120720 20:20 storm aurora co

His face was a cyclone of anguish especially his eyes otherwise normal in all regards.
I'd once said 'You are a bigot' and seen him gyre through the ceiling shaking like a leaf new bud its first rain storm.

We've become better acquainted since my accusation to which he asked, “Do you know what a bigot is?” In sotto voice replying “of course I am one as well for God.”

He stormed away slamming the door obligated to conduct a class saying; “We'll settle this later” and never did. Though in reply, “I look forward to anything you offer.”

Last evening his son called from the site in Aurora Colorado where a significant number were killed and many more wounded lives saying, “Dad we were to have attended the event but chose otherwise.”

Had I a weapon as functional as a hand gun or assault rifle I'd have killed myself long ago instead of another.

As for my former bigotry I now have none knowing that instead of killing my self or another I might as well stay another day lending a hand God has none.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

Eyewitness Jacob Stevens, 18, and his mother, Tammi Stevens, walk away after police interviewed Jacob about the Aurora, Colo., shootings. Other families waited for news. (R.J. Sangosti, Denver Post/ July 20, 2012)
I lifted this off the net please credit LA Times and the dude what took the pix.

120720 1605 Madalyn Rand Duttra happy 15^th

I ain’t noting special to see, nothing special bout me, pardon me while I disappear –loose remembrance of a phrase from “Take The A Train to Harem” – Duke Ellington

. . . I hear music differently now that dad's dead and gone ashes divided between Spratt, Ohio & Old Greenwich, Connecticut, St. Saviors with Georgia Potterton Spratt both places . . . I think . . . ashes i'll soon be too but blowing in the wind no monument nothing to see or remember of me happy with the birds i'll be.

I think what's wrong with me was he wanted a Mozart of me, put me at four years-of-age atop all the telephone directories he could beg borrow or steal and I fell off playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; on my head over and again.

. . .Not Twinkle, Twinkle but Bach, Stravinsky, Via Lobos, Fats Waller, Miles Davis and on and on and on played Kenton's City of Glass until my skull shattered reformed and shattered again and later when I met Maynard Ferguson asking him to please play Yesterdays again he replied, Jack I ain’t got the chops no more.

Watch me carefully I ad lib words and amongst musicians it is not uncommon to mimic the other race; like terms of endearment kiss. And in infancy for a long long long time afterwards I was suffused actually drown in music of all kinds. Yet now I weep more freely alone and sing song croaking like a dog with laryngitis and laughing hysterically shaking the stars blessedly alone am I now.

My only audience Annie and the sound of one hand –God?

But then before he'd given my name to a cat who loved me unconditionally previously.

He, dad, not the guy upstairs high above, said; “Play it eight/nine times over and hear it differently that's genius. LP Records 33 1/3^rd. He was correct but had no right to so groom me to be his slave. Giving me a nickle for every voice I could identify; oboe from English Horn; viola from violin from cello

. . . or like the manacles in Rev. John Rankin House, Ripley, Ohio no longer shown not politically correct or decorous who knows? I still weep for Liza crossing the ice flows with her baby in arms and now know we are related from Adam & Eve.

We are family.

I am a member of a subspecies of Homo erectus the species of mankind a mammal because as an infant I should but was not nursed from a breast. I like the legion of us was abandoned, trashed, beaten by rules & rods, kicked, stomped and emasculated by mom . . . oh I've got the equipment all right it's simply that once raped twice shy and like this legion I speak of ashamed to be what I am. Accused of incest and put into Coventry; Brit term for banished by silence; seen to avoid and ignore but otherwise there but not there.

Tomorrow is my grand babies birthday and I'm getting older by the minute too soon to die. I've no legal way of sending her a birthday card hard copy snail mail or electronic quick. She's not my anything except I love her so as I did and do her momma who . . . well . . . you know -- we own no one not even ourselves.

