Walking on Thin Ice

foto by smith

“When you’re headin’ for the border lord you’re bound to cross the line” - Kris Kristofferson - 1972

wife & i were heading to chicago for a year. but i dreaded the winter weather, and lady wondered whether that was where we wanted to be what with our government’s ever-tightening border policies and all. so we’re heading south, soon as soonest. i’m going for the sun and adventure, but after reading a bit, i see that lady’s reasoning was both prescient and prudent.

looks like after February, 2008, americans will need permission to fly inside the u.s.a.

the newest Secure Flight Program says foreigners and americans alike will need permission from the United States Government to travel on any air or sea vessel that goes to from or through the U.S.

in their own words:

Part III
Department of Homeland Security
Transportation Security Administration
49 CFR Parts 1507, 1540, 1544, and 1560
Secure Flight Plan; Proposed Rule

SUMMARY: The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assume from aircraft operators the function of conducting pre-flight comparisons of airline passenger information to Federal Government watch lists for international and *domestic* flights.

& from homeland press release

(2) Secure Flight Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), which lays out DHS plans to assume watch list matching responsibilities from air carriers for domestic flights and align domestic and international passenger prescreening. Both programs carry out 9/11 Commission recommendations.

“Stopping known threats before they board an aircraft, whether domestically or internationally, is a critical security measure,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

~ ~ ~

homeland security will check the flight lists submitted by the airlines against their List Lists and transmit back who is permitted to board both domestic and international flights.

if homeland security says you don’t go, you no go. they don’t have to tell you why.

there are already 860,000 names on the Watch List, 20,000 added each month, according to CNN.

this may-or-may-not-fly list is being maintained by the same people who brought you the iraqi war that was going to be over 4 years ago at no cost at all because iraqi oil would pay for everything.

we’ve lost habeas corpus. lost the right to face our accusers, have speedy trials, or hire a lawyer if the government says no. now we’re losing our right to fly to another city. just like in the movies where the bad guys take over.

i see 2 ways of looking at this -
as a good sheep follow the leader to the chop shop,
or get mad as hell and don’t take it any more.

i vote mad as hell.

James Madison - “When tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

foto by smith

Downtown Cleveland, Photo by Lady

PRAYER FOR CALIBRATION

May I be a good listener, and a
facilitator of easy conversation.
May I be curious.

May I be neither boastful nor submissive,
controlling or rude.

May I look others in the eye and be assured
of my own worth. May I be mature, neither
look for praise nor ingratiate.

May I be patient. May I bring others
into a relaxed Now.

May I fix broken situations without
stirring the pot.

May I daily do my dream.

Lady K

foto by smith

my lady tells me “all time’s same time,” that we’re in “the big empty,” and need to keep our eye out for “the new normal.” i tell her i’m a large butterfly in a small china shop.

my plan was to temporarily return to cleveland and stay in the same love shack out back we lived in before leaving the country last year. that way, i could sit in semi-familiar surroundings, shake out our 47 moves through 10 countries in seventeen months, and try to see how my me now differs from my me then.

there are a few obvious changes. i am less angry now. more patient most times with most folk. wait better. socialize more easily. i’m happier. feel i’ve finally done something. found my one to do it with.

but today i realized there is no resolution. if you’re alive, you’re not finalized. death is the sole adjudicator. until then, stuff happens that has to be handled. you never reach a place you’re “done” until you die. we’re in the ultimate work-release program - we work at living till death’s release.

foto by smith

foto by smith

Unfairly Tale

It hurts to be a teddy bear
To sit alone, unused
No longer wanted anywhere
Just left alone, confused

I’m tossed aside to lie in here
This dank and musty chest
The dampness serves to hide my tear
The dark to mock my past

Not always thus, this has been no
I was her fair haired toy
She loved me once, I pleased her so
I shone, her chosen joy

Yet here I lie in darkest net
Her love for me did end
My love for her she deemed forget
She found a stranger friend

And now the stranger she does mold
And twists him through the air
While in this chest my heart grows cold
Alone and frightened, bare

foto by smith

Woke up 3 a.m. this morning to the sound of something rummaging through papers in our bedroom. It sounded like a sentient noise, like a fellow human invader was in the room. I bolted up, and sound ceased.

Woke up again to more rummaging. I quietly turned on the light, and saw a rat the size of a large kitten float across the floor. He left an apple core in his wake.

The rat’s gentle garbage sifting lifting me into sleepy comprehension seems an apt metaphor. I rummage through my thoughts.

Sometimes my brain has these weird insights, this internal chatter when I fall asleep or wake up. Like just this morning I thought, “This isn’t the old cockroach, this is the new cockroach.”

What *this* means, I don’t know. But it seems profound.

Another sleepy insight: 9 symbolizes the end, 11 a new beginning. One equals me, two equals thee. Three is a trio, four a posse. Five a committee, six a conspiracy, seven a coven and eight a meeting.

