Peek Oil
Peking China Duck
And a saintly name he bears—
They gave him his place to hold
At the head of the belfry-stairs,
Where the minster-towers stand
And the breeding kestrels cry.
Would I change with my brother a league inland?
(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!
DPD 1896
A world’s fair is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. She is looking at her ass of course… and all her new equipment. Between the General who is always telling him everything he is doing is right… and the Sergeant who is telling him everything he is doing is wrong… is the Lieutenant who is torn both ways. The grunt-bucket learns to find him fast. When the times get happy and the bullets get snappy- you couldn’t invent a better class system if you tried. The piss-buckets were farther back and could see what the Generals were really doing. If it was the same as everybody else- getting laid before the pat on-the-face with a spade- you knew it was fucked up beyond all repair. The college boys had already shot their wad and couldn’t imagine a better death than good old Pro Patria. Limited vision- to say the least.
Palace of Optics is where the Camp Schatzenputz exhibits their most advanced work– which goes unnoticed except by a very few. The few who notice- did not ask the price. If they couldn’t imagine it- they could at least see it. Then could take it. Simple. Where did you say these were made? Yah. Very clever. Flashlight. British, is it? The predecessor company began in 1890 in New York and was renamed in 1905. They make batteries in the United States, China and around the world. Our humble group only does the designs. I am only here to sell telescopes. We have the latest model from Zeiss. Our electrical torch is only a toy. But you can see the potential. Only the fool cannot see our magical threads. Ha ha. Allow me to fetch our most powerful Zeiss yet. Excuse me.
When the greasy wind-rack lowers—
Apart and at peace and alone,
He counts the changeless hours.
He wars with darkling Powers
(I war with, a darkling sea);
Would he stoop to my work in the gusty mirk?
(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not he!
Paris 1909
Pandy B left the Dart tidily docked in Calais in late July. She promptly met with friends in Paris that Sunday, July 25th, and picked up right where she had left off, complaining about the shape of the coupe de champagnes. It was invented by men, you know, she tsked off into her favorite sulk. It was modeled after Marie Antoinette’s breast. When the lady starts spilling the champagne contents of the coupe, the man signals to the wait staff no more for the lady. Who, I ask you, who, can possibly not spill the contents of the coupe? ‘Tis why I guzzle every drop, first off, no mistaking. Very un-ladylike, granted, but no man will have me cut off prior to my time.
It’s going to be called a flute. For champagne’s future. Still has a stem for holding without warming the drink. This one obviously designed by a woman, no? Phallic, don’t you think? Laughter filled the terrace . Designed so efficiently to not waste a drop. Louder laughter this time. Narrow minded, I do say, and narrow of purpose as well. A few light hearted squeals this time in accompaniment. Observers on the outdoor terrace were indeed scowling as the four obviously unescorted women cavorted shamelessly and loudly on public grounds. There was a group of two couples who had actually risen to relocate around the corner from the raucous women. Why, the nature of their very joviality implied much in the way of ill repute.
Few folks had knowledge of this- and the related ignorance over what they had was hampering mankind. She owed him for flight instruction and safety in time confusion, but by the Gods in the Universe, she owed him nothing else. Not even his boat. For the immediate future, she was going to have to draw no attention of her own as far as the Dart was concerned. Calais and Dover were hot spots for now with all the attention given the flight. Aviation was … her first opportunity, she’d be taking the machine back to Bremerhaven, and it would only be a matter of time before Henry would figure it out and find it there. Pandora was just now beginning to formulate plans in which perhaps Daisy might want to join her as welcoming committee, and back on Henry’s turf.
Princess Louise was all the rage. Pandora found her box of troubles empty. From the derby in London to the exposition in Paris- Louise was there- especially when she was not.
Royalty was well represented that day.
I thrill to the nearing screw;
I turn in the clearing light
And I call to the drowsy crew;
And the mud boils foul and blue
As the blind bow backs away.
Will they give me their thanks if they clear the banks?
(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not they!
~&~
Petroleum Revolution
Fondling Flounders
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
CPD 1873 Iberian Peninsula/ Pennsylvania
Petroleum is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture. Mainly hydrocarbons found in geological formations, the petroleum revolution is workers… desperate due to living conditions- carrying as their standard– petroleum-soaked torches. During those days the city stank of petroleum. Alicante- it will be- a Spanish city in 1873. Standard oil is not a joke yet. Tranquil as a forest – fire within Henry was able to see the revolution- in real time- in the future- and in the past when he was a young man in ’48. Full of piss and vinegar and a wagon-load of Hawken rifles, Henry started westward from St. Louis in 1851- and was gibbering mad and loaded with gold when he returned to Harrisburg in 1861 just in time for the goddam war.
