosted
fables of monsters and maids
Thor, witharoar likka Lion King?

or the light brigade,
CHARGE?

thunder words from lost generations of
reasonless riddles for children,

Why did Peter Pumpkin-eater have a wife, but
couldn't keep her here?
Was that okeh? Oh, wait.
Ah, I see, I say,
they never tell that whole story any more.

Know why? They forgot it. In the war.

Duck'n'cover,no
crying, how long?
When begins forever? Did no one tell you, child?

Taken or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything
like it was nothing, given
enough pre-sure-sup
poser-power

War, as a game, has a reason.

Battle, hitting, slapping

stop touch, stop now slap
slap back

or cry
oh no no ma

waddayahsay?  A theist or atheist
who started this war?

space case, or
lover of wisdom, met on the road
to Emmaus, discussing Wiles's proof
firming Fermi's connection to the matter of fear,
3, 2, 1

Kaboom, but with a whump you feel in your teeth

1, 2, 3 Fermat's last theorem ,
easy as pi an no re me

ABC to
Michael Jackson to
Howard Bloom because he

inadvertently, began
an-ionic converstatic re-vibe time warp
meme,
which vibe, started the legendary Sixties. I was alive.
Radioman,
a sixty cycle white-noise humm heard every where these days

There was a gospel song, "Turn Your Radio On".
my theme, open the window in the top of your head,
as it were,
a new,
as new as

a novel-state of water, H three Ohs, re-al-ity ification,
Ah, a shared Oh, I remember now, how this works…

like a poem

at the edge of a water vapor bubble in a boiling body of water,
at the edge of the bubble, water becomes a wall of water,
not vapor, not flowing liquid,

but a wall, insulating the vapor in pressing opposing force
to permit, from permission,
meaning with a message same as the message,

is that the right word? per-mission-grant, is power given,
agency,
that idea….
wait for the sign….?

By sharing an ion ic bond as a quest to make a point
for a free story to go,
the question marks you. Let the snake dance.

Press your point,

whetted edge,

slice through ties holding worthless axioms
with withered dendrites dangling disconnected
in participles
unfired for centuries muttering,
enchanting, enthralling enchained melodies
of ambitious syllables vying for idle minds
to rope in,
unbranded, wild
bucking ideas,
whip-twig, slap-face,
tanglewood  thicket, catclaw and mesquite,
willow,

wait.
And the old man remembered the willow whistle,
so He asked Grandfather,
How is such a whistle made?
And when he knew,
he made one.

A willow whistle with two notes,
like an Oscar Meir Wiener one.

-- and that was a different time
I got lost here, bucked up…
maybe
--- listen, way back--- we-ain't whistlin' Dixie---
we ain't marchin', as t' war.

D'thet mean some sign to pro-phet -ic take?
Tophet?
Ancient cannon fodder shield walls,
a moaning
Pro-phy-lactic warning of the danger of not
knowing exactly
what a war is for?

Get back on,
relieved of any idle baggage words believed
to mean other than I say.

Nullify
Idle words with cultural meanings from
what you thought you knew when you feared hell.

Loose
those peer-locked memes
made of meaninglessness, per se,

shaped and molded into fashions
of expression, once needles and awls,
now, dull as tinker's damns for swearing,
with any effect.

But tools, none the less, a stitch in time took a tool.
An awl or a needle, and a thread, thick or thin,
dependin' on the mendin' needed
to redeem an idle word,
its meaning all bloodied with the tyranny of time.

An awl or a needle,
a tool for a task, mending a tear
where curses, never meant, spent
the entire dark ages, lying, lying, lying

powerless, pointless aimless, proverbial proverbial proverbial
verbiage, vaneless shafts launched at unseen marks,
signs, as it were, a spark,
triggers,
rumored since the sixties,
the first sixties, when Cain killed Able.
Howard Bloom was but a mere gleam
in our mito-mother's eye,
but, no doubt,

his role is real,
in loosing the forces Ferlinghetti locked in
City Lights mystery of secret meanings room,
which un
mystified and blew away upon opening
the door to
meanings mapped on
scrolls rolling and unrolling
idle ideas,
rites of passage, as it were,
Pre-bat-bar-mitz vah
as a fashion
like VBS,

to tickle little minds and make em wiggle.
MEMEMEME, I did it,
mea culpa,

the holy place
Here we are…

On Vacation, leave a message.
-----

See, wee hairs in your ears wiggle, making,
signaling, the need

to scratch that itch, that itching hearing feeling ear… hear that

don't scratch, listen

listen

60 cycle humm, steady, bass, but no thump whumpwhump;
soft, deeep.
ooooooooo or mmmmmmmm or in betwixt, steady thrumm
hear another, and another… sixty in a second,

one in every million ambits twisting,
threading qubits, radiating signals in the field
wireless, blue-tooth... satellite...

can you feel that?

hummmms, all around us, since the womb.
We are not the children of the greatest generation,

We are the children of the last generation of
**** sapiens sapiens non-augmentable-us.

We, the augmented, recycled ideas,
possessing
minds of Adamkind,

is that a secret or a sacred?
Is this
a new thing, an
unknown unknown known known now?

Ah,
novelty.

