Chronicles Of The Return

A friend writes:

What’s happening in the gulf is a sign that things are just a horrible mess, and I don’t just mean the oil spill. The stuff BP is pulling is just criminal, totally criminal. But, as usual, corporations get to do whatever they want and the people have to put up with it, and do the suffering. What I don’t understand is why isn’t there mass outrage? A 20% real unemployment rate? The destruction of thousands of miles of coast line? Corporations that are allowed to do what ever they want in the political arena? It’s madness, but it hasn’t run its course yet. Not even close.

Let’s recount a little bit more: US government assassinating American citizens overseas, Katrina, Gitmo still open and a stain on our nation, a renewed push to bottleneck the internet by corporate interests, the Financial Crisis and subsequent bailout without any accountability, two ongoing and pointless wars, corporations and police departments cooperating to prevent journalists access to the disaster in the Gulf, degrading and faltering transportation and energy transmissions infrastructure, failing schools, rising crime rates, distressed and poisoned food supplies, and American is a country that is not ranked number one in anything, in any real global survey of education, health, manufacturing, etc. . . except for military spending.

Have I missed anything?

So, what kind of outrage do we get? This: a carnival at a BP station in New York City? Is this the best we can do?

Apparently it is.

Now, I’m not opposed to violent protests. There is a time and a place, but in contemporary America it simply won’t work. Why? Because we live in the most violent country on the planet and violence would be met with a brutality few of us could imagine. The only way to change America is to engage in serious and sustained non-violent protest.

What I’m not for is non-violent, weekend outings with guest appearances by people like Joan Baez. If protest is to work, it has to be serious, deadly serious. And Americans have to be willing to sacrifice. And die. Because there will be deaths. It has to be something more than a ‘Million’ whatever march on the Mall in Washington or a carnival.

We need protests on Monday.

We need protests on Tuesday.

We need protests on any day of the week that ends in a ‘y.’

Weekend outings won’t get it done. It has to be more, much more than just a march. A march is a culmination. Marches didn’t bring civil rights to the South. Sit-ins and civil disobedience did. In our time we need the following:

Freeways have to be shut down.

Government buildings surrounded. Access blocked.

Schools shut down.

Refineries blocked.

Airport security lines halted by travelers unwilling to undergo the indignity of being x-rayed.

Sit ins.

Television stations surrounded.

Sit-ins at Wal-Mart, COSTCO and Target.

People have to be inconvenienced. They must be challenged.

“But this stuff is illegal, and it will just anger people, more than change their mind,” you might say.

Well, give me other ideas? How else do we challenge people? How else do we prove to Americans of all stripes that our country is being driven into a ditch. A little inconvenience in exchange for an end to some seriously egregious abuses done in our name every day seems like a good trade-off to me. Besides, picking up a gun is illegal too!

People must be challenged everywhere. Not just in DC, or NYC, or Berkeley.

It will require real sacrifice on the part of the protesters.

Why? Because the reaction of the Establishment powers, even to non-violent protests, will be violent. It will be brutal. It will be unjust. And it will make Kent State look like a picnic. Protesters will be jailed and others will be harassed. Groups will be infiltrated.

They will tell us we are hooligans, but will will not destroy. We will protest to rebuild our nation. They will tell us that we are unpatriotic, but our love of country will be richer and deeper than the faux-patriotism of the corporatists on Wall Street or the torturers in our government. They will tell us that we are fraying the fabric of American society. But they will be wrong, we will be weaving it together even stronger.

There is no other way.

If it is to succeed it will have to terrify the Establishment, but more importantly, it will have to cost them.

There is simply no other way.

Alas, it won’t happen, because our outrage is drowning in an ocean of cheap Chinese goods and anti-depressants, bad cable television and fatty foods, fat-cat banksters and mendacious politicians.

But you know what? I’m willing. Are you?

All is right in my world this morning as I sit on the patio of my favorite coffee shop reading the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books. I only recently renewed my subscription, as I was uncertain how long I was going to remain in the US upon returning home in late June of last year. But here I am, and while I do hope to travel again in the near future, it’s strange to say this, but I think I’ve found a home in Austin–or at the very least, a home base.

In my opinion it is the single finest magazine in English. Where else can you get esssays on particle physics, Dickens, a detailed deconstruction of the baleful influence of Israel on US foreign policy, a lengthy exposition on the differences between Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia? All of which are grounded in reality, not Fox News fantasy?

