"...Hoping"

Arthur Szyk's scroll of

The Covenant of the League of Nations.

Paris 1931.

Yet we persist in hoping.

 

"...remembering"

A family memory. There was, and is a Black Jewish community in Harlem. This for well over a century. My mother as a child, and youth was familiar with them. In the early 1940's before the world commonly knew or even believed if told. The Holocaust was in progress.

A bitter ripple of this my mother witnessed on Lenox Avenue in 1943. A Black Rabbi walked down the middle of that street. This in the heart of Harlem. As he walked he wept as he wept he prayed. He had been told of the Camps, and what was being done there. Being done even as he walked done even as he wept done even as he prayed."

(Below a rediscovered 1920's recording of the Cantors of the Black Synagogues in Harlem.

 

"...early, and often"

It was Bob da Bunny, and me that helped elect Biden,…com'on he was all we had. We voted eight million times. So far Fox News don’t know it was us. We're doing it again.

I just got my Socialist Liberal Queer Black Lives Matter AOC Health Care for All Free Tuition Conspiracy against Jebus, and the Flag,…mail-in Ballot.

This for the election of a new Emperor for the City.

I get to Vote by Mail because New York is still in the United States of America.

Other towns, and States ain't so lucky anymore.

In my case I sat on my aged butt, and took five minutes to fill out a form. Granted I had to drag myself all the bleeping way to the post office after that. However we all have to make small sacrifices. Register for the National Mid-Terms, and local stuff.

Then vote early, and often.

"...doses"

I went stumbling about my Hood

on this breezy Fall day.

I ran into the first sign of the Holidaze.

A neighbor set up the above.

Don't know if the kids can do Trick or Treats.

They missed last year,...at least in the sane states.

The Emerald City is mostly

Vaccinated, and generally cautious.

So maybe with care 

The kids can make up for lost time.

 So give out double doses of candy. 

As opposed to stuff spiked with razor blades or nails.

Few things deserve life in a cage 

or the Hot Seat.

Hurting kids on purpose is one of them.

Otherwise

Happy Holidaze.

You're allowed to start drinking now.

Btw as a kid I put a plastic Jack-O-Lantern

in the window of our place.

I then got the swell idea of putting

a burning candle in it.

Luckily my dad smelled the melting Plastic in time.

 

"...Ice Nine"

Conscripted Space Force guy

wandering around the ice ridges of Europa.

He's thinking:

"Join the Force they said.

See swell stuff get laid make piles of dough.

They didn't tell me nothing about 

Space Zombies alien Yeti, and ice quick sand."

Eh,...actually I defrosted my fridge.

This Cracker Jack prize is in my sink with the ice.

I had the snow, and the opportunity.

 

"...cards"

I think my earliest memory records a scene at my first home on West 127th Street in Harlem. I'm likely bundled on a couch. Anyway I was asleep, but woke looked up. I see my Mom, and Dad playing cards. Hearts probably.

Before TV then internet platforms there was listening to the radio checkers, and simple card games. At the time my Dad was a postal worker. I didn't know that then, but putting the history together later it fits. My Mom was going to City College, and working part time.

Ya know typical shiftless lazy Colored people that want something for nothing.

Anyway there they were playing cards. Also speaking.

Being a toddler I had no idea what they were on about. Probably the wavelengths of dark matter quantum's in variable gravities. Parents are always on about things like that.

I saw this, and went back to sleep. The memory locked in.

I've carried it with me better part of a century, and now you know it too.

Life is wonder.

 

"...seasons"

The nights have become chilly again. I'm wearing a sweat shirt inside, and close my widows. It's going down to 55f~12c here, and in the 40's outside the City. Above end of season on Coney Island. I snapped this a few years back. Didn't make it out there neither last summer nor this,...COVID. Perhaps next time. Be well be safe.

 

“…my job”

Things on my bucket list,…besides being a Gisha, and or cowboy. ‘Sides that I‘d like to be the benign President for Life of a small island Republic. In some out of the way place without oil or anything that would get China Russia America or their client states to bomb or otherwise save us from our resources.

Given that I’d be a very nice sort of tyrant. I’d deliver the mail, and drive a free ice cream truck. I think I’d have an online Live stream show too. This where I’d do puppet shows run old cartoons chat with my shrink, and take calls from my adoring citizens.

