blind music

Once upon a story lived a tribe of kids. They laughed and played all day.

Poor ones collected cardboard and plastic water bottles along a red dirt road.

Kids with money went to school.

A blind man played his flute on the street. Memory answered as notes disppeared into the void.

A bird whistled. Poetic interpretation. 

A man without hands, a landmine survivor, blind in one eye stood near a cafe. His one eye smiled, he nodded his head, thank you after a well dressed man gave him money.

The rich man smoked a cigarette as friends discussed new business opportunities. They invested drug and prostitution profits in new glass and brass tourist hotels.

We have to put the money somewhere, said the rich man.

Yeah, said another man, we can't put it where our mouth is.

You can say that again, said his friend, giving a beggar child old notes.

Hunger

She approached him with her hand out, “May you have blessings and prosperity.”

“May God make it easy for you,” he said in Arabic. “I will leave food for you. Wait.”

She walked across the street into shadows watching through slit fabric. Her eyes were the world. He watched her watch people eating. She watched him watch her. Their eyes were married. She was calm and silent. Wild cats roamed malnourished skeletons around eaters’ feet and stayed away from a waiter’s swift shoe. She watched and waited.

He fed abstract scraps to cats. They fought in dust hissing and dragging bones to shelter. The city overflowed with dead dying cats and caravan dust as salt, gold, and slaves traveled across the Sahara.

Everyone choked on historical dust at a personal Ground 0.

Nemesis adjusted her perspective.

Feeding cats became a ritual in Morocco for him. He had a passion for hungry animals. They were all in the same fix, roaming, lost, looking, and trying to survive in desperate circumstances.

He didn’t eat everything. Knowing the waiter had to figure charges he left the table and she closed in. Her blackness swooped like a dream across pavement. They were a team. She was free to collect everything. She produced a plastic bag from her black cloak, picked up the plate and dumped everything inside: bones, meat, rice, and tomatoes. The works.

She was fast and efficient. She glided away to shadows.

He paid, left, and walked past her. They locked eyes. He was naked. She was covered in her belief. Her invisible clear eyes flashed a brief recognition. He nodded. She smiled under her veil. Their relationship of mutual respect ignored verbal language.

A Century Is Nothing

Subject To Change

do the mango tango

I go, we go, you go. Mango. Super fruit.

Buy one, get one free. Peel it down. Peel my skin. I am a bed rabbit. Plow my field. Honey needs money. Hungry girls go to bed. Savor my succulent mass of alfa bet your sweet ass anti-oxidants.

A, C, E. Ace a mango.

The humility of a mango. Skin releases it’s interior daily monologue. Flowing sensations dance a mango simplicity with serenity. 

Mango said, “There are two kinds of people in the world.”

“What are they?” said Star, a Cambodian kid rented from mom by an NGO needing global media publicity.  

“They are subdivided into specific sub-species. There are people who want to blame you and people who want to distract you. There are people who want control or approval.

"There are people who face the music and there are people who run for cover. There are people who pay attention and people who don’t know or care what the fuck is going on. They are too poor to pay attention.

"There are people who make things happen and people who dream about making things happen."

“I see,” said Star. “You mean, according to the philosopher, Damon Younger Than Yesterday, ‘distraction is an inability to identify, attend to what is valuable, even when we are hard working or content.’”

“Yes, that’s what I said I mean because I mean what I say and say what I mean,” laughed Mango doing the tango with Taoist monks at The Temple of Complete Reality in Sichuan.

“Disorientation begets creative thinking,” said Star.

"You are bright," said Mango. "Shine on."

they went shopping

after 9/11 to satisfy their fear of poverty to overcome their fear, a small fear growing stronger day by day being fed by hysterical know-it-alls in 24/7 media ivory soap towers of higher intellectual reasoning based on empirical evidence.

“More channels!” someone screamed. “We need more channels!” There was a preponderance of rumors. Mucho evidence was charred beyond recognition. It would need DNA analysis and carbon-14 dating.

According to Ahmed with the gift of foresight, “Teams of social workers swarmed across Earth extolling virtues of well being, hope, trust, and bravery in the face of adversity, values, free choice, and impending sales at outlet stores.

"People seeking outlets and outlet stores found solace in their ignorance of how the world worked on molecular, political, religious, economic, philosophical, and cultural levels. Long festering animosity and cultural bias had come full circle. An invisible Orobus constricted their heart. Their myth was part idealism and realism standing on its head.

"Socially, culturally, geographically and emotionally deprived children listened, shaking their heads, learning a very hard life lesson. One that escaped their well meaning parents. Kids knew when adults were bullshitting them.

(Kids had a built-in shock proof shit detector.)

"Scholars educated at global universities started speaking Arabic, reciting Sufi poetry and 1,001 stories about the rise and fall of civilizations written before their time with hieroglyphics and cave paintings. Survivors filled caves. Candles sales were brisk.

“A tisket a tasket we need a casket,” sang multi-lingual children.

"Historians, political scientists, talk show experts, taxi drivers, fortune tellers, beauticians, and morticians took hotline calls. The number of callers increased exponentially. Suicide search and rescue teams were put on alert. Citizens packed hospital emergency rooms. Medical schools increased graduation classes to meet the growing need. Demand outstripped supply when it came down to fear and consumption."

Source: A Century is Nothing

A Jungle Story

Once upon a time in the long now there was a continent, a land mass floating on water. It was labelled Asia by white people on dusty maps. Deep inside Asia were vast lands, rivers and mountains.

Overtime, a historical bandit with a reputation for laughter, magic, fear, superstition, and insatiable appetite for peoples of diverse languages, customs and cultures lived in jungles and forests. Others preferred living in distant and remote mountains. 

Jingle, jangle, jungle. Using natural materials they created musical instruments, simple weapons, homes, fish traps, snares and tools like looms. The women had babies, wove cloth and prepared food while the men fished, planted crops, domesticated animals. Children played and learned life lessons from nature in extended families. 

One day a boat filled with white men sailed down the river to a village deep in the jungle. They wore shiny clothing, spoke a language the people didn't understand and carried weapons which made a lot of noise and scared the people.

They pretended to be friendly by offering gifts. The leader of the village welcomed them. They had a party.

Every day more white people came down the river on boats named Destiny. They were on a quest for gold and slaves. Owning, using and discarding slaves had proven to be an essential part of their historical evolution on other continents. Their mantra was, Cheap labor, Cheap raw material, Cheap goods, Cheap markets and much Profit.

They said, We are civilized and you are savages. We have religion. It is called Wealth.

We are on a mission from the great chief. We control fire. We control time. We control people. We control nature. We have machines. We take what we want.

The village gave them hospitality and shelter and friendship. The white men were greedy. They took control of the village, the people and the jungle. 

Every day the white men marched their slaves deep into the jungle singing, We control Nature. We shall overcome.

They spread diseases. They planted fear. They planted envy and jealousy. They manipulated villages against villages. They divided people against people. Divide and conquer. Against each other. History had taught them well. 

They harvested wealth in the form of people, precious stones, rubber and every raw material of value. They were never satisfied. Their appetite grew and grew.

If we want to survive we move to a new jungle forest tomorrow, said a village shaman. Far away.

This is the story they told the people one night below stars singing with their light.