BARELY MAKING SENSE OF ANY OF IT – based on an idea suggested by Chase Pomerich A MEDITATION RECALING THE STORY OF JOB INTERWOVEN WITH THE BEATITUDES

Some people go through life, cursed, as children, from birth,
With loving, supportive financially comfortable families,
Safe secure households, neighborhoods, and communities,
Wonderful and like-minded family friends who
watch out for these cursed children
And know what limits have been set on them
And promptly act when those boundaries are crossed,
Whether or not crossed intentionally or
crossed accidentally,
And furthermore, they will report these
trespasses to the judge, jury, and executioner
(In most families, these responsibilities are
delegated to and hats worn by mother).

Why cursed at first? Because ultimately, LIFE intervenes,
Circumstances are turned topsy-turvy, and
What was once comfortable and familiar, is ripped away,
As if torn from bone like flesh being devoured
by jackals, hyenas, and zombies.
And, for all appearances, lost and gone forever,
Despite the honorable, dedicated intentions of
father, mother, aunts, uncles,
grand parents, cherished friends, fellow congregants,
business associates, etc, etc, etc.

Loss of employment

the loss of a job – even the loss of a career
(The computer revolution has obsoleted entire industries,
(and those employed therein; These jobs are not returning, ever;
(One must learn to reinvent one's self, perhaps
(Many times, and perhaps at ever shorter intervals of times in between).

Loss of loved ones
Death (suicide being the most brutal form
(to those accursed and left living thereof,
(Something, sadly, was wrong all the long
(We just never saw it coming, until the beloved one is
(Now too far and too long gone to be healed, much less revived.
(Suicide is the second leading cause of death
(of our accursed children, aged 15-24).

(Could it be that being born into what for all appearances
(is a very healthy and Nurturing environment,
(could it be the accursed children are not subsequently prepared to
(Cope with these simple truths: That much of life is about loss –
(That much of life is about failure, and that our bond
(to all of humanity, now, and in All times and at all places
(is that the singular commonality of our experiences is
(Woven together with our losses, and bundled up
(with our failures, and neither loss nor
(Failure is worth the taking of one's own life. We stumble, we fall,
(All of us stumble and fall – We are expected, compelled to,
(and demanded by the Universe to ARISE and CRAWL
(so that we might once again WALK and then RUN;
(So that ultimately we might once again FLY,
(sailing among the heavens, angel-like grace.)

Loss of good health

(Disease knows no socio-economic barriers
(as the revelers in Edgar All Poe's The Mask of Red Death
(would discover: No racial divides, no gender Differentiations.
(The cursed children of doctors too, and maybe even especially,
(Fall victim to the willful, wanton, in plain sight
(secret poisoning of our mother earth
(And their own childrens' weakened immunological systems.
(Cancer the indiscriminate killer; the ultimate
(Eegalitarian Strike Force of Death.
(The addicts' poisons of choice – alcohol, heroin,
coke or a myriad of others, alone, but mostly in combination,
(especially with alcohol, the great mixer.
(Accidents too, frequently random,
(SOMETIMES (and tragically, utterly Foreseeable,
(but – too late. The AIDS virus took so many unaware,
(back in the day when THE VIRUS was but a rumor printed
(about and hinted at solely in the underground gay undergroun press.
(Who could have foreseen that an infected blood transfusion
(Administered to save a life Would ultimately take that life,
(Especially when the potential devastation of the disease
(was assuredly NOT a secret And such consequences
(utterly predictable to the health care communities
(That administered their healing efforts to gay men
(and to intravenous drug users;
(“What? Ask Prez Reagan to worry about those
(damn junkie homos? Fat chance.”)

Loss of innocence
About one of every six women in America has been
the victim of a rape of attempted rape.

Loss of faith in flag and country:
In WWII – troops with head or spinal injuries usually
died on the battlefield.
In Veit Nam – they usually died by the time
they could be flown to Germany.
In Iraq (and Afghanistan, and the other Bannanastans,
most of the brain and spinal injured
can be flown to Germany for medical treatment
and these lives are saved.
BUT, those troops who suffer from such combat injuries,
the parapeliegacs, quadrapeliegacs, and brain-damaged,
the lives of these troops will never be the same.
Their physical lives have been saved, but they now
must make major adjustments
to have anything resembling a “normal” life.

