Love at a Reasonable Price

People say they would never cheat their countrymen out of their shared democracy
But then
well the opportunity presents itself
and a little nibble’s nibbled
and nothing really happens
the sky doesn’t crash down
God doesn’t stride across the scene
the devil doesn’t usher you into the flames

Every time it gets a little easier
until it becomes your God-given right
to borrow what you’ll never pay back
to heartily agree with obvious lies
to buy your wife a nice new sofa with a little of the proceeds
you earned by being a good boy
and forgetting what you saw, forgetting what you heard,
forgetting what you felt
deep inside
in the part that still remembers
who you are
who we are
what life is

when there’s nothing left
when you’re an astronaut blasted out of your body
and you drift back to earth as scraps of twisted metal and shreds of failed rubber rings
and you don a pith helmet and matching khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt and big lace-up explorer boots
and you excavate
and you trace out the residue of a settlement and piece together skeletons and garments from a few shards of bone and a bit of miraculously preserved weave and the drawings on the shattered jars and the splotched, hole-filled, and strange-tongued texts.

That’s when you realize
there never had been anything
you’d always been a part-time astronaut
blasting out of your pretend life
and you’d always worked full-time for the university, patching together a plausible account of some long-dead reality.

There’s two and a half months of freedom, two and a half months of not-Russia, two and a half months when the post-democracy GOP definitely is not in charge of the executive branch, when the rot definitely has not yet undone all the fun of a free people freely speaking and freely choosing.

That’s when you realize
you never had been anyone
you’d always been a make-shift tent
blown across the yard by some big fat gusts
you always dent the back of your neighbor’s tin-and-paper home
he always makes a big stink and gets thousands of dollars from your homeowner’s insurance,
which he always pockets, leaving his beautiful box a little dinged and dented in one spot where no one would anyway notice.
And he, likewise, was never anything but a seagull’s shriek mixed with the rushing air that holds a seagull up over the gray lake where it washes up onto the pebbly beach that smells like rotten fish and where you can find lots of glass worn down by the tumble by years of the tumble and turn over and drag along and push forward and rub rub rub.

Can we please
go now
Can we please
go home now
You didn’t know
when you where a little boy
What the cut was
or what it
would do
You couldn’t tell
when you played on shag rugs with plastic toys
Where the story lay
or how it would grow
Now
you
know
a little
about what
you
never
knew
Can we please go now?

I want to leave
I want to go
I do not want to stay
in the noise
in the crunch
in the bang
in the whirr
in the idling
in the beeping
in the blathering
in the you didn’t
in the you should’ve
in the crime
in the drip
of blood or ketchup
on the nice wooden floor

I want to leave
please don’t make me
stay here
anymore
I want to quit
please don’t make me
run around
like a lap dog
sniffing and yapping
to belong
in a pack
that doesn’t need me
nor even itself
a pack de trop
a pack of lies

I want to get out of here
I want to flee the scene
And the evil hasn’t even blossomed yet
Still I can’t take it
I want to disappear
I want to never have been
Somehow it has all been a terrible mistake
I am so sick
of the noise
of the hassles
of the pointless tasks that must be done with great care
of the back and forth beneath untrue premises
of the useless discussions that wind through your day and spit our your soul
let me disappear
let me erase my past and my future
let me dissolve and be no more
for this is boring
and evil is catching
evil is spreading
from Donald Trump’s impulse to Donald Trump’s actions to Mike Johnson’s heart to the soul of a nation
Do you catch the disease in time?
Too busy belly aching to bother?
OK, up to you, I’ve seen bigger beasts fall, seen great mammoths crash with tumbling trippling thuds onto the long grasses and hard earth, even seen their great heads twist in unnatural ways, their floppy trunks flail out at weird, unlikely angles to drape over the sharp sturdy but relenting blades.
I don’t care.
Just let me never have been.
Let me never have walked through a movie house with bright colors carpet and bright colors walls and the smell of popcorn and a million years of human sweat wormed deep into forever-damp thick soft garish loud swirling-reds-yellows-purples carpeting.
Let me never have gone to see Ghostbusters with my father, let me never have walked past the Return of the Jedi still playing deep within the dark, the blue and red ray gun blasts the great trees falling in upon great metal boxes on long legs walking and shooting.
Oh, Ghostbusters was released in the summer of 1984 and the Return of the Jedi in the summer of 1983.
So
But I did see the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man explode all over 55 Central Park West in the cinema, with my dad when he was young and the US would always be the land of the free, didn’t I?
The land of the free!
Yeah, and that’s a lucky break.
The home of the brave?
People are just people, and only the evil tells them they are more special than other people.
Isn’t being the children of God good enough for you?
And what kind of a God only cares about some of His children?
I ask you.
Whatever, if I could escape you, I would.
You’ve worn me through.
And this on top of the nothing that I have anyways become.
Let me leave; let me disappear; let turn into the wind and the shriek of the gull floating thereon, and the curl of the wave drifting thereunder, and let me be no more this disappointment amidst and exchanging insults with other disappointments.
Let this end now.
Not another day.
Not another step out there into the pointless parade, miming life, pretending to believe in bodies minds hearts and hands, while knowing full well that nothing is going on except the wind flipping the leaves over to show their light green underbellies over the sun-brightened sidewalk.
I don’t want to do this anymore.
I don’t.
I can’t seem to make myself.
Please.
It is beyond boring
It is stressful and has nothing to do with anything I ever thought I needed to do
Meanwhile a certain cloak, a cloak of loneliness and frustration worn too tightly now for too long does a splendid job of imploding this structure, of twisting and popping the metal supports so that they whine moan and cry out with a tremendous ping. Whatever, there are much worse fates, even supposing the coup goes forward as planned and we become another pile of forbidden words and outlawed thoughts; but I have lost the taste for this game and I have lost my faith in this project and I have lost

