Another mass murder falls off the front pages.

The story is of F. Glenn Miller (also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr.), charged last week with murdering three people at the Jewish Community Center is quickly falling off the front pages of the Star and probably all news outlets in the country. Miley's out of the hospital, millennials find KC a good place to live, and a temperamental Chiefs player has a new attitude. So as these and other stories bubble across the screens of laptops, phones and tablets, the reality is ignored. We have come to a place where the 2nd Amendment right of a convicted felon to own guns and be accused of committing murder is more important than the 1st Amendment right of people to practice their religion in peace and safety.

This is not the first time that a lone gunman with extreme fascist views has walked into a church or a religious community and killed people attending services.  In the madness of modern life this fact has been forgotten. What is it to be? Freedom to practice one's religion in peace and safety or the freedom to commit mass murder whenever the mood comes upon one.

The Kansas City Star on April 19th published an editorial, "As a community, we must move beyond silence." It gave some sensible recommendations such as the following,

?While hard-liners continue to thwart sensible and needed gun-reform measures, these three deaths in Overland Park should prompt a new discussion about how easy it remains for felons to obtain firearms. This must stop. Lobby lawmakers to make changes. Demand background checks and waiting periods. If someone acquired weapons on Miller’s behalf, that transaction must be included in the prosecution of the case."

The most important one is to demand change we can no longer stay quiet while the 39 million owners of the over 300 million guns in this country can declare open season on law abiding citizens, whenever one of them gets demented or a little depressed.

Capitano Tedeschi.

30

Another mass murder falls of the front pages. Copyright, April 21, 2014 by Jamie Jacks

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/19/4968214/as-a-community-we-must-move-beyond.html#storylink=cpy

January 20, 2014. Martin Luther King Holiday (Observed)

As I was thinking about the King Holiday today, I was remembering that after Dr. King's death, I was in 8th grade and out teacher read an editorial claiming that Martin Luther King was a communist. I don't remember where the editorial came from, part of me wants to say it was inspired by the FBI, but I can't be certain. As I think of it today, I was thinking what a terrible lie should be taught in an American 8th grade class just a few weeks after his assassination. Thinking of that day in 1968, I am filled with sadness and anger. Sadness about the death of Dr. King. Anger that 50 years on, many of the things he and the Civil Rights Movement fought for are under attack by America's neo-fascists and their plutocrat paymasters. The struggle continues. 

 Capitano Tedeschi


30

Panama Lane Palazzo

Driving east
across the hot, dusty
border between south Bakersfield
 and its industrial agricultural heartland
Dairy farms, cotton gins
and housing developments still
reeking of sawdust and drywall paste.

The Who come on the radio
Eminence Front
as Roger Daltry started singing
a flock of ravens exploded into the sky
like musical notes bursting
against the scale
of telephone wires and powerlines
in a pale summer sky.

Going to meet my friend
living in a former mansion
turned into sober living facility
no job, no car, no family
just a cot, 3 hots, a probation officer and
a shit load of legal bills

Pulled into the former Panama Lane Palazzo
found him in the dining room
an embarrassed smile on his face
gave him a brother hug and
shook his hand,
shared a couple of cups of coffee
(his hands had stopped shaking)
till dinner time

when he had an appointment
with the evening's pots and pans.
when Party's over nowhere to go but up
or down.
Never saw him again
there or anyplace for that matter.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Panama Lane Palazzo copyright 17 December 2013 by Jamie Jacks

Darwin reconsidered

Having giving it 
careful consideration 
I now believe 
that dogs are the top 
of the evolutionary ladder 
and that human beings 
are the race of 
intelligent monkeys 
cats created 
to run the universe.

Capitano Tedeschi

Darwin reconsidered copyright 10 December 2013 by Jamie Jacks 
photo: Bella courtesy of Stacey Hungerford 2004

Ponder then this Presidential Library

Ponder then this Presidential Library

Where Egypt's Pharaohs built
pyramids of stone to safeguard
their immortal lives
The Head Cheer Leader,
The Emperor on the Dry Drunks
built a pyramid of delusion and lies
at some Jesus Cult college in Texas
and called it a library

At the entrance like an Aluminum Butterfly
on a giant stone pin
a replica  of the  Alabama Air National Guard
F-102 fighter jet not flown
by former President Bush
during the Vietnam War.

