Brooklyn Halloween Dusk.

 

 

"...pal"

Dear Mr. President.

Thanks for putting up with that demented crap for us.

That and tell Santa the whole country could really use

another of them Stimulus things for Christmas.

Your pal Barbie

 

 

"...old ways"

Nature faiths were the first. This of aboriginals of all lands from the beginning.

To see the Divine in the world around us. The sky the land, and seas.

As opposed mysteries we can't see or touch. ...tho' room for both within.

Still, nature found a place in my heart.

Today I feel close to the old ways.

 

 

A dream. I call my childhood phone #.

My ma answers in 1958.

By whatever dark matter twist in time we're connected.

Stunned but heartful silence from me as she asked "Hello...hello?"

 

"...colors"

 

Out walking in the Autumn colors. Brisk wind folks wandering in peace.

Went to market got a dollar basket of apples. An annual thing here.

A sweet potato pie too. No whipped cream...didn't have sugarless.  

Sat in our thin strip of nature along the Parkway.

The late afternoon turning leaves flaming orange red the sky deep blue.

A good day.

 

 

"...republic"

'Put a note at my window left it open a crack for Peter Pan.

"Dear Pete hope all is well on that island republic of deranged mayhem you run.

Look I'm way past expiration date but could you do me a solid?

Get me the Bleep Out'a Here?!"

Thanks, your pal Syd.

 

On the other hand here's something I wrote in hospital a few years ago...it cheered me the hell up: I just want to get into this damned thing, and fucking Drive! I'd drive, and drive, and never look the bleep back. I'd have a sawed-off pump action shotgun. This on the seat next to me. A crate of ammo 10 bottles of Jack Daniels. A few handy eight-balls of speed, and coke. A bleeping large with box with rolls of hundreds in them. Passports to several Central American countries. A letter of introduction from Keanu Reeves aka John Wick, and a pack of aspirins. Eh...the latter just to be on the safe side.

"...oatmeal cookies"

I'd end my City daze and live here. Add a porch solar panels root cellar. Spend my days making oatmeal cookies. Write deranged operas sermons draw weird graphic novels. Have gardens spend springs and summers working in them. Wander the woods listen to doo-wop on a 45-rpm record player. Take lots of snaps of the moon clouds and spirits. Finally get a cat...a few of them. Basically, live out my time in a place that ain't stealing my soul.

"...quiet"

A Room of One's Own. 

"...A woman must have money, and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." 
Ms. Woolf was on to something.
I would add a room that locks from the inside. A room with your quiet treasures. A room where you make dreams come true. 

  "Oh, for an Ounce of Faerie Dust"

"...Dusk"

 

"...Morning"

 

"...kindly"

 

Their coming was quiet. Hardly noticed or believed.

A glow about them. They didn't speak eat or sleep.

They'd walk among us then vanish.

Only to be seen moments later an ocean away. In time they were recognized.

These were our departed.

Wandering the Earth in kindly silence.

Till as softly as they came ...gone. Strange Angels.

All beings on passing become music. The aura of Eternity.

This year I lost five friends. Four from my radio life:

Bob Fass Larry Josephson Peter Lamborne Wilson Fred Hershkowitz.

One from my FB family: William George. This story is for them.

 

In an electoral upset equal to the UK’s inability to govern itself.  A Puppy has just devoured all of the U.S. Mid-term Senate and House candidates!  Even those annoying 3rd party nutters. The lot into the puppy's tummy! The heroic doggo whose street name is "Kool-J" was apprehended by Secret Service agents. They held Kool-J upside down trying to get the candidates or at least major portions of them into a handy punch bowl.

No dice. The former culture war fanatics were mulched into a common meatball. There continues to be a search for possible co-conspirators to this delicious deed. As news of this mass political consumption spread. Crowds formed in the streets of cities towns, and villages across da U.S. of A.! This to praise the lunch time deed of the hungry puppy "Kool-J". The Archbishop of Kansas City hailed him as, “Savior of the Republic!’”

"Eddie" homeless much decorated Afghanistan vet openly wept saying into our microphones, "...Now there is Hope where there was 'none' before!" Retired emotionally unstable obscure radio hack "Uncle Sidney" is reported to have said, "...will you damned maniacs quiet down I'm taking my Meds up here!"

Yes, across the nation, and around the world a collective sigh of relief as a seriously deranged demented bullet was averted by all.  "Kool-J" in his first press conference since his very popular crime said, "Eh...I really need to go for a walk...no really I do. More on this great event as developments warrant.

I needed to get out of Dodge. 

Fuck the 21st century. I folded time/space.

Kansas City October 24th, 2:46pm 1943~CE.

