I was raised in rural Virginia as a transplanted Yankee in the early ‘60s. Not just a Yankee, but a Yankee named “Sherman”. Actually, “Damned Yankee” was the preferred term. Detailed inquiries in this area were so numerous in my youth, that I once came home, from the second grade, and asked my father what a “Yank-y-sum-bich” was! It was one word, rather a long word, and as I was learning to sound words out, I was quite confident in my spelling. I didn’t know what one was, but one had apparently passed through the area quite recently, and had been responsible for several FIRES! I had learned the term from the constant procession of people who, upon learning my name, became concerned that I might be somehow related to the “Yank-y-sum-bich” in question.
The confusion brought on by my father’s definition was exceeded only by my amazement at the time line. One hundred years! REALLY? And still that upset? This “Wellspring of Human Warmth” mind-set, as well as the fact that we lived ten miles from the nearest town, conspired to make me a bit of a loner. The nearest “neighborhood kid” was a mile and a half away, and there were no others my age for three miles beyond that, so it was not as if diplomacy could have mitigated my situation. I mention all of this only so that you might understand the importance of The Tree.
Our driveway ran a thousand feet between two fields draped in seasonally rotating blankets of alfalfa, soy beans, and corn. It ended in a teardrop in the center of two acres of yard filled with all manner of trees. As an isolated child I was left to defend those trees and the house that stood in their midst against all manner of threats. Always under-manned and always out-gunned I managed for years to keep Redcoats, Kiowas and Comanches out of the crab apples and the sycamore, the Germans and the Sioux out of the cedars and the mimosa, and the Japanese away from the plums and the wild cherries.
Were it not for the fact that the pirates never attacked the yard, preferring to lay to and board the barns instead, I would have had no rest at all. Rest which I used to maintain a constant vigil for COMMIES! I didn’t know what a Commie looked like, but I was reasonably sure they were either red or pink, and I was certain that it was only my constant patrols that kept them from slaughtering my whole family in their sleep. With the coming of Star Trek and science fiction, my foes also began to include mad, killer robots and a rainbow host of nightmarish aliens! Mine was a very busy childhood!
As the years passed the Redcoats eventually gave up and let go. The Germans and the Japanese were trounced once and for all, and the countless Native tribes agreed to a cease fire. Even the dreaded Commies, the mad, killer robots, and the aliens ( All of whom I suspected of being secretly in cahoots.) disappeared from my radar. At last I could relax. Stand down. Take a little R & R. For this, there was only one place to go. The Tree.
Standing in the center of that tear drop driveway, The Tree was a Chinese Elm. It was grander and taller and far more fun to climb than any other tree in all that vast yard. It had stood as my Command Center all through “The War Years”, and now it became my reading room / art studio / meditation center. The same branches which had once provided boomerangs and muskets now were the topic of my first sketches and watercolors. The same majestic giant that had sheltered tommy guns made of nails and scrap lumber now cradled me as I went to Mars with Edgar Rice Burroughs. In later years, when I first encountered the term”Sanctum Sanctorum”, I immediately thought of a Chinese elm. It was during these quieter years that I first heard the Voice.
This was not the sort of voice that has your parents rushing you to a “special” doctor. This was the Voice of The Tree. A Chinese Elm has small slender leaves which play readily on the slightest of breezes, and when they do you can hear the Voice. On calm days it merely whispers, but as the wind picks up the Voice will rise accordingly, usually to become full blown laughter. Sometimes you could almost make out words, faint and elusive, speaking in a tongue you could almost understand. I was never quite able to breach that communication barrier before we moved away, but to this day I often think that Chinese Elm would be a wonderful language to learn.
In 1975 my family moved to Florida, more specifically to the sleepy little town of Cocoa Beach. The house at 43 Country Club Road was beautiful. It had a pool and a canal out back, BUT it had no trees! Oh, there were a few little palms along the drive in front and a few in the back yard as well, but those were just over-glorified grass, not really trees at all. None of them had a Voice. As a kid who had grown up in the woods, “defending” trees, I looked for woods here. There was NOTHING! The closest I could come were the island chains in the river to the north and south of our home. On my first excursions there I was unimpressed. Then the wind blew. Then I heard The Trees. These were new Trees, and their Voice was different. They didn’t just whisper and laugh on the wind, these trees sang.
They were called Australian Pines, they looked liked the droopy “weeping willow” of the evergreen family, but ,oh, the Voice! It occurred to me then that if God had a flute, it was the Australian Pine. This was truly the woodwind of the Universe, and I could listen to it all day. From that point on, whenever the world started to become too much, whenever I needed to “decompress” I would go to a place where I could hear the wind play through Australian pines, I would go to where I could hear God play a flute.
After my parents’ divorce I wound up on Colonial Drive, in the townhouses being built that summer. The divorce cost me my boat, but I could still find woods. The area between Ramp Road and River Lakes was quite handy. It was also full of Australian Pines, so I could hear the flute music with which I’d become so enamored. Half way through those woods, on a little point that jutted out into the river one Australian pine stood a bit apart from its fellows. I used to climb up that tree and watch the sunset and listen to the “God Flute” play all around me. It was My Tree. That was 1978.
Years later I moved to Harbor Isles, and I used to be able hear that same song on dock. Just south of the point between Buildings Eight and Eleven, where the ramp runs up from the walkway by the lap pool, I could hear that same song. It was not just similar, it was the same Voice, because just behind our dock was that same little point that juts out into the river. On that point still stood My Tree. That’s right, the same Tree! I would stand on our dock at night and listen to the God Flute and it never failed to take me back to the other Tree. It took me back to an idyllic childhood when I first learned to listen to trees. It reminded me of comfort through my turbulent teens. It called back, fresh and new, all the dreams of things both passed and past, and in Solace past, I found Solace still.
Someone cut down My Tree a few years ago. At the time I was LIVID! I was sure it had something to do with someone’s view being blocked, though I was later assured that it was a matter of “safety” because the river had eroded the root system and there was growing concern that a stiff storm would topple it completely. I think highly of the man who told me this, so I feel honor-bound to take his word as Truth.
I only wish I would have known. I would gladly have shored it up with whatever was necessary. Sand bags, stone, armor plating...whatever! It really doesn’t matter now. My Tree is gone. The small wood that once lived where our homes now stand, had been whittled down to one lone survivor. The glorious woodwind section that had serenaded me through some rather tortured times had been reduced to one solo flute. Now it too is gone and that particular song plays only in memory. I miss the last of our pines. My Pine. I miss the sound of the God Flute.
On a “parting note”, faint Flute music can still be heard from across the water on our dock at the northern-most end, behind Building Four or from the dock at Ramp Road Park. If the Voices of Trees played in your childhood, you may still hear their echo there. I heartily recommend the concerts given on any windy night. The admission is still quite reasonable, though seating is limited. In the memories of Solace Past may you too find Solace still.
------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: A down-sized, edited version of this piece was my first work published by the Brothers Bennison in The Beachside Resident.
On a further note dealing with the woods that once stood between Ramp Rd. and the Condo of River Lakes: I had built a simple tree house in those woods in '78. It was a simple affair built between four Australian Pines. Using a truckload of co-axle cable some construction crew had DUMPED in those woods and the branches of other trees, I used the lashing techniques I had learned in the Scouts many years before, with a U.S.M.C. Kabar as my only tool. Not one nail! It stood on the edge of one of the two perpetually "wet" spots that ran through those woods. Today, the twin lakes of Harbor Isles are located in those same "wet" spots, and the balcony of my condo overlooking the northern lake is probably no more than twenty feet from where that tree house stood near thirty years ago! Life really is full of circles!
Friday, December 15, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Benburb is Fallen
Benburb is fallen.
There is wailing in the night
As a shackled land Dreams of Freedom.
On tear stained pages,
Only Pens bleed painful Truths.
Ulster is fallen.
The O’Neill is gone
To thieves, come in the night.
The first field red,
So, soon, the others.
The Red Branch has fallen.
In years long past,
A world has now forgotten.
Green but a Dream,
Where the sons of Heroes stand.
Benburb is fallen.
Yet false dawn comes,
Bearing lies of Freedom,
While, on tear stained pages,
Pens still bleed painful Truths.
Ulster is fallen.
Dreams lie buried
In Stormont’s lies.
Three now Green
The last shackled still.
The Red Branch has fallen.
Their Glory razed
By the heirs of invaders.
Theft forgotten
Does not title make.
Benburb is fallen.
But Ulster shall endure
Amid Dreams of Green
While on tear stained pages
Pens bleed painful Truths.
Proudly I place mine among them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: Rest assured, so long as the sons of thieves and invaders hold the lands of Ulster, so long as Benburb, proud seat of Shane O'Neill, lies in English hands, so long as the Fourth Green Field lies in bondage, on tear stained pages my Pen shall bleed painful Truths.
And I shall shout them.
D.A. Sherman
There is wailing in the night
As a shackled land Dreams of Freedom.
On tear stained pages,
Only Pens bleed painful Truths.
Ulster is fallen.
The O’Neill is gone
To thieves, come in the night.
The first field red,
So, soon, the others.
The Red Branch has fallen.
In years long past,
A world has now forgotten.
Green but a Dream,
Where the sons of Heroes stand.
Benburb is fallen.
Yet false dawn comes,
Bearing lies of Freedom,
While, on tear stained pages,
Pens still bleed painful Truths.
Ulster is fallen.
Dreams lie buried
In Stormont’s lies.
Three now Green
The last shackled still.
The Red Branch has fallen.
Their Glory razed
By the heirs of invaders.
Theft forgotten
Does not title make.
Benburb is fallen.
But Ulster shall endure
Amid Dreams of Green
While on tear stained pages
Pens bleed painful Truths.
Proudly I place mine among them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: Rest assured, so long as the sons of thieves and invaders hold the lands of Ulster, so long as Benburb, proud seat of Shane O'Neill, lies in English hands, so long as the Fourth Green Field lies in bondage, on tear stained pages my Pen shall bleed painful Truths.
And I shall shout them.
D.A. Sherman
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Echo of Boots
Just across from Ramp Road Park in Cocoa Beach lies one of the larger islands south out Minuteman Causeway. It is an innocent looking blend of Australian pines and Brazilian pepper trees, with a few palmetto palms and a handful of prickly pear cacti thrown in for good measure, but few recall it’s happier days. Few recall the echo of boots.
In the fall of ‘75, as a newly transplanted teenager, while following that age-old male navigation technique known as “let’s see where this goes”, I came upon the small canal that winds between this island and its two southern neighbors. I passed under a steel cable strung across the canal about 12 feet above the water, crossing that, and bolted to it at the intersection, was another cable that ran up to a 40 foot high tower built of wooden telephone poles with a wooden ladder and a platform at the top. Below the cables, a neatly trimmed landing beckoned on the island’s shore. Beaching my boat and following the trail, I was shocked to find a series of odd constructions of not only more poles, lumber, and cables, but also ropes and nylon cargo netting. I had seen this sort of thing before, in my older brother’s book from the U.S. Marines’ training facility at Parris Island, S.C.. This was an obstacle course! I had no idea what it was doing in Cocoa Beach, but I didn’t care. I’d found it. It was mine! Possession was nine tenths of the law, right?
I was on my sixth obstacle when that last tenth arrived. They weren’t much older than me, but they were dressed in fatigues and I was pretty sure that their tenth of the law was going to trump mine. The older one was named Hardcastle, and he seemed to like to yell a lot. He explained that I was trespassing on “Parris Island South”, a facility of the Cocoa Beach Police Cadets. I had never heard of such a thing, but it did sound quite official. Considering his volume, people in Tampa probably thought so too. Though when I mentioned my brother was a Marine, he calmed considerably, and I was allowed to leave with my life.
A month later the whole scene was replayed, this time I was on the top of the large cable tower “just chillin’ out”, and the two in fatigues were a pair of brothers named Petron. They liked to yell too. The THIRD TIME my friend Hardcastle was back, but he was no longer my friend. He explained that I could either be charged with trespassing, etc., etc., Florida statute etc., etc., TIME IN JAIL etc., etc., OR I could join the program! Now I may have been too stupid to stay away from their obstacle course, but I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t know that “jail or program” meant PROGRAM!
The next Saturday I was in boots and fatigues helping about a dozen and a half similarly clad teenagers haul canoes out of a classroom at Freedom 7 under the supervision of Cocoa Beach Policeman named Gordon. The short trip to the island was followed by callisthenics and then (Oh, joy!) marching. During this time I learned that “Sergeant Major” Hardcastle had apparently been using his “indoor voice” during our previous encounters. If Tampa had heard his trespassing speech, surely Dubuque heard him call cadence.
Then the fun began; we ran the course. I was thrilled to learn that the cable was for a “zip line”, a pulley that one would hang from and then slide down the cable some sixty feet or so to the point above the canal where it met the other. IF the abrupt stop didn’t throw you into the water, you then came ashore hand over hand. Few stayed dry. When the pulley was broken you lay face down on the cable with your right boot hooked behind you, your hands grasping it to the front, and your left leg hanging straight down as a sort of counter weight for balance. You then pulled yourself along to the juncture below. This was deemed “too easy” so you were also required, once over the water, to hang down by just your hands and then pull yourself back up and continue. Even fewer stayed dry through this. Over the next few month several other groups visited to run the course, most notably the Marines recruiters from Orlando, and the Ranger ROTC squad from F.I.T. in Melbourne. All of them joked and teased before. “Boy Scouts! Kiddy Ride! Playground!” We got to hear them all. NOT ONE of them EVER finished that course dry!
It wasn’t all fun and games either. Cadets also served as volunteers in the Emergency Room at Cape Canaveral Hospital, directed traffic on Sundays when services ended and during special events, one of them was even the part-time dispatcher for the Cocoa Beach Police Department. The end of the Cadet Program came when we were told we had to allow girls to join, and a female cousin of one of the guys volunteered to be the first. She’d visited three or four times before, and knew what she was getting into. On the second obstacle she flipped herself over a cargo net, despite having repeatedly heard the instructions NOT to do so. She lost her grip, snagged her foot, and fell to the ground, HARD. She broke several ribs and I believe punctured a lung and lacerated a kidney. After a month in the hospital, signed waiver notwithstanding, her family sued! End of story.