Rain was due that afternoon and the river was already quite high. So, Emily. Are you happy with Daisy’s progress. Well, she doesn’t care for me much. She seems very quiet. I fear she’ll return to her old ways as soon as she’s found herself to be unchaperoned. You might tell her that I will be leaving Missouri the moment that happens. I’m sorry to say that she might be looking forward to that very kind of separation. Henry’s brow furrowed. He searched Emily’s eyes. He loved doing that. Does she hate me that badly? Emily looked down at the stein and ran her ring finger over the ornate design on the handle. Oh, I’m really not sure, you know. She acts as though she’d rather die than give notice to you.
Runaway Child: CPD -0- ; Jenny hides in Cloud.
Henry was standing, looking back toward where the Dart was tied. He began to pace… held his hand out to Emily. Come on. We have to go. There is no need to tie up the Dart he thought. She is anchored like a rock at mean sea level, and at 1000 ft. above. You couldn’t move her with a locomotive. How the SP tachinids set ground co-ordinates was too complicated for Henry. On a river in a fogbank he could somehow sense proximity, size and weight. Dueling in the dark might have done that… more likely it was passing through the picket lines at night during the battle. CPD -0- / 1863 using the solstice position.
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you—
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
Running back down Front Street, they got to the Dart just as the kid was running away. Henry gave chase, leaving Emily on the lawn, unescorted. She settled on the grass, glancing toward Daisy’s bedroom suite window, taking notice that the lighting that should be visible inside the window was greatly diminished, meaning that someone was blocking the inside light as they stood in that window frame. She developed a chill. Henry returned alone and out of breath. The kid was gone, out running him (by no surprise to anyone). I have… the worst feeling… that I actually know the person… that keeps messing with the boat. If I see any further activity on board, I’ll be staying aboard myself.
Would you suppress an invention like this? Children are told not to play with matches- they do it anyway. Selling the Dart would be worse than giving dynamite to toddlers and showing them how to play light-my-fuse la-la-la. Discoveries can never be suppressed- but this particular application can and must be. Schatzenputz workers were free to tell the world- but no one ever has. The closer they were to working on the Dart, the more tight-lipped they tended to be- especially the Daughtersons who were descended from the ‘48ers who worked on the Chameleon in ’65. A small club. You are in it. A face card. Diamond hearts and fiddlers farts.
But, the next morning, the Dart was gone.
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,
Is all we have left through the months to follow.
~%~
Old World Ash
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War Hammer
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Wunder Waffen
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Empire State Peach
Lost @ C. r u Zz
Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain:
Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer,
With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.
Mango; apricot, whatever. CPD 1904
Lucy Meaker became an American murderer who was the first woman in Vermont to be sentenced to death and hanged. One of the fashion models came off the rails just as Henry saw the Russian fleet being soundly whipped by the Japanese at Port Arthur. What the hell did the Bates clan have to do with any of this and Daisy- who kept track of families- was hitting the sauce hard and out of touch. Miss Pandora parks the boat in the dwarf umbrella trees near a railhead and dances off to New York. The trees came all the way from China- but it took them longer. Henry loved his ship but hated the ocean and somehow it all worked itself out. The crew was starting to whine and so was the engine and it was time to get his student pilot back aboard.
Pandora was a perfectionist (like Daisy) when it came to illusion. Her models were hard… working girls- manual labor- regardless of higher wages. So before they made their very public journey to the fashion venue for showing, they must tidy up and become high societal in presentation. Pandora arrived with two large bundles from France, containing … wigs in high style, makeup with a name, and gloves, lots of gloves in different styles and colors, in order to cover the poor working hands and nails. By the time they were prepared to hit the street with the clothing trolleys, the four of them looked as though the city had been built strictly for them. As for Henry- Pandora figured he was hopelessly screwed up from that war, but it was no matter.
Being a constant nanny to a floating time machine for an aging mercenary with a broken zipper, or buttons as the period might dictate, was beginning to make her quite agitated. So, there she was in New York again, taking care of business in a littoral flash. Yamato Steel presents the same opportunity Tredegar Iron did during the war, but one must be quick to recognize bosun sparks escaping from a collapsing empire. The Schatzenputz flashlight rendered most weapons obsolete when Pandy was a baby. Intent was either a wave or a particle- but it was measurable and traceable and she was using it to build a most usable corporation. Henry opposed planting artifacts- but he was yelling at a cloud.
