Monster to Monster

Suddenly worried I have nothing to say...feeling nothing...cool April night wind.. .eyelid-drooping empty weariness dead inside...five days to payday no bath for a week...tired from painting computer place...keeps me going with daily stipends...coffee cigarettes gasoline pastry & tuna fish...staying up too late writing...Providence hath provided...

quiet rhythmic Brazilian music at Mojo Coffee House...voices...people bent over computer screens...wrecker driver fixing a tire on Magazine Street...I show Mike the night man picture of me at 25...his age...look I say no wrinkles once I was just like you...he laughs says "handsome guy!"...wish I had known...fat bastard owner of laundromat got aggressive with me earlier...I was quietly cussing out the change machine...it had nothing to do with him!..."Put the bill in right!" he growls coming out of nowhere grabbing my five putting it in right...change drops out...I don't like him grabbing the bill...he startled me...don't do that I got a low startle threshhold I startle easily...I ask is he offended me cussing out a machine...yes he is it's his machine...you married to this damned machine or something I ask..."You were cursing when you came in" he says...he's right first I cursed the heavy load of washing I couldn't afford to wash...what's wrong with me lately?...I want to smash his fat face..."You're pretty aggressive aren't you?" I ask...your ego all tied-up with this damned machine what do you care if I cuss out a hunk of metal..."I don't like people cursing my machines" he says...why? does it happen often?...what does he think I'm working black magic on them?...easygoing black manager warns me off quietly saying "don't do it"...he sees I am ready to jump the fat prick pound him into the vinyl floor...I shut up start washers go outside why make it worse...sit in van 30 minutes imagining running bayonet through his throat...stick him to the wall see there you fat son of a bitch this is what you been looking for your whole miserable life...ah shit I'm a basket case...all I need...finish my life in Angola Prison waiting for the big needle...and then going to hell for murder!...three weeks of this stress flat broke...tired of this...later I learn from laundromat manager fat man is having trouble with his son...I'm ashamed I know how that is...too late to apologize...what difference would it make...suddenly I turn off flatlined nothing but emptiness here the living dead...warped...screwed...re-awakened last night by e-mail everything tries to re-start...envelops my head an oppressive black cloud of anguish and desire...can't do this again...put everything back in place tighten up get a grip shut it down don't think about it...

well there it is...laid most but not all of it out for inspection...the flaws the errors the crimes stupidities the insanity the wandering the drinking the drugging the whoring the fighting the depression the falsehoods the alcoholism the defects the sickness the sex-starvation the longing the selfish needs the shallow depths the contradictions the weaknesses the rapids & shoals and me the crashing emotional bore surfing the incomings of my own warped illogical undisciplined untrained undernourished and undeveloped mind with only a few small victories signifying whatever but not much...selfish and blind...alone and no wonder..."you don't get anything you don't deserve" (Dylan)...ain't it the truth...why am I doing this?...a cry for help?...there ain't no help out there...what is this?...a long suicide note?...I want to say goodbye kind world I'm too cruel for you...I really do want this to change soon...either have to support myself writing or...I don't know what...not one more lonely town not one more barren coffee shop not one more hopeless blog not one more moment of longing...no more waking up anxious am I late for work...not one more swing of the paint brush...before I run a bayonet through some poor jerk having trouble with his son who might be getting what he deserves but not from me...over a damned machine Made in America...they make them better in Japan!...Didn't have my right glasses the best pair run over by a car this morning after falling from my pocket...mysterious universal laws guided me to meet up with this guy...figure that out...we both are supposed to learn something from it...I can see he's pissed off like me...he's 100 lbs overweight but my emotional twin...getting old and troubles piling up...disastrous health crisis ahead...didn't do what he wanted...didn't get what he wanted...didn't KNOW what he wanted...cheated by his parents his schools his partner his wife his friends his government his church his son his own notions & illusions and his bank...did his own share of lying & cheating too...paying for his sins now Instant Karma...can't find his swing his groove his thing his use his place his Muse his lover's face his life's companion his soulmate his son or anything he really wanted...and now someone is cussing his machine!...HE CAN'T GET NO SATISFACTION!...wanting to mash someone's face for it!...then the poor bastard had to run into me...made for each other...two old men punchng it out on the sidewalk...gone completely crazy...madness!...unbelievable how close to the jungle my heart is...I could have caused him a heart attack!...I want to jump on something and tear its throat out...the really important thing stopping all these wars dead in their madness AND FINDING SEX!...eludes me so I take it out on an unimportant machine and its overwrought defender...I'm particularly suited to tackle this problem you see because I need peace in order not to kill somebody...I fight a monster within and without...mostly an inside-job...as many war protesters know from the Sixties many are in this game acting out our personal drama working out our own hang-ups on a world-stage because we know we are violent and don't want to be...I can't remember how many men I punched or how many knuckles hit my face...at age 61 I had a knock-down drag-out fight with a 30-year-old corner of Magazine & Louisiana 4 a.m....heroin-addict sucker-punched me at the bar...at age 58 a 20-minute fight with four guys in front of the Blue Moon in Seattle...see these things happen...not the company I keep cause I always been a loner...some guys just don't like my looks...

