The Sunny Sunday.

It was such a beautiful day this Sunday.

Mitchell and I made our veggie patch.

And I planted our potatoes too.

Dad, Mom & Craig put up the fence on our Belle's new play pen!

She can't wait to move in!

The World Woke Up.

 

 

Please don't open your eyes.

The world is wrong today.

I don't want you to see it.

Those dreams of burning cars, of bankers crying in the streets, of the earth shaking, they're not dreams.

Just stay warm for now.

Just for a little while now.

Before it hits.

Before it takes.

Nine Eleven.

There's a scary anniversary coming, and unless you've been floating in a pool of mercury, behind the walls of sealed cavern, within the bowels of an arctic mountain, screaming to yourself, as loud as you can, then you've already heard a lot of about it. A lot. And this is just the prelude.

Saddam Hussein would have called it the Mother of All Anniversaries. Then again, look where his talent for hyperbole got him.

It all reminds me of some sinister motion picture from the fifties, when black and white film was either overexposed or starless, just shades and shapes in shifting ashes, and everything cued by racing violins. Clouds boiling in the half darkness - monstrous static-filled cumulonimbus, flickering with the shredded hearts of crumbled lightning, spitting leaden tears and electric venom in the shape of sharpened crosses.

America is always compelling, fascinating, the big man in the room. Only now we have the brooding colossus, still movie-star handsome and commanding, but slumped by the window of his crumbling fortress, seemingly under siege, staring out over a devastated landscape. Is it real or imagined? He sees the menacing smoke on the distant horizon but none of the fires in his own fields. There are masked men and peasants, bombs and scraps. Why do his thoughts seem so illogical? He mumbles. He threatens the twilight, and then the rain. The rest of the world wonders - is this a giant traumatized, a golem in the grips of a terrible dream, or has the light gone forever, and a certain madness descended?  I guess what I am really asking: is this anniversary about memory or a haunting?

Ten years, two wars, thousands murdered, tens of thousands killed, millions ruined, billions spent, a ill-fated cowboy, a hollow professor, bag men and crooks, hate-filled fanatics, lie machines and fear factories, the city on the hill surrounded by guard dogs, barking at the night. But everyone's still hoping for a happy ending, because as America goes, so does the weather, and all the lights that follow.

The Shooting Cloud.

If you're tired of trying to fall asleep, sleep on it and try again tomorrow.

If you're all out of promises, I have one left for you: The Earth is still here as long as you're alive.

If you want to yell out your frustrations, I'll understand, just understand that the whole world is screaming, mostly complaining about the noise.

If you're worried about having the poetry knocked out of you when you're older, don't. Old blood bleeds as good as new.

If you've got nothing left to feel, just pay the bill and walk away.

If there's anything else, let me know.