As you enter the library,
the first stop is the
 Abu Ghraib Prison interactive exhibit,
where visitors can sic virtual German Shepherds
at naked Iraqi prisoner holographs
in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Please note the after visiting the  Abu Graib Exhibit
visitors will have to spend 8 years
in a real military prison.

It's right next to the Replica of Co-President
Dick Cheney's Office as depicted in Dante's Inferno
Nothing like the smell of sulphur and brimstone
to work up an appetite
Next stop is the cafeteria
In the cafeteria you can have pulled pork sandwiches
flown fresh everyday
from the American Embassy in Bahgdad and served
free of charge courtesy of the American taxpayer,
the People of Free Democrat Iraq,
Halliburton and Kellog, Brown & Root.

After lunch you must go the Battle of Falluja Exhibit
drive go-carts that look like HumVees
over a course of real Improvised Explosive Devices
when you've  finished, those of you that survive
will be consoled by an anamatronic replica of
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 
who smiles like an avuncular crocodile
and will tell you "Stuff happens."

Be sure to visit, the amazing Water Park.
The Pool of Unreflection, a monument to the 43rd President's
spectacularly unexamined life.
Be sure to come early and fly in
minature replicas of Air Force One over
a scale model of the 9th Ward of the City of New Orleans
which also cleverly hides the library's wastewater treatment faciliy
Don't miss the interactive "Enhanced Interrogation Pool"
where vistor's will be waterboard up 183 times until
they agree that waterboarding isn't torture

For children
There's the Art Department
where you can play with fake yellow-cake uranium
and put powdered sugar into glass vials
just like the ones used by Sec. of State Colin Powell
to con the United Nations into passing a resolution
green lighting war against Iraq
Each child will be given a
set of crayons which can be used to create
Law degrees from Franklin University or
replicas of the John Yoo torture memos
At 2:00 they'll be a reading of "The Pet Goat"

Teenagers and the college students are not forgotten
There are educational exhibits
on "How to Underestimate the Cost of the Iraq War
by $2.995 Trillion" or
"How to Bankrupt the Treasury" exhibit
where visitors will be required to donate monies
from their individual retirement accounts to pay off
the $5.1 trillion dollar in federal debt incurred by President Bush
during his 8 years in office.

By now visitors will be heading
for the exit.
No one lingers here.
No scholar will ever be allowed
to truly access its archives
As you leave you'll wonder why this place
has no mirrors, no way to contemplate
if power corrupts
what happens when a totally
corrupt man is voted into power.

No best not think of that.


Capitano Tedeschi


Ponder then this Presidential Library copyright April 25, 2013 by Jamie Jacks


30

Hazards of home repair

There's a saying "Make a plan and God laughs," a corollary to that statement is any time Jamie does household repairs, God rolls on the floor and laughs his ass off. The runner on one of my shower doors needed to be replaced. So I carefully pulled the shower doors out of the shower, unscrewed one of the wheeled runners, took it to Orchard Supply Hardware. I got the correct replacement. Came home used my Swiss Army knife to open the package, and started screwing the runner wheels on the shower. It was then that I discovered that the knife is very sharp by running my index finger across the portion of the blade. The cut, "not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door," twas a trifle but it served. It served. Bleeding, blasphemy and bandage then followed. Rested. Took Bella to the Dog Park, and came back and rehung the shower doors which I completed without further bloodshed. Now I feel ambitious, like doing some re-wiring or unclogging my garbage disposal. What could possibly go wrong?

 Capitano Tedeschi

30

Hazards of home repair copyright 30 March 2013 by Jamie Jacks

No good deed goes unpunished, or so it seems

According to a Feb. 27 Article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Founders of Angel Food Ministries, a Christian non-profit, that acted as a wholesale grocer, buying and distributing food boxes through churches and charities nationwide, have pled guilty to federal charges. The charges included, "conspiracy, wire fraud, theft from an organization that received federal funds, interstate transportation of stolen property, tampering with witnesses, and obstruction of justice," according to and August 2012 post on the blog Charity Watch .

I mention this because in 2009, as an act of community service, I helped distribute Angel Food groceries at a Compassion Christian Center 1030 Fourth St in Bakersfield. At the time, I was proud of my participation in the event.  Later in 2009, federal authorities shut down Angel Food Ministries and indicted its founders. Pastors Joe and Linda Wingo, their son Andy and a business associate Harry Michaels.