How could you do it?
The man is clearly deranged, a bad actor who tried to cheat the voters out of their decision in the 2020 presidential election and has made it obvious that he intends to continue only accepting election results if he wins them. And of course along with that decision, his threats to use the government to go after political rivals and to silence media outlets who speak out against him — such threats seem more like promises than threats. Ditto for comments about being dictator from day one, comments about how we should add extra terms for our presidents too (like China did for Xi), comments about how if his supporters just get him in now, he’ll fix things so they don’t have to vote again.
And his party has reacted by getting rid of those who would stand up to Donald Trump, and by coming up with a plan to make sure that the kind of people who prevented him from stealing the 2020 election will not be in his administration in 2028.
And you are going to vote for this.
That is evil.
It is mean.
You are being so mean to me.
Every morning I wake up at 4AM hurting from this crime that you would shove down my throat.
Abusers shove themselves on others.
Donald Trump is an abuser and now he’s learned how to shove himself on the nation, replacing our government of the people by the people for the people of a government for Trump’s perpetual glory power and wealth.
And you would saddle us and future generations with this crime.
If you don’t think it is a crime, go live in Russia for a while and see.
It is a crime to turn the powers of state into a weapon of oppression, and that is what you are asking for when you stop letting the citizens act as a final check on madness, corruption, and evil in government.
Why are you doing this to me?
How could you be so evil?
I don’t understand it.
What is the cartoon reality that you are basing this decision on?
I see a lunatic’s angry scribblings over his family picture: horns for half and halos for the other half.
Neither of us built this government; neither of us died face down in the mud defending it.
We both walked into it.
It was a lucky break.
A little respite in human history.
Not having to fear one’s own government.
Not having to fear speaking out against the powers that be.
Not having to decide between being fair and honest and keeping one’s family safe, sound, and with safe food and drinking water.
It was great!
It was heaven!
But you couldn’t see what had been given you.
All you could do was pout around that you didn’t always get your way.
And now it’s come to this.
The ultimate sulk: you are going to pout us all out of our joyful democratic republic and into another boring old autocracy.
What is going on?
How can you think and feel so fuzzily?
Especially those of you who think what you’re doing is holy.
You most of all rattle my faith in life and my fellows.
You most of all punch me in the gut.
How could you be so evil while believing your actions so good?
Go live in Russia and see what you are foisting on all of us.
Go try it out.
It is evil to turn your government into a criminal organization.
I feel all the time sick to my stomach woozy so confused.
So many people fought for our liberty, and all we’re asked to do is pull our heads out of conspiracy theories and angry rants long enough to notice that this man is going to harm our shared democracy and that is not OK, and so we have to say No to him.
There are problems here.
The divide between rich and poor hasn’t been this great since right before the Civil War and right before the Great Depression. It’s scary because the clear answer is that the very rich need to lose some of their wealth and that wealth needs to be spread among everyone else. That is the way forward for democracy, for truth justice and the American way. But it is scary to tell powerful people who already have too much sway over your politics that the system has been unfairly tilted towards their advantage for forty years and now we have to implement some corrections — they will still be so rich that they can do whatever they want, but not as rich as they are. And it is scary to figure out how to gently and fairly and carefully and gradually correct this error. But handing the keys over to a man who wants to turn the people’s government into his government and a party that has removed those members willing to resist a post-democracy GOP while drawing up plans to increase the power of the next GOP president — that amounts to hand this country over to the regime and their chosen oligarchs. Everyone will live in fear of the government, just some more than others. This is not an okay thing to do. It is an evil decision.
What is going on?
Sometimes I scroll on a landing page that has some feeds from right-wing news sources.
And so I kind of see what’s going on: Fox News is not responsible journalism; it is a noise machine; it is a propaganda mill. And Fox News is no the worst of them.
But still: Even Donald Trump’s own advertisements paint him as a lunatic liar: There he is saying that replacing Joseph Biden with Kamala Harris was nothing but a “coup”. What is he talking about? Biden is allowed to resign; the Democrats are allowed to rally around Kamala Harris; there’s nothing even rule-bending going on there. His comments are inane nonsense. Meanwhile, anyone can go to the January 6 investigation site and see transcript after transcript of members of Trump’s own administration detailing how he tried to coerce them into cheating for him so that he could cheat the US electorate out of their decision in 2020. And this is the evil: This is the evil you are shoving down my throat: the evil of Putin’s Russia: the evil of a country where you have to nod along with inane, cruel, mean, stupid lies in order to hold on to the scraps that the Great Leader and his Wise Officials leave to you. Already the Republican Party demands that you nod along with inane, cruel, mean, stupid lies in order to have a voice at the table; what happens when this Republican Party with this leader is given the keys to the kingdom? Yeah, supposedly those keys are just on loan; but we all know that is not his plan.
What is wrong with you?
Why are you doing this to me?
How can you be so evil?
I just can’t take it.
I feel so betrayed.
All the time I feel so hurt and angry at what you are doing to me. Like we were family and we didn’t get along all that great, but at the end of the day, we were still family and would stick up for each other’s rights to be ourselves. But no, now you back a man who would use our government for crime against its citizens. Whatever story you tell yourself, however you justify this: When you replace the will of the people with the will of the king, no one is in charge except the king; and everyone loses, even the king: it is better to lose power in a democratic republic than to clutch power with oppression and violence, caging yourself in your own despotism. Sure, Trump doesn’t mind, but it will harm his soul. And so the best thing for everyone is for us all to gently but firmly say No to this crime that he’s hatching.
I just don’t understand how you could act in such bad faith.
It hurts me so much.
If you support Donald Trump in 2024:
You are wrong about God.
You are wrong about Goodness.
You are wrong about the soul of things.
Not that I’m so amazingly right about God, Goodness, or the soul of things.
But no one’s worldview makes sense to any person except to the degree that that person thinks, feels, and acts aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, compassionate, loving-kind, and joyfully-sharing — centered around the Love that chooses everyone always. And supporting Donald Trump is not compatible with thinking, feeling, and acting aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, compassionate, loving-kind, and joyfully-sharing — centered around the Love that chooses everyone always. Because silencing people and forcing them into submission is the opposite of helping people find a meaningful relationship with the Love without which all dogmas are just empty noise — worse than empty noise because, being clutched as if they were God when they are in fact just human notions and hopes and fears, self-righteous dogmas severed from Love are used to justify all manner of ungodly behavior.
There is a point where feeling, thinking, and acting are so willfully incompetent that they are not just sloppy, but evil. In the Fall of 2024 Trump supporters have crossed that line. And I don’t know how to respond. I am demoralized. It feels like I have been betrayed by people I didn’t always agree with, nor even always get along with, but who I fundamentally trusted. Do you understand? You have hurt me.

