Monday, November 28, 2005

Saddam and Me

Some of you know that Saddam Hussein and I communicate by mail and have done so even before his friends in the U.S. Defense Department turned on him because of his intended Petro-Euro conversion. Until that time American was happy to supply him with all of the technology needed to perform whatever atrocities he was supposed to have performed but which, I assure you, were totally in line with the standard activities expected of- make that required of- a Mid-East dictator.

Saddam never had the manufacturing infrastructure of the Israelis when is came to pounding their termite Palestinian population. By default Saddy (as he has asked me to call him) had to rely on external providers like us. Well, friends do fall out and never more so than when money is involved.

But I digress. Anyway, Saddam had sent me a copy of "Zabiba and the King" (his first novel). He liked the review I wrote and so, naturally, "The Fortified Castle", "Men and the City" and finally, "Be Gone Demons!" followed. This led to a sort of friendly intimacy that one might not expect between two men of different political outlooks, but our common literary aspirations eventually formed a bond.

Over the course of our communications we began to exchange poetry and I was quite struck by Saddy's sensitivity and blunt honesty in verse. Sometimes the full measure of the man is most clearly seen in his verse where, in combination with his muse he can most finely articulate the deeper portion of his essential nature.

Last year I posted some of Saddy's prison verse and I am of a mind to repost it now. Many new readers have come to the tiny little internet pond known as Smoking Mirrors. It is only fair that they should gain some insight into this man as he faces his long ordeal before the American Oil Tribunal.

As Saddy is led up four flights of stairs in four sets of shackles each day due to a busted elevator, let us peer into the mind of this complex soul whose true yearnings were always toward a greater expression of his more sensitive side. Unfortunately for him, as is the case with many of us, the duties of his material obligations have overshadowed his contributions to the world of art and academe.

Here are some selections from the poetry of Saddam Hussein. It is my hope that it will provide some insight into a part of Saddy that few of us have had the opportunity to view. As you can see, his mind is often occupied with that original cigar store Indian George W. Bush. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

First, some Haiku-

i met george w bush
at a satanic mixer
he blows me in Hell

Carlyle was my friend
until like Noriega
my world was downsized

I had the bush twins
not an entertaining ride
camels are much better



"I am waiting"

My country is gone
now it is a construction site
for the apocalypse
I should have taken the money but
I was proud

the Baghdad bootie bandits
ass rape my nation
pornography and liquor
pour into her streets

that's democracy for you
you can have it even if
you don't want it

I am now waiting for the first signs
to go up on billboards across the land
Allah's Fast Falafels-
a division of Burger King



"My People"

I knew my people were stupid
And I knew they were better off
I did not know that the American people were
even stupider than mine

they believe everything they are told
it does not matter how outrageous the lie
my people did not believe everything I told them
but they knew better than to say anything.

I had to routinely kill
so many every day
Love is good but fear is better

In America it is not necessary to kill anyone
What a nation of cowards
I have never before seen slaves who were
unaware of their station
and arrogant about it.

They will leave Iraq without the oil
they will leave bloody and ashamed
they will proclaim another victory
and give Palestine the blame.



"Pussy Boy George"

little georgie bush is my pussy boy
yes, we knew they would win the battle
just as we will win the war.

you cannot win a war waged by a pussy boy;
a pussy boy who was afraid to go to war
a pussy boy who hid and did drugs while others died
a pussy boy who was a cheerleader in college
he has no respect
he is a wooden Indian
he cannot hold Bill Clintons cigars

he is a tin horn dictator
I am a real dictator
I will see little georgie bush again
I will see him without his armies
without his money
I will see him in Hell and then
I will fuck him and I will pass him around

Hell will not be pretty for georgie bush
Hell is for hard men like me.



and he even wrote a Limerick...

There once was a psycho from Crawford
a really low rent Peter Lawford
he killed and he lied
and boy he was wide
he took every dime that was offered



Good luck Saddy. I know it isn't any comfort but even now, personalized scaffolds are being constructed on the Briatic plane for your former comrades in arms. You will be reunited in the hotlands where a new and more fiery passion will someday ignite you all into a more precise expression of what you should have been had you known better. I look forward to seeing you in good service and suplice on the grand day of your long return.