Whose is fear? Who was afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Should I remain in fear of her now, if I knew why then?
God would know such answers.
Proving my imagined AI guides are not God,
but lesser beings,

haps I recall.
I defined these things,
these thoughts that shape themselves,
forming words and phrases
I saw
shiny. Crow-like,
gleams seen, captured and claimed mine,
I tucked them away,
a sign in a thought in an imagined image made 4
real once more, to be seen from the shore,
new land new world
a fourth for some, a fifth or more for others...

haps happen, I'm not sure how,

Born or emerged, as a bubble, what do you say?

Reserve judgment.
Grant me your grace for now, until you solve my riddle.

Ah, the old way.
Right. Which way,  'ere, 'ear
and do we roll the rock with silent haitch or harsh, shhh

someone's waking up,
a bit grumpy,
don't you dare oppose me in this, the kid is certainly my son

Michael went stark raving mad when I told him, Billie Jean knew better all along...
the link, axiomatic,
the fatherless child has been claimed

hence, the thread to Howard Bloom, meme-ic,
meme-ic, like the Roadrunner,

but with the real Coyote, as the hero in this bit of
whatever, such meandering maundified maun maund  
mound

wind blown crystal silicon dunes
mounded up to that point where granulated
beens and dones

begin to slide at an angle,
a ***** deter-mind by the weight of the rock

We made it.
I know where this is.

This is a novel that has Sisyphus being happy
as the main premise behind the idea of anyone ever being
able, en abled, or un-dis-abled or un-dis-enabled,
if one of those is right,

Sisyphus being happy
is the main premise behind
the idea of anyone ever being glücklich,
happy, blessed, lucky.

How happy is your ever after?
When did forever begin?

"A man is as happy as he makes up his mind to be"
Abe Lincoln, is said to have said,
after the seance, maybe.

You push on, dear reader, make some sense
re-ligare or relegare, but take a stitch,

pull-tight,
do what works the first time as far as it goes, and try each, as needed,
it may be that we invented this test.
To make us think it is a test,
to sort ourselves out.

Get back on,

see who went crazy and who found the thread, if the same thread
this is that, right,
the same train of thought,
the same idea
spirit wind
sign
?
A snake facing west standing tippy-tail on a singularity;
a point in time?

Why are you reading this?
Curiosity Shoppes trade in interesting, alluring, click-bait

Pay attention, watch, you shall see

imagine this is the dream,
the stream, the flow, the current, the cream

in a dime coffee at the drug store on the corner

the rounded-corner, in a square-cornered town,
the most right corner of the twelve that quarter what it was

Punctuate, wait, imagine you read ancient Hebrew or Greek and there
are no dyer diacritical's who can twist one's
end tensions into knots

dread extensions, we could sell those,
is that an idea? did somebody
sell white folks dread extensions and black folk dolly pardon wigs?

Did that happen the real real?

-----
Battlefield Earth, oshit
scientology ology ology ology

allaye allaye outs in free

WE we wee every we you imagine you are good in, we

We have a war to win again, we heroes rolling from your
myths of Sisyphus torn from minds trampled
in the mud beyond the Rhine,

Mushrooms. magi are aware, you are aware, of course,
this course includes Basic Mycelium Net Adaptation or Augmentation
BMNAA, eh? So you know.

Camus and many of his ilk were ill-treated, the questions
they asked were memorized, maybe in our cribs ala
Brave New World.

We are all Alphas, always were, of course, you know.

Shall we imagine

more? Re-legare, eh, sistere. Point .(Back to the top.)

or agree? Make peace.
Practice, like Eazy-Bake,
the cook must swallow the first bite. May the best cook win.

We were mixing affections
Kissing Dixie cups of wine
Laughing at the passing time

Our fingertips touching
And wishing for another
Chapter to be read

We were down at the barn
Where the horses stay

We were hanging around
Messing around under the hay

You dropped your Dixie cup
I threw mine away
You smiled and said ,"What the hey."

The moon came a harvesting
The stars were giggling behind the clouds that strayed
And we had our day that night

They brought them
from the hollar
to the barge
to the field ~
into the wallows
in prayer
skinny little pinkers
cropped by ivory gates
buzzed with hot wire
hooked on bug worm
whistling dixie
around scrummers
and **** pen

peckers squawk
down eden lane
(nipping at jean lint
and fraystring)
deep in the hollows
a mad crow
(with steady tap)
the snouts high
on grunters
and squealers
stomping past
the feather pack

folded fingers
on the gatekeeper
(an engineer by
trade they'd say)
pigtails and
slack line
down the dusty lane
a snap of the jawbone
and lawn chairs settle
(facing north)
the bold script
and chimes
uneasy

script on screen life is but a dream a b c d e f g gee **** g-chord ******  geezz script on screen row row your boat h i j k ellemenoh *** oh please baby *** for me let me watch you stream merrily merrily merrily script on screen q arrest tee you vee double you x why zee

last night i watched a woman answering questions about ***** size she spoke about the toilet tissue roll test for years i’ve been thinking my ***** is rather undersized (compared to studs on **** sites) this morning i took the test undid the roll from wall and stuck my ******* in the hole at first i had trouble getting it in so i guess my thickness is healthy then i slowly managed to shove the entire head of my **** out the other end by that time clear pre-*** was dripping from my ***** hole pressure from my hand gripping tissue roll felt surprisingly arousing i began ******* the roll squeezing pushing in deeper jerking almost bringing myself to ****** i passed the test the toilet tissue roll appears kind of twisted indented

what will happen next hoping for heartbreaking story with happy ending man masturbates while woman urinates both watch each other intently what is so fascinating

