The Psychoses of the Masses

How do people end up on the couches? Is it because society itself has a Freudian problem at hand or in its anus?

I wonder this as I close the phone. Back there, we closed it. We did not hang it up. So appropriate to close the phone as one closes a conversation and opens up the world of possible explanations for things like saying, "Because I know I am right."

This, to a Christian Palestinian woman whom I've known since I was around 13. Back then we were just tagging along. R was young and was soon to concieve her first child with a man she would later divorce because of the mishandling he did. He then married an old school chum of both R and Meryl Streep (Vassar). R refers to this as "six degrees of separation". How much of that there is you know.

One day, I snuck into my sister's house and hoped to cop a bit of weed. It was snowing. My sister was living up near the city jail where I spent a famous night with a would be murderer and Francie who would later become one of two witnesses at my marriage to a Shi'i boy from South Lebanon.

I just ran into Francie the other day. She was outside of the Safeway which sits just a mile or two from the Naco, Sonora border. When I saw her, I picked her up (literally, like a lion I am) and swung her into the air. She was sneaking around the parking lot at the rear and was so anxious that I come and take a look at something in the bushes. Well, I didn't want to really because I had dreamed of seeing my Francie for so long and wanted to catch up a bit by just talking for a moment. But she insisted and I went around the side to look at what she was pointing at. There they were: little red baseball caps and white collared shirts, crouched in the bushes in the noon day sun. Illegal Aliens. Indigenous peoples looking for a way up to Tucson or Phoenix or who knows, Carmel.

Jailbirds to wedding days to this here and now that I'm in.

Once I was inside myy sister's house on that snowy day so long ago (yet not really when you consider the age of the planet), I found I was not alone. R was there too and for the same reason: to steal some pot from my sister. R forgets that but I've reminded her a time or two. Who would have guessed that R's brother would be writing about the invasion and war crimes of Israel in Lebanon as the editor of a rather large ME periodical, appearing on CNN to discuss "foreign affairs" with William Jefferson Clinton at a Beirut campus just a few weeks ago? Our kismets fan out wide you know but how do people end up on couches?

Once again, after I closed the phone with R today, I contemplate her admission of "therapy". It is the second time she mentioned it since our reunion here in Bisbee, Arizona. What is it that she said about hypnosis? Ah, yes. She was hypnotized to recollect the damage done to her mother because of the illegal occupation of Palestine. What? It is no secret is it?

What then, is it?

Now tell me. Please tell me someone. How is it we, as a people end up on the psychiatrist's couches?

What if, I mean, what if? What if all the liars finally told the Doc their real stories. Would it be that many people would be able to ditch that Xanax and Prozac and finally understand their very own genocide of the Native Americans? The commercials for tranquilizers and psychotropic drugs in America amaze and disturb me as they should disturb everyone.

This, as the border is being secured with the Wall of China to keep out the indigenous tribes of North America. Which will, in turn, prevent the migration of the animals we, "in the West' so love to protect. This, as Silliman posts a link to a "Zionist Mystic" poet (while I contemplate the "mysticism" Hitler so enjoyed and enjoined as a reason for his exterminations and pogroms). This, as the overwhelming silence on the part of so many regarding the Wall Israel has constructed, "for security reasons". Well sure. If I'd have stolen such a huge portion of land and set my sight on some more of it, I'd build a fucking wall to protect myself too. I'd need one because stealing horses, land, water and souls is a CRIME and in my estimation, they've not only built a prison for the indigenous people they've been torturing for over a half century with outrageous accuations and sadistic mental and physical acts, but they've also WALLED themselves into a fire ring of their own making.

This, as I close the phone and think: I could never achieve anything on a couch or with a pill or with a drink. I've already reached the conclusion by the door and now, it is only a time of waiting and watching the Walls in purgatory go up again. I can hardly wait to get out of here forever. The grave means so much to a Shi'i you know. We've got other plans to attend to once we make it out ALIVE.


Sixty Ways To Leave Your Swami

We used to go into hiding
because of the chiding
Jews, Germans and Irish
and some say too, the Amish and Bri'ish.
If this is the way of the saints
it might be best to buy paints
and make the good ones green
and the bad ones red
like Ken Wilbur does for cash
at Scam-bala press
with the Indian Ogden Nash
Deepak Chopra
who teaches how to meditate
and calculates his profits
and the profits of others
who aren't necessarily green
nor actually red
but something closer to Dick Smothers.