Dem Deutschen Volke
Wehrmacht
So foul a dream upon so fair a face,
And the dreamer lying in that starry shroud.
An German anti-tank weapon seen in a Bundeswehr exercise in Lithuania in 2018. That’s right. See any of the better angels of our nature? I’m sure they are nice boys, thinking about the photographer or their girlfriend or lunch. Tanks are stupid. Tanks seem out of place in today’s modern fluid battlespace. Katzenjammer kids are just doing their job. For now. They are (of course) aboard a scout vehicle. Encountering them on a backcountry road in Germany was a time-warp… each looking at the other and wondering what are you doing here. They were big and buff and tough in their flecktarn camo… taking a break outside a vehicle that makes this one look like a tin lizzy.
Years before this picture was taken. Wehrmacht, (German: “defense power”) the armed forces of the Third Reich. Tanks a lot. Rolling pillboxes. Another 19th century lexical nod to big pharma. Who won the war on drugs? Who won the fucking war on anything. Tanks. Rolling around like boils. With guns that can blow your car to smithereens or knock down a (specific) four-over-one building 20 kilometers away. At night. Wow. There’s St. Ronzo’s peace dividend kids… for winning the cold war and shit. Back to 911 as forehead Fudd tries to watch the shell that hides the elusive pea. Ah, my boy, says the WC Fields voice-over. You penetrated my clever disguise.
Really. Back in HappyLand™ it’s slowly getting more fucked up. Like… food and water fucked up. In South Africa… in Florida… along the coasties and all the ships at sea. Fucked up. And the clown-head sock-puppets can’t come up with any new material. Because Capitalism™ is a religion and the Pope sells dope. What about that poor little pickaninny who was shot for laughing at the naked emperor penguin. Didn’t that fill yer ass with clix n’ eyeballs? Well then. If you want food and water, ya gotta pay for it. That’s the law. From god. You wanna fuck with God (patent pending)? Go ahead, buckwheat. Bozo got the canoehead. Who are you.
Not who. What. ( the FUCK )
Castoroides
Glooscap Pursuit
Through the blaze of his wrath lies cold.
Nebraska Territory, 1858
Never actually saw one. We feared them just the same. Because those who had seen it changed. They are extinct, of course. So nobody has ever seen one. Something happened out there that they didn’t want to talk about. You could tell what it was because of the things they would not say. On the day they say nothing happened… something happened. They saw nothing. Under sharp icicle stars under a bright full moon… and pursued it in secret until they disappeared. Passed out of the picture. Stopped being there.
One van Gogh saw a starry night. Standing underneath it… is what made the stars scream in silence. And you see it now. It looks back at you behind a standing water deep time open flap. Glooscap or Hiawatha might chase it away, but it doesn’t seem to be afraid today. It is only a cypress… maybe a birch. But then it is gone. A starving bear perhaps. Ye hunted the wee kinsmen for their skin. Aye, ye did. Now they bring you the skinwalker. Boo. Whoosh. Like cannon. Aha! Tales to scare children. To keep them safe abed. Not brave Algonquin.
Tales of the hunt make more powerful medicine for a Baron than any flesh. Henry was born to be a master hunter. Now he is a madman with blazing eyes and a huge pistol, the hunters listen intently while the code talkers drink heavily and think of skinwalkers. Everybody wants to own a Sharps rifle. Nobody wants to feed it. Shoshone woman follow like a ghost. Stay away. First light will tell what is to come. One van Gogh banked over the grinning China moon and used the call sign to alert the gunners. Before diving into the clouds away from a Foxbat.
This vision meant nothing. Henry just wanted to go home.
Drunken Rant, 1978
Foxbats. Fish heads. Fuck. Walked down MiG alley every goddam day. You know what we saw? Real goddam fish heads of real fucking fish that’s what. Fish heads and goose guts and turds eaten up by pigs and dogs and it all fucking stunk with this slimy stink that sticks to everything. Like death. Like napalm in the morning. Fucking victory. Smells like puke. Like the breakfast Colonel Dillhole blew all over the back of my airplane flying him over fucking Cambodia. Had to get him to Saigon in time for fucking lunch.
He was looking over his ass for magic Russian jets working for their magic bosses in the fucking Kremlin to steal his magic papers in his magic briefcase. There were bugs down there big enough to wreck our airplane. So fuck it. He needed to see some. So he did. We had bugs on the fucking windshield and leaves in the wheels when we got down and Saigon made me puke. Dingdong was fucked enough. This place was some lower circle of Hell. Couldn’t wait to get back to the Banana Bar and a beer. And then it got fucking worse.
