Self Immolation – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

Thank you to Hanoi, Viet Nam and Vienna, Austria for visiting my blog.

Speaking of the Battle of the Bulge in my previous post, I note that as a child in the early fifties there were several programs such as ‘The Big Picture.’  Every Saturday morning a different aspect of World War ll was discussed along with newsreel type footage. Shocking footage of battlefield scenes and death camps were often shown.

Still, one of the most disturbing reports I have seen was on television in 1964.  A Buddhist monk demonstrating against war ran into a major boulevard in Saigon.  He then poured gasoline over himself and burned to death in his sitting position.

I have this poem for him.

Buddhist monk -

Set alight

By your own hand,

Turning our day

Into darkest night -

What lesson

Have you to teach?

Constant fighting

Takes your friend

Leaving no life

Or favored country

For his wife

Or blessed child.

Death beckoned

For the many -

You gave response.

Are you asking -

Or shaming -

The question asked,

“Are you

One of us

Paying our dues

Or just rude

Denying us?”

Is death

Ever enough shock

We ask not

Before your final breath?

Human breathing

Shames not

A war’s cost,

But how great a cost

Will stop the loss?

Buddhist monk -

Setting mankind right -

You have entered twilight

Before my night.

“Self Immolation”

(January, 2009)

Steve

@ Blue Seahorse Syndicate

Mother, my father’s word? – Blue Seahorse

Recalcitrant – ‘The world is a Stalinist oyster’ is my paraphrase of what from here sounds like a prominent member of the yellow Boston press.  I am not sure what ‘Stalinist’ means to the yellow Boston press, however.

This prominent member of the yellow Boston press also apparently claims to be an expert on John Nash and Robert Lowell.  If one reads the book ‘A Beautiful Mind’ one has the impression that circumstantial evidence indicates that the actual medical diagnosis for Nash and Lowell was ‘latent homosexuality.’

My father landed D-Day plus one and survived the Battle of the Bulge.  Later he worked for the railroads in Coffeyville, Kansas.  When I was five, one afternoon at work he gave me a nickel to place on the tracks.  After a freight train over a mile long had passed we went to look for my nickel.

When we found the nickel my father remarked, ‘It looks like someone tried to make a quarter of THAT nickel.’

Light show – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

I have another stone with an alien’s report wrapped around it.  At first I thought it was an errant throw from the paperboy.

This alien reports that he was surprised to discover he was an alien.  He has been hearing broadcasts from a circling Klingon cruiser.

He reported the broadcasts to his Father who suggested that everyone would want to know what they were saying.  So he sits in his living room and repeats out loud the broadcasts.

The Klingons have repeatedly told him to shut up, but he is still following his Father’s advice.  Every so often, however, the Klingons get so angry that his living room is surrounded by flashing lights, air raid sirens and reciprocating engines without mufflers.

Mother, my father’s word? – Blue Seahorse

Pretend – The yellow Boston press reports that they ‘pretend’ a lot.

If we just pretend to be in love, we can just pretend to be friends?

Perhaps this is root of one of the accusations against the Church.

The yellow Boston press reports you are pretending to be Jewish so they will just pretend to …

Citizenship – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

As you know from my blog I attend Mass.  Earlier in my life I attended Church at the Christian Church and the Methodist Church.  I have a story concerning the Methodists which is only hearsay and probably garbled, but interesting.

John Wesley’s brother was a general in the Revolutionary War.  When the war was over and he returned home to Vermont he launched a suit against the government.  One of the tenets of the Methodist Church is that one not take foreign substances into one’s body – for instance, no drinking or smoking. During the war Wesley’s brother claimed that he had been forced to drink whiskey with his meals.

The suit embarrassed Vermont so much that during a trip to New York City, he was notified not to come home as he had lost his citizenship.

Although John Wesley’s brother is the only one to have ever lost his citizenship occasionally when a Vermonter is visiting New York an announcement is made that the Vermonter is expected in England.  Of course, New Yorkers just scratch their heads and wonder why anyone would want to go to England.

