Are you not tired of
their thrice told tales? I am.
Sick of listening to Einstein-like shamans
with their all-seeing X-ray eyes.
Oh they claim to see all
but actually know nothing
standing before green screens
or simple chalk boards
they are totally incapable of
accurately predicting the future
But incredibly adept at
spouting hate, intolerance and paranoia.
They urge us to buy gold
or survival rations
or to "Lean Forward" or vote Democratic
Selling high-priced snake oil
or Andean Tapir Magic
We wallow in uncertainty
or drown in a sewer of useless opinion
pretending to be factual information
constantly hesitating we delay
inaction leads to sloth
sloth leads to damnation
Hidden from our vapid gaze
more ambitious, arrogant, and greedy
women and men sneak through
the hallways of wealth and power
following the bloodstained vision
of their hearts blackest desire
No one notices their treachery
or theft
No watchman shouts a warning
of villainy in the night
til one day
we're left with naught but
empty words
senile hatred and eternal prejudice
HIDDEN FROM OUR VAPID GAZE Copyright July 27, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
How did it happen?
Sadly and soon we will know
how the five-year-old boy
playing on a swing
is transformed into a
Teflon-coated mass murderer
He was probably dehumanized over time
until his tortured soul
became armoured in hate like some
bionic superman.
It takes years of repression
holding rage in
shuntining it into hidden places
deep inside the body
beyond heart, beyond soul
Hidden from the light of laughter and love,
it festers, bubbles and ferments
until some little provacation
a rude waitress
an overdue bus
It boils over
hot as molten steel and
pours in to the nervous system
and the blood stream
The muscles reach
for the weapons,
the brain recycles its
contingency plans
and the erotic voilence erupts
spite and malice
expressed not with howls or screams
but with explosives and bullets
Each story is different
but the outline of the plot is the same
Too crazy to qualify for food stamps
but sane enough to be able to get a gun
just before the day when
the walls and floors of a school cafeteria
a library reading room, a church sanctuary
are bathed in viscera and blood
And each time we wonder
How did it happen?
Capitano Tedeschi
30
HOW DID IT HAPPEN? Copyright July 25, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
Sadly and soon we will know
how the five-year-old boy
playing on a swing
is transformed into a
Teflon-coated mass murderer
He was probably dehumanized over time
until his tortured soul
became armoured in hate like some
bionic superman.
It takes years of repression
holding rage in
shuntining it into hidden places
deep inside the body
beyond heart, beyond soul
Hidden from the light of laughter and love,
it festers, bubbles and ferments
until some little provacation
a rude waitress
an overdue bus
It boils over
hot as molten steel and
pours in to the nervous system
and the blood stream
The muscles reach
for the weapons,
the brain recycles its
contingency plans
and the erotic voilence erupts
spite and malice
expressed not with howls or screams
but with explosives and bullets
Each story is different
but the outline of the plot is the same
Too crazy to qualify for food stamps
but sane enough to be able to get a gun
just before the day when
the walls and floors of a school cafeteria
a library reading room, a church sanctuary
are bathed in viscera and blood
And each time we wonder
How did it happen?
Capitano Tedeschi
30
HOW DID IT HAPPEN? Copyright July 25, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
Sunday, July 24, 2011
15.789 REAL DEAD PEOPLE PER PAGE
What type of disease causes
this depravity?
A summer day in Norway
A political extremist kills 76 people
In Norway--it is an obscene tragedy
the worse mass murder since
World War Two.
Here it's just a busy
Saturday evening
You'd think that there'd be
some kind of warning that--
if we'd been paying attention
we might have prevented it this time
You'd think the killer
would have given us more clues
But it's not until afterwards
we check out his online presence
Facebook or Myspace
And find the 1200 page manifesto
that no one would ever read
No one would ever read, except
when the author kills 76 people.
