(editors note: I appreciated this reviewers harsh assessment of my grandfather's situation, because it puts it rather bluntly while giving him the respect and integrity he deserved having risen above his shady origins.)
P.S. KISS THE DUCHESS FOR ME
I had a book sent to me that was written by the grandson of a WWII army infantry soldier. A soldier who was dead on the battle fields of France before he was in-country thirty days. The book is "“P.S. Kiss the Duchess for Me" from Hats Off Books (www.hatsoffbooks.com). What was different about this soldier was that fact he was thirty three years old when he entered the army and his wife kept all the letters he wrote home, right up to the last ones written from a fighting position in France. His grandson Joe Rossi found the letters and used them to create the story. The average age of a soldier in the US Army during WWII was twenty six years old. That seems old by Vietnam statistics, where a GI was between 21 and 22 years old. Private Joe R. Moss was an "“old-man" by WWII standards. He was born in Ottawa, Canada to Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents. His family moved to Detroit in 1920 and there are questions as to the legal situation of the family's immigration status. In the body of the book you discover Private Moss did not get his legal status as a resident until he was in army basic training. His family was in illegal gambling rackets in both Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. The impression I got about pre-army induction Joe Moss was he was bit of a loser. He was smart enough to get into college in California, but did not stick it out for very long. He married his high school sweetheart and had a daughter in the second year of marriage. The daughter is the "“Duchess". He worked in the family business of illegal gambling but never amounted to much. He was always borrowing money from older brothers also in the family business. When WWII came alone he was a married man with a daughter and the draft was not looking hard at that category of potential soldiers. In 1944 Joe Moss is in the army. The family does not know how he got there. Was he drafted or did he enlist at the age of thirty three, deliberately leaving his wife and nine year old daughter? I suspect he enlisted and there was some underlying feels of abandonment in his family. He never seemed to finish or accomplish anything in his life, perhaps the military was something else he was running to or what was it running away from? The book is based on the 150 letters he wrote home to his wife and daughter while he was in army training and during his few days in combat. This is an important note; the saving of these letters is why this combat killed veteran is remembered by his family and now the readers of the book. Too many veteranÂ’s stories and history have been lost because no one kept the correspondence from the veteran and no one documented the personal military history. As I have said before in my column and I say yet again, we must remember. When that veteran is gone he or she is only as good as the memories we have. If they died on the battlefield we have even fewer memories. As you read the letters mailed home by Private Moss you find a man who like all new military members is in a world completely out of his normal elements. And what you discover is the loneliness that sets in very early for a new recruit going through basic military training, knowing he is headed to combat. As I read it I remembered my days at Officer Training School. The first six weeks they kept you so busy you were too tired to be lonely, but as things loosened up in the second six weeks you had time to dwell on what you missed back home. Also I knew I was going to see my wife in a few weeks and I was not headed straight into combat. I had no daughter at that time, where as Private Moss through his letters was most assuredly missing his child. He got a ten day leave prior to shipping out to France and was able to see his family for the last time. The book is only 100 pages and an easy read. If you have a deployed GI in your life, read the book to learn, then start documenting and saving the history of your veteran. We must always remember. Memorial Day 2006.
24 May 2006
Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
vanharl@aol.com
Friday, July 28, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Connections, Dave Zirbel, The Sundowners & More ....
There is much I'’d like to blog about. Much of my blogging lately has taken on a new form of poetic journalism. Mind you many of the names I am dropping or using to color my surrealistic musings are messages in a bottle as it were, a way to put friends names out there, that I still remember, or wish to remember, and by blogging them into my poem and I'’m able to revisit their memory, perhaps jog some more memories, get off creatively, and at the same time put their name out there in cyberspace so that google and the other search engines will eventually record it, and that person upon doing a search on their name, an entirely vain and very common practice in this day and age, and stumble upon my blog.
Anyway, Dave Zirbel,. an excellent musician from my home town, has checked in, reported in, as it were, a soldier reporting for duty. Check out his band
at http://www.myspace.com/zirbman And my Aunt weighed regarding a poem. I'’m thrilled, but hey look at this Pearls Before Swine cartoon. I laughed when I saw this.... you're supposed to put your comments here on my blog so it seems like its really popular!