look at this shit...an idiot can see what needs to be done...Obama is pussyfooting around things like global warming even yet going thru this long stupid process of taxing utilities and consumers for the "right" to pollute...Mr. President why don't you cut to the chase and impose regulations now?...be a Roosevelt forget this flowery Lincoln crap and intellectual Jefferson too...be Obama...impose regulations and higher standards on vehicles and plants...Executive Order! You have the power use it!...Congress can crap or get off the pot...my advice...okay okay consider the source...who am I?...an infamous loser...but one of those people you claim to represent...what happened to my suggestion to PAINT THE WHITE HOUSE GREEN?...am I the only environmentalist who sees the importance this symbolic EVENT?...I told you I will do the job too...you don't need a committee...Truman ordered a balcony built the conservatives went nuts...and look at the nice view you have from it in the back of YOUR HOUSE NOW...you can paint any color you want...EVERYBODY'S SICK OF THE WHITE HOUSE...nothing in the Constitution says anything about it you ought to know...please paint it green...then I can die happy finally somebody listened to me...c'mon be a pal be a regular Joe...and by the way Mr. President...I'm on your side and pulling for you man...I think you're going to make it if you do the right thing and dodge the bullets they are loading for you...you've got the best thing in the world going for you...lucky man!



O God why did You make beautiful women?...to give me hell I suppose...I have to figure it out...it doesn't make sense...I can't even look at one of them...certainly there's something more important than this ache but can't remember what just now...oh yeh now I remember THE WAR but suddenly I don't care...what sort of grandiose asshole am I there's nothing I can do about it...maybe a lobotomy...

And now a word for your new pals in the National Security Council...



Can you people feel anything?...I'm serious...I don't know you...I will never meet one of you probably...I can't imagine the world you live & work in...My feet will never walk the hallowed carpeted halls & rooms of White House Pentagon or State Department you tread every day opening doors with fingerprints or eyeballs...I will never sit in one of your secret meetings...I probably will never know what you planned what you thought what you said or what you did...my grandkids probably will never know either...it's all a big secret...the secret of secrets...the holy of holies!...I admit I don't really know what's going on...you are in the Know but I'm not...I'd be kidding myself and putting on airs if I said I understand it all...I could understand it if you told me!...but my question yet floats in your rarified deodorized & desensitized air...Can you feel anything?...Specifically, can you feel the pain you cause with your decisions to bomb to strafe to spy on to interfere to send more troops more bullets more bombs more planes more death...to manipulate to payoff to lie to kill people that you don't even know?...for reasons of your own however noble & brave...I'm sure you have kids & grandkids...you probably love them to death & have lots of pictures...they love you back...look at my accomplished parents up there on the National Security Council hobnobbing with the President...making important decisions...actually controlling the government!...you'd be heartbroken anguished tortured & angered beyond the reach of sanity and the power of reason if someone dropped a bomb on them...you'd have no trouble feeling that pain it would be your own...I'm asking can you make someone else's pain your own?...if not why not?...