15.789 real dead people per page
the ultimate in vanity publishing
Murder is a rigid transaction
complex and anti-linear
There is no rose-colored lens
that can blur a head exploded
by a bullet or airbrush out
a training bra stained
by the rapid gushing of
arterial blood
No Scandinavian detective
will reluctantly explain it way
or explore the warping of one mind
to rage then mayhem
All I know is that
somewhere in the night
A perpetual loser
A perpetual loner
A failed poet perhaps?
is typing on his computer
planning, planning
actually planning something
for the first time in his life.
Reading the spewed hate
from the right-wing internet
stroking pictures of automatic rifles
with he "finger" of his computer's cursor
Soon he'll show us
Soon we'll see
That he is not to be ignored.
He is coming for us.
The sad and sorry question is
not if, but when.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
15.789 REAL DEAD PEOPLE PER PAGE Copyright July 24, 2011, by Jamie Jacks
this depravity?
A summer day in Norway
A political extremist kills 76 people
In Norway--it is an obscene tragedy
the worse mass murder since
World War Two.
Here it's just a busy
Saturday evening
You'd think that there'd be
some kind of warning that--
if we'd been paying attention
we might have prevented it this time
You'd think the killer
would have given us more clues
But it's not until afterwards
we check out his online presence
Facebook or Myspace
And find the 1200 page manifesto
that no one would ever read
No one would ever read, except
when the author kills 76 people.
15.789 real dead people per page
the ultimate in vanity publishing
Murder is a rigid transaction
complex and anti-linear
There is no rose-colored lens
that can blur a head exploded
by a bullet or airbrush out
a training bra stained
by the rapid gushing of
arterial blood
No Scandinavian detective
will reluctantly explain it way
or explore the warping of one mind
to rage then mayhem
All I know is that
somewhere in the night
A perpetual loser
A perpetual loner
A failed poet perhaps?
is typing on his computer
planning, planning
actually planning something
for the first time in his life.
Reading the spewed hate
from the right-wing internet
stroking pictures of automatic rifles
with he "finger" of his computer's cursor
Soon he'll show us
Soon we'll see
That he is not to be ignored.
He is coming for us.
The sad and sorry question is
not if, but when.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
15.789 REAL DEAD PEOPLE PER PAGE Copyright July 24, 2011, by Jamie Jacks
Saturday, July 23, 2011
This FOG has pride
It was the last part of a hot
July Bakersfield evening
The sun bright as a golden ducat
was setting
sinking behind the gray foot hills
of the coast range
I was out on my bicycle
trying to get in an evening ride
I am what is known in
cycling circles as a FOG
A Fat Old Guy
Think of Lance Armstrong
or any professional cyclist
wearing a fat suit
I was going fast, moving
faster than the next ice
huffing and puffing
like some asthmatic locomotive
I was having fun,
my gaze focused
on the asphalt five feet
ahead of my
trying to pedal faster
trying not to have
a heart attack and die
Then it happened
I got passed by a teenager
a slender beauftiful young woman
riding a red beach cruiser
on the sidewalk
she wasn't even wearing helmet
As she passed me she
looked and me smile
and laughed
Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm
I have my pride
I sped up to catch her
but she was gone
a red and white blur
fast as a bottle rock
It was hopeless.
I headed home trying to avoid,
old age, broken glass
coronary thrombosis and heat stroke..
Capitano Tedeschi
30
This FOG has pride copyright July 23, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
July Bakersfield evening
The sun bright as a golden ducat
was setting
sinking behind the gray foot hills
of the coast range
I was out on my bicycle
trying to get in an evening ride
I am what is known in
cycling circles as a FOG
A Fat Old Guy
Think of Lance Armstrong
or any professional cyclist
wearing a fat suit
I was going fast, moving
faster than the next ice
huffing and puffing
like some asthmatic locomotive
I was having fun,
my gaze focused
on the asphalt five feet
ahead of my
trying to pedal faster
trying not to have
a heart attack and die
Then it happened
I got passed by a teenager
a slender beauftiful young woman
riding a red beach cruiser
on the sidewalk
she wasn't even wearing helmet
As she passed me she
looked and me smile
and laughed
Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm
I have my pride
I sped up to catch her
but she was gone
a red and white blur
fast as a bottle rock
It was hopeless.