I never did learn to like marching, but that program, more specifically, Officer Gordon, the “soft spoken” Craig Hardcastle, and all the rest of those guys, did give me a place in a town where I’d yet to find one on my own. They gave me a little bit of extra structure at a time when I needed it. To this day every time I visit that island, I hear the echo of boots.
On a parting note, I believe three of the guys did go on to careers in law enforcement, and eight joined the military. The last I heard, Captain Hardcastle was flying jets for the U.S. Marine Corps, where I’m sure his voice is heard over the engines. Semper Fi, Craig.
In the fall of ‘75, as a newly transplanted teenager, while following that age-old male navigation technique known as “let’s see where this goes”, I came upon the small canal that winds between this island and its two southern neighbors. I passed under a steel cable strung across the canal about 12 feet above the water, crossing that, and bolted to it at the intersection, was another cable that ran up to a 40 foot high tower built of wooden telephone poles with a wooden ladder and a platform at the top. Below the cables, a neatly trimmed landing beckoned on the island’s shore. Beaching my boat and following the trail, I was shocked to find a series of odd constructions of not only more poles, lumber, and cables, but also ropes and nylon cargo netting. I had seen this sort of thing before, in my older brother’s book from the U.S. Marines’ training facility at Parris Island, S.C.. This was an obstacle course! I had no idea what it was doing in Cocoa Beach, but I didn’t care. I’d found it. It was mine! Possession was nine tenths of the law, right?
I was on my sixth obstacle when that last tenth arrived. They weren’t much older than me, but they were dressed in fatigues and I was pretty sure that their tenth of the law was going to trump mine. The older one was named Hardcastle, and he seemed to like to yell a lot. He explained that I was trespassing on “Parris Island South”, a facility of the Cocoa Beach Police Cadets. I had never heard of such a thing, but it did sound quite official. Considering his volume, people in Tampa probably thought so too. Though when I mentioned my brother was a Marine, he calmed considerably, and I was allowed to leave with my life.
A month later the whole scene was replayed, this time I was on the top of the large cable tower “just chillin’ out”, and the two in fatigues were a pair of brothers named Petron. They liked to yell too. The THIRD TIME my friend Hardcastle was back, but he was no longer my friend. He explained that I could either be charged with trespassing, etc., etc., Florida statute etc., etc., TIME IN JAIL etc., etc., OR I could join the program! Now I may have been too stupid to stay away from their obstacle course, but I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t know that “jail or program” meant PROGRAM!
The next Saturday I was in boots and fatigues helping about a dozen and a half similarly clad teenagers haul canoes out of a classroom at Freedom 7 under the supervision of Cocoa Beach Policeman named Gordon. The short trip to the island was followed by callisthenics and then (Oh, joy!) marching. During this time I learned that “Sergeant Major” Hardcastle had apparently been using his “indoor voice” during our previous encounters. If Tampa had heard his trespassing speech, surely Dubuque heard him call cadence.
Then the fun began; we ran the course. I was thrilled to learn that the cable was for a “zip line”, a pulley that one would hang from and then slide down the cable some sixty feet or so to the point above the canal where it met the other. IF the abrupt stop didn’t throw you into the water, you then came ashore hand over hand. Few stayed dry. When the pulley was broken you lay face down on the cable with your right boot hooked behind you, your hands grasping it to the front, and your left leg hanging straight down as a sort of counter weight for balance. You then pulled yourself along to the juncture below. This was deemed “too easy” so you were also required, once over the water, to hang down by just your hands and then pull yourself back up and continue. Even fewer stayed dry through this. Over the next few month several other groups visited to run the course, most notably the Marines recruiters from Orlando, and the Ranger ROTC squad from F.I.T. in Melbourne. All of them joked and teased before. “Boy Scouts! Kiddy Ride! Playground!” We got to hear them all. NOT ONE of them EVER finished that course dry!
It wasn’t all fun and games either. Cadets also served as volunteers in the Emergency Room at Cape Canaveral Hospital, directed traffic on Sundays when services ended and during special events, one of them was even the part-time dispatcher for the Cocoa Beach Police Department. The end of the Cadet Program came when we were told we had to allow girls to join, and a female cousin of one of the guys volunteered to be the first. She’d visited three or four times before, and knew what she was getting into. On the second obstacle she flipped herself over a cargo net, despite having repeatedly heard the instructions NOT to do so. She lost her grip, snagged her foot, and fell to the ground, HARD. She broke several ribs and I believe punctured a lung and lacerated a kidney. After a month in the hospital, signed waiver notwithstanding, her family sued! End of story.
I never did learn to like marching, but that program, more specifically, Officer Gordon, the “soft spoken” Craig Hardcastle, and all the rest of those guys, did give me a place in a town where I’d yet to find one on my own. They gave me a little bit of extra structure at a time when I needed it. To this day every time I visit that island, I hear the echo of boots.
On a parting note, I believe three of the guys did go on to careers in law enforcement, and eight joined the military. The last I heard, Captain Hardcastle was flying jets for the U.S. Marine Corps, where I’m sure his voice is heard over the engines. Semper Fi, Craig.
Captured
The minute you walked into the room
Everything seemed so bright.
It happened oh so soon,
Ooh, it was outta sight.
And then you looked at me
With those beautiful, big, brown eyes,
And there was no place I could flee;
I was hypnotized.
Then you flashed that smile at me,
And my heart just flew away.
I know exactly how the cobra feels
When the flute begins to play.
And when you spoke my name
In a voice like angel song.
It was the end of the game;
My heart was gone.
I was captured
By those lovely eyes.
I found rapture,
I found paradise,
When I was captured
By those lovely eyes.............yeah.
( Single verse length bridge. )
I remember all that I once lacked,
Hell, I had no place to turn,
And all I saw when I looked back
Were the bridges that I had burned.
I guess that someone up above
Decided I deserved a prize,
So they sent me my love,
And all my dreams were realized.
When I was captured
by those lovely eyes.
I found rapture,
I found paradise,
When I was captured
By those lovely eyes.
When I was captured
By those lovely eyes,
When I was captured
I was...................................mesmerized!
February 13th, '99
-------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: This was a Jazz piece written for Jacquie on the night before Valentine's Day.
Everything seemed so bright.
It happened oh so soon,
Ooh, it was outta sight.
And then you looked at me
With those beautiful, big, brown eyes,
And there was no place I could flee;
I was hypnotized.
Then you flashed that smile at me,
And my heart just flew away.
I know exactly how the cobra feels
When the flute begins to play.
And when you spoke my name
In a voice like angel song.
It was the end of the game;
My heart was gone.
I was captured
By those lovely eyes.
I found rapture,
I found paradise,
When I was captured
By those lovely eyes.............yeah.
( Single verse length bridge. )
I remember all that I once lacked,
Hell, I had no place to turn,
And all I saw when I looked back
Were the bridges that I had burned.
I guess that someone up above
Decided I deserved a prize,
So they sent me my love,
And all my dreams were realized.
When I was captured
by those lovely eyes.
I found rapture,
I found paradise,
When I was captured
By those lovely eyes.
When I was captured
By those lovely eyes,
When I was captured
I was...................................mesmerized!
February 13th, '99
-------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: This was a Jazz piece written for Jacquie on the night before Valentine's Day.
Unrequited Love
Part Hell below, and part Heaven above,
Is the essence of Unrequited Love.
Your reason dissolves at her slightest word,
Her voice like Harps never mortal heard.
In her eyes such beauty as you’ve never known,
Then reality hits... Harsh winter, windblown.
Your world is shaken as Dreams crumble and end,
Finding little solace loved as a Friend.
But your pain will fade until your pain does end,
And you will live to love again.
And perhaps, when next those Harps call to you,
You will find, instead, your Dream come true.
Gone then are the days and the nights alone,
Come, instead, such Joy as you’ve never known.
Part Hell below, and part Heaven above,
Is the essence of Unrequited Love
Fall of '94
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: This was originally written to be lyric poetry, until a late-night walk home when I was bored with singing anything by anyone else, and tired of singing anything of my own at the time. This was still fresh........ so I just sang it. I thought it came out beautifully, but then, it was quite late, and there may have been a few beers involved. I still recall she who inspired it with great fondness, but I take solace in the third verse, for in time those Harps did again call to me . Jacquie and I just marked 13 years. Indeed, such Joy as I've never known.
Is the essence of Unrequited Love.
Your reason dissolves at her slightest word,
Her voice like Harps never mortal heard.
In her eyes such beauty as you’ve never known,
Then reality hits... Harsh winter, windblown.
Your world is shaken as Dreams crumble and end,
Finding little solace loved as a Friend.
But your pain will fade until your pain does end,
And you will live to love again.
And perhaps, when next those Harps call to you,
You will find, instead, your Dream come true.
Gone then are the days and the nights alone,
Come, instead, such Joy as you’ve never known.
Part Hell below, and part Heaven above,
Is the essence of Unrequited Love
Fall of '94
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: This was originally written to be lyric poetry, until a late-night walk home when I was bored with singing anything by anyone else, and tired of singing anything of my own at the time. This was still fresh........ so I just sang it. I thought it came out beautifully, but then, it was quite late, and there may have been a few beers involved. I still recall she who inspired it with great fondness, but I take solace in the third verse, for in time those Harps did again call to me . Jacquie and I just marked 13 years. Indeed, such Joy as I've never known.
The Stars of Orion
I remember a cold late night
in November of ‘81,
When we walked dark side streets to your home.
I found the Stars of Orion,
And I showed them to you one by one,
And I told you of a Love lost long ago.
You looked like a Goddess,
with your face turned to the stars,
And there I was so modest, worshiping from afar.
Then I saw your face
against the midnight sky,
And I was so happy for a while.
It seemed the starlight shone in your eyes,
and the moonlight in your smile.
Now I know that ‘81
was not that long ago,
But at times it seems like forever to me.
Different lives on different paths,
and we both had to go.
Still I cherish a Love that was never mean to be.
I still remember when I see the Stars of Orion
in the sky,
And at times in November
I’m known to cry.
Then I see your face in the midnight sky,
and I’m happy for a while,
‘Cause, Darling, starlit are your eyes,
and moonlit is your smile.
( Single verse length bridge )
Still I remember when I see the Stars of Orion
in the sky.
And at times in November
I’m known to cry.
Then I see your face in the midnight sky,
and I’m happy for a while,
‘Cause, Darling, starlit are your eyes,
and moonlit is your smile.
Forever, starlit are your eyes,
and ever moonlit is your smile.
Spring of ‘83
in November of ‘81,
When we walked dark side streets to your home.
I found the Stars of Orion,
And I showed them to you one by one,
And I told you of a Love lost long ago.
You looked like a Goddess,
with your face turned to the stars,
And there I was so modest, worshiping from afar.
Then I saw your face
against the midnight sky,
And I was so happy for a while.
It seemed the starlight shone in your eyes,
and the moonlight in your smile.
Now I know that ‘81
was not that long ago,
But at times it seems like forever to me.
Different lives on different paths,
and we both had to go.
Still I cherish a Love that was never mean to be.
I still remember when I see the Stars of Orion
in the sky,
And at times in November
I’m known to cry.
Then I see your face in the midnight sky,
and I’m happy for a while,
‘Cause, Darling, starlit are your eyes,
and moonlit is your smile.
( Single verse length bridge )
Still I remember when I see the Stars of Orion
in the sky.
And at times in November
I’m known to cry.
Then I see your face in the midnight sky,
and I’m happy for a while,
‘Cause, Darling, starlit are your eyes,
and moonlit is your smile.
Forever, starlit are your eyes,
and ever moonlit is your smile.
Spring of ‘83
Monday, December 11, 2006
Letter to the Speaker of the Florida House
A few years ago, I received an E-mail from the Speaker of the House of the State of Florida telling me how much he and his party had done for me and how much they needed my donations to continue their fine work on my behalf. ( GAG HERE! ) Below is my response.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Honored Sir,
If a group of people had to cross a large expanse of desert with only as much water as they could carry on their persons, the logical approach would be for each to carry an amount proportionate with his or her strength. Smaller children and the very old or infirm with one canteen, older children and the more hardy of the elderly with two, and so on, with the strongest of the group carrying eight or ten. This would obviously maximize the group's potential for water transport. It's a simple concept.
Florida is becoming an increasingly arid zone, fiscally speaking, yet the strongest of our group constantly whines at the prospect of a proportionate load. They consistently try to shirk their responsibility, seeking always to pass off more and more of their burden to the less hardy members of the group.
These are of course the wealthy upper crust of the financial food chain, the same Big Money interests which bankrolled the preponderance of those of you allegedly serving US. You haven't the courage to bite the hand that fed you, for fear that it will feed you no more. You are cowered by the certain knowledge that if you stand up to them and begin to close the loop holes that apply only to the wealthy, they, at the next election will decry you as a TAXING POLITICIAN! Yes, they will, but I and many other Floridians of any and all parties would embrace you as a leader of courage and conviction.
On a similar vein your tax cuts almost invariably benefit the wealthy far more than the average family in Florida. If someone can afford a "Sky Box" at an arena, they can certainly afford to pay the taxes on the purchase! If Big Business can reap huge profits at the expense of OUR environment, then THEY can certainly afford to pay the cost of repairing the damage they've done. This WAS MANDATED by overwhelming voter response, but has YET to be enforced by the Corporate Lapdogs who allegedly serve US! They have a moral compass, but it points to the greatest concentration of GOLD!