Hey hung out with cousin Christian after a day trip to Legoland down at Carlsbad. We had dinner and talked a bunch and it was great. Thanks for the chow, Cuz!
Also, Don Moss and I had fun checking out old pictures and letters, recollecting and looking at old film footage my grandfather shot of Detroit and Balboa Beach back in 1938. Ran into Mark Ferris and Scotty Comings. Mark has a cool band called the Sundowners, and hopefully I can start playing them soon at cosmicwavesradio.com. Scotty looks like the same, and it was great seeing him again. Also had fun with my Auntie, my sister and her family, their neighbors, and checked in on Margaret and Eric and their new baby, and of course, got verbally abused by Taunt Judy for my gut, which grew over vacation.
Big Misses. My drunken house cat friend, Brian, Bill, Sharon, Pamela, Lori, Warren, Grady Harp, who I wanted to buy a drink after reading his review, one of my favorites, at amazon.com. Thing itravelinging with kids is exhausting and logistically just nuts..Nextext time I'm just going to do what we once did, and is throw a party and let everyone come by and say hello. I miss y'all.
Ok back to insipid musings.
In many ways I feel like a child, capable of only a rudimentary of understanding of how the world works. And yet what is that: the ability of my rational mind to cognitively understand the whole universe. Impossible. And in the vast spectrum between the babbling retard with downs syndrome and the Mensa Genius capable of impressive grasps of the complexity of all things and the intricate nature of numbers and math, formulas and science, and the way the natural world operates, somewhere in between all that, somewhere in the vast vague middle is me, a little man, one life, one man, of average intelligence, whose brief time on this earth is in the middle of its history, amazed at times, where I stand in the midst of human history. Sometimes it feels as though I'’ve come at the end, as everything, environmentally, politically seems to be gaining in intensity.
How disconnected we all are, from each other, especially from our past, and how seriously we take all of if that is happening right now, how important it all is, and yet is so very transitory the very nature of our experience, who we are and what we experience. In other words, think about your ancestors, five or six generations removed. You may know your grandparents and maybe a little about your great grandparents. But what about their parents and the parents before them. You probably know very little Â…. And yet this people lived and breathed, perhaps made sacrifices for their kids, worked so their kids and the kids of their kids might have a better future, only to be forgotten sooner or later, in the great dust cloud of history. How much do you know about your ancestors.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Raindrop (by the window) in Berkeley California
Raindrop the word Mylius
Less the angel drunken harlot
Queen of the Arbolada street gang
& the Temple clan, Ken Whiteley fans, that was Juan, or Juanito
whatever happened to the son of Mary &
Joseph. Quiet artist. Catoonist.
Sailor.
Friend.
She was the first to deride me
In a crowded San Francisco night
Where the subway opened up into the Castro District
So long ago, and ages since
We went the wrong way through a BART turnstile.
Only to face the morning
Come down.
A Second Mark Comings. A Range of Experiences. Ayatolla John, and Playing in the Band.
In the Stands. The Greek Theatre. Danny Vanni driving mindless but soul-filled through twisting streets of campus; the dead stirring echos of dark star
& bright diamond mornings.
dripping bible verses & phillipino-glazed starry eyed dreaming.
I got a handful of this.
Christian Brodale, brother of Shelly,
& Kerstin Hege, Marshall, & Telegraph drunk revelries with the Bubble Lady, poet laureate.
of the freaktown street, weird love avenue... the long walks past gardens
& Ashby, and black churches
Through the Sather Gates, past the drum circles, past Ginsberg, in the Quad. The Tower.
Small chic espresso spots before Starbucks was even a notion.
An Orange Julius selling Newcastle Burgers, stamp-sized chomps.
The old high school aquaintence, Andrea John
Joking as it were, bringing me home speechless, and catatonic,
Wondering if she might employ a nearby grocery basket
As a means of sending me on my way.
Whistling and we can't remember the words to
My Sister's Moonlight Eyes ....
