he was clinging to restlesssleep dreaming to
catch a sliver a handful of something to take ahold of and bring out
then suddenlybestowed onesigh bellycramp
vague quiet envelopingone then several coils of his brain he woke
What
was that
onesigh
bellycramp
Onesigh bellycramp
it didnt repeat itself
whawas he to do with THAT
certainly something
to have emerged onesigh bellycramp
his bowels or bladder didnt waken
him
he remembered his dreaming self
hanging around like a kid on a street corner
waiting for buddies
his friends were always a hoot
walking around town they came
across corners that teemed with clowns miscreants
What’s a miscreant?
Not desirable Wannabe bad boys Bobby
How do you know that?
Miscreant I read a lot
Yah one sniped If he wasn’t hangin with us he’d be reading;
he’s got paperback in his back pocket.
You got a book in your back
pocket? Bobby asked
Slaughterhouse-Five Vonnegut Billy
Pilgrim
An anti-war novel.
Its a humane novel a moral
novel I dont believe ya buy into Nam Jeff
No.
Though yer father does
He was a Marine; what do you expect?
I expect he fought in the South
Pacific and Korea so his childrennot that he was thinking that far ahead wouldnt
have to fight in trumpedup wars to make money for fat cats
If Im drafted Im not going
You’d rather go to jail?
I side with Ali “Man, I aint got no quarrel with them Viet
Cong. Why should they ask me to put on
a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on
brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated
like dogs and denied simple human rights?”
You memorize that?
I did You find a hole in his logic
I agree with, Joe said Bobby
Jeff turned to Bobby Your polio fixed you 4-F, you aren’t sweating
the draft.
And neither am I You sweatin Jeff
My brother went into the Coast
Guard.
You like me like Bobby like your
brother white Coast Guards obviously an option But I aint military materialI know that I dont like anyone tellin me what to dolet
alone not answering my questions why I should do it Im not into blind faith religion or orders
Well . . hope you don’t go low in
the draft lottery.
I expect to Karma
You expect to?
Definitely We should get together with the guys on draft
nighthave whisky beers pizza twenty bucks apiece in a pot first birthday turned gets the pot
I’d pay twenty bucks to see you
become a draft dodger.
Money well spent Would help afford me a road trip
You’re fucked up, man.
No Whafucks me up is seeing a human being turned
into ground beef or a flaming torch Remember
Thich Quang Duc
God
bless you.
Funny
No.
Thich Quanf Duc Buddhist monk Immolated himself to fight all forms of oppression I didnt need to see that on televisionanymore than I needed to see General
Nguyen Ngoc Loan execute Vietcong suspect Nguyen Van Lemshoot him in the head
on a street in Saigon then walk over to
reporters to tell them “These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha
will forgive me.”
Or anymore than the photograph of Phan Thi Kim
Phuc the Napalm girl
You know their names? What the fuck.
I know their namesI remember
what they suffered virtually at our
hands by Americas wha will I aint being part of that legacy any more
than I hafta assume as being an American
You know their names.
I know their namesremember their
names probably because I was a paperboy
who read the papers while walking my routes
You'll go to jail.
Not if I and every draftee
refuses to enter the military Think of
the optics of every eighteen year oldour generation put in jail
Optics. Vonnegut?
Vonnegut Reading
Thinking
onesigh
bellycramp
thinking about it
a bell being
rung to pay strict attention to
otherwise hed nobodyelse suffer the consequences of ignoring it
early Thursday
morning before 0800, 4 4. 19
1253, Reggae Friday, 5 4.
19