“The U.S. is a strange society because I think consciously
the country wants to believe that it does good and that it has, you know, good
intentions around the world and it’s not very in touch with its subconscious
self that is a lot meaner and a lot more homicidal than the self that it would
like to acknowledge.”
- Charles Abourezk, Supreme Court Justice for the Rosebud
Sioux Tribe
___________
With an unusual collection of friends who have never before
met in person, including my childhood neighbor and my best friend in Calgary,
we all set out on bikes through a nearby forest path to the ocean. We are
excitable, older and more aware of our environment than ever. There is a
confident appreciation for the anticipated wilderness charm ahead. As we exit
the neighborhood onto the main street, still lacking any signage dedicated to
non-motored travel, there is a foreboding stimulus from afar as an interrupted
vacuity of law overtakes the street-laden, forested horizon. We all stretch our
necks backward, blithe with eager enthusiasm to find our way to the secluded
ocean vista. As we comfortably engage on our briefly paved portion of the path,
a paddy wagon stops in front of us. Lights blazing with ingenious madness; the
government insinuation is of madness and futility. Officers exit their vehicle,
pursuing our humiliated, fading glory with a clown-faced repertoire of deception
and misinformation. One cop hands me a crinkled dollar bill. Hesitant, I grab
its frayed edge. As soon as the act of derogation ensues, another cop hands one
of my friends, visiting from Canada, a ticket of over one hundred dollars.
Sitting down, exasperated with inner frustration, my friend refuses the ticket.
I take it for him as to not cause a stir.
The cops press on with deliberation, attempting to get a
rise out of us through any and every means at their wicked disposal. Soon, our
bikes are in the back of the van. “What have we done?” I ask myself with
intensive speculation. The air smells of fish and pig, putrid. Their glares are
fuel to the fire. Letting us out at my neighborhood friend’s home only a few
paces away by car, as to pour salt on our bleary, wounded minds. One cop asks
my friend, “What’s your family background?” He smiles patiently and responds,
“Well, I’m English, and ummm…” the silence is emphasized by the piercing stare
of the officer denouncing his Asian eyes with an understated slur. “And Dutch!”
I say, in support of my friend before the awful reception of the savage,
unannounced feigning of America’s pitiful counterterrorism. Defeated, the rest
of my friends join my neighbor into his house for drinks and an indoor evening,
while I angrily bike down the hill to my mother’s house with the ticket in my
pocket. “I’ve got to tell them about the insipid brink of justice coagulating
around our neighborhood with such asinine hubris.” I consider introspectively.
Red flashing lights drown the usual calm haze around my
mother’s suburban home with inconceivable villainy. As I ride smoothly around
the back of the house to peer out into the driveway stealthily, I can’t believe
my eyes. “Another police raid, we are innocent! The police are the guilty ones
these days.” I curse their heavy hog-head presence on our property. They have
torn apart the entire garage. My stepfather stands on his smooth driveway
pavement dumbfounded, entrenched in the unwelcome malevolence. Domestic
counterterrorism laws have been enacted. To the local police, now in full
operation as a military state, no heed is recognized for the delicate peace and
earnest honesty attributed to the very population whose lives have been
dedicated to their government services. Through force, the government takes
full advantage of the interlocking mutuality behind the dual inception of
insurmountable trickery. “When will America’s children realize they have only
cheated themselves?” I clamber on, to ride myself through the neglected
wilderness path. There is an ocean beyond.
_________
Police
"If the police are trying to arrest you for some crime of which you are innocent, it foretells that you will successfully outstrip rivalry...A dream involving the police means you feel guilty for not honouring a promise or obligation...The police could be addressing Karmic Law as well as the laws in our physical world...Old dream interpretation books say that dreaming about police is an indication that you will obtain unexpected assistance with a current problem." (iDream)
________
Preconception, the snowball effect, and the end of humanity.
Thematic Abuse.
Two Versions (one for public, one unmodified).
Lost familiarity.
Generations.
“What blue fire has been found hidden these last few days?”
“It is the tax of the many on the few”
And the brandished awareness of our single life
followed into the brazen evening with full vigour.
The young woman revealed her teeth
and wore a short vision on her ring
that lacked the ability to forget.
Her rhythmic movements lied agape
to preserve our entrenched faculty
to be remorseful and sick.
We lie in the unbounded grease
of a pandemic conspiracy,
a mass confusion,
ringing clear as the empty sky
before each face, it sings wryly
behind a mask of enraged pain.
“It is a race to the beginning!”
“The thieves of fire are out to lunch today and we have no one left to hear…to see…to be…”
The groundless mire of slick urbanized gore
lets a finishing cackle into the murderous air
as we slink in our beds engrossed
in the contemplative gold of our own breath
…softly giving way to the perfected sleep
that buys dreamless jewelry from the rocks of visceral stress.
“Illiterate, unreliable, lazy mediocrity, feigning humanity"
"Who is that
who cherishes the meaningless fog?
It covers our sanity…”
Animals quiver with stagnant pleas
whimpering in their cages
and blinking tears into the loveless dust
of the meat they will sacrifice
to a mouth blocked with a family honor
so loud it tears to fuck
all the beauty of being one species.
Thematic Abuse.
Two Versions (one for public, one unmodified).
Lost familiarity.
Generations.
“What blue fire has been found hidden these last few days?”
“It is the tax of the many on the few”
And the brandished awareness of our single life
followed into the brazen evening with full vigour.
The young woman revealed her teeth
and wore a short vision on her ring
that lacked the ability to forget.
Her rhythmic movements lied agape
to preserve our entrenched faculty
to be remorseful and sick.
We lie in the unbounded grease
of a pandemic conspiracy,
a mass confusion,
ringing clear as the empty sky
before each face, it sings wryly
behind a mask of enraged pain.
“It is a race to the beginning!”
“The thieves of fire are out to lunch today and we have no one left to hear…to see…to be…”
The groundless mire of slick urbanized gore
lets a finishing cackle into the murderous air
as we slink in our beds engrossed
in the contemplative gold of our own breath
…softly giving way to the perfected sleep
that buys dreamless jewelry from the rocks of visceral stress.
“Illiterate, unreliable, lazy mediocrity, feigning humanity"
"Who is that
who cherishes the meaningless fog?
It covers our sanity…”
Animals quiver with stagnant pleas
whimpering in their cages
and blinking tears into the loveless dust
of the meat they will sacrifice
to a mouth blocked with a family honor
so loud it tears to fuck
all the beauty of being one species.
Feb. 20, 2010
Charles Abourezk is the son of James Abourezk, another warrior in the struggle who was in the US Senate (from South Dakota) in the 70's. Wow how those days have passed. Your police dream sounds frighteningly like daily life in Phoenix, Arizona today (and many other places). I'm not sure I buy those interpretations of what it means; I think the willing suspension of disbelief that occurs in a dream could make these dehumanizing experiences seem normal and rational, and thus more powerful, in an Orwellian or Kafkaesque way.
ReplyDeleteI just love to rip off random fruits from your poetic vine:
"engrossed
in the contemplative gold of our own breath
…softly giving way to the perfected sleep
that buys dreamless jewelry from the rocks..."