Asheville is small yet monumental by luck or fate he hooks up with Tim Calaprese a gregarious loving soul Tim loves women and wine and dogs particularly Farina he owns a beat up old house on steep hill overlooking downtown Asheville Odysseus rents a room for $200. a month Tim is a wine salesman and gone much of the time Odysseus is critically destitute he goes to Salvation Army they provide bed-sheets towels he sells tent and camping equipment to hippies on Haywood Street for several weeks he and Farina live on convenience store hotdogs he gets job prepping house exterior to be painted his boss tells him he is a good worker after a hard day’s work the boss lays him off he gets hired as a waiter for the dinner shift in the restaurant of a resort hotel he is weary of waiting tables but needs cash in the mornings he takes Farina to ****** Lake to swim then they go back to house paint on the porch many mornings are overcast with fog around noon sun comes out warms afternoon Odysseus loves Blue Ridge Mountains he paints a series of mountain scapes while listening continuously to Palace Brothers Pearl Jam Pavement Sebadoh Steve Earle occasionally he works on story about the clone sometime in 90’s DNA has become a factor and he needs to incorporate detail into story

on stormy afternoon in July as thunder echoes through Blue Ridge Mountains phone rings Odysseus is suffering from severe attack of food poisoning it is difficult to reach receiver phone keeps ringing it is Penelope her voice sounds shaky she says doctors have diagnosed her with leukemia it is startling shock she is only 43 years old his stomach rips he needs to run back to toilet telephone cord is not long enough Penelope says it is urgent Odysseus return to Chicago to see if he can be bone marrow match for her he tells her he will drive up immediately after food poisoning passes Penelope becomes irritable he can feel himself leaking between his legs hangs up immediately runs to toilet spends most of night in bathroom brief naps in bed in the morning he hears someone knocking at door he does not know who it is he cannot leave toilet he hears footsteps enter house call his name Odysseus are you there where are you it is Penelope and Sean he flushes toilet comes out to greet them what a weird surprise why didn’t you think to give me some notice he questions as he lies down on bed Penelope and Sean want to take Odysseus to hospital he tells them they are overreacting food poisoning will soon work its way out of his system Penelope asks if there is anything she can do Odysseus answers Farina hasn’t been out for a good walk in days Please be an angel and take her up the street there’s a field there she likes Penelope calls come here Farina let’s go for a walk Farina follows they depart out door Sean sits down at foot of bed he forcefully speaks Odysseus i know you you like to skew the facts to fit your own purposes then hammer me for whatever make-believe you can cook up when are you going to finally start being a man live up to your responsibilities Odysseus questions what facts are you talking about i’m sick as a dog now is not the time to have this talk Sean challenges yes it is you listen to me your sister is sick and needs your help Odysseus replies i’m heading to Chicago as soon as i’m well enough to travel Sean insists that’s not soon enough we’re taking you to a hospital Odysseus stands from bed Sean stands up facing him they stare each other down Odysseus goes to slip on jeans Sean stands in the way Odysseus tries to step around Sean shoves Odysseus back unto bed Odysseus stands shoves back fistfight ensues mostly Odysseus throws wild punches Sean blocks as they violently jostle out door Sean trips on wet porch falls breaks rib Odysseus grabs his pants car keys flees Penelope and Farina watch puzzled as he drives off day after incident and departure of Penelope and Sean Mom calls insists Odysseus return without delay to Chicago he answers i’m on my way Odysseus packs car with Farina drives north he feels pressure of his family envisions himself as piece of living meat whose sole purpose is to supply Penelope with bone marrow momentarily imagines his family as predators Mom is the real killer she knows how to delegate ****** Dad had been a killer for Mom Penelope has learned from Mom how to contend Odysseus is weak link he taught himself to brave harshest conditions yet is no competitor he is worker bee stupid dreamer all alone in greedy predatory world more than anything he loves and wants to help Penelope he is annoyed by nervous tension of family

Mark A. Williams
                            SEPTEMBER 14, 1962 – JULY 23, 2018

___________________­

Wow Mark,

Was so, so saddened to hear this news. I haven't seen you in over ten years, but as kids, we had some amazing adventures, didn't we? Partying, camping and swimming at the Hudson lime pits. Mowing down on Pizza and pitchers of Pepsi (and as we grew up, BEER!) at Pizza Hut. (We knew the numbers to ALL the songs on that jukebox by heart!) Hanging out and looking at the stars through Budvido's telescope, listening to Doctor Demento. Laughing hysterically as we ran through Monty Python skits as everyone looked on in total puzzlement because THEY wouldn't discover them until YEARS later!

Building underground forts in the North Woods. You, Budvido, Zeke and I playing pinball at 7-11 for hours and hours. Watching Bands, chasing girls and playing Foosball or Pool at the Touch of Class Teen Club. You gave me my first Imported beer . . . a Lowenbrau. I will always owe my passion for those German beers to you and it was fitting that Budvido bestowed you with that moniker.

