Teen Estrogen Claymores

This minefield can't last much longer.
I feel the gray hairs grow on my head
when I don't understand what I said
that made one of my daughter's cry.
And when I do understand what I said
I don't understand why she would cry
but then I begin to wonder why
I even said what I said.
Then there's the times I don't say what I say
and they wonder why so quiet, dad?
Well, dear, give me a minute.
Right now I'm on my knees with a tiny brush
measuring the fractious steps necessary,
avoiding a buried peril.
I think I've spotted it and might could be able
to disarm the spring releases, unscrew the caps, remove the fuses
and in careful stages of navigation
hope not to join the silent generation of men.

Sun's So Bright I Froze To Death

The sun’s so bright I froze to death.  That one goes way back.  It is one of my earliest memories of music.  I ascribe to this line no great meanings, but I think I might finally get it, or at least I've found an application for the idea.

There are believers who know the exact month when the world is going to end.  Just ask them.  They pick days on the calendar.  Others give themselves a month or two on either side of their equations.  That’s probably best because calculations like these are more plausible when there is wiggle room.  Here I am talking about a biblical cataclysmic event involving the book of Daniel, the rise of the Anti-Christ, and the set-up for the seven years of tribulations and the United States is the Great Whore of Babylon and that means the USA is going to be taken out of the photo-finish at the end.  They have done the math.  They know.  That kind of thing.

This seems to fit a general mood.  Lots of people think something bad is about to happen.  And it’s true; things could get really crappy really fast, like overnight.  It sure does feel like something big is going to happen.  It’s in the air.  And just where is the United States in scripture?  We do seem very busy buying and selling.

But these guys, they know when.  Or, actually, they knew.  Their first date has come and gone.  So maybe they revise their calculations or maybe someone else comes along with a new calculation.  That’s the bright sun.  Sometimes it is so bright that a man can’t see much else and in that sun-induced blindness, other things are overlooked.

When that happens, the fun tends to evaporate from the fundamentalism.  Taking liberties with the admonition to live in the truth, in word and deed; this is the freezing to death part.  There is liberty to be rude and ugly and gossipy and bitter and that’s just the way it is.  There isn’t much left over for things like kindness and forbearance and gentleness and how we shouldn’t give none occasion and how if the weak brother has a problem eating a ham sandwich then don’t eat ham around that brother.  With sun-bright freezing the good things go out the window.  Peace and joy and love, the best of gifts, are blanketed under burdens of anger and being ticked off at everything.  And, by the way, don’t disagree and don’t challenge because the White Horseman has already ridden.  Don’t dare caution and don’t mess with the dates of arrival.  Because if you do, then the pillory for you, my brother!  Again, freezing to death.

Maybe that’s the problem when people get the Revelation fever.  We are moving from point A to point B in time and there is nothing we can do about it.  It’s in the book.  It’s going to happen and it is overwhelming to consider.  But in the meantime, the rest of the New Testament also applies.

Toaster Bibles

If Bibles were toasters we could go to the Christian bookstore and buy pretty covers for them.  The covers would have zippers and places for a tiny padlock.  On Sundays the pastor would make lots of toast.  Some of it would be eaten in the church building.  There would probably be crumbs and crusts on the floor where people sat.  Most of the rest of the week people would not eat toast.  And then once in a while a believer would encounter someone who eats lots of toast but never goes to church.  When visitors come over to that person's house he would offer them toast.  It would be politely refused and over time the person who makes his own toast would learn to keep it to themselves.

Near Stanton

Three days ago a man come riding up the road on a red Goldwing.  I thought that was an interesting way to get around, considering things.  He was by himself and had a pistol in a shoulder holster and a leather bag strapped to his back, bedroll and other things, I imagine, in the portage compartments on back.  He was dressed pretty decent, didn’t look like he’d missed too many meals.  He come right up to the door and knocked, introduced himself.  Said he was from the Federal Bureau of Heritage Preservation.  Said he was interviewing survivors.  I asked him who else is there.  He thought that was funny.  Told me he’d pay for an interview with a two jars of unopened instant coffee and a box of strike-anywhere’s.  I told him my name and told him to wait on the porch, have a seat in one of the lawn chairs.

I took the jars of coffee and went inside.  Still had the seal under the lid and it smelled so good.  Boiled some water and made us both a cup.  Held a finger up to the others to sit still and wait.

We drank the coffee while we talked.  The others holed up quiet in the house.  Had a couple on the tree line because we heard the bike and didn’t know what we were dealing with.  He had a bunch of notebooks and pencils in that leather bag.  He showed me a laminated card supposed to be a new federal ID.  I think he was legit, probably.

He asked about my story.  Everybody has a story at this point.  I told him how I’d pretty much stayed around here for the whole thing.  Used to live closer to town but when it got bad, bad with the zombies and not just the flu then me and some others moved out here, mom’s old place.  He wanted to know how many others but I didn’t tell him.  I never did think the census was the federal’s business and I sure don’t now.

Anyway, the most interesting question he asked was what did I think was the most innovative thing I did that was instrumental to my survival.  That really got me thinking about just how did we did make it while a lot of others didn’t.

The first thing was dumb luck.  You can call it a blessing.  Sometimes I do.  I still pray.  It helps but I can’t blame those who don’t.  Lot of people stopped praying since things happened.  Then again, lot of people stopped praying before it all happened and maybe that’s why it did.

