Jeff McCallum

I regret that my father " went on tour" before his heart could be warmed by the results of the election.

As my friend Warren Bowles of the Mixed Blood Theatre reminded me it was in 1968 that Bobby Kennedy projected a "Negro" President a possibility in forty years or so. A lifetime and a moment ago.

The eloquence with which our President Elect speaks is so like the voices of our heroes reborn in this different time to savor the fruits of a dream taking seed, sprouting not on sand or rocky ground but on a fertile field prepared watered, watched; tended with loving care by those such as you, hands scared from clearing rock after rock,who not only shared the dream, but believed it was a vision of possibility.

Now, more than ever, it my hope that people of character will continue to work to tend the plant as it brings forth real fruit, will remain vigilant, hands and hearts still willing to winnow the chaff from the wheat and plant again the seed.

Welcome Back America

We have felt like strangers so long

you and I

Bridges to almost nowhere

interchanges becoming mazes

constellations lost

in the pandemonium of barkers

hawking maps to the homes of the stars

My heart has grown restless

weary

wondering and wandering

wandering and wondering

where it will lie

We have been apart so long

you and I

Bridges have crumbled

land lies fallow

as sun shines and rain falls

human beings stand faceless on the street corners

and intersections of our lives

Their hearts have grown restless

weary

their voices blow in the wind

drown in the sea of someone’s agenda

Veteran’s voices

mother’s voices

children’s voices

a whisper

wondering and wandering

wandering and wondering

where they will lie

We have drifted so far

you and I

Bridges have failed us

been posted with detour signs

or closed for repair

Gulfs divide us

great chasms of fear separate hearts

the spines of moral mountains

rise from the earth to divide us

Now comes the weaver

creating visions of dreams

dreams of visions

builder of bridges and pathways and tunnels

that we might cease wondering and wandering

wandering and wondering

when we might touch hands once again

When I am not besieged by politics I am preoccupied with my father's impending demise.

The Garden

After a careful bathing

and while still in my robe,

an equally careful shave

perfects the preparation

When the pre-anesthesia slips into the IV

completing the process

I feel raked like the sand in a Zen Garden

peaceful and perfect

There is a wind that will come

generated by the storm that descends on the OR

as soon as I am under

Regardless of the results

I am living art

fixed and flowing

Sand that will be replenished

or rearranged in harmony with the universe

After a careful bathing

and while still nude

I am shaved with equal care

made-up and dressed

When my body slips into the casket

completing the ceremonial preparation

I feel nothing

I am a Buddhist Garden

peaceful and perfect

There is a wind that will come

as soon as I am under

but I am living art

fixed and flowing

Sand that will be replenished

or rearranged in harmony with the universe

I guess I am back to raving, as the last several posts demonstrate. As a commercial contractor for years I have been asking clients who wonder why I don't have more cheap labour "who do you think will buy the______you are selling if everyone makes minimum wage?" I believe in trickle up economics and am saddened when I see towns like Buffalo, NY half boarded up from the loss of not only 20,000 jobs, but all the service jobs that lived on the backs of the true middle class.

I hope they create billions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects with my tax dollars and put us back to work actually creating something.

 All the News that’s S*** to Print

Fantastic, fascinating, fatal;

Ordinary folks, Americans all, have been hijacked by an

X-acto knife smuggled into their lives as

News.

Entrapped is more like it,

Wealthy media moguls, the real politicians,

Spreading filth and disease through lie and innuendo.

Fantastic because

Ordinary folks, Americans all, believe that

Xenophobia applies to other ordinary folks;

Not so coincidental their fellow Americans.

Ethnically different meaning not

White, not Christian, not wanted next door.

Sacrilege is the word, or scandalous.

Fascinating because

Ordinary folks, real Americans, have been dissected,

X-rayed by the right wing.

Natter pandering to fear and weakness

Extrapolating them into a simple formula

Wealth and its minions manipulate to

Stay in power.

Fatal because

Ordinary folks, patriotic Americans, have been played like a

X-mas drum,

Netted like so many fish.

Extraordinary naiveté and fear

Wresting their vote, their power, from their hands.

Sound bites stabilizing the air for the golden parachutes of life.

