I really don’t want to bear my soul on this one, but I get the feeling that the three or four may be feeling the same thing. So you don’t have to, I’ll show you mine.
Alexis and I laid in front of the television last night watching coverage of the Manchester bombing. It looks as if a radicalized youth walked up to an Ariana Grande concert and blew himself up. This killed 22 people and mangled dozens more. Since it was an Ariana Grande concert, many of the dead were young.
Alexis and I laid in front of the television last night watching coverage of the Manchester bombing. It looks as if a radicalized youth walked up to an Ariana Grande concert and blew himself up. This killed 22 people and mangled dozens more. Since it was an Ariana Grande concert, many of the dead were young.
A particularly harrowing thing on the telly was that of a couple asking for information on the whereabouts of their 15-year-old daughter. Producers kept flashing a picture of the daughter, and then they’d cut to the interview with mom and dad. It was dad who talked.
“We just miss her. If you know where she is, please tell us.”
Then there was a picture of eight-year-old Saffie. She died in the explosion. We know what happened to her. The whole thing’s a little too much to handle before bed.
But that’s not the only major news event floating around our brains. There is always the Trump drama. In the latest turn of events, the CIA director says he alerted the FBI to a pattern of communication between the Trump campaign last year and the Russians.
Did you ever notice how we say, “the Russians?” It would suffice to say, “Russians,” but we don’t do that. It’s not as scary if you just say, “Russians.”
And it is scary. I fear for what would happen in this country if it turns out Trump and/or his people did work something out with “the Russians.” I probably shouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night to wicked dreams over it, but I do. And perhaps a couple of the three or four of you do, too.
When we were watching the pictures of the kids killed in the bombing, after a while I snapped at Alexis – “Turn it off. I can’t take it anymore.”
What I really wanted to watch was more about Trump. That’s something we can comprehend, as confusing as the drama can be. We understand that power corrupts and the media is just waiting for something juicy to bite into. This is real. This is what we have known for the past year or so. It’s an ongoing drama that we look forward to every night, while hoping it will go away.
But the bombing of little kids? That’s a whole different level of middle of the night fear. And boy do I have middle of the night fear the past couple days. I have it right now, at 4:09am. It’s raining like hell outside, like it always does. That’s another thing – can the sun come out one of these days? I rode my bike to the radio station yesterday, to the dentist, and across town – in a gray drizzle. It’s drizzling in my soul these days. Time to stop watching the news.
Also, what happens when the news in the world is this bad is that it shows up in my dreams and in my poems. They’re certainly not dreams I want to wake up to – a train about to run me over or walking down Ridge Road naked. I forgot to wear my clothes. Everyone will see me for who I am, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
And then there’s the poems. I don’t want to write them. I don’t necessarily long to write poems in general, let alone poems about fear and pending doom.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine
and mine alone.
You can’t conceive of my middle of the
night terror. In this one a train is about
to run me over. There’s a white light,
the roar of several engines. But there is
no screeching of tires. It’s a train,
not an automobile.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine
and mine alone.
Without the constant hum of pending
humiliation, I wouldn’t know what to do.
At any moment my secret could stumble
into the daylight – that I’m a loser,
a fake, a fraud. I’m my own
Ponzi scheme of words that don’t mean
anything and character that only goes
as far as survival will allow.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine
and mine alone.
The dread and the horror are present.
They might be waiting to exact ruin,
but at least they have good attendance.
You can rely on the dread and the horror
like old friends who would do anything,
even lend you money, which is usually
a bad idea.
It is mine and mine alone. Leave me alone.
As far as sleep goes, that helps for a while,
but there’s nothing more annoying than
waking in the middle of the night to the
dread and the horror. You can feel them
girgling in your soul, and who wants that?
If you’re gonna have a girgle,
let it be a cheese and onion hoagie you ate
way too late. At least that’s real.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine.