Once upon a time, loved ones prayed that their soldier
might return alive;
Now they pray that their beloved soldier returns alive,
and not have been afflicted by brain or spinal injuries.
They pray too that their beloved soldier will not
become headline news for her torturing of prisoners,
children, women too, That their soldier will not feel
compelled out of a sense of hatred of “the other”
To rape the 14-year old daughter of an Iraqi family,
and then murder hef and heretofore Family,
and then burn their home down in order to
avoid detection, and punishment.

The LOSS OF the sacred, secure, SAFE HOME – father's castle -
the loss of community standing,
The total loss of self-esteem.

The outright theft of assets by trusted financial advisers,
The sudden and (apparently) inexplicable madness
that descends and lingers.
Alzheimer's and dementia too, such are these,
as if the fates had patiently waited,
all the while targeting these cursed children.

At least SOME of these tragic events will ultimately befall
each and everyone of us, And so, cursed are they as children
who are doomed to live for years Understanding only at
the level of intellect, LOSS as grave,
LOSS as tragic, LOSS as unbearable,
as these heretofore already mentioned –
(having mentioned only a few, the numbers are legion) -
Noting only the absence of the presence
of former peers, beloved friends,
who, because of circumstances
Beyond their control, are forced to disperse,
Forced to seek out the poorer quarters
where the ragged people go
And look for the places only the ragged people know.

And yet, Devin, through all these losses
which you have endured
You remained faithful to the one to whom
you made your wedding vows to love, honor, cherish and obey
TILL DEATH YOU DO PART.
For twenty-five years, foregoing your own blossoming career,
BECAUSE You believed in him (far more than he in himself)
to be able to support your family
` All the while so dimly and vaguely aware
that he had begun the soul-stealing

Dance with Thantos before you ever knew him;
that depression and alcoholism
Cast lots for his soul, always ending in no decision,
because who can answer that question:
“Which came first, the addiction or the depression?”
And Thantos spun him every more rapidly, until the room rolled
And he had lost all control, and his soul was up for grabs
(But even in this, he was still a beloved child or God, AND
(You all the long saw all the good in him; all the potential).
And you never cursed your God, nor the fates, nor asked, even,
The most likely question of all: “Why me, Lord?”
THAT, was never about you. That lost cause
had been writ in stone LONG before
the two of you ever knew, that perhaps,
from your union, great things would come
(As indeed, great things have come –
withness Chase; withness Reed; witness you).

And while some would develop, as a means of self defense,
A steel-hard shell around their heart,
a cast iron cage around their soul,
a minefield around their mind,
You only look at people, and see the good in them.
You could have but did not become hard-shelled,
and been forgiven for it, BUT:

You are soft-shelled
You are open-shelled
And because of all this, I give you this gift.
That you might always remember what
I most admire about you

With love to you and ALL YOU LOVE:
A Survivor's Guide to Life – du moi à toi

BLESSED ARE THEY WHO SUFFER YOUNG,
EARLY, AND OFTEN, FOR IN THEIR
YEARS OF ABJECT MISERY,
THEY SHALL KNOW THE JOY OF COMFORTING
THOSE MUCH LESS FORTUNATE THAN THEMSELVES
WHOSE NUMBERS ARE LEGION.

THUS, IN SLUMBER, WE CAN DREAM
OF JOYOUS, CAREFREE, HAPPY DAYS,
OF A KINDLER GENTLER, MORE CHIRST-LIKE EVOLVEMENT
OF HUMANOIDS INTO HUMAN KIND
WE REST AUSSED KNOWING
IN OUR HEARTS, IN OUR GUTS,
THAT ONE DAY THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S PROTESTANTS
AND THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S CATHOLICS WILL
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY
WITH ONE ANOTHER,
AS ARE BEGINNING TO SO DO
THE GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT
GRANDCHILDREN OF AMERICAN
SLAVE OWNERS AND
THE GREAT-GREAT GRANDCHILDREN
OF AMERICAN SLAVES,
AS WILL THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS
OF THE PALESTINIANS, TOO,
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY WITH
THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE ISRAELI JEWS.


IN'SHA AHLLAH

Transitory


I see the morning sun a-rising
Ever so slowly the sun floats higher
Till it soars.
The blue sky's brilliant background
for fluffy white clouds
that catch and hold the imaginings
of young girls and boys.
And I am happy, very happy
And I sing.

I feel the noon time's sun's
heat upon me
Radiant warmth caressing
Blue sky's morphing to greyish hue
And I am happy, very happy
And I sing.

I hear the crickets chirping
As evening's sun drops down
And the western sky's afire
Amid brilliant purple clouds
Too soon to be extinguished
By the night.
Oh where's the joy
Of this glorious day lost?
In my memory; only in my memory now.