Less the angel drunken harlot
Queen of the Arbolada street gang
& the Temple clan, Ken Whiteley fans, that was Juan, or Juanito
whatever happened to the son of Mary &
Joseph. Quiet artist. Catoonist.
Sailor.
Friend.
She was the first to deride me
In a crowded San Francisco night
Where the subway opened up into the Castro District
So long ago, and ages since
We went the wrong way through a BART turnstile.
Only to face the morning
Come down.
A Second Mark Comings. A Range of Experiences. Ayatolla John, and Playing in the Band.
In the Stands. The Greek Theatre. Danny Vanni driving mindless but soul-filled through twisting streets of campus; the dead stirring echos of dark star
& bright diamond mornings.
dripping bible verses & phillipino-glazed starry eyed dreaming.
I got a handful of this.
Christian Brodale, brother of Shelly,
& Kerstin Hege, Marshall, & Telegraph drunk revelries with the Bubble Lady, poet laureate.
of the freaktown street, weird love avenue... the long walks past gardens
& Ashby, and black churches
Through the Sather Gates, past the drum circles, past Ginsberg, in the Quad. The Tower.
Small chic espresso spots before Starbucks was even a notion.
An Orange Julius selling Newcastle Burgers, stamp-sized chomps.
The old high school aquaintence, Andrea John
Joking as it were, bringing me home speechless, and catatonic,
Wondering if she might employ a nearby grocery basket
As a means of sending me on my way.
Whistling and we can't remember the words to
My Sister's Moonlight Eyes ....
Sam Plastic's Cosmic Stove
Weird fun psychedelic streaming ad hoc newsreporting by joe rossi. The Joe Rossi Report.
And then to where I roam and there without
& sunshine eyes
The coast she rolls to Carlsbad,
cool doom & games in legobrickslandlaid
We bounced upon her turnpike face,
faced down a sunset not drab nor grey
But bursting burst fourth with
all manner of play, in waves that rolled like smooth silken glades
(in the miniland tour of New York City, indeed the two foot prints sit offset by a tall freedom tower preincarnate in toyland)
(VH1 went backwards 1976, and Jessica Lange, gorgeous dumb dwan in huge dark hands
& an earlier reinvision of the vision on the beast. And this Kong there played the scene of his giant leap from one tower to the other.”)
& upon this backyard. Wayward flow puzzle
shine pundit spin in cal poly romances & Lorie Phaff & the 57 corridor through
diamond bar & Daniel the guitar player freak on echo feedback, echo/bunnymen
screaming people our strange in some closed business floor space just off the highway
in the middle of the night ….
& spit and polish, new Detroit breed
in a thundercoat, racecar getaway television dream team
an actor burnt on liberal piety & conservative shades of gray
the focus to remain calm
saw Christian by the Sea
practicing not practicing
talking books, and songs, & memories of family
by the Sea.
And Ted Bishop sits inside the laguna hills of my memory, are fading away
In the fields behind Irvine Meadows, where the spirits came to play one day.
Just Suzanne Sommers once scored high in UC Irvines computer class and was last seen romancing in the bay area and just as surely subsiding into the recessed scenes
Of what was, once was, the mental imagery
Of names & faces, discarded in the glass, or the history
We drink with fatal class.
Happenings in the parking lot, the forever lost on 1960 crowd
Dancing in the aisles tween cars & circles of souls
& thinking how that Seventies, and how Surrender sounds exactly the same at the end as they do on that Seventies Show, only Daddy’s not all right, and Mama shes retired military, yes, & we’re hanging out, down the street. That was a cheap trick he says,
almost as an afterthought
combats fatique with more coffee
Starbucks®brewed in a starbucks coffee pot
& splenda tossed in, to ease our stimulated way
into more words, unending words, formented, fermented in
Sam Plastic’s Cosmic Stove.
And nowhere to go but forward and so we must
Discuss the dark corner that waits all of us, and how is it we don’t know just as sure as we
Knew how to breathe
How to eat
How to think
How to sleep
How to dream
We know how to die as part of one Larger Process of which we all partake
The Unfolding of Human History, from our unique perspective
Shows us the way we are to live, for a time, and then die, for a time.