I headed home trying to avoid,
old age, broken glass
coronary thrombosis and heat stroke..
Capitano Tedeschi
30
This FOG has pride copyright July 23, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
Monday, July 18, 2011
Would you like a salad with that?
Lunch time.
Waiting in line at the Sandwich shop
I stare at the menu
trying to make up my mind.
On my left, a wall-mounted flat screen TV
shows some woman on the Food Network
gettin' ready to do somethin' kinky
with ricotta cheese. Yum.
On my right, another flat screen--
CNN has breaking news from Pakistan.
The Taliban have released a video
showing the execution of
16 Pakistani policemen.
People are eating
No one is watching
A man says something funny
to his girl friend and then
laughs loudly at his joke.
A woman gets a soda instead
of an ice tea.
A nurse listens to his cell phone
I order ham and cheese.
And pause to watch
as 16 men, lined against a mud brick wall,
are executed by a firing squad of the faithful.
Kalashnikovs rise and fall from the recoil
the men collapse, some writhing in silent agony
Then a Mujahideen with a Tokarev pistol
makes sure all the men are dead.
The girl at the cash register waits
patiently.
"Would you like a salad with that?"
she asks.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
Would you like a salad with that? copyright July 18, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
Waiting in line at the Sandwich shop
I stare at the menu
trying to make up my mind.
On my left, a wall-mounted flat screen TV
shows some woman on the Food Network
gettin' ready to do somethin' kinky
with ricotta cheese. Yum.
On my right, another flat screen--
CNN has breaking news from Pakistan.
The Taliban have released a video
showing the execution of
16 Pakistani policemen.
People are eating
No one is watching
A man says something funny
to his girl friend and then
laughs loudly at his joke.
A woman gets a soda instead
of an ice tea.
A nurse listens to his cell phone
I order ham and cheese.
And pause to watch
as 16 men, lined against a mud brick wall,
are executed by a firing squad of the faithful.
Kalashnikovs rise and fall from the recoil
the men collapse, some writhing in silent agony
Then a Mujahideen with a Tokarev pistol
makes sure all the men are dead.
The girl at the cash register waits
patiently.
"Would you like a salad with that?"
she asks.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
Would you like a salad with that? copyright July 18, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
Friday, July 15, 2011
What great journey are you planning?
The washer roars as its parts
complete their electo-mechanical orbits
another cycle of cleanliness
about to be completed
My neighbor's dogs bark at real postmen
and the ghosts of postwomen past
A toy archer is poised on
the crows' nest of a toy sailing ship
The Archer's bow is drawn
but he will never lose his arrow.
The boat's sails are unfurled,
it will never ride the waves
in the bath tub or the sea
Facing the toy boat,
my bronze lion of St Mark
purchased when my grandfather
visited Venice
at the end of WWI
It does not yearn to
return to the Serenissima
But I sure as hell do.
The keys of my computer click
an electronic abacus
that can still calculate the number a Spanish maravedi
it takes to by one Venetian Ducat
information that no will need
or want.
I am continually asked
what great journey am I planning next?
Istanbul or Chile I tell them
when the time and money are sufficient
which is like saying not now
But I am a 57-year-old fat guy
with a comb-over
I don't have many "not nows" left.
I will make it to Chile and to Istanbul.
The more important journey
is the one that beckons here
like a solitary cyclist
climbing a verdant Pyrenees mountain
the one that demands
that I go deep inside myself,
beyond terror, frustration, loneliness
and agony
I am here to
rip off the veils of reality
and try, try, try
to tell you what you don't know
you need to know.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
What great journey are you planning? copyright July 15, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
complete their electo-mechanical orbits
another cycle of cleanliness
about to be completed
My neighbor's dogs bark at real postmen
and the ghosts of postwomen past
A toy archer is poised on
the crows' nest of a toy sailing ship
The Archer's bow is drawn
but he will never lose his arrow.