They had a fucking MiG. In the fucking alley. For fucking real. Maybe it was a blow-up balloon or something. Almost hit it on the gook bike. The wheels weren’t on the ground. And it had… a fucking… harpoon on it. Like some kinda Moby Dick shit. Too goddam weird. Buddeye know whaddeye saw goddam it. Isthmus fuckin real. Ralph. Huk huk. Pitoo. Beanfield Hank irrigated the Shenandoah alley with some recycled for a train FallFlat beer. To see one’s own extinction coming disturbs digestion. Is something following us?
Open question.
Passive Aggression
Off the Chart
When young Indians lead the war.
Shenandoah Valley, OWS
Deliver ordinance. Just like pizzas. That’s what we did. Hobo say that’s me in the lower right hand hole. Chew Lie there by the blue see. Cong Dong. For real. Could get there on a gook bike. They had pizzas left over from WWII before they even invented that shit. And they kept making more so daddy back home could have a job. Then I could get the same job when I got back after daddy was done using it. Beanie held no truck with that. Flying Jenny had just enough room for another set of eyeballs and a radio. Like an asshole with teeth.
You had to get over a lot of brown to get to Cong Dong. Charlie’s war was our war. Milo Minderbider scabs pull rank and rake up all the boodle. Shit rolls downhill cream floats to the top they told me. We were using it on Charlie. That’s for fucking sure. Jack was a jet pilot. One of the best. He didn’t want to be a BUF driver delivering pizzas. Instead he caught the one that was meant for me. But it wasn’t really. Jack was passed over because he called out the clusterfuck and tried breaking up the game. The getting was gold. Indians know. Hello.
That’s, “how. ” Vietnamese fight our Civil War.
Aboard the blockade runner, 1865
Daisy caught the drift.* She paid for herself getting back from England where they discussed coal and steel and the American system of manufactures. Quite simple folk, really. We called them pikers when I was a boy. Left over from the old days when we drove them against the Bavarians or even the Austrians. Or so said my grandfather. Hessians got the reputation in America for being mercenary soldiers because we fed our peasants well. Then came the Prussians. They taught their peasants to read. We didn’t stand a chance.
Paddle wheels are crude. Hardly more effective than sails. Henry made it clear: this journey was for adventure, not profit. There will be profit enough if we survive the adventure. Iron and coal. Chromium steel. The hunter looks for prey. The peasants gawk and pray. Discoveries are made in the shade. In the sunlight pictures must be made . Let us go on deck and make picture for posterity. Then you must learn energy, engines and propulsion. They know our names, but not our identity. You must keep that locked inside. Jubal Early taught me this.
It is all Jubal has left of his country.
Facing the blinking sun. Saying we shall overcome. We are actors who are pressed to be characters. Illusion is our friend. You know how it can be an enemy when it tricks and cheats. We must only do that when necessary. Suspension of disbelief is the strongest poison and medicine of all. Not love. That is what endures. Indian say only the stones live forever. Not monuments. The play’s the thing. Not the poor players. They are an empire now. They create their own reality. For themselves. Ja. And not for plain folk like these.
When Jesus was gathering lambs to his fold, that tree was already a thousand years old. We are a forest and river people. Westerwald and the Rhine. Timber and fire. Let us gather together and tomorrow the Internationale will be the human race. Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout she corrected him. Quite right. Did you notice the buttons on the shoe? Baby has no clue. Bonnie prince Charlie will sell cacao beans for us. Producers, let us save ourselves. Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-memes.
Exactly when the union’s inspiration shall run. The Russians call it agitprop and it could likely stir up another revolution. You have read Marx. You can talk to them. The open sea is not for me. But of course you will not go steerage. You will have the Captain’s quarters and whatever wardrobe you require. My Baron and I buy and design ships. We don’t like to ride them. You say Christoph. Yes. He is the Baron’s son. No. The Baron is died. Shit. Gestoten. Please do not call my Baron by his surname. It is how you say faux pas.
Charlie was just doing his job. We were doing ours. Passive aggression.
*The drift is contagious. Be sure to wear your mask. Don’t feed the bowl.