I'm the steal driving John Henry working against the machine, the company store holding my mortgage and script enslaved digging coal so the boss can bury the world in airborne mercury . . . I'm the slave with his toes chopped off so's he won't run away looking for his wife, his girl pregnant with the bosses sperm . . . I digress . . . when holding a dictionary reading it front to back back to front I get off so distant that not even God can see me or hear me now.

I had backstage access The Newport Jazz festival and found Miles Davis resting he was my god then, Maynard two and Chet Baker still are always in Heaven Gabriel there.

U spooze I gott an allergy? I can't stop crying now the reams of toilet paper stacked around me not enough I'll need a trailer truck backed up and the neighbors will complain and Annie and me in the street will be naked dance; me on a string and she with the tambourine.

& he dad said I'll punch your teeth out when I said I wanted to be Chet or Miles.

Instead he wanted a merchant prince and I like Francis naked left and I'm still crazy after all these years.

I love me crazy.

That's me Grampy Jack wishing you Madalyn Rand Duttra happy 15^th somebody please let her know I love her so . . . she wept when told she wasn't white and I weep for The Strange Fruit and Why the Caged Bird Sings grats Maya & Nina

PS

Kiss your momma for me I love her still & drink lot'sa black coffee thats the way I like my girls – real black & sweet.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

It is brave to be involved

To be not fearful to be unresolved.

"do not be afraid of no" from Annie Allen (1949) --Gwendolyn Brooks 

120719 21:20 conjecture

Could it be that women in giving birth, becoming new to them, that wonderful person powerful beyond imagining their influence upon the child and the inseminator obliged to raise up both to maturity?

In some way curious the mother of both?

Historically The Holy Virgin Mother Mary was worshiped more than He the little wippet of a boy and in life always a Jew. Then & Now Always in my heart. Seen the two of us chained to a naked tree and he battered and bruised by me terrified as the stone was scaped from above us and in the gloom I saw his brown eyes and broken nose in fear starring at me – where my dream stopped – but one of other times the last when He said, “You're on your own!”

. . . could I be the blest thief?

I confess. Often do I wonder what it was to be Her or Her Lover who inseminated her and then gave birth or the birthed?

Note: for those of us raped emotionally penetrated by hate and terror we remain virgin of soul impenetrable. And of these two events singular or serial always attend the Soul of you not the theft of your body and mind – giving the power to the ignorant and indifferent.

Get up move forward into the light of God who hurts nor causes hurt to anyone not even His only Begotten. The Son & The Mother become interchangeable think the Word held aloft upon entry the church his mother . . . ok . . . the processional—Thank You Sister Kieran Flynn your tender mercies & Sisters of Mercy

These elements were woven into the tapestry of my soul early on. At night loudly. Along with the plash of passing river boats, moan of trains passing across the Ohio River in Kentucky and the hiss of truck tires in rain speeding by or climbing up the gears outside the bed window of my heart

The root of my being a hard scrabble farmer my grandfather who killed himself with a shot gun & he never known except as a circuit riding Methodist Minister riding a Mule from one church to another. One by One through the month; all four of them ministered to. . . .Was he somewhat like my Great Father? And she my Great Mother who took me in when wrenched from her daughter my mother's arms regularly starting at five years of age. Again and again in body and dreams asking what is love? and why am i

What does it mean to love and be loved in return?

My family is now the staff and patients of The Mesilla Valley Hospice clinic called La Posada. Where my experience of being abandoned comes in too handy since it, the clinic, is my school at the knee of those I love mostly women but a few good men as well no boundaries between patient or staff or their families and friends.

Wisdom & Love are found in the mouths of babes laughing or crying or the dying brave or fearful and for the vital and thriving it is a smile and touch bathing in the ocean universe of empathy.

I am unschooled aside from what I told of my origins above, no degree above high school and thus unqualified as medico or chaplain but both in times of crisis when needed I am there my love conquering fear theirs and mine.

I know by legend my beloved “Brother” Jesus was like Osiris of long before Jesus' time and Isis. No one really knows sister, mother, goddess of course but what exactly was their relationship?

The Moon to the Sun. Like St. Francis & St. Claire or Saint Teresa of Avila & St. John of the Cross. My list of imaging grows longer minute by every breath and heart beat.

