Saturday, September 28, 2013

No Pair Is Perfect


No pair is perfect, heaven-made or here,
Nor mystery why so many disagree,
Since none can share the point from which we see.
But, if among these temples ruined long years
Before our memories began, you’d say
“This tree so pleasantly resides upon
This mound,” or call the leaden-clouded dawn
Into account for lack of blue the day
It fails our eyes, and I concur, so when
I say then, “I vow all ways to pursue
Your good,” and you forever pledge to do
The same for me, our flaws with words we mend.
And thus two treasures mix, two pleasures find,
Two loves we fix and form a single mind.

2nd Yr's the Worst


The second year’s the worst, I’ve found: nervous
Tic grown charmless, thuds like water-torture
In the eye; belching, worse, noted, endured;
The fog of romance cleared, clay feet abound.
Nor am I sinless in this withering
Review:  I knew which buttons to push and
Trigger-happy, put sand in your panties,
Conjured ogres of your past, revived bad dreams.
It’s hard to play the silver knight, wiping
Mustard on the invariant sandwich. Still,
Come slog with me this muck of daily chores,
And press ‘til we emerge renewed. 
Let this noxious tedium drum: love’s test
Is almost done. We’ll rest and overcome.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Don't Get With the Program


How do you want to kill people? Individually or in a group? I guess by that I meant to ask if you as part of a group wanted to kill people or would you rather just do it yourself. Course it could also mean would you rather kill one by one or would you prefer several at one whack. The whack is open to interpretation: two? three? ten? a thousand? a million?

And how would you do it? Strangulation? With a knife? A sword? A gun? A bomb? Maybe just a needle in the arm. Poison. Poison dart from a blowgun? Fire? Flamethrower? Suffocation from smoke in a fire? Heroin overdose? Electrical shock? Hanging? Crush body when a bridge collapses? Crush head with a baseball bat?

And to whom would you do it? Irritating neighbors? Irritating friends, colleagues, employees, employers? Only men? Only women? Only rich, poor, black, white, young, old, children, doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs? Only irritating foreigners? And only in their irritating foreign countries?

And how quickly would you do it? Instantaneous vaporization? (They wouldn’t know what hit them.)  Suffer but it’s over quickly? (They‘d feel pain for a short time, some for longer.)  Suffer but it’s not over quickly? (They’d linger in agony, praying for death.)

There’s no need to answer.  Actually you’re already committed to all of these methods, the full spectrum of killing, but you probably don’t think about it much if ever.

Say you’ve never agreed to any such program. Nobody ever asked you to support such a plan. You pay taxes? Well, then you’ve paid for the program, you’ve supported the plan. In underground silos throughout the plains states, on any number of air force bases, below the surface of the seas in submarines are weapons paid for with your tax dollars, in various stages of readiness to kill on your behalf in all the ways specified above.

Perhaps I misunderstand the delicate distinction between weapons for killing and weapons for deterrence. Even if I do, I think the weapons wouldn’t be much of a deterrent if they couldn’t deliver on the killing--make that gruesome killing. And they wouldn’t be much of a deterrent if we weren’t committed to using them.

Suppose for a moment we weren’t committed to using them: we’d let them rot, or take them apart, use the parts for something else--rockets for Fourth of July, bomb materials for medical research. If we did it openly the whole world would know we had no intention for their imminent death. 

With no threatening weapons aimed at them, they could think: “Now’s the chance to blow them out of the water! Get rid of their kind for good. Let’s just turn their whole country into one stinking radioactive crater.”

Of course in that case they’d never get to enjoy Disneyworld, Hollywood, expensive Manhattan apartments, or grass-fed Angus beef from the Midwest. They’d just have a stinking radioactive crater whose clouds of radioactive waste would blow all over the world killing everybody and everything--slowly.

So if they thought it through they might conclude: “I’m tired of paying for all these expensive weapons if the best they can get us is a stinking radioactive crater, leukemia, and infertile mutant children. I’d rather spend my money on grass-fed Midwestern Angus beef. Maybe even go to Disneyworld. Or get a little pied a terre high atop the East Sixties overlooking the park.”

Did you ever tell anyone you were not with the program?