Contingency plan

Nothing reveals man the way war does.
-- Oriana Fallaci, journalist (1929-2006)

Having never lived a war, I can't test the writer's theory: war, the ultimate revealer.

I have seen people die, in ERs, in hospital rooms, at home. Tragedy in peacetime -- mourners flee the scene into a grueling sameness fed by ghosts of plenty.

I hope Fallaci's theory is ultimately proved wrong, that war becomes a phantom in our nomenclature, that depictions of war's grit and grandeur fade from gray to black. That humans turn to art and thought and openness to paradox to crystalize their deepest doubts and dreams. That sorrow need not marry pointlessness to give its shadow to the shape of life.

I wonder this: once art and culture rise to their revealer role, do war and war's accomplices reluctantly stand down?

Heartland security

On the corner of Fairmount and Green there used to stand my heart. I didn't want to see the twisted branches laced into a heart against the winter sky -- cliché abandoned me when I became an artist, or so I claimed. But when I waited for the light to change a million times I failed to not look up and see, unerringly, that kindred shape against the gray.

With summertime I took my heart on faith. A flush of green obscured the tree's design but I drove by unworried.

One day, my heart, my faith, was whisked away. The tree was gone, a mound of dirt remaining. Great wells of nothing gaped at me like traffic lights that yammered in the wind.

What was the point, this massacre? Who had stolen virtue from the womb? From whence betrayal this obscene?

Time that followed brought its erie changes. Shiny stanchions black as oil erected overnight began their vadaresque intrusions. Metal beams shot out across the roadway. Lights were hung that dwarfed the feeble fixtures they replaced.

I find myself imagining a stuffy room of conscience bound officials taking stock of dangers on their turf, calling in the experts -- upgrades recommended, moneys allocated, papers signed and notarized, security assured. Civic leaders meet the starry night with conscience clean, virtue spent and not a thought for what they lay to waste.

I drive along from time to time beneath the deadly safety.

I mourn the photograph I didn't take.

Aboriginal enactment

Wake
take a pee
sleep
wishing day break speedy.

Walk the ancient hallways
European old New Orleans.
Kids in smudgy faces
wound with grins
politely let you pass.

You need the door
but doors are blocked or locked
or leading down to rail-less stairs
you ask the office workers
and the dean of hope
the pale clerk in rimmed glasses
people nudge you
one by one.

Women speak from beards and heavy braids.
Their skin is earth.
They parley Boston and New Amsterdam
the street is only motion
yeast arising
termites hatching
rubies boiling
workers oozing royal jelly
to their future queen.

You find your music store
pour it in glass bottles
which you leave behind.

Language in a vacuum.

Sontag

Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
-- Susan Sontag