No clean human passion my rhyme would arraign.
You dance for Apollo with noble devotion,
A high cleansing revel to make the heart sane.
The driver pulled over at her intersection. He secured the reins and descended to open the carriage door that she had already opened by herself. She was on the corner by the time the driver got to the door. She offered no money, no tip and no appreciation as she tucked the folio under her arm once again and hung her purse strings over her shoulder. Without a look backward, she stormed her way toward the brownstones in front of her. Having beer for breakfast… one toke over the line- Henry speaks to the waning moon below the horizon. With the low sun coming from the direction of Sherman’s fire, Atlanta will not see the Dart… and maybe not even her dumb and happy boarding party. Today’s watch word is: that’s not how it works. Soda fountains.
Honing the boarding axe- with no intention of taking it ashore. The saber was allowed of course- as a dress accessory. Henry had his flashlight- but he was looking for syrup… and thinking about soaking maple pancakes back home- wherever that was. Pancake lake. They say they seek justice- but what they want is revenge. Dough-face carpetbaggers. Not that the Jonnies did not deserve to get their asses kicked. They did. Fuck with the bull- you get the horn. However the syrup and water are fungible- once they change state. Coca-Cola with ice. And a glass. Tinklety tink. Sun is pat of butter melting off to one side. Golden river. Yum. Henry had the urge to give Johnny a sabre lesson- and sell him the sabre. Unless it was a silly reb like Pemberton.
Or was it Pettigrew. Bless his heart. He was good.
States rats. Laughing!
More white than Apollo and all of his train.
-30-
The Horologist
It’s about Time.
Behold the blocks, the Noah’s arks,
The popguns painted red and blue.
The mouse ran down. DPD 1895
Captain Blaster tits was still chagrined the Buoys would not deal her in so she sulked in the chartroom watching the tiny multi-colored blinking lights. This section is a goddam Christmas tree she mumbled. The Dart engine was idling indicating she was about to become a motor again. The engine was ashore of course. The motor was the soul of the ship… and only a woman could understand it, or so said the Captain who- of course- is always right.
Henry did not understand Chaska’s legal chicanery or Thabo’s big bucks that made her Captain of his ship… but he had given up thinking about it. He wanted a generator, we got a generator… and a transformer besides. Henry was developing a flying machine, an airplane (he thought). And guess what: the girls out-smarted him again. Taught belle Daisy how to cheat at cards. Adept already. Alliteration. Nor die (worst hat) etc..
An officer’s most expensive integuments 1860
But silver horns and candy sacks
And many little tinsel hearts
And cherubs pink, and jumping-jacks.
For every child a gift, I hope.
Henry tried to explain why a broken watch was like a death in the family. Pandora could not conceive of such a thing- but it was true. Henry’s gunsmithing tools, picks prods lenses lathes and such… came in handy for repairing watches- which Henry learned were quite valuable at sea for navigation. Henry chose his companions with a combination of utility and individuality.
Remember the time he woke up naked on the Nebraska prairie with nothing: no horse- no fire or rifle- no knife- no clothes. Accustomed to such close work… growing up in the forest where one could rarely see a furlong… the Great Plains of North America tuned Henry’s brain inside-out. Chaska got him good that time- and two thousand hours later- Dancing Bear gave Chaska away. They counted coup on each all across the plains… but neither had seen a real war yet.
Pandora Polish-name had plenty of extended family. There were brothers of all sizes and ages and a million sisters from prim to promiscuous- and all as U.S. American as cornbread. All of them knew old man Henry. New Englanders all, they referred to Henry as that foreign fellow or as a Pennsylvania Dutchman, although some thought him Scottish which caused Henry to guffaw.
The noise evoked either laughter or fear- depending on their degree of stupid. During the war there were stupid-heads aplenty in Punta puddles but we had to take them along with the smart mechanics we needed at Copper Harbor. Helped us unload all kinds of uppity niggers at the end of the underground railroad- like Thabo the slabo right here. Fuck you Henry. I bought the beer. Where is powwow boy wit smokes and de jokes. Right here bison soldier boy and look.
The joke is in your hand.
Is mine. But all the rest are yours.
And I will light the candles now.
###
China White
Bucky Beaver
Somebody’s always throwing bricks,
Somebody’s always heaving cinders,
Playing ugly Yahoo tricks.
