Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I

You can yank me out of Yorkshire but I still want Yorkshire pudding
You can send me south but I’ll still go bargain hunting
Even though it is that I live in the South
I still have a hint of the northern mouth
Well that’s what the southerners say
But I’m sure to you it doesn’t sound that way
Anyway regardless where I am at
I’m Yorkshire bred and that’s a fact
To present this case to you
Some traits of yours; I have a few
I chose cheese to partner fruitcake
And forever search for savings to make
I always speak what’s on my mind
Which at times southerners think unkind
Though they themselves aren’t so good
When it comes to small talk in moments stood
A stranger is a momentary friend to a northerner
Whilst the southerner stands awkwardly waiting
I know which I would rather be
Let’s just say it has its’ own tea
So I am most pleased to see
That so much of you has rubbed off on me
For you my northern family
Are in my thoughts more than you know
And without you I would not be so

the air is so thick that even your thoughts melt away
in the Southern heat.  sweat starts pouring until your
clothes start clinging to you like an unwanted lover.  heat and sweat seperates the true Southerners from the wannabe's,
who don't truly love a place even when it's too **** hot.

Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

the fog
is home
to me.

I close my eyes,
I am still standing in Santiago Chile.
business people are
rushing back from the lunch break.
the outside restaurants
teaming with customers.
I look up,
the Andes Mountains are head of me
a weak pink fog veils them.
my mom turns to me,
‘honey, that’s pollution’
I’m glad we have the real fog
back home

I close my eyes,
I’m flying back from Atlanta Georgia.
my fellow San Franciscans and I
waiting to see our home, I almost tear up.
our water had gone out that Atlanta summer
and I remember there wasn’t a day under 105 there.
the fog looks so tasty
like I would be fully
refreshed and rehydrated
after only one bite.

I close my eyes,
I’m living in Boston for five weeks.
a storm passes by now and again.
the east coasters complain that
the fog is ruining their city’s
sunny reputation.
the southerners complain
that summer isn’t actually there.
I just smile and smoke,
I love watching the smoke drift into the fog
mingle, then disappear.

I close my eyes
I am standing in Rome
my family- taking cover in a store overhang
there was heavy rains and over cast
, but no fog ever descended for a meet and greet
on that day.

I close my eyes ,
I am looking at the tall slender buildings in Vietnam
along side the main highway of ** Chi-Man city
it is overcast- the storm last night brought down
a tree, crushing a poor shop with a sheet metal roof.
the overcast hangs, and I am feeling
a little nostalgia for home

I open my eyes,
I am back in the sunset district.
I’m laying on my reservoir,
looking out at the Pacific Ocean.
the wind blows inland
whatever weather on the westward horizon
blows in in a couple of hours
the fog sits at the horizon gathering itself up
for it’s long strut to the beach
and I wave to my old friend
it’s good to be home.

how is it Southerners can stand the heat
it hasn't been this hot all season long
this mugginess is robbing me of sleep
dog days are early for summer's swan song
my shirt is wet in the middle of night
knew enough to get up, drink some water
my brow is sweating even as I write
sit by the fan as I think I oughter
the fan is on "breeze" lulling me to sleep
seems to work as my body is cooling
back to bed now, resort to counting sheep
closing my eyes, enough with this fooling

the TV's volume is down to a drone
my body's easing into a dream zone

Nice right foot, Johnathan,

You’ve got the job if you want,

You can be the rabbit for the season,

The southerners need something to hunt.

I am Blasianic(black, asian, latin mix) part 3
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

I am Blasianic(black, asian, latin mix) part 3
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

I am Blasianic(black, asian, latin mix) part 3
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

Ate with South Carolina supervisor with his wife and his parents! He is definitely a country boy, but very awesome lead tech! Thank god I been travelling around the states, while seeing the working environment as it is, and I must confess the southerners are truly nice people! I know good people lies within anywhere, but in the north (schools) it made it feel like the south was lagging in that department, and from experiences it's just media giving wrong impression also! It might be because I am only exposed to bigger cities, but thus far people in the south truly feel like a genuine people with good heart!

