when the government institutions fell apart

                                              when the jails ruptured the police departments and hospitals ruptured

they were turned into Walkaway-style co-ops

people helping themselves to what remained  and then helping others

somber

Gretyl told her son She’s been away and we haven’t seen her in a long time. We love her.

Jacob was seven

We love her. Jacobs parents said said Gretyl and Iceweasel

so  uncritically unconditionally childishly Jacob loved Limpopo too

childishly

innocently

            as these concepts are slowly erodedas children havent the luxury of being children any longer they are forced to access more than their immature brains can either absorb reckon-with or humanely facilitate

childishness and innocence are unwanted

                                             the childrens elders want them to be as critical as they are corrupt and they insist and insert conditions and clauses to be met 

theyre wrong

plants grow in their time insects and animals grow in their time 

when natural things are forced theyre stressed  they become ill   they are not resilient  deranged

when we naturally self-construct

                                  when our selfish parameters of course they are are met and fortified by those who love us we in turn know and can love 

we love because slowly we have been shown and we acclimate to what love is

sometimes our love deftly defiantly hurtles over and beyond precepts defined by others 

they insist forgetting they are they and not us and demand our love is not love and because it is un-natural to them we should overthrow it

and because they leave us no choice

we overthrow them

or try

August, 2018

1312,  Friday,  28  9. 18

Christ. Would you look at that fucking clown rubbing his leisure in our face.  he stared straight ahead through the windshield over the steering wheel

What? What are you talking about?  his vision was obscuredthough he tried to see moving under his seat belt side to side

We’re coming up on him. I saw him ahead, down the road apiece. He’s the one backing us uppeople are too concerned with hitting him than running two abreastthere’s plenty of room on the road to pass him side by side, lousy drivers.

I’d assume they’re siding on caution. This is residential area, no one should be in a hurry.  he spoke into the side of the drivers face

he didnt turn to look at his passenger  I’m in no hurry, I just don’t like being held up by some guy taking his sweet time walking on the side of the road reading a book. I’m rolling your window down.

Why?

Watch. I’ll make this old man shit in his pants. the car slowly rolled forward as three vehicles passed in the opposite direction

Him?

Yeah him.

May be prematurely gray, but he’s no old man. And if he’s an old man I wish I was as fit.

No matter. He’ll shit. He’s too engrossed in his book. He hasn’t looked up out of it once the whole time we’ve been coming up on him.

Nownow, give him some room. I don’t want you hitting him playing your . .

. . Which is the trouble with everyone. Passing him one at a time. In either direction. There’s plenty of roomplenty of room. Watch this.

He’ll shit.

hed been walking and reading since he was a kid

the trouble with some was that they thought he was too engrossed and either honked their horn or screamed out their window as they went past  probably anticipating three or four balls were too many for him to juggleto negotiate 

he didnt have to lift his head to see forwardtake in what he was coming up on  he lifted his eyes  that was plenty  he was familiar with the sides of the road he walked it for years

BLAAARE!GET OFF THE ROAD OLD MAN!

nothing 

nada

nope

     like he was deafhe didnt flinch his spine didnt go herky-jerky he walked on steadfast stead forth 

it was an inside joke 

obviously the driver thought he was the first ever to pull off that horseshit  as if walking and reading killed his sense of hearingfeeling the atmosphere around him changelike a barometer  feeling presences

                                                                                           and somehow this driver honker screamer missed that there was only the street for cars and pedestrians  there were no sidewalks

this was an old neck of the woods  a neighborhood built nearly a hundred years ago 

the city didnt plan for sidewalks not any of itnot for any of the hundreds of homes that became or the thousands of residents

to be sure  not many walked on the road

when school was in session a few grade schoolers or junior high kids walked this way  though only a handful 

there werent kids in this neighborhoodnot like the neighborhoods he grew up in back east

these kids were shuttled or sat along or against the chainlink fences that surrounded the school grounds  they sat and waited  or they hung out in the Sunken Gardens before City Hall or traipsed over to the librarythe librarians inadvertent babysitters or went to Starbucks or another coffee house the donut shop the burger joint the Walgreens for candy     

very unlike his childhood

the school fences reminded him of concertina wire  students were incarcerated  not instructed  not educated  they were made fearful if they werent cloistered for their own safety

safety  the end game  the safe continuity of State and Federal funds coming into the district  student by student  dollar bill signs turning over their heads  if they werent in class the district was losing money  

helluva way to concede an education or educate someone

maybe he was square he didnt fit in the round peghole

if a peghole was large enough he might

but there was no room in the system to accommodate big pegholes

the easethe attributes of his walking and reading came from reading school assignments as he walked the mile and a half to and from school walking and reading the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune as he pulled his wagon walked his morning paper route walking and reading paperbacks as he walked even furthur than school to hang out with friends