Forever. A period.
A diamond of eternity, ever radiant, on black velvet
Revealing the hidden secrets & the shadows of lust.
Trust in the energy of night
That pulls you to slumber, to the strange place of dreams
Where faces & friends & a mysterious lover it seems, change
Shapes, phantasmagoria, into the shadows of the day’s new events, to become memories hinted
At, achingly, in moments of déjà vu & sudden remember (ing)
In parking lot crowds, and B. Weisman & Sharon, wondering aloud or the Abroad gang in the Sierra Nevada, or with Robb Shinn, & Travis, Caustic Monkeys rabid punk heavy tapping drummer.
Driving down Huntington to Ronnies & the light pole falling and the fixtures fading of failed attempts to be who you’re not, and so what it was all a masquerade, a game to play, a joke that failed in the cool wispy salty gasps of ocean air in Newport Beach, where we first set sailing.
Cousin Rhonda and her blonde friend chick can’t quite pin down her name. And in Laguna Bishop & Freedom & Enterprise.
W/ Lori Hardy, or Byron at a New Year’s party on the Rose Parade Route
Death will comes as natural and timely and perfect as every other wave that ripples across the timeless face of God.
It’s in the Buddha come Jesusmind
that all is One & beyond sublime
just simple ideas
& a State of Grace.
No bloody Koran or Biblical overkill on an ancient kingdom’s bloodlust
Or the warring thoughts of man against mankind and ideas like the world is flat
& heaven hangs with gates of pearl, in the clouds that float above our childlike eyes.
(& virgins shall dance with men free to deliver, and the righteous shall sit in judgement of their brothers.)
Yeah right we are no more pawns than our gods Kings and Saviors, White & shining on white horses with swords of lights & books of Names of the chosen, the select & the righteous.
No doubt today it might be called the Democracy of God, and God drives a Hummer, with PODCASTS of his word ready with wireless transfer for download to the chips dug in just beneath our skulls.
So Big Brother may watch us as we shine, shine, shine.
And in Jesus Christ Light Grace
A bloody scourge and battered Saint bleeding
For the Great Cannibal Feast and the flowing grails of
Mystical magical blood, infused with flowing sparkles of love & grace.
The feast of the love vampire. The Drinking of the Blood.
Yes, maybe so in the dream exercised trial & judgement
of a lifetime’s activity and Life as a Whole
& a price paid, atonement hewn
in a fucking murder. A freaking gothic horrorif act of barbarity.
No a Light May Shine.
Like a Cosmic Flashlight
From someplace deep and low
In the pit of your soul.
Did Waterlion take elbop’s berekley breathed along with the reason for one
Generation’s hope?
Oh the cold dark night of the soul
And in this final fragment of thoughts to be continued on until who knows when
Flow control has us flowing from this reading & scribing of our living will.
No doubt flow control will find us later on, and maybe on some distant morning.
Return to discuss the wild party of mindstorms going on over at Sam’s place
That hip party of the underworld, and all the fantastic magical beasts that swarm there
To frolic & to play, that mental mindspace called Sam Plastic’s Cosmic Stove, where all the ancients
Like to go.
If you lean your head too hard to hear Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row.
And then to where I roam and there without
& sunshine eyes
The coast she rolls to Carlsbad,
cool doom & games in legobrickslandlaid
We bounced upon her turnpike face,
faced down a sunset not drab nor grey
But bursting burst fourth with
all manner of play, in waves that rolled like smooth silken glades
(in the miniland tour of New York City, indeed the two foot prints sit offset by a tall freedom tower preincarnate in toyland)
(VH1 went backwards 1976, and Jessica Lange, gorgeous dumb dwan in huge dark hands
& an earlier reinvision of the vision on the beast. And this Kong there played the scene of his giant leap from one tower to the other.”)
& upon this backyard. Wayward flow puzzle
shine pundit spin in cal poly romances & Lorie Phaff & the 57 corridor through
diamond bar & Daniel the guitar player freak on echo feedback, echo/bunnymen
screaming people our strange in some closed business floor space just off the highway
in the middle of the night ….