I enjoin you, Sir, to rise above it! I enjoin you to be the one, with the courage and conviction of a Just Cause, to stand up and say, "NO MORE!" I implore you, on behalf of my children, indeed, on behalf of all the children in Florida's ABYSMALLY NEGLECTED AND UNDERFUNDED public school system, to be the Leader with the Vision and Honor to lead, not in the direction of the trough, but in the direction of a brighter day. I ask you to be the FIRST in Tallahassee to initiate ACTUAL repair on our school system. FORGET VOUCHERS! First, our taxes should NEVER be doled out to secular schools, and ,second, you don't fix a bus by giving people cab fare! Just fix the bus! And BE THE FIRST TO FIX YOUR COMPASS!
You can drape a manure truck in American flags, but we all still know what's in the truck. The smell makes it readily apparent, and it's HIGHLY disrespectful to the flag, as well as insulting to everyone you believed stupid enough to be fooled by it.
Please, rise above it!
Yours, still respectfully, if wavering,
D. A. Sherman
---------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: You may notice that NOT ONE of my reasonable requests was taken to heart. Our taxes STILL fall disproportionately on those less able to bear the weight. Corporations which are supposedly reined in by our State Government, instead run amok and trample the will and the wallets of the voters.
The Sugar Industry has been EXCUSED from the court mandated timetable for its participation in, and PAYMENT for, the clean-up of the Florida Everglades. The Federal Government warned that if this was done then ALL MATCHING FEDERAL FUNDS WOULD BE WITHHELD! The Republicans in power didn't care. They let them off the hook anyway. Then, Charlie Crist had the GALL, during the recent gubernatorial debates to blame Jim Davis for the lack of Federal funding in this area! CRIST, YOU LYING BASTARD!
Our schools are still in dire straits. Our literacy rate is dropping, and our drop-out rate is rising, and all the while our State Government CUTS SCHOOL FUNDING MORE! Governor Bush has repeatedly IGNORED a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT limiting classroom size in the State of Florida. How is that NOT a crime? Because the people who are supposed to uphold the Law, the people who are supposed to enforce the Will of the People, the people who are supposed to prosecute crimes, don't give a SHIT! That's how. For example, say the Attorney General of the state, Charlie Crist, is a bought-and-paid-for CO-CONSPIRATOR with the same Governor that is committing the crime in the first place!
It seems the "Midas Compass" is still working JUST THE WAY THEY WANT!
(You will note that "The Respect" is now shot all to hell.)
D. Allen Sherman
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Honored Sir,
If a group of people had to cross a large expanse of desert with only as much water as they could carry on their persons, the logical approach would be for each to carry an amount proportionate with his or her strength. Smaller children and the very old or infirm with one canteen, older children and the more hardy of the elderly with two, and so on, with the strongest of the group carrying eight or ten. This would obviously maximize the group's potential for water transport. It's a simple concept.
Florida is becoming an increasingly arid zone, fiscally speaking, yet the strongest of our group constantly whines at the prospect of a proportionate load. They consistently try to shirk their responsibility, seeking always to pass off more and more of their burden to the less hardy members of the group.
These are of course the wealthy upper crust of the financial food chain, the same Big Money interests which bankrolled the preponderance of those of you allegedly serving US. You haven't the courage to bite the hand that fed you, for fear that it will feed you no more. You are cowered by the certain knowledge that if you stand up to them and begin to close the loop holes that apply only to the wealthy, they, at the next election will decry you as a TAXING POLITICIAN! Yes, they will, but I and many other Floridians of any and all parties would embrace you as a leader of courage and conviction.
On a similar vein your tax cuts almost invariably benefit the wealthy far more than the average family in Florida. If someone can afford a "Sky Box" at an arena, they can certainly afford to pay the taxes on the purchase! If Big Business can reap huge profits at the expense of OUR environment, then THEY can certainly afford to pay the cost of repairing the damage they've done. This WAS MANDATED by overwhelming voter response, but has YET to be enforced by the Corporate Lapdogs who allegedly serve US! They have a moral compass, but it points to the greatest concentration of GOLD!
I enjoin you, Sir, to rise above it! I enjoin you to be the one, with the courage and conviction of a Just Cause, to stand up and say, "NO MORE!" I implore you, on behalf of my children, indeed, on behalf of all the children in Florida's ABYSMALLY NEGLECTED AND UNDERFUNDED public school system, to be the Leader with the Vision and Honor to lead, not in the direction of the trough, but in the direction of a brighter day. I ask you to be the FIRST in Tallahassee to initiate ACTUAL repair on our school system. FORGET VOUCHERS! First, our taxes should NEVER be doled out to secular schools, and ,second, you don't fix a bus by giving people cab fare! Just fix the bus! And BE THE FIRST TO FIX YOUR COMPASS!
You can drape a manure truck in American flags, but we all still know what's in the truck. The smell makes it readily apparent, and it's HIGHLY disrespectful to the flag, as well as insulting to everyone you believed stupid enough to be fooled by it.
Please, rise above it!
Yours, still respectfully, if wavering,
D. A. Sherman
---------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: You may notice that NOT ONE of my reasonable requests was taken to heart. Our taxes STILL fall disproportionately on those less able to bear the weight. Corporations which are supposedly reined in by our State Government, instead run amok and trample the will and the wallets of the voters.
The Sugar Industry has been EXCUSED from the court mandated timetable for its participation in, and PAYMENT for, the clean-up of the Florida Everglades. The Federal Government warned that if this was done then ALL MATCHING FEDERAL FUNDS WOULD BE WITHHELD! The Republicans in power didn't care. They let them off the hook anyway. Then, Charlie Crist had the GALL, during the recent gubernatorial debates to blame Jim Davis for the lack of Federal funding in this area! CRIST, YOU LYING BASTARD!
Our schools are still in dire straits. Our literacy rate is dropping, and our drop-out rate is rising, and all the while our State Government CUTS SCHOOL FUNDING MORE! Governor Bush has repeatedly IGNORED a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT limiting classroom size in the State of Florida. How is that NOT a crime? Because the people who are supposed to uphold the Law, the people who are supposed to enforce the Will of the People, the people who are supposed to prosecute crimes, don't give a SHIT! That's how. For example, say the Attorney General of the state, Charlie Crist, is a bought-and-paid-for CO-CONSPIRATOR with the same Governor that is committing the crime in the first place!
It seems the "Midas Compass" is still working JUST THE WAY THEY WANT!
(You will note that "The Respect" is now shot all to hell.)
D. Allen Sherman
Sunday, December 10, 2006
The Furor of Force Fed Faith
Last year, at age 44, I returned to my old high school. I had heard that a former Teacher of mine was retiring soon, and I had a message I wished to deliver in person. (The specifics are not that relevant, but are noted in greater detail in my Author’s Note following the Poetry piece “The Joys I’ve Yet to Live”) She met with me in her classroom at the end of the day. Also in attendance was a young man, probably in his early twenties, who was introduced to me as her teaching assistant. After about a thirty minute discussion, during which I admit I got “a bit choked up”, I thanked her for caring so much all those years ago. Her eyes, too, were a bit teared up as I finished. Wonder Boy, however, looked at me and said, “May I ask you a question?”
“Certainly,” I replied, hoping that he would take the entire incident to heart as an example of the far reaching impact he, himself, could one day have on his own students.
Not a chance! Instead, he said, “Have you asked Jesus Christ into your life?”
I was floored. I was shocked. I was PISSED! I reined it all in, however, calmly thanked him for his concern, and quite politely explained that I had NOT come to discuss his Faith. I made my farewells, and left with my resentment barely under control. When did it become appropriate to insert Jesus into every single conversation, whatever the topic, whatever the setting? Did I not get the memo?
On the business front, as a Realtor, I now receive E-mails from supposed business professionals, hard copies of which, by Law, will be kept in the files pertaining to a real estate transaction for years. Some of these messages may only be a sentence of two in length, but at the bottom of each page is a Bible quote, complete with notations of chapter and verse! This is not Sunday school, this is the business world, and with all due respect, when last I heard, The Christ was NOT a Licensed Real Estate Agent.
I now occasionally run into an old school friend, quite the hell raiser in his day, who has since been “born again”. Now, I can understand him sharing this with me that first time we reconnected after twenty years, but every single time I see him now, about four times a year, he absolutely CANNOT go five minutes in any conversation without mentioning “The Lord”. Is there no point after which it’s just understood by all whose team you’re one, and we can then just dispense with the constant references?
Our roadways have become choked with ads for “Salvation”. The “Jesus Fish” appears on the back of more vehicles in the United States than the Chevrolet logo. Those cars which don’t remind you that “Jesus Saves” will instead claim him as their actual co-pilot! Perhaps if your co-pilot didn’t hail from a desert in the Iron Age, devoid of ANY CARS or even PAVED ROADS, you wouldn’t be doing thirty miles-per-hour in the left lane of a forty-five zone! My absolute favorite is the bumper sticker which read, “I Brake for the Lord”! I had to wonder if these visions occurred only at slow speeds, or could they result in a full “lock-up” at sixty?
These are but minor symptoms of a trend that has grown to epidemic proportions. By that I do not refer to the resurgence of the Christian Faith in this country, but rather the constant force-feeding thereof. Even more disturbing to me is the growing trend to denigrate and revile those of other Faiths. During debates surrounding the recent elections, I have, on several occasions heard the term “GODLESS LIBERALS”! This sends me completely over the edge and into a near frothy-mouthed frenzy of righteous indignation. That’s right. I said “righteous”. Let me explain it this way.
Among my many, albeit dubious talents, I am a gourmet cook. I can prepare for you one of the finest meals you've ever tasted. BUT.....the minute I try to jam it down your throat with a broom handle YOU WILL GAG ON IT! The same is true with religion. I am glad someone’s Faith sustains them. I am pleased to hear that in times of pain, fear, grief, or ill health that their Faith lends them solace and strength. That is what it's for. I am also glad that their Faith nourishes them. That is also what it's for.
I can even understand that they find it so nourishing and comforting they wish to share it with others. They find a table "prepared before them in the presence of their enemies", they see that "their cup runneth over", and they are moved to invite others to join in their comfort and Spiritual largess. This is just good manners, as well as a proper act of kindness. I will even assume that their initial efforts to spread their Faith are based on such positive motivations. BUT, when others decline such invitations, it is WRONG to chastise them for it. Perhaps they are already full, having eaten elsewhere. Perhaps they don't like new things, preferring the food they were raised with. Maybe they’re just NOT HUNGRY. It makes no difference. The would-be “sharers” have NO RIGHT to shove it down their throats with a broom handle.
"Join us, please." "Thank you, no." "But, it's quite good." "I'm sure it is, but, no thank you." THAT should be the end of the conversation. "GODLESS" is uncalled for. To anyone encountering this sort of hostility, I would suggest asking the following question: “Do you assume that if people decline a dinner invitation to your home that their entire lives are FOODLESS?” You may then follow up with the obvious: “Yours is NOT the ONLY food, nor is yours the ONLY Faith.” I tend to close after that with a peacefully delivered, “Blessed Be!” but then, that’s just me. ( I will speak to the tenets of my own Faith later.)
I have also, upon rare occasion, when corresponding with a large group of people, used the line: “May whatever God you embrace, embrace you in turn.” I choose such a benediction in the hope that it will convey my sincere wishes that each member of the group to which I am speaking find peace within themselves and their Faith, whatever that Faith may be. I wish them Contentment of Soul. I do not see how this could possibly be perceived as a bad thing, and yet, it has actually been met (only by Christians) with resentment. That I would be in doubt as to their God. That I would not already know them to be so embraced. Or worse still, that I would even consider the possibility of the existence of any other God but theirs! WOW !
Neither Catholics nor Protestants seem to have any edge in this. Individuals from both sectors of Christianity have assailed me with equal rancor for such sentiments. I DO NOT IN ANY WAY wish this to be construed to mean that I have any problem with Christians, be they Catholic or Protestant. I do live in the United States of America, and so Christians invariably make up the overwhelming preponderance of my neighbors, acquaintances, and, indeed, friends. For the most part I find them to be good people. Of course I also believe that if I lived anywhere, I would find the majority of my neighbors, acquaintances, and friends to be good people. I happen to hold the predominance of Humanity in quite high esteem, when taken AS INDIVIDUALS.
In large groups, however I believe Humanity is far more susceptible to its own failings. It seems we will readily sink to behaviors in a “herd” that we would never dream of displaying on our own. In the case of this new breed of Neo-Conservative-Christians that has sprung up in the United States in the last twenty years, they seem far more ready to stoop to militant bigotry and aggressive ostracizing of anyone not clearly from their own fold. Also they have become so secure in the pervasiveness of their “herd” that they have NO problem acting out individually. How they hold such hateful behavior to be “Christian” eludes me. This is only the way to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” if thyself is a Masochist! I doubt very much that this is truly how they would have others do unto them. I think instead, in their zeal to proclaim their own piety to the world, they fail to consider how the one-sidedness of their words might harm others. Or, even worse, perhaps they have become so indoctrinated into the misconception of their own spiritual superiority, that they no longer care.
It has been my experience that the best and truest examples of Christian behavior can be found in those who practice their Faith quietly, and with little fanfare. They know that the true measure of their piety is found, not in boisterous public displays and affectations, but rather in the quiet places of their Soul, in that place where they truly speak to God. As for those who choose to shout their prayers on a street corner, or a public restaurant, or a bar...........who are they REALLY trying to convince?
“Certainly,” I replied, hoping that he would take the entire incident to heart as an example of the far reaching impact he, himself, could one day have on his own students.
Not a chance! Instead, he said, “Have you asked Jesus Christ into your life?”
I was floored. I was shocked. I was PISSED! I reined it all in, however, calmly thanked him for his concern, and quite politely explained that I had NOT come to discuss his Faith. I made my farewells, and left with my resentment barely under control. When did it become appropriate to insert Jesus into every single conversation, whatever the topic, whatever the setting? Did I not get the memo?