The boat's sails are unfurled,
it will never ride the waves
in the bath tub or the sea
Facing the toy boat,
my bronze lion of St Mark
purchased when my grandfather
visited Venice
at the end of WWI
It does not yearn to
return to the Serenissima
But I sure as hell do.
The keys of my computer click
an electronic abacus
that can still calculate the number a Spanish maravedi
it takes to by one Venetian Ducat
information that no will need
or want.
I am continually asked
what great journey am I planning next?
Istanbul or Chile I tell them
when the time and money are sufficient
which is like saying not now
But I am a 57-year-old fat guy
with a comb-over
I don't have many "not nows" left.
I will make it to Chile and to Istanbul.
The more important journey
is the one that beckons here
like a solitary cyclist
climbing a verdant Pyrenees mountain
the one that demands
that I go deep inside myself,
beyond terror, frustration, loneliness
and agony
I am here to
rip off the veils of reality
and try, try, try
to tell you what you don't know
you need to know.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
What great journey are you planning? copyright July 15, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Today: Don’t try this breakthrough device until you’ve read this special report
Be warned!
We have come so far that golf balls
Orbit o’er the Sea of Tranquility
Demonstrating once and for all that
Our image of the universe
Is a typically American aberration
From Valley Forge to Viet Nam to the Vale of Kashmir
Everyone knows that we Americans
Can not see the Oceans
For the trees
We seed the world with cluster bombs
And big Macs, bombing our enemies back
Into the stoneage w/out realizing
That we are 20th Century Neanderthals
Living in a 21st Century world
We claim to lead the world
But now the world dances
To Sambas played by sitars
Posted on the internet
By a Muslim woman wearing Hello Kitty glasses
Who lives outside of Kuala Lampur.
Special report? There is no special report
Wouldn’t matter if there was, cause
I can’t read anything over 420 characters
Do the Tech companies have some magical gadget?
Some high tech philosopher's stone?
Probably, probably.
They design it in Finland
Manufacture it in Taiwan
Using lithium mined from Bolivia for the batteries
Running on application code created in Bangalore
The tech companies don’t care if we know about it.
Meanwhile,
Avoid trusting in supernatural authority.
The Heavenly G-Man is no longer on our side
Our civilization has been outsourced
While we consume the $5.00 smart phone, tablet, MP3 player,
that will let us talk to Aliens from
Proxima Centauri.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
Today: Don’t try this breakthrough device until you’ve read this special report
Copyright July 12, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
We have come so far that golf balls
Orbit o’er the Sea of Tranquility
Demonstrating once and for all that
Our image of the universe
Is a typically American aberration
From Valley Forge to Viet Nam to the Vale of Kashmir
Everyone knows that we Americans
Can not see the Oceans
For the trees
We seed the world with cluster bombs
And big Macs, bombing our enemies back
Into the stoneage w/out realizing
That we are 20th Century Neanderthals
Living in a 21st Century world
We claim to lead the world
But now the world dances
To Sambas played by sitars
Posted on the internet
By a Muslim woman wearing Hello Kitty glasses
Who lives outside of Kuala Lampur.
Special report? There is no special report
Wouldn’t matter if there was, cause
I can’t read anything over 420 characters
Do the Tech companies have some magical gadget?
Some high tech philosopher's stone?
Probably, probably.
They design it in Finland
Manufacture it in Taiwan
Using lithium mined from Bolivia for the batteries
Running on application code created in Bangalore
The tech companies don’t care if we know about it.
Meanwhile,
Avoid trusting in supernatural authority.
The Heavenly G-Man is no longer on our side
Our civilization has been outsourced
While we consume the $5.00 smart phone, tablet, MP3 player,
that will let us talk to Aliens from
Proxima Centauri.
Capitano Tedeschi
30
Today: Don’t try this breakthrough device until you’ve read this special report
Copyright July 12, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
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