Not a poem but in protest of flagging truth about racism in Traverse City, Michigan


Traverse City, Michigan: Racism is still alive and well in our area.

We weren't always welcoming
Cross burning's (City of Traverse City, MI)
I'm born and raised in Traverse City, Michigan and still living in the same neighborhood where I grew up. I can remember when blacks were not welcome in most parts of town and the one or two around were military visitors.

We had two known cross burning incidents. One back in the late 80's or early 90's the other was around 1924, ******* groups like Ku Klux **** was behind both cross burning incidents. I found old articles on the earlier one but someone is trying hard to white wash history of Traverse City by hiding evidence of the most resent one. Ones like me who were there remember those dark days like it was yesterday. It don't bode well for tourism or the Cherry Festival if there's a record of racism in our city.

Copy pasting one two different retelling of story reported by our sometimes biased Record Eagle articles regarding the first and and will continue to dig for the other one.

January 31, 2009
KKK was active in early '20s

The 1924 bombings and cross burnings in downtown Traverse City were not the first **** activity in northern Michigan.

The Record-Eagle reported flaming crosses in the Mancelona area on Aug. 1, 1923, a full year before. Six weeks later, Traverse City commissioners refused the **** permission to hold a Sept. 17 open-air meeting at the corner of Front and Cass.

About 300 people showed up anyway and marched to a vacant lot west of Front and Union after the unidentified property owner gave permission, carefully noting that it "did not commit him to any relationship with the organization," the newspaper said.

The Record-Eagle also passed on information from an identified **** source in its Sept. 17 report:

Two, maybe three organizers had worked for weeks in Traverse City. About 150 Traverse City men from "among the leading citizens" had joined. An open-air ritual with the traditional fiery cross burning on a hillside would be held "sometime but not yet" in or near Traverse City, and it would be "merely a part of the **** ceremonies and have no special significance."

People who expected to see hooded men in white robes performing rites at the Sept. 17 rally were bound to be disappointed, the paper said. A new state law banned wearing masks in public. It also would be difficult to tell how many in the audience were KKK members because "every person who has signed the Ku Klux card has pledged to keep his membership an absolute secret."


Traverse City, Michigan wasn't always welcoming to people of color.


Traverse City Record-Eagle

February 1, 2009
Ku Klux **** terrorizes TC in 1924

KKK cross burnings, explosions rock city

By LORAINE ANDERSON
Black History Month has special significance, since it begins fewer than two weeks after the nation's historic inauguration of its first black president, Barack Obama.

But there are parts of that history that Traverse City, like the rest of the nation, would rather forget. The city never had a large black population, but it did not escape a visit from the Ku Klux **** during a frightening night of downtown explosions and cross burnings on Aug. 9, 1924.

Traverse City has never seen anything like that night of terror. Buildings shook. Store windows cracked and shattered. Houses as far away as 16th Street quaked, the Record-Eagle reported.

And though outside agitators were blamed, some local people may have been involved.

It started about 8 p.m. after three explosions went off across the river from the Lyric Theatre, where the State is today.

The crowd at the Lyric all but stampeded toward the door as women and children screamed. Panicked shoppers spilled out of downtown stores. City police phones jangled with alarm.

A large cross burned on the north side of the Boardman River near Cass Street. About 50 smaller burning crosses appeared almost simultaneously at the centers of intersections across the city. Each was crudely nailed together and swathed in oil-soaked rags. Sparks flew when several cars struck them. A city fire truck raced through town to douse flames.

Then, a "touring car" with four men, robed and hooded, though not masked, slowly trolled down Front Street carrying a sign surrounded by red flares blazing three letters: KKK.

Copies of the Ku Klux **** newspaper, "The Fiery Cross," later were found downtown, and police determined that at least two cars were involved in planting and lighting the crosses.

**** leaders called the explosions and flaming crosses a recruiting gimmick, but it was more than that. The 1920s was a reactionary time in the United States. The **** had risen again, starting in 1915, widening its anti-black focus to Jews, Catholics and immigrants, particularly those from southeastern Europe. Its membership was strongest in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

The ****'s most powerful year was 1924, when it reached an all-time high of 5 million members nationwide and virtually controlled the government of Indiana. Its most popular slogan was "100 percent pure American."