But what we had going for us was that we had a place to go out in the middle of nowhere.  When it all got real and it was obvious that it was real we packed up and drove to my mom’s old place and stayed put.  We thought that if a healthy person needed to eat once every three weeks, then these things had to eat too.  I told everybody to sit tight for four weeks and then we’d go back into town and look around.  They had to get hungry.  Meanwhile we stayed here.  It wasn’t easy and we got on each other’s nerves, a lot.  Couple of fistfights and a lot of yelling was all.  It helped that we had food.  Probably wouldn’t of worked if otherwise.

The second thing, the innovation I suppose, started as a joke.  When it came about, the lucky thing that is, we still thought we were dealing with the flu.  Everybody had already lost somebody.  This was early on and I remember there was just a few reports of zombies.  We didn’t believe them.  Just thought it was some idiots and the internet.  About three days later we changed our minds.  But the weekend before I invited some friends out here to drink beer and cook out and just to be isolated for a few days.  Figured we’d make the best of a bad situation.  Really, I just thought it would cheer us up, and it did for a day or so. 

We got to looking around the place.  Found some big old stereo speakers stored up in the garage, threw them in the bed of a truck and drove out behind the field on the other side of the house.  We hung them in some old tree stands that were already there, about a hundred yards out.  I ran some cable and hooked them up to the stereo.  I called it my zombie caller.  We drove back, turned on the radio and turned it up.  Music came out of the trees all night and we talked about how when the zombies come we’d just crank it and shoot them from a distance just like calling coyotes.  There’s boxes for that, and crows too.

That’s what we ended up doing.  Them speakers was here when we come back.  Course when it got serious I covered the speakers in tarps and sprayed them real good with waterproofing.  It’s a clear shot from upstairs.  When they come it’s lights out and shut-up.  We call it playing Anne Frank after that Jew girl in the war.  Had to steal car batteries for the stereo and rig it up when the power went out.  The big-band works best.  We play Benny Goodman and they don’t just shamble along, they run out there!  We just keep it playing and shoot their heads off.  Most of us have made deer kills at two-hundred, two-hundred fifty yards.  One of these ain’t nothing.  We still got several thousand rounds.

That was  our innovation.  Oh yeah, one more thing I guess, more luck than anything else.  We never had any big groups.  That’s from living way out like we do.  They’re usually threes or fours.  I think one time we had a mob of maybe fifteen.  We just laid low and took our shots.  You could tell they was confused but they kept standing under them speakers, Mr. Meadowlark playing down from the trees.  Coulda been from heaven as far as they were concerned.

So anyways, I told that government man all that.  He took good notes and when we was done he said thanks.  I didn’t offer to keep him overnight.  We shook hands and off he went.  Haven’t heard from him since.

Once in a while we go to a town and loot some.  Got to.  Everybody does.  Got a garden now, lots of taters and greens.  We’re in central Missouri.  I’m not going to tell you where.  I wish that government man didn’t know.  That makes me nervous.  But we’re still here and that’s the main thing.



I've always liked zombies.  I remember when the VCR was a big thing and when mom let me rent one.  A friend and I rented the 70s Dawn of the Dead.  I've been hooked since.

In the apocalypse...

In the apocalypse there will be no such thing as stale marshmallows.

Introduction

I went to the east shore of the River.  I wanted to measure its breadth and its depths, the waters that course along its banks and most of all I wanted to know why it behaves as it does.  To help I brought my favorite cup.  It was given to me some while back and I think it is splendid.  Ascribing it as a cup is not the truth.  It holds two full cups, as I measure, and I thought it would be enough.

So I went to the river and there I failed.  The water I gathered slopped over the brim and my hand and wrist became wet, as did my shoes, socks, and feet.  There was one scoop, another, and another still.  It was impossible and I didn’t want to admit it.  Miles of river were upstream and miles were downstream.  Millions of gallons were never to be measured, at least not by me.  In places I could see the bottom, clear and pebbled.  Beyond were dark and elusive depths.  Only notions of wide, very wide, and ‘I might be able to cross here,’ passed for breadth.

I grew angry at the river and some part of my mind, the proud part, began to question the existence of the river, though it was plainly before me.  At such times one must back away and reconsider.

This is me questioning God.  Your results may vary, but not much.

The mind looks for patterns and is not so different from the voodoo man auguring the guts in his pan.  Maybe the bathroom lights, constant, steady, and otherwise dependable, flicker once or twice and it is a sign; a sign for the day, or someone from the ‘other side’ messaging.  Books of horoscopes still sell and we ask it like this:  what is your sign?  The book says do not seek for a sign.

Children get sick.  Children die.  Affliction and blessing cover us like a flood and I don’t know why.  The most horrible and the most wonderful events are commonplace and even if I knew why it would not always help.  Remember Job; look to Haiti.  That poor man minding his own business then bereft of everything but a gallery of second and third guessing friends – men at the river with their cups, boasting they have measured the unmeasurable.

I know people who have only a few questions more and then they will certainly believe.   They arrive with buckets and pumps and do not see how they are sieved.  The river rolls on and because it cannot be understood they say it is not real and the fool says there is no God.

I do not say I worship an unknown God.

Rivers are beautiful.  They are powerful and admirable and unpredictable and worthy of the deepest respect and caution.  Peace, like a river, attendeth my way.  My cup runneth over.