What is love between two? Reverence free of recompense. Freedom to come or go to be a self a soul beloved

Intrinsic two too souls genderless the exterior of identities are merely handles like prejudice.

And by her touch my beloved Sphinx of emerald eyes perfect nose toes and feet has healed me like Hecate . . . I know not whether to be thankful or terrified caught as I am in roleplay and the ordinary of my life. Day by Day I grow larger in heart and soul. Stronger at being my self never acknowledged as anything other than air or a bother now loved swimming in her eyes is joy beyond telling . . . bliss is too tame and she grew me into a man no longer a child seeking mirrors to tell me anything.

Of grief I know my own too well a broken and wounded heart never in the life healed but succor and nurture there found. A balm still. Even just hours before this and the attendance to those who need comfort was I yet again hysterical with grief like the internment of my beloved son for whom, like dad the lesser not The Big Gal/Guy above, I'd given up everything to tell them my love and help them love themselves.

Roles are for movies and plays love is friendship as was my son & dad & M&M love is personal between God and . . . who am I?

Or we?

I know love is what moves the stars in their courses, the wind beneath our wings and why hearts beat and when stopped we will know love better – period.

There are no swine like people to eat my pearls they are merely ignorant of being loved as I once was.

Oink

Be Well

. . . oh by the way the thief could have been God beside Jesus silent until pleading to join him, Jesus, in Heaven at Her/His right side . . . “why have you forsaken me? Let this cup pass from me weeping and sweating blood” . . .

PTSD or Rape or Murdered or Disappeared is:

Stand Up Move Forward Don't Look Back . . . science and thinking go only so far never farther, Wisdom is Good More Better than the former but best is experience. Rejoice, I say again, Rejoice and forgive – the greatest love

the end of fear and hate

maybe even war no more

amen

PS

Then too upon arrival at hospice the halyard clanging aloud tapping the aluminum mast struck rhythmically a reminder I'd forgotten to bless those POW & MIA “never forgotten” those who are lost to us to defend our right to vote

for tyranny?

There I've done it for you but you must define the value for yourself. No more blanks.

Then upon entry striding touched in passing they welcomed me the nurses as a brother they too far caressed me with their eyes unlike mothers flames Her touch never trusted

Grief is, for me at least, the destruction of all definitions mine included who remaining behind wonder why . . .

In closing I'd like to remember – was it Blood Sweat & Tears who sang the song: The child is the parent of the father.

Inspired by The Free Dictionary Page were I noticed that Aristotle tutored Alexander The Great; The once and future King. Who was I then and now and who was Randy then and Now?

The tuition for The University Of Hard Knocks is pain suffering optional . . . healing is a process not a magic bullet

. . . should I leave you now I'll be back sooner or later but be your own redeemer I know God within you I see it writ in the fabric of your being

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

120719 10:32 i owe

I know i owe many for their love and repay with interest and gratitude So off to school I go --
hospice to learn more & own my humility for the privilege of entering the great democracy due us one
and all without fear our true Home and Due Heaven adored by He who sent us here.

. . . an afterthought for all who fought on either and all sides my heroes dead or returned mutilated from aggression sent @ home or abroad be well Heaven is within you now and always blest --xoj

--Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (January 22, 1788 – April 19, 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential.

Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses including huge debts, numerous love affairs, and self-imposed exile. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know." He travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.

    Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would
    Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse!
    Strike!—and but once! --“--Marino Faliero” {anaphora--rhetorical form}

"A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!"
Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned Eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche – the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
--Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), line 590.
"Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep - for here There is such matter for all feelings: - Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear."
"Adversity is the first path to truth.”
"All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin."

    "Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine."