& spit and polish, new Detroit breed
in a thundercoat, racecar getaway television dream team
an actor burnt on liberal piety & conservative shades of gray
the focus to remain calm
saw Christian by the Sea
practicing not practicing
talking books, and songs, & memories of family
by the Sea.
And Ted Bishop sits inside the laguna hills of my memory, are fading away
In the fields behind Irvine Meadows, where the spirits came to play one day.
Just Suzanne Sommers once scored high in UC Irvines computer class and was last seen romancing in the bay area and just as surely subsiding into the recessed scenes
Of what was, once was, the mental imagery
Of names & faces, discarded in the glass, or the history
We drink with fatal class.
Happenings in the parking lot, the forever lost on 1960 crowd
Dancing in the aisles tween cars & circles of souls
& thinking how that Seventies, and how Surrender sounds exactly the same at the end as they do on that Seventies Show, only Daddy’s not all right, and Mama shes retired military, yes, & we’re hanging out, down the street. That was a cheap trick he says,
almost as an afterthought
combats fatique with more coffee
Starbucks®brewed in a starbucks coffee pot
& splenda tossed in, to ease our stimulated way
into more words, unending words, formented, fermented in
Sam Plastic’s Cosmic Stove.
And nowhere to go but forward and so we must
Discuss the dark corner that waits all of us, and how is it we don’t know just as sure as we
Knew how to breathe
How to eat
How to think
How to sleep
How to dream
We know how to die as part of one Larger Process of which we all partake
The Unfolding of Human History, from our unique perspective
Shows us the way we are to live, for a time, and then die, for a time.
Forever. A period.
A diamond of eternity, ever radiant, on black velvet
Revealing the hidden secrets & the shadows of lust.
Trust in the energy of night
That pulls you to slumber, to the strange place of dreams
Where faces & friends & a mysterious lover it seems, change
Shapes, phantasmagoria, into the shadows of the day’s new events, to become memories hinted
At, achingly, in moments of déjà vu & sudden remember (ing)
In parking lot crowds, and B. Weisman & Sharon, wondering aloud or the Abroad gang in the Sierra Nevada, or with Robb Shinn, & Travis, Caustic Monkeys rabid punk heavy tapping drummer.
Driving down Huntington to Ronnies & the light pole falling and the fixtures fading of failed attempts to be who you’re not, and so what it was all a masquerade, a game to play, a joke that failed in the cool wispy salty gasps of ocean air in Newport Beach, where we first set sailing.
Cousin Rhonda and her blonde friend chick can’t quite pin down her name. And in Laguna Bishop & Freedom & Enterprise.
W/ Lori Hardy, or Byron at a New Year’s party on the Rose Parade Route
Death will comes as natural and timely and perfect as every other wave that ripples across the timeless face of God.
It’s in the Buddha come Jesusmind
that all is One & beyond sublime
just simple ideas
& a State of Grace.
No bloody Koran or Biblical overkill on an ancient kingdom’s bloodlust
Or the warring thoughts of man against mankind and ideas like the world is flat
& heaven hangs with gates of pearl, in the clouds that float above our childlike eyes.
(& virgins shall dance with men free to deliver, and the righteous shall sit in judgement of their brothers.)
Yeah right we are no more pawns than our gods Kings and Saviors, White & shining on white horses with swords of lights & books of Names of the chosen, the select & the righteous.
No doubt today it might be called the Democracy of God, and God drives a Hummer, with PODCASTS of his word ready with wireless transfer for download to the chips dug in just beneath our skulls.
So Big Brother may watch us as we shine, shine, shine.
And in Jesus Christ Light Grace
A bloody scourge and battered Saint bleeding
For the Great Cannibal Feast and the flowing grails of
Mystical magical blood, infused with flowing sparkles of love & grace.
The feast of the love vampire. The Drinking of the Blood.
Yes, maybe so in the dream exercised trial & judgement
of a lifetime’s activity and Life as a Whole
& a price paid, atonement hewn
in a fucking murder. A freaking gothic horrorif act of barbarity.