Also our gleeful little Republic would be a refuge from persecution to anyone that could get there. Sort of like the U.S.of A. was supposed to be. Gangsters war criminals, and assorted hoodlums would be tossed back to the sharks. We’re nice, but not stupid.

I’d wear some sort of crown or funny hat, but that’s as far as I’d take the imperial drag thing. Okay maybe those weird Aladdin shoes that curl up at the ends, and a cool cape,…but that’s it. 

I’d have a Presidential Book, and Toy store as well. The stuff would be free just like like health care education housing transportation, and hats. However ya has to pay for them magic wands. The economy needs an income from something. 

There’d be complimentary ganja cookies too. The only controversial project might be building a UFO landing strip. This just to let them know they’re welcome. We could use da tourist trade.

Btw that’s our flag up there, and our National Anthem on the video below.

 

 "...SE-5a"

I wrote this years ago. I've posted it here, and on my assorted pages, and blogs over the centuries. I like it...bleeping sue me.  I recount how one of my model planes got loose in Prospect Park. It flew away. Disappeared. I supposed that it’s flying still eons later. By now over China or Tibet. I should have put a message in it.

The cord snaps, and we see my 12 year old self receding away as the plane begins it’s new life. The WW1 model Royal Flying Corp SE-5a flies above, and past Prospect park. Summer tail winds add lift, and mileage. It soars over the Brooklyn Bridge, over Chinatown, and Greenwich Village, past Times Square.

By now the fuel is gone. The prop sputters fails, but the warm updrafts from the city keep her going. She’s gliding on course for Central Park. Prospect’s more famous sister.

She Skims 51st street, past Columbus Circle, over the Sheep Meadow she goes. Till at last just past Bethesda Fountain my little plane slips into, and is entangled in the upper branches of an old oak. Here begins her decades of service. This as a nest for generations of blue jays, and robins.

 

 "Hope"

In these days like so many of us. I've felt sad confused threatened weary. I sleep much. I slept from midnight through the afternoon.

I had two Dreams.

The first was of my "Wandering Time" as I call it. Some of you here know the story. For a year from Spring to Spring I wandered the streets of our great Emerald City.

I had lost my home.

The sun, and moon chased each other through the seasons. Below, and within this I walked in heat, and cold rain, and snow. I dreamed this time like soldiers dream of their wars.

Like my father, and brother dreamed.

I remember from my childhood the cry's of my dad as he slept. His calling out, and moaning. Later my brother after his war did the same. They dreamed of their wars, and now I dream of mine.

This dream this harsh realm morphed as dreams do to other places, and other times.

My second Dream.

A fantasy realm. I was in a theatre of wonders. All around people children sang danced sagas told hymns sung.

There was joy in my heart.

With a sword of living light I knighted girls boys. As I did they grew halos. Even in the dream I thought,...you're kidding!

Everything morphed again.

I was almost aware that it was all just dream. My waking life was on the tip of my soul trying to remember it existed. Yet I was painting a fresco in the subway. Something I always meant to do. 

This world morphed again.

I was in my wandering time once more.  Yet I heard faint singing as from the former dream theatre. Beautiful but now so far in the distance. Then I awoke. Our present troubles waiting. However beauty, and hope though distant were not lost not gone.

This was the lesson. This is hope.

“…truth”

In our republic we’ve enter an era,... a short one we hope, where there are massively held multiple notions of history science, and reality. The earth is simultaneously flat, and round. We did, and didn't go to the moon. Vaccines have, and have never worked. Our unfinished Civil War was, and wasn't over slavery. 

These, and many more. Truth is no longer truth, but opinion. 

This is not long term sustainable.

"...get it?"

COVID Killed the Equivalent of 12 of These.

This here in our country.

You finally fucking get it now?

Teachers around the country are refusing to vax up. I've a teacher fiend that tells 

me some of his co-worker are delusional. Buying conspiracy, and fantasies. 

What da fuck are they afraid of. They’re teachers. 

These are supposed to be warriors ‘against’ superstitions not for them. 

I take a hard line. This is a fucking plague. 

Millions have died around the world. 

