Another Moment on the Soapbox

 

                Hey, would you lend me your soapbox for a moment? Thanks.

 

I just read an article that made my blood curdle and my eyes tear up. A Virginia schoolboard voted to restore Confederate names to two schools. The schools had been previously named after Confederate Gens. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby. They were changed four years ago in what I feel was an appropriate vote to remove the vestiges of the Old South and the history of racism and segregation. 

                Now they have voted to change Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School back to their former Confederate names. Because it’s 2024 and the history of the South should not be forgotten, apparently. Proponents of the plan to restore the names stated, “I ask that when you cast your vote, you remember that Stonewall Jackson and others fighting on the side of the Confederacy in this area were intent on protecting the land, the buildings and the lives of those under attack,” said a woman urging the board to restore the Confederate names. “Preservation is the focus of those wishing to restore the names.”  And “that revisiting this decision is essential to honor our community’s heritage and respect the wishes of the majority.” 

                Which is the stupidest pile of crap I have ever heard. The Confederacy lost the war. They were traitors to the Republic and Democracy. Losers don’t get buildings named after them. They belong in the history books as the losers of the war and that is it. There was no honor in their cause. It was to keep slavery as an American institution. Which is an absolute moral wrong. Without question. The bondage of humans by other humans is abhorrent and vile and we should not honor those that wanted to sustain that institution. 

                The Lost Cause narrative espoused by the Daughters of the Confederacy in the early 20^th Century is absolute nonsense and any “honorarium” for traitors should be resoundingly rejected. The romanticism of the Civil War by Southern revisionists should be absolutely rejected.  It was wrong then and it is wrong in the 21^st Century. 

                Yet, I’m not surprised by this disgusting move by the “majority” in Virginia. It fits part and parcel with the current wave of nostalgia politics. This strange yearning to go backwards in time to remove women’s rights, return to segregation, expel those different than White Christians and basically a want for days when white men could do whatever they wanted with impunity. It’s a baffling trend in this country and frankly if you believe any of those things are good, then quite frankly, you’re an asshole who should be shunned and set adrift on an iceberg. While on fire. 

                The worst kind of asshole too, pockmarked, and oozing smelly puss, while smeared with diarrhea.  The worst of the worst of the very and absolute worst. That Grinch song, it’s about you. I’d rather you just curled up into a festering pile of dog shit and fucked right off. Because if you think you’re better than anyone, or think the Country was better in the 1950’s, or your rights as an American supersede the rights of other human beings, then you can just go to hell.   

                I’m really exhausted by these assholes and their “All for me and none for thee”, attitudes. I can’t contain my absolute disdain for them. I can no longer try to see the other side of the conversation. Any side that actively advocates for the Lost Cause, White Christian Nationalism, the politics of division, or that sews hatred, bigotry, and nostalgic whimpering for the “good old days” can just go fuck themselves. I won’t waste any more time on them. 

                Okay, here’s your soapbox back. Thank you for letting me borrow it.

 

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/09/us/shenandoah-county-confederate-school-names-reaj/index.html

 

                 

Nearsighted

 

I have been near-sighted

my entire life.

For the earliest parts

of my life though, it wasn’t

readily apparent that I needed

glasses.

So I squinted my eyes and contorted

my face in squished up circles

to try and see what was in front of me.

 

This contortionist type way of seeing

the World; a blurry, fuzzy sort of

amorphous shaped place;

gave me a certain perspective.

I either had to be hyper focused on what

I was trying to see, or I would nearly

completely ignore it since I couldn’t see it.

 

Sometimes I could just make out

what it was I was supposed to be seeing,

other times, when the squint was failing,

I just had to give up and let it be whatever it

was without ever knowing for sure what

I saw.

 

I can only see to my knees

when I look down.

My feet are a little blurry.

I can almost see to the ends of

my fingers, but have to adjust it

in and out to see it clearly.

Yet, it didn’t bother me really.

 

I just let the World out of my field of

vision be the World that it was, without

my bearing witness to it.

There was something about it that became

philosophical, that I could only control

what I could see, and what I couldn’t see

was simply out of my control.

 

With my eyeglasses on,

I see too much.

Too much I don’t like.

Too much that causes pain.

Too much definition in the blurry,

gray areas, that never bothered me before.

In the blurry World,

there’s a blissful ignorance;

a sort of dumbed-down, muted,

fuzzy edged beauty to things,

that when brought into focus

seem to lose their unfocused luster.

 

But once you see the World,

and all its hard blemishes, scars,

and sharp edges,

you can’t

unsee

it.