No a Light May Shine.
Like a Cosmic Flashlight
From someplace deep and low
In the pit of your soul.
Did Waterlion take elbop’s berekley breathed along with the reason for one
Generation’s hope?
Oh the cold dark night of the soul
And in this final fragment of thoughts to be continued on until who knows when
Flow control has us flowing from this reading & scribing of our living will.
No doubt flow control will find us later on, and maybe on some distant morning.
Return to discuss the wild party of mindstorms going on over at Sam’s place
That hip party of the underworld, and all the fantastic magical beasts that swarm there
To frolic & to play, that mental mindspace called Sam Plastic’s Cosmic Stove, where all the ancients
Like to go.
If you lean your head too hard to hear Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Insane Children of a Despot God
Who are you
Insane sick children of a despot god
So willing to let rage & bloodlust
Destroy your very conscience
Your very soul
In bloodbaths
& torrents of terror
In duststorm streets
Beneath blazing skies
& memories burned of
A lost innocence
No sea of joy or sense of justice.
Just burning death rage
& the dark emotional fuel of fear
Where is this place?
This Carnival of Horrors
Called Babylon, Eden, Garden
Of Hellfire.
Somewhere where the Euprhates and the Tigris entwine
& the sandy shores of Tikrit.
What’s needed is ironic an iron fist
& the cold hard rule of might
These children, wretched slaves to violence
& the hatred seared into their hearts.
Know no other yoke, than the rule of madness.
Insane sick children of a despot god
So willing to let rage & bloodlust
Destroy your very conscience
Your very soul
In bloodbaths
& torrents of terror
In duststorm streets
Beneath blazing skies
& memories burned of
A lost innocence
No sea of joy or sense of justice.
Just burning death rage
& the dark emotional fuel of fear
Where is this place?
This Carnival of Horrors
Called Babylon, Eden, Garden
Of Hellfire.
Somewhere where the Euprhates and the Tigris entwine
& the sandy shores of Tikrit.
What’s needed is ironic an iron fist
& the cold hard rule of might
These children, wretched slaves to violence
& the hatred seared into their hearts.
Know no other yoke, than the rule of madness.
California DreamCoast Dreaming
dreamcoats
of whispering rainfree blue sky
in the shadow of light brown mountain face of Wilson, its crown metal
solar reaching antennae skies
the city of sierra madre sleeps
in soft sweet foothills
arcadia, greek land of peace & manicured lawns
flora & fauna, ferns, shrubs, wide avenues
suburban siloheuttes, kids on skateboards
highschools planted against hillsides, roadways winding
twisting roads into the hills
vistas of seas of sparkle & lights
& I might think of Vicki Anderson
& Lucia might mention her as well
though these words explore not my present but my long strange past
& the path it took through Ken Whiteley times.
And Vicki Anderson lived on one of those wide streets;
Just down the road from Sierra Madre & her alien pod courtyard/square
They shut down Howies Ranch Market.
I hear Bruce Sprangenburger stills lurks in her canyons, Nature Friends still
a chalet tucked away in Munchkinland Heaven.
Castaway was a drifter on a bike
smoking demonweed CB radio times, there was Turbo Prop
High up in the canyon, cobbled walls of stone
recall tom sawyer vans tour into the canyons & devils gate, the Rose Bowl
oh ancient home of childhood & riding horses and sinking into blue school swimming pools
high up in the Linda Vista hills & desert canyons. And Janie Ricter, and Tim Healy and heaven's knows Steve Seine insane on Rick Swanson/Chris Wing lazy dry summers searching ragweed scorching michelle bauers psychedlic trips into a premature USC futures wasted on Sean Shenanigans as Jesus Christ loopy twisted turns into a DeEvolving 80's ... ROQ of the Eighties, yahoo
& tortured New Wave reading of the Tubes, and Blondie, & Punk Rock Pizza. down
at Venice
fractured Harry Perry, white turbaned, rollerskating psychedelic soldiers of the time.
grateful dead came later, winding stories from friends about Dylan trenchcoat hipness in crowds plotting the rebirth of the groovy 1960's yeah
never quite came on a Mark Comings FlashBack Ride. his own guru fire swept up in John Range's mane, as a Lion born of the Great Desert Faith of Nomads burning jihad
into a never ending epiphany
of messiahs surfing into a bar chord summer riding a minor & a major
back beat
tunes strummed on Whiteley's guitar humming or maybe Doug Maas, might make moss turn on a simple rolling stone, or a simple twist of ten-foot faces breaking like waves on Bob Hezleps' John Wayne Beach.