Atheist Mass – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

As I sit preparing for Mass Saturday night before Sunday morning services, I note I have an especially important rock with yet another alien’s report.  He notes that the atheists are always trying to crowd out the Church.

After the Klingons had taken control of his planet in the days before the Federation the Klingons would tell him quite pointedly to not attend Church in the morning.  ‘We want the Church,’ he was told.

When he would show for Mass anyway he notes that sometimes the Church had been commandeered by especially large and muscular Klingons who were holding an all male funeral service.

He further notes that many parishioners were required to be reinitiated into the Church.  The Klingons required the parishioners to stand at the ‘wall’ (outside the Church windows) and speak their mind for some time before they were allowed into the Church.

He wonders whether the Klingons had studied Earth history where he noted that the same practice was required during certain periods of Polish history. Sometimes Polish pilgrims were required to stand at the wall for as long as four years before being allowed inside the Church.

 

Flash cards – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

Perhaps aliens think in my small blog they have found a voice?  I have another rock wrapped in a report.

This alien reports that he was once prisoner of the Klingons and held in the hospital bay of a cruiser.  While soaking in a sauna of formaldehyde and breathing yellow tinged atmosphere he was able to maintain his sanity well enough to notice that trainees in the next room were learning ‘Klingon think fast’ – useful when employing the psychological technique deflection.

Two instructors were appearing before the trainees with flash cards – one containing premeditated sentences and the other phrases designed to add an air of authority to the sentences.  The trainees were taking turns reading the flash cards in rapid succession.

‘It is widely known that’ ‘the Federation are rotten apples.’

‘It is obvious to everyone that’ ‘the Federation are rotten apples.’

‘I’m gonna tell you that’ ‘the Federation are rotten apples.’

‘It is the women’s fault that’ ‘the Federation are rotten apples.’

Etc.

Klingons – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

I note that last night another alien was inspired to drop a stone here wrapped in his report.

He reports that he too has ears which for the past fifty years can hear bugs crawling up a wall.

Apparently a cloaked Klingon cruiser has been circling his block broadcasting into his living room – both ABOVE the threshold of hearing and BELOW the threshold of hearing.

He is suffering for twenty-four hours per day listening to Klingons compete to make the most degrading pornographic statements possible and the most virulent death threats possible.

It seems to me Captain Kirk should be notified immediately.

Friendly hellos – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

 

Thank you for the friendly hellos from Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Volketswil (Switzerland), Parker (Colorado), Harwich (Massachusetts), Houston and Hudson (Ohio).

Alien’s Report – Blue Seahorse Syndicate

I have never met an alien but I have seen plenty of movies and read of their whereabouts in science magazines.

Imagine how nice it would be to have an oversized brain and ears so sensitive one can hear bugs crawling up the wall.

One evening after sighting a meteor I found this alien’s report wrapped around a stone.

I have received a new report

Of the mote on the moon’s face.

Though it is not affecting vision

The mote has grown in stature

Soon generating much derision.

Carbuncles’ soreness disrupts rapture

So now the moon may capture

A fleeting glimpse of immortality

Generated by a mote escaping mortality.

Whispers have abounded annually

Suggesting a dormant volcano’s eruption

Sealing a clever scientist’s erudition.

Still it is the artist’s abstraction

That detects the moon’s plight

When observers peer on a cloudy night.

From behind the wall of obfuscation

Starlight too shines through brightly

During the coming thunder storm.

We rejoice gleefully for the forlorn

Curiously looking through the curtain torn.

Alas! A lightning strike has sealed

The curtain sheltering the commonweal.

Glumly I note I cannot feel

In my hands the commander’s wheel.

While sitting just thinking sadly

A colleague announces a report

A zoo kept giraffe is behaving badly.

“Alien’s Report”

(September, 2009)

Steve

@ Blue Seahorse Syndicate