The **** had a solid base of support in Michigan. The **** fielded two candidates in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 1924 and a ****-backed candidate was elected mayor of Flint. A write-in **** candidate even made a strong showing in a Detroit mayoral race.

In June 1924, 1,000 men joined the KKK in an Oakland County cross burning attended by about 8,000 people. Traverse City's demonstration took place just two months later. But who was really behind it?

"There is some doubt among the authorities as to whether the offenses were actually committed by local people or men from outside. They believe that local people were associated in the affair," the Record-Eagle reported.

An unidentified spokesman for the local **** denied responsibility, speculating that it was the work of **** enemies or rogue Klansmen. He told the Record-Eagle that the **** repudiated terror tactics and burning of "unwatched crosses."

Two weeks after the bombing, city police obtained felony and misdemeanor arrest warrants accusing Ku Klux **** organizer Basil Carleton of Richmond, Ind., of setting off explosives. Indiana police arrested him on Aug. 29.

Witnesses testified in two trials in December and January that Carleton had purchased 25 pounds of dynamite, fuses and three caps from Hannah & Lay Mercantile Co. about two hours before the explosions. A Park Place Hotel clerk said he saw Carleton hurrying away from the direction of the explosions about 10 minutes later. Two **** members testified that Carleton was not at the scene.

Yet he was never convicted. Juries acquitted him in both cases because the prosecutor could not prove to their satisfaction that he was at the scene of the explosion or that he personally set off the dynamite.

The bomber escaped justice. But the good news was that in Traverse City, no night of terror like that happened again.

It was this event that sparked the cross burning in Traverse City. We had only one black family in our city, when Betty Ponder and her family left Traverse City for the first time due to no one wanting to rent to them, population of blacks in our predominately white city drop to zero.


******* Movement Targets Northern Michigan

by Robert Downes

National Alliance advocates the creation of "two Americas"

Traverse City, Mich., noted primarily for its beaches, tourists and cherry pie values, appears to be erupting as a national battleground of opinion over the ******* movement, with forces on both sides of the issue coming out of the woodwork to vent their outrage over racial issues.
On Thursday, June 5, residents along stretches of Washington and Front streets in town came home to find a slick package of information from the National Alliance hanging from their doorknobs. An outgrowth of the American **** Party, the National Alliance is a ******* group which advocates the creation of "two Americas," one of which would be "White Space only with no Jews or blacks." The Alliance, advocates genocidal practices if need be to achieve its goals, and plans to distribute 1,000 information packets in Northern Michigan.

Protest organized to oppose July "NordicFest"
The incident arose only a day after more than 150 people from throughout Northern Michigan gathered at a "Hate-Free TC" meeting to oppose the NordicFest, a skinhead rock festival sponsored by the Ku Klux ****, to be held at a secret location 20 miles south of town, July 3-6.
The NordicFest is being advertised on the Internet and will feature at least six skinhead bands featured on Stormfront Records and Resistance Records -- both of which are purveyors of neo-**** hate music. It will also reportedly feature speakers from the Ku Klux **** and Aryan Nations.

Thus far, the NordicFest's location has been a closely-kept secret by David Neumann of Bloodbond Enterprizes, the concert organizer and a former director of the Michigan Knights of the Ku Klux ****. Neumann has told local media that 300 tickets have been sold for the concert -- about half the number he expects to sell. Reportedly, concertgoers will be provided with maps to the secret location at a checkpoint.

Bands expected to play at the NordicFest include Intimidation One, Aggravated Assault, Blue Eyed Devils, Max Resist and the Hooligans, and No Alibi.

Local churches offering seminars on the ******* movement and the importance of diversity
GATHERING STORM

Journalists have made inquiries on the NordicFest from as far away as London, New York and Colorado as a result of the Northern Express story circulating on the Internet. A segment for National Public Radio is expected to take the issue nationwide, possibly focusing the world's attention on Traverse City on the eve of the National Cherry Festival -- an event which draws more than half a million visitors, many of them from ethnic minorities.
"We're creating a rainbow ribbon that we hope everyone will wear in rejection of skinheads and the ****," said Rabbi Stacey Fine of Hate-Free TC. "We hope to have hundreds of ribbons during the time the **** is here, available from downtown merchants."

Fine says the group also hopes to march in the National Cherry Royale Parade with a three-by-eight-foot banner covered with thousands of signatures in a show of support for racial and cultural diversity. Thus far, Cherry Festival officials say they have received no applications from Hate-Free T.C., but will consider the request if approached.

