Requiem of Innocence

Simply astounding.

Mr. Rockie Blunt's testimony during his interviews with the History Channel for 'WWII in HD' has left me in awe. To imagine the dreadfulness of the emotional torment Mr. Blunt (and his fellow soldiers) endured during their heroic efforts throughout WWII is to push the human mind to the very limit of sanity.

Blunt was a jazz musician, thrust forth into the bloody rampage of one man's (Hitler) horrific and murderous quest for acceptance, met with the full atrocities of war, yet was lucky enough to escape the throes of such idealistic madness. To be there, to hold within one's grasp the final breath of his fellow man, rising with premeditated remorse to the challenge of murder, ultimately fulfilling a promise no man should ever have to make...

Mr. Blunt is a man, if ever there was one, and he and his comrades deserve the full recognition and appreciation of my generation, a generation lost in an orgasm of the senses. His confessions of Darwinian weakness shatter the illusion of what one can be capable of during times of unparalleled duress. Saying thank you simply isn't enough, for what Mr. Blunt (and his fellow soldiers) sacrificed was far greater than their lives.

That war and those experiences took with it a part of their minds, a part of their universal human innocence that otherwise would be left undisturbed, and trying to convey my appreciation by simply saying "thank you" would be an insult to Mr. Blunt and the memories of the men he served with.

And although I know nothing of the sacrifices these gentlemen had to make, I watch the footage of their darkest hours with pools of sympathy collecting in my eyes and a broken heart sinking in my stomach. These men were men, and long after they have gone, it is our duty, and the duty of future generations, to ensure that their stories live on...

"He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother..."*

Please permit me, Mr. Blunt and the remaining members of the Greatest Generation, to say, perhaps at last, welcome home. We shall never forget.




*Portion of St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V.

Neruda's Ghost

It should be about the passage of time, lost opportunities, chance encounters, and stolen moments of shared possibility. But, when it strikes, it’s almost always about the attraction. Love. Destroyer of appetites, inciter of emotional riots, and purveyor of late night blog entries…

There are certain moments in life when the true gravity of a missed opportunity lies heavy upon one’s shoulders. It is in these moments of impossible despair that we are often given the clearest view of ourselves we will ever have. Never are our desires, wants, and, in many ways, needs, more apparent than in the wake of the truth. Some things, regardless of how unjust they may seem, are simply not meant to be. Such is the curse of possibility. One never truly knows if he has made the correct decision.

Understanding the idiosyncrasies of love is an impossible feat, one that would require many lifetimes and imperviousness to pain. Seeking the why to such a powerful impetus will only lead to sleepless nights and utter disappointment. In other words, it’s unattainable for anybody with a pulse, and even then, I believe the dead can still feel the fanatical anguish of unrequited love.

Men have gone to war for love. Empires have risen and fallen as part of love’s preposterous notion of a shared existence in which we try to allow ourselves to let another human being in. Love is the acme of the human condition. If one can find a way to master his emotions while simultaneously being attracted to other human beings, he has indeed achieved some variation of Nirvana.

To define love is to teach a class in absurdity, for no one definition can fully encompass love’s unlimited boundaries. Love takes many forms, and defies classification. It cannot be eradicated nor can it be prevented. When all else is gone love will, in one form or another, remain. "Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always," wrote Dante, and in my opinion, few things are as pure and historical as the moment love is born.

Soliloquies of the Damned

Speed
She came in from the rain
She says, "it's bad out there."
Whatever she starts always ends up the same
Nothing ever gets anywhere.
Swore she'd never do it again
One last time was all she'd need
Hit the gas and closed her eyes
She always wanted to believe.

The Fool
When I try to sleep
I see your face
See you standing there
In your dress
In your tears
In your disappointment
And I cry
Knowing that the pain I've caused
Is the only thing that's left.

Gone
Gotta go now baby,
Gotta go, it's time to be movin' on.
Gotta go now baby,
Been puttin' this off for far too long.
I been tryin' to tell you,
Tryin' to tell you what went wrong.
But you don't want to hear it,
No reason to stay, I must be gone.