They will be sentenced on May 29.  Like so many, I feel disappointed and used. Four years ago I felt I was doing a good deed, while the Wingos were using the money the skimmed from their non-profit to "
According to the indictment, the Wingos used Angel Food funds to make a $280,000 down payment on a Beechjet 400A aircraft, make other down payments on real estate and buy a $65,000 classic car. And they took more than $1.48 million from the nonprofit by giving bonuses to themselves and to others," according to a Dec. 9, 2011 article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Capitano Tedeschi,

30

 sources: Bill Rankin and  Shelia M. Poole spoole@ajc.com  Friday, Dec. 9, 2011 Angel Food Ministry benefited founders, feds say Kickbacks, cover-ups, lavish purchases in indictment retrieved Mar. 20, 2013 http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/angel-food-ministry-benefited-founders-feds-say/nQPNL/
By Christopher Quinn - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 Founders of Angel Food Ministries plead guilty retrieved Mar. 20, 2013 http://www.prod.myajc.com/news/news/local/founders-of-angel-food-ministries-plead-guilty/nWbyw/
You Can't Have Your (Angel Food) Cake and Eat It Too August 2012 issue of the Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report retrieved Mar. 20, 2013 http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/Angel_Food_Minist

21 minutes into the ride

I was smiling.
21 minutes into my bike ride
I was smiling

Why?
I hurt
knees aching from athritis
right calf hurting
from a blood clot 10 years ago
lungs gasping for air
because I look
like Bradley Wiggins
in a fat suit.
hands numb from white spot
on an MRI

I should be home drinking
diet 7up and watching
television
instead my legs are pumping
a silly  rictus
on my face.
the bicycle seat
is irritating
the skin of my 'taint

The sun hurries west
sinking into the slopes
of the Temblors and Coast Range
the street lights have come on

I'm going down a slight slope
in a low gear
my quadariceps defying
arthritis and age
as I balance on my bike
defying time, physics and gravity

I was smiling.
21 minutes into my bike ride
I was smiling
It was the only thing
I could really do.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

21 minutes into the ride copyright March 2, 2013 by Jamie Jacks
Photo: Sunset Seven Oaks copyright March 2, 2013 by Jamie Jacks

Sunset Bike Ride

There was a bashful moon tonight,
almost full, but a day or two shy of boasting about it.
I went for a bike ride
just before it got dark.

The sun had set.  The street lights had yet to come on.
I rode side streets in my neighborhood to be safe.
My legs had a life life of their own,
they pumped and pumped madly
as if driven by anger  or frustration.

I flew past the McMansions
where God's Elect
sheltered behind their iron gates
(the gate code being Ronald Reagan's B-Day).

 As I streaked by,
blackbirds  tutted and flew into the trees.
I heard a cricket sing and then crickets joined in chorus.
Terriers yapped, their owners oblivious to their warnings.

Twenty-six minutes later I was home.
As I reached my house
an  ice cream truck played "Music Box Dancer,"
like a tocsin for the end of the day.

I was home marveling at the madness
that had gripped part of my body,
trying to understand why I had done
 what I had just done.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Sunset Bike Ride copyright July 30, 2012 by Jamie Jacks

Rep. Issa Lead's America In Prayer

Ronald Reagan Official Portrait 

"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is floating legislation that would name most U.S. coastal waters after former President Ronald Reagan.

Issa reintroduced his bill Wednesday to rename the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which generally extends from three miles to 200 miles offshore, as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone.

The late Reagan, a Californian like Issa, established the EEZ with a 1983 presidential proclamation that declared the nation’s sovereign rights for exploring, exploiting and conserving offshore resources, including energy.

Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has introduced the bill multiple times in past sessions of Congress.

Under the proposal, references to the EEZ in U.S. laws, regulations, maps and other documents would carry Reagan’s name."