Visible sings: 911 was an Inside Job by Les Visible♫ The Bush Family Manson ♫
'The Bush Family Manson' is track no. 7 of 10 on Visible's 2002 album
'911 was an Inside Job'

About this song (pops up)

911 was an Inside Job by Les Visible

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Gang-Raping Pollyanna

Contrary to the howling, disclaiming mobs of neo-cons slathering like wharf rats near the guy lines of their sinking ship, the memo about bush’s statement concerning the bombing of Al Jazzera is true. That much is indisputable. What might be disputable is how real his intentions were. Taken in the context of the general madness of the boy king we can pretty much guarantee he was sincere. Taken in the context of Britain’s Official Secrets Act we can further guarantee it to be true. We don’t just have the smoke from the fire. We have the flames and the noxious smell of the fuel.

Galileo is long dead but we have the assurance that those who want to burn him at the stake still remain. The Sun, unmoved by this, continues to maintain the Earth in its orbit.

The more terrifying realities are not what bush has said and done so far at the behest of his handlers. They are not the recent findings concerning the Diebold polling software. They are not the hot raids into Syria and the US-British-Israeli car-bombings in Iraq, nor are they some piece of the thousands of bits of glaring evidence- or even all of the evidence taken in toto. The more terrifying realities are that this administration has 3 years to go and… what we haven’t seen in consideration of what they intend.

From the crushing legislations that, in all respects, deprive the poorest among us for the benefit of the richest, to the world wide disorder everywhere in evidence it is clear that no good can come from this fascist movement save for the great and universal joy that will be experienced upon their passing. And pass they will.

I cannot fathom what it is in the human psyche that permits so many people to believe the obvious lies. I do not understand how those who are being crushed in the machinery can so willingly support those who operate it. The myth of Al Qaeda is a bankrupt fairy tale. There’s no Bin Laden and there’s no Al Zawqawi. There are only outraged populations that resist criminal occupation. There was no Arab bombing of the World Trade Center. The sheer weight of the evidence is so great that the missing pieces are no longer important. The walking, talking duck is a duck and that’s all there is to it.

Perhaps one of the hardest features of compassion is to feel pity for those whose stupidity is beyond measurement. The recent mob actions in Texas and Florida (no surprise about the states involved) at various retail outlets speak volumes about the maturity of the American public. The free fall rate of dumbing down implies that some may go from two to four legs in the space of a single generation. It really is hard to believe. I rather suspect it isn’t Jesus who is coming for these people although a shepherd of some sort is altogether likely.

The hot pressing body of materialism; that’s got to be it- somehow the fascination with the objects of the sensory realm has lowered world IQ to the point that Howdy Doody is the new Da Vinci. Daily, the quality of everything is watered down. How far is down? It’s way, way down.

It brings up an interesting question. How will people who have become too wide to pass each other in a shopping aisle factor against the retailers need to provide maximum product in minimum space? How will such people manage to press and riot after goods when they can’t get through the aisles? Who are these people? Gerry Springer’s children have inherited the Earth.

Surely some of you who studied physics and related sciences must still remember some of what you learned. Some memory of the various theorems must still be lodged in the fatty portions of the brain’s pressboard. Extrapolating out in my own eccentric manner I must ask you; what is the cultural result of ‘stupid’ imploding? What happens when you become increasingly less well equipped to deal with ever more sophisticated requirements for existence? What happens when all of the sophisticated devices are manufactured for the purpose of entertainment and convenience alone? What is the factor of ipod volume to vehicle speed as it relates to your crossing the street for a Big Mac family pack?

If these people are having children what are they teaching them? What’s dinner like at that house? Where did Attila come from? It seems that in every time there has always been a barbarian horde of lean-muscled and hungry fighters forming in some wasteland far away from the splendored streets of Rome and… somehow they found their way there.

Oh, I believe it must be necessary. It must be necessary because it keeps happening and new cultures and civilizations continue to rise from the bloody froth of sacked cities and blasted landscapes. All of these barbarians aren’t massing in Mongolia or beneath the crust of the Earth. A great many of them are inside the gates of everywhere. While Pollyanna is listening to The Spice Girls and dreaming about Prince Benetton, a carload of ‘ain’t got nothing to lose’ boys are cruising up her street.

