Delusion 

Talking to my children this morning, the children that have seen three invasions, three escapes, three traumas.....well none of that can compare to this in Gaza. No but when it comes to tasting that bitter boneless cake we know exactly about the texture and flavor. Even Israel knows it well and have it as a creed: Never Again. The one thing I hear often on the few newscasts that I pay attention to, so accustomed I've become to this ongoing problem that appears to descend from the battles of brutal Assyrian kings...I notice when they ask, "who is going to rule Gaza after this is over?" I don't bother answering because afterall, it's a script and a TV screen. I have spent way too much time shouting at those actors who go home to their lakeside properties in windy cities with mass transit, arriving home to martinis and fettucine. Who are they to ask questions when it is the case that they work in front of butcher shops for the butcher selling knives? Why are they even asking? Do they expect a response or are they scheduled to give one? It is no secret, I have the answer. Are they trying to pry it out of me? They know I know the answer, they stare at me all day feigning ignorance. Memory. Memory is going to rule Gaza. It always has.

The oddest thing happened yesterday. I was receiving a new dresser so had to get ready...reorganize all those drawers that had become repositories of history, evidence of past poetry readings, my three Nikons (I'm having no memory of ever obtaining the second two, wth?)....and I came upon this. Only a vague memory of picking it up somewhere in town. Apparently from 2011.

In Memoriam

Yea, I miss those days alright

born bright and white and right

in the right place and with red hair.

I miss those days alright

nothing fit but it was new and blue

shoes run faster than white.

Down past the graveyard

you can see your zombies now

not so dead looking anymore is they.

All that mess is so far away

you'd say as you hee'd and haw'd'

drinking your poison until you chucked.

Days they come to an end and nights

not so short with the walking dead

pestering and pawing at your neck.

Born white and bright and right

did you see that guy fall yet

did you see how everyone ran?

It was like they'd seen a ghost!

He was already on an aeroplane

headed over to the Great Salt Lake

which isn't so great, but it is long.

Bet those graverobbers down in Provo

shuffled tickets like their life

depended on it, hob knockers all of them.

Bet that he got to Phoenix 

at half past three and layed low,

shaved and ordered in, rested up.

They all head to the Bob Crane

memorial expressway that hits

the 10 off of Glendale, without exception.

Don Bolles knew. I knew. You knew.

And here we are watching

Huntley-Brinkley count the dead.