he was an antenna a radar rarely did anything slip into his field that he wasnt aware of

he was tried and true 

June, 2018

1153,  Friday,  28  9. 18

  :  love i’m so sorry. i’m always DOA come weekends, aren’t i 

i’ll make it up to you, to us

i love you. (1708,  Sunday,  16  9. 18)

he had an older fone it didnt retain any more than his last fifty texts and he was texting her his nephew his brotherinlaw his daughterher husband football was on he was barbecuingChrist an octopus would have been proud of his efforts women would have be proud of his masculine multitaskingnot that he would ever make a habit of it it was just an extraordinary eveningan emotional one they were all working their way through their griefthrough his sisters death sixteen days ago sixteen days linked together dragged like a chain behind them  another coarse link to be added tomorrow  and its tomorrow   and tomorrows after that  her death made all their lives heavier and slower  lethargic she was a brilliant light effervescent lighterthanair losing her was sustaining a terrible blow internal injuries breath came as if he was submerged at sea in a black storm gasping floundering gulping and slapped by a huge wave breath by breath

his sisters death suffered him his wifes death again

she wasnt thinking when she wrote DOAdead on arrival  

she hadnt been well in a long time her workweek depleted her by Thursday Friday she was sustained on fumes weekends were an attempt to recoveryan attempt to put gas in her tank but she unable to refuel  a weekend wasnt time enough even if she tried to imagine it in minutes rather than hoursmore of them  as if their number might translate permutate into something largermore enormous more time than fortyeight hours how many seconds

what he replied was lost to the cold technology of his fone  he seemed to remember he texted that she shouldnt be sorry  she should rest 

try to restore                   

i’ll make it up to you, to us  is impossible 

lost time is lost time 

you cant make up for it                               

a romantic notion

truly

       unfortunately it doesnt carry real weight 

it is emotional  

his emotions were running at a deficit

right now

          he just didnt care

0029 & 1139,  Monday,  17  9. 18

For its one two three four strikes an youre out

                                                at the old ball game

eleven Republican senators all white men are trying terribly hard to play see no evil hear no evil speak no evil to play Mirazu Kikazura Iwazaru the three famous mystic apes of which obviously two will have to be performed four times  

but rather than mystics

                         these senators are mystifying

their hardheaded-- anxious wrongheadedness makes reasonable people scratch their heads and wonder at their ravings and their whowhowhowho cries asif to defer responsibility for their actions which they have in favor of an Arizona female interrogator 

    

2308,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  26  9. 18

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/new-kavanaugh-allegations-come-to-light-ahead-of-dr-ford-hearing-1330364483702?v=railb&

Chuck Grassley  Iowa

Orrin Hatch  Utah

Lindsey Graham  South Carolina

John Cronyn  Texas

Mike Lee  Utah

Ted Cruz  Texas

Ben Sasse  Nebraska

Jeff Flake  Arizona

Mike Crapo  Idaho

Thom Tillis  North Carolina

John Kennedy  Louisiana

these states ought to get their heads in the game and make sure that before their representatives soil their good names that they have acted in their behalf and not as independent contractors for other concerned entities who may not vote in their state

it was awkwardbut he liked awkward as he listened to Tools Undertow he reran parts of the film Marty on the black oily surface of his bowl of coffee  Man, that Mickey Spillane, he sure can write  two elderly widows talk in a cloistered dull lit livingroom about how a daughter-in-law can turn their sons love away from them  they talk about a college girl She’s just one step from the street they talk about a girl who works outside the home before a typewriter She’s just one step from the street Marty mid30s and Clara late20s walk downtown talking after meeting at a dance club  across the street in a parked car Ralph sitting behind the steering wheel hails Marty Marty politely excuses himself to Clara  What’s up Ralph? he looks into the backseat at a couple seated there and says Hiya, Leo  Ralph interrupts That’s Louise. she sits to Leos left  Hello, Louise.  Hawaryah, Maty? she replies  Ralph interrupts curtly Come with us, Marty. then lowering his voice so Louise cant hear It’s money in the bank, Marty, I’m telling you, money in the bank. Nah, I’m already with a girl.  Brush her off.  I can’t, she was brushed off earlier tonight. Marty, this is money in the bank, brush her off, brush her off. Nah. I can’t. I gotta go.