Over 600,000 here. It’s life, and death. Freedom has responsibilities attached they always have. We have responsibilities to each other no matter how we vote or pray. Or how we don’t vote or don’t pray…get it? See the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Blast above.

Covid has killed the Equivalent of 12 of these in our country.

You get it? …is it in context for you now. In near two years of COVID/Delta Killed more American than died in WW2. It’s as if we were hit by 12 Atomic Bombs over the neat two years since it all started. I don’t know what the fuck more people need to know to take this seriously. 

Other than when they get sick, and some if not most will. Then some will perish. Maybe then as some are they’ll finally know it was real after all. But then perhaps not for some.

We see, and read that even on their COVID death beds. True believers refuse to accept that it’s the Virus that’s killing them. It may be that the vaccinated, and cautious can only watch as family friends, and neighbors’ pass away with their convictions. However their messiah  #45 is still alive, and rich.

 "...Often"

As we all found out to our collective horror in 2016. Elections have consequences,...profound ones. Nations can fall because of them, and we nearly did. May yet. So like the emblem above both suggests even pleads,...register to Vote. Folks fought, and gave their lives sanity homes the works so you could do this.

Granted that map excludes Alaska Hawaii Puerto Rico, and other Islands, in both the Caribbean, and Pacific. But still.

As for the vote. In my case I sat on my aged butt, and took five minutes to fill out a form. Other States are not so lucky. Granted I had to drag myself all the bleeping way to the post office after that. However we all have to make small sacrifices. 

It's not like the Redcoats Nazi militias the Mississippi, and or Alabama State Police are beating or shooting at us to stop the vote. Though a lot of this happened in our history. Now they're nicer in how the take your vote away. 

The just literally shred, and thrown them out. 

This or get local Governors to declare them void. 

Far better optics.

So fight the Bleepers, and register. 

Then vote them all out. As for me. I do this every chance I get. I register all over da place, and would vote early, and often. In fact it was Bob da Bunny, and me that helped elected Biden,...com'on he was all we had. We voted eight million times. 

So far Fox News, and Trump don't know it was us.

Anyway I'm doing it again. 

I just got my Socialist Liberal Queer Black Lives Matter AOC Health Care for All Free Tuition Conspiracy against Jebus, and the Flag,...mail-in Ballot. This because New York is in the United States of America. ...for now.

We're voting for somebody anybody that can stop folks from getting shot in the face all over town. A new Mayor for the bleeped up Emerald City. Like I said Elections have Consecquences...so bleeping vote early, and often.

Then have Chocolate.

 

"...Day 565"

 

 

"...billowing"

I remember lying in bed as a child, and listening. The branches outside my window heaved like the ocean. The house creaked, and moaned like a ship. My curtains billowing like sails. I slipped into sleep. Into dreams of brigantines sailing seas of green gems, and skies full of shooting stars. Moments. They are all we have. They are all we are.

(Fairy Sailboat by children's book artist Honor Charlotte Appleton.)

 

"...Days go by"

 

Day 564.

Just sitting today. Reading working on little things watching the changing of seasons.

Warm breezes by my window. That mix of scents Autumn brings.

I have a calmness for the moment.

I hope to stay so.

"...touchstone"

"The Human Comedy"

A 1943 film directed by Frank Morgan.

It's one of the touchstones of my boyhood.

It was a kindly humane story.

A working class family that had lost their father.

Sons in the war, and not knowing

 if they'll ever be seen again.

Through it all the family went on.

Idealized in some ways.

It's a movie

Yet still giving the aura 

of the hard realties of the era.

It wasn't popular, and got lost in the waves of WW2 films. 

It later found it's audience 

in the 1950's, and 60's on TV.

Only one video release in the 80's. 

Never appeared on DVD. 

I've never seen it on You Tube except for clips.

I imagine because of what it is.

Thoughtful, and humane.

Sort of like many period Russian films.

As a Queer Sissy boy it spoke to me of kindness.

A rare thing then as now.

 

 

"...words"

 

I re-post this as I dreamed of my dad last night.

Family checks up on you. So always wear something nice. Once upon a time:

"My father taught me the love of words, and their meanings. My last memories of him are at our kitchen table. He's paging through the Webster's he got us. It was a big as a Gutenberg Bible, and just as precious. 'Took us from first grade through college. There he sat through the night with that great book. Searching learning immersed in the wonder of words."