Aside from friends in Minnesota, which by the way were good people, it was very hard to feel in place with Minneapolis suburb area. I always had my guards up for racial tensions, and mis-treatment from officers for stupid ****, but in the south I honest don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone! I feel at ease, and I feel job market is more equal in here! It might be because I am with fortune 500 company, and their culture is different, but in Target to Best Buy, and even the same company I work for now felt like they were always dividing people in Minnesota. So **** glad I no longer work for retail giants, while don't feel like I am getting segregated! I felt more like a human being in the southern states than I felt in the Minnesota, and mentally it was super exhausting, and emotionally depressing! While I felt discrimination in Minnesota, writing, art, and classical music was always my escape to ease abnormality I felt as a person! For the longest time I felt like the environment was choking the living life out of me, and I was suppose to be the bad guy in Minnesota! It felt like people were always judging for the wrong reason, and you couldn't hide yourself from those judging eyes, while they made alliances to back stab! If south is driven by racial overtone, then Minnesota was driven by undertones!  

I feel I belong here in the south, and meeting right people at the right places helps me feel like I'm a human being.

I cannot say that I write about you
because we are in love,
because you died,  or because you broke my heart;
moths unravel those possibilities like yarn.

You are picked up by fairies,
a powder, the scent discharged by dryer sheets.

To be honest,
I write about you because you did the same to me;
you had me in the crook of your arm,
a dusty novel composed by
southerners, although only read in the north.

I cannot say that I write about you
at all, these verses are not about your existence
but how you could have
opened the world as if it were a book of mine.

American Nightmares
Prologue
The pale moon hangs, glowing in the blank sky, shining just enough light for the thick foliage and densely pack trees to be seen. Evening sounds silenced by the sloshing of rushing feet racing through the woods.  In the distance a beagle howls in frustration. Sniffing and wheezing as he tries to pick up a lost trail.
Deeper in the woods a lone figure races at a maddening pace, bumping into trees, scratching his flesh against their harsh bark; causing bleeding. The young man’s eyes water up from a mixture of sweat, pain, and fatigue. Fear permeates his entire being
A thin orange suit clings lazily to his sweaty bronze skin, almost mocking his emaciated frame, which is actually a couple sizes too small for the jumpsuit. The dark figure has been running for days. Hot on his heels, his pursuers persisted. He knows being caught would mean a far worse fate than what he escaped.
Another mile and his legs began to leaden. Each step becoming heavier than the last. The sharp sting of lactic acid burning his side. Breath becoming spasmodic. Eyes bulging, still he maintains a frantic pace.
Running full force until his left foot catches the edge of a dark brown rotten root rising from the earth. A cloud of dirt explodes from ground immersing him in a brown mist. Spittle and blood spew from the runner’s mouth as he coughs violently. His breath rushing away even as he tries to calm himself.
Crawling from the dirt he searches for some sort of purchase, finding none he rests his weary frame against the nearest oak. Then the waterworks really hit. The sound of moans escaped his busted and parched lips.
“I will make it home.” He repeats over and over, like a mantra.
His fingers feel the frame of the tree he is resting against. Hands begin falling and rising for some strange reason, until they settle at the base. There just inches away from his digits sits a patch of mushrooms. The forgotten pain of hunger returns, so without examining the fungus he plucks them up and swallows them whole. Then half crawling half stumbling he moves to the stream which lay a few yards from the tree.
Cupping his hands he fills his palm with water; then slurps it up, repeating the process again and again till he has drunk his fill. Next he splashes the cool liquid on his face, hair, pits, chest, and other portions of his body massaging the blood and dirt from his aching skin till he manages to cleanse the wounds all over his person. Closing his eyes, he finally succumbs to the exhaustion that has been ******* him.
A bulge of earth begins to rise pushing his limp frame away from the stream and pulls him back to the tree. Then branches and leaves coalesce around his body till he is safely hidden from plain sight.
He awakens; eyes dilated, and body shivering. While brushing away the brush he turns to the tree, stands up shakily, and then wipes away the rest of the leaves and dirt, not noticing the slowly growing dark spot on his orange jumpsuit.
Tears streaming he softly whispers “Hello tree my name is John.”






