On the business front, as a Realtor, I now receive E-mails from supposed business professionals, hard copies of which, by Law, will be kept in the files pertaining to a real estate transaction for years. Some of these messages may only be a sentence of two in length, but at the bottom of each page is a Bible quote, complete with notations of chapter and verse! This is not Sunday school, this is the business world, and with all due respect, when last I heard, The Christ was NOT a Licensed Real Estate Agent.
I now occasionally run into an old school friend, quite the hell raiser in his day, who has since been “born again”. Now, I can understand him sharing this with me that first time we reconnected after twenty years, but every single time I see him now, about four times a year, he absolutely CANNOT go five minutes in any conversation without mentioning “The Lord”. Is there no point after which it’s just understood by all whose team you’re one, and we can then just dispense with the constant references?
Our roadways have become choked with ads for “Salvation”. The “Jesus Fish” appears on the back of more vehicles in the United States than the Chevrolet logo. Those cars which don’t remind you that “Jesus Saves” will instead claim him as their actual co-pilot! Perhaps if your co-pilot didn’t hail from a desert in the Iron Age, devoid of ANY CARS or even PAVED ROADS, you wouldn’t be doing thirty miles-per-hour in the left lane of a forty-five zone! My absolute favorite is the bumper sticker which read, “I Brake for the Lord”! I had to wonder if these visions occurred only at slow speeds, or could they result in a full “lock-up” at sixty?
These are but minor symptoms of a trend that has grown to epidemic proportions. By that I do not refer to the resurgence of the Christian Faith in this country, but rather the constant force-feeding thereof. Even more disturbing to me is the growing trend to denigrate and revile those of other Faiths. During debates surrounding the recent elections, I have, on several occasions heard the term “GODLESS LIBERALS”! This sends me completely over the edge and into a near frothy-mouthed frenzy of righteous indignation. That’s right. I said “righteous”. Let me explain it this way.
Among my many, albeit dubious talents, I am a gourmet cook. I can prepare for you one of the finest meals you've ever tasted. BUT.....the minute I try to jam it down your throat with a broom handle YOU WILL GAG ON IT! The same is true with religion. I am glad someone’s Faith sustains them. I am pleased to hear that in times of pain, fear, grief, or ill health that their Faith lends them solace and strength. That is what it's for. I am also glad that their Faith nourishes them. That is also what it's for.
I can even understand that they find it so nourishing and comforting they wish to share it with others. They find a table "prepared before them in the presence of their enemies", they see that "their cup runneth over", and they are moved to invite others to join in their comfort and Spiritual largess. This is just good manners, as well as a proper act of kindness. I will even assume that their initial efforts to spread their Faith are based on such positive motivations. BUT, when others decline such invitations, it is WRONG to chastise them for it. Perhaps they are already full, having eaten elsewhere. Perhaps they don't like new things, preferring the food they were raised with. Maybe they’re just NOT HUNGRY. It makes no difference. The would-be “sharers” have NO RIGHT to shove it down their throats with a broom handle.
"Join us, please." "Thank you, no." "But, it's quite good." "I'm sure it is, but, no thank you." THAT should be the end of the conversation. "GODLESS" is uncalled for. To anyone encountering this sort of hostility, I would suggest asking the following question: “Do you assume that if people decline a dinner invitation to your home that their entire lives are FOODLESS?” You may then follow up with the obvious: “Yours is NOT the ONLY food, nor is yours the ONLY Faith.” I tend to close after that with a peacefully delivered, “Blessed Be!” but then, that’s just me. ( I will speak to the tenets of my own Faith later.)
I have also, upon rare occasion, when corresponding with a large group of people, used the line: “May whatever God you embrace, embrace you in turn.” I choose such a benediction in the hope that it will convey my sincere wishes that each member of the group to which I am speaking find peace within themselves and their Faith, whatever that Faith may be. I wish them Contentment of Soul. I do not see how this could possibly be perceived as a bad thing, and yet, it has actually been met (only by Christians) with resentment. That I would be in doubt as to their God. That I would not already know them to be so embraced. Or worse still, that I would even consider the possibility of the existence of any other God but theirs! WOW !
Neither Catholics nor Protestants seem to have any edge in this. Individuals from both sectors of Christianity have assailed me with equal rancor for such sentiments. I DO NOT IN ANY WAY wish this to be construed to mean that I have any problem with Christians, be they Catholic or Protestant. I do live in the United States of America, and so Christians invariably make up the overwhelming preponderance of my neighbors, acquaintances, and, indeed, friends. For the most part I find them to be good people. Of course I also believe that if I lived anywhere, I would find the majority of my neighbors, acquaintances, and friends to be good people. I happen to hold the predominance of Humanity in quite high esteem, when taken AS INDIVIDUALS.
In large groups, however I believe Humanity is far more susceptible to its own failings. It seems we will readily sink to behaviors in a “herd” that we would never dream of displaying on our own. In the case of this new breed of Neo-Conservative-Christians that has sprung up in the United States in the last twenty years, they seem far more ready to stoop to militant bigotry and aggressive ostracizing of anyone not clearly from their own fold. Also they have become so secure in the pervasiveness of their “herd” that they have NO problem acting out individually. How they hold such hateful behavior to be “Christian” eludes me. This is only the way to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” if thyself is a Masochist! I doubt very much that this is truly how they would have others do unto them. I think instead, in their zeal to proclaim their own piety to the world, they fail to consider how the one-sidedness of their words might harm others. Or, even worse, perhaps they have become so indoctrinated into the misconception of their own spiritual superiority, that they no longer care.
It has been my experience that the best and truest examples of Christian behavior can be found in those who practice their Faith quietly, and with little fanfare. They know that the true measure of their piety is found, not in boisterous public displays and affectations, but rather in the quiet places of their Soul, in that place where they truly speak to God. As for those who choose to shout their prayers on a street corner, or a public restaurant, or a bar...........who are they REALLY trying to convince?
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Wisdom on the Dock
“So why are we out here?” I asked, trying not to stumble in the night.
“You got someplace to be?” he replied, walking nonchalantly ahead of me.
“Well, no, but...” I began.
“I like to come out here to keep in touch with my neighbors,” he said, cutting off my reply.
“Your neighbors?” I said. That would at least explain why he had me carrying a twelve-pack. As I looked around though, I didn’t see anyone else. Apparently my look of total confusion was plain even in the darkness, because he went on to explain.
“Exactly.” He said, nodding as my eyes began to adjust to the light of a sliver moon. He reached for a beer, popped the top, and took a long drink. I did the same, waiting for the explanation sure to follow.
“No one takes the time anymore to stop and get to know their neighbors,” he told me. “For example, people today might know the little old lady down the street enough to wave, and they probably know she’s the only one on the block that doesn’t put up Christmas lights. But, they never bothered to learn that she and her husband used to have the most spectacular lights of the season when she lived in Michigan. Then he died on Christmas Eve,” his voice grew sad, “ Now she just can’t seem to find the Holiday Spirit anymore. Someone should share theirs. She needs it,” he added sipping the beer again
He moved downwind of me and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind?” he asked. He hesitated until I shook my head then lit one and drew on it hard, exhaling long and slow, upward, his eyes on the stars. “They know the shy, mousy little girl from two streets over who rides her bike around by herself all the time,” he went on, “ But they don’t know her name, or that she plays the flute so well it would make Mozart himself weep tears of joy. They also don’t know that she rides her bike alone because she has no friends, and she desperately wants friends. A little genuine praise and encouragement from a few good neighbors could make all the difference between her taking that flute to the finest concert halls of the world or giving it up before she’s even through with college. Someone needs to take the time to care,” he said, his eyes turning back to mine on the last sentence.
“People know the sweet little couple next door,” He paused, blowing smoke again. “The McAllisters, John and Ann” he added, his voice making it plain that the names had just been plucked from the night air. “They know John’s a vet, because he marches with the VFW in every parade, and they know the two of them are always holding hands. That’s why everyone thinks of them as that sweet little couple.” My friend smiled and his eyes grew distant as he added the last, as if remembering just such a couple.
He stopped for moment, pinching the now finished cigarette and flicking the end rapidly with his middle finger. The burning cherry ember fell with a sharp hiss into the river below us, and he tucked the filter into a back pocket. I’d known this man for years, and he smoked like a chimney, but I’d never seen him leave a filter on the ground. He drained the beer and, tossing the can into a trash bin near us, reached for a second. Absently, he pulled out the pack and lit another cigarette as he continued. “Yup, chimney,” I thought.
“What people don’t know about the McAllisters, John and Ann,” he said, again giving the names a peculiar emphasis to again make it clear they were fictitious, “Is that John still claims her picture was the only thing that got him through Inchon and the long, cold nights that followed, waiting in a frozen hole in Korea for the sound of Chinese whistles and trumpets. They don’t know that he promised God that if he could just make it home, he’d never let her go, and he never has. They don’t know that Ann, waiting at home near Akron all those years ago asked God for the exact same deal.” Again my friend paused and smiled as if remembering.
“What they also don’t know is that John doesn’t march is those parades for himself, or even for the friends he left behind in that frozen hell,” he paused to pull on the new beer and the cigarette in turn, and swiveled to face me. “He marches for John Junior, their son, who would have been one of the last Marines to leave Saigon.” I noted a quaver in my friend’s voice as he stopped to hit the cigarette again, his eyes going across the water to the islands beyond, “If he had only lived to leave Saigon,” he finished.
Eager to fill a silence that had suddenly grown too intense, I raised my beer to him. “To the McAllisters,” I toasted.
That seemed to snap him out of it. “John and Ann,” he added, clicking his can to mine.
Both beers were drained, tossed into the trash, and replaced from what was apparently going to be a very short-lived twelve-pack. Again I stayed silent. I’d known this man for years, and, while these talks might tend to drag on sometimes, they always had a point.
“You see,” he said turning to face me. “Neighbors have wants and needs. Sometimes just a smile and a wave is enough, but sometimes they need a little more. They need someone to take the time to get to know them, really know them. A band-aid is fine for a skinned knee, but a deeper wound requires more attention, and more importantly,” he added, “More time.” Again there was a break so that neither beer nor cigarette would feel left out of the conversation. “I’m just concerned that people today hold their time too dear. They don’t seem to understand that it’s other people they should hold dear,” he said, looking at me as if to underscore the words to follow, “The time is free.”
“Well put,” I told him, again reaching to clink my can to his in proper guy talk fashion. My friend liked to occasionally “bestow a little wisdom” as he put it. I’d come to listen over the years because I’d learned that there was usually a bit of actual wisdom involved. This was proving to be one of those times. Then I remembered how this conversation began. “I ‘m a little confused though,” I said cocking my head and turning towards him, “You said you came out here to keep in touch with your neighbors. Hell, I thought that’s who some of the beer was for.”
“Yes, I did,” he replied emphatically. He had that same look he got when I pounced on what I thought was a free pawn in one of our chess games. The one that turned out to be bait for the beginning of the end. I could feel another pearl of wisdom coming on. I bit any way.
“But we’re on a dock at three a.m. and there are no other people here,” I pointed out, knowing full well I was “pouncing” on exactly the wrong pawn he wanted. We’d played this game almost as much as chess over the years, and the look in his eye told me that he knew I was going along just for the ride.
“Exactly!” he said, as if I’d just somehow proven his point for him. “There are no other people,” he smiled, stressing the word “people” as if that made it all clear. “But,” he continued, “I never said all of may neighbors were people.”
“Now I’m really confused,” I told him, meaning every word.
“People are easy,” he said, “I usually listen to them during the day. The conversations always seem a lot less one-sided when they’re awake.” He chuckled at this. He often amused himself during these talks. “I come out here at night to listen to my other neighbors,” he went on. I could tell he was really starting to hit his stride now.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I interjected into a pause that was clearly left for just that reason. “What other neighbors?”
“Listen,” he told me, tuning and tilting his head.
It was quiet on the dock. “Why not,” I thought, “It’s a quiet dock in a quiet neighborhood in a quiet town.” Apart from my friend rummaging for another beer, I heard a lot of quiet. Feeling as if this were some sort of test I tried to listen more closely. All I could hear was a bit of the breeze rustling the trees and the occasional fish jump.
“I’m still stumped,” I admitted.
His finger pointed up and behind us, “Do you hear the palm tree?” he asked. At my nod, he went on, “The sound is too high pitched, too brittle, those trees are usually silent in a wind this mild unless most of the fronds are dead and dried out.”
I turned and looked. Sure enough, almost all of the palm fronds hung lifeless and dry, their pale tan color easily distinguishable from the usual darker green of healthy specimens even in the scant light available. I was impressed.
“It’s dying,” he said matter-of-factly, “Probably from the same thing that’s killing off the palms all over south Florida. Man. You see,” he continued, “We’ve depleted the fresh water table so much that it’s allowed salt water to intrude. As the salt level rises in the ground water the palms are dying.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief, and added, “We are drinking them to death. We pull out so much water to keep our lawns green that we’re killing our trees which drink deeper down.” He tipped the last of his beer, tossed it with the others, popped another and asked, “How’s that for stupid?”
The finger pointed now to the islands across the narrow band of the river in front of us. I could just detect a faint whistling like someone barely playing a bamboo flute. “Those are Australian Pines,” he said, “Technically, their an invasion plant brought in by the sugar industry, but they’re some of my favorites. I can’t help it,” he smiled, “ I love the music. Most of them were killed off in the frosts of ‘83 and ‘89, but that sound tells me they’re okay, for now” he hesitated, smiling. “It also reminds me that I’m okay,” he added as if hinting at some past relationship.
“Alright,” I admitted, “You are the Garden Ninja, and the beer’s all for us,” I raised and then finished my beer, ahead of him I noted. Odd, he usually kept pace. I popped another and, sipping, waited for the wisdom to continue.
