This Bloody Game

It would be nice if there were some nation that could claim moral authority, but it seems we all claim the necessity of pragmatism. Business is business, we say. We say there are no atheists in foxholes. Maybe there are a few God fearing men in them, but I suspect most pray to the god of self-preservation. I’ve never been in combat. Someone who has been there will have to answer if terror leaves room for thoughts of God and country. Men behind desks have time for fine thought and contemplation, time to formulate justifications for the killing another’s progeny. This bloody game, whether it be a mad form of chess or not, may thrust the odd piece into some noble action, but it stands amid uncountable carnage. It is unfortunate we are sometimes forced to choose between the lesser of the evils. It is even more unfortunate we often do not know if we’ve made the right choice until it’s too late, if we ever know at all.

Retribution

The old man and his accomplices have gone too far. For too long we have waited for them to stop. They are a public menace, as they proved time and again threatening the very fabric of society. It is past time to act. It is time for drastic measures. It is time to set aside the moral niceties. We must leave no stone left unturned. We must be strong. We must be ruthless. We must round them up, stand them against a wall and show Old Man Winter and  his Polar Vortex cohort the same mercy the have showed us. Be brave. Be strong. Soon it will be over and we will let the rains wash away all evidence of this unpleasant business. 

Crimean Rhapsody

I am a child of Sputnik, duck and cover, I am an old front line cold warrior, manned and ready, doing my bit to assure mutual destruction. I am watching the news with interest, all my old hoodoos up and running, Edger screaming, “Who will save the planet?” It use to take eighteen minutes to release the horsemen forty odd years ago, send them arching over the world. We are so much more technically proficient these days, real-time observation providing up-to-the-minute machinations we can do nothing about but bluster and huff our chest and ring our hands and pretend our own preemptive invasions have not given precedent. We hold our moral superiority aloft and shake it under their noses like one of those plucked rubber chickens. We drone on burning more than our bridges, scorching pieces of our earth while they scorch pieces of theirs. 

Paradox

I cannot tell the future, whether it is all wishful thinking things will turn out. I fear I have been played false by hope, or my denial. It is impossible to tell which. What glass do I look in to see clearly? What glass changes the shape of my malformed eye? Those of reputation make a stab at answers with only a dim understanding of the needed questions. I have done my poor best with the scant faculties available given the flawed creaturlyness of the human condition. It is a hard answer utter dependence is inherent in the design along with the proclivity toward pride. I want to know what I cannot. I want to not be left dangling until the end times. I envy those who claim not to doubt, thou I suspect them of dishonesty. The tension between the now and the not yet lashes me to the rack. The ratchet on the turnbuckle clicks with age, pulls suppositions apart to probe the marrow, exposing secrets I’ve long kept. There is no more room for illusion yet I am infinitely capable of producing another mask.

Nostalgia

The old days are back, Russian troops massing on a border. It was a nice try, I guess. Wasn’t Putin once head of the KGB? Isn’t there some phrase about a tiger changing its stripes or a leopard its spots? Bears are notoriously unpredictable. Things are a bit shakier these days, I think. Hopefully the talk about the lack of upkeep and moral of the Soviet (Are the still Soviets? It’s hard to keep up these days.) military isn’t all talk. Anyway, I can’t see US doing much about it except bluster. It’ will be interesting watching it play out. The Ukraine has nukes, right?

Stain

Winter lingers with a vengeance, another blast to come. I remember waiting for the school bus in eye stabbing cold. I remember getting my face rubber in the snow by Byron because he could. I remember big piles of snow with holes in them, with a hollowed out chamber we called igloos. There was the toboggan run, maybe up Austin, a ride anyway. I remember a big piece of sheet metal, ten, fifteen of us on it, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, flying down the cinder pile. I remember grabbing a back bumper skitching part way, to and from high school. I only like it now in the quiet evening, freshly falling, glittering white. It diffuses sound. It makes me believe in purity and truth, that everything can be made clean. For that small time I like it, before I have to shovel it, drive in it, before it is stained by our industrious obsession with the falseness of ease.

Gooney Bird

I feel like I’ve taken that long leap again, the one where I can’t tell if I’ve been conned or not and I’ve been up there wondering how it’s going to end. And it’s not just me this time risking a crash landing, and I’m not young anymore. The stakes are higher. The repercussion of a false hope, if that’s what it is, I will not be bouncing back from. If I land hard, others land hard with me. I’ve said before, faith is not for the squeamish, it looks a lot like denial, and it is built in fear. It pushes you right to the edge, leans you over a bit for the panoramic view. Faith is not blind to its precarious position, relying on the unknown. It gives no guaranties for this side of the veil and my ability to self-deceive, my penchant for it, makes at least some denial inevitable. I am in that place of waiting in between the now and the not yet, relying on mercy as much as anything else. Oblivion waits around every corner. My failure to cover all the bases is the human condition. Mercy and grace are the only shield.