Dottie Kye of Hate-Free TC says the group doesn't plan to try stopping the NordicFest despite their opposition ot the concert. "We're ignoring it," Kye says. "We celebrate anyone's right to organize and free speech. But our thing is unity and celebrating diversity." In addition to several church seminars on the ******* movement and the importance of diversity, Hate-Free TC is organizing a three-day "Unity Festival" which will feature dozens of musicians, artists, poets, actors and peace activists at the Traverse City Opera House, July 3-6.

Concert organizers Tim Hall and Tom Emmott say that more than 40 musical acts will send a pro-diversity message to area teens, with performers including Willie Kye, Alright Already, John Greilick, Samantha Moore, the Motor Town Juke Boys, Bentley Filmore, the Sisters Grimm, and Lack of Afro, among many others. A concert with Fishbone is planned for later in the month.

"Even if the NordicFest doesn't happen, something positive is going to come of it because it gets people thinking about the prevention of violence"
THE TEEN CONNECTION

The Unity Fest counter-concert is seen as a vital tool in fighting the influence of the ******* movement on teens in the area. After the initial story broke, the buzz in local high schools was that the NordicFest would be offering free beer to minors. Although that notion is clearly erroneous, a small number of teens in the area still cling to the idea and have also been attracted by the rebellious nature of the skinhead rock scene.
Tim Hall believes that his Unity Fest concert will help turn that tide. The three-day concert will be located in the heart of Traverse City in the old City Opera House, with easy access for the hundreds of teens who hang out downtown, often with little to do. "Our message is going to be one that values racial and cultural diversity," Hall said. "And we've had a great response so far. We had to put a lid on the performers when we reached 40 acts, because everyone wants to play at this event."

The Unity Fest will also coincide with the Annual Reggie Box Memorial Blues Blast, which was created five years ago to bring the heritage of black music to Northern Michigan for the overwhelmingly white Cherry Festival. This year's Blues Blast will feature John Mayall, Marcia Ball and the Bihlman Bros. in a free concert downtown on July 6. The concert will also feature a strong message promoting diversity.

The law enforcement view Traverse City Police Chief Ralph Soffredine says members of the law enforcement community, including the State Police and sheriffs from Grand Traverse and Wexford counties, are taking a wait-and-see approach as to whether the NordicFest will even be held.

"People ask what we would do if the skinheads wanted to march, and it's our position that they have the same rights under the First Amendment as anyone as long as they're obeying the law," Soffredine said. "It's a neutral situation for us. We just want to maintain the peace."

He added that skinheads coming to Traverse City would be treated "no different than if longhairs come into town, or square dancers. We'd certainly observe them and respond if there's trouble."

The chief noted that a similar event occurred in the Buckley area several years ago when several motorcycle gangs gathered for a rally. While the event was monitored by local police agencies, few people in the area knew that it occurred.

"Even if the NordicFest doesn't happen, something positive is going to come of it because it gets people thinking about the prevention of violence, which has become a serious problem in our community and our schools," he concluded. "The unfortunate thing is that it sometimes takes a ******* or a racial issue for people to get active."

"Sheriff Barr implies that people who have the courage to confront them will be put in jail."
ANGER FROM ACTIVISTS

Not everyone is happy with the neutral attitude of law enforcement. Judy Lowenzahn of Traverse City thinks that local police agencies should get tough on the **** concert, which has no legally-required bond or liquor license.
"These hateful groups are using skinhead music to recruit soldiers for their facist movement," Lowenzahn said. "If they are allowed to hold this event, in violation of local, state and federal laws and in violation of common decency, we will be capitve audience to their deranged homophobic, anti-semitic, racist, sexist ideology. Those who protest this message, along with those who are their scapegoats will be targets for hate crimes."

Lowenzahn upbraided Grand Traverse County Sheriff Barr after he made comments in a local paper that "I'd just as soon personally let them have their little event and be on their way." Barr added that if there was a confrontation between the skinheads and protestors, "there's going to be someone in jail."

"Does Sheriff Barr suggest that people of color and others who don't fit the aryan model hide inside their homes for the holiday weekend?" Lowenzhan responded. "Rather than offer a plan to protect the community from the violence that grows whenever white supremecists do outreach, Sheriff Barr implies that people who have the courage to confront them will be put in jail."

