Although I haven't witnessed
Darfur's eyes run red.
Rivers full of skeletons,
and bodies torn and bled.

I've read about the pigment
of fearful hearts so lost.
A dreaded world within a world;
there are no lines to cross.

Money paid for power.
Power, bodies, bills.
The Janjaweed at noon,
are cleansing for their drills.

Washing down stern orders
with blood on unclean hands.
Babies and their mothers
decomposing in sand.

Weapons worn like diamonds.
Lust and **** colliding.
Torture becomes normalcy.
Living only hiding.

So long as Omar al-Bashir
sees families as roaches,
death is understated.
In greed, he people-poaches.

Pity is for damsels
parading in a tide
of much needed attention
with ego on the side.

To you, my friend
who listens, but fails to comprehend:
Those who live for nothing
are nothing in the end,

I ask you, pray for Sudanese
fed horrors for their lunch,
their bones becoming rubble,
under tires they will crunch.

Two fine films: The Lost City and Blood Diamond.
I joined Blood Diamond during a village massacre
and said to my wife A gun in every home.
Those devils would think twice
before razing the village and seizing the boys.

A well-regulated militia.
The local militia the most interesting moment
in a strong film with motive (economic, emotional), action (chases,
      fights) and a ****, sexless love story.
Use of violence by the local militia for a limited purpose: protect the
      community, the young
from the janjaweed. The crop from the ****.
Limited scope and defensive posture
but armed and coordinated, cooperative, the men (and the women)
      side by side.
Warriors at the gate, you will not run, you will not bargain.
Just violence = limited scope, defensive posture.

Great music. Cuba, Africa.
The Lost City, when the communists tell the club owner under threat
      of violence
No saxophones in the band. The saxophone!
Invented by a Belgian--Look what the Belgians are doing in the
      Congo!
When the state's violence is turned against the citizenry
for non-violent acts.

This quiet neighborhood, July,
undergirded by violence, force. That's a given--
any farmer, custodian, EMT will tell you that.
Without just violence
Gandhi's scope, and King's, might be vanishingly limited,
negligible (but not non-existent)?
                                                  ­     Regarding King
the matter is simple -- he was non-violent but dependent upon
federal force to counter the South's violence.
No doubt without the larger force, the non-violent would be
      overwhelmed by southern violence.
Here, non-violence was a tactic, not an ethic.
Gandhi, however, had no violent partner to protect him from the
      British. Or did he?
1. There was the potential violence of the population, which Gandhi
    restrained but could release which the British feared, and
2. It was the restrained (limited scope) violence of the British that
    allowed Gandhi to exist rather than be extinguished--this restraint
    was a (British) cultural imperative (limited scope) as well as
    emanating from Britain's view of India as a protectorate and
    valued citizen of the United Kingdom (defensive posture).

What about violence or threat of violence to compel compliance with
      community
as in mortgage foreclosure, driving without license, drug possession.
Perhaps it is necessary violence to maintain orderly commerce, the
      common space, and preempt bad behaviors associated with
      otherwise neutral, private acts.
The defensive posture is the common good; the limited scope is
      forgoing deadly force.
But the citizen, too, must maintain a disciplined, armed non-violence,
in case the state (the janjaweed) engages in an unjust, autoimmune
      violence.
Hence, a gun in every home.

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
committee meetings, board meetings.
Facing death was how they knew they were alive
or was it more about allocating resources
like yr Dad said.
It's hard to step outside what yr DNA tells you to do.
Nice ****.
Family farm, fight club. It's all one yet distinctions are
what separates the librarian, reflective man, from the road and bridge
      crew.
That's a class statement. Us guys love
our children and will, circumstances dictating, fight for you.

                                 --------------------------------------

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
is more important to me than my wife. But there is no one left to fight
and no one knows me and I know no one well. That's good,
there is more space between people than I'd ever dared to hope.
I'm confused.
Meditator or gunfighter. Either could come to know himself,
flat abs, clear sight
with patience and discipline.
What's this:
know yourself?
Once yr knee or neck is smashed there's no getting up to fight.

