Terrible beauty....

I love morons...but I especially love oxymorons. Mirriam-Webster defines them as: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements. Such as the wonderful phrase in the title. A volcano spewing death or an atomic bomb blast fits the description. The term is often used to poke fun...as in military intelligence. It has finally come to pass, however, that a single word has been granted the gift of becoming both moronic and oxymoronic and singularly incongruous. All hail the Republican.

A Cry from Two Cities....

Comes a cry from cities far apart...and distant too in meaning,
A cry...a wail...East of Cleveland...Imperial echoes never fading,
Substance of a city fabled...again....
Then a cry far away for a child...a hope...a boy and celebration.
Yes, it's silly and meager feeling and from it smiles result...choose.  

The Trial....

Now that it's over, I guess it's time to place meaning to the outcome. And talking heads are busy on all the channels doing just that. But no matter how I analyze this...the only meaning seems to be: If you're young...and black...and wear a hoodie...don't go out in the evening.

A Tale of Inconsistency....

The Republicans are pulling out there hair trying to figure out how to be more inclusive...trying to win the hearts and minds of those they've lost for years. And yet, the beat goes on and on with bills to restrict abortion and women's health care, and trying over and over to throw out Obamacare, and speaking with forked tongues about immigration reform.... From the State Legislatures to the Congress, the song remains the same. And, I keep saying I should not be surprised by their actions, but I am. Speaker Boner...where are the jobs?

Whistling Past the Graveyard....

We all do it. But something I recently understood was that everything we do is simply that. Our daily rituals...everything from trimming nose hairs to checking what day it is with the newspaper, is us, whistling and stringing momentary lapses from the fear of death into one long sense of ignorance and bliss. A simple joy... like the first sip of a favorite beverage on a hot day...a smile from a friend...realizing there are other people out there that think like you...everything we do throughout our conscious and subconscious day is just a path to that bliss. It is psychic survival. So I've decided to craft my whistling into something meaningful. Something more than just a comfortable feeling once I reach the end of the cemetery grounds. I could just learn "Ol' Man River," or commit to memory the entirety of "Dark Side of the Moon." That would work. But too much work. Carlos Castaneda had me going for a while...till I learned his stories were fiction. Even then, the concept of believing Death to be always on your right hand was beneficial and kept me on my toes. So accepting truths from a fictional sorcerer was no more silly than believing religion will save me. So I whistle...in all my ways to whistle and...come to think of it...I think my whistle needs wetting. One way to remain comfortably numb:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jySUpMqmzd4 

An Attempt to Avoid Thoughts of Boston....

Joseph Conrad's character Mr. Kurtz, from "Heart of Darkness," famously mumbles "The horrors...the horrors" as he dies. And so it goes...on and on. Horrors visit countries, individuals, families, and entire peoples all the time. I probably never hear about the horrors most people face daily. And then there is Boston...yesterday.

But, in an attempt to block the horrors...if only for a moment...Derf's comic "The City," from yesterday's Plain Dealer, allowed that moment. He describes the "WOO GIRLS" that appear every Spring. I often have a discussion with my wife about cave people that walk among us in Lakewood, from bar to bar, and bar to car, and bar to home...at hours I should be dreaming. These cave people belch grunts and noises that sometimes approximate a "WOO" and I attempt a translation and I always fail. Thank you Derf for keeping the horrors at bay:

 http://media.cleveland.com/pdq_impact/photo/the-city-april-15jpg-32ba7fc83276c5dd.jpg

Nuclear Dreams...Flashback

My young dreams were often filled with fireballs...a side effect of the duck and cover world we all grew up in. The fear was not irrational...the world was filled with thousands of missiles and warheads. It was reality. It is again. Back thanks to a pudgy faced kid with too many toys. Blustering while his people starve.

Nuclear Dreams 1950-2013

By Michael James Lawless

At night, when young,
We knew the bomb...
I died in dreams so often:
Ending as a flash of white fire.
Decades pass...
I stay alive. I don't Die
In dreams. I won't.
I died again last night...
I felt the bomb, nearby,
A clock set to ring,
In my mind, in my dream,
The trigger clicked, the dream ended.
I died again last night.