Minority Report

Surveying, sifting the same old shit

evidence

is what we agree on
the record
of shit
a hit
a broken piece
of vinyl
we depend on it
holding up
like robbers

evidence
like women
who make the case for
men against them
set free or afire
connect the dots
find the drops
loosen the spanking
belts of conviction

evidence 
is what we need
to put stock in
some kind of corral
a pen for maniac men
a wazoo storyline
backpedaling
trumps lies

evidence 
has to do with why
we bother keeping
track or score 
who questions who
you do cuz 
Bible or no Bible 
oath or no oath

evidence
holds water no 
holding by the throat
to have is to hold
those feet to the fire
or some other factual
practicum we admire

evidence 
of fiction as fact
when no is yes
today's predilection
for sex slaves
is what happens to
the compost of the
future you are

evidence
of the circle of strife
around the world
little boys and girls
cha-ching pop stars 
chart toppers fast cars
honey talks money 
struts and sings
stalks the hard sweet
dope-fellatio meat

evidence
is just a game
for blabbermouths
and complainers
reporters the nitpicking 
snoops the fucking
know-it-alls
of misunderstandings
where we begin
swimming the stream
dead men float
that ocean of lies 
deceptions misdirections
those smiling shazam 
shit slides

evidence
is buried deep
still out like the jury
who can't agree
about sunup
or sundown so
take care of it baby
going underground
on that my way
highway to his Hell 
beware the

evidence
of danger ahead
flashing eye daggers
or too much thigh
lollygagging
in the comfort zone
of so much for nothing
that bitchin' reward
old pyramids of 
self-actualized pain

evidence
we are spoiled
rotten to the whore
consuming barrels of fun
the apple pie
in the sky is done
baked as Uncle Sam
red-eyed hysterical
and wanting you 
not to Bogart the pickle
jar roll another one
since he still needs 
the army of us
eight billion robots
gettin' 'er done
providing the best dope

evidence
everything is 
fine and dandy
ripe as compost in the sun
pass the candy
load the gun
things will be great 
again and again 
the world spins 
the spin of what we've done
how far we've come
and we insist
we're having so much fun
forever young and hung
in the closet or out 
to dry your honor
please consider her
her testimony and all 
the fucking
evidence

Trump wins the hearts and minds of American voters! Where to begin. I find myself at odds with the majority of Americans once again and coming to grips with the fact that I don’t know who my fellow “Montanans” are anymore. I’m an old fart at this point, and things have changed on many levels. I catch myself saying “I’ve aged-out” over and over when I see what’s happening in this state. And I don’t want to spend a lot of time here issuing my analyses and “opinions” because they are all over the map. but I remember when McGovern was hammered by Nixon in 1972, how union guys I knew voted for Tricky Dick, and how waves of young, first-time voters like me cheered Nixon on chanting “four more years.” Their smiling shiny-white faces with their short, tidy haircuts, let me know I was in a minority. From my first election I learned how to carry on as a wounded but hopeful loser. I knew all I could do is deal with life as it came to me.

---

War Dogs
	– for Stephen Stills

One biting October afternoon 
the coaches ordered us 
to smear goofy Edgar for 
dogging it on a kickoff drill, teach 
a lesson we’d never forget. They made him 
hold two footballs, blew their whistles
& grinned. Twenty guys hit Ed 
at once. I watched him go down. 
The pigskins popped loose, wobbled 
on the ground. Edgar’s knee bent back the wrong way.
The coach screamed, “Get up & do it again!” 
Ed moaned & rolled on the turf. 

The song, For What It’s Worth, pounded inside:
there’s somethin’ happenin’ here.
Call it mutiny. Call it treason. 
What it is ain’t exactly clear.
I picked up the footballs, took Edgar’s place, 
curse-spit on the coaches’ military bullshit,
called them pussies & fuckin’ Nazis.

When the crimson-faced coach blew his whistle,
I threw the balls high in the air, 
drove my fists, my helmet into the reluctant 
pie-eyed rush. Going down 
I grunted & heaved, grabbed masks, 
kneed, elbowed & punched, 
raked my cleats across the shins 
of my friends. They looked lost, dazed
by my wolverine rage. 
Did they discover my secret, 
bittersweet truth that day:
that I wanted to kill them,
punish them for their weakness?

Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong,
but if everybody’s right, nobody’s wrong.
We are the heroes of our own bloody dreams,
strutting the dark night like wolverines,
rooting out & pissing on the enemies 
we need to let slip our dogs of war. We love
to do it, to settle the score. It’s what we 
do that we don’t understand . . .
and it’s time we stop.
Children what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s goin’ down.

---

Nixon and his partners in crime: Agnew, Mitchell, Laird, Erlichman, and Halderman all (looked and) behaved like Nazis. This was just 25 years after the end of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. And we had people in American government who’d fought the Nazis, acting above the rule of law and lying to us about it, doing whatever they could to stay in power. So, I know that we have been in dire straits before: Reagan’s interference in the Iranian hostage crisis, Iran-Contra; GW Bush’s weapons of mass destruction lie that plunged us deeper into the hearts and minds of Iraqis, Afghanis, and most of the Arab world where we were already being burned in oily effigy for our sins. Then comes the phenomenon of Trumpism, the ultimate cult, and what it says about Americans. To Reagan’s credit, he had a background in public service. He didn’t just walk off the set of “Bedtime for Bonzo” and into the White House. Trump is the poster-boy-pin-up for ignorance and big-daddy-populist-bullshit; he is “The Big Lie.” Trump himself doesn’t scare me as much as the citizenry who elected him and those “brown-shirted brown-nosers” who are willing to do his bidding for a piece of the action. What a sad commentary on US, we the people.

Still, I don’t believe that the country is doomed because of this election, but we are in for a better organized assault on our democracy than we saw the last time from him (probably because of the pandemic and the fact that he was surrounded by people who weren’t willing to throw the constitution under the bus). So, we are on alert (like I haven’t been . . . all my fucking life) and intensely so this last decade. The future’s uncertain and the end is always near, Jim Morrison told us, an undeniable truth and a good thing to remine ourselves of whether we are frantic with fear or drunk on power. In this latest shitstorm the drama meter is off the chart! Hang on for the ride. It’s almost like the whole world is tweaking on crank. I’m personally determined to slow down, pay attention to actual events, not all the folderal around them, and do what I can.

Who  Arrrre You-You-You?

Life is a narrative you tell 
and listen to. You search for
knowledge, desperate to hear.

Beyond that, the exercise of 
kindness, your attention to now,
how you feel, you call love. 

That silence—simply being—
can't be explained. You attempt to 
theorize what you make of “it.”

Sadly, the only place you can go is
back to the narrative, your imagination,
make up a story, do what you know—

Language. Copy, repeat. Play away. 
Spread it around, spit out words, echo
sounds. And after the story is told

As your voice dies in sleep,
your mind still creates fractured scenes 
stitched together in the dark corners

Of your dreams from stored images
torn and haphazardly reborn as poems
or nightmares to fill that silence

Always waiting here, ahead and behind, 
reminding you again of that void inside
Mourning Doves asking who you love. 

	for Susan Carlson

---

I know Mother Earth and Father Time will take care of everything. Until then it would be great if we could look out for one another and pick up after ourselves. Why not play nice and be kind? You’re going to be dead in no time. Maybe go outside and check out your immediate environment, feel the importance of the moment, being alive, calm yourself, read a poem, get some rest. You know there’s a rough ride ahead.

Melancholy Romance 

Rattling dry leaves flit and fly,
Music played by the gusting breeze.
Sometimes November afternoons
Dance out sunny and sixty degrees.

A charcoal sky holds atop the eastern
ridge line, yet smiling blue peeks 
Through overhead clouds rushing
West furiously toward the mess

Unfolding, blooming into the gray-
Black looming cinematic above Mount
Sentinel. I feel like singing “Mariah”
To the cat on my lap. Wind tousled,

He springs to the picnic table-top, 
Lies in the sun. A jet descends
Toward the airport, reminding me
People are still engaged in business

Unusual. We're waiting in fear to 
Hear who was elected president
As the pandemic notches record
Numbers of dead, old farts like me.

Again clouds have masked the sun.
It must have dropped five degrees.
And I think back to being fifteen,
Raking wet-matted cottonwood leaves,

Dark by dinnertime. I remember as
A kid going outside into that early night
To roll and play in the leaf piles, then
Nose the dirt-musty ground, dig my

Fingers and nails into it. My favorite
Season is fall, that contemplative calm
When we slow down and prepare for
The long, cold days of night, that time

When nostalgic melancholy reigns—
Putting our feet up, watching the fire. 
I love the quiet romance of being 
Alone . . . before winter buries us all.

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