                                 --------------------------------------

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
will grow old alone once I'm in the ground. He will live
with the question what was our purpose? He was managed by
the molecules we're made of, proteins, enzymes, amino acids, DNA.
******* DNA.
I'd rather be a rock.
But the rock is subject to
its elements. Thus, the periodic table and particle physics,
meiosis and mitosis and yes, democracy and self-governance,
all the colors of anthropology and ecology, windmills and sundials,
fission and fusion for evil and light
and the devil who exists to carry the load when we misbehave and
      fight
among ourselves.

                                 --------------------------------------

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
is how I know who I am.
Because the truth is always changing, depending on the meeting.
What's good.
Service to others is a safe bet. That service
may take many forms: fighting, meeting, teaching, making.
The fighting may be part of holding community together. Limited
      scope, defensive posture.
How broadly we define community says everything. So,
we come to Mexico, a violent border and an unhappy history.
Or Gaza and Israel. Or Russia and just about everybody.
How can a people become a nation without resorting to violence or
      incurring violent reaction?
Does it matter? Accept violence like any EMT and devote yourself
      to
what, beauty?
Why do I write about violence, I've almost never
had to fight.

                                 --------------------------------------

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
is nothing compared to the ocean which can take your children any
      time.
The Nazis or janjaweed.
In peace we have our meetings.
When violence comes to the neighborhood the hierarchy of
      communicants will hold or fold
it is then the peace work proves relevant.
Hold your clod of land.
Give way to the waves.
All I do not know.
I admire the writer who penetrates the unknown by describing that
      which
is not himself.
His enemy,
anyone who wants to fight him all the time
helps him live outside himself.

Purposes as incomprehensible and wonderful as these purposes
Either you had no purpose or the purpose is beyond the end
The purpose of sitting is not to be satisfied or satiated

Because the timepiece not only serves a purpose, it is adapted to that
      purpose
Except it was a secret purpose
The world is a mental activity, a dream of souls, without foundation,
      purpose, weight or shape

People in collective idleness are even more repellent than when purpose
      motivates them
God, glass, my townspeople! For what purpose?
His purpose and mine is to catch photons and store them in our bones

Lately, as have you, I have thought about our war and its purpose
To have a season for every purpose, Ecclesiastes was right about that
Names of plants, languages of mammals, purposes of insects, placement
      of rocks

My friend who is counselor to kings and presidents never lacks purpose
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Not to say there is no purpose necessarily, just I don’t immediately get it

Stately purposes, valor in battle, glorious annals of army and fleet, death
      for the right cause
Use of violence by the local militia for a limited purpose, protect the
      young from the janjaweed, the crop from the ****
The knight, the penitent misses last assessment of life’s purpose,
      babbling for God to appear

I mean your entire purpose should be living, you must take living
       seriously
Sleep with a purpose
Or lose all purpose beyond ******, child *** and food hoarding

Counting is associated with primitive forms of writing, that is the
       purpose of poetry
The purpose of school is to introduce us to the world’s innumerable
       wonders
Their corners sharp, their lines exact, as if their purpose was to show
       the plane geometry of snow

That’s when everything becomes clear, purpose v. purposelessness
       matters less
Lonely physics, national purpose
This then is the purpose of purposelessness (and of eating less)!

We will live with the question What was our purpose?
If we are not at home in the world, contributing purpose, we lose our
       desire to stay here—and we die
The men who left the machine have started their own business, a new
       endeavor by which they will keep warm and purposeful

You go the way of an unknown soldier, unable to assess the purpose of
       the battle
Let Greece then know my purpose I retain, nor vex with new treaties my
       peace in vain
And shake the purpose of my soul no more

i’ve seen that look many times before
in their eyes, fear, suspicion, of a soul that has died
disassociated, numb, to avoid the pain of what they seen
when pushed, triggered to ****, going berserk with a machete
i am afraid of you, for what you have done and will do
but i am also sad and heartbroken for has happen to you
child soldier of sudan’s janjaweed