Then I thought of a recipe for CAMPAIGN FINANCE CAKE MIX. Put Hillary Clinton’s face on the box a la Betty Crocker. Ingredients: private insurers and corn syrup corporations. Spin, spin, spin. Make poor people eat it.

Welcome to the old roach, same as the new?

foto by smith

Light Lucifer Lost

O listen now thou mad, thou meek
Receive and mourn my word oblique
Hear me - for I, Lucifer, speak

God’s impotent envy me from heaven hurled
Manwards toward this god forsaken world
Where you in reward were Eden expelled
And I once majestic upon my belly felled

So I reigned in hell in favor a god
Forever, until upon me science trod
Then even from hell was I disbelieved
And from formal evil my duty relieved

Now no heaven holds atomic aplomb
Nor profits in neutered gamma ray tomb
Knowing crucified wish unworkable womb

foto by smith

foto by smith

folk think i’m putting on weight. they don’t know how cold i am here after months in the mediterranean sun, or that my new bulk comes from the tee-shirt, long sleeved shirt, long sleeved pull-over, and the two sweaters i wear to keep warm. and that’s inside. outside i add scarf, hat and gloves.

in our explorations i’ve seen how cold gray wet sunless skies drain a person’s spirit, while sunny days invigorate. fortunately oaxaca mexico averages 311 sunny days a year - 85%. they call it La Tierra del Sol (Land of the Sun). we go soon to this land of the sun. i will study their moon.

here in cleveland we average 66 sunny days per year - 18%. our time in cleveland is cold fact kept alive by warm fiction.

speaking of which, i used to love reading fiction - it was sunshine for my mind. i’d devour 4-5 novels a week - sci/fi, crime, horror, humor, mainstream, alt, classic, avant garde, true life. i found i missed english fiction in poland, croatia, france and morocco, so when we got back i bought a bunch of used paperbacks by folks i’ve loved forever - elmore leonard, robert b. parker, john d. macdonald, et al. sat down for a read feast and found i couldn’t get into any of them. they all seem tame and contrived - less happy and interesting than my own existence since lady.

it seems because of our own adventures and the current insanity of the neo-fascists in the white house along with their quislings in congress that fiction can no longer compete with the real world (as unreal as it is). so now, only poetry and non-fiction will do. it if ain’t true, it won’t do.

foto by smith

Opposite day in Hell. His Honor is his Ego. The killer is a hero. Marble columns: bars.

Lady K

foto by smith

i’m snapping at people around me, including lady. that is a no-no.

it’s no excuse, but i’m tired of
being cold . . .
being sore . . .
too little sleep . . .
being tired . . .
too many people, not enough down time between . . .
being back in america . . .
not enough time to hang show or prepare reading . . .
too little weed to reduce edge above . . .

and i’m tired of all my external excuses.

just as alcohol releases the demons within, so exhaustion and frustration release my natural crankiness and curmudgeon-ness. i hope that’s explanation, and not excuse. i am not a social creature - i’d make a right fine hermit.

call me the loan reality arranger - they will whisper of me as i pass, “who was that masked sham?”

wednesday, i cleaned and hung 49 pieces of art on 4 walls in 4 hours. anyone ever hung a show knows that’s fast time - - - 5 minutes per piece to clean, decide, and hang. some pieces are 2 decades old. same gallery Lady’s show’s in - we’re piggy-backing on her 23 pieces.

after hanging, we went across the street and read poetry to our smallest audience yet - 7. but great reading. lady selected an exceptionally effective set. remember a poetry reading 11 years ago with the legendary daniel thompson - we had 6 poets reading, 1 person in the audience . . . and yet had a wonderful evening. poetry god say “wherever 2 or more gather in my name . . .”

thursday took us 3 hours and 5 buses to visit lady’s grandmother in her assisted living home. then she and she spent 3 hours catching up on relatives i’ve not met. afterwards, we went to monthly Lit poetry performance till 1. long day, short night, gray bags grow beneath my eyes. could be in romero’s next zombie movie without make-up.

seeing lady’s grandmom made me think on how close i am to physical incapacitation, being at the mercy of nurses, institutional food, other’s druthers. i don’t believe i can let that happen - will have to go out with an avant-garde perfromance piece, leaving one last tale to be whispered among the young grasshoppers.

up 7 friday, price the show, print gallery wall maps, post the data, then 6 to 10 work the ArtWalk walkers who might stop by. it’s cold dreary weather, which affects culture crowds. mind say yes, body say no. matter over mind.

in spite of my whining above, a good show was hung, a good poetry reading performed, and life, sense, and place are better than they were before, for both us and others. a good week.

today, saturday - great art crowd last night in spite of cold wet. good conversation, new and old friends. i sold one piece. i hang 49, sell 1… lady hangs 23, sells 6. mother dwarf also always outsold me. the women in my life do better with folk than i do.

now, on to morning food shopping, morning laundrey doing, afternoon monthly poetry reading, evening poetry/art lecture, occasional weed in between.

no wick for the un-rested.

foto by smith