 

 

 

Another Turn in the Ring

 

Another tussle with

the words I want to

use to convey my thoughts

onto this wretched blank

page; this canvas of

pugilistic wordplay.  

 

Do I say fear?

Or Terror?

Do I devote myself to complete honesty here?

Or do I withhold some shred of truth?

Do I say I am sad?

Or Disappointed?

 

It’s a bare-knuckle brawl

on the tarps,

blood spraying from busted

lips and open cuts around the eyes,

as the crowd yawns.

 

A Left,

No! A Right!

Another Right!

A Left hand lead!

But the shadow on the wall,

still steady on its feet.

My feet?

 

Provocative or alluring?

Sexy or erotic?

Complacent or resigned?

Domestic or Imported?

Reeling around the ring,

in pointless pitched punches.

 

I want to express how

worried I am, with…things…

the world…

the politics…

but the boxer in me,

just wants to brawl endlessly

with the right words.

 

Because I don’t know

what to say,

and I don’t know how

to say it.

 

 

 

 

 

The Ruthless Country

 

The ruthless country,

where nothing seems to grow

but disillusionment and

a lingering mélange of tragedies,

where good ideas find no

fertile soil, and bad ideas

blight the dirt.

 

A pitch-dark patch

of corrupted mud,

mixed with treasonous bones

and phony martyrs blood,

topsoil for lies,

and mulched with grease.

 

Nothing grows in the ruthless country,

barren wastes, pot marked with

foxholes and rusting barbed wire,

lonely winds swirl, stirring the

shadowy soil into clouds of

conspiracy.

 

The rot of the ruthless country.

A moldy odor, fogging the senses,

blinding the eyes with the stench,

burning the nostrils, and clogging

the ears, wretched and wafting

decomposition.

 

The ruthless country,

has no patriots,

no memorials to false prophets,

no valued treasures of a lauded

history,

only dirt and dust,

muddied, sullied,

and ungiving.   

 

The Ruthless Country,

begging for the soil to be turned,

the muck re-mired;

but redemption cannot be

grown there,

it’s ruthless.

 

 

Sláinte!

 

An Irish Toast,

that I’ve made up today,

for the festivities and

merriment intended to

paint the town Green

from stem to stern,

from port to aft.  

 

An Irish Toast,

said with a smirk,

a wink and a hearty

laugh, that nothing is

serious, except what’s funny.

And anything funny, is

anything we think it is.

 

An Irish Toast,

for those in Heaven,

we can’t raise a glass with;

for those in Hell,

we’ll see you soon,

and for those in limbo,

please pay the tab.

 

An Irish Toast,

for my non-Irish friends,

though you may be few,

you are a lot,

for my Irish friends,

you’re family, for shame.

 

An Irish Toast,

for kisses we get from

our sweethearts,

or our wives and pray

they never meet.

A toast to Love in

all it’s forms.

 

An Irish Toast,

for spillers of drinks,

and those with steady hands

who never spill a drop,

be keen and careful of each other,

for while the drinks may be mixed,

you should not.

 

 An Irish Toast,

for Irish folks,

named Vlad or Sven,

Sangeetha or Miranda,

Jose or Reginold,

Maggie or Indira.

 

An Irish Toast,

from one human heart

to another,

wishing you the kindness

and blessings, good cheer

and love you deserve.

Or at least the one you can afford.

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

Sláinte! 

Rise

 

Above the rabble,

we should rise;

beyond lowly dubious

discourse or disingenuous

diatribes, and

elevate to honorable

heights.

 

We should rise away from

the screaming throngs

demanding their idiotic

voices be heard, because

they are comfortable yelling

with their own, and too deaf

from their own shouting crowd to hear

anything but their own screaming.

 

Rise, towards lofty dreams,

and worthy goals,

together, an esprit de corps of

humanity, bonded by our desires

to be better, kinder, empathetic,

and less divisive.

 

The fires of Hell are hot

enough without the burning

contempt, hatred, mistrust

and denial of the truth or facts;

espoused so often and so rudely,

by fork tongued charlatans,

fanning the fires beneath our very feet.

 

I do not want to burn my feet,

I want to rise above the very,

burning coals of hate and

flames of lies, and cool off

in clouds of optimism and

truth.

 

Basking in the cool stillness and peace,

only found in those souls who recognize

our collective humanness, above

any ideology or religion, and choose

to rise with it on thermals of good.

Above the Rabble and their rabbling.

                                                     

                                                Painting Credit:

https://www.masterworksfineart.com/artists/rene-magritte/lithograph/golconde-golconda-1953-series-3/id/w-2861

A Little Bit of a Rant

 

There’s a long list of things I’ve been meaning to write about, but time is a cruel task master, and she’s been whipping me into the mundane tedium of “life as normal” with devious intent. 