For the most part, I’m a rather happy-go-lucky slacker who talks on the radio. I’m not Edgar Allen Poet with a dark side. It must be
The rain
The bombing
The Donald
The rain
We’re almost to the end of Another Thousand Words. I’ll bet you can’t wait. If you’re here for talk about My Radio Life and not about my fear, sorry about that. But like I said, I get the feeling from listening to callers, from watching the television, from trolling around Facebook, from looking into faces… that I’m not the only one. I could be wrong, but at least we made it to Another Thousand Words together. Time to get my fat ass out of bed and into radio clothes. Good morning, by the way.
“We just miss her. If you know where she is, please tell us.”
Then there was a picture of eight-year-old Saffie. She died in the explosion. We know what happened to her. The whole thing’s a little too much to handle before bed.
But that’s not the only major news event floating around our brains. There is always the Trump drama. In the latest turn of events, the CIA director says he alerted the FBI to a pattern of communication between the Trump campaign last year and the Russians.
Did you ever notice how we say, “the Russians?” It would suffice to say, “Russians,” but we don’t do that. It’s not as scary if you just say, “Russians.”
And it is scary. I fear for what would happen in this country if it turns out Trump and/or his people did work something out with “the Russians.” I probably shouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night to wicked dreams over it, but I do. And perhaps a couple of the three or four of you do, too.
When we were watching the pictures of the kids killed in the bombing, after a while I snapped at Alexis – “Turn it off. I can’t take it anymore.”
What I really wanted to watch was more about Trump. That’s something we can comprehend, as confusing as the drama can be. We understand that power corrupts and the media is just waiting for something juicy to bite into. This is real. This is what we have known for the past year or so. It’s an ongoing drama that we look forward to every night, while hoping it will go away.
But the bombing of little kids? That’s a whole different level of middle of the night fear. And boy do I have middle of the night fear the past couple days. I have it right now, at 4:09am. It’s raining like hell outside, like it always does. That’s another thing – can the sun come out one of these days? I rode my bike to the radio station yesterday, to the dentist, and across town – in a gray drizzle. It’s drizzling in my soul these days. Time to stop watching the news.
Also, what happens when the news in the world is this bad is that it shows up in my dreams and in my poems. They’re certainly not dreams I want to wake up to – a train about to run me over or walking down Ridge Road naked. I forgot to wear my clothes. Everyone will see me for who I am, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
And then there’s the poems. I don’t want to write them. I don’t necessarily long to write poems in general, let alone poems about fear and pending doom.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine
and mine alone.
You can’t conceive of my middle of the
night terror. In this one a train is about
to run me over. There’s a white light,
the roar of several engines. But there is
no screeching of tires. It’s a train,
not an automobile.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine
and mine alone.
Without the constant hum of pending
humiliation, I wouldn’t know what to do.
At any moment my secret could stumble
into the daylight – that I’m a loser,
a fake, a fraud. I’m my own
Ponzi scheme of words that don’t mean
anything and character that only goes
as far as survival will allow.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine
and mine alone.
The dread and the horror are present.
They might be waiting to exact ruin,
but at least they have good attendance.
You can rely on the dread and the horror
like old friends who would do anything,
even lend you money, which is usually
a bad idea.
It is mine and mine alone. Leave me alone.
As far as sleep goes, that helps for a while,
but there’s nothing more annoying than
waking in the middle of the night to the
dread and the horror. You can feel them
girgling in your soul, and who wants that?
If you’re gonna have a girgle,
let it be a cheese and onion hoagie you ate
way too late. At least that’s real.
Leave me alone with my fear. It is mine.
For the most part, I’m a rather happy-go-lucky slacker who talks on the radio. I’m not Edgar Allen Poet with a dark side. It must be
The rain
The bombing
The Donald
The rain
We’re almost to the end of Another Thousand Words. I’ll bet you can’t wait. If you’re here for talk about My Radio Life and not about my fear, sorry about that. But like I said, I get the feeling from listening to callers, from watching the television, from trolling around Facebook, from looking into faces… that I’m not the only one. I could be wrong, but at least we made it to Another Thousand Words together. Time to get my fat ass out of bed and into radio clothes. Good morning, by the way.
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