One More Gun

If one man will murder another
then you can have war
If the soldier on the left
will kill the solder on the right
if the pilot will release the bombs
if the corpsman will patch up the wounded
if the chaplain will bless the carnage
if the mullahs will bless the carnage
if the president will bless the carnage
if the mother
of the son
who pulls the trigger
who wears the bomb
who fires the missile
will bless the carnage and sacrifice her child
then you can have war
you can have bodies in bags
and boxes
and mass graves
you can have collateral damage
a million or more
or just the one that matters
if you will justify murder
if patriotism or fanaticism
will replace a higher order
then you can have war
but if and only if
and that's the irony


if







.

Opening His Hands and Satisfying the Desire of Every Living Thing

The enormous love that brought about all things.



Psalm 145:16

Once Again, About that Thing Called LIfe

I bought a car for my son, like my father before me. I searched, and looked and delved into the abyss known as used cars for the sake of providing my son with his first car. Mine, was a Volkswagen squareback. White, and simple. Not the coolest car in the school parking lot, but filled with the love of my father. I did not realize this at the time. I was just a kid, and kids seem to live in their own worlds. Like my father, I will pass along this mechanical rite. I will give my son a Nissan Sentra with 70,000 miles. And every single mile is an expression of my love. In another century, perhaps it would be a horse? A prize rifle? The knowledge of how to sharpen an axe? For me, it is showing him how to change his own oil and spark plugs, to explain the workings of an internal combustion engine. (You see, the valves open and close in precision with the motion of the piston rising and falling within the cylinder, as the exploding gas of the vaporized fuel expands within a confined space, elicited by the actuation of a spark, triggered by the rotation of an appropriately called rotor....)

Affirmation

What makes this life so troubling one moment and so inspiring the next? Why do we awaken as if a new person, open our eyes, and experience a new day? We do not deserve this, but yet it comes. Time to sleep, we humans. Time to dream. And how I hope your dreams lift your spirits and elevate your soul above the momentary doldrums of day to day tedium. Rise, and shine, little one. Children we are all, in God's eyes.

Damn that QUESTION MARK and other oddities

Dialogue, he asked. Do I put the ? at the end of the sentence, or inside the quotes? I've never been able to figure that out.

Looking Down from the Moon

i

could float

above this planet

not just in dreams

but in a moment

suspended between beauty and sky

there in the eternal blue

with landscapes falling away underneath

with golden joy filling my heart

a memory of a particular fragment of my life

in some beautiful slow motion

not like it was real

but something better

i

will float

suspended in this atmosphere

like some ethereal moon

transparent with sunlight

before the twilight

before the deep night

to rest so gently within my soul


so gently

in the stream of time


.

Backup

It’s good to backup your work, the technician said. His collar was askew and he wore tennis shoes. He tapped the keyboard keys a few times and noted the lack of response on the screen. Yep, definitely locked up. What did you do, he asked, in that accusatory way that the IT department seemed to enjoy? Jackie shrugged her shoulders. I don’t know, I was just typing and it did THIS, pointing at the screen with her pen. The technician suggested she not touch the expensive LCD screen with her pen, and wrote down a note on his incident report. What’s that, asked Jackie? Oh, nothing, he replied with transparency. Deep inside he was gloating, knowing that tomorrow Jackie’s manager would jump down her throat about abusing company property. But for now, he just sighed and then asked if she was busy on Friday night. He would accidentally erase her hard drive if she blew him off, but for now, the fate of Jackie’s computer rested in her hands…

And while the Universe Inflates, I take a nap or perhaps read a book.

Fade up

EXT. THE UNIVERSE -- ETERNAL NIGHT

About a billion billion stars shine all around. They seem so small from this perspective. Tumbling through space toward us comes a figurine of Jesus, illuminated by the harsh side light from a nearby supernova.

CU the figurine as it rotates toward camera and then out of view. In the distant background, a star suddenly winks out.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
If man's existence is eternal, why then,
do we fear death? Is it because we can
only comprehend being? Or because we prefer
to believe that soul is separate from body?

The camera rotates 180 degrees to reveal a planet, a beautiful blue and white sphere of luminescent quality.




.

The Color of Her Hair

.




Whiskey seems to taste like water


Hussey at heart, I swear


Irish genes, beware


Red, the color of my mother's hair









.

Crossing the Demarara

On the way to the Parika ferry, first you cross the Demarara river, deep and dark, on the spine of a vintage world war 2 pontoon bridge, each steel plank shifting with the weight of your auto and the others that squeeze by coming from the opposite direction. They all drive on the left, you know. Former British Colony. More than a decade has passed since I saw this place, since I sat on the decrepit wooden docks where the Parika Ferry would disgorge its load of humans, sweet fig bananas, chickens in crates and carambola (aka starfruit). I had no intention back then, of sitting here tonight listening to the rain on the roof, tapping away at these keys, my grand adventure but a recollection. My intentions were much more interesting back then. My heart much more joyful and firm. The filter of time has made those moments seem better than they were. Either I will go mad, or continue my suburban slumber. If only my memory could not recall the dark, mysterious waters that lapped against my imagination. Perhaps then, I could be content with the monotonous sound of this Oregon rain.