“Thirst impedes wisdom, hence the beer, and you, Grasshopper, still fail to listen,” he continued in a reasonably good early David Carradine voice. I noticed then, as his face turned up into the pale light of the moon that his eyes were closed! Just then a fish jumped just a few feet from the dock. It sailed a good six feet or so before splashing back into the river. That,” he said, the finger pointing quickly to the source of the sound, “Is a mullet. More than that though, he’s one of the advance guard for a large school of mullet.”
I looked to the south, behind the splash, and even in the dim light I could see the massed heads of a large school of mullet stretching back for eighty feet or more. The swarm of close-packed eyes and snouts jutted up out of the water as I’d seen them do before at this time of year.
“This is the third time this school has gone by since we’ve been out here,” he told me. “They used to school this big every year, like clockwork, but as the pollution levels in the lagoon rose the schools thinned out a lot.” He said, using the more technical term for the waters before us. It really was more of a tropical lagoon than a river in the classic sense. “Then there were the algae blooms that killed thousands as well. There were a few years there when you didn’t hear any big schools at all at night,” he added, his voice almost wistful. “Hearing so many of them tonight, I know that not only are the mullet making a come-back, but also the lagoon itself.”
Two large splashes disrupted the murmuring sound of the school, striking it at the rear and at the outer edge, that farthest from us, closer to the shallow flats that run between the islands. Immediately the entire school broke in a sound like water hitting a high boil in an instant, the chaos cascading through the mullet like a domino effect running from the strikes down the entire length of the school, now more clearly defined as over one hundred and twenty feet!
“That,” he said, almost pouncing verbally, his finger yet again stabbing toward the sound, “Is a trout, actually two of them, hunting the mullet. Big ones by the sound of it,” he said. “Of course they could be snook,” he admitted. “Thirty years ago ten to twelve pound snook were as common in these waters as trout, until a combination of our fishing and our poisons almost killed them off completely. Hell, we almost destroyed the redfish, too,” his voice grew grim. “But, tonight I can hear that the big trout at least are back! Just like the big schools of mullet!” He opened his eyes as he paused to drink long of the beer and to hit the cigarette again.
Suddenly a huge splash sounded near to where the trout had just struck. This was some thing much larger. Moments later a “foosh” of sound like a large exhale about twenty feet away confirmed what we both had believed true. “Dolphin,” I said, actually proud to be the first to identify something in this conversation.
“Absolutely,” he agreed, “There’s a pod of five or six that feeds off this dock most nights. Sometimes it’s a snack bar, tonight it’s a buffet!” he added with a chuckle, “ I’m a little surprised we hadn’t heard them before now.” Again he flicked his cigarette, field stripped it, stowed the butt, and lit yet another. Oddly, I could’ve sworn that this one came from behind his right ear rather than the pack in his shirt pocket.
“I’ve loved them since I was six,” he said. “We were on vacation at Virginia beach. I had a new inflatable raft, one of those little four foot jobs,” he held his hand at about mid-chest to illustrate, “And I’d drifted WAY out beyond the shore break.” His eyes again grew distant and he smiled, “I didn’t know it, but my mom was on the beach going absolutely nuts. She went to the lifeguard, who located me with his binoculars. Then she saw the fins, and lost it completely!” “Sharks!” he exclaimed in what was apparently his high pitched "Frantic Mom" voice.
I thought it kind of weird that he was laughing at his point, until he went on to explain, “Then the lifeguard told her, ‘No, ma’am, those are dolphins, he’s safe with them around. Sharks won’t come near dolphins,’ like that was gonna be enough to calm her down.” Smiling, he paused to hit his cigarette, rather hard I thought, and continued, “So there I was about three hundred yards or so off shore, and Flipper shows up! I’d seen him on TV, this was him! Then he and his friends proceeded to bump my raft toward the shore!”
“You’re kidding me,” I interjected, “The dolphins pushed you back to shore?”
“Yup,” he said, grinning widely, “All the way to about a hundred yards off, where the lifeguard had come out to meet me.” He stood up straight, practically at attention, and said in deep mock-theatrical voice, “ You are talking to,” his hands made finger quotes, “Boy Saved By Dolphins!”
With that he took a bow, and drained his beer. Upon reaching for another he found that we were down to the last two, and handed me mine. He then started pulling the empties out of the bin and putting them in the empty twelve-pack, “We’ll drop these off in the recycling bin on the way back,” he explained.
“Okay,” I said, “I got it. Daytime, people. Nighttime, trees and fish.” I flashed my best sarcastic smirk, popping the last beer.
“You’re forgetting the great blue heron that squawked at us and flew away when we first got here,” he told me, “And the osprey that’s been chirping all night in that tall dead tree across the way on the island.”
“Also,” he added, closing his eyes again, his finger now pointing east for the first time in the night, “You’re forgetting Mother Ocean. You can just hear the surf, if you listen carefully.”
I paused and tried to hear it for a moment, “I think that’s the road,” I told him, referring to the four lanes of traffic that ran through the thin three blocks between us and the beach. “Hear how it rises and falls as each car passes?”
“Yeah,” he said, hanging his head as if in despair, “We call those waves.”
Just then a loud noise sounded in the east, a sharp dissonant blaring not at all in harmony with the other sounds of the night. My friend's eyes shot open.
“I think your Ocean just honked!” I informed him, laughing. I couldn't resist adding, “Are the cars your neighbors, too, oh Wise One?”
“No,” he replied without missing a beat, “They’re tourists!” He snubbed out the cigarette on the dock rail and put the remains in his shirt pocket. Then he drained the last beer, and turned to head back up the dock. As he passed me, he looked over to add, “Sometimes at night, tourists can sound a lot like neighbors.”
“Hey, can I ask you something,” I called as I hurried to catch up.
“Sure,” he replied.
“That last one wasn’t a cigarette, was it?”
“No, not really.”
-----------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: A shortened version of the last half of this piece was published in the "The Beachside Resident" in Nov. 06. My thanks to the Brothers Bennison. The supporting roles of "Beers" and "Cigarettes" ( Especially that last one!) were deleted due to space constraints. I'm sure somewhere in Cocoa Beach people talk on docks at 3:00 am without these vital ingredients being involved, but I've never done it.
“You got someplace to be?” he replied, walking nonchalantly ahead of me.
“Well, no, but...” I began.
“I like to come out here to keep in touch with my neighbors,” he said, cutting off my reply.
“Your neighbors?” I said. That would at least explain why he had me carrying a twelve-pack. As I looked around though, I didn’t see anyone else. Apparently my look of total confusion was plain even in the darkness, because he went on to explain.
“Exactly.” He said, nodding as my eyes began to adjust to the light of a sliver moon. He reached for a beer, popped the top, and took a long drink. I did the same, waiting for the explanation sure to follow.
“No one takes the time anymore to stop and get to know their neighbors,” he told me. “For example, people today might know the little old lady down the street enough to wave, and they probably know she’s the only one on the block that doesn’t put up Christmas lights. But, they never bothered to learn that she and her husband used to have the most spectacular lights of the season when she lived in Michigan. Then he died on Christmas Eve,” his voice grew sad, “ Now she just can’t seem to find the Holiday Spirit anymore. Someone should share theirs. She needs it,” he added sipping the beer again
He moved downwind of me and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind?” he asked. He hesitated until I shook my head then lit one and drew on it hard, exhaling long and slow, upward, his eyes on the stars. “They know the shy, mousy little girl from two streets over who rides her bike around by herself all the time,” he went on, “ But they don’t know her name, or that she plays the flute so well it would make Mozart himself weep tears of joy. They also don’t know that she rides her bike alone because she has no friends, and she desperately wants friends. A little genuine praise and encouragement from a few good neighbors could make all the difference between her taking that flute to the finest concert halls of the world or giving it up before she’s even through with college. Someone needs to take the time to care,” he said, his eyes turning back to mine on the last sentence.
“People know the sweet little couple next door,” He paused, blowing smoke again. “The McAllisters, John and Ann” he added, his voice making it plain that the names had just been plucked from the night air. “They know John’s a vet, because he marches with the VFW in every parade, and they know the two of them are always holding hands. That’s why everyone thinks of them as that sweet little couple.” My friend smiled and his eyes grew distant as he added the last, as if remembering just such a couple.
He stopped for moment, pinching the now finished cigarette and flicking the end rapidly with his middle finger. The burning cherry ember fell with a sharp hiss into the river below us, and he tucked the filter into a back pocket. I’d known this man for years, and he smoked like a chimney, but I’d never seen him leave a filter on the ground. He drained the beer and, tossing the can into a trash bin near us, reached for a second. Absently, he pulled out the pack and lit another cigarette as he continued. “Yup, chimney,” I thought.
“What people don’t know about the McAllisters, John and Ann,” he said, again giving the names a peculiar emphasis to again make it clear they were fictitious, “Is that John still claims her picture was the only thing that got him through Inchon and the long, cold nights that followed, waiting in a frozen hole in Korea for the sound of Chinese whistles and trumpets. They don’t know that he promised God that if he could just make it home, he’d never let her go, and he never has. They don’t know that Ann, waiting at home near Akron all those years ago asked God for the exact same deal.” Again my friend paused and smiled as if remembering.
“What they also don’t know is that John doesn’t march is those parades for himself, or even for the friends he left behind in that frozen hell,” he paused to pull on the new beer and the cigarette in turn, and swiveled to face me. “He marches for John Junior, their son, who would have been one of the last Marines to leave Saigon.” I noted a quaver in my friend’s voice as he stopped to hit the cigarette again, his eyes going across the water to the islands beyond, “If he had only lived to leave Saigon,” he finished.
Eager to fill a silence that had suddenly grown too intense, I raised my beer to him. “To the McAllisters,” I toasted.
That seemed to snap him out of it. “John and Ann,” he added, clicking his can to mine.
Both beers were drained, tossed into the trash, and replaced from what was apparently going to be a very short-lived twelve-pack. Again I stayed silent. I’d known this man for years, and, while these talks might tend to drag on sometimes, they always had a point.
“You see,” he said turning to face me. “Neighbors have wants and needs. Sometimes just a smile and a wave is enough, but sometimes they need a little more. They need someone to take the time to get to know them, really know them. A band-aid is fine for a skinned knee, but a deeper wound requires more attention, and more importantly,” he added, “More time.” Again there was a break so that neither beer nor cigarette would feel left out of the conversation. “I’m just concerned that people today hold their time too dear. They don’t seem to understand that it’s other people they should hold dear,” he said, looking at me as if to underscore the words to follow, “The time is free.”
“Well put,” I told him, again reaching to clink my can to his in proper guy talk fashion. My friend liked to occasionally “bestow a little wisdom” as he put it. I’d come to listen over the years because I’d learned that there was usually a bit of actual wisdom involved. This was proving to be one of those times. Then I remembered how this conversation began. “I ‘m a little confused though,” I said cocking my head and turning towards him, “You said you came out here to keep in touch with your neighbors. Hell, I thought that’s who some of the beer was for.”
“Yes, I did,” he replied emphatically. He had that same look he got when I pounced on what I thought was a free pawn in one of our chess games. The one that turned out to be bait for the beginning of the end. I could feel another pearl of wisdom coming on. I bit any way.
“But we’re on a dock at three a.m. and there are no other people here,” I pointed out, knowing full well I was “pouncing” on exactly the wrong pawn he wanted. We’d played this game almost as much as chess over the years, and the look in his eye told me that he knew I was going along just for the ride.
“Exactly!” he said, as if I’d just somehow proven his point for him. “There are no other people,” he smiled, stressing the word “people” as if that made it all clear. “But,” he continued, “I never said all of may neighbors were people.”
“Now I’m really confused,” I told him, meaning every word.
“People are easy,” he said, “I usually listen to them during the day. The conversations always seem a lot less one-sided when they’re awake.” He chuckled at this. He often amused himself during these talks. “I come out here at night to listen to my other neighbors,” he went on. I could tell he was really starting to hit his stride now.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I interjected into a pause that was clearly left for just that reason. “What other neighbors?”
“Listen,” he told me, tuning and tilting his head.
It was quiet on the dock. “Why not,” I thought, “It’s a quiet dock in a quiet neighborhood in a quiet town.” Apart from my friend rummaging for another beer, I heard a lot of quiet. Feeling as if this were some sort of test I tried to listen more closely. All I could hear was a bit of the breeze rustling the trees and the occasional fish jump.
“I’m still stumped,” I admitted.
His finger pointed up and behind us, “Do you hear the palm tree?” he asked. At my nod, he went on, “The sound is too high pitched, too brittle, those trees are usually silent in a wind this mild unless most of the fronds are dead and dried out.”
I turned and looked. Sure enough, almost all of the palm fronds hung lifeless and dry, their pale tan color easily distinguishable from the usual darker green of healthy specimens even in the scant light available. I was impressed.
“It’s dying,” he said matter-of-factly, “Probably from the same thing that’s killing off the palms all over south Florida. Man. You see,” he continued, “We’ve depleted the fresh water table so much that it’s allowed salt water to intrude. As the salt level rises in the ground water the palms are dying.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief, and added, “We are drinking them to death. We pull out so much water to keep our lawns green that we’re killing our trees which drink deeper down.” He tipped the last of his beer, tossed it with the others, popped another and asked, “How’s that for stupid?”
The finger pointed now to the islands across the narrow band of the river in front of us. I could just detect a faint whistling like someone barely playing a bamboo flute. “Those are Australian Pines,” he said, “Technically, their an invasion plant brought in by the sugar industry, but they’re some of my favorites. I can’t help it,” he smiled, “ I love the music. Most of them were killed off in the frosts of ‘83 and ‘89, but that sound tells me they’re okay, for now” he hesitated, smiling. “It also reminds me that I’m okay,” he added as if hinting at some past relationship.
“Alright,” I admitted, “You are the Garden Ninja, and the beer’s all for us,” I raised and then finished my beer, ahead of him I noted. Odd, he usually kept pace. I popped another and, sipping, waited for the wisdom to continue.