Authors: Bartleby Willard, Amble Whistletown, et al
Copyright: Andy Watson

Summer tan
And summer breeze
Please don’t make me go back
To winter
To work
To spinning my wheels
like a giant inefficient foolish 4X4 monster truck in the show-off sands of some big fume-sick event

Where did you get to?

I know

it’s my fault
and all that

But tell me

what’s going on?

how are things?

Do you know
how I never
pulled myself
out of
this mistake
?

Do you have any suggestions?
I’d listen
I’m not too proud
If there was something good I could do here
I would listen
I don’t think I’ve got all the answers
I don’t know what answer I have
But I’m guessing it’s wrong

You can tell me
It’s okay
You can tell me
how I don’t get it
You can tell me
how anyone can see
that Trump is going to help
and not undermine
what is sacred
You can tell me
how clear it is
to people with soul
to people who aren’t so lost
caught up in themselves
and other liberal follies
You can tell me
who I am
why I am wrong forever
why God loves this criminal
why God has chosen these crimes
to right all the wrongs
that have been wrought
against
well not you
cause you’re doing well
but against
well
all these people you’re saving
from
from what?
from me?
and what am I?
And to be this I must exist?
But I can’t do that — that’s a step too far for what I have in the tank

I notice them
I remark upon them
You continue barreling forward
Aren’t you being evil?
Or am I lost in whatever it is you tell yourself I am lost in?
And what is that?

Everybody needs
their friend
Everybody needs
their answer
Everybody needs
something like love
Now the waters fall
Now the dragons curl
their long scaly tails
whose fault is it?
Is it mine?
Why does everyone
point to me?
Are they right?
I thought I didn’t exist anyway
I thought I wasn’t there anyhow
How can a not-there make trouble?
What are they talking about?

Is there an idea
is there a soundtrack
Is there a path
Is there a good idea
Is there anything besides me
turning circles like a trained monkey
a capuchin I think
The ones with the black caps sketched in dark fur atop their poor empty little heads
because these monkeys grinding these organs — they don’t know shit
Anyway
leaving the capped capuchins to one side,
and begging your forgiveness,
I begin to climb down the stairs
and I think as I reach the bottom
I start to notice something like
fall leaves crinkled in themselves
falling carefully sliding back and forth on the wind
on their way to underfoot
Is this my fault?
It seems to be
It feels to be
squarely on my head
What would you have me do?
What could I only do?
What should I carefully find?
What?