Nobody seems to see this. Nobody seems much to care. Somehow it’s still in the theater. It’s on a screen as life apart from life happening to somebody else. Where do you wind up if you follow someone who doesn’t know where they are going? What does it mean when the most prosperous nation on Earth needs more police than free fire zones? There’s math that handles these sorts of computations but people don’t seem moved to pursue or apply it.

If you take 90% of the people and you slowly crush them together to make space for the hi-life routines of 10% you can expect that a spontaneous encroachment is on the way. Some day the nut-jobs at the Wal-Mart are going to be climbing all over each other in new locations.

You get sick and you get better, or you get sick and then you die. It’s the same for a June-bug as it is for a person as it is for a nation. Police aren’t very effective facing in two directions at the same time. Where is the threat coming from? Who? What? Where?

Satisfaction is a state of mind. It isn’t a self-stocking feedbag. It’s like all the work that goes into getting to an orgasm; the rituals and meetings, the conversations and lies, the space station docking procedures and costs of environments and amenities and enhancements and then… spurt and then… what? You can’t design a culture around the schematic of a monkey with buttons for food and drugs. If the monkey doesn’t understand what’s going on; if the monkey thinks it can pull the avocado out of the clay pot with its fist it’s a dead monkey. If a handful of smarter, but still stupid monkeys are leading a nation of monkeys in the pursuit of monkey business then the results should be painfully clear to everyone but the monkeys. But that’s how monkey are and that’s what monkeys do.

You must first enslave yourself to become a slave; even if it is with the assistance of others already enslaved by whatever it was that convinced them you were meat. Pollyanna is gonna wake up in the alley in a stew of blood and semen and she is probably going to cry and ask herself, “Why me?” Don’t ask.

Visible sings: The eponymous Les Visible Music Album♫ My Pickup Truck got Pregnant ♫
'My Pickup Truck got Pregnant' is track no. 1 of 10 on Visible's eponymous
'Les Visible' Music Album

Lyrics (pops up)

The eponymous Les Visible Music Album

Thursday, November 17, 2005

What You See Is Not What You Get.

There are various ways to fool people. One of them is to tell them what they want to hear. That sounds like a funny example doesn’t it? Yet people are fooled this way all the time, fooling themselves first. Then there is “the hand is quicker than the eye” which often includes misdirection to enhance the subterfuge. Another way people are fooled is in their natural inclination to believe authority. For instance, if some one asks me what my source is; why do I need a source? Do you ask the New York Times what their source is? Often, they are the source; being the paper of record means being the source sometimes, even if you are quoting unidentified sources or anonymous high ranking members of the administration. People are inclined to believe their leaders. It’s too scary to consider that they are lying to you. And why would they lie to you? That is the $64,000 question. You can get two toilet seats and a hammer for that.

People buy into lies for a lot of reasons; they are basically dishonest, they share in the profits, they are afraid, they are stupid, they are confused or they live in Alabama. People also believe if they just go along they will get along. Don’t make waves and maybe the boat will get to shore. You can lose your job if you open your mouth, that’s been happening a lot lately. You can go to jail and never get out. Never has the cost of telling the truth been so high. Never has it been so risky to stand up and be counted in the cross hairs.

Some time ago Guiliana Sgrena got kidnapped by alleged insurgents in Iraq. From what we know about so much of what goes on there, there is no telling who these insurgents were. We’ve got a lot of evidence these days in the form of phony Bin Laden videos, fake Al Qaeda cells in Palestine that are staffed by Mossad members.

Al Qaeda in Palestine

We’ve got camouflaged Brits posing as Arabs with carloads of explosives. We’ve got far more evidence of consistent lying, skullduggery and horrific abuse than we have of anything remotely resembling democracy in action. Italian national hero Nicola Calipari rescued her and then died in a hail of gun-bullets courtesy of American forces. Much has been said about what happened there and the preponderance of evidence clearly shows that it was a calculated assassination attempt. You see, Sgrena had proof of a massacre in Faluja; proof of the use of napalm and phosphorus, proof of wholesale slaughter, the strafing of Red Cross vehicles, proof of ugly, ugly things.