Preserve your memories, boy,
they're the last thing that's left you.

They Come Still They Come

They come still they come
They come still they come

Escape from the monotony
To find what life can really be

They come still they come
They come still they come

Run from a home life failed
From the anchor of life and a larger scale

They come still they come
They come still they come

Live in filth and trash that are real
Leave those whose minds were always sealed

They come still they come
They come still they come

Embrace a life of hunger and disease
Take a trip to put their minds to ease

They come still they come
They come still they come

They knowing only the artificial high
They dropping acid to see God go by
They come still they come
They come still they come

They float through reality in hope to find
What they're really missing calme peace of mind

They come still they come
They come still they come

So if they freak, it's not so bad
Remember the hell that they once had

They come still they come
They come still they come

And if they die, that too's all right
It's easier being dead than to keep up the fight

They come no more
No more they come

My God in heaven above! What in the world leads a teenager (me) to write poems like this? Angst? What in God's holy name is it?

It is, I am QUITE certain, the work of the devil, as little doubts begin to form, as we (teenagers) start to view the world much differently, noting full well, those inconsistencies that are always here.

GUILT (But I have Caused Tears)

Exhausted, depressed,
on the verge of breaking down,
no longer caring, especially for myself,
I reflected: Why am I here?
Could anyone have been created for this meaningless end?
The talents once possessed, are buried now,
laying fallow, with my old ideals, never to be resurrected.

Why? Desires that leave an emptiness encompass me,
desperate sorrow hidden behind mock smiles.
Fear, hidden superficial acts of courage;
Thoughts that can't find express themselves in words;
Joys that hold no meaning. Why?
Have I helped another, or even myself?
No. But I have caused tears;
a waterfall of tears.

Praying for a forgiving God


Alone except for myself
I pull my life's book off its shelf
To see a youth misspent
Aimlessly wasted, I wonder where it went?

Too much time devoted to the trivial
Always was blinded to the meaningful
To late did I open my eyes to see
Through the eyes staring at the empty shell that is me

Defenseless and alone I stand
My fates cast to the winds, drifting out of my hands
The whims of heaven or hell
One day there will toll the bell

Often now I wonder, has my life been worth living?
Oh dear God, please be forgiving.

No longer living in anonymity


No longer living in anonymity
There's six million people nearby
That you do not know.
But if they watch the TV news
They'll learn where you're gonna go.
Invisible once, you can't hide anywhere now.
Your self-inflicted death brings them face to face
Who you once were and why you are not now.

Some put flowers hoping it not too late to reach out to touch you
Or your sorrow, that only you could feel
You were nothing, invisible, until death's hand
Your own hand, cut you down.

Stuff happens

He let you taste his bitter honey
He let you take his sweet wormwood
He left you with a baby in your belly
He left you
To know and feel
The secret silent joyful fears of motherhood.



The Choice, As Almost Always, is Ours

Shall I lose it now?
Shall I give it freely?
I'll only have it once
But I will lose it forever.

हे जुड़े!

Judy Weisgarver and I dated for a couple of wonderful months in 1968. We were in the Madrigal Singers together, and Jim Wagner would give us both a ride home every night. She lived on Station Street while I lived on Grove Avenue.

I can't even remember how it happened, but somehow or another, I got up the courage to ask her to go out with me. We went to The Graduate together, and I wore a sports jacket and tie, trying to look like 18 and not get carded, ROFLMAO!

We also went to Chicago, I think to see Camelot. I remember some guy saing to another guy, "suck my crank," which Judy just LOVED.

We were both cigarette smokers, which gave us something in common to share. She was a senior, and I was a junior. We probably got together because of the musical from the previous fall, Guys and Dolls.

She spent a lot of time over here, and I spent a lot of time at her place. We made out a bunch, and she was a great kisser. She also loved my family, especially my youngest sister, Marianne, who would have been 8-9 years old during the months Judy and I dated.

One night, while we were making out downstairs on the couch, mom called down to say that Judy had to leave. There was a golf tournament for me to get up early for in the morning. I was embarrassed, but she left with no animosity. She really liked kissing me, this I know, because we were doing it forever. I even got bold and she did not resist some of my more experimental advances. It was a lovely time, and I was a very lucky guy.

At one of the golf tournaments, Steve Wagner, also a senior, let it slip that Judy was having a party at her parents' house (they were out of town). I hadn't been invited. I played 9 extra holes of golf. I couldn't fall asleep that night. I caddied on Sunday, deciding to refuse mom's offer for a ride out to Barrington Hills country club, I walked the 3 miles to the course. Ended up caddying 36 holes, doubles. Then I walked over to Judy's best friend Sarah Canby's house. I put poor Sarah on the spot: Why doesn't Judy like me?