But now being lifted into high society,
 And having pick'd up several odds and ends
 Of free thoughts in his travels for variety,
 He deem'd, being in a lone isle, among friends,
 That without any danger of a riot, he
 Might for long lying make himself amends;
 And singing as he sung in his warm youth,
 Agree to a short armistice with truth.
--Don Juan (1818-24), Canto III, Stanza 83

But these are foolish things to all the wise,
 And I love wisdom more than she loves me;
 My tendency is to philosophise
 On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;
 But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies,
 What are we? and whence come we? what shall be
 Our ultimate existence? What's our present?
 Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.
-Don Juan (1818-24), Canto VI, Stanza 63.

"Friendship is Love without his wings!"
"Gone - glimmering through the dream of things that were."
"Hereditary boundsmen! Know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?"

"He who first met the Highlands' swelling blue
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue,
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace.
--The Island (1823), Canto II, stanza 12.

"I remember at Chamouni – in the very eyes of Mont Blanc – hearing another woman – English also – exclaim to her party – "did you ever see any thing more rural". --Journal entry for September 17, 1816.
“It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.”
"Letter-writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company."
"Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell The tortures of that inward hell."
“Smiles form the channels of a future tear.”
“The busy have no time for tears.”
“The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.”
“They never fail who die in a great cause.”
“Truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction." --Don Juan
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"
“It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.”
“Smiles form the channels of a future tear.”
“The busy have no time for tears.”
“The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.”
"The power of Thought, - the magic of the Mind!"
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
 Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.
--Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XI, Stanza 60.
“They never fail who die in a great cause.”
“Truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction." --in Don Juan
When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
 And proved it,—'Twas no matter what he said.
--Don Juan (1818-24), Canto IX, Stanza 1. Allusion to a dissertation by Berkeley on Mind and Matter, found in a note by Dr. Hawkesworth to Swift's Letters, pub. 1769.

sorry i've no time to make the above pretty If you wish I'll send it from my quote diary

120718 0800 brethren

Brethren I beseech you to become disciples of God. Not the one talked about as above but within your heart singing lullaby's.

Of  - By - Her/He Sent those preceding this moment in time yet of them now old hat it is we who are the new Ark of the Covenant sailing an ocean of stars His/Her sandbox of loving forgiveness.

Ignore me since i'm here only to brand you with yourself adored by The Only Brand Name worthy of your attention.


Coincident? Closure of above discovered:

http://www.101zenstories.com/index.php?story=90

090. The Last Rap
Tangen had studied with Sengai since childhood. When he was twenty he wanted to leave his teacher and visit others for comparative study, but Sengai would not permit this. Every time Tangen suggested it, Sengai would give him a rap on the head.

Finally Tangen asked an elder brother to coax permission from Sengai. This the brother did and then reported to Tangen: "It is arranged. I have fixed it for you start your pilgrimage at once."

Tangen went to Sengai to thank him for his permission. The master answered by giving him another rap.

When Tangen related this to his elder brother the other said: "What is the matter? Sengai has no business giving permission and then changing his mind. I will tell him so." And off he went to see the teacher.

"I did not cancel my permission," said Sengai. "I just wished to give him one last smack over the head, for when he returns he will be enlightened and I will not be able to reprimand him again."

. . . from the forever fool for love, still wounded but suffering not the pain & grief defined definitively as love as well let it be in you

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

120719 07:01 leadership

Of Leadership I've known a few women or men who merely human incarnated love as power not abuse or domination since in their time and place within the hour glass of eternity they chose to raise up replacements for when they the leaders fell out the bottom of time.

. . . the maelstrom of life is terminal. Of them For them words like love are meaningless so abused the coins of words become lied about to sell condoms cars condos & of them there need not be honor respect since in reality we are all one family of the same origins we children of God know our true Parent eternal friend and confidant who silently invites us to dance up close personal and eventually revealed the Beloved face to face

& of these few I've been given the privilege to stand near and seeing their genius unable to applaud since I humiliated became nothing, not person, or thing, but a witness their love incarnated in real time dancing the two step shuffle and glide or otherwise Bojangles

Beagles otherwise in mitered pointy hats red and gilt shoes ermine robes dog collars or not less noble than dogs prancing their egos so self congratulatory you know they who take instead of give

Even those unworthy am I to wash their stinky feet with my tears and dry with my hair . . .