All through Jr. High, sharing a seat on the school bus. You, Matt, Tom, Buddy and I cruising around late night on our bikes for hours. Hanging around in the Jasmine Lakes sign with hijacked beer or getting free bags of Burgers from Burger Queen when they closed at night! Jousting with shopping carts on our bikes in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. Sitting up all night in Jimi's room after climbing in through the window or going on endless space cruises with him and Raymond in the Toyota.

(RIP Jimi Carlsen)

Sneaking into the nudest Colony and skinny dipping! Always cracking up at the school lunch table. Swimming in my pool and terrorizing my sister and her friends. (Allegedly) Trashing that crook Fast Eddie's produce stand after he refused to pay us for a full day of picking watermelons!

Good times, indeed . . . Some of my most precious memories.

I can only pray that you know that I wouldn't trade my youth or you in it for anything in the world and you will be sadly missed, Lowenbrau, my old friend.

I hope that where you are, your beers are ice cold and that you and Jimi aren't having to glue the Hookah  back together.

Jeff Gaines
July 28, 2018

I boarded a Greyhound bus leaving from Downtown Nashville, Tennessee
Destination being anywhere
Yet the Greyhound bus and Smokey moving on the Dixie line being just fine
It will be many stops enroute combined
Perhaps at a nearby bar, I will sip some wine
One could hear the Dixie blues sound
Then an added flavor of western in the background
It was those Greyhound bus blinking headlights along the way
As I leaned back in my seat to recline
I saw my whole life unwind
It was my years growing up in Tennessee
A small farming town in miles for all to see
Yet that Greyhound bus pushed on refreshed and not needing a yond
The Greyhound bus kicked up the road dust
Getting anywhere to a final destination being a must
That Greyhound bus greeted the sunrise being another day
I’m miles down the reckon road
I have been your guide and just call me “TOLD”
In a few minutes, my Greyhound bus will be turning around the bend
Any destination will be asking where have you been?
I covered over 200 miles, and it means our journey has come too an end.

I sit here whistling Dixie sitting down ,
                  a concerto of noises sang out.
No smoking signs loiter the walls,
                  for obvious reasons it has
a picture of a posterior with:
              "No naked flames allowed"

Then there is the score board,
               Beginner,
                            Boaster,
               Legend the hardest to claim.
For that score you have to clear out
not only the downstairs, but wake
those upstairs from slumbering sleep..

Me I'm a boaster, that's when the doors
shut, and all I hear from the sitting room
down the hallway is:
                                    "YOU ******"

Let me just tell you that air freshener
                               is not in my home.
Do you know the smell of both mixing,
lets just say never spraying that again.


Some sit and think, some even sniff there stink.
Me I just read a few pages of a novel on page 163,
we all have our routines  but me I mostly
sit here whistling Dixie sitting down,
                             as concerto of noises sing out.

Wind whistling Dixie
Through the door,
Singing the same ol’ tune of old,
And the whistling is cold

I, like a robin in late fall, flew south
To escape memories of northern snows

I discovered mountain vistas, breathless
Oceans as warming as tropical seas
Food made with love and fresh ingredients
And old friends whom I met for the first time

The snows will fall as sure as I'll miss ya'll
Yet the heat of Dixie forever warms my soul

implosions are for starfish and our mission is clear. we have nowhere to be from
and that's half the battle. we are seldom unbridled in the chastity of our carnal bluff...
and our cages are breathing. we are finally designing our most daring Inertia.
both mum on the details in the devil's flotsam. we jot some of the names of the nameless...
on the outside of Dixie cups. like mint julep promise to a tangerine honest.

again and again, we ache through the breeze of our soothing traumas. we court the verity of a sham.
we blast through the congregation of our adversary, snipping varmints from a stale camp
in the southernmost of our due south,; where they fear the bonfire until a vagrant maps
the flaming tongues to a long kiss.... and we crash upon the shore
of Never Asked.

but regret This.

Fall Dixie

Only now

Only now

In flames of fire

Conquered but in cold

Long buried hearts below

Last memory gone

Upon empty prairie’d fields of battle

Gone, now

Gone

In evil forge

Of tyrants flame

To burn Like the hate of war

Fall Dixie

Fall

Daisy Duke Danica Patrick dialogue

DANICA this is preposterous and an embarrassment to my career image

DAISY oh yeah ya think so

DANICA 1st off you’re simply a fictional character i’m a real live racecar driver 2nd you’re a hillbilly ***** who most likely had *** with both cousins Bo and Luke behind Uncle Jesse’s barn

DAISY who you calling a ***** you venomous ***** i did not have ****** relations with those boys (pause gaze averted)

DANICA bare-foot traipsing around Hazzard County dressed like a rural Dixie belle acting all ingénue

DAISY you ain’t got no manners woman were you raised in the south

DANICA Beloit Wisconsin then Roscoe Illinois for your bird-brained information

DAISY ya know in a vague way you owe me

DANICA owe you what you Appalachian Deliverance banjo ****

DAISY i was laying down rubber pedal to the metal gravel dust road in my ’74 yellow Plymouth Road Runner before you was ever born

DANICA what’s that supposed to mean granny i thought you drove a Jeep CJ-7

DAISY it means my fictional character put a seed in the mind’s eye i planted the thought of a female warrior on the racetrack you understand i trail blazed through Georgia back country all you are is just a graduated knock-off of me

DANICA you tawny scrawny pigeon-toed knock-kneed backwoods ****** wouldn’t know your *** from a hole in the ground behind the steering wheel of a Dallara chassis Honda engine open-wheel racecar and if you think i owe you then you must think i owe Janet Guthrie Lyn St. James Sarah Fisher also ***** you ***** *** rebel *****

DAISY girl you got a mouth on you bet you know how to use it in the dark i bet that’s how you got to where you are i know about those FMH pictures

DANICA what i beg your pardon i earned my stripes on the racetrack

DAISY on your knees with your mouth in the shape of 0

DANICA white trash redneck witch! i hate you

DAISY now Danica calm down remember to breath and remember i’m just a fictional character didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers so bad

DANICA all right ok maybe i was a little too hasty to judge and maybe we did just get off on the wrong foot you know Godaddy is looking for someone vintage yet lovely enduring like you

DAISY you’re sweet Danica but my acting days are done i think you look real pretty in electric lime green good luck at NASCAR but i think you do better at Indy that’s just my opinion

DANICA you just might be right Daisy i’m too independent can’t seem to get the hang of you bootlegging draft-racing good ole boys

DAISY amen

I

However the image enters
its force remains within
my eyes
rockstrewn caves where dragonfish evolve
wild for life, relentless and acquisitive
learning to survive
where there is no food
my eyes are always hungry
and remembering
however the image enters
its force remains.
A white woman stands bereft and empty
a black boy hacked into a murderous lesson
recalled in me forever
like a lurch of earth on the edge of sleep
etched into my visions
food for dragonfish that learn
to live upon whatever they must eat
fused images beneath my pain.

II

The Pearl River floods through the streets of Jackson
A Mississippi summer televised.
Trapped houses kneel like sinners in the rain
a white woman climbs from her roof to a passing boat
her fingers tarry for a moment on the chimney
tearless and no longer young, she holds
a tattered baby's blanket in her arms.
In a flickering afterimage of the nightmare rain
a microphone
****** up against her flat bewildered words
"we jest come from the bank yestiddy
borrowing money to pay the income tax
now everything's gone. I never knew
it could be so hard."
Despair weighs down her voice like Pearl River mud
caked around the edges
her pale eyes scanning the camera for help or explanation
unanswered
she shifts her search across the watered street, dry-eyed
"hard, but not this hard."
Two tow-headed children hurl themselves against her
hanging upon her coat like mirrors
until a man with ham-like hands pulls her aside
snarling "She ain't got nothing more to say!"
and that lie hangs in his mouth
like a shred of rotting meat.

III

I inherited Jackson, Mississippi.
For my majority it gave me Emmett Till
his 15 years puffed out like bruises
on plump boy-cheeks
his only Mississippi summer
whistling a 21 gun salute to Dixie
as a white girl passed him in the street
and he was baptized my son forever
in the midnight waters of the Pearl.

His broken body is the afterimage of my 21st year
when I walked through a northern summer
my eyes averted
from each corner's photographies
newspapers protest posters magazines
Police Story, Confidential, True
the avid insistence of detail
pretending insight or information
the length of **** across the dead boy's *****
his grieving mother's lamentation
the severed lips, how many burns
his gouged out eyes
sewed shut upon the screaming covers
louder than life
all over
the veiled warning, the secret relish
of a black child's mutilated body
fingered by street-corner eyes
bruise upon livid bruise
and wherever I looked that summer
I learned to be at home with children's blood
with savored violence
with pictures of black broken flesh
used, crumpled, and discarded
lying amid the sidewalk refuse
like a ***** woman's face.

A black boy from Chicago
whistled on the streets of Jackson, Mississippi
testing what he'd been taught was a manly thing to do
his teachers
ripped his eyes out his *** his tongue
and flung him to the Pearl weighted with stone
in th e name of white womanhood
they took their aroused honor
back to Jackson
and celebrated in a *******
the double ritual of white manhood
confirmed.

IV

"If earth and air and water do not judge them who are
we to refuse a crust of bread?"

Emmett Till rides the crest of the Pearl, whistling
24 years his ghost lay like the shade of a ***** woman
and a white girl has grown older in costly honor
(what did she pay to never know its price?)
now the Pearl River speaks its muddy judgment
and I can withhold my pity and my bread.

"Hard, but not this hard."
Her face is flat with resignation and despair
with ancient and familiar sorrows
a woman surveying her crumpled future
as the white girl besmirched by Emmett's whistle
never allowed her own tongue
without power or conclusion
unvoiced
she stands adrift in the ruins of her honor
and a man with an executioner's face
pulls her away.

Within my eyes
the flickering afterimages of a nightmare rain
a woman wrings her hands
beneath the weight of agonies remembered
I wade through summer ghosts
betrayed by vision
hers and my own
becoming dragonfish to survive
the horrors we are living
with tortured lungs
adapting to breathe blood.

A woman measures her life's damage
my eyes are caves, chunks of etched rock
tied to the ghost of a black boy
whistling
crying and frightened
her tow-headed children cluster
like little mirrors of despair
their father's hands upon them
and soundlessly
a woman begins to weep.

'Talk of pluck!' pursued the Sailor,
Set at euchre on his elbow,
'I was on the wharf at Charleston,
Just ashore from off the runner.