The New Yorker is a fine magazine as well. But my problem with it is that it’s not nearly as comprehensive, nor, in a sense, is it as curious. Generally speaking I think the flaw with the New Yorker is it sees the world from the prism of New York City (in itself not a bad prism, just limited.) It’s gravitas comes from the City, not the world, like the New York Review of Books.

Of course, the New York Review of Books is most certainly not a propaganda mouthpiece for the neocon/Likudniks like The New Republic is–and Walter Lippman is spinning in his grave, I tell you. I was a subscriber to the New Republic for ten years. It was the first serious magazine I read in college. It was hard to let it go, but by 2003 the magazine had changed so much it wasn’t worth my time or money only to read one or two essays an issue.

I also subscribed to the New Yorker for a few years, but canceled my subscription when I realized I was only reading one or two articles a week from it. Not a good return on my money. As a general rule I read the New York Review of Books from cover to cover every two weeks. And with that I don’t need to read the newspaper and all its attendant noise, daily. I get signal from the New York Review.

And that’s the beauty of The New York Review: I read it from cover to cover and I learn something new every two weeks. Where else would one read an essay on Tennesse Williams followed by an excellent essay on the emerging food movement? Or a long essay on biology, or the glaciers, or evolution, followed by an expose or sorts on George W. Bush? You don’t get anything like the intellectual diversity in the New York Times, much less the Austin American-Statesman.

And don’t get me started on McPaper: a simple paper for simple minds if ever there was one.

Waitress: “Clem, Can I help you?”

Oldtimer: “What?”

Waitress: “Want some coffee?”

Oldtimer: (Cupping right ear with right hand.) “Speak up, young lady.”

Waitress: (Much louder this time.) “Coffee. Clem. You want some?”

Oldtimer: (Smiling mischievously.) “Don’t yell at me!”

How many of us have had the thought that somewhere in the universe, or perhaps in an alternate reality we have a doppelganger, an identical twin, doing the exact same things we are doing, making the same mistakes and pondering the same thought of a doppelganger at exactly this moment?

Perhaps it is a measure of the new relationship I find myself in that makes this particular bit of graffiti reach me, but I confess: the idea of doppelganger poetry is too fun not to comment on.

They are not poems written by “us” but poems written about “us.” As if they exist on their own, in their own reality–and perhaps all good poetry does this?

And do “we” really exist? What is it that happens when two individuals collide on some random Tuesday afternoon? How do they manage to break through the inevitable small talk and reach a deeper understanding of each other? It’s all so random, but like a virtuous circle it feeds on itself until one of them takes the ultimate risk and says, “I love you.” And then that love is reciprocated.

Perhaps somewhere in the vastness of existence, the dual reflections of these two people reflect off a mirror and then by chance their visages carom into some alternate reality where a poem writes itself.

Where can I find this cosmic archive of doppelganger poetry? Who’s the publisher? More importantly, who’s the editor?

Found poetry on a bathroom wall:

“I wanted only to try and live in accord with the promptings

which came from my true self.

Why was that so difficult?”

Because Jesus hates you!

Here.

Fucking manuscript.

And damn Mannion’s eyes for calling me out.

It languishes, the manuscript, orphaned in the corner. It’s gaze is all glowering guilt. I haven’t written a word in two months. Too much has happened. Too much good, too many surprises. Staring down at the pile of printed paper I see blue and red ink stains, editorial recisions, suggestions and I think how far I’ve come from this time last year.

And that was after all the cute tweets about my zombie-filled dreams (there must be a message in this metaphor) I composed to waste time, or the Facebook updates, like this one: “Sean Paul advises against taking Frost’s Road Less Traveled this morning. Usually it’s quite nice, flower-lined and empty, but right now it’s full of petite bourgeois with fanny-packs and guidebooks.” Chuckle, chuckle. And yes, sometimes I write about myself in the third person. Sue me.

Damn Mannion and his “impulse of psycho-spiritual atavism.”

And damn Mannion, most of all, for reminding me that I need to write. And it’s a compelling need, forceful, and, well, damning.

But the white screen of death is too fucking daunting today. And the memories too painful, painful remembering and reliving that frightfully lonely spring in Istanbul and the equally frightfully beautiful light and the view across the Golden Horn. It wasn’t all bad. As a matter of fact, it was easy. And amazing. Glorious. The right place at the right time. And yet Mannion reminds me of all the B-52 carpet bombs of anger and anti-personnel guilt-mine emails slung back and forth between my father and I that spring. And the simple anguish of just being alone, the powerful hunger for a woman’s caress, a knowing smile, the smell of long hair, the electric touch of fingers joined together in silence, eyes lit up by the moon and cheeks rosy on the wind. Damn Mannion for forcing me to write such loathsome purple prose, and for reminding me of all of that and how it needs to be written down, remembered, acknowledged and owned.