Yeah Ted Bishop son of ancient Roman poets, Popes, and posers, surfing languna naked
suicide stuck of Christian hope for owning homes & equities in her lush
aquatic garden.
do Bailey, dance with Jonathon Winters, chance to
to find the House of Bluth atop our one time, old stoner
middle school canyons.
Oh Song of Arcadia
This gentle land of Peace & precise lawns
and Letterman lives lived out of homes now razed to make way for Mansions
built on Asian Silver & Gold
and post-communist horizons.
2000 came and Arcadia still thunders, slumbers
into raging, thermoglobal, thermonuclear future, full of holiday spectacles & maybe these children are hopeful of some unknown solution
or is this the end?
that the bluesman sang, in the leather coat to a soul in Europe on the eve of college and certain post adolescent wanderings & missteps.
a soul lost
& soul begot
the lost electric soul
no longer wandering on a Berekley street nightmare, with dead poet, Eric, now Rimbaud forever & ever
no bubble ladies or Tami Bond Spy Capers. Only children, three bright eyes for a future rising to meet fate,
& the Incan Lady from the gates of Heaven, above Cuzco & Lima, Macchu Picchu, and
a new world shining.
I taste her miracle poison
& the memory of a soldier
& a childhood now chased into a mirror.
Look at my past
glazing back at me, forever echoing the words of a poet, rolling numbers, & Rick Swanson green vines, Scotty C, and Mark Ferris Wheel fun zone just beginning...
to taste the roses of Dylan's sweet desolation rows, & I think of Eric always Eric playing us the tale of the hanging and postcards from an edge flowing
a house on Parker Street.
Telegraph
& a Mediterraneum Coffee Shop
Where the flow of coffee & german kerstin hege memories of
German reconcilitation.
I remember a soldier
& a heartbeat snuffed in hosptial in the bay area.
& a drummer & a beat & a band of gypsies & Jehovahs.
A motorcyle repair shop on Giant Road.
A Universal Mission. Save the World. Explode the future.
And endless songs played into an endless night.
That is it for now,
& New Year's Eve
Come cold Christmas morning.
We were there; we remember
A nightmare Billy Rameriz roaming wild streets
& police station recoveries.
searching for meanings, messages, meandering
into the future, the future still just keeps coming, how soon till
it all quiets down,
into a space just beyond the edge of the end, before
there ever was
& forever after?
I fall forward more
not sure just where I am
falling ...
of whispering rainfree blue sky
in the shadow of light brown mountain face of Wilson, its crown metal
solar reaching antennae skies
the city of sierra madre sleeps
in soft sweet foothills
arcadia, greek land of peace & manicured lawns
flora & fauna, ferns, shrubs, wide avenues
suburban siloheuttes, kids on skateboards
highschools planted against hillsides, roadways winding
twisting roads into the hills
vistas of seas of sparkle & lights
& I might think of Vicki Anderson
& Lucia might mention her as well
though these words explore not my present but my long strange past
& the path it took through Ken Whiteley times.
And Vicki Anderson lived on one of those wide streets;
Just down the road from Sierra Madre & her alien pod courtyard/square
They shut down Howies Ranch Market.
I hear Bruce Sprangenburger stills lurks in her canyons, Nature Friends still
a chalet tucked away in Munchkinland Heaven.