Not that I mind normalcy,  the regular everyday-ness of life; it’s not too bad most of the while. But there are times when the madness scales the walls of mediocrity and must stand on the corner in ragged

robes, proselytizing about the terrors of a normal life.   

Let me just fix my tattered robes and get on my soapbox, which is cardboard now, and is smushed under my weight, so forget that.  I’ll just do this on the sidewalk in front of the old paint store. 

I’ll just come right out and say it; we are facing an existential crisis to Democracy in the US and abroad, and action must be taken to defeat fascists, dictators, autocrats, and anyone who thinks Putin is a swell guy.  He’s not. He’s a despot bent on dominating the West in an antiquated view of Imperialism and, frankly, I don’t know what his ultimate goals are. It’s a mystery to me why in the modern age any country would make a land grab. I think men in power miss World Wars sometimes and want to etch their names into some immortal history at the bottom of a forgotten landmark in some empty field. 

Donald Trump is a narcissist ass-munch who is a direct threat to the actual American way of life. Do not vote for this circus of a human being. He is the epitome of everything wrong with the US. He only cares about himself and not the American people. He craves power and nothing more. He is driven by his own lust for authority, or maybe his Dad didn’t hug him enough, I don’t know. But I do know that his serious overtones of self-congratulation, impossible thinking, and clear misunderstanding of the fundamentals of the American Republic makes me think he’ll want construction to start on a Death Star next. You know, with Space Force.  

A true man of the people puts the people first, he does what he can to help raise people up, facilitate progress, and generally help the Country achieve the lofty goals of a Republic;  not divide and insult whole groups of citizens through the worst insensitive foulness I’ve ever heard.  Politics is a nasty business, but those individuals that sacrifice their personal ambitions for the ambitions of a unified citizenry will almost always get my vote. As a representative of the people you must forego your personal beliefs about religion, social order, religion again, mostly religion, and do what is best for the people, rather than for just your base. I don’t care if you don’t like unwed teenage mothers, you should still do everything you can to help them get the assistance they need to be fruitful members of our society.  

It really sickens me at times, the state of my Country and I’m sadly terrified of the future. I was once extremely optimistic about what was to come; now I don’t even want to leave the house for fear of some gun-toting racist idiot will start shooting up the 7-11 because they’re filled with hate over some abstract belief about something they don’t understand or care to try and understand. Because Conservative news outlets told them so-an-so was evil or cultivated their hatred into action by not condemning the actions of those in power who say or act in ways unbecoming of a tolerant and progressive society.  

There are problems in this Country, I’m not so naive to think everything is wonderful. I know we have serious economic, educational, and social issues to address, but I’d rather have an elected official working towards finding reasonable and rational solutions with any eye towards progress, rather than trying to drag the country back to 1958. It is not normal to want to go backwards to a “simpler time”. It was not simple. It was not easier. It was not a Golden Age. Looking at history through Rose-colored glasses only make you blind, not wistful. 

I am baffled by the assault on women’s rights. That somehow women, again, cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about the reproduction of our species.  I was raised to see women as equals without condescension or recriminations. So I can’t understand this right leaning stance that women cannot be trusted, and States need to enact legislation to “help” women make decisions about their own reproductive rights. The end of Roe V. Wade by this Supreme Court made me sick, and it shows the cowardice of Conservative ideology. To let people have any control over their own lives is akin to blasphemy as far as Conservatives believe and I find that reprehensible. 

I am a firm believer in the Separation of Church and State. I believe religion has no place in the halls of power. Any religion whatsoever. So I’m disturbed when individuals in power use it as crutch to justify legislative strategy. The King of England, King George, was allegedly placed in power by God and we had a whole rebellion against him and in the aftermath, we made damn sure that no elected official could ever claim that they had been appointed by God and were therefore “infallible”. God is not a politician. God or Gods are an abstract concept to explain the things we do not understand. 

I will fight for a man's rights, but not his God. 

This street corner is getting chilly, and my robes are fluttering in this strange winter/spring breeze. So I will step off my smushed soapbox for now. I feel better getting a lot of that off my chest. I hope my ranting and raving can help expose the warnings of complacency in these “normal” times. We have to continue to fight for the true freedoms we have, for the rights of the marginalized, oppressed and forgotten. We have to embrace each other with kindness, humility, and patience, since none of us are getting out of this normal life alive. 

Tune next time when I might go pack to writing a poem about, I don’t know…, cats maybe.