In moments like this I fear the book will never be complete, that the re-write will remain nothing but potential, all glowering guilt.

Damn Mannion for dragooning me out of my comfortable complacency, as well. Too much easy living and not enough reflection.

And like Mannion this morning it’s raining and I’ve nothing better to do than surf the web, waste time, watching a thousand little gloaming droplets of rain occlude the sun and reduce my mood to little more sniveling gibberish.

Alas, I’m grateful to Mannion for providing some inspiration. At least I wrote this.

Another Casualty

cat got run over
now silver screw holding together a broken
femur
right leg
bound in bright red
bandage

got cat home from vet’s
took my eye off
him for
a moment

he ran across floor
dragging his red
leg
chasing the female
cat

worst thing the
fucker could
do

he’s in the penalty
box
now
sweating it
out

he’s just like the
rest of
us

he has these large
yellow eyes
staring

only wanting to
live the
good
life.

~by Charles Bukowski

Sean Paul walks into the ring, headgear is on, gloves laced up tight. He wobbles his head left to right fantasizing he is Muhammed Ali. Before he puts his mouth piece in, tells Barton, “no head shots, alright?”

Barton–also known as Cauliflower Ears–smiles. “Okay.”

Barton circles around Sean Paul. They’ve known each other since high school and have been sparring partners for almost as long.

Barton’s got, not so much a Chesire grin, as leonine, cheetah-like. He comes in from the right. Launches a jab. Then a combination. Sean Paul fights them both off. He backs away. They circle each other. It hasn’t been thirty seconds in the ring and already Sean Paul is panting. For the first time in many years he cannot deny his age. Not so much old, as slower.

“Man,” he tells Barton,” I’m outta shape and boxing is hard work.”

“Wimp. I do this three times a week,” he says.

“Probably why you are brain damaged,” says Sean Paul.

“At least I’m not a heavyweight like your fat ass. I’m still Welter, bitch!”

Barton sneaks in a jab from the left, lands in Sean Paul’s ribs. He staggers back into the ropes. Shakes his head and moves into the center of the ring. Barton and Sean Paul dance some more. The bell sounds. Round one is over.

Sean Paul sighs in relief, as he trudges back into his corner. Sips some water. The bell rings. Round two begins.

Sean Paul sees an opening. Goes in for a right hook and lands a good one in Barton’s ribs. Barton winces as Sean Paul closes in for a better shot.

From the corner of his eye sees Barton’s devastating left hook land right on his face.

Time stops.

Sean Paul hits the mat.

“Damnit Barton,” he says on one knee, wiping the blood from his lip. “I said no head shots!”

“It was just one. Why you so twisted up about a head shot? You’re usually the aggressive one.”

“Because I have a hot date tonight!”

“Haha,” says Barton a touch of guilt in his eyes. “You’re screwed now.”

It was my first full day in Africa. I’d arrived the day before from Dubai, via Amsterdam, New York and Houston. The air in Addis Ababa was dry and the horizon leaped out in all directions forever: a dome of blue collapsing atop warm orange grasses. I was unprepared for the beauty of the Great Rift Valley.

I found a driver by noon and was on the road north by one thirty. We crawled north on the main highway–naught but a graded dirt road–through a low range of mountains passing women carrying impossible loads of wood on their backs. We went up into conifers and came down into fields of tef. Gold, green, ashen rocks, blue skies and high darting clouds. Baboons scurried across the road while the harvesters piled tef stalks into bee-hive mounds.

Two hours out of Addis we came upon this scene. North of us was a low ridge of hills, behind nothing but tef fields as far as the eye could see.

I jumped out of the car and started snapping shots. I must have taken twenty or thirty of this scene alone, from different angles, up close, far away. The light was brilliant and as I think back on my time in Ethiopia, although it wasn’t the happiest period of my life, the light, a high arcing angularity, was everywhere. Goats kicked up dust. The young shepherd twirled his staff like boys the world over, carefree in the cool elevated air of Amharaland. His whistle broke the soft silence of the bleeting goats. I thanked him and jumped back into the car. Tomas and I drove off towards Lake Tana–the true source of the Nile–secure in the knowledge that  that the morrow would be brilliant. Had I but known how right I would be.