“Thirst impedes wisdom, hence the beer, and you, Grasshopper, still fail to listen,” he continued in a reasonably good early David Carradine voice. I noticed then, as his face turned up into the pale light of the moon that his eyes were closed! Just then a fish jumped just a few feet from the dock. It sailed a good six feet or so before splashing back into the river. That,” he said, the finger pointing quickly to the source of the sound, “Is a mullet. More than that though, he’s one of the advance guard for a large school of mullet.”
I looked to the south, behind the splash, and even in the dim light I could see the massed heads of a large school of mullet stretching back for eighty feet or more. The swarm of close-packed eyes and snouts jutted up out of the water as I’d seen them do before at this time of year.
“This is the third time this school has gone by since we’ve been out here,” he told me. “They used to school this big every year, like clockwork, but as the pollution levels in the lagoon rose the schools thinned out a lot.” He said, using the more technical term for the waters before us. It really was more of a tropical lagoon than a river in the classic sense. “Then there were the algae blooms that killed thousands as well. There were a few years there when you didn’t hear any big schools at all at night,” he added, his voice almost wistful. “Hearing so many of them tonight, I know that not only are the mullet making a come-back, but also the lagoon itself.”
Two large splashes disrupted the murmuring sound of the school, striking it at the rear and at the outer edge, that farthest from us, closer to the shallow flats that run between the islands. Immediately the entire school broke in a sound like water hitting a high boil in an instant, the chaos cascading through the mullet like a domino effect running from the strikes down the entire length of the school, now more clearly defined as over one hundred and twenty feet!
“That,” he said, almost pouncing verbally, his finger yet again stabbing toward the sound, “Is a trout, actually two of them, hunting the mullet. Big ones by the sound of it,” he said. “Of course they could be snook,” he admitted. “Thirty years ago ten to twelve pound snook were as common in these waters as trout, until a combination of our fishing and our poisons almost killed them off completely. Hell, we almost destroyed the redfish, too,” his voice grew grim. “But, tonight I can hear that the big trout at least are back! Just like the big schools of mullet!” He opened his eyes as he paused to drink long of the beer and to hit the cigarette again.
Suddenly a huge splash sounded near to where the trout had just struck. This was some thing much larger. Moments later a “foosh” of sound like a large exhale about twenty feet away confirmed what we both had believed true. “Dolphin,” I said, actually proud to be the first to identify something in this conversation.
“Absolutely,” he agreed, “There’s a pod of five or six that feeds off this dock most nights. Sometimes it’s a snack bar, tonight it’s a buffet!” he added with a chuckle, “ I’m a little surprised we hadn’t heard them before now.” Again he flicked his cigarette, field stripped it, stowed the butt, and lit yet another. Oddly, I could’ve sworn that this one came from behind his right ear rather than the pack in his shirt pocket.
“I’ve loved them since I was six,” he said. “We were on vacation at Virginia beach. I had a new inflatable raft, one of those little four foot jobs,” he held his hand at about mid-chest to illustrate, “And I’d drifted WAY out beyond the shore break.” His eyes again grew distant and he smiled, “I didn’t know it, but my mom was on the beach going absolutely nuts. She went to the lifeguard, who located me with his binoculars. Then she saw the fins, and lost it completely!” “Sharks!” he exclaimed in what was apparently his high pitched "Frantic Mom" voice.
I thought it kind of weird that he was laughing at his point, until he went on to explain, “Then the lifeguard told her, ‘No, ma’am, those are dolphins, he’s safe with them around. Sharks won’t come near dolphins,’ like that was gonna be enough to calm her down.” Smiling, he paused to hit his cigarette, rather hard I thought, and continued, “So there I was about three hundred yards or so off shore, and Flipper shows up! I’d seen him on TV, this was him! Then he and his friends proceeded to bump my raft toward the shore!”
“You’re kidding me,” I interjected, “The dolphins pushed you back to shore?”
“Yup,” he said, grinning widely, “All the way to about a hundred yards off, where the lifeguard had come out to meet me.” He stood up straight, practically at attention, and said in deep mock-theatrical voice, “ You are talking to,” his hands made finger quotes, “Boy Saved By Dolphins!”
With that he took a bow, and drained his beer. Upon reaching for another he found that we were down to the last two, and handed me mine. He then started pulling the empties out of the bin and putting them in the empty twelve-pack, “We’ll drop these off in the recycling bin on the way back,” he explained.
“Okay,” I said, “I got it. Daytime, people. Nighttime, trees and fish.” I flashed my best sarcastic smirk, popping the last beer.
“You’re forgetting the great blue heron that squawked at us and flew away when we first got here,” he told me, “And the osprey that’s been chirping all night in that tall dead tree across the way on the island.”
“Also,” he added, closing his eyes again, his finger now pointing east for the first time in the night, “You’re forgetting Mother Ocean. You can just hear the surf, if you listen carefully.”
I paused and tried to hear it for a moment, “I think that’s the road,” I told him, referring to the four lanes of traffic that ran through the thin three blocks between us and the beach. “Hear how it rises and falls as each car passes?”
“Yeah,” he said, hanging his head as if in despair, “We call those waves.”
Just then a loud noise sounded in the east, a sharp dissonant blaring not at all in harmony with the other sounds of the night. My friend's eyes shot open.
“I think your Ocean just honked!” I informed him, laughing. I couldn't resist adding, “Are the cars your neighbors, too, oh Wise One?”
“No,” he replied without missing a beat, “They’re tourists!” He snubbed out the cigarette on the dock rail and put the remains in his shirt pocket. Then he drained the last beer, and turned to head back up the dock. As he passed me, he looked over to add, “Sometimes at night, tourists can sound a lot like neighbors.”
“Hey, can I ask you something,” I called as I hurried to catch up.
“Sure,” he replied.
“That last one wasn’t a cigarette, was it?”
“No, not really.”
-----------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: A shortened version of the last half of this piece was published in the "The Beachside Resident" in Nov. 06. My thanks to the Brothers Bennison. The supporting roles of "Beers" and "Cigarettes" ( Especially that last one!) were deleted due to space constraints. I'm sure somewhere in Cocoa Beach people talk on docks at 3:00 am without these vital ingredients being involved, but I've never done it.
VOTE !
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
It makes me want to cry,
Want to scream to the sky,
Every time stupid people
Want to ask me why.
Hell, you know the Truth.
It's right in front of you.
But you say there ain't a damned thing
You can do.
I say get off your ass.
Show some class.
Try growing a set
With a little brass,
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
It ain't hard to do.
It's a simple Truth.
Just remember politicians
Work for me and you.
What have you got to lose
Except the right to choose.
Just remember that they're lying
If you see their lips move.
If they're a damned disgrace,
And want to poison the place,
Then we all gotta get right up
In their face,
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
You know they'll twist your words,
Make the Truth absurd,
Lying and denying
Like you never heard.
They'll twist the knife
'Cause they feed on strife
Like they feed on need and greed
And on human life.
Every single day
They look the other way
While we get screwed.
Then they tell us that we've got no say?
I say
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
You can laugh and scoff,
But, while we choke and cough,
The politicians belly up
To the corporate trough.
They just lie and grin,
And then they call it spin.
Then they expect to go back
And do it all again.
Well I say, "Screw you!
We've seen the true you,
And come the next election
We're through with you!"
Damn it,
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
( Or THEY just keep on winning!)
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
It makes me want to cry,
Want to scream to the sky,
Every time stupid people
Want to ask me why.
Hell, you know the Truth.
It's right in front of you.
But you say there ain't a damned thing
You can do.
I say get off your ass.
Show some class.
Try growing a set
With a little brass,
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
It ain't hard to do.
It's a simple Truth.
Just remember politicians
Work for me and you.
What have you got to lose
Except the right to choose.
Just remember that they're lying
If you see their lips move.
If they're a damned disgrace,
And want to poison the place,
Then we all gotta get right up
In their face,
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
You know they'll twist your words,
Make the Truth absurd,
Lying and denying
Like you never heard.
They'll twist the knife
'Cause they feed on strife
Like they feed on need and greed
And on human life.
Every single day
They look the other way
While we get screwed.
Then they tell us that we've got no say?
I say
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
You can laugh and scoff,
But, while we choke and cough,
The politicians belly up
To the corporate trough.
They just lie and grin,
And then they call it spin.
Then they expect to go back
And do it all again.
Well I say, "Screw you!
We've seen the true you,
And come the next election
We're through with you!"
Damn it,
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain!
Yank the Chain and VOTE !
( Or THEY just keep on winning!)
Saturday, December 2, 2006
The Last Crime of Man
These are the Times of Man.
These are the Crimes of Man.
From the shopping malls
To the city halls,
In the asphalt and concrete,
The face of Death
Leaves its putrid breath
On our every city street.
It’s a deadly gas
As the cars roar past,
And a fog that would turn the sun
Into a pale glow
That would barely show
The horrid things that are yet to come,
It’s the poisons we mine
And then leave behind,
Lasting years after man has gone,
Killing the plants
That had such little chance
In their struggle to live on.
These are the Times of Man.
These are the Crimes of Man
Grim Reaper with a bloody blade,
A maniac who would kill
What Nature had made.
These are the Crimes of Man.
These are the Times of Man.
In this dismal place
In a tiny space
That was all Man cared to give,
A speck of green
Came upon the scene
To carry on the fight to live.
Through the walls of smoke
With such little hope,
The last lone tree fought on,
Until the day
When the tree turned gray,
And we knew all hope was gone.
These are the Times of Man.
These are the Crimes of Man.
Cruel vulture with an Evil heart,
A deadly butcher who would kill.
What Nature would start.
These are the Crimes of Man.
These are the Times of Man.
The rumors were heard,
But they were thought absurd;
I was the only one who cried
When the newscaster said
As he shook his head,
It’s reported the Last Tree just died.
It was in the Time of Man.
The Last Crime of Man
To end the Time of Man.
Fall of '86
These are the Crimes of Man.
From the shopping malls
To the city halls,
In the asphalt and concrete,
The face of Death
Leaves its putrid breath
On our every city street.
It’s a deadly gas
As the cars roar past,
And a fog that would turn the sun
Into a pale glow
That would barely show
The horrid things that are yet to come,
It’s the poisons we mine
And then leave behind,
Lasting years after man has gone,
Killing the plants
That had such little chance
In their struggle to live on.
These are the Times of Man.
These are the Crimes of Man
Grim Reaper with a bloody blade,
A maniac who would kill
What Nature had made.
These are the Crimes of Man.
These are the Times of Man.
In this dismal place
In a tiny space
That was all Man cared to give,
A speck of green
Came upon the scene
To carry on the fight to live.
Through the walls of smoke
With such little hope,
The last lone tree fought on,
Until the day
When the tree turned gray,
And we knew all hope was gone.
These are the Times of Man.
These are the Crimes of Man.
Cruel vulture with an Evil heart,
A deadly butcher who would kill.
What Nature would start.
These are the Crimes of Man.
These are the Times of Man.
The rumors were heard,
But they were thought absurd;
I was the only one who cried
When the newscaster said
As he shook his head,
It’s reported the Last Tree just died.
It was in the Time of Man.
The Last Crime of Man
To end the Time of Man.
Fall of '86
The Joys I've yet to Live
(This piece was originally titled "On Depression")
There are scars on my heart,
But in time those scars will heal,
And in the end my heart
Will still know how to feel.
For I have known much Joy,
Just as I have known much Pain,
And I have no doubt that I will have the chance
To know them both again.
So I will glory in the Joys
That I might overcome the Pain.
I will revel in the sunshine,
And I will play out in the rain.
I will shout into the thunderstorms,
And I will dance upon the wind,
For I will always know, whatever comes or goes,
I will live to love again.
So don’t you try to tell me
That Depression has to win,
‘Cause I will not roll over,
And I will not give in.
I won’t let past heartaches cost me
All the Joys I’ve yet to live,
For I will always know, whatever comes or goes,
I will live to love again.
Summer of '04
-----------------------------------------
Author's Note: I refer to depression as "The Great Toothy Beast", and it is a Beast I have faced on more than a few occasions in my past. Obviously, this was written during one of those times. Depression tends to come in waves, and when I felt one of those waves coming on I would sing this to myself. (Yes, it was meant to be sung! But, I thought depressed people might be more apt to read my Poetry than my Songs, so I believed there was a better chance of someone in need finding it here.)
I also took to actually taking the physical steps mentioned therein. I would stop on bright sunny days, and take a moment to lift my face to the Sun, and revel in it. I would slip discreetly out into the rain, and I would dance around with my arms spread wide on windy days. I would also step out into thunderstorms and recite it "quite loudly". I was convincing myself that if "A" followed "B", etc., these steps would just as logically lead me to the Healing at the end of the song. This may sound silly, but I MADE myself believe it, and so it worked.
I realize it's just a band-aid at best, but a good band-aid at the right time may just save a life. I've shared this with several people over the years who I knew to be fighting The Great Toothy Beast, and many of them said it helped. I only explain all of this now in the hope that it might just help others as well.
I do, however, caution you. A band-aid on a deep wound may save you until you can get proper help, BUT you STILL need to get the help. This is no different. DO NOT try to fight the Great Toothy Beast ALONE!
-------------------------------------------
Further Note: I was only able to identify and take steps to combat my depression, because a high school "Psyche I" Teacher, named Theresa Bryant, took the time, many years before, to TEACH ME! To this day I believe I only survived that first battle because of the tools she gave me, and all of my Love, my Children, my Words, and my Dreams which followed, I owe, in great part, to her. Jacquie and my Sons are now my Armor against Depression, but the first Weapons with which I might combat that Great Toothy Beast were placed in my hand by a Teacher. So was the Pen.
Be Safe, Be Well, Be Loved,
D. Allen Sherman
There are scars on my heart,
But in time those scars will heal,
And in the end my heart
Will still know how to feel.
For I have known much Joy,
Just as I have known much Pain,
And I have no doubt that I will have the chance
To know them both again.