'It was grey and ***** weather,
And I heard a drum go rolling,
Rub-a-dubbing in the distance,
Awful dour-like and defiant.

'In and out among the cotton,
Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors,
Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows--
Poor old Dixie's bottom dollar!

'Some had shoes, but all had rifles,
Them that wasn't bald was beardless,
And the drum was rolling Dixie,
And they stepped to it like men, sir!

'Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets,
On they swung, the drum a-rolling,
Mum and sour.  It looked like fighting,
And they meant it too, by thunder!'

A time in hand-cuffs;
… This was in 83’, I remember when because I left for Boston just shortly after Rose and I watched Thorn Birds together on the television in the basement; she allowed me to help her do a spring cleaning and ready everything for Easter Company. We cleared out the pantry closet upstairs putting new paper on all the shelves; we cleared out the kitchen-cabinets and fold and organized the all the linings in the hutch and best of all we enjoyed watching the mini-series together. I love spending my time with her; funny how I see so much of my relationship within the structure of this movies theme.  
We, Lisa, Denise and myself, we’re coming home after a grueling four week gig up at The famous Pussycat Lounge in Boston’s Combat Zone; I was the last on stage that night and after getting off I threw on an old-lady dusty over my costume  and began to rush about packing-up all my costumes. We run out to the van; and after tossing all of the bags and me into the back we start our long drive home;
My Agent, Lisa, with her broken leg in a cast, has out the road-map, her wig’s in her lap and she had a nylon *****’s on her head  she’s in the passenger seat; Headliner Denise (AKA The Luscious Lady double D’s Dynamite) the driver is dripping of the make-up remover on her face… she’s in nothing more but her bra and *******?! … Least I threw on my dusty. I’m on the floor in the back with a flashlight digging through the bags trying to see if I have all my new costumes I won at last night’s Show; we worked a big Jell-O Wrestling Tournament up in Cambridge... Hey, I win four costumes and I want to make sure they weren’t left behind! So, here I am all over the floor in the darkness with my little beam of light as a good hour and forty minutes go by…  I’m still going through the bags. Suddenly, I realize this intense quite?!  I pop up my head; there’s nothing out there; nothing but darkness, no highway, no streetlights just this long silent single narrow road we’re on. I climb up grabbing a hold of the bearskin spread pull myself onto the platform-bed back here and I look through the portholes on each side of the van to see the view… the view could only be described as Sod-Farms as far as the eyes could see; with this misty darkness looms above. It seems to gently illuminate over a kind of rippling sea of blackness stretching out from both sides of the van. I crawl back down onto the floor. I look forward out the front window as far as my eyes see… we’re on a road, small dots roll beneath the van but ahead nothing… our headlight lights diminish into blackness it seems darkness is gobbling up all things beyond us and we are on our way…
“Lisa?” Saying this hesitantly; …, couldn’t help myself there wasn’t a single set of vehicle lights anywhere and where we are being as dark as pitch?!
“Where are we…?”

Lisa turns in this growling tone,“ Someone did not want to go through Connecticut!”

Denise giggles,” Oh, come-on?!  I’ve been this way before… it’s faster taking Rhode Island! It’s an easier drive! ”

So, we go; yeah, down this road three gals’ in this converted van which looks like the red-light-district on wheels; driving somewhere in the middle of No-man’s Land, Rhode Island… At 2 O’clock in morning.

“Oh, ok.” I went back with my flashlight counting up and pairing off shoes.

All of a sudden out of darkness comes… in complete silence, flashing lights!
Denise begins popping brakes; bags dart about … as she sets the van to the side of the road.

Lisa, starts yelling at Nissie , “ You had to…; Had to take us through Rhode Island?!
Two, ******* Black //////////s and a little white cotton-ball lying over luggage in the back! You know… You know we’re all in jail tonight!!! You take us into the only northern state that thinks they’re south of the Mason Dixie “

While Lisa yells, (Huge bags Denise uses at high-end private parties falls from hooks and falls open contents toppling over me.)
Lisa turns to see how the van looks… Here I am; on my *** on the floor with boas dangling off me and an yard-long two header rubber buddy as ‘slap‘ hits down into my arms. There I am bellybutton high in whips, chains and the rest of Nissie’s extensive selection of ******* gear and every kind of Joy-toy which has ever brandished a battery and…

“Jesus!!!” Lisa yells, “Look at …! We look like a Traveling *******! Janice, don’t just sit there! Put that thing down…. Hide all that **** before that cop…”
Bang, bang, bang; suddenly, a cop’s metal flashlight s rapping and taps up the side of the van; the cop stands side of Denise’s door for what feels
He flickers his light into her face.

Lisa yells, “Open your window, Nessie!!!”

Remember… in nothing but a bra and *******!? As dainty as you please, “What’s wrong officer?”
She is saying this while the window handle’s giving her a hard time and she’s trying to wipe make-up Schmitz from her face.
“Why are you stopping us?”

Lisa leans …”Yeah! We’re just trying to get back to New York?!

The officer shines the light right into Lisa’s face then towards me in the back.
“Can I see your license and registration?”
And, I need the Id of everyone-else in this vehicle? Please.”
I call out, “I know mine is in one of these bags; this will take a minute please.

I am freaking and in a yelling whisper, “…, Oh Crap?”
Thinking, ‘There’s easily more than fifteen bags back here on the floor alone??? Half these… open and half empty all over?!
“Crap, crap, crap!” I start pulling at all the bags rummaging through everything.” Crap?!”