Northern Michigan targeted because of the predominantly white population
KLUELESS

Up to now, the vast majority of Northern Michigan residents have been klueless on the **** and the ******* movement. Many, for instance, had no idea that there even was a Ku Klux **** operating in the region until Neumann revealed that there are about 60 members operating mostly as "a fraternal organization" between ******* and the Mackinac Bridge.
Similarly, the existence and agenda of the National Alliance is all-ne

Hello, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Jocund, The Gardener.
Living lucid, a fellow mind traveler.

That’s kind of like a chill Childe wanderer
Of the flowing forest floor,
Feathered cotton or greening words
On the wind unravel-er;
Gone’a’wandering in untraveled soils,
A seed settler.

Tragedy left my face sneer metered,
Mouth stretched sideways,
Toothy as a dumb grinning jester.

Yearning to make one stupid gesture,
So you’ll see I’m not too interested in being above or lesser.
Just on a mission,
Learning how to be both student and teacher:

Drawing abyssal blueprints,
Joining the disillusioned,
Describing a dynamic curriculum
And coding oaths like Odin’s to bind Cosmic-Woden’s
--Mr. Omnipotent to us rodents—undying reticulum.


Re-programmed to generate runic music
Nomenclature shaped in the underlying resonating
That is every particle operating in unison.

So I'm riding the chronicled-Euclidean space-time continuum
Of balance known to us as equilibrium,
And can you feel me breathing?

It’s the giving and taking and pushing and pulling of gravity propagating,
Bending light under and rending sight of what will be and what has been.

Oh well,
[Where], (when), {how} I am is what matters most to me.

“Jinkies!”
“What is it Velma?!”
“I think that’s Relativity.”

So, speaking relatively
I’d rather deduce from what’s relevant to me,
Lather rinse and reduce the divine to dust in the winds of time,
And maybe see the truth behind {who}, [what], (why) I’m-

[{assburgian]}: high functioning and genius,
Mumbling, s-st-stutterin', tic tic-ing and tremblin’.
it's ****-chilling and tedious.

But wait! There’s more.

{(Bipolar}): slightly manic, and comically dramatic.
Severely depressed and in a silent panic.
Practically sleepless, it’s fairly fantastic.
My memory I mean,
If all my senses witness a scene
The info is sealed within me perfectly,
Perceptually and verbally,
Non-mutational, stability.

In the short term, unfortunately,
My focus is overloaded with scenery
Of bullies, abusers, and over-users.
It’s misery listening to scratched records on repeat,
Immune to wrecking.
For that I thank my ([ADHD)]: predominately inattentive
Wtih dsylixea, definitive alcoholism, drug addiction, and the list goes on.
So yeah, I’m on the spectrum, I’m a functional positron.

“That guy’s *******, He can’t even act right.
He’s emotionless, a mindless robot.
There’s no empathy in that golem.
That ugly alien’ll never be like you or me,
He’s clueless, aloof and downright foolish.
So let’s just forget that freak, he kinda scares us.”

Oh yeah?
Well keep that **** in your ******,
Order the facts and double check’em.

“We're not so different you, me, and them.
We just built a bent border 'round the word disorder.
Sure, that’s the preference, to make no inference.
Ignorance is bliss, right?”

For my defense?
Well golly-gee thanks, that’s all lovely and great.
But now the neurologically typical person
Thinks they can fix me, without knowing my burdens
Like, “you’s gots a d’zeez cuz’a factseens”

This "cray" **** gets me irate.
Diagnoseez wrapped in fear-mongering, seen with hate,
And convinced to wait for a miracle.
Well too bad so sad,
The difference is anatomical.
So treating me means training me
To be “normal, deviations nominal.”

(Am I ******’a dog, what the ****?!
Wait, back it up and mix that bit up.)
“What the ****, am I a ******’ dog?!
Oh, if they knew the truth they’d think I’m a ******* demigod.”
(Ha right, more like a log full buried eternally in'a boggle.)

My parents tried and tried for my birth,
They almost considered me impossible.
I was nearly inconceivable.
Then the multi-verse cursed,
And that message was receivable,
I heard it was a freakin’ miracle.
Not that mom cared, she was irresponsible.
Wanted to be a free mirth queen.

Aww, she just needed security.
Even after my birth on Friday 3/13/92 into a noose,
Loosely scorned and hardly lyrical.
They had to remove me surgically from the womb and
Now I've grown oddly into a super human body.