So I will glory in the Joys
That I might overcome the Pain.
I will revel in the sunshine,
And I will play out in the rain.
I will shout into the thunderstorms,
And I will dance upon the wind,
For I will always know, whatever comes or goes,
I will live to love again.
So don’t you try to tell me
That Depression has to win,
‘Cause I will not roll over,
And I will not give in.
I won’t let past heartaches cost me
All the Joys I’ve yet to live,
For I will always know, whatever comes or goes,
I will live to love again.
Summer of '04
-----------------------------------------
Author's Note: I refer to depression as "The Great Toothy Beast", and it is a Beast I have faced on more than a few occasions in my past. Obviously, this was written during one of those times. Depression tends to come in waves, and when I felt one of those waves coming on I would sing this to myself. (Yes, it was meant to be sung! But, I thought depressed people might be more apt to read my Poetry than my Songs, so I believed there was a better chance of someone in need finding it here.)
I also took to actually taking the physical steps mentioned therein. I would stop on bright sunny days, and take a moment to lift my face to the Sun, and revel in it. I would slip discreetly out into the rain, and I would dance around with my arms spread wide on windy days. I would also step out into thunderstorms and recite it "quite loudly". I was convincing myself that if "A" followed "B", etc., these steps would just as logically lead me to the Healing at the end of the song. This may sound silly, but I MADE myself believe it, and so it worked.
I realize it's just a band-aid at best, but a good band-aid at the right time may just save a life. I've shared this with several people over the years who I knew to be fighting The Great Toothy Beast, and many of them said it helped. I only explain all of this now in the hope that it might just help others as well.
I do, however, caution you. A band-aid on a deep wound may save you until you can get proper help, BUT you STILL need to get the help. This is no different. DO NOT try to fight the Great Toothy Beast ALONE!
-------------------------------------------
Further Note: I was only able to identify and take steps to combat my depression, because a high school "Psyche I" Teacher, named Theresa Bryant, took the time, many years before, to TEACH ME! To this day I believe I only survived that first battle because of the tools she gave me, and all of my Love, my Children, my Words, and my Dreams which followed, I owe, in great part, to her. Jacquie and my Sons are now my Armor against Depression, but the first Weapons with which I might combat that Great Toothy Beast were placed in my hand by a Teacher. So was the Pen.
Be Safe, Be Well, Be Loved,
D. Allen Sherman
A Brief Lesson on "The Creature Called Man"
I believe that everyone should consider themselves to be "Students", at least in part, until the day they die. Hopefully at that point they will move on to "Post-Grad" study. Some of you, however, may be required to take many courses over before this happens. You know who you are. With this in mind, the following is a brief exercise to make sure you Learned a little something from the tale entitled "The Creature Called Man". Please, just this once, do the required reading BEFORE doing the exercise! Again, you know who you are.
1.THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF MAN MAY BE SUMMED UP BY...
a) Someone should have, but they didn't.
b) It all went downhill after the bright, shiny bits.
c) The Beasts called "Sheep" should be insulted by the comparison.
d) What the BLOODY HELL were they thinking?
e) All of the above.
2.MAN'S FINEST WORKS INCLUDED...
a) Sticking the little crunchy bits into The Earth.
b) His Dreams (Because his reality has usually tended to SUCK!)
c) Laws and Doctors (In the beginning, before he screwed them up.)
d) Mostly the stuff left behind the bush.
e) All of the above
3.WHEN IN DOUBT, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BLAME...
a) The Engineers
b) The Lawyers
c) The Corporations
d) The stuff behind the bush.
e) All of the above.
4.OTHER THINGS WE LEARNED INCLUDE...
a) The term "Bonkers" has been around a damned long time.
b) Neck Rubs are STILL a VERY GOOD idea. (So is TOILET PAPER!)
c) If it's called a "Bush", we know what's behind it.
d) I am a SERIOUSLY SARCASTIC BASTARD!
e) All of the above.
5.THOSE WHO MAY TAKE EXCEPTION WITH THIS TALE INCLUDE...
a) Sheep (Who've always had it hard, even before the Greeks, the Scots, and a host of lonely ranchers from Oklahoma.)
b) Greeks, Scots, and a host of ranchers from Oklahoma. (After reading "a")
c) Lawyers, Corporations, and a FEW Engineers (Most Engineers will agree!)
d) Anyone who proudly stands behind a BUSH. (Was the smell not a clue?)
e) Anyone with their head shoved COMPLETELY up their own ASS! (a.k.a. All of the above.)
Thank you for taking the time to Learn. I do hope you all realized that the correct answer to ALL the questions was "e) All of the above." If this was NOT the case for you, you may well have to take the entire course over. Yes, it's you again! To those who STILL have a problem with this tale, I can only ask, most humbly, that you would, please, PISS OFF!
Always Learning. Always Teaching.
1.THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF MAN MAY BE SUMMED UP BY...
a) Someone should have, but they didn't.
b) It all went downhill after the bright, shiny bits.
c) The Beasts called "Sheep" should be insulted by the comparison.
d) What the BLOODY HELL were they thinking?
e) All of the above.
2.MAN'S FINEST WORKS INCLUDED...
a) Sticking the little crunchy bits into The Earth.
b) His Dreams (Because his reality has usually tended to SUCK!)
c) Laws and Doctors (In the beginning, before he screwed them up.)
d) Mostly the stuff left behind the bush.
e) All of the above
3.WHEN IN DOUBT, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BLAME...
a) The Engineers
b) The Lawyers
c) The Corporations
d) The stuff behind the bush.
e) All of the above.
4.OTHER THINGS WE LEARNED INCLUDE...
a) The term "Bonkers" has been around a damned long time.
b) Neck Rubs are STILL a VERY GOOD idea. (So is TOILET PAPER!)
c) If it's called a "Bush", we know what's behind it.
d) I am a SERIOUSLY SARCASTIC BASTARD!
e) All of the above.
5.THOSE WHO MAY TAKE EXCEPTION WITH THIS TALE INCLUDE...
a) Sheep (Who've always had it hard, even before the Greeks, the Scots, and a host of lonely ranchers from Oklahoma.)
b) Greeks, Scots, and a host of ranchers from Oklahoma. (After reading "a")
c) Lawyers, Corporations, and a FEW Engineers (Most Engineers will agree!)
d) Anyone who proudly stands behind a BUSH. (Was the smell not a clue?)
e) Anyone with their head shoved COMPLETELY up their own ASS! (a.k.a. All of the above.)
Thank you for taking the time to Learn. I do hope you all realized that the correct answer to ALL the questions was "e) All of the above." If this was NOT the case for you, you may well have to take the entire course over. Yes, it's you again! To those who STILL have a problem with this tale, I can only ask, most humbly, that you would, please, PISS OFF!
Always Learning. Always Teaching.
Friday, December 1, 2006
The Creature Called Man
Before before, and a damned long time ago, there lived a Beast called "Man". He was a simple creature who did not think too highly of himself, and with good cause. For he could see that, compared to him, The Sky was immense, The Sea more powerful, The Earth far more enduring, and The Sun, shining so brightly, ruled over them all. And those were just the things he could see. What horrors might lurk in the Darkness, where Man could not see? So Man became afraid. It's pretty much all he did in the early days. Eat, sleep, and be afraid, with the odd trip behind a bush to "take a load off his mind."
Man became so good at being afraid, that the very first thing he invented was a special way to be afraid. He called it "cowering", and thought it quite clever. He could cower while eating. He could cower while sleeping. He could even cower during those trips behind the bush. Man was so content with this, that for a very long time the only other things he managed to invent were the backache, the neckache, and a new use for the leaves on a bush.
Then one night a Man did something new. While he was cowering in his sleep, he Dreamed. In his Dream, he was no longer afraid. In his Dream he no longer cowered. He stood tall and upright, and was the Master of all he could see. The Sky was his domain. The Sea was but a playground for his amusement, as well as a handy place to put all of that stuff that kept piling up behind the bushes. The Earth he could reshape and plunder at will. In his Dream the Man even harnessed the power of The Sun! More wonderful still, in his Dream there were neck rubs and chiropractors. In his Dream there was TOILET PAPER!
When he awoke the Man rushed to tell the others of his Dream. "You're mad!" said the others, "Gone quite far around the bend, you have." "You need to go behind a bush a take a load off your mind," they suggested. Though they did agree that part about the "neck rub" was quite clever. In time, however, more of them had the Dream as well, until, one day Man rose up as one and set out to make the Dream come true.
First they tamed Fire to drive back the Darkness. In doing this, they learned as well that sleeping in a warm place was much better than freezing to death. They also discovered how to cook breakfast, reheat lunch, and burn supper. Next they learned that if they stuck the little crunchy bits in the food down into The Earth, more food would grow, then they wouldn't have to travel so far to find the next batch. They could actually make The Earth work for them! Man's life became much busier than before. Now there was make Fire, eat, stick the little crunchy bits in The Earth, eat some more, trip to the bush, sleep, and, most importantly, Dream of new things for tomorrow!
Man next set out to bend the other Beasts to his will. First he gave them names, so that the stories of his cleverness would be less confusing. For those he liked best, Man kept it simple, Duck, Chicken, Pig, Goat, Cow and Horse, things of that sort. With the other Beasts, he became quite creative, Orangutan, Hippopotamus, and Crocodile, for example. Platypus remains to this day Man's most creative name for anything. Some of these creatures he gathered about him simply because they were tasty. Others he found could be made to carry things about, thus helping with the backaches. Man even learned how to make some of the larger Beasts carry him from place to place.
About this time, one Man decided he wouldn't bother sticking his own little crunchy bits in The Earth. He would let others do it, and wait until their food grew, then simply bonk them on the head and take it. It was a very simple process. All that was required was a bit of patience, and a rock or a big stick. Someone should have said, "Hold on you! We'll have none of that!" but they didn't. Soon many began doing this together, and thus Man invented "War", which for many, still remains a favorite pastime.
Man began to divide himself into groups. Those who were fond of sticking the little crunchy bits in The Earth were called "Farmers", those who fancied working with the Beasts were called "Herders", and those who preferred War were called "Warriors". They thought about calling them "Bonkers", but it didn't have the same ring to it. Those who did none of these things, but were content to simply follow along and do whatever they were told were called "Sheep". Later he would use the same name for the Beasts that behaved in this way. One would think this last group would not fare well, but, sadly, most of the creatures called "Man" alive today fall into this category.
Man's next great discovery was the bright shiny bits left in the bottom of the Fire. No one knows which Man first did this, but most agree that it happened after eating and before the trip behind the bush. Someone was playing in the ashes, and said, "Look! Bright, shiny bits!" They should have just bonked him on the head with a rock or a big stick, but, they didn't. At first Man didn't know what to make of these bits, but they were bright, and shiny, and new, so he kept them and looked for ways to make more. Man called his new invention "Metal", and it was to change his life.
Eventually all the groups of Man found wonderful uses for Metal. The Farmers made new things to dig into The Earth, and the Herders made all manner of useful things for their Beasts. But, it was the Warriors who used it the most, for they found that sticking others with a sharp, pointy Metal bit was far more efficient than bonking them with a rock or a big stick. After this development, many Wars were avoided by simply saying, "Take what you want. Just, please, don't stick me with that sharp, pointy Metal bit!" This also led to the beginning of a new group of Man called "Miners", whose only job was to dig about and look for more bright, shiny Metal bits.
This was the sum of Man's life for a very long time. Farming, Herding, Mining, and sticking one another with sharp, pointy Metal bits. Then one day a Man said, "Look! I've found a very clever way to fits lots of tiny Metal bits together. I call it a "Machine!" They should have stuck him with a sharp, pointy Metal bit, but they didn't. Soon many others began to do the same and another new group was born. Man called them "Engineers", and just about everything Man did wrong after this point is THEIR fault.
With the coming of the Engineers, Man began to build great things called "Buildings", which he would then stand on top of, and proclaim his greatness to The Sky, The Sea, The Earth, and The Sun, all of whom could not care less. He built large groups of these buildings and called them "Cities." About this time Man also began to learn ways to fix himself. He learned to treat diseases and how to patch up the holes made by sharp, pointy Metal bits. Those that focused on this became a new group called "Doctors" and, in the beginning were a very good idea. With Cities, Man began to make up Rules for himself, which he called "Laws", this, too, was a very good idea. This led to another new group who did nothing but make the rules so complicated, everyone else needed them to explain. They were called "Lawyers", this was a VERY BAD IDEA! Anything not readily blamed on the Engineers, should be blamed on the Lawyers. Someone should have pushed the first one off of a very tall Building, but they didn't.
Next, Man learned to travel upon The Sea. He learned to harness The Sea and even the winds of The Sky, and make them drive his Machines. He learned that he could actually burn bits of The Earth for this purpose as well. This left all manner of filth on The Sky, but Man did not care, Lawyers said it was allowed.
With all of the Buildings, and the Cities, and the Lawyers, Man's life became very complicated, until it all became too much for him to manage alone. At this point the Lawyers invented a New Beast which could do anything! It could Farm, or Herd, or Mine. It could build Buildings or even Cities. The New Beasts could run all the Machines. They even taught them how to make War! The Lawyers called their New Beasts "Corporations", and they were the beginning of the End. Today anything that is not immediately recognizable as being the fault of the Engineers or the Lawyers, MUST be blamed on the Corporations.
Not long after the invention of the Corporations, Man learned to fly and even to harness the power of The Sun, though only the Warriors had access to this power. They called it Nuke! They should have only used it on other Warriors, but they didn't.
In time, Man gave control over more and more of his life to the Corporations, until one day he looked around and realized that very little was left of the world he once knew. The Sky was filthy and poisoned, The Sea was just as bad, and smelled like the back of a bush, The Earth was burned and scarred in ways that would take ages to repair, and the once mighty Sun, now barely even visible, seemed to be getting much warmer. "This has to STOP!" Man cried, "Are you mad?" The Corporations ignored Man. Man no longer controlled them, they now controlled him!