can you imagine a rocket coming into your dining room as you are cutting the chicken or lighting the candles?...terrifying blast shattering every board in your house and your neighbors houses too...horrible fire frying you and your loved ones to a sizzling crisp shrunk to quarter-size...blackened flesh like overcooked chicken charcoaled bones every one broken from violent contraction of muscles...your loved ones...Jesus Christ can't you feel that?...what is the matter with you people?...this is what you are really doing to people you don't even know...is that why you can do it?...because you don't know them?...IT'S A CRIME!...what do you mean to do?...it won't work...they hate your guts for this (and mine!)...I know how absurd this sounds coming from a guy who just wanted to stab a laundromat-owner...but I don't care...I'm a tangle of contradictions not exactly unlike you...I know you're smart...you're educated...you've been all over the world...stayed in the best hotels...skied the slopes held forth in the fanciest bars & restaurants...passed your exams Magna cum laude...published!...fat bank accounts!...married well got on in life or you wouldn't be there...more on the ball than me...silly old loner living in a truck in the most-violent city in America...but I think I got one thing on you...I can feel that family's anguish over there and it matters...I couldn't make the decisons you make...I wouldn't...I'd put up a fuss they'd kick me off the Council...I'd go public...I'd raise hell!...I'd blow the whole stupid ball game right out the top of the White House!...I'd be the biggest snitch in history!...I'd tell the truth...it wouldn't be a secret anymore...you know it's wrong...you're not stupid...but you're not smart either...and your definition of duty is inadequate...it's not just defending you & your's...you're in a responsible position...it takes more guts to not do what you are doing than to do it...safe in your un-eavesdroppable bunker...you ought to know it's all connected by now...even I know this...what am I saying?...the Plan is wrong...your assumptions are wrong...you don't know the people you are killing or why they do what they do...you have it all wrong...it was the same in Vietnam...remember Vietnam?...No?...I do...after the war the Vietnamese communists said one thing we knew no matter what the Americans did they made wrong assumptions about us their strategy was based on false premises...US government didn't understand the first thing about Vietnamese...and who the hell are you to tell anybody how to treat their women?...the women are the only ones who can set that straight...sure they've got an uphill battle...who doesn't?...you want to change the mix smuggle guns and training to the women!...teach them to kick the shit out of their male oppressors...the women are marching and organizing over there don't worry...do something about violence against women in America before you go telling older Earth people to clean up their act...your arrogant assumptions of superiority your chief weakness it'll bring you (and us) down...the way I see it there's only one thing standing between you and doing the right thing...feelings...let your feelings wake up...they hurt man...if you don't start feeling compassion for the people you're killing the conflagration just over the horizon will burn your own ass soon...the next world war your fault...yours alone they aren't over here bombing your orchards...get a grip...US government made same fallacious assumptions in Vietnam...assumed they could win it with technology...who are those little gooks running around in BF Goodrich tennis shoes anyway...pushing reinforced bicycles through the jungle for a thousand miles to deliver ammo to the South...what can they do compared to our Phantom jets our napalm our satellites our listening-devices disguised as turds?...THEY WHIPPED OUR ASS!...you're doing it all over again and Afghanistan-Pakistan-Pastunistan farther away than Vietnam!...your supply lines cut & crippled everyday and you know it!...pushing up the cost!...you can't stop it...you'll be forced to build a permanent base and an airport the size of Rhode Island to supply troops at quadruple the cost...YOU ARE BANKRUPTING US!...Afghanistan will never put up with it...the day you finish your next humongous military platform it will be bombarded by rockets...you know it...why do you go on with it?...because you don't feel anything...nothing drives you nuts...nothing makes you cry...nothing keeps you awake...you are burning babies to death and nothing makes you cry!...can you glimpse how twisted you are?...how sick?...your conscience is hibernating...we've known since WW II aerial bombing only infuriates a population...makes them fight harder and smarter...they go underground with everything if they have to...like ants!...it's obvious you want to infuriate them...cause chaos you think you can channel it to bring down Pakistan government giving you excuse to "intervene"...replacing it with one of your own...you put out the word Pakistan is "a failed state"...scared of Muslims with nukes why?...because you did them wrong!...you know you would want to get somebody back for it...CORRECT IT!...you're in bed with India a Great Whore...you are in way over your heads...you don't know who you're fucking with!