Paddy Chafesky wrote Martywhich likely to most people today probably means shit

it starred Ernest Borginine who? who won the Academy Award as Best Actor for the film in ‘56 

Marty also won Best Movie  Best Director  and Best Adapted Screenplay

six short years later in the Fall of ’62 Borginine plays McHale in McHale's Navy on television  its about a PT boat skipper and his crew in the Japanese Pacific 

as a kid he supposed ya hafta had won the war to make a sitcom of it  one of the perks of being a victorious nation

then again in ’65 Hogan's Heroes soldiers held in Stalag 13 a Nazi P.O.W. (prisoner of war) camp Hogan is played by Bob Crane who 13 years later was bludgeoned to death in Scotsdale Arizona while touring with a dinner theatre production of Beginner’s Luck 

an unsolved murder  

maybe Crane was held accountable and atoned for his sacrilege 

maybe some people or someone didnt think the television show was funny

not funny

          like at the commencement of Drumpfs speech to the United Nations yesterday touting his Administrations unparalleled American achievements

there was laughter 

then silence

Bob Crane    

1111,  Twosday,  25  9. 18

1355,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  26  9. 18

845 days remaining or less

Tool  Undertow  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRwWucCZpLg  Bottom: “I’m naked and fearless . . ”

he was confused

                  he read this mornings NPR article New Poll Finds Americans Deeply Divided By Gender On Kavanaugh Nomination (this guy was beginning to usurp the attention the FAKE PRESIDENT usually garnered – one would think Drumpf would cut him loose if only to regain his prominence)

what confused him lay in one paragraph

                                           A plurality opposes Kavanaugh’s nomination (43 percent oppose, 38 percent support). And an even bigger number (59 percent) thinks that if Ford’s allegation is true, he shouldn’t be confirmed to the nation’s highest court. There have been many divisive Supreme Court nominations in recent years, but Kavanaugh’s standing at this point is the worst of all of them (only Clarence Thomas, the Court’s silent YES man, came to mind -- he never should have been seated).

his confusion was

                   And an even bigger number (59 percent) thinks that if Ford’s allegation is true, he shouldn’t be confirmed to the nation’s highest court.

Really?

if Ford’s allegation is true: 41 percent of Americans think that he should be confirmed to the nation’s highest court?

Why?

        or maybe the rationale is because the sitting FAKE PRESIDENT is an amoral man

however this president wasnt going to complete a single term  whereas Kavanaugh would be seated for life  

1103,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  26  9. 18

845 days remaining or less

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/651647131/poll-nearly-6-in-10-to-closely-watch-kavanaugh-ford-hearing-many-undecided-on-tr?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20180926&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews

then  https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/651797758/judiciary-committee-review-new-sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-kavanaugh?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20180926&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews

he scribbledhe was probably drunk for good reason  he scribbled on the back of a page from among a sheaf of papers he pulled out of the trash at work 

less than half the page was used  

a printout of corporates markup on The Botanist Islay Gin 

a fuckin waste typical casual corporate wastebecause it canbecause it can write-it-off corporate write-off could feed the hungry house the homeless educate the uneducated but It’s Ours To Throw Away  Fuck corporate he used the pages to scribble on used its empty parts
                                  all the inside jobs he held he always took the thrown away half-used pages because he imagined them as lives

a trees life

a human life

Life Expectancy in America was nearly eighty years no matter the sex 

OH so  he saw the paper under his pen akin to a life say a GIs life a military life which had no trouble trashing a twenty year old GI or a frightened GI snatching anothers life because they could like a frightened cop in any American city snatching typically a black life white lives dont usually worry about frightened cops because white people dont frighten cops which he thought was odd because white men were typically the mass murderersthe terrorists that cops and the Authority refused to call terrorists
                                            all of it was incorporated in a page he pulled from the trash

he thought too much

he had scribbled in red ink I give a fuck whats improbable

then in capital letters beneath the sentence he wrote
                                 FUCK

                                      FUCK each emphatically underlined  so the scribbled lines almost formed a bar  an angled iron wedge

then off to the side beneath the fucks he wrote  Baby can you read this?

beneath that  Can you read my mynd?

then under his questions he wrote  Then you know I LOVE YOU  madly he scribbled lines under I LOVE YOU

the I LOVE YOU sprawled in the lower right corner of the page

he had thrown an arched line and arrowhead from I LOVE YOU back across the empty space of the page on the left and off the descending hookthe arrowhead he wrote again
I LOVE YOU

if the dead could read
                       or if the dead would now waste their time continuing in Lifes dimension dimension?

in Lifes dementia

1904,  Saturday,  8  9. 18

1419,  Sunday,  23  9. 18

Francis Kuipers  Blindfold Blues  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFx9uAt5va4

Ohboy wannabe Supreme Kavanaugh will say I was just a boy What I did has no reflection on the man I am now

CODE: boys will be boys

                          or could be readCODE: entitled white boys can do no wrong

2345,  Monday,  24  9. 18

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/avenatti-kavanaugh-accuser-client-may-pursue-criminal-case-1328359491812?v=railb&

it had been fortyone years

                          the last seventeen years hes been alone on their anniversary

he didnt celebrate it  

a better word  he commemorated it 

celebrating would be off target

                                 many people who attended their wedding no longer thought to remember or acknowledge it 

many were dead 

Time has a way of parsing our lives

he rememberedhis sister rememberedalways sent a lovely card  and that was plenty 

now shes gone

he wasfor whatever reason the one who had a deep memory and store and recalled family and friends birthdates wedding anniversaries  although a fiftyfifty proposition half after theyd passedFuck 

he did not send them belated letters

he disliked the word it was a euphemism  softersounding than saying Yea I FORGOT 

he preferred not to receive belated wish let it go  

maybe this years guilt would possess them to remember next year

and when he did timely remember a birthday or anniversary they said How is it you always remember our birthday our anniversaries? How do you do it?