I’m physically atypical with an extra lumbar vertebra.
Some think me mythical, my hearts cage is even, part of a
Hard skeleton wearin’ *** appeal and a
Strong fresh sheath of flesh that’s quick to heal.
Ask me to speak, out comes a voice so deep you’d think the sky fell.

I’m mentally inexplicable,
Thinking in infinite Voices simultaneously painting imagery indefinitely.  
It has me lagging in a neuronal-conundrum.
I’m containing a brain wound up and
So over-wired it's redundant.

Making my head so heavy the ground is over-tired,
Barely overcoming addiction to dilating mundane details.
And a bit slow to obtain'em,
Those growing verbal-perceptual rains of information.
It's why I'm highly aware of the visual-spatial patterned puzzle pieces of existence.

So my mind is orbiting off in the distance,
Oblivious to non-verbal relation,
Just spaced-out communication.
I'm nearly incompatible
With most people in this global nation.
Everyone's got recipes for lemonade,
And I've got durian, that's **** ironical.
I told you, the difference is anatomical.
Can't be changed, so forget being normal tragically!

“That’s great and all,
But you still can’t communicate,
Associate,
Or surmount your human viewpoint
And recreate.
So what’s the point, you’ll never amount
And you shouldn't be allowed to procreate,
Just **** yourself.”

Shut the **** up, mate!
No one is beyond help,
And I'm in good health.
So who says I need your help.

I’m a catch-it-all trainer,
Long distance sprinter,
Heavy weight lifter,
Martial arts practitioner,
And Muay Thai fighter
Of the metaphysical plane or
Flyin’ my x-wing, taking out tie fighters.
Muckin’ up misinformed storm troopers,
Shovin’ **** back down their word poopers.

Yeah, I’ve tried playin’ The Game
That society designed.
But that sick joke
Was painfully lame.
And the punchline,
All but broke me.


I died philosophically.
Spent three days regenerating.
Re-writing my subconscious poetry
Like The Doct-uh,
The Boo-duh,
Or Mist-uh
Believe-in-me.

Pulverizing words into compost,
Composing metaphor to re-code seeds
Set to regrow self-trees from the ground up.
Splitting myself up into three categories,
(Mind), [body], and {me} all clowned up.

It is a truly significant allegory,
Greening my being with jocundity.
Creating profundity for gardening,
Generalizing and broadening the concept
And applying it metaphorically.

In the attempt
To join fantasy
With reality
And become truly
One with “we”;
Livin' and loven'in
Disparity and hilarity
Of you,
Me,
And every fellow
There is to see.

So, “hello
i am the gardener and
i am jocund and
…|[{(i am)}]|…
quite pleased
to meet
we.”

And these dreams will be the death of me.
Broken sleep &
relentless lethargy.
I'm out of control,
so I'm told.
I've slipped outside of my soul,
or so I'm told.
My nose runs consistently,
Yet I don't have a cold.
Now everything hurts,
and yet I feel so cold.
REM dream sequences;
play me on repeat.
play on repeat,
Everybody hurts too but they carry on,
Won't admit defeat.
Not me,
I bend under the pressure,
Malleable,
& then break what's,
Valuable.
I'm weak at the knees,
alieness in alloness of stress;
Please let me rest,
Stop stealing my shut eye by looking in to mine,
I walked the line,
But crossed it,
No going back now I think,
I shudder each time I blink.
And in dreams I believe I could be happy,
Or at least not so sad,
Wishing to feel those feelings
That I've predominately lacked.
Now in dreams I wait to see a GP
in reality,
So he can endorse these feelings into clarity,
Prescribe me patronisingly with 50mg of setraline;
"I'm sure alls not as bad as it seems"
He says so candidly,
Whilst I'm sat here,
can't even speak,
trapped at the mercy of these endorphinemachines.