It's not that she doesn't like you, she just wants to be with friends from her own class now that it's getting so close to graduation. We smoked some cigarettes (SOME paretns were very tolerant on this issue, back in the day) and listened to Allan Ginsberg's dramatic reading of HOWL.

I went home, exhausted. Remember, it was 3 miles back home also. Judy went to prom with some guy, Rod something-or-another.

My favorite thing we ever did together, was to go fly a kite in early April or late March of '68. It was so cold, and she took my arm and cuddled up close to stay warmer, while we chain-smoked our cigarettes and I valiantly (and eventually) got the damn kite to fly. It is absolutely amazing what being motivated to please a young lady (or any lady) can do for your creativity!

I sat down to the piano that night, and wrote one of my first songs: Where's the Magic? Pure blues:

Where's the magic
Where did it go
I thought I saw it takin; a walk
Outside out the back door

When you hold me in your arms
It is just so plain
That you don't love me any more.

Where's the magic
Where did it go?
Only our shadows are makin' love,
And love left by the back door.

When you hold me in your arms
It's so very plain to feel
That you don't love me any more.

Quite frankly, it was as good as anything I've ever written and put to music. Guess I done been singin' me duh Blooze for mostly all my adult-brained conscience life.

Judy wrote us this letter from Summer Camp, where she was a counselor. It was very thoughtful, and just way cool of her to write.

Thanks, Judy Weisgarver, where ever you may be!



Dear Mark,

I thought that since I had a couple extra minutes I'd write you a little note! I've been meaning to thank you for the birthday card but I really haven't had any time at all. This job that I've got is something else – it's an 18-hr-a-day job- and I'm always totally pooped. I'm in the middle of the second session now – the first session turned out really well but this group isn't quite as enthusiastic as the last. Maybe my hopes were a little too high … but this has turned out to be the most rewarding job I think I'll ever have. When the kids do something right (finally!) then the counselors all feel so good about it! And the scenery up here is another thing – we have a beautiful lake right outside our tent and trees all around. I think this camping life is really getting to me! You wouldn't believe how much I've been smoking. I've had at least a carton since I got here ('cause Sarah and I each bought one carton & they're all gone!) Gene and Carelin aren't going to be too happy about that when I get home but that's the way it goes! A lot of things have changed about me and ever since I left home & have been away from my parents! Hat to see what's gonna happen when I go to school!!

So how's golf been going? I'm sure you've been out a lot and are getting black as a –! I want to hear all about it, OK? Well, I said this was just going to be a “little note” so I guess I'll close now. Say hello to John & MaryAnn & Gay & your mom & dad and anyone else I missed! Write me if you ever get a chance 'cause I really enjoy getting mail while up here in the wilderness!

As Always,
Jude

- - - - - - -

AT THE MOVIES: THE HELP

If you see only one movie in the next 12 months, please, let it be this movie, the stories of black, female, domestics around Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960's.

The story if driven by Skeeter, a young white lady and recent college graduate, returning home to Jackson, MS, single (never having even had a date - much to her mother's consternation), and ambitious - interviewing (successfully) for a job with the local newspaper. She ends up working for $8 / week, ghost writing a column on house cleaning. Knowing nothing about the topic (a boat she shares with all the white women of the Jackson), she asks Aibiliene, a third-generation housemaid, who at 53 years old has raised 17 children in her care. if she can help her with the house cleaning advice column.

Aibileen, along with her dearest maid friend Minny, eventually discover their voices and ultimately come to trust Skeeter enough to tell her of their stories, and of their feelings, exhibiting the courage to defy the conventions of the early 1960s.

The poignance, compassion, humanity of the domestics, as opposed to the lack of same exhibited by many (most assuredly not all) of the white women, both of Skeeter's generation (early 20-somethings) nad of her mother's generation, tells a beautiful story of how these maids raised their employers' children, always there for them, building them up, comforting when saddened, holding, loving, hugging them, things which their own mothers have not the time, the inclination, or the will to do.

An important story, brilliantly and lovingly told, as Skeeter comes to see how much like chattel the maids are treated, and decides she will write their stories (which she does do and her book is scandalously popular, as the good citizens of Jackson attempt to determine about whom each of the separate stories is written).

DO NOT MISS THIS MOVIE! (OR AT LEAST, READ THE BOOK!)