Dreamgirl
She dwells in a dream,
Trapped forever by a trapped mind,
Making her presence known
Through the righting of wrongs.
On a cracked sunbeam she rides,
Ready to finally be alive,
She holds onto the light
Like it's a second chance.
But he stirs, disturbed,
And the shutters open
Just as quickly as they close.

Psycho Killer

Killing a Southern Indiana Farm Fly requires a sense of coordination usually found amongst Olympic gymnasts. When cornered with a rolled up magazine or gym shoe, the traditional housefly is an achievable get for even the most fatally graceless amongst us. Farm Flies, on the other hand, are a breed unto their own.

At roughly the size of a mid-level sedan, this unsavory pest takes on an identity of Lady GaGa sized proportions with its mammoth wingspan and unbreakably stubborn will. Like Kamikaze pilots, these pests lack any form of self-preservation. They have but one goal: annoy the enemy to the point of insanity.

Traditional houseflies seem to have developed the illusive sense of mortality these flying Volkswagens are so hell-bent on destroying. Shoo a normal housefly away a few times, and he eventually recognizes the mortal danger of flailing newspaper pages. After years of family members being taken down in their prime, the common housefly has evolved, cherishing avoidance as an invaluable virtue.

This is not true of Farm Flies, as they blatantly disregard the apprehension of their cousins with relentless energy. No matter how close one comes to annihilating one of these corn-fed monsters, it will only renew their resolve to attack. It is a game of mental endurance, to engage the Farm Fly, and I would like to think even cerebral heavyweights such as Albert Einstein or Carl Sagan would have had their asses handed to them by these persistent minions of insecticide.

It's not all the Devil's handiwork, though. To watch two flies attempting to mate is to watch the beauty (and simultaneous decimation) of aeronautical physics. They maneuver through the air with the precision of heat-seeking missiles, treating gravity as if it were merely a suggestion, rising high in the chewy summer air before tumbling downward through an invisible double helix. Trying to maintain visual contact on two flies while they’re going at it like a couple of Jersey Shore cast members is a lot like viewing a solar eclipse: although beautiful and awe inspiring, stare too long and you'll go blind.

Eventually, interest in reproduction wanes, and Farm Flies resume their usual baneful existence of buzzing loudly whilst nowhere in sight. This is perhaps the cruelest aspect of going to battle against the Farm Fly; they have mastered the art of teasing. The frustration of routinely coming within millimeters of a successful whacking is enough to cause the Pope to cast off his Godly robes in exchange for a blunt object and some under-the-breath cursing. It is a hunt that never ends, even in the event of a kill.

Never in my life have I cursed my unavoidable human size as much as when engaging the Farm Fly, and at 5’5, I have some experience with this particular contempt. Trying to recall the limited knowledge I have learned about hunting from listening to beer-fueled campfire tales of deathly excellence, I began to strategize in my quest for Farm Fly blood. I began to crouch down when skulking around the farm. I would inch forward, slowly and deliberately, hypnotized by the soft clak-clak of my sandals hitting my heels as I scoured the empty air, shovel in hand. Should anybody have witnessed me in these pursuits they would have surely thought I was hot on the trail of an escaped convict, or trying some new, hillbilly form of Tai Chi.

After bouts of unsuccessful hunting, I would begin to question my validity on this Earth. Each whiffed swing took with it a piece of my integrity. How dare I call myself a man, I would wonder when walking in from the fields, head hung low in disgust of the lack of splattered guts that should decorate my shovelhead. My thoughts would inevitably shift post-game, and entire evenings have gone unaccounted for due to imagining the many ways in which I would right my previous wrongs during the next hunt. The thrill of the pursuit had me in its vengeful claws, and I vowed to someday taste retribution.

At this juncture I have given up on traditional methods of fly-murdering as much of my efforts have been in vain, and am seriously considering petitioning the Department of Defense for a missile strike. At the very least, maybe they'd let me borrow a flamethrower.

Regardless of how many of these country-bred demons I kill there will always be more. In fact, since I began my killing spree, it seems like every time one goes down, fifteen more take its place. Summer in the Southern Indiana country is hot, sticky, and boring on the surface. But, take a closer look and one will find he is surrounded by the poetry of nature, and an epic battle for the survival of the fittest.