#124 - I never remember where I have been & a funny thing happened on my way to the firing squad

5.5.20

124

two poems

I never remember where I have been

so much of the dream yet to build

to live

and as I breathe

today for instance

the highway a museum

dirt track with scraggly shops along

where to get back on?

of course this is PRC, the old days, west

muddy potholes approaching the freeway

traffic’s too fast

so no, we must go back to the entrance

with turnstiles

where the exhibits are

we have to have paid

all these acres of the house at once

so much of what’s dreamt

has not been

can’t be true

and therefore has that future whiff

the GPS won’t show

a kind of a reading tutorial

and I’m next

they want me for the team

how can I avoid the violence?

it must be the coach I ask

adopt a defensive position

brace

can’t tell how far back

but still wish to be

please picture me, won’t you

with my giant tomato

do you ever have those dreams

where you’re not there

and won’t be

never will be

ever and ever

again

?

a funny thing happened to me on the way to the firing squad

choosing between Hitler and Stalin feels uncomfortable

until you realize it’s because Stalin’s so much like Hitler you hate him

… of course, inside a Gulag, it will feel different

… so many habits in common, these two

if you started to write it all down

you might not live very long

… but that was once upon a time

today

brains have been well washed

love Trump

let’s hear it

FOUR MORE YEARS

they will be formative for someone

a funny thing happened to me on the way to the firing squad

I was thinking about Mao and also Zhou En Lai, Pol Pot, Idi Amin

why does Napoleon never get a mention?        

something in the metrics or maybe it’s the brandy?

… you never think of Charles Manson or Jack the Ripper

at a moment like this

but consider Caligula, Cortez, Pizarro, Genghis Khan

so many Magnificents and Terribles

the odd forgotten bloodthirsty pirate

you can blame kings and emperors and czars

the goes around comes around theory

a funny thing happened on the way to my reincarnation

karma? you’re kidding me

that can’t be right

even at the last

see spirits rise

here’s the second coming

dance in the old bones yet  

believe on me

yeah, right

still there are random attacks of history

I was in Saudi on my way to a beheading

(very popular there)

turned out to be mine

still working out who it was I offended

have to think fast though

in China you get a bullet back of the head (economical)

the emperor reigns forever

the trick though is living so long

try coal mine

try fireworks factory

get a job at a sewing machine

in India they have Modi

someone will bowl him out

think! in the Philippines they’ll just burst into your tin hovel these days

bang bang, don’t bother counting

out of your misery

so

who’s fucking up the world right now?

we come to

Duterte

Bolsonaro

Erdogan

Orban

every bully gets a kingdom

that’s how they hand them out

it’s never comfortable in the tumbril

why can’t they use the old carriages

they were plush and had suspension

but anyway it’s not for long

a funny thing happened

actually on the steps up to the guillotine

someone asked me what I believed

and before I could answer

they asked me why      

of course one prefers a conversation

to this sniping gotcha stuff

I held up a little mirror then

to see which world was gone

what’s in a name?

something far far better

of course you can shrug off this sort of thing

can’t matter much at such a time

but I did have a think about guilty pleasures

contrition will do you no good

confess!

we who are about to die

w t f – do we have to salute you?

what difference would it make?

over heaven and under the earth?

them’s dangerous ideas

here’s some hemlock – easy with it

washes down a treat

which kinds of monster take freedom away?

and as I live and breathe

(not long)

a secret silent as the grave

… will they give me one of those?

I doubt it

they say you can’t take it with you

…just watch me

a little Lethe dip?  why not?

cyanide capsule to clutch

and then we come to

the fool on the hill

the Trumped up worldfuck of our times

every totalitarianism is a fascism

there never was one without a nation

… it’s only ever in the service of a state…

or empire bloated in denial

socialism in one country was ‘our own fascism’

you wouldn’t have wanted to be

… well there’s actually quite a long list

some people survive just by being themselves

for others, that strategy’s poison

most people go peacefully in their sleep

that’s the dream run

hundred billion and counting

or there could be someone careless

could be a new disease

a funny thing happened to me on the way to the firing squad

I asked my how did I get here?

how did we?

they say the guillotined head has time for a haiku

but don’t try sonnets or villanelles

you might blurt a tanka out in the chair if the power’s on the blink

it’s muffled doggerel your hanged will spew under that choking hood

but for the firing squad, you get a smoke

can make a speech

always the joker

and why not

have you noticed how nothing ever happens when you’re starving to death

or take malaria for example

dad had it from the war

but emphysema killed him

very early on he asked ‘who is my enemy?’

it was what my father wanted to know

when the Reds locked up his mother

for not teaching their way

and then the fascists did it too

they weren’t called that yet then …

in the end though they weren’t fascist enough

no stomach for slaughtering Jews

Hitler had to do it for them

liberation?

not the nicest

but some days you have to choose

check in with the worldometer, you’ll get the idea

know the best medicine?

a funny thing happened – not telling

born free?

I don’t think so

plenty of chains to lose

the rest is silence

so they say

I wouldn’t know myself