I Wish You Strength

Nobility's a crock…a thing of the past...it's in hiding with Wisdom...empty words now ricochet on old world stages…prolonged applause for the Chancellor of Germany...she ready to go to war with Iran to defend Israel already...she'll stay the course in Afghanistan...she kisses America's ass for an hour in Congress Assembled...they applaud till the statues shake...see what happens when Germans get a taste of blood?…never should have let them into NATO...there's carnage in the villages of Pashtunistan…blood-soaked rocks…splintered legs ...people blown to hell by mines…blinded children…armless men…burnt farmers the world-around...the raped children and breastless women of Africa…pressed into armies...here kill this child to prove you're with us or we'll let her kill you...Asians 30 years later still in agony from plastic flechettes invisible to x-rays…nerves screaming at invasive surgery to remove them...torn burnt infected flesh…muscles that don't work anymore...and robot drones doing the work of pilots…men of war men at consoles and women too…they’re in on it too...the gentle doves…they can be as nasty as we are you happy now? you're liberated...wow equality at last...they struggled to prove they can suffer and kill with the boys...all praise...bright serious graduates...officers!...patriots all...we mustn't criticize them...they're in the Army now...can't blame them they're only following orders...they are intent on doing their duty…trained…purposeful…squared away!...legal!…in proper sequence and cadenced order…not a byte out of place…each according to his or her pay grade...sending predatory robot missiles into distant lands to exterminate noxious humans…10 innocents for every guilty bastard blown to hell...body parts strewing the ancient countryside…yet a ray of hope from a half-black man on the throne of the world…OUR PRAYERS GO WITH YOU BARACK!...but who is he anyway and what can he do? What is he thinking about anyway?...surely he doesn't have the guts to get out of Afghanistan...I'd have a heart attack if he did...He's looking for a way to stay in!...almost desperately the press emblazons his path with breathless tolerance and an expectant stare…He's won the Nobel Peace Prize!...where's the peace?... I am remembering a Woodrow Wilson who captured the desperate hopes of people for peace and promised it to them...took their acclaim and their votes...but after his strait-laced Presbyterian ass was in the White House he sent them to die instead...Go fight one last war for us, boys!..."the war to end all wars"...Wilson nearly killed my grandfather the son of a bitch...another great Liberal hypocrit..."self determination for all nations"...while he invaded half the countries south of Texas...I am remembering the blood-splattered roses-strewn limousine in Dallas…”I want them to see what they have done,” Jackie said, declining to change the blood-stained dress…JFK brains on her legs…and we saw all right and wondered…who could do this?... And now I wonder who could do it again?...but I know who they are and so do you...they wrap themselves in religious piety proclaim their allegiance to God and family then urge people to kill...they did it then...and another great Liberal President bit the dust...after sending killers to kill Buddhists and communists for a Catholic minority...did anyone notice that John Kennedy died 20 days after he killed President Diem?...and another great Liberal LBJ..."I won't send American boys to do what Asians boys can do"...I can smell these guys now...arrogant self-righteousness and intellectual superiority mistaken for hate...it isn't hate...it's indifference dressed in white...patrols the mindscape making lists...shitting in the arroyos...growling at the moon...seductive smiles and electrifying hugs...fucks all night scoffs at pain and curses her friend…poison ivy logic creeps over the crumbly edifice of calcified reasoning...worms its way into the mortar-less crevices of drugged hypocrisy and pretentious philosophy...and holds the whole rotten structure together...kill it with better logic and the place will collapse…while we saunter prance and limp toward the holocaust…but I surrendered to death years ago it really doesn't scare me…it has no power over me...I'm not going to sit in front of a television to be brainwashed by their visions of progress and confused by news...between hope and disappointment I endure with great patience and humor…I could crack you up if you gave me an hour...my absurd life is a comedy now and yours...yours is a tragedy to me…why must you be disappointed?...my heart goes out to you...you were a beautiful child...we all were ...I wish I could do something...I tried but you can see I failed...I never knew what I was doing really...you deserve a paradise you all do you poor bastards...but I'm alone in a crowd here actually crippled...always have been and I don't know you anyway...I don't want to know you anymore...and you can never know me...that's proved...I'm a misfit in your lunatic asylum...it's a case of mistaken identity...I'm a stranger here really...interesting place I'm sure but it's just too noisy...I'm only passing through...I speak the lingo but I feel like an alien...dispossessed of illusions...I should be grateful but I'm in debt to my ears...your Sixties romance is a dusty unread novel in a secondhand shop...I'm living in the clarity of walking on dead dreams...they crack and squish under my feet like splintered bones and curdled brains...I kick them aside without a thought...writing what writing? art don't make me laugh...I feel homeless under a roof...expecting nothing and nothing can surprise me...I'm ready to leave everything in a heap on the sidewalk and walk west...I wish I were strong but I'm not...I can walk to Mexico but I don't have the strength to stay..I wish you more strength...I wish you the strength to stay and see the fires and the lions feeding after...oh, and the love...I hope you get to give the love you need to give to get the love you want...I had no luck myself...I wish it for you ...But I'm all out of love...I had some but lost it texting...I'm not complaining...but I'm damned tired of this place already and looking for somewhere else to go...some place quiet sunny and cheap...where I can fish at the edge of the wild pure innocent ocean.