Issa ended his announcement with a  prayer the Creator of the Universe in the hopes that he'll use his influence to allow him to rename the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. With head bowed Rep. Issa prayed:

Ronald Reagan, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our tax cuts, school prayer and AR-15 Assault Rifles.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive won't forgive them that trespass against us including but not limited too:
Gays, women, the liberal media, Democrats, Democrat Party, Environmentalists, Mexicans (legal and illegal, African  Americans especially that Kenyan Anti-Colonialist, who pretends to be President, the poor, the non-white, non-southern and Muslims including that Kenyan Anti-Colonialist, who pretends to be President and anybody who is different from us.
And lead us not into temptation, like advocating for actual conservative principles that you actually advocated, like raising taxes, and gay rights.
But deliver us from evil, including but not limited to Evolution, All religions except Christianity except Catholicism which is a Papist cult, helping the poor, working to improve the planet's environment, advocating alternative energy, cuts in military spending.
For thine is the kingdom, including but not limited to gate communities, country clubs that don't allow anybody listed above, Disneyland, Israel, Arab oil, off shore tax havens, and Swiss Bank Accounts.

The power, and the glory, Wall Street, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and the Koch Brothers

For ever and ever.

Amen.


Capitano Tedeschi


30

Rep. Issa Lead's America In Prayer Copyright July 24, 2012 by Jamie Jacks

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is floating legislation that would name most U.S. coastal waters after former President Ronald Reagan. Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/238881-issa-name-us-coast-after-president-reagan

Ronald Reagan Official Portrait source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Official_Portrait_of_President_Reagan_1981.jpg. Government document public domain.

Channeling Dame Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie, Source: Flanker from Wikipedia

It's been a good day. Hardest part was the 2 hours I spent in the Ford Dealer's waiting room, listening to a woman chew gum.

 The old darling must have been wearing dentures that had been castanets in a previous life. It was click, click, click, click, click, click for 120 minutes. Always at the same pace, an insistent, unavoidable chomping noise that carried for at least 30 feet in all directions. There was no escaping it, no way to politely make her stop. 

I was channeling Dame Agatha Christie by the end of the first hour, experimenting with various types of poisons and explosive devices to put the woman out of my misery. Cruel of me I know. But still that's how my mind works. 

So I plotted and planned, planned and plotted. Chewing gum coated with arsenic? That's pure Dame Agatha. But that would have taken several sticks and they way she was chomping on that one piece, I would have died before the arsenic had done its work. Cyanide? Way too quick. Plastic explosive? That might have worked but would have required some type of fuse which would have resulted in a piece of chewing gum the size of a pound of cheese. No one in their right mind would have accepted a piece of gum the size of a pound of cheese from a total stranger.

I finally settled on gum that contained some type of powerful adhesive that would have eventually welded her false teeth shut. A very humane option you'd all agree. I then realized if I could invent such an adhesive I'd be a millionaire. As a millionaire, I would have sent the chauffer to the Jaguar dealership across the alley and he'd been sitting in the Jaguar waiting room and I would have avoided the gum chewer altogether. 

Life's funny like that. 

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Channeling Dame Agatha Christie copyright July 25, 2012 by Jamie Jacks

Picture Source: Flanker from Wikipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Agatha_Christie.png. Used by permissions of Creative Commons license.

Spanish Galleon

I've been working on the photos from my trip. The picture of these wall tiles was taken in the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri on June 6, 2012. I took the with a disposable camera (My digital camera having been lost, perhaps stolen). Given the fact that my hand shakes, I'm partially color blind, and I had no way to really control the quality of the photo, it came out quite well.

After editing in Microsoft Photo Editor, I am pleased with my enhancements.  

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Spanish Galleon text copyright July 11, 2012 by Jamie Jacks
Photo copyright July 11, 2012 by Jamie Jacks

Armstrong Cleaners

I took this photo in early June of 2012. It's a suite of shops at 4018 State Line Road in Kansas City Kansas.  Roughly 28 years ago I was driving with my mother and when my car passed this building, she said.

"Oh, that so that's where it was."
"What?"
"That's were uncle Clovis had his dry cleaning store" she said.

Clovis was her uncle Clovis Armstrong. Clovis was one of those uncles no one talks about. From what I know of Clovis, he was terrible drunk.

So I asked mom, "Clovis had a drying cleaning store?"
"Yes," she said.  "He wasn't drinking during that particular time. But then he married that woman. When he and she started having problems, he started drinking again and lost the business."

Mom told me a little more about Clovis. He was a World War 2 veteran and a hopeless alcoholic. When ever he'd get drunk he'd go home to his mother, who would take him in, allow him to drink and berate him for being an alcoholic.

