an Obscure quote

what does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not?  all the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care.  that excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.

- Thomas Hardy

(in "Jude the Obscure")

homecoming

Alfonso and i are ened to note the homecoming of citizen informant Daniel Hale

("treasonous" "enemy" of domination's state) whose crimes include pointing out that,

for example, during a five-month period of "Operation Haymaker" (an acutely

contemptuous entitling within the brutal unprovoked invasion of Afghanistan)

nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were NOT the intended targets.

welcome home, brave Daniel,

(champion of illumining compassion);

thank you for so courageously
placing your bit of our
universal soul

directly in the
line of ire's

honesty punishing fire

in order to selflessly
(soulfully) tap into

the mockery of democracy's
relentless
and
resolute

mislaying of humanity.

freedom of choice amidst the hands of oppressors

for even as he took those
irretrievable steps,
Aaron went and said,

'i’m about to engage
in an extreme act of protest,
but compared to what people
have been experiencing in Palestine
at the hands of their colonizers,

it’s not extreme at all.'

*

and of course he was right,
here in the colonial collective west's
moribund reflectionless extremity,

it's not so extreme after all.

not when compared with,
say,

having one's cells blown apart,

suffocating under collapsed buildings,

undergoing surgeries and amputations without anesthesia,

starving to death,

watching loved ones die at the hands of pitiless colonizers,

all normalized now
by
a fabulous wealth hoarding
domination lording

memory hole fueled
socially tooled
staged dueling
cruelty grueling

conformity saddled
piracy addled
intelligence embattled

election immune ruling class.

*

rest in peace,
brave
and
fully conscious Aaron,

forever in my
tattered heart's

open ended lease.

be still my tattered heart...

what's that, Alfonso?
you've gleaned a song from Sting?

our written history is a catalogue of crime;
the sordid and the powerful, the architects of "mine;"

the cult of domination, oppression of the mild;

independence made illegal
on auld lang syne's stolen dime;

the psychopaths' fear of letting "others" fight back

(the "protection" racket's docket)
always plugged in freedom's socket,
stocked in the rockets

democracy's mockery
spilling from it's pockets...

might "siding" right(s)

conforming their porn
and
circling the wagons...

a nurtured loss of memory;
rogue aggression as its child.

be still my brittle heart
'twould be better to let it cool;

it's too fragile to be so open, and yet
misery spurned is hard to forget...


it can't be healthy, this horrid pace
blood running red
from that single human race;

slip from the sill
my shattering heart,
we must learn to stand our common ground...

(when honesty died in Julian's cell,
did it make a sound?)


though i've been to every sage i know
can't water the drought that plagues us so...


i sink like a stone that's been thrown in an ocean
where connections are drowned
along with shared emotion;


don't stop until theirs'
finally start...

keep up that beat, my spattering heart

disorder of the day

and as Alfonso and i add

another blanket to our sleep chair,

there they are,

having lost their belongings

as they fled falling shrapnel

collapsing cherished roofs

to the very edge

of

their abducted open air prison,

occupied by "freedom & democracy"

(for us but not for you™);

shivering in wind wrapped tents,

listening for the revving

of approaching death,

looming in the "rules based" hoarders'

ordering of sky.

the night terror's error

so there we were, seeping sleep,

and rat-a-tat-tat-a-tat-tat

entered fiercely therein,

and it came to me i ought

to rouse myself,

for mayhaps mass murder

was taking place across the street.

moments later

it

finally waded in.

'twas naught but the

coordinated sifting

of

profit ridden rigging's

vigorous churning

of

fictional "years,"

when people cheer

the convened convenience

of closing compartmental doors

on what they've seen and done,

and pretend to enter another,

differently (indifferent)

narratively cordoned

(reflection ill afforded)

"good luck" ordered

(delusion blithely bordered) "happy new year."

and sighing sweet

(in the deeps replete)

the earth swivelled

on around

to fleetly face the sun

(on yet another imaginary

minutely measured "side")

the umpteen quadrillionth time.

and tickled by the two-leggeds'

unconvincing efforts

at reassuring tomfoolery,

Alfonso drifted back

to

seemless unseaming

and

ineffable

timeless dreaming's placeless keep.

*

- Evan Hawthorn

(on an innocent date that asked to remain nameless)

arrogant yet anodyne, 🦅

Biden's blindered auld lang syne...

🥀

in the sights of genocide,

"hungry children wait in line." 🌿