Castaway was a drifter on a bike
smoking demonweed CB radio times, there was Turbo Prop
High up in the canyon, cobbled walls of stone
recall tom sawyer vans tour into the canyons & devils gate, the Rose Bowl
oh ancient home of childhood & riding horses and sinking into blue school swimming pools
high up in the Linda Vista hills & desert canyons. And Janie Ricter, and Tim Healy and heaven's knows Steve Seine insane on Rick Swanson/Chris Wing lazy dry summers searching ragweed scorching michelle bauers psychedlic trips into a premature USC futures wasted on Sean Shenanigans as Jesus Christ loopy twisted turns into a DeEvolving 80's ... ROQ of the Eighties, yahoo
& tortured New Wave reading of the Tubes, and Blondie, & Punk Rock Pizza. down
at Venice
fractured Harry Perry, white turbaned, rollerskating psychedelic soldiers of the time.
grateful dead came later, winding stories from friends about Dylan trenchcoat hipness in crowds plotting the rebirth of the groovy 1960's yeah
never quite came on a Mark Comings FlashBack Ride. his own guru fire swept up in John Range's mane, as a Lion born of the Great Desert Faith of Nomads burning jihad
into a never ending epiphany
of messiahs surfing into a bar chord summer riding a minor & a major
back beat
tunes strummed on Whiteley's guitar humming or maybe Doug Maas, might make moss turn on a simple rolling stone, or a simple twist of ten-foot faces breaking like waves on Bob Hezleps' John Wayne Beach.
Yeah Ted Bishop son of ancient Roman poets, Popes, and posers, surfing languna naked
suicide stuck of Christian hope for owning homes & equities in her lush
aquatic garden.
do Bailey, dance with Jonathon Winters, chance to
to find the House of Bluth atop our one time, old stoner
middle school canyons.
Oh Song of Arcadia
This gentle land of Peace & precise lawns
and Letterman lives lived out of homes now razed to make way for Mansions
built on Asian Silver & Gold
and post-communist horizons.
2000 came and Arcadia still thunders, slumbers
into raging, thermoglobal, thermonuclear future, full of holiday spectacles & maybe these children are hopeful of some unknown solution
or is this the end?
that the bluesman sang, in the leather coat to a soul in Europe on the eve of college and certain post adolescent wanderings & missteps.
a soul lost
& soul begot
the lost electric soul
no longer wandering on a Berekley street nightmare, with dead poet, Eric, now Rimbaud forever & ever
no bubble ladies or Tami Bond Spy Capers. Only children, three bright eyes for a future rising to meet fate,
& the Incan Lady from the gates of Heaven, above Cuzco & Lima, Macchu Picchu, and
a new world shining.
I taste her miracle poison
& the memory of a soldier
& a childhood now chased into a mirror.
Look at my past
glazing back at me, forever echoing the words of a poet, rolling numbers, & Rick Swanson green vines, Scotty C, and Mark Ferris Wheel fun zone just beginning...
to taste the roses of Dylan's sweet desolation rows, & I think of Eric always Eric playing us the tale of the hanging and postcards from an edge flowing
a house on Parker Street.
Telegraph
& a Mediterraneum Coffee Shop
Where the flow of coffee & german kerstin hege memories of
German reconcilitation.
I remember a soldier
& a heartbeat snuffed in hosptial in the bay area.
& a drummer & a beat & a band of gypsies & Jehovahs.
A motorcyle repair shop on Giant Road.
A Universal Mission. Save the World. Explode the future.
And endless songs played into an endless night.
That is it for now,
& New Year's Eve
Come cold Christmas morning.
We were there; we remember
A nightmare Billy Rameriz roaming wild streets
& police station recoveries.
searching for meanings, messages, meandering
into the future, the future still just keeps coming, how soon till
it all quiets down,
into a space just beyond the edge of the end, before
there ever was
& forever after?
I fall forward more
not sure just where I am
falling ...
Sunday, July 02, 2006
The Cat Rants
The Cat Rants
D.Cat Chopra...
check her out. errr, him out. vampires. blondie. the tube.
the tubes. those are his thingz, manz.
He's infectious. You talk to him, you start talking like him.
Maybe we need a quarantine.
D.Cat Chopra...
check her out. errr, him out. vampires. blondie. the tube.
the tubes. those are his thingz, manz.
He's infectious. You talk to him, you start talking like him.
Maybe we need a quarantine.
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