Still believing he was in charge, Man tried to stop the Corporations. He tried to use Laws, only to find that the Corporations OWNED most of the Lawyers. The Corporations had in fact been writing the Laws for some time now, and writing them to serve the Corporations NOT Man! Man realized that even his food was no longer recognizable. Most of what he ate now was made not grown. When it made him sick, he found that the Corporations now controlled the Doctors, and THEY would decide what got healed, not Man. The Corporations had been built to serve Man, but now it was Man who served the Corporations.
Feeling powerless in the face of this reality, Man bowed his head to Corporate will. One Man bowed down so far, he went full circle and shoved his head completely up his own ass! Someone should have "Nuked" him, but they didn't. The others asked what he was doing, and he explained that with his head up his ass, he could pretend not to know what was going on around him. He could even imagine that he was still in control. They asked about the smell, but the Man explained that the air wasn't much better outside. They were concerned about the Darkness. Man had always been afraid of the Darkness. But the Man explained that was because they were afraid that what was in the Darkness would be worse than what they could see. The reverse was now true.
Upon realizing that this was, in fact, the case, almost all of the creatures called Man stuck their heads up their asses, too, and they live that way to this day. A few Farmers still Farm, and a few Herders still Herd. A handful of Miners, and Warriors, and Doctors, and Lawyers still struggle to ply their trades in the old fashion, but most live with their heads completely up their asses and serve the Corporations, the Beasts that now rule the Masters.
Somewhere between the Cowering Beast and the Noble Dream the creature called Man lost his way. Today most of Man now lives hanging by a thin thread that is all that remains of his once vast potential. The thread is stretched taut between the mountain of things he got wrong in so many of his yesterdays and the scant few things he has yet to get wrong in his few remaining tomorrows. Luckily for Man, he cannot see this because his head is in a very dark place where the only light comes from a small hole behind his left ear that shows him the way he came in, and most of that light is blocked by his own shoulders. His only concern about the thread is that the only ones who make SCISSORS any more are the Corporations! For Man everything now smells like the back of a bush. He can, however, take comfort in the knowledge that at least he finally did get to see his Dream come true. At last, Man is the Master of everything he can see!
Man became so good at being afraid, that the very first thing he invented was a special way to be afraid. He called it "cowering", and thought it quite clever. He could cower while eating. He could cower while sleeping. He could even cower during those trips behind the bush. Man was so content with this, that for a very long time the only other things he managed to invent were the backache, the neckache, and a new use for the leaves on a bush.
Then one night a Man did something new. While he was cowering in his sleep, he Dreamed. In his Dream, he was no longer afraid. In his Dream he no longer cowered. He stood tall and upright, and was the Master of all he could see. The Sky was his domain. The Sea was but a playground for his amusement, as well as a handy place to put all of that stuff that kept piling up behind the bushes. The Earth he could reshape and plunder at will. In his Dream the Man even harnessed the power of The Sun! More wonderful still, in his Dream there were neck rubs and chiropractors. In his Dream there was TOILET PAPER!
When he awoke the Man rushed to tell the others of his Dream. "You're mad!" said the others, "Gone quite far around the bend, you have." "You need to go behind a bush a take a load off your mind," they suggested. Though they did agree that part about the "neck rub" was quite clever. In time, however, more of them had the Dream as well, until, one day Man rose up as one and set out to make the Dream come true.
First they tamed Fire to drive back the Darkness. In doing this, they learned as well that sleeping in a warm place was much better than freezing to death. They also discovered how to cook breakfast, reheat lunch, and burn supper. Next they learned that if they stuck the little crunchy bits in the food down into The Earth, more food would grow, then they wouldn't have to travel so far to find the next batch. They could actually make The Earth work for them! Man's life became much busier than before. Now there was make Fire, eat, stick the little crunchy bits in The Earth, eat some more, trip to the bush, sleep, and, most importantly, Dream of new things for tomorrow!
Man next set out to bend the other Beasts to his will. First he gave them names, so that the stories of his cleverness would be less confusing. For those he liked best, Man kept it simple, Duck, Chicken, Pig, Goat, Cow and Horse, things of that sort. With the other Beasts, he became quite creative, Orangutan, Hippopotamus, and Crocodile, for example. Platypus remains to this day Man's most creative name for anything. Some of these creatures he gathered about him simply because they were tasty. Others he found could be made to carry things about, thus helping with the backaches. Man even learned how to make some of the larger Beasts carry him from place to place.
About this time, one Man decided he wouldn't bother sticking his own little crunchy bits in The Earth. He would let others do it, and wait until their food grew, then simply bonk them on the head and take it. It was a very simple process. All that was required was a bit of patience, and a rock or a big stick. Someone should have said, "Hold on you! We'll have none of that!" but they didn't. Soon many began doing this together, and thus Man invented "War", which for many, still remains a favorite pastime.
Man began to divide himself into groups. Those who were fond of sticking the little crunchy bits in The Earth were called "Farmers", those who fancied working with the Beasts were called "Herders", and those who preferred War were called "Warriors". They thought about calling them "Bonkers", but it didn't have the same ring to it. Those who did none of these things, but were content to simply follow along and do whatever they were told were called "Sheep". Later he would use the same name for the Beasts that behaved in this way. One would think this last group would not fare well, but, sadly, most of the creatures called "Man" alive today fall into this category.
Man's next great discovery was the bright shiny bits left in the bottom of the Fire. No one knows which Man first did this, but most agree that it happened after eating and before the trip behind the bush. Someone was playing in the ashes, and said, "Look! Bright, shiny bits!" They should have just bonked him on the head with a rock or a big stick, but, they didn't. At first Man didn't know what to make of these bits, but they were bright, and shiny, and new, so he kept them and looked for ways to make more. Man called his new invention "Metal", and it was to change his life.
Eventually all the groups of Man found wonderful uses for Metal. The Farmers made new things to dig into The Earth, and the Herders made all manner of useful things for their Beasts. But, it was the Warriors who used it the most, for they found that sticking others with a sharp, pointy Metal bit was far more efficient than bonking them with a rock or a big stick. After this development, many Wars were avoided by simply saying, "Take what you want. Just, please, don't stick me with that sharp, pointy Metal bit!" This also led to the beginning of a new group of Man called "Miners", whose only job was to dig about and look for more bright, shiny Metal bits.
This was the sum of Man's life for a very long time. Farming, Herding, Mining, and sticking one another with sharp, pointy Metal bits. Then one day a Man said, "Look! I've found a very clever way to fits lots of tiny Metal bits together. I call it a "Machine!" They should have stuck him with a sharp, pointy Metal bit, but they didn't. Soon many others began to do the same and another new group was born. Man called them "Engineers", and just about everything Man did wrong after this point is THEIR fault.
With the coming of the Engineers, Man began to build great things called "Buildings", which he would then stand on top of, and proclaim his greatness to The Sky, The Sea, The Earth, and The Sun, all of whom could not care less. He built large groups of these buildings and called them "Cities." About this time Man also began to learn ways to fix himself. He learned to treat diseases and how to patch up the holes made by sharp, pointy Metal bits. Those that focused on this became a new group called "Doctors" and, in the beginning were a very good idea. With Cities, Man began to make up Rules for himself, which he called "Laws", this, too, was a very good idea. This led to another new group who did nothing but make the rules so complicated, everyone else needed them to explain. They were called "Lawyers", this was a VERY BAD IDEA! Anything not readily blamed on the Engineers, should be blamed on the Lawyers. Someone should have pushed the first one off of a very tall Building, but they didn't.
Next, Man learned to travel upon The Sea. He learned to harness The Sea and even the winds of The Sky, and make them drive his Machines. He learned that he could actually burn bits of The Earth for this purpose as well. This left all manner of filth on The Sky, but Man did not care, Lawyers said it was allowed.
With all of the Buildings, and the Cities, and the Lawyers, Man's life became very complicated, until it all became too much for him to manage alone. At this point the Lawyers invented a New Beast which could do anything! It could Farm, or Herd, or Mine. It could build Buildings or even Cities. The New Beasts could run all the Machines. They even taught them how to make War! The Lawyers called their New Beasts "Corporations", and they were the beginning of the End. Today anything that is not immediately recognizable as being the fault of the Engineers or the Lawyers, MUST be blamed on the Corporations.
Not long after the invention of the Corporations, Man learned to fly and even to harness the power of The Sun, though only the Warriors had access to this power. They called it Nuke! They should have only used it on other Warriors, but they didn't.
In time, Man gave control over more and more of his life to the Corporations, until one day he looked around and realized that very little was left of the world he once knew. The Sky was filthy and poisoned, The Sea was just as bad, and smelled like the back of a bush, The Earth was burned and scarred in ways that would take ages to repair, and the once mighty Sun, now barely even visible, seemed to be getting much warmer. "This has to STOP!" Man cried, "Are you mad?" The Corporations ignored Man. Man no longer controlled them, they now controlled him!
Still believing he was in charge, Man tried to stop the Corporations. He tried to use Laws, only to find that the Corporations OWNED most of the Lawyers. The Corporations had in fact been writing the Laws for some time now, and writing them to serve the Corporations NOT Man! Man realized that even his food was no longer recognizable. Most of what he ate now was made not grown. When it made him sick, he found that the Corporations now controlled the Doctors, and THEY would decide what got healed, not Man. The Corporations had been built to serve Man, but now it was Man who served the Corporations.
Feeling powerless in the face of this reality, Man bowed his head to Corporate will. One Man bowed down so far, he went full circle and shoved his head completely up his own ass! Someone should have "Nuked" him, but they didn't. The others asked what he was doing, and he explained that with his head up his ass, he could pretend not to know what was going on around him. He could even imagine that he was still in control. They asked about the smell, but the Man explained that the air wasn't much better outside. They were concerned about the Darkness. Man had always been afraid of the Darkness. But the Man explained that was because they were afraid that what was in the Darkness would be worse than what they could see. The reverse was now true.
Upon realizing that this was, in fact, the case, almost all of the creatures called Man stuck their heads up their asses, too, and they live that way to this day. A few Farmers still Farm, and a few Herders still Herd. A handful of Miners, and Warriors, and Doctors, and Lawyers still struggle to ply their trades in the old fashion, but most live with their heads completely up their asses and serve the Corporations, the Beasts that now rule the Masters.
Somewhere between the Cowering Beast and the Noble Dream the creature called Man lost his way. Today most of Man now lives hanging by a thin thread that is all that remains of his once vast potential. The thread is stretched taut between the mountain of things he got wrong in so many of his yesterdays and the scant few things he has yet to get wrong in his few remaining tomorrows. Luckily for Man, he cannot see this because his head is in a very dark place where the only light comes from a small hole behind his left ear that shows him the way he came in, and most of that light is blocked by his own shoulders. His only concern about the thread is that the only ones who make SCISSORS any more are the Corporations! For Man everything now smells like the back of a bush. He can, however, take comfort in the knowledge that at least he finally did get to see his Dream come true. At last, Man is the Master of everything he can see!
Passion
Passion is claimed by but a precious few,
Yet their Passion is a feeble thing.
It is weak and pale, and so not Passion true,
It neither laughs, nor does it sing.
Pity them; the fault is not their own.
What could they know of things real and warm?
Real Passion was never known
'Til I held you in my arms.
Ere then the sky was an empty place,
And the world was dark and drear.
No sound did mortal creatures make,
No harps did Heaven hear.
But when I took you in my arms, my dear,
I heard Angels sing on high,
And a sea of stars did overhead appear,
Tears of Joy in Heaven's eye.
For you are what Fire but pretends to be,
That to which starlight would aspire.
You are all things dear and precious to me,
All that, and something higher.
You are the very Soul of Amour,
And I but a moth drawn to your flame,
You are what men would search a lifetime for,
And Passion is your name.
Spring of '04
Yet their Passion is a feeble thing.
It is weak and pale, and so not Passion true,
It neither laughs, nor does it sing.
Pity them; the fault is not their own.
What could they know of things real and warm?
Real Passion was never known
'Til I held you in my arms.
Ere then the sky was an empty place,
And the world was dark and drear.
No sound did mortal creatures make,
No harps did Heaven hear.
But when I took you in my arms, my dear,
I heard Angels sing on high,
And a sea of stars did overhead appear,
Tears of Joy in Heaven's eye.
For you are what Fire but pretends to be,
That to which starlight would aspire.
You are all things dear and precious to me,
All that, and something higher.
You are the very Soul of Amour,
And I but a moth drawn to your flame,
You are what men would search a lifetime for,
And Passion is your name.
Spring of '04
Sunday, November 19, 2006
The Phoenix Moth
I am the Phoenix Moth,
And on poet wings of gossamer dreams
I fly to the very heart of Passion's Flame.
If consumed once more, as countless times before,
I fear not. I will but rise again.
Even as the Pain still lashes I shall pluck from the ashes
That battered thing that was once my heart,
Once again ill used, burned, blistered, and bruised,
And rent near full apart.
I shall pick it up, and I shall dust it off,
And I shall tuck it back inside,
Then again take wing to search for that thing
That used to be my Pride.
Perhaps here at last I finally grasp
My one true and real Name,
For I am as nothing so much as a simple moth,
Searching ever for that Flame.
I am the Phoenix Moth.
Spring of '04
And on poet wings of gossamer dreams
I fly to the very heart of Passion's Flame.
If consumed once more, as countless times before,
I fear not. I will but rise again.
Even as the Pain still lashes I shall pluck from the ashes
That battered thing that was once my heart,
Once again ill used, burned, blistered, and bruised,
And rent near full apart.
I shall pick it up, and I shall dust it off,
And I shall tuck it back inside,
Then again take wing to search for that thing
That used to be my Pride.
Perhaps here at last I finally grasp
My one true and real Name,
For I am as nothing so much as a simple moth,
Searching ever for that Flame.
I am the Phoenix Moth.
Spring of '04
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