 

My whole family with the sole exception of myself is musically trained.

We traditionally have been since just after Slavery.

As a child I would lay under her grand piano

as my aunt Geraldine would play this.

 

"...Sissyhood"

Being Queer a Sissy is to have a particular sensitivity to the world. 

I say "Sissy" because not all homosexuals are Queer. 

Some fuck like them, but are not remotely them.

I was born one. I was a Sissy when a young boy. 

I was called "Sensitive".

This by my Mother, and Aunts. 

Other things by boys, on the block, and at school. 

When I was seven 

I knew I had a different seeing. 

A Sissy's seeing.

There was a day in fall. 

The Sky. 

The Colors, and swift Clouds of October. 

I sat in my backyard for hours I think. 

Just watching.

I was uplifted taken away by the wonder of it. 

This in essence is Queerhood.

Sissyhood 

is the ability to be lost. 

So lost in beauty, and gentleness 

that you forget who you are where you are when you are.

This done without effort. For Queers it just happens.

In most boys, and men it's beaten out of them. 

It's gone.
However with us it's different. 

It's who we are. 

Threaten us beat us all you want.

 We don't lose it we won't change can't change.

The Sky will always be beautiful to us, and we will always say so. 

We will always be taken up, and lost in it.

I wonder how many Sissies 

have been martyred for loving the Sky. 

For loving Color Sweetness Gentleness.

We live. We continue. We always will.

We'll always be here.

As long as there is a sky to love we remain.

 "...fall into the sky"

It's good for a church to have an open roof. 

Makes it easier for the Angels to get in. 

When I was little I thought that during service 

the church would lift up to into the sky, and float in Heaven.

I really believed this. 

When the organ really went to town, and the choir was going nuts. 

I believed I could feel the actual building heaving up into the sky.

Perhaps carried by Angels.

At the time I also believed that I could fly. 

As I've mentioned here. 

I thought I could perch on my window sill leap, and fly. 

Fly to the tree outside of my bedroom.  

I was convinced I had the power. Faith is a serious thing.

Btw I bet I could'a flown

I'll bet kids fly, and perform all manner of Miracles.

Mostly they don't tell.

 They know we've stopped believing in Majik.

 "...real"

To make dreams

and

Majik Real.

"...life, and times"

Interesting how some things just stay with you. Every year on my birthday. Ma would take me to Times Square to see a show. I dragged her to some weird flicks. One time we saw “Mothra”. There she is above. ‘Went a few rounds with Godzilla in her time. My ma not a Nippon monster fan didn’t get it. Outside the the theater she asked if I was sure this was the right movie. 

All this was before 42nd Street went to hell,…then came back as Disneyland East. Thanks to COVID/Delta collapsed local economies, and violence. It’s going to hell once more. Stay tuned it’ll be back. It always comes back.

But I digress.

So after watching Mothra raise all kinds of hell in Tokyo. There we were in front of the Times Building. The lit up electric ticker telling the world Telstar was up. It said,…“TV From Space!” There was too. Introduced by JFK his own self,…the first international TV via com-sat beaming fuzzy stuff from Paris. Back then such things were front page news. My folks were seriously impressed. Com'on to them Lindberg crossing the Atlantic was still recent news.

That reminds of the time my dad took me to the Museum of Natural History over on Central Park west. Besides meeting that great Blue Whale for the first time. We took in a big exhibit about Sputnik. This just after it went up. Dad was a space fan, and would take my brother me, and pals over to the Planetarium. This followed by hot dogs, and fries,…ya know the kind in the paper conical cup. I can still smell the salty grease. …now I’m hungry. 

Me I wanted to be an Astronaut, and a Fireman. …at the same time. Dad approved. I also wanted to be a Nun a Geisha, and a Cowboy. Eh,…mixed feelings from dad on some of these. Still he thought it cool when I became a kind of remote Astronaut. This when I would take satellite data feeds as a radio engineer. To my old man’s relief that Nun Geisha Cowboy business didn’t pan out.  “Geisha Samurai Cowboys”. There’s a movie with sequels in that somewhere. Such a life.