Now you’ve got the Italian film that shows what happened and takes us back to what happened with Sgrena, sort of like one and one is two; or is one and one still two? Beauty is only skin deep but white phosphorous burns all the way to the bone.

I don’t know that it matters in the minds of many American and UK people. They are all at a distance from this and what do they care? It’s just something they saw on TV. Tucker Carlson will explain it; if there ever was a cat that needed a few years in an ethnically mixed state prison it is Carlson. “You can leave your bow tie on. You can leave your bow tie on.”

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, one ugly psychopathic stunt after another comes up in the windshield. Relentlessly, the neo-cons at work the world over are just cutting people and countries to pieces. So much evidence has been added up and added to that the camel, the camel’s back and everybody the camel knows and the landscape as far as the camel used to be able to see is buried under a mountain of straw.

In any system, be it natural or political or economic- balance is key to stability. Upset the balance of nature and you see what you get. Skewer the balance politically and either revolution or massacre will follow eventually. Tilt the economic balance to where a handful of Animal Farm characters own nearly everything and… suffering, want and death will follow and will begin to spread because, after all, when you want it all you can never have too much.

Yes, of course they used banned weapons of the sort that we went into Iraq to find but knew were not there so… what the Hell, let’s bring some of our own and use them on them; we’re all about irony here. Oh, and could you give me a couple of cartons of depleted Uranium too? Just put it on my bill.

So, unless you live under a rock; and I mean that in every sense, you know that these beasts in human form are being just as bad as they can be. You know they’ve got a dancing Halloween skeleton called Al Qaeda that goes into your living room window. You know that since the US has turned supreme in firepower its time for Imperial Rome again, only this time it's not the one in Italy.

What is it about nations and their citizens that once you get on top you naturally feel entitled to shit all over everybody else? Because, unless you live under a rock you can see what is happening. It is clear as daylight that you are either really, really stupid or really, really indifferent and, mind the bottom line.

I have asked people how they can believe as they do and I find their understanding of things and their access to a wider view is about as discerning as their taste in golf outfits. Unbelievably I have found that a lot of people really don’t care. It’s not happening down the street. It’s not happening in the living room except on the TV and all that is being explained. All through Vietnam the lies emerged and we now know what that was all about. Iran Contra, we know what that was about. Iraq, we know what that is about.

I haven’t been in the US for awhile. I don’t fare well there given my capacity to see and feel and comment on it. I hear its really grim now, or so my friends tell me. Yet, I find it hard to believe that most Americans support this. Do you really think this won’t come back on you some day? Are you so incurious or stupid that you actually think the WTC buildings came down at the speed they did right into their own footprints? Has it become impossible to organize at all? And what happened to the opposition? How did everybody in Congress turn into a yellow-tailed flounder?

I see it happening every day. I watch the course of the world as it turns. I wonder about Sgrena and the shooting and the real reasons behind the French riots and how France and America have been getting along. I study all of the incidences of Americans and others masquerading as something else while perpetrating the acts they accuse the people they are killing of perpetrating. I see this trend of constant lies and violence and misrepresentation. I see it every day. And I see the sad, thick, obese, cotton candy minds of the addicts junked out on a poisonous cartoon culture and I think… Let me see how far back I can sit while this goes down. I’d do most anything to help but I’m no longer sure what that might be. I have been concerned with what I see on the horizon for the human race, yet some portion of them seems eager for it. It’s just another kick on the way. Maybe it’s a new thrill?

Imperial Rome went away and you can see how and why. It is amazing how much this culture presently mirrors it in decline. Sometimes all you can do is get on your water buffalo and ride out through the gates in the Great Wall of China. I’ve a lot of respect for the man who did that. Sometimes there just isn’t anymore to say when so many people just don’t seem to care.

You hear a lot these days about this so-called Asian Bird flu. Believe me, that’s the least of your concerns. You’ve got several other viruses far more deadly; the virus of ignorance and indifference will kill you while you are still walking around. How deep into your own flesh do you have to go before you just don’t see or hear anymore? Measure where you are now and tell me how deep is that?