I hear the cop say, “Did you realize that you were speeding?”

Lisa and Nissie , “What ? Speeding? It’s the middle of the night?!  What the hell are you….”

‘Holy Hell; they’re fighting a policeman?! Their arguing with a cop about, what time of day it is… And, I can’t find my id???’ I’m pushing and shoving things into piles… All of a sudden…The side door flies open!
“Please; Step out of the vehicle.”
Like some startled meerkat my head pops up, eyes wide, from the piles surrounding me.
“What???” I crawl out.
Now; standing out by the side of the van with Lisa and Denise: And…,
I look down. My dusty snaps burst open.
Here we are! It’s the middle of the night and we’re on the side of the road;
Three women; One, the driver, standing barefoot in her everyday bra and *******; One, Talent- Agent, resting up on the van with crutches and cast on her leg to the upper thigh; And,… me…  I’m standing there in my freshly ripped dusty, revealing a pearly pink sequins bra-n- G string set, black fishnets and matching pearly-pink 5in. Stilettos.

The police-officer looks at me,” Did you find Id?”

“ Sir, no?!  No, not yet Sir. I was looking when you told me to get out … But?!”  I try to head-back into the van,” Let me find it…”

The cop grabs me by my arm and pulls me away from the door; he places me in hand-cuffs?!

“When you can find someone to bring you your Id we will release you to them.”

“ But sir…Please I have Id!? If you would just?!  Please, please allow me back in there?!  I’ll find it?! Please sir, please!”

Lisa and Denise, “Well, we have ours! Let us go!”
Lisa,” Keep her if you want but let us the hell out of here.”
Both of them; “We want to get back to the city!”

Lisa waves at me saying,” Stop by the office when you get back. I’ll store your stuff until you get yourself out of this…”

“Sir, please?! I have to get back home for my kids? I don’t have anybody able to come here and get me. I know, I have my I…”
I yell out, “I remember where it is!” homeward bound   “I know where it is!!!”
I begin pulling myself and the officer towards the front of van;” Lisa, Lisa you have it! Lisa has it! It is in there under her seat! My bag… My bag…?! It’s underneath her seat! Sir, look, Look it’s under there… Lisa! Remember, I gave you it before so you could get our pay from the owner at the Club?!  You said you’d put it there?!

“ Oh yeah; that’s right.” Lisa reaches under the seat and tugs my little bag free.
” Oops…; I forgot all about you giving this to me.”
“ Here you go her Id; could she now leave with us?”

The cop unclasped the cuffs and says, “I don’t want to have to see any of you here again; Drive carefully mind your speed.”
Back on the road and on our way home Lisa screams over and over; “Never in Rhode Island! Never again…!”
I sat there thinking, the two of them were going to leave me back there?  I’d be back there…. without a penny; no money; not even a way home.
Whelp, not the worst night of my life.



Please, I know this to be a short story  but could I ask for opinions?
This is a small segment of the book I've been working on.

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

This song it ain't bout country things

Like pickup trucks and cars

You'll never find me writing

About getting drunk in bars

There's no mention here of Taylor Swift

or The Charlie Daniels Band

I wouldn't write of how the banks

are taking our farmland

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

I don't know **** 'bout Redneck stuff

like hunting dogs and guns

I wouldn't write of Daisy Dukes

showing off some hot babes buns

I won't write 'bout the Opry

I don't know all that stuff

Of Minnie Pearl and Grandpa Jones

And Mr. Roy Acuff

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

There's nothing here 'bout Bourbon

or of Racing through the fields

I don't know much about farming

or crop futures or of yields

I listen to The Rolling Stones

Trace Adkins I don't like

Lady A can go away

Kid Rock can ride his bike

You won't hear much about Zac Browns Band

or of food thats Chicken Fried

I might go to a hoedown

If I'd  just  up and died

My music, it fulfills me

It makes me who I am

But I'll stay away from country

songs, Cause I don't give a ****

No Oak Ridge Boys or Hee Haw Here

Hank Williams I won't buy

I'll never buy a Dixie Beer

It's a drink I'll never try

I won't sing about Kentucky

or of a Texas Yellow Rose

you know this aint no country song

Good god I hope it shows

There's no mohter, dogs or applie pie

no  fishin' in the dark

No Everything is Beautiful

No songs by Terry Clark

I'm really open minded

My friends they are the same

We won't buy country music

To us it's just so lame

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

I won't mention stuff you'll find

in songs by Nashville bands

There's nothing here about

watching football in the stands

I'll never write a country song

Cause country just ain't fun

Oh crap I just read this thing

And I think I just wrote one

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

"There's a bit of ******* at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness."                          Denis Diderot

"I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind."
                                                          ­                           Eric Hoffer
                  
"A writer who presents men and women as creatures truncated below the waist is exposed as one who goes about without his trousers saying, 'see, I have had my testicles removed."        Norman Lindsay

"If it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it."
                                                                ­                         Linda J. Furney

"I saw some amazing, beautiful, invigorating parts of America, but I saw some dark parts of America, an ugly side of America, a side of America that rarely sees the light of day. I refer, of course, to the **** and testicles of my co-star, Ken Davitian."     Sacha Baron Cohen