Fantastic, fascinating and fatal;

Lemmings led to the point of no return,

A place where monsters feel invincible;

Stand on the bed, not bothering to hide under it

Hoping we’ll fall asleep.

I am ashamed to be from Minnesota. Oh, it’s a beautiful state, a wonderful place, some people even like the weather and all of us tolerate the mosquitoes. It’s just that some of us elected Michele Bachmann to the US Congress. She rode in on God’s long coat tails and ignorance I guess. I am so upset I am re-posting a poem I wrote for her “gods” several years ago and a newer one in the hope that at least one person will read it and change one vote to a vote for peace and understanding, will understand that hatred and ethnic division are not the answer to failing social and physical infrastructure, rather the reasons for it.

Going into a war takes a lot of planning

Engaging the nation in controversy

Organizing votes and voters

Reassuring the sheep repeating the lies

Gathering the reins

Enriching the rich and the powerful

Who do you think

Besides the obvious choices

Ultimately plans and profits from death and low taxes

Social and ecological responsibilities abandonment

Human beings floating in the wreckage

Tortured

Hidden in cages

Essentially disappeared

McCarthyism with a different color red

It’s a little more subtle

Listing our fears one by one

Insinuating that sexual or religious preference affects our quality of life

Tax breaks equating to one tank of gas

Are crafted to create the illusion that you too

Reap the windfalls of war

You too are a member of the party of the privileged

Instead of protesting the injustice of poverty

Noticing the color of the victims changing policy

Demonstrating that we care

Ultimately we are lulled to sleep

Satisfied that we are or someone else is doing their best

Tackling the tough problems

Racism

Inadequate health care

A national debt that will last for generations

Lies at the voting booth

Complicit in the perpetration of the fraud

Ostensibly believing we are blameless

Moreover we have nothing to hide nothing to fear

Patriot Act and NSA created for that stranger next door

Let fascism reign

Even if it means handcuffing the Bill of Rights leaving our past and future

Xeric to the point tearless remembering

Which Americans First

It a strange thing,

a modern day wonder,

in fact,

a bloody miracle

that the new acronym for what we used to call

the ethnically challenged

to put it in political correct short hand,

our rural

blue collar brothers and sisters,

our senior citizens,

have been convinced they too

are Republicans.

Will be protected from the constitution,

their nightmares and my day dreams

of the different,

of the future,

by the seeds of hatred and fear.

If not convinced,

at least bought

with rebates of around six hundred

of our dollars per vote.

America First.

Corporate America,

when drilling oil is the only subject spoken of

besides hate.

Health care, education,

social welfare,

the infrastructure

are not hot buttons

when driving the SUV to the lake

or unable to afford the drive

to the unemployment office;

basically the same thing.

Give Big Oil,

Big Business

a few more windfalls,

a softer landing than golden parachutes alone provide,

talk tax and spend and budget freeze

on the backs of every child.

Throw a few fears into the mix,

a couple of racial groups to the lions.

Fill the coliseum with blood cries

Resurrect Joe McCarthy

and those votes might not cost as much

next time.

Small talk

as we ride the cavernous patient only elevator

to pre-op

They no longer shave one

I discovered

wondering what new task had been assigned the body hair barber

if there were retraining programs available

why shaving was no longer required

The doors glide open at the closed

end of a drought brown corridor

revealing a incongruous stack of trash containers

boxes labeled medical waste mixed with recycling bins

along an otherwise unadorned wall

and then

a long

cold hall

lined with rows after row of beds

empty

forlorn

reminiscent of an overcast day at the impound lot

or the scrap yard

Between the beds three

deep on either side of the long

long corridor

piles of walkers and wheelchairs

wait like sad used vehicles on a dusty

dull

mid-town car lot

lacking only the Se Habla Espanol signs

There are so many

Are they back-ups

waiting for a disaster

vessels awaiting an official decommissioning

Is one of them mine

or do they

like the trash

simply wait for the rag man

Soon I will begin the short count

to the fast fade

somewhere between three and seven

Will I remember the caring hand of the med-surg nurse

clasping mine

the incongruous trash stacked neatly

at one end of a long dull passageway lined

with obsolete pieces

of someone else’s memories