"9/11 Dreaming in a World of Flesh"


flesh

in a world of flesh

sees flesh only

the heart and the mind may suspect
but still too often
see
flesh only

back of the flesh in the world of gears
manipulated triggers pull at the limbs
that dance in the world of flesh

orchestration
and the high art of fraud
are an easy task
in the world of flesh

and the tumbling bodies hit
and the dust rolls in clouds from the streets
but another dust comes
from the smoke machines
and the mirror exchange of the press

some say the Arabs were angry that day
some say there's more to the ruse
beneath the veils are a number of things
that
SOMEONE
has put to good use

other intentions have come through the fire
and now they would burn the world

the convenient timing

the fabulous deaths

the great down winding
diminished regrets

in the unseeing world of flesh

now comes
the junk and the tedious songs
on and on
ad nauseum

the Twin Towers Watch
the speeches and banners

"on Comet and Cupid"

and Tiny Dancer

the peacocks are fanning

the demagogues struttin'

the survivors are jostlin'

through cables and grips

very important envelopes of flesh will
inflate their gills
with the shimmering scales of eminence

and gravitas

and their importance as flesh

and

remind
you
of
that

and... remind you... of that


it goes on forever

it lasts for an age

and-
….. THERE'S NO MORE FUCKING ROOM ON THE STAGE!

for the flesh

that encompasses space in a world of flesh

forget Rwanda,
Sierra Leone

the Congo?

where that's at?

I lost my cell phone

where's my goddamn latte?

is this lettuce fresh?

it's so hard for me
in this world of flesh

no one understands what it's like
for ME!

no one understands!

I don't understand

"why can't we all just get along?"

in the world of flesh

in the world of flesh

flesh expands and presses out over the clothing
and all restraint

flesh billows with the fruit of appetite

the soft melting encapsulated lard
of chewy TV goodies

and somebody

somebody...

blew up the church of the flesh

the goalposts of the empire of flesh
came down

the towers of flesh motivating upwards

the upwardly mobile flesh

flesh...

the lightening struck tower

somebody....

somebody....

now walk with me...
take a walk with me…

behind the world of flesh

back into the gears

back behind the tech's

behind the bankers

behind the money

behind the images

behind the ideas

behind the numbers

and behind the initial divide

far from the world of flesh you have

the uninvited guest

the forgotten lover

the fruit of desirous quest

someone forgot

SOMEONE FORGOT!

a lot of fragmented flesh puppets forgot

a whole lot of somebody
seriously forgot

to invite God into the world of flesh

and God showed up anyway

like the sword

as the spirit-
informing matter of it's presence

but it will never do to look for truth in the rubble

it will never do to think in terms
that flesh cannot accept

it will never do to consider
the absolute precision of the act

the fluid grace

that caught everyone flat footed
with a stupid look on their face

things can only be a certain way in the world of flesh

the impermanent flesh demands it

the vanishing melting vulnerable flesh is trumpeting

and cannot hear beyond it's own noise

the flesh is God unto itself

in the land of stuff

where stuff is God

there is never enough
there is NEVER enough...

just the wanting of the flesh
in a landscape of desired things

the temporary paradise on disappearing wings

rage on flesh

RAGE ON!

wrap yourself in the colored images of dream

wrap yourself in the vain exhortation

wrap yourself in the clamoring

clanging detuned symbols
of the empire of flesh

scream
and laugh

and weep
and carry on

it is never a moment too soon
in a world that is too soon gone

one should never disturb the dangerous dreams
of the lords of the kingdoms of flesh

the heart and the mind may suspect

but they can't get there yet

the tiny voice in the silence may speak

but cannot be heard

not in the world of flesh

sometimes a greater noise is needed

from the lover you have forgotten

the lover
who
has not forgotten
you…

I know you're in there….

[BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!!!]

“I KNOW YOU"RE IN THERE!!!!!!”

[BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!!!]

“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!!!!!!!”

I know you're in there...

hidden in a world of flesh.

Buried in a world of flesh