My mother died in 2002. Going through her papers, I found a business card that said. "Armstrong Cleaners 4018 State Line, WE 7200 "Not How Cheap but How Good." On the back of the card was the slogan "If our work pleases you tell your friends, if not tell us. To please you pleases us."

Look at the picture, reading the slogan on the business card, it seems to me that Clovis' sad ghost still wanders.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Armstrong Dry Cleaners copyright by Jamie Jacks July 9, 2012. Photograph: Shops on State Line Road copyright July 9, 2012 by Jamie Jacks

Apocalypse postponed

Beyond the earthquakes
of suffering
petty squabbles
and strife

Beyond the reach
of the cold north wind
that brings only sorrow
and no rain

To a place
where like wounded bear
I stagger
seeking Utopia, bliss, immortality

There is no such place
because wherever I go
strife follows
like a sarcastic, sticky shadow

Still with an old friend
drinking an infusion
of companionship
and coffee

We talk of basketball
his dog, Otis
the ever-muddy
chocolate lab

The building feels
the earthquake but barely shudders
the cold winds bring
the joy of much needed rain

The end of the world
is postponed it's
only Saturday
for Christ's sake

德國隊隊長

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Apocalypse postponed copyright Feb. 19, 2012 by Jamie Jacks

Waiting for the New World Order

Waiting.
Waiting for the gospel's promises
set forth in Revelation's prophecies
to manifest themselves.

Waiting.
Waiting while the stench decay keeps rising
from those festering Gomorrah's
New York City and San Francisco.

Waiting.
Waiting while rapists, murderers, Mexicans,
secular humanists, and yoga practitioners
cavort like swine and use every method
imaginable to glorify and spread their so-called "lifestyles."

Waiting.
No, yearning for the tribulation,
when the faithful and virtuous
are gathered together and sheltered
from the end of times
by the Holy Spirit and a loving Jesus.

Waiting.
Waiting for this world to be cleansed,
engulfed in a series of Vesuvius-like eruptions
that fill the sky with suffocating ash
cover the land with molten lava
to burn and bury
the sinners and all their works.

Waiting.
Waiting for the second coming of the Messiah,
the re-population
of the New Eden, the New Jerusalem
where the streets are clean and safe
where you can drive your Chevy Suburban
or Cadillac to the grocery store
or to church without being screamed at
by the tree-huggers or abortionists.

Waiting.
Waiting for the New World Order
where the American flag flies
and gold coins are real money.
Where everyone is protected
by the heroes of 9/11, the contractors provided by
Blackwater, Haliburton and Fox News.
Where the children go to school
to study the bible and learn to fear the rod
so they'll act like little angels
Where people don't talk
on their cell phones
during the Ronald Reagan Film Festival
or snicker when told that 6,000 years ago
the cave men rode dinosaurs
Where everyone sings along when
Chuck Norris sings all four verses of "America the Beautiful"
accompanied by Mike Huckabee
jamming on Elvis's electric guitar.

Waiting.
Waiting for the day
that God and Rush Limbaugh have promised


Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Waiting for the New World Order copyright Feb. 16, 2012 by Jamie Jacks

Hoping to hang on

Sighs of sorrow escape
so often, they seem to be
the melody of some long forgotten song.

The pain is
constant as an incurable cough,
resilient as rust on
long buried iron.

In such a state,
time goes
slow as geologic history

The byproducts of delusion
are pent up deep
in some small, infinite cavity
of the body,

where anemic blood
tries nourish the unseen tissues
that function as the wellspring
of the soul

An observer might believe
that I am unaware of
these inner things

that I am ignorant
of the daily vexations
that accumulate
like delinquent debts

until they become
unbearable
until they become
unutterable

There is no choice
just keep going
praying for
working for
some type of transcendence
hoping to hang on til
the miracle happens

what else can one do?

Capitano Tedeschi

Hoping to hang on copyright 26 January 2012 by Jamie Jacks

things Sleepwalkers know

The cost of obsession
keeps rising
regardless of previous experience
or the onset of old age.

There are things
Sleepwalkers know but
can not tell you

Things you might
see peripherally in a dream
that later appear
in the distorted restructuring of dreaming
known as waking life

Obsession, the loss
of sensible inhibition
a susceptibility to swings of emotion

For example
the 57-year-old Bakersfield housewife
who discovers the skin care secret
that maker her look 20 years younger

She sheds her skin like a snake
and becomes the nubile goddess
the vision that all men desire.