I stumbled into an air raid drill. I forgot WW2. Figures. I leave the opening shots of WW3 only to slam face first into the last one. Seems there’s worse things than Culture Wars. A cop shoved me down some stairs to a shelter. “Coloreds Only”. I forgot Segregation too. I had relatives in da Midwest in them days. I looked around for any family resemblances. Other than a few hipsters in Zoot Suits…google that. It was just folks. Coloreds doing the best they could and fighting for a better day. 

They was eyeing my NASA jacket, and Reeboks. In New York in any century. No one would have gave me a second look. After the all clear I went to a Nedicks for a real hot dog, and orange drink. Ain’t had lunch in one’a them since the 60′s. Heaven. 

War time Kansas City. Soldiers everywhere posters for War Bonds. Real Jeeps drove by. Fighter planes with propellers overhead. That and everybody and their damned dog smoked like chimneys. We were divided, yet united against a bigger enemy than our stupid demented squabbles.

Along a street I stopped at a news stand. I asked if the guy had “Fantastic Four” No.1…never heard of it. Seems I was twenty years early. I got a Superman comic instead. Hershey bar too thicker ’n twice the size as ours five cents! Also, a New Yorker with a Thurber cartoon on the cover. I paid with a future dollar bill. I later found it on Ebay. '80-year-old 21st century Buck!' I bought it. Time is circular.

Passed a recruiting table. Some white corporals from Alabama tried to get me to sign up. I asked if the Army was still segregated...they stared as if I questioned the laws of nature. To fuck with them I said I was a college grad and wanted officer training. One of them passed out. I shrugged and went my happy way. 

I stumbled over to a phone booth. Yeah, them things was all over the place. Went inside one and like Superman changed into my secret identity. Time traveler. I portaled shifted zapped or whatever back to da demented expensive end of empire American future. I hate it here.

"...Fail Safe"

U.S. Air Force F-22 fighters intercepted three Russian Tu-95 'Bear' bombers in northern Alaska airspace. See my post "Shadows" below. While it's not unusual for our TAC units to find and escort away single Russian aircraft from Alaskan skies. It's thought interesting that they'd send three across the border. 

Russian planes probing our defenses was common during the Cold War...we did the same. Sending a quarter of a squadron miles into Alaska in these times is a message. A NORAD press release sez of the October 17th incident: "Russian activity in the Alaskan Defense Zone is not seen as a threat." ...so they say. This whole saga is like watching the slow opening scenes of a WW3 movie. One step then another then a mistake then things unravel.

 

"...days"

 

Instead of news I watch live streams. Seeing folks calmly tending to their lives. People are good given a chance. We go about our business for each other. Day to day to day. Light snow in Vermont. Squall passing through. Harvest fair in Williams Nebraska. Spring in Australia. Sunny in Melbourne. Rain in Georgia...both of them, and it's near noon in Finland. The Earth abides.

“…forgive”

 

I carry old sins or at least I used to. Reminds me of something Bob Fass did for me. Bob was a dear college in my radio life. We were talking of the weird mistakes we’d cooked up in our lives. I said I didn’t know what to do with them Was tired of the guilt and shit dragging behind me. He thought a moment. Look at me and say: “…I forgive you. Mistakes are part of the journey. We forgive each other. So I forgive your mistakes." He said everyone not just clergy had this power. We can forgive ourselves and everyone else. This is why I loved him so much. I miss him.

“…shadows”

I’m a child of the Cold War. In my young life nuclear annihilation was an everyday possibility. The current fears are not new to me. I remember well an unscheduled air raid drill. It was spring 1958. In that era the winter soil in New York was frozen solid from January to March. Not so for decades. The earth abides.

One of the first warm days. Was playing in the backyard. The ground soft enough to dig. Left to their own boys dig holes. Perhaps a species memory of our time as prey to large animals. ‘Hide…cover your tracks and keep quiet!’ Species boy digs. I was hiding from Leopards 20,000 years gone. 

Safe from Leopards but not Bears. 

The Tupolev Tu-95, NATO code name ‘BEAR’. Both sides in that strange time relied on such to deliver A-Bombs. On that day it seemed to my mother, that the Bears had finally come hunting. What happened was a frightful blur…but I well remember it. An unscheduled drill. 

Air Raid Alert sirens shrieked across peaceful Brooklyn. I was later told that drivers stopped their cars in the middle of the street and ran for shelter. Others went past stop lights trying to get home. Target: the Brooklyn Navy Yard where we built our aircraft carriers.

Adult voices yelling in tones I’d never heard before…fear. Our neighbor Mrs. Holder screaming…yes screaming. This for Mr. Holder who was in their garage to come into the house! Adults with fear in their voices. I had never imagined never heard never dreamed such was possible. 