DPD & Freight Flight, 1895
You mean fright. Right. Those who had to walk the walk have a natural advantage over the golden-tongued orators who have never been in battle. The men must see us today, said Hancock. And so they did. He made a splendid target. Can’t lead from behind, we said. Not any more. Look. It’s 1895. How many people carry a lighter or wear a watch. See. The war is not over yet. Not by a long shot. And what we are fighting is plain enough to see if you look for it.
It’s right between enough and too much. Between plenty and nothing. It is the bad thing that stands between us and a good thing. And whatever it is will kill you if it sees you- because it has said so in plain earnest speech. The feminists say it’s all about power. Others say power comes from the barrel of a gun… when everybody knows power comes from a plug in the wall. So what has changed in the last 20 years. Well for one thing eye was not here.
Altered States: that’s what we were. In simple words, colonialism can be thought to be a practice and imperialism as the idea driving the practice. Today colonial is old-fashioned cute. Imperial is a brand Teddy Roosevelt pushes because he wanted to be a real cowboy. And was he ever. Right down to the boots and spurs. We invent our own sports metaphors when something isn’t quite cricket. Teddy wanted a splendid little war until his precious little Quentekins got a delivery.
Quentin’s plane (a Nieuport 28) was shot down in aerial combat over Chamery. Two machine gun bullets which struck him in the head from those wonderful folks who brought you nitroglycerine. The German military buried him with full battlefield honors. Since the plane had crashed what will be so near the front lines, they used two pieces of basswood saplings, bound together with wire from his Nieuport, to fashion a cross for his grave. If you think this is not a religious war- think again.
Other windows are let alone.
No one throws through the chapel-window
The bitter, snarling, derisive stone.
That’s how grandma tea-fights become wars. Flying scones become ossuary bones, etc.. Dart Portal Date (DPD) will be quite an honor. Factory girls will be broken aplenty in the Triangle fire. So done trumpeting about their sons in boxes… now they get to see their daughters too. Crammed into coffins like the broken toys they were… [Compart(mental)ization] so humiferous is the doodle dee about the Wheatfield at the battle. They say it is haunted. Well it is.
If you had been there- maybe you could see what was haunting it. It sure as shit was not slavery… because they were all slaves to the battle elephant- called it a goddess because she is fickle… and powerful. When elephants fight- the ants lose. Even a major dude like Teddy thought it was all a game until he stepped in his own shit. Of the 20 shots that hit the 28 only 10% got him. But TR was no longer keeping score. But I’d say that’s pretty good, wouldn’t you? From the machine perspective, that is.
Shot placement is important. The gentlemen of Europe sent their regards to the son of a fellow aristocrat. And the soldiers carried on the ceremony in the mud. Long live the turtle. But now Mr.Rab-BIT is here with the SHIT: Think what you read. Read what you think. Food for the brain… and a network link. The wolf bit their ass in gated suburbs the same way the war took them in Europe 100 years ago. When you got nothing- you got nothing to lose.
We are still ponging back and forth between good and plenty while we watch Mr. Dithers jack off into the Hostess Cupcakes. Pay no attention to those tents under bridges. They are scouts in an army we can’t even imagine… yet. But there are good things too- when you hit them where they aint. Wee Willie Keeler is a right fielder in Major League Baseball who will play from 1892 to 1910.
Keeler had a motto: keep your eye clear and hit ’em where they ain’t- which he did. Sounds just like old John Buford, right? They used him up too… died of exhaustion in 1863. Still held the high ground.
Light Emitting Generalist (LEG) never got to see Appomattox.
Something or other is going wrong.
Something is rotten—I think, in Denmark.
End of the factory-window song.
-30-
Red Pop Rising
Re-constructing Gaslight
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. 1851
They say one king is doddering and grey.
They say one king is slack and sick of mind,
A puppet for hid strings that twitch and play.
Chinese Stamp, 1950 (1885 )
Henry knew at the time what Dart cost to re-assemble. Meteor was built by the American Steel Barge Company (ASB) at their yard in Superior, Wisconsin in the summer of 1896 as Frank Rockefeller; number 36 of 44 whalebacks built between 1888 and 1898. Expense records listed the cost of construction of Frank Rockefeller as $181,573.38. Expenses were many times that in 1885- but it put us years ahead of the capitalists and a century ahead of the soviets who had yet to beat their helmets into baby moon hubcaps. Civil war re-construction is over and looting begins howdy duty. Slotted grey mushroom-heads preach their cash cow catechism blowing a whole in the planet’s nature. Time-travel is a curse to keep to yourself.
