What are we gonna do now~?

Everyone says they just want what’s best—
for freedom, for hope, for development and progress—
just support the one who yells it out best.
But what do we mean
when we say words like that?
We never do manage to say where they go—
the people you mean? Oh honey no, the money!

You know, that’s what travels most.
Beyond borders and visas, no need for a check,
it’s money they send and money they get.
“The people!” they cry, “we must make them safe—
for freedom and hope and more commercial space!”

So generously our companies fund
development, factories, and don’t forget guns!
It’s all out of care, we act on principle,
to rescue from fear those dollars we hold so very dear.
For companies, they tell me, are people too!
So don’t forget we owe them their due.

People or profits—the question is skewed,
for profits are people if you take the Friedman view.
Free markets for growth, free markets for progress,
free markets free men from the need for the docket.
Freedom and principle, oh I heard you clear,
but my question remains:
is it freedom for people or money you hold dear?
Jara, Walsh, Letelier, and more,
did these men die on freedom’s door?
Or did misdefined freedom cost their countries more?

Watch out what you’re funding, my countrymen proud,
for the cost of our neglect will not go unfound.
I believe your compassion still can grow,
but wake up now and make it boldly known
before hands moved by greed redefine what it means
to face the world from the American scene.

"Get off the streets!!"

Spheres of life
We gaze back through
As one might lift a concave lens,
Casting images in an outward spiral
That reach farther than they should—

From the shard of glass between your fingers
The colors of another world,
Of a time when you were happy
That could not have existed
Without casting aside the world before it,
The other lenses in your pocket.

The shaft of light that filters here
Is only wide enough for one
And to cast these pearly memory stones
The active part of that place and time
Must be consecrated as finished and done—
The cost of new experience
the loss of a previous one,
Life’s exclusive velvet table
With rules for every hand
Where time attached to one bright chip
Can not engage another.

Treat them gently,
Or draw what you see
With feverish intensity;
One harsh clash by will or miss
And all the glass will shatter down
To shuffled colors on the floor,
Senseless even when adored.

Watching eyes
Beg explanation
Where none exists.

The pride
Of silence
Refuses to dissolve.

Reasons
That never had root
Are imagined in place.

I had a very fragmentary dream...

There was a winding river-type fountain at the front of one building, but the flow of water through it was only a trickle. Having spent a little time around the place, I knew I really liked the structure, and I wanted to help set it to rights—to do whatever I could to raise the water. The shape of it was such that there were two ends on opposite sides inside the building, where the track dove in a curve from along the floor, up a plexiglass slot of several feet, then straight down through the floor in the same plexi structure, towards the more natural origins of wherever the water was fed from. Connecting these two distant points was the body of the fountain, winding through the origin rooms, through pockets in the walls to other rooms, and finally across the exterior front of the building.

I was attracted to the concept of it, just disappointed that it apparently didn’t really work. I walked up to the people who were in front of the building and asked them to tell me where I should dig to fix the water. They didn’t really have any response, so I decided to go take a look at each end. I walked to the one on the right first, but it was so structured and enclosed there was no way for me to affect it. I moved on to the left side, but this too was identical to the right. I peered as far down the vertical drop as I could, but it looked as though the space below became a natural cliff face, with the water traveling ‘naturally’ on its track upward. I began to think the flow was just limited by these delivering plexiglass boxes, which were after all very narrow—wide but flat—compared to the open-air parts of the fountain. What filled them to full capacity was perhaps just not enough for the other segments, but the structure being particular and connected unconventionally just so, there was no remedy.

I sat off to the side of the room by a broad glass window, disappointed, and was quickly approached by a slight man with tousled brown hair. I had the notion, quietly added to the scene, that this place was a university, and after a long time of inactivity, I was here because I was trying to take a few classes. It was a very comforting structure to return to, with its predictable demands and personalities. In any case, this man approaching me in so casual a way was, for that reason, not so remarkable. I was seated on the floor, and he came and perched beside, having not been far from there before I entered. He could tell I was disheartened, and reached out directly to touch my arm. Uncertain and not wanting to be rude or strange, I didn’t react, keeping a mask of accepting calm. We spoke some, but I can’t remember the words.... I leaned my head back against the warmth of the glass, receiving the afternoon sun, and closed my eyes for a moment. He sat quietly beside, engaged in his own tasks, but staying near.

It reminds me of Moody Library’s lobby maybe, in retrospect. People would pass by who recognized him and say a few words as they went. I hid behind closed eyes for much of it, though I listened. At one point, someone came whom I knew, and gave me some short news that started a few quiet tears in my eyes, though I can’t remember what it was about. Without word or pause, the man beside me placed a tissue in my hand near my face, and continued on with his own affairs, showing sympathy without overt attention in a way that suited me perfectly. My thoughts toward him warmed greatly for this. But, some hours after the start, it was clear class sessions were changing, and I too had to move on.

I shifted and stretched deliberately, looking over to him to say thank you for the company, how kind he was, and that I had to go. He rose automatically beside me, asking “really?” now with full familiarity. I did like him, but also there was no question about my separating myself from this scene—I had come to this place with someone, and I fully intended to return to that person. We had gone separate ways with different tasks, but the connection between us was without question, even if I had felt distant for some time now. It was time to return, and I was full ready. So, I told the person beside me now that, yes, I definitely had to go. But, in playfulness, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and pretended he would go wherever I did. I laughed a little, uncomfortable now and conscious of the public eyes around the room, and pretended to scrape him off along the nearby wall. He didn’t let go. I was wishing that other person would pass by to change the social footing, or, struck with a sudden uncertainty, at least hoping when I did evade this one I could find the other at all. I wasn’t sure where they'd gone; I only vaguely expected to find them on the higher floors of the long building.

Maybe that person and I are like the fountain. What we have between us is not, to the usual observer, nearly enough. And yet, being distant, individual people as we are, accustomed to being alone, it is as much as our personal souls can handle. The result is highly imperfect...but then so is all of life.