We’d normalized terror into something we could live with. Took it for granted. Till that day. A quiet Saturday morning. Reality broke through the dream. We were moments from being carbonized shadows seared onto walls. 

Blur…I’m playing with the toy truck, and crane I’d got for Christmas. At last able to use it in real dirt. My mother was busy doing Mommy things in the house. There’s a kind of music we make as we go about our routines. She was making comforting Mommie music. It drifted out to the yard where I played. All was safe. All was well.

The storm door window shatters as my mother kicks it open flying down the steps of the porch which my carpenter uncle Lee had built. I looked up heard Mrs. Holder scream for her husband. Other adult voices with that new thing in them…fear. My Mommie had an expression I’d never seen. One of a mother whose only point only reason for living was to protect her baby. Her cub.

Daddy was at work my sister, and bother were at my aunt’s house. We were alone. Alone at the end of the world. I’m scooped up held tightly so tightly. I remember trying to say, “…I can’t breathe”.  We’re up the steps through the house down the cellar into the little storeroom. The door is slammed I’m stuffed into the corner my mother’s body atop me. She’s protecting me with her own life. Protecting me from the gale of fires about to descend on the City. I remember confusion crying. My mother was speaking. …maybe praying. 

After a time …‘All Clear’.

The language of adults is strange to children. They don’t get all the words but get the emotions. In the aftermath of ‘the day’ mommies on the block spoke in low tones. …daddies silent. Like all children I just went on. Children do. They can adjust to anything. Wars concentration camps poverty murder they can witness and take it. I even forgot about that day. For a lifetime it slept at the bottom of my memory. Till now.

"...mirror mirror"

The humiliating chaotic fall of the CCCP made Putin what he is. We were oblivious to what happened there. The overnight fall of a whole nation. From Empire to beggars in a year. For some there came a cold rage and want for vengeance. The Soviet collapse gave us the Russian regional republic grab-back wars. Now the biggest...Ukraine. A look in the mirror. What if it happened the other way. America loses the Cold war. Markets fracture internal chaos banks fail economic implosion local revolts the works. Then States leave. Years later we have wars taking them back. Finally, we're at war with California-aka Ukraine the biggest. Bombing it to hell trying to grab it back into a tattered impoverished Union. One ruled by a vengeful maniac. Like Russia today. Angels weep.

I'm just here living my life watching the seasons change and waiting for nukes to go off. 

Like we've all been doing since 1945. 

It passes the time.

 

When I drift on the verge of tears. I fall into Magic. I don't care if it's not real. It becomes real enough when you need it. I keep the myth of magic with me. Something I know isn't real...but might be. As such it is a comfort,

 

History is what happened.

Rewritten it's no longer history.

It's something Mr. Orwell would recognize.

"...much"

This hung in my 5th grade classroom.

French peasants praying the noon, Angelus.

Much else hung there.

Portraits of our national personalities.

Franklyn Washington Lincoln FDR.

A flag hung with a map of our country. 

There was a large globe showing the nations of the world. Also a chart of the solar system as we then understood it.

The alphabet in both Roman and Cursive. 

Basic math equations.

There were cards with numbers. 

Including Roman numerals

There was also cross this being a Catholic school.

All of the above were lessons in who we are and when and where we are. There was also a clock. This to tell us the past was gone we were in the present with the future even arriving.

A whole education at a glance. 

By the standards of that day a functional summation. 

If no teacher ever arrived, we'd have the cultural basics. 

You're American you have a culture a history. 

You're on planet earth and there are other countries and planets around us. There's art a past and a future.

We saw this all day everyday. 

Variations in classrooms witnessed for months years.

Even if we weren't paying attention.

 Never read or studied...we slowly got it.

It's the small details that are important.

Today it's another matter.

They're removing clocks from schools because kids can't read them. These are replaced with digital timers.

There are no maps globes portraits nothing. 

This my teacher friends confirm.

Such has given us generations of narrowly focused uniformed citizens.

Which explains much.

 

“…revivals”

My friend Claude Horvath sez the Russian Ukrainian war is like a regional civil war. The analogy is close. History shows nothing is crueler than a civil war. Those that actively want one here should consider that. Envision the tragedy of Ukraine being played out across America. Dallas under rocket attack The Brooklyn Bridge blown to bits. Los Angeles carpet bombed. War is not rallies and online rages. It’s those you love dead in a ditch. It’s everything you know and love being destroyed. No one wins a civil war. South Africa realized this so didn’t have one. This because the hatreds live on for years even centuries more. Note our Confederacy revivals. Roughly every 40+ years. 1920’s the 60’s and now. Our tribal addiction to blood is a no-win game.

My day so far.

