Solemn Man

Dear Solomon,

For just one man, you were so clever that we forget the moral of the story was not about how to be so clever. You gave us a parable of satisfactory conflict resolution by unsavory methods. By proposing to cleaver the child, you exposed the truth. The most righteous will compromise. Good will yield and kneel before bad, allowing their own family to suffer grievous injustice in order to avoid greater harm. You made it evident that the will to win at all cost is a disease and pride is a necrotic rot to be exposed to the public for cleaning. But what if the public had refused to look? What if the public proposed alternative facts? What if the public had supported handing the baby over to the wrong mother, and the real mother had been forced to watch it happen...to watch someone else raise her baby so that her baby might live? What if your solo-man ruling had been denied final authority? What if crowd apathy allowed the most righteous mother to be wronged? Solomon, I know you were a solemn man, but how did you know the crowd would honor your sincerity?

Respectfully, 

A Modern Moralist

My sketch of a baby that I love this year

7 songs for 7 days

 Stress is high, and while part of the pressure is political, this playlist is a bipartisan coping mechanism. These 7 songs don't have much in common besides a measure of dark humor, existential-style fingernails clasping the cliff edge type hope, and enough measures to give you a dance (or at least sway) break when you need it.

1. Wednesday: Dear Doctor (Rolling Stones). In music, there are 2 main political parties (i.e. Stones vs. Beatles). I guess it is obvious which primary I vote in for chief of albums, but let's argue about it anyway because that's more fun than politics and, "I'm damaged."
   
   
2. Thursday: Sweet Dreams + 7 Nation Army Mashup (Pomplamoose ft. Sarah Dugas). Some say that the sweetest dreams require a big dirty backbeat and "who am I to disagree?" 
   
   
3. Friday: The Outdoor Type (Evan Dando/ Lemonheads). Get ready for a weekend roughing it with a little white lie to yourself. We're ready for the worst, even if the "closest I came to that was one time my car broke down for an hour in the suburbs at night." 
   
   
4. Saturday: Heads Will Roll (Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Happy Horrors! We can always, "dance until you're dead" with the cute wolf pup.
   
   
   
   
5. Sunday: When God Closes a Door (Larkin Poe). It's Sunday so, "let's see how the gospel goes"..."in a getaway car."
   
   
6. Monday: In spite of Ourselves (John Prine & Iris Dement). No one likes Monday. Monday is tricky, but "In spite of ourselves, We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow, Against all odds..."
    
   
   
7. Tuesday: Let's Dance to Joy Division (The Wombats). The old rhyme says that Tuesday's child is full of grace, so whatever the day brings we can, "celebrate the irony."  

Tough Enough?

did I toughen up?
scars so thick
a second skin
burned and burned
to begin again
I remember when
existing hurt
every day I lost my shirt
I had no history
so everything was
a dangerous mystery
but now...
did I toughen up?
metaled in
head armored
to bleeding heart
so foolishness
can't even start
I remember when
counting doubt
was so devout
I had no pride
so nothing was
on my side
but now...
did I toughen up?
or just, age out?
Stand here,
Hold this,
Let's fire another round...

Oberon singed curled his whiskers a lot as a kitten too.

Truth Taxed

Truth always demands a tax.

The sooner I admit it the smaller the fee.

The later I agree to see it, the greater the toll.

The tax of truth is at compounding interest,

Factorial for each day of denial,

Such that 5 days denial factors to 120 lives,

But just two more days, at 7, factors to 5040.

I mastered the math long ago,

But not the meter of its implication yet.

Why do I keep borrowing from this monster?

At some point, the borrower must become

Exponentially gross

For giving the lender credit again?

Despite knowing,

I must find the wisdom

To ask

How am I a fool today?
But I am too taxed.

If wishes were fish, and truth was neon bright...

The COVID Diaries: What I AM Afraid Of (a poem)

When I was in college,
Andrew and I,
were voted most popular
to survive
on a small desert island with.
I lost Andrew
along the way.
He didn't survive.
It wasn't survivable.
But I wasn't there too.
By chance,
I survived.
Most likely to,
apparently.
What luck.
He once suggested
I read
The Road,
a story about surviving
the apocalypse.
Only it isn't the main character who lives.
He burns everything,
down to his dinted shopping-carts wheels,
to make sure,
his son survives.
You don't read about
the son shoveling
ash like snow
though...
you just know,
he's left,
to live.

That's what I'm afraid of.

Beneath the snowflake, soccer-mom, exterior,
Beneath the near-bottomless pit
of compassion,
I well know,
is a little steel will,
ironclad,
invincible,
it rises.
There is no low
that it is ashamed
to crawl back from.
There is no survivors' guilt
it will not tilt.
It will do anything,
and I mean anything
to survive.
I will cry,
but still
skin the buck.
I will zip
the body bag
of my friend
and begin
again.

That's what I'm afraid of.

This will
Rip into the eyes of an over-sized attacker
without thought.
This will
Spoon a stranger at minus sixty Fahrenheit
in the Bitterroot's worst snow
just to take another hundred thousands steps
with frozen tear ducts.
I know
because
I have
before
and
one more.

That's what I'm afraid of.

This monster,
that sighs,
and cries,
but survives,
and survives.
Brighter than Plath fresh
from the oven,
Lighter than Lazarus,
trading feathers
with Icarus
at a Phoenix revival.
Irrepressible,
even as what is loved most
burns to a ghost,
and spreads
away the next
universe.
I will
stay.

That is what I'm afraid of.

Like cockroaches,
Twinkies,
or Keith Richards,
I should have been dead already,
expired,
past prime.
I'm afraid
I will not break.
I'm afraid
I will survive
to shovel
ashes.
I'm afraid
that
is the answer
to everything.
I am most likely
to survive
and
that
is what
I'm afraid of.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer, but what is the right question? What should we be afraid?