Friday, February 23, 2018

The Seeds



Their youthful tears are watering
the seeds of revolution.
A culture revolution
based a classic ideal.

“Justice and Equality for all.”

A simple concept. Overly rationalized
through the two American Centuries,
and then some.  It is a beautiful idea,
oft ignored when incompatible with money.

I’ve felt those hot tears of youth
streaming down my own face when
the injustice and inequality of the world
seems overwhelming.

I’ve felt that stinging stagnation of
a culture benumbed into mediocrity
through familiarity. It’s just the same old
same old and there’s nothing to be done.

It seems however, we were wrong, and
youthful tears may be the salve or even
the venom to cure or infect the malaise
that has permeated this obese American morality.

There is no Justice, but equal justice.
There is no Equality, but just equality.
This idea is so clear in their young faces,
that the unfairness of the world is not to be accepted.

It is only unfair because we allow it to be by
choosing who is equal and who gets justice,
who has the authority and who doesn’t.
We are the makers and unmakers of fairness.

 I see my reflection in their flowing tears,
and I feel my own soul weeping, yet I hope
that those tears are not shed in vain and the
tears flood the fields of helplessness.

That the seeds there are nurtured and burst
forth in plenty, clear in their bounty,
ready to nourish a country, a body, a mind,
fighting for the most simple of concepts.

“Justice and Equality for All.”

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

At the Love-In



Perhaps the Love-In movement
was right. Maybe all you do need
is love…, love…, love.

Our World, wacky with the
piercing fangs of intolerance,
hate, mistrust, suspicions, anger,
rage-ahol, and general dislike
for that guy on the bus that smells
like he shit in his hat, might need
a little more love.

I like love. I like being in love.
I like being loved. You might say
that I love being loved.
It’s lovely. It’s lucky.
It’s not easy.

When it’s so easy to be angry,
to hate and fail to recognize
another human being for what they
are, is when we must remember to love.

It’s not implicit that we just forget
those that have transgressed against us and
failed to find their own love for us.
There are always evil people who do
not know what love is and are incapable
of expressing it. They cause pain and suffering
as an expression of their own pain and suffering
without love.

Those that forget their love, how to love,
what love is supposed to be, should be
pitied. We mourn for the loves we lost but
take comfort in the love they may have
found in the unknown.

Love is persistent, resilient and of
tougher stuff that we know.  It has
carried us to the heights of wonder,
the depths of depravity, and the
suburbs of pretty okay for
 a Wednesday.

The more we let love into our
hearts, the love of our collective
humanity; regardless of creed, color,
religion or odor, the better chance
we have to succeed as a whole.

Undivided.
Clothed in the loving warmth of the human
heart as expressed by, to and for each other.
The Love-In.  

Friday, February 9, 2018

History in Vegas

A late evening in Las Vegas,
post work seminar and I
needed a drink. A drink
away from the slot machines,
cheering, shouting crowds, and
the general riff-raff.

A drink of fine scotch was in
order, something to round out
the sharp edges of stress, anxiety
and my mild distaste for travel
away from my beloved Chicago.

I sat at the sports book bar where
the scene was thin of gamblers and
the pedestrian traffic. There was the
usual grizzled woman, still dressed as if
she was in her 20’s but was likely in
her mid-seventies, the two bros trying
to figure out how to hit it big and the
other lonely business guys.

I found an isolated bar stool with a view
of the casino floor and the other late night
denizens of America’s sin trip. I ordered
my drink and sat finally feeling closer to
myself.

A beautiful prostitute sat down across the
bar top from me. I knew she was a prostitute
because, well, I’ve been around and I know one
when I see one. She looked at me with a mild
come-hither-to glance, to which I calmly shook
my head in the negative, but I did smile in an
oddly flattered way.

She understood and set her sights on the
a thin, balding, middle aged man, who was
eager to acknowledge her intentions. He moved
his seat closer to hers without much encouragement
and she began to play and flirt her way into his
wallet.  I chuckled and took another sip of my
last Las Vegas night scotch.

As I did, another young, lovely
prostitute slid her way onto a bar stool,
to my right hand side. She had dark hair,
full outlined lips, eyes made up smoky and
cat-like, her top was loose and the shoulder
straps easily slid off in a way to fire the
imagination.

I did not make any eye contact with her
at the time. I figured I would finish
my drink, consider another, and likely head
off to my room as alone as I had arrived.
But I saw this new young woman do something
that struck me as odd.

She took a very deep breath and moved her
arms across her body in a yoga type mediation
movement. I don’t know what the maneuver was
called but she was elegant and graceful in the
movement. She caught me spying on her.

I smiled and commented, “Were you just doing
a little meditation at the bar?”
She smiled at me and laughed while she nodded.
She got up from her seat and moved to the bar
stool next to mine.  I did not expect this but I
did not stop her from joining me.

She gave me a fake name, I gave her my real
one. She asked what I was doing in Vegas,
I told her the truth about work. I asked her
why she was there, but she didn’t answer in
a real way. She asked where I was from
and I told her about Chicago.

She said she was from Dallas originally,
I said I had been there several years ago
for the anniversary of the assassination of
J.F.K.
“Who”, she asked.
“John F. Kennedy. President John F. Kennedy,” I said.
She looked at me, blankly, behind beautiful blue eyes.
I said, “You never heard of J.F.K., our President who
was assassinated in Dallas in 1963?”
She said she had not.
So, as is my nature, I gave her a history lesson.

She listened to me, seemingly absorbing the
information I was imparting to her. That’s the thing
about beautiful prostitutes, it’s hard to tell when
they are listening or just pretending to move toward
the business end of their profession. But I believed she
was listening.

As I droned on and on about the historical significance
and how American was fundamentally changed on that
day I got the sense that perhaps my history lesson was
ill timed, that a sports book bar was not the best place
for a teachable moment. So I stopped my lecture and
asked her if she was doing okay.  She teased me a little
and said she was doing very well and happy to have met me.

Having confirmed her pleasant mood I delivered her more
truth. “I’m going to ruin your night then,” I said.
“You’re more than welcome to ruin my night,” she flirted.
She licked her lips and fluttered her eye lashes at me.  A
seductive smile growing across her lovely mouth.
“Okay. Nice to talk to you, goodnight,” I said and got up
from my bar stool.

She stood up. Realizing that we would not be leaving
together and I was not the profitable event she had
hoped. She walked away in her amazingly tight pants in
a huff. I snickered to myself, still feeling that last
happy sip of scotch on my lips.

I went up to my Vegas hotel room wondering about
all the what ifs and the glad I didn’ts, and if I
should one day come back to Las Vegas and open a
school for prostitutes to teach them a little more
about history.