 

"...In other News"

 

Bangladesh experienced a massive power outage last week, the largest ever in the world. Over 80 percent of the nation–around 140 million people–were left powerless. The unprecedented outage was caused by a technical malfunction which is “still under investigation.” BBC.

Shape of things to come. "...140 Millions in da fucking dark just like that. Eh... pretty unstable shit. Might have been a cyber-attack, authorities were asked this ...no comment. Me I think Bangladesh may have been a proof of design project for a larger objective elsewhere. Sometimes a nutty conspiracy theory turns out to be true. 

There was a movie years ago like that. "Conspiracy Theory"...catchy title. 

There's so many deranged players hard to say which bunch might 'a done it. On the other hand it may've just been traditional system incompetence and greased palms. Guys selling parts on da black and grey market. Sort of like the Russian generals did with their inventory. Which is why they're losing da war. Warehouses full of tanks and trucks without motors or wheels...but I digress.

Most likely it was the usual mishmash of crappy equipment poorly run. It comes down to the same thing. The world machine is a patched-up piece of crap. Keep some candles handy and maybe pick up some of them cheap solar panels so you can stay online. This for games porn and to watch the next end-times event. 

That Yeats guy was on to something. "...Things fall apart the center cannot hold."

"Canyons of Manhattan" is not just a saying.

They're real. I took this on Beaver Street looking north-east.

I think...I'd need a compass to be sure.

"...meanwhile behind the lines"

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 as 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 all we are. (Fairy Sailboat by children’s book artist Honor Charlotte Appleton.) A FB memory from last Spring.

Russia has begun the general missile bombardment of all Ukraine. This escalation in response to their invading army being routed and Putin’s prized bridge to Crimea being partly destroyed. The attacks seemed timed to hit during morning rush hour in the cities. Civilian infrastructure is being targeted. This was Russian military doctrine in Chechnya Afghanistan and Syria.

 

 

"...Houseless"

Today is my 14th anniversary of becoming Houseless. My wandering year. I could have prevented it but severe depression and not wanting to trouble loved ones sealed the deal. Many would have helped but they didn't know for most of that year. Perhaps like my brother's war experience this was something that had to happen. To force me to face hard realities. To finally be brave enough to live in this kind of world and function compassionately in it.

I lived this and survived. One finds that even on the street there are classes of suffering. I fell in among the still employed. I'm a performer indeed was still acting. So I performed the part of myself. No one for a long time realized what was happening.

I remember being cold and wet. To this day sudden movements sharp noises bright lights cause shudders. That, and you're always tired. You can't lay down no deep sleep. It's just too dangerous...crazies or cops. You squat in what space you can and cat nap. Old friends to whom I confided what happened let me shower, and sleep in the safety of their home. This every few weekends so I could keep some shreds of dignity.

We carried all we still owned with us. Those wheeled airport suitcases. I still have mine, two of them, in case I need them again. That's a common fear with Houseless Survivors ...we might have to go back out. This is why I never bought furniture or large heavy possessions.

My sister bless her. She got me my bedroom and dining room sets. She also hooked me up with TV cable, and such. For a time I was too fearful to get anything for myself. I was waiting and preparing for the next round. Though it's many years now I'm still preparing. Like my brother's war. Every night he went there. As I still dream the streets.

Eventually my sister and friends found out. One night I dosed behind a loading dock on Fulton Street. The next my dear sister Sylvia put me up in the Raddison across from the Waldorf Astoria. A Nigerian friend said such could only happen in the States. I imagine so.

Coming from the outside is like returning from an unpopular war. Nobody wants to hear from you. Most people became impatient. I even had second thoughts about posting any of this here. I sought counseling because I needed badly to speak about what had happened. However, I could find none.

Then I saw the truth of it. There were services for the Homeless, and those in danger of falling into it. However, the City, and State had 'no' budget for the few that return. They never expected any number of people to come back. The bureaucracy basically expected most if not all of us to stay that way. Even die that way. Those few that 'did' return were statistically invisible.

We are Invisible. We go about our lives now saying little or nothing about what for us was the most catastrophic event in our lives. Like our unwanted war veterans, we never speak of what we saw, and what we did to survive. Nothing more to say.

 

 Another involved multi-phased dream. Why does Eternity bother people with these things. Trying to find coherence. If write it out as it happened ...punchline without a joke. Don't know how them Sufi folks got by. Dreams are in infrared 3-D but comes in scraps floating all over the damned place. I keep forgetting the good bits. I get hints, but these evaporate. Trying to bring purpose to what we already know. I'll sort it out. Painting by my friend Lynn Stein.

How it happened.

The Wall fell.

Then a long quiet rage 

and want for Russian Imperial restoration.