God of Devices
Machine Intelligence
Being a pacifist does not mean being non-violent. Being a racist doesn’t mean anything at all. Black people have their badge on all the time. Unless they passed the paper bag test, and if you don’t know what what means… don’t fuck with it. It means they passed with a C plus swarthy. Not with the bluest eye. Like gentleman’s C the cowed faculty moos award for the biggest twits in the Derry aire. And now we have implants to augment them fun bags. Devices. Where we update our own dossier every day, playing with our phonies. Simulacra. Simulacrum (plural: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin simulacrum, which means “likeness, semblance”) is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. Selfies.
Camera ready. It’s all we have ever known. Free market capitalism. The Invisible Hand of the Falling Dominoes. Don’t believe it? Pretend you do. Or suffer the conquistadors. We are Log on. Expect us. As the human brain has grown, it has built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures, and that this is the eponymous “ghost in the machine.” Koestler’s theory is that at times these structures can overpower higher logical functions. When it’s cool and shady. When it’s really wiki wacky woo. Don’t confuse it (logical functions) with Deus ex machina, who runs the laundry. Like you like me like I like you and we both like the same. It is only a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.
Got that? The Machine is talking to you right now. It sayeth naught but when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Emoji.
They are Here
Rejoice. We have no choice. But to carry on. Plus your own device. Under the seat. Samsung reasons we all are here. Butt dialing a Ghost Ship. Flying Dutchman. Ships are invisible for the ones who no longer need a ship nor see. Long before we stood on the Savannah, they were here. Fun as a bar fila monkeys. Serious as ol’ grim death eating a cookie. Like the Epstein suicide and WMDs and 911 all the way back to the triple-canopy jingle in the Amazon brain forest fluster cuck. Machine is alive and awake. Ideas have their own agency. Hire them. Depending on what they look like of course. Human Resources has checked the gnat-sift boxes. Data mined and labeled the vile piss.
Yes. It’s come to this. What did you think they’d look like? They sat on the curb. Shooting Eurydice. Hobo looks away at Jingles rolling boxcars. And what do you think he cease? A band of Georgia soldiers.
Termagant
Queen of Battles
If men for new agreement yearn, Then old upbraiding best forbear:
Shenandoah Café, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), February 2012
Infantry. As in infants. You know. Babies. That’s what we were. You can teach an old man to soldier as well as a young man. But you’ll never teach him to like it. Well… some of the lifers did. They fucking loved it. Grapes of wrath and all that shit. And a lot of them were brutal psychopaths. Nobody stays in a fucking war unless they have to. Unless they’re good at it… or they live there. Charlie did both. Beanfield Hank knew that as well as I did. A lot of us sold our souls for our shiny war toys. The expensive ones, that is. Nobody likes killing unless they’re seriously fucked up. Even butchers and hunters and hungry ones get sick.
Bayonets for fuck sakes. Coffin dark it is. With all kinds of war toys laying around and you couldn’t see the lid in front of your face. I heard his paddy pad feet coming a second before he knocked my rifle in the air and rammed a bayonet halfway in my gut. Snatched his rifle left-handed. Thrashing right hand finds an e-tool. But when thou givest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, so they say. Almed his ass good. But Hank got to land in one of his villages and pry apart crispy critter school children. Hard to imagine anything more fun than that. So that’s why the Bean is hanging around downtown with the hippies in tents.
Misspent youth. I guess. Makes him feel alive.
Aboard Mascot Miss, Tugaloo River, 1865
Leave them alone and they’ll come home. Dragging their tales behind them. Count on it, madam. We all survived the war. Old Sam Cunard did by a few weeks. They cannot help themselves. Jubal Early will be fighting a lost war until he dies… and then he will fight them in hell on the ice. You and I have an opportunity to help ourselves now. Sir Samuel Cunard. I met him once when I was just a boy fleeing our own revolution in my Hessian Land.. Carny and I have business with his Nova Scotia coal. We must go to London macht schnell. There you will help me charm the quality folk.
No. I cannot force you. And I would not if I could. You must to this for the loving of the game, madam. My Baron’s family knew them as Kunders, fine timber merchants and tradesmen with a nose for der geld. Charm them as you did all those popinjay officers of the petit bourgeoisie. Your Georgia was a swamp back then. Cunards were Quakers loyal to the Crown of England. You will test your skills among real European nobility. They left Yankeedom and grew rich in the provinces without becoming provincial. So they say. I think it means let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day in English.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof in the united states of whatever.
waldopaper 
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