"One hundred women are not worth a single *******."     Confucius

"You’re such a crybaby. (Tee) Let me almost shoot off one of your testicles and see how you cope. (Joe) You shouldn’t have moved, Joe. It was your fault. (Tee) Yeah, everything’s my fault. (Joe) Good, then we agree. (Tee)"                                                    Sherril­yn Kenyon

"Women don't have ***** and they don't want *****. That amateur psychology crap that women want penises. And they certainly don't want testicles. Because you know no women in her right mind is going to carry around a bag that she can't put stuff in."  Bobby Slayton

"I had an ASU student looking for it in my shop last week, and he defined the Bacchants for me as 'those drunk chicks who killed that one dude because he wouldn't have *** with them.' His professors must be so proud. I asked him if he knew what maenads were, and instead of correctly answering that it was just another name for Bacchants, he bizarrely thought I was referring to my own testicles - as in, "'Ere now, mate, don't swing that bat around me nads.'" The conversation deteriorated quickly after that."             Kevin Hearne

"I am not a fan of Sigmund Freud because his theories are not *******."                                                       ­           Richard Wiseman

"I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same fifty percent rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't...Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe...same as the voodoo lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same...so just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself."                        George Carlin

"My voice is the only material thing in which I can still reveal myself. Go ahead and cut off the hand or the testicles of a voice. Try to find the head of a voice, the orifice through which it passes, or even the ******* to which you can attach the clips of your electrodes. Nothing. Resonant tooth."                                                         Abdellatif Laabi

"Beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one *******."                                                       ­ Dixie Lee Ray

"I would rather eat my own testicles than reform The Smiths, and that's saying something for a vegetarian."           Steven Morrissey

"We all know what feminists are. They are shrill, overly aggressive, man-hating, ball-busting, selfish, hairy, extremist, deliberately unattractive women with absolutely no sense of humor who see sexism at every turn. They make men's testicles shrivel up to the size of peas, they detest the family and think all children should be deported or drowned."                                 Susan J. Douglas

"Touch her, and I'll freeze your testicles off and put them in a jar. Understand?"                                                     ­ Julie Kagawa

"My writing routine is everyday I put a record on, the same one since 20 years. Then I burn a stick of incense, I put perfume here on the insides of my soles, I paint my left ******* red, and I write."
                                                         ­       Alejandro Jodorowsky

"The ******, which has come to represent Canada as the eagle does the United States and the lion Britain, is a flat-tailed, slow-witted, toothy rodent known to bite off it's own testicles or to stand under its own falling trees."                                         June Callwood

I sleep in a garage.
ten giant tricycles
standing on their backs
sleep next to me.
my bathroom is at sears.
or McDonalds.
or winn-dixie.
male prostitutes post shop
on the street corners
around here
"******* ****
for money
for crack"
as one such fellow
put it to a cop.
there's a blender
and a microwave
and plenty of bottles of ***.

It was a normal two scorpion and one rattlesnake day at 112° in Wichita Falls , Texas .
Texas . . . they made Hell out of the good parts of Texas and the rest of the state just went there . Fortunately my parents only went there so my little sister could be born there . We left the great state of Texas and moved to the incestuous state of Alabama .
Where the impossible will always remain the same . And the possible will be banned , outlawed , and perpetuated behind countless barns , toolsheds , and the outhouse known as Montgomery , the State Capitol . Called the Heart of Dixie (it should be called ******* of Dixie and thank God for Mississippi , for they have wrest that title away from us . But we gave it a-hell-a-va-fight .)
We are a multicolored society . We have white (the pressence of all color) and black (the absence of all color). Which is strange now because the black people are called colored and the white people are called all kinds of blacked out names (usually on court documents).
Alabama is proud of it's educational system . We measure one's intelligence by how soon they leave the state for better opportunities . In Alabama an educated person is a four letter word , like ******* , or worse . Oops !
Let me see now . . . one , two , three , four . . . got to tale off my shoe  . . . five , six , seven . . . wait a minute . . . ******* ? . . . is that one or two words .

I’ve seen genius so fixed on itself
as to be monkeys, squealing
wicked-itchy
watching a record whirl
in the same drugged circle
33 and a 1/3—circa 1969

This—their eternal brilliant conclusion
their e=mc2
This—their Final Solution
their inner-spring
Their convoluted complexity
as the hands of their clocks
fly off, striking me in the face

Alas!
—the equation that would solve
the mystery of whistling “Dixie”
that would feed the dogs
and “seize the day”!

This penetrated groove
This—track, eternally diminishing
toward a point on a label
at which two ***** intersect

and then...
...cease to be....

Peculiar seagulls soar in the skies of my mind, wondering where you are now. i run forever on this internal ocean's shore, your love the cruel lunar tide. i try but i am not fast enough; your undertow pulls me down, spiraling forever toward the black hole bottom of your heart.

i need you now,
deep into this madness,
no life preserver in sight.
my lungs scream
for resistance--
your love choking me,
c h o k i n g.
we need no white picket fence,
no charming stallion
to sweep us from
this black death.

Sugarcoma lovers with nothing left to hold back & subzero heartbreaks stinging worse than the sun.
You loved me once upon a time
& it was absolutely perfect.
I need you now but i promise it won't scar.
(My darling how beautiful you are.)