Life as time travel is a blessing to share with the world if you make the big time. But if your face ain’t on any banknotes or billboards carved on stone mountains in Georgia your journey is small time. Aim small- miss small. First they get needy… then they get greedy. Schatzenputz group had light-emitting diodes in the gaslight era. Copper Harbor. Check them out. Meanwhile the pious continue to show their righteousness measured by the misery they can inflict on the losers who did not buy the beautiful big time. Nobody could remember what we constructed in the first place. Marginal control over speed… can’t go backwards.
Their mad-house, till it turns the wide world’s bane?
Companions are a combination of function and individuality. Your clothes are functional companions… and there is no individual like your wife. Believe it… lest you end up naked and ignored. Ignored like Lester of Two-Weevils. I heard of him. You did. During the war he was selling malarkey darkies to the Indians at Fort Bomblast when they got drunk off reservations. The war again. Before anybody was even born. Quit talking about your dumb old war. Well… nobody who’s anybody. Now we have aerial combat. We do- and they don’t. Not yet. I put my chute on my ass and buckle my ass to the seat.
Yah never jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Only when it’s on fire- and then only when it’s on the ground. Never land higher than you’d care to fall. We haven’t learned what Europe knows yet- let alone goddam China or some other fuck-place we can’t even conceive of now. And you fly an airplane like old people fuck. Really. Then show me your tits. Giving birth aint like taking a dump… but it’s as close as some do come to experiencing it. My Jenny has yellow wings. The red signs are all over Atlanta- with the face of Santa Claus and they say Coca-Cola. Red signs, yellow wings. Color comes to Pleasantville.
Chose a partner- the dance begins again. You decide.
Till every far-off farmstead goes insane?
Gender Blender
Legal Tender
Through the agate doorway in suits of flame,
Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust
And hats that were covered with diamond-dust.
And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call
And danced the juba from wall to wall.
Women have been a prize (and price) of war ever since Homer and the geeks and you know it. Back in the days when most gender stereotypes were true- Helen was every woman as much as every man was a Menelaus. Are gender stereotypes always true? Yes- if you are a commodity. One bullet is the same as another. Only the one that hits you is special. People who start wars do not count bullets. Soldiers who fire bullets do not count special. Class is down there below order on top of phylum. Haw! As usual. Kanoodling! Words are Marx on Plato’s blank wall. So we called this one the .38 Special… service revolver. At your service …with lethal aid! Class has its own curriculum teaching its own struggle. Class dismissed. For now.
Classmates are a case of their own, which is why no one will ever know why Armistead hit Early on the pate with a plate when they were young cadets. All these guys knew each other. They studied war together. But they didn’t learn shit. They learned on the job- while nobody had the slightest idea what the job really was. They said it was for the future which is what they all say. But now we can see the future- and we don’t like it. The odd ones cry and bitch because the even ones don’t like them. Odds have no idea how evens think and likewise I’m sure. Odd ones leave and build a place where no evens are allowed. How Henry managed to take the Dart all the way to 1930 from 1895 was anybody’s guess.
A million boats of the angels sailed
With oars of silver, and prows of blue
And silken pennants that the sun shone through.
Miss Pandora believed she had the solution. They must figure out how to plant artefacts. However- anybody who tried usually didn’t come back- and what did come back was unrecognizable… not just dull-witted- but strikingly changed in appearance. Cashew figured it out 300 years ago in 1594: Carew Huarte’s Exam. Wits xiii. Etc. If differences of wits, so far distant as these, do enter into competency, the one‥getteth learning in a trice. That’s before the rich could buy merit badges. Poppy corn Generals. Grant or Lee were both competent in a different way. Look at Julia Dent and Mary Anna Randolph Custis and that should tell you something- I aunt saying what. Captain Pandora must decide kind or degree. Does the Captain have any idea what fungible means?
Legal tender is anything recognized by law as a means to settle a public or private debt or meet a financial obligation, including tax payments, contracts, and legal fines or damages. The national currency is legal tender in practically every country. On the other hand, diamonds and other gems are not perfectly fungible because their varying cuts, colors, grades, and sizes make it difficult to find several diamonds expected to have the same value. You see where this is going, girls. They can do anything to you that you can’t stop them from doing. We believed the gender stereotypes during the war. Not anymore. So if you are going ashore- look to your life. Your charm can bring you harm- do you know what I am saying? Then your officers must be competent.
Don’t buy pastry from someone who can’t tell a turd from a tootsie roll. That singing wind might be John Henry’s hammer.
Oh, a singing wind swept the negro nation
waldopaper 
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