one might, invariably, drink red wine infused
with garlic to ward off evil spirits -
or as some claim...
50ml of the stuff at daily intervals
is part of a plan for slimming...
  me? i just don't mind the taste...
        like i wouldn't mind a kiss from an onion
or... slobbering into an ash-tray
sort of a girl mouth in one of those sticky floor
nightclubs circa the early 2000s we go into
for underage drinking...
being boys i do wonder what sort of *******
escapades we were supposed to unearth...
it's not like we were Pan-Am stewardesses
readying ourselves for some glitz,
some Ritz... some... thespian shadow-thieving
on the pristine screen...
garlic infused red wine...
it's not so bad... even though it's not mine
since, after all: the best ***** on the planet
is not your own - blah blah, blah...
but lucky for the 500 quid front suspension
trek marlin 5 arrived today and...
tomorrow i go catch the wind...
it feels like being six-teen again...
not that walking marathon distances is
a problem: Pots to herr belly...
from 104, kg, to circa 107, kg...
and that's still more than half...
of what mass-loss ought to "feel" like...
although... it doesn't feel like anything
when the "subjective" numbers come
across the "objective" numbers
but unlike walking...
where time and distance and the dimension
of movement are most pronounced...
a bicycle is unlike a horse
but is like a dog...
somehow...
   a bicycle is most certainly not a car
and a car is most certainly not a horse...
but a bicycle is... not...
it's... unlike a horse...
but like a dog...
that it's not a dog is pretty obvious...
but i'm conjuring up...
concepts like muzzle...
leash... WD40 oil for the chain...
and... enough air in the tires...
since we're not talking a road bicycle and
nothing has to be slender jimmy either...
it's a pristine orange...
the colour does matter, somehow...

when i liked jazz i stopped digressing
into classical...
when i stopped digressing into jazz
i allowed myself for
classical music to become complimentary
to things - complicated...
not that jazz wasn't...
but what it wasn't was that it wasn't
scripted and all that
"spontaneity" revels in exhausting itself
somehow: becomes predictable...

a jazz "us" vs. a classical "we": vs.
nothing so much clearly even remotely aligned
to that...
it was a Friday night and i was this close | |
to gauging my eyes out
after having watched a director's cut of a movie...
it beat the standard bearer...
whichever it was... Ben-Hur or Spartacus...
nearing to 4 hours of...
by the end of it: almost gauging my eyes out...
hardly Pavlov or drooling...
of making me an infantilised *******
sputnik moon-key...

a sense of: culture is dying...
what's predominately being "served"
is cancel is cancel is cancel is...
well... to overcome some variation
of nihilism ascribed to morals...
we found the modern woman in the 1950s
and 60s...
the supposed, modern man...
we'll find in the 2050s and the 2060s...
if we're lucky...
when a somewhat status quo returns...
otherwise: what's on offer is still
a dynamic of "arrogance" / agitation...

my insomniac libido...
my insomnia's insomnia...
why i wouldn't doge a cocktail of
alcohol... 250mg of naproxen...
and something resembling para-cet-a-mole
to switch-off...
i switch off:
i don't fall asleep... always...

complete with a thorough hard-on
i can exactly fathom by diluting it over
a mortal conversation with the opposite ***...
because there's this illusion
and it's stupendous...
etymological relaxation in order?
evidently history is placed within
a self-erasure composite glue...
work around this architecture...

my first... bicycle route...
the tires are pumped up
it took me close to 7 hours to walk
to st. paul's cathedral and back...

then one of those:
write everything via an anagram...
anagram: soul - losu -
                 los - which implies... fate...
losu? implies a possessive article of fate:
i.e. fate itself...
fate's whim...
              i had a dream yesterday...
i'm adamant the person i spoke
with dealt in the term... RESURRECTION...

i think i was talking to a zombie in a dream,
whoever i was talking to...
like the hues of Baltic amber...
an allotment of greens and blues...
tinges of orange mingling with yellows
and ripe reds...
nothing purpose filled like
purple followed: for the clarity of
dignifying mourning...
or an eternal clue for blue...

i was drinking medication!
i was duped!
two variations of grammar to decipher...
what it was i was drinking...

but i'll need to speak something
older than colt hing-leash...
i.e.
  garlic infused red wine
red wine infused with /
                                  by garlic...
it's a slimming elixir... apparently...

here goes! dive!

             knoblauchinfundiert rotwein...
rotwein infundiert mit /
                         durch knoblauch...
if i were drinking my own pīß...
                                         not enough: pish!
                                       pysh...
passer... by...    zilch on a leash...
it's a mix-up between py-š and py-ś...
     no... it's not even remotely related
to                                         π-σζ
ask a greek, though...
whether                           σζ can be coupled
like ae or oe...
                             given... SH... &...
                                            μαμ ση...
even the complexity of the mandarin skeletons
doesn't allow them to conjure up
more sounds behind the letters
that are already: a priori...
left... available...

tangled up in the affair of the "gods": or: not, god...
a mother seeks a supposition of a son...
we tells her...
while at the altar of words...
i began this session with red wine infused
with garlic... i'll end it with some
mulled wine...
the cat's my winged sphinx...
the cat's my winged sphinx...

for the toils beckon me remote...
i harvest a lineage that has to come to an end...
mother dear why you will not be grand...
while i won't be the fathering kind...
like it might not excused
for that thespian reality of....
gearing up to: froth forth at a pronto...
my red wine infused with garlic...

i knew i had to lend an ear to
the deutsche-zunge like
like Wend...
nieme-ludzie.... niemdy-lud...
although their black-forest gateau was
to... die for...
older than english...
this modern leash of...
this isn't the 21st century... is it...
this isn't the century of the culimation
of expectations... is, it?
if it is... where was "ground zero":
this... "Golgotha" of the supposedly
requested hour?
by what hour... are hours worth a count...
that sort of hour-ing, yes?

by the demands of what "suffices":
that i didn't speak with a god...
that i did encounter a chanced audience
with... the ******* choir... yes...
how does that sound...
having smoked marihuana
and having to "somehow" usher in...
something so antithesis of cosmopolitan...
sensible: i came across the god's choir...
but not god himself...
i cowered and started rummaging
occupying a space
before the great altar...
the great altar, so be it...
amen...              i hid under the tablature in
a white cloth...
an F a TH a PH but not a P- (prefix lady
added to the "complexity" of a response...

i met the choir, before i was allowed to
meet the deity...
last time i heard... from kabbalistic sources:
upon meeting the deity the sure
and impeding quest for death:
a clear sky... but a streak of cloud
making a quill be resembled, symbolic...
detailing a quasi-barricade...
between reality, reels, real and the races...

for an audience:
but such details are supposed to be...
confided without a public scrutiny...
then again... given my timing...
timing: not having to father children...
no ambitions of such: deeds... therein imploding...
red wine infused with garlic
for starters... mulled wine to finish it off
with an amnesia of sorts...

Munster was his name,
after Herman Munster
of TV fame cause,
he was so big.
But not scary, feral big,
just double dose of cat big.

He was predominately
sleek, shiny black,
with a white bib
and crooked muzzle,
like he had his moustache
painted on in a hurry.
Oh, and he had one white paw.
Poppajack used to say,
he had been caught by God
stealing cream.

Munster was sleek, sinuous
muscle,
he rippled when he walked.
In stalk mode he was, panther incarnate.
Albeit, dressed in a tuxedo.

In cat term's he was vain,
always preening, or finding
a vantage point to show
himself off to the best photographic angle.

But just occasionly,
if we were lucky
and the butterflys
were on the wing,
he would, kitten prance
like a pixie, at the birth of spring.

He was a hunter,
not of bugs and lizards.
A ratter of renown,
he could take a bird
from it's early flight
without a care.
I once saw him, come home
and drop a rabbit,
at Poppajacks feet, before
finding the evening sun
for a well earned nap.

Munster loved Poppajack,
with dedicated flair
would follow him about
the garden, bulter-like,
dignified tail, straight and tall.
They would parade
in regal state,
to check on the vegetable serfdom.

He was not a cat of lap,
but,would sprawl over Poppa's feet like,
black satin slippers
with a purring engine beat.

Majestic Moggy Munster,  was felinetity in it's prime.

There’s a hole in my head where the thoughts come out, and
On occasion it appears to take the form of a mouth, yet
Predominately speaking while the Earths water is leaking
I’ve tried to find the way to stop the whole sky from falling down