Clown boy why do you weep?

& hoard toilet paper for your eyes?

. . . me?

Yes.

. . . only the dead know the end of war PTSD is ___________________ fill in the blank

amen

awomen

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved aka xoj ps be love for one another be well

120719 04:39 of mice

Of mice and mice, men & men, Dear Mr. Pope, I don't take shit from anyone, cross me and you're dead meat wrapped in cling frozen for left overs.

Yet for God dearly beloved you may splay and vivisect me anytime all the time for fucking ever.

In the silent still well a depth of tears shed goes all the way through to China and back again at times Maya some times magma yet at other times, I a journalist, witness to the viscera of life would contend like Prometheus with God the singular of or plural All of Them at once.

And he, my son, was always other, a nascent king, the future of all life, yet he died and I ate the big one – it was my fault. Even now at times I fall into the wet cold earth beside his diminutive Styrofoam coffin helpless, hysterical, with grief my silent scream shattering the knowable Universe & she stood with Nancy the Nurse frozen; dare I say what I saw frozen indifferent . . . it's best I left her . . . had I stayed the passion at times compassion would have destroyed her and I too would be held captive a ransom for justice without mercy yet like a quark passing though stones atoned * see please the woman at Walpole for burning her husband to death.

M knows, my beloved emerald eyed Sphinx, sees though me transparent as an empty glass leaving no shadow no prismatic rainbow of colors. Here snark boy have another testicle in your nose al-Qaida you haven't a clue what you're dealing with Rumi knows never having left the banquet feast of it all.

Addiction noun Being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming (especially alcohol or narcotic drugs) or power & greed -XOJ

"There is a great difference between satisfaction and satiation."- Mary Jane Sherfey

Poets know the seasons of hell and glory of infinity flown birds in space . . . were there time like eternity times a trillion I would know the minds of those beloved of me binged upon occasionally drunk and insane staring into the moon on fire.

Jonathan Winters & me or I or whatever touched with a tincture of insanity fuck the butterfly catchers waiting in the dark wings of this stage overwhelming force thanks but no thanks for the shower just insert me in the oven the gas roaring no ash nothing remains your guilt expunged like me.

I swim in urine the isle between those piss ants contesting stalemate congress of baboons savage cannibals of my beloved country tis of thee. I can I heal PTSD? I think so since I’ve been there done that have the tattoo and bumper sticker all over my psyche

What would Jesus look like returned pissed of never pissed on? Times all the poor now living ignored by greed indifferent?

Hell for you will not be fire or ice just being eaten alive and regurgitated to do it all over again pain unending like Commander Chuck E. Cheese cat and mouse we'll change roles so I can know better how to play you.

I am your surrogate father. The Fargo Shredder will feel like play in the park with Winnie the Po and Froggie nothing so grand as mucking about in small boats smiling. It's not about the money honey it's about cruelty towards dad my friend and your victim.

--Max Ehrmann (Desiderata)

" . . . do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here."

--Steve Martin

I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was - an Arctic region covered with ice.

--C. S. Lewis

Authority exercised with humility, and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.

Dear Mr. Thought Policewoman/man remember this is poetry of a sort not actionable under Mr. Bush, now a “poor fucking civilian”, otherwise known as “PFC” though he never really earned the honorific of “President and Commander & Chief” or “PFC” as a draft dodger not attending drills posing with Aircraft Carriers or in a war plane. . . .In a penny arcade of thoughts sold like condoms to children who cannot read having no time in their lust.

No I am not an enemy combatant. Just a ofttimes lunatic jester ready to die for my country or the right, as Voltaire said, of free speech; meaning your right to be a goddamned fool.

PS

Without free speech this is not a country sovereign or otherwise it is a dictatorship of ideology inimical to God who in wisdom and mercy gave all Free Will.

No lemmings need apply.

In ideal transparency I have included quotes from iGoogle collected while looking up the correct spelling of al-Qaida. Indicative of my dialog with the truth I am motivated by.

We are what we consume and the keeper kept.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved