new poem by brigade member John Curl

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

an exploitation of human labor business

a looking out for number one business

a make your pile and get out business

a boss order abomination business

a whatever the market will bear business

a cheat lie steal business

a do what you're told or else business

a degradation inflation depression toxic wastes business

a hemorrhoids beat your best friend business

a draft plutonium gangster business

an atomic dust imperial world war three business

a business as usual business

where is the honesty of penguins?

where is the justice of sunrise?

must free people be prepared to sleep as well

in garages, under bushes or in dreams?

even at this moment the boardmembers meet

in the condemned sewer to divide our livers

into exacting shares, sealing the fate

of munition profits on

our ability to have children

a rapture stars tumble along your spine business

a fields of orange poppies spread their knees to the mountains of your eyes business

a mass demonstration rubbed with alchemical smoke business

a conch shells withdrawing energy from stuffed ballot boxes business

a lifting the consecrated picket line to the east business

a boycott all businesses business

a submachineguns melt in cops screaming hands business

a collectivizing your boss' business business

an abolishing business

a taking care of business

New poem by jimmy.mankind

 the beach the sea

The old man strewn prone upon a green blanket when we arrived.   I’d say 11, she 11:30.

She, Marie, a meticulous clock, a camera, voice recorder meme artist supreme, was correct.

The sun-baker began making for us croissants of our bodies.

Avoiding a death wish, small scale, pain at least: at 12 we oiled each other.  At 12:15 the old man rose and waddled w/ gritty determination  was it determinism?

into the older, colder sea

I casually observed at 1^st a brave ol’ soul. 

Then a start, while he drove himself relentlessly into the oncoming waves as if he was wading to Japan.   You can walk out here a quarter mile before you have to jump for air.

A refrigerator, probably from Fukushima, glided by him inbound.  It stuck, sunk dumbly into the sand, tired-as-work from the battering trip

(excessive  agitation for a fridge).

It wormed into the sand and began to wriggle into its new continent with each thrusting undulation of its odd friends: the currents, tides, and myriad procrastinations of the sea.

The old man shrank to a mere head-bulb   bobbing alone past the easy shore-breakers.   He was approaching the big ones out past the flats before the solitary floating surfers.   He was their guest now.

You gasped.

“Get him!”  You said firmly.

I grimaced. 

I did not want to tell you this in your innocence:  “Darling.  There are 3 types of people, besides the one type you are.  There are the losers, the winners, and their thugs.   Which is he?”

You hit me.

“Save him!” you commanded.

I remember looking at you as at a goddess, #8886 of the Upper 10,000.  

Prosperity.   Luck.

I rose and started out to sea.

I could barely see him plowing ahead--away--from the swells which rose up like whales beneath my icy belly.

OK.  I’d told you.

But i was not.

i wanted to be with you forever…so bad i left you for Japan.

So bad i left You for japan.

---o---

This is the poem I would have read to you so many times before the times when I was hurt and could not think of it within my pain, which was busily teaching me another poem a song of longing to be whole and free/i think now. 

i forget more now.  marie

i know i am too tired to reach japan.

i cannot even see the old man’s head any more.

This is my attempt—a dream of mine as i go now--out to sea as you suggested—to write the very best poem I ever could--so heavy yet so light upon the wings of a swimmer--ever written…as time floats perfectly…

To give to you.

i realize now, how, i barely, if ever did, faintly, know you…

me…

the cold old man,  his green blanket.

the beach.

the sea.

Marie…

This is the best day of my life.

©  jimmy.mankind@gmail.com