Then she finds herself one day
trapped in a tomb tight as the flue
of a chimney
suffocated in the drunken pursuit of love

Or,
regard the California driver
who discovers the simple driving tip
that insurers don't want you know.
Safety guaranteed you might think
But no,

He drives down dark, forgotten boulevards
and abandoned housing tracks
filled with the wooden skeletons of half-constructed homes.

He gives a ride to a stranger
whose deviance is rewarded
Serendipity is the constant companion
of the deranged.

The pale moon rises, and by
moon set, he has disappeared
bloodstained gravel the only
reminder that he was present at all
on this planet.

There are procedures for tracking
the consequences of delusion
the outcomes of obsession.

Armed with such knowledge,
you should be able to chart
the outcomes and
learn to avoid bad decisions.

No the weakness remains triumphant.
in spite of one's best effort
to stay self-contained, stay apart, stay free.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

things Sleepwalkers know copyright 20 January 2012 by Jamie Jacks

not a spiritually advanced way to begin one's morning

This morning
I wonder why I feel the cold
so much.

It seems to have settled, in the
semipermeable membranes between
my joints.

The blood in my fingers
courses like winter rain
chilling even the warmest regions
of my torso and thighs.
My first two steps
inform me that
ice crystals are lodged
in my ankles and insteps

There is pain
but worse
I have to ask why?
Or say "Fuck You Pain" or
just plain "Fuck You" in general

Would that there were some
aversive therapy to
keep me from wondering,
bar me, block me
from trying to assemble
a cognitive model or
narrative commentary
that tries to make meaing from
my daily confrontation
with my body

enduring being and movement
I once so blithely
dismissed or ignored.

Let's face it starting the day
with a "Fuck You" is not a
spiritually advanced way
to begins one's morning.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

not a spiritually advanced way to begin one's morning copyright 18 January 2012 by Jamie Jacks

All is perfect in this 6th Dimension

During the iron age
there were no cerebral inhibitions
there were no violent offenders
living was risking
resilience was simply surviving
you relied on intimidation
or choking the life out of someone
or something.

It is so much, much better
in this modern age
hours are spent not scratching the soil
with a pointed stick.
Instead we are enthralled
by the ghostly glow
of plasma screens in darkened rooms
locked in the ruthless embrace of distant others

All is perfect in this 6th Dimension.
Everything is better when it's transistional.
A YouTube video of a Welsh Corgi chasing
a soccer ball in the snow
is more important
more enhanced and extroverted
than the sighs of the homeless man
searching my trash for soda bottles
and un-used food.

Is this as it should be?
I don't really care.
This is what it is.
What is now will always be
more important
than what was,
or what might happen
or what should be.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

All is perfect in this 6th Dimension Copyright Oct. 27, 2011 by Jamie Jacks
P.S. I have not abandoned this blog

The Concrete Crick

I am a city boy and care little
for the natural world
but I can not ignore what

Granny on the Beverley Hillbillies

would have called it "The concrete crick."

A 30-year-old Koi pond expanded by

An artificial creek.

A concrete trough with embedded stones

Unnatural nature

The sound of rushing water

and the whir of electric pumps

fill the air

life thrives somehow

Pilgrims arrive

dust from the air
became silt that covers
the concrete bed
like milk chocolate

tadpoles swim nervously

fluttering over crayfish that

slowly move the silt

like grumpy old men puttering

in their underwater gardens

How did the crawdads get here? I ask myself

I don't know.

The frogs, I assumed, hopped.

The Koi were purchased from a pet store.
The turtle must have walked from
the bed of the Kern River
three quarteers of a mile away.

I am a city boy and care little
for the natural world
but since I saw the crawdads
I started watching the concrete crick
like it was streaming video.

I surf the web for info on crayfish and tadpoles.
As I watched the crayfish devour carrion,
I've started wondering about reincarnation
I've eaten lobster.
Lobsters and crawdads are arthropods
These are deep thoughts
I hate deep thinking.

The great wheel of life keeps turning.
In life one you eat an arthropod
in the next life an arthropod eats you
Some day a crawdad might feed on me
Karmically it might happen
but probably not

A butterfly lands on a
dessicated stalk of a day lillyI start to wonder
how did an insect become a kite?
Off on a tangent again.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

The Concrete Crick copyright 8/25/2011 by Jamie Jacks