I’m setting fire to the soil, allowing the desert to bloom
I’m setting orange cones and speed bumps to stop the tide from cutting loose
I’m setting stone to the classroom to splice the air from out the sculptor
I set the standards to the line of “Thou shalt not doubt her”

my color keeps me safe
and warm
entrenched in a racist system
of hate values organized as political movement
try as I might,
there is no relationship between myself
and the larger country around me –
born Oregonian
only about 3 million of us as a state
the majority of the geography
votes red
the mass of the populace
lives in Portland proper
and makes the laws for the state
blue laws….
we are predominately white
predominantly rural
predominantly not well educated
welcome to my state –
no amount of reading
researching
or watching lamestream media
could ever gift me
with real understanding
of a ghetto
or poverty as it exists nationally…
we have homeless encampments
and minority communities
just small scale –
darting eyes scan the landscape
seeking connection to the national issues
attempting to relate to federal politics
finding instead
my lawn needs mowed
and my dogs need fed –
I am sure there are many of us
Caucasians
who would fight for solutions
who would stand of injustice
those of us who long to truly know the United States as free
as the land of liberty
and equality
as today,
those are myths I was told as a child
myths that not every American household uses
to put fussy children to bed –

I would die for you in a second
But it would never be void of selfishness
Because the life I live
Is so predominately affected by you
That not only could I not bear for you to die
I couldn't bear to live without you

There are no trees.
Well, that's a lie. There are a few, but they're mostly planted by people in straight lines that run east to west, west to east.
There are few trees, and there's a lot of topsoil not being held down by root systems. When there's a drought, the soil blows around in dust storms that can last hours, days, weeks, all because of a lack o' rain.
A lack o' rain, for Christ's sake.
And because of the lack o' rain, windmills scatter across the landscape, pumping water up from the aquifer.
What for?
The freakin' cattle, of course. There's more cattle than people out here, but they're as trapped as we are; miles and miles of fences cut boundaries into the acres of rolling green hills.
Cut boundaries, cut boundaries, cut boundaries.
More boundaries are shaped by the railroad and the highway system (Thank you, President Eisenhower), but they also link the small towns dotting the landscape.
Towns. Not cities. Towns of five hundred people or less. More often less than not. (Villages?)
Everything here is old. Worn, not by use, but by being there, by being beat down on by the wind, and the sun, and years and decades of weather.
People included.
"Washed out" isn't the right wording. "Tired" is more like it.
And predominately white.
(Sorry, Native Americans. We kind of kicked you out and treated you like you were the invaders.)
Ruddy skin. Scarred arms. Calloused hands.
Tattered clothes covering hardened skin.
Even the kids are like that. Lookin' like they're ten years older than they really are.
There are two types of people here.
The first type is rooted here. The family's been there for decades, the farm-ground's been owned for longer. (Depression-era, you understand.)
(I was born in this house, I will die in this house.)
The second type is driven by the desire to get out, get out, get out. But get out of what?
(Fences, you understand, are not only physical, and all fences out here are made from barbed wire.)
(Barbed wire hurts. Wear leather gloves when you're fencing.)
The people technologically advanced, but in the ways that work best for working hard and earning money. Tractors. Combines. Medicine for the livestock.
Sure, you ain't got cell service half the time, but who needs that?
And who wants to listen to anything but the country radio station that plays ads half the time, the only station that comes in?
When it snows, nobody waits for the maintainer. (Snow plow on steroids, for the city folk.) They put the loader on the heaviest tractor they have and hope they don't get stuck.
There's a lot of hoping that happens here.
Hope that it rains. Hope that nobody gets sick, because most can't afford to be. Hope the gamble they took pays off. Hope they don't get stuck. Hope that the kids don't get in a wreck in a place with no cell service.
Football's a weirdly big thing here.
Every fall Friday night, if someone doesn't show up at the field to watch the game, they're either sick or drunk off their *** and banned from the school grounds.
(Sorry, there's swear words embedded in my blood. It's part of the dangers of living here.)
And if someone's not in sports, they're looked down upon.
Outcast.
The internet is a good escape. (If you've got it.)
So is television. (If you're into it.)
So is drugs and alcohol. (If you're legal or ballsy enough to do it.)
But.
But there's a certain sense of freedom that crashes through your veins when you're riding ******* across an empty pasture, the horse sweating and huffing and puffing below you like a train, your arms outstretched like your free, free, free.
But you're not and you've got chores to do and by the time you've put the horse away and fed them and checked cattle and told your boss (your grandpa or dad) that you've taken care of everything, it's dark.
So you drag your tired, sore self home and shower, letting the water wash away the sweat and the mud and the dirt (and sometimes the blood) from your aching body and change into a baggy shirt and pants and crash onto your bed.
(With two blankets - a jean blanket made by family and a quilt also made by family.)
And you sleep
and you do it all again tomorrow
with the tired people and the tired animals and the landscape that calls to you, no matter who you are.