Chapter 1

Tree, sweet Tree, I beg of you tell me. Why does America hate me? I did everything I was told to do. I went to school. I stayed away from white women, never made eye contact with white men, became a teacher, and took care of my people.
What the hell was all that for? I am going to end up another dead black man in the backwoods of some southern hick state! I got these stupid leg irons weighing me down, and hells hounds are riding my trail.
Stupid ******* animals!
Filthy ******* *******!
What is the ******* point? Huh?
My dad was a good man too. He followed the unwritten rules of the white man. Never stole anything or hurt anyone, mostly. Do you know what they did to him Tree? Well do you?
They tied him to a post, sliced chunks of flesh from his hard muscular frame while burning him alive. They burnt him alive, Tree.
My father was a strong and righteous man, a man who loved his wife and child. My mother, who was barely half his weight and a good foot shorter, she had the palest skin of any black woman I have ever met. Her hair was the perfect shade of earth with eyes a couple tints darker. Her nose was tiny and lips thin as any white woman’s. I’d imagine she was as white as any ***** could get. She had a voice that soothed my darkest pains and fears. At night when I went to bed she would sing to me.
Oh my darling
Brown skin angel
Don’t be frightened
I’ll be right here
Hold you tight and
Watch you sleep
Guard you tonight
While you sleep
Oh my darling
I’ll be here
To keep your heart
Safe my sweet dear
Everything will be alright

I remember when I came home that day. I saw my dad clutching the tiny limp frame of my mother, sobbing furiously. Her body looked paler than usual. I had never seen tears fall from my father’s face. I don’t think he even saw me come in. I just stood in the doorway. I stood there and waited for him to say something. I wanted to cry but I was so scared that I just held my breath instead.
Our neighbor came and took me to their house. Back then I did not know what had happened. It took me over seven years to find out what happened to my mother. Do you know what happened Tree?
A handful of white men came to our house and ***** my mother.
Sometimes in my nightmares, that horrible scene plays out. I hear the sound of rapping at our door; the yells of angry men echoing through the house. I see the wooden door bulge as it begins to crack under their onslaught. Then I watch as men with no faces explode into our house, sweeping my mother off her feet, ripping the clothes off her body as she scream in horror, I would wake up in a state of horror and sorrow, weeping.
I am haunted even now. I cannot begin to imagine the pain my father felt, but I do know what happened next, because I snuck out of our neighbor’s house to comfort my father. I watched as he left our home with rage and violence in his heart. In one hand he held a knife; it seemed to be a foot long, half handle half cold hard sharpened steel; in the other hand he carried a gun. I followed him from a safe distances, heard him scream for the men that had attacked my mother.
When the sheriff came to calm him down, dad was startled and turned around accidently cutting Mr. Brinkley with the blade. The sheriff and his deputies arrested my father. I was certain that everything would be okay. The sheriff was a decent man. I heard him talking calmly to my father. He told my dad that he understood what was going on.
That night white men came for my father. They hollered for justice, screaming “bring out that ******* ******.”
The sheriff tried to reason with the mob. He told them “This is between me and my prisoner.”
He tried to stop the mob with force, but there were at least fifty men. Probably more if you counted the people that kept joining up with the mob. The mob broke down the prison door, took my father from his small stone cell, all the while taunting him.  “You’re gonna fry ******.” From a distance and hidden in shadows I watched.
I saw an old lady spit on him. I watched as children raced around my father, dancing in and out of the procession, and tossed stones, from the side of the road, at my father. The mob drug him down to the town square. Tied him up, and lit a fire beneath him. The whole time my father’s head was hung in defeat. I swear he knew what was coming. It seemed that In the face of that onslaught all emotion had faded from his face. I guess he didn’t want to give them the pleasure of seeing him squirm.
As the flames started to consume his flesh, I saw the sheriff go for his gun. He raised his pistol and aimed for my father’s head, but the men in the mob wrestled the gun from his hand. Meanwhile my father had given into the horror and pain. He began to howl like an animal as the flames danced across his flesh crackling and pooping. He screamed for some sort of mercy, crying out for someone to shoot him.
I raced from the shadows, stealing a gun from some old white man. Then I shot my father in the head. Most of the men in the mob looked on dumbstruck. That gave me enough time to get away so I hightailed it out of there. I never went back for anything. I spent the rest of that night in the woods praying that what I had done was the right thing.
In the weeks and months to come I slept very little. When I did manage to fall asleep my dreams would cycle from the flaming horrors of my father’s death to the ****** of my mother.
Still, I managed to make something out of myself despite those sick atrocities. By working hard I finished school and became a teacher. A couple years after I started teaching I was arrested. They took me to jail; brought me up on some ******* charges. Part of me was certain I would end up being lynched, so when I was sentenced to a chain gang, man I was relieved.
Had I known what was gonna happen I would have preferred being lynched, at least then I would have been dead. Instead they worked me **** near to death, starving, and beating me like a slave. My brown skin has brought me nothing but grief. So tell me Tree, why does America hate me?











Interlude

“Tell me tree, why does America hate me?” John sputters.
A soft breeze caresses his skin.
“Why the hell am I talking to a tree?” He cries. “What is the point?”
The blood stain on John’s clothes still expanding, and his shivers become far worse.
“Tell me tree, what is the ******* point? America hates Negroes. I’m going to die out here. Say something.”
The air swirls around him, and a soft voice fills his head.
“Do you think you are alone in your suffering? Know now that you are not. My children suffer horrors too.  Listen carefully and I will tell you.
John turns to find the source; finding nothing he collapses, listening straining to hear the voice again.















Chapter 2

Dear John I am the spirit of the winds, mother to the natives. Do you think that yours is the only tongue to taste the bitter fruit of America’s wrath? My child let me tell you of the first people of America. Listen to the tragic tale of my children. Before the Europeans came many tribes roamed this land. They were human and as such had flaws of their own, but in many ways they were poetry in the form of flesh.
The men would hunt during the day. Anything they caught was considered a sacred gift. They would use all that they could from the body of the beast. They treated my mother’s brown dirt earth, flesh as sacred, and I loved them for that. Women held equal value and had equal say in their tribes. There were wars, of course, but mostly my children strived to live in harmony with the land.
Then white men came. My children welcomed them with open arms, helped them survive, and do you know how they were repaid that kindness? Once received and no longer needed, it was returned with treachery and violence. Bit by bit they pushed my children back. Pushing them off one parcel of land and then another, slaughtering tribes after tribe. Still my children survived.  When the white men could not **** all of my progeny, they came for the children. Some parents wept, some fought back, and some merely accepted it as inevitable.
I watched it all. I saw the men on horseback come for the children. The songs of lament tortured my heart. The tears of the children ripped at my very soul. I lashed out at the white men with all of nature’s fury, biting their flesh with my fierce and frosty winds. I sent the fiercest wind I had at my disposal. However, the children were still taken.
The children were dragged to schools far from their homes. They would cry out in their native tongues. I remember my sweet Rose. Yes, Rose was her name, John. She was as strong as the oak tree. Passion coursed through her veins faster and harder than the river’s water. She was born so tiny that the elder of the village was certain she would not make it. Yet, when she broke free of the womb coughing and sputtering, she cried with such a powerful voice that even I was taken aback. This tender babe had my attention. I swore I would watch over her.
The first seven summers of her life were spent in the loving care of her tribe. Her black hair grew almost down to her feet. Her eyes were brown, brimming with the unknown depth of her soul. She was unafraid, the pride of her father and joy of her mother, a creature to be cherished.
One fall morning as the orange sun was slowly ascending the soldiers came. Little Rose was wrenched her from her parents’ arms. Her father’s rage was stopped by a bullet that bled him dry. No one else would fight for this child, so I beat against the soldiers back. I struggled to wrench her from their arms and return her to her mother’s safe embrace.
The soldiers did not even recognize my fury. With that failure I watched Rose’s mother fell into despair. Her prayers of peace and love soon turned to prayers for vengeance and the return of her child. Many nights we wept together mourning the loss of father and daughter.
Rose’s mother could not join her child, so I tried to watch out for her. I followed the soldier to a tall white washed building that had been liberated from the southerners during the previous war. I heard the headmaster say “in order to save the child, we must **** the savage within.”
Day and night I raged against the solid white structure, slamming shutters and doors, pounding the roofs with torrential fury. Only stopping when I realized that the children were shuddering in fear of me.
At night Rose would sing the songs of her people. During the day she would stare in defiance as the teachers tried to make her speak the English tongue. She refused to yield, so they responded to her spirit with violence. The taste of soap saturated her mouth while the stinging welts marred her backside. Still my Rose remained strong. I was filled with pride. I had seen older children fall into silence and subservience.
Rose was a cut about the rest. Still, one can only fight for so long before the fire begins to wane. Each day some of her resilience would fade. I could not enter the building to comfort her, but when she was outside I would wrap her in my windy arms, cradling her spirit against mine. I would carry the whispered words of love her mother sent, and return Rose’s love to her mother. Had I known what was going on in that building maybe I could have blown harder, maybe I could have pelted the nuns and the preacher with sharp stones and hardwood.
As the glimmer of light faded even faster, I started catching the whispers of my children. Their dead bodies began to scar the sacred earth. One after another fell, faster and faster. I watch their flames die. What kind of wind was I that could not fly them away from harm?
One day while blustering away I caught the most horrid sight. I saw a sick man lay his hands on my Rose. She shivered in disgust as he groped her bare skin. He took such sick liberties. In my rage I waited and stewed, plotting and hoping he would come outside. My anger gave me more power than I had ever known. I flung him to and fro spinning him round and round, beating him down every time he tried to rise. I hurled stones and sticks at him. When I was spent, his face was dripping with blood, his lip busted and swollen. He ran like a coward.
Rose remained trapped in that house of horrors. More children died. Day after day Rose lost more of her language. Till one day she could not remember the songs of her people. I watched her sobbing while trying to recall the words as a nun slapped her in the face.
One night under the pale glow of moonlight Rose lit herself on fire. She became a burning flame to match her once radiant spirit. As she burned she screamed out for release. I tried to put out the flames with gusts of wind and heavy rain, but I was too late. Rose fell to ashes resting on the moist earth. Gathering what I could of her remains I sent her last words and ashes home to her tribe.
That night rang with lamentation of her people. Sobs of regret filled her mother’s body. As hard as tried I could not comfort Rose’s mother. She would not be consoled. On the coldest night of that year Rose’s mother walked from her abode, slipping off her clothes, she moved in silence. Every step adding to the numbness she longed

He shock the world.
When he shook his hips.
Have various people giving an opinion of him.

He shock the world.
When he curled his lips.
Soon there was many impersonating him.
Or least inspired by him.

The poor Mississippi boy that became a star.
Who serve his country?
And truly loved his mom.
Who had a manager called Colonel?
Who wasn't one at all?

We saw southerners and others saying he was ruining our youth.
But some probably thought this about Sinatra's too.
He did a few good movies.
And a few bad ones too.
Plus, he also shook here and there in those movies too.

Now, when people reflect back they states his greatness.
Plus, he still have many trying to impersonate him.
I just know he shock the world.
When he shook his hips.

Southerners said “You’re white!”
They’re black, and that’s not all right,
But you’re okay because you’re white.”
But that’s not right because I’m not white.
I’m sort of a pasty pinkish beige
So, why is it the rage to say white?
And black? That is usually the wrong tack.
I know people that say they are black
And others yak about black folk
In hateful, racist jokes, but they too
Are not black. They’re color runs from
As light as a cup of milky tea
To the color of a kukui nut.

So what is this black and white crap?
It’s a trap for some who don’t know
What to call other people because
They’re trained to call other people
Some name besides just people.
It has to be what color people
Trained under school bell and steeple
To talk this way and veer away
From the point they are making,
The risk they are taking by seeing
Something else besides a human being.
Instead they focus on something unreal
And therefore manage not to feel.

It’s really so sad, and so demeaning
To zap so much meaning from someone
Who has a life, loves, joys and pain;
Let's remain aloof from giving names
And incorrectly worded colors to them.
Don't pretend that you are being kind
When you teach yourself to be blind
To the beauty and the joy of boys
And girls who are not from your race
And to replace love and opportunity
With fear, suspicion and enmity.
It is quite simply a common tragedy.

China tongue, yes dynasty of tongue
The taste of spicy or none
Welcome you home with eyes open round
Reminder of an oxidized hole of an accient coin
Looks original but didn't live long

Such accent of southerners
Occupied many streets in so called western cities
Representing an old fashioned society not sure if ever existed
A place all Chinese visitors must go
Looking forward to a city but it is just
A seat in a city
Cult of a culture
Architech out of an architecture

Everyone appreciated the precooked food
The fish was alive a week ago
Knowing he had to live till today
They even served tea
Tears of their parents
Who got nothing to eat
After survived sixty days in a small boat
Poor memories served
When they built this
China tongue

And now
A mainlander like me
Trying to take it down prior to
New year eve of the Young

Feb 18, 2015

I may not be an author- or a poet,
But when I scrawl these words down on paper-
Or type stories on my cracked, 14 year old laptop,
And get up at 5:30 for the sole purpose of furthering my career,
I feel like a **** good one,
I Sip on a warm cup of coffee,
Spawn characters that shout out, “Hey Jack, that ain’t me!”
When I forget that I can’t use Samuel Chayner in a way
I could use any other of my creations,
Because they’re all different,
With many facets to make every one original,
Because in my mind, I can be the best author,
Or the best poet,
When I sail on open sea,
Taste the salt water and smell the fresh shrimp,
I can hunt for a colossal wail,
Call me Ishmael,
But as I start to dream up another world,
Where artificial intelligence was created
In the early twentieth century,
Where these barbaric southerners
Don’t know what to do with such
High-tech automatons, but to make a quick buck,
Where I can make my own family,
With their own disputes,
Of whether to go to college in 1910,
But the mother might lose her son,
Her one true friend,
Who could hold her when she was sad,
Who would simultaneously be her sweet little baby,
But she won’t accept it;
She won’t bury her decomposing son,
Because she doesn’t have the heart to bury him alive,
Or because, in my mind, they are my playthings,
I could have the mother move along,
Try for another child,
But this is my mind, and I am the author.

Gin soaked parchment paper, robbed of  words
wrung red from split fingernails guiding,
sliding back and fro
to the irrhythm of distended lobes misfiring  
a useless tome, of uninteresting characters
and the sun that burns them crisp, their lips tiring
cigarettes in the candy dish
the southerners, wrenching wrists about their red clay alleys,
the tinted beer glass stashing tobacco juice  
their words playing loose with the sanctimony of animals, raccoon paws
and muskodine snaps and the rusting 1953 Crosley metal lawn chair
rocking away the synapse.

Isn't English fun to learn--
Especially spelling and pronunciation?
It's hard enough for native speakers
And is the cause of a lot of frustration!

Think of female deer, does,
And then the form of "do," "does."
Consider the "a-s" found in "as"
And how it is pronounced in "was."

We have ears on our heads.
Add a "b" and you've got "bears."
There's also "e-a-r" in "earth."
And a funny "e-i" found in "heirs."

Look up and see a star.
Add an "e" and you've got "stare."
That is not so hard perhaps.
But why does "stare" rhyme with "where"?

"Say" is easy to say, all right.
But add an "s" and you've got "says."
But if you add an "s" to "hay,"
You do not pronounce it "hez"!

Back to "where," which rhymes with "air."
But look at the "e-r-e" in sphere.
"I" before "e" except after "c"…
But what about the weird word "weir"?

"Tough" and "though" are always fun.
Then there's "through" and "ought" and "drought."
Don't forget to drop the "b"
When you say both "debt" and "doubt."

Throw in apostrophes,
And English teachers really have fits
When they are used for writing plurals
Or when "it's" is used for "its."

Forget all the silent letters
In words like "write," "knot," and "pneumonia."
If you said, "I made the rules,"
I'd have to say, "I disown ya!"

It wouldn't work to try to write
All the words phonetically,
For Easterners and Southerners
Don't say all the words like me.

For many years I've been around English--
Hearing, speaking, discerning it,
Exploring its countless nuances.
I guess I'll always be learning it.

-by Bob B (8-28-17)

I live in the Yukon with all of my mates.
My grand folks moved north from the You Fried It States
It could be worse.  Got food?  You'll do fine,
but it gets kind of warm past the north B.C. line.
Some get the bug for Tierra del Fuego.
They pack their bags, wait for fall, and then say go.
But, far as I know, the most capable band
lost their resolve after 2 months of sand.
It could well be a several century wait
'til we paddle across the Darien Strait
and finally discover the southerners’ fate.
We probably need equatorial seas
to simmer back down to ninety degrees.