I dont always anything  keep that in mind  Ive come to accept as a natural course that were all juggling balls trying to keep them up in the air  I have fewer balls to juggle Lets leave it at that

So dont beat yourself up recriminations are worthlesstryin to shoulder aside box out jab with an elbow regret or remorse Let it go Theres better and more important things in our lives

but theyd insist he trying to be magnanimous

                                               so much for letting it go

No  Not magnanimous  Its on you Itll have to be your hangup Im not apologising for happening to remember

he was the thoughtful elephant in the room

Please

        Just say thank you

he took a long walkhe could feel convinced himself he did her hand in his he remembered who they were that only he and she would know  

when he got home he poured two neat whiskies

he toasted her Happy Fortyfirst babe I love you 

1045 & 1900,  Monday,  24  9. 18   

Malefeasance

the headline to the NPR article is  Trump Calls Kavanaugh ‘Outstanding,’ Dismissing Latest Sexual Misconduct Allegation 

which stands on the shoulders of The New York Times headline  Trump Defends Roy Moore, Citing Candidate’s Denial of Sexual Misconduct

which monkey piles atop The Atlantics  The 19 Women Who Accused President Trump Of Sexual Misconduct

its all so very seamy and consistent

 

1033,  Monday,  24  9. 18

847 days remaining or less

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/24/651085275/trump-calls-kavanaugh-outstanding-dismissing-latest-sexual-misconduct-allegation

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/politics/roy-moore-trump-alabama.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/what-about-the-19-women-who-accused-trump/547724/

      vulns

             in Walkaway every time he read the word it bothered him

used in context he was able to detecteke out a kind of continuitya frame-of-reference  however frame-of-references only take one so far  he had to know if the term vuln existed or if it was a fabrication of the writers fertile mind

finally weekes after he finished the book he conceded  he looked it up

vuln: a vunerability, especially one associated with computer security

                                                                         ah shorthand

(fucking computer geeks and their specialised vocabulary acronyms hiding in plain sightWhere’s Waldo? realities and common sense)

             Waldos a freak there was nothing attractive or inspiring about him a fucking bookmark frankly if Waldo had the misfortune of stepping out into the road ahead of him he wouldnt swerve to avoid him any more than the brilliantblue-infused buck he killed three years ago Waldo would be a fuckin idiot to play with fire

hed get burnt

probably his only disgust with the matter would be him having to dig Waldo clots out of his tire treads or strip his comicbook flesh out of his grillwork off his headlights      

humans had vulns

                    probably more ruinous to a human system than a coded programme 

but who was he to make such a call

                                      You must know that a persons ability to discern the truth is directly proportional to his knowledge (pg 68 The Third-Body Problem)

who was he to say when so often he heard so many people cop to convenient lies rather than ruminate or explain inconvenient truths

See that fucking hourglass over there? That’s my time you’re wasting, an I aint gonna get squat of it back because I explained myself to you.

because you arent worth the time

no ones worth the time

time briefly  is worth lying for

a whole new set of vulns

vulns placed inside a Venn diagram 

Worthwhile

Unworthwhile

what the fuck would that diagram look like

where would you start illustrating illuminating and despite its bright light who would really look and see

its hard to be patient for night vision to return after youve been lightblinded particularly if you think youre being pursued 

          are paranoid

It’s not a question of being paranoid, it’s a question of being paranoid enough.

he exercised practised carried a blade so he didnt waste his time with paranoia

he was a cut-an-dried kinda soul

late August, 2018

1601,  Saturday,  22  9. 18
 

Tool You Lied https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmkRHo4Vca4

another Old White Man

Senator Grassley ought to choke on a cob of corn No Heimlick manoeuvre for you

                                                                                  another Old White Man Who Thinks He Knows Best spreading his black authoritarian batwings and no longer bothering to hide his vampire fangs

Look into my eyes 

                    Daddy Knows Best ofcoarse

his black and whiteohsofucking black an white determination of white men about and over women about sexual assault it wasnt that bad if it was that bad she would filed police reports years ago

                                                                                       sez Male Republicans 

Grassley out of Iowa eightyfive years oldeightyfive years of his head up his crusty ass

0218,  Saturday,  23  9. 18

848 days remaining or less

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLwtcXzSyM0