a simple man

Remember, Remember or What Guy Fawkes Day Means to Me

Today is the fifth of November, and you might hear, or see people on social media sites quoting from the film V for Vendetta or the graphic novel it was based on or the old traditional Guy Fawkes rhymes “remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot” and the history that it was based on.

That history is Guy Fawkes Day, which in short, is a commonwealth holiday that celebrates the failed plot to assassinate King James I in 1605 by one Guy Fawkes of the Gunpowder Plot. Whatever the original reasons Fawkes and his cronies had for killing the English monarch, it is clear that his failed plot’s celebration means more to people today, and more to me, than just a failed murder.

I abhor violence, and don’t believe in death as a way to move a social agenda forward so I might be called a traditionalist when it comes to the celebration of a failed assassination. In fact, my introduction to the world of Guy Fawkes and the “fifth of November” cult that has grown up around him comes through the film V for Vendetta. In the film, a future Britain is controlled by a totalitarian regime that has become, or perhaps always was, evil and that government is taken down by a man in a Guy Fawkes-esque mask known only as V.

It is a wonderful film, and I suppose its primary message is “People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people” but I am no revolutionary, at least not one of swords and drums and guns. Indeed, if there is a quote from the film that sums me up, in so much as a film quote can, it is this one: “Ideas are bulletproof.”

The protagonist of the film, Evie Hammond, a small, frightened girl who becomes a patriot afire for the cause under the tutelage of V, says that one “cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it; ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love” and while all that certainly sounds true it isn’t quite accurate. Evie is speaking of the man behind the ideas, her Guy Fawkes that she loves, and how her love for him is more real to her than his ideas are and I think she misses the point of her own drama.

Ideas do not die. Ideas can change the world. All the women and men who have ever fought for an idea have died forgotten. We do not remember their names. We only remember why they fought, why they died. I know nothing about the real Guy Fawkes, all I know is his idea: that one could change the world through gunpowder, treason, and plot. And while he ultimately failed, people still believe that to this day. That idea is pervasive and powerful.

I believe that ideologies and ideas are more powerful than puny bombs and bullets. I believe that one day we will lay aside weapons of mass destruction as a means of advancing ideas and instead fight directly with words. Words cannot be stopped by force. Words endure the death of the speaker. Words shape ideas. Words are remembered.

That is what I do, each fifth of November: I remember. I remember the ideas that have come before me, that inspire me, that challenge me. I may not remember who first generated the idea, or why they died, but I do remember the words they used to articulate that idea. I remember the words they used to advance that idea.

And I try, just as they did, to articulate my own ideas with words. It is likely no one may remember me, but there is a chance they will remember my words, and my ideas. My ideas that love triumphs over hate, that prejudice and fear are transitory and that acceptance and unity will win the day. That reaching for something is just as important as grasping it. That moving forward will always trump moving backwards. That every inch is just as far as a mile. That ideas are bulletproof.

So today, remember, remember the fifth of November and remember the ideas that created today, and generate some ideas that will create a better tomorrow.

Ten Years Down the Road

With the haunted look of a midnight rider I stare into the mirror, bloodshot eyes staring back at me. I can see in the reflection cracked plaster and unoccupied bathroom stalls. This is my third gas station in two days, and they all look the same. Each station sells the same wares, has the same tiled floors, and each station attendant wears the same tired smile. I can’t tell if I am in Wisconsin, Wyoming, or Grayville, Missouri, which in my sleep deprived brain has become Gravyville and an inside joke with my passenger.

I picked up a highly metaphorical man in Joplin, Missouri and we are driving toward the rising of the sun and old friends in new locales. This man I haven’t seen in ten years, yet we slipped into casual conversation and deep affection as easily as we slipped into sleeping bags last night for a brief respite, he on the left, I on the right, at least until I started snoring an avalanche of nasal somniloquys and he was forced to vacate the premises.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, a gas station bathroom in Grayville, MO. I blink my eyes again, sigh again, and turn off the water faucet. I stumble out, not quite as tired as I make out, and consider buying one of a dozen different snacks. Eventually I decide against them all and purchase an overpriced bottle of SmartWater, the only brand of bottled water I enjoy. $2 later I’m back in the car and ready for more driving. I have to traverse Illinois and Indiana before I will enter Kentucky and be close to my destination. When all is said and logged, I will have driven nearly 1000 miles to be where I was this past weekend: Cincinnati, Ohio.

I spent the weekend with fourteen of my high school mates, not counting assorted spouses and adorable children named Ender and Zaya. We met, once upon a long ago, in the country of Papua New Guinea, out upon the western rim of the world. Our parents were there collectively for mission work, and we were there to be shiny, happy children attending missionary school. Then there were 42 of us, and like the good book says, we were the answer to life, the universe, and everything, at least in our own minds. There was little we could not accomplish, or reach out and grasp and have as our very own. And to some extent, we have accomplished much. Some of us are nurses, or aide workers, or family therapists. We are salesmen, teachers, and studying to be so much more than we are currently.

It was an almost overwhelming experience when I first walked into our reserved room at the Marriott and saw old, familiar faces. It is amazing how fast ten years comes rushing back into your brain with just a glimpse and a glance. The next forty-two hours were far too short a time to spend amongst such excellent and admirable people. We played games, hung out in a brewery, walked Oktoberfest, talked amongst ourselves, took a river cruise and ate more bacon than we should have, considering we are not getting any younger, and not speaking for anyone else, it was a blast from the past and the time of my life. As a culminating event of the summer, for me, the reunion was the absolute best I could have hoped for from life.

You see, I’d been struggling to find my identity again in the wake of a divorce. I needed to know again who I was and where I had come from. Who I am is still a bit of a mystery, but I can now say again with confidence that I have come from Papua New Guinea. I have a life I left behind there, and fragments of that life were embedded in the women and men I saw this past weekend. Having them all there, celebrating life and the past ten years was like putting the pieces back together for me. Part of my identity now looked like more than jagged edges of a half-completed jigsaw puzzle. It looked like me, once upon a long ago. And I liked what I saw.

On the long journey home, between discussions of blue wizards and ancient beings from myth, my compatriot and I stopped off at another gas station. There, in another mirror, streaked with grime and fingerprints, I saw a younger man, a man full of purpose and self-awareness. And after he walked out I saw myself as I once was: young, with the world at my fingertips and life ahead of me.

Ten years down the road, I’ve found a part of me I had lost. And it feels good to be just that little bit more whole again.

Mad Max: Hard Rockatansky

Beyond thunder the road furls full and long
a white line nightmare twisted black so wrong
so long ago in the way back a cop
under the dome of V8 power drops
fury so hot upon the rock and roller
the fuel injected out of controller
that he became a terminal crazy
out into fire and blood under hazy
dust kicked up by rubber and the chrome
of war and boys so young to die un-homed
but how the world like wheels it turns so fast
to hunt and haunt the dead alive to Master
survive revive again the wasted land
Ho! Ho! Here comes the mad Immortan hand
to crush the steel steal back Valhalla’s souls
she’s meanness set to music sweet and cold
a carburetor bitch guns born outruns
ev’ry thing shiny, blazing under sun
this maelstrom of decay black fueled death
the Ayatollah of rock and rolla wrests
a tune from metal wire two men enter
for dyin’ time is here to take the venter
well ain’t we a pair a ragged man
and imperator who rides eternal van
oh what a lovely day! to die historic

A poem inspired by the Mad Max films, and drawing on the imagery, dialogue and themes of each without specifically mentioning the titular character or the titles.

The Hellcats, a Field Report

From the universes of BattleTech and MechWarrior…

To: Field Marshall Appo
From: Colonel Cody
Re: Hellcats

Sir, you requested a recommendation from me for your new special forces lance and I think I have just the unit you are looking for. The Hellcats, led by Lance Commander Hilary Cross, is an all female lance of heavy assault mechs. They emerged after the heavy losses during the Battle of Crimson Moon. Several mangled units were thrown together to form a new lance and it wasn’t until later that someone noticed that every dossier was labeled “F”. Someone in command shrugged it off and ordered them into combat. The offensives were vicious and most didn’t care where the cannon fodder came from or what it was made of. They needed soldiers, and gender simply wasn’t a factor. It wasn’t until the Battle of Crimson Moon became the Crimson Moon Offensive, the name alteration implying a change from stalemate trench war fought mostly with missile mechs to a winning campaign fought by everybody else, that anybody noticed that this all-female lance was leading the charge. Word spread, and the word in lance command was that they had synced their periods with their combat rotation so as to be as fierce as possible in battle. Mostly I think that’s horseshit, but there is no denying their effectiveness. The Hellcats boast more enemy kills than the rest of the battalions in their brigade. It is my recommendation, Marshall, that the Hellcats be given the best of material, armor and ammunition and be upgraded from combat lance to special forces lance and given missions accordingly. I don’t think you will find a more devastating lance of heavy mechs on this moon and to pull an elite force from a different arena would not only waste a dropship, but be to the detriment of the overall offensive. The Hellcats are already familiar with the enemy, the terrain, and the objectives. Properly equipped, they’ll do the job and then some. Let the basterds from Clan Osiris meet up with the Hellcats in the dark alley of Crimson Canyon and see who emerges victorious. It won’t be no dandy pants royalty that’s for sure!

Love Wins

For Robin, Ashley, Rachel, Laura and all others who today are acknowledged as the equals they already were.

How to explain what happened today to children of all ages:

Ahem.

“Now everyone in America has the right to marry whomever they love. They didn’t before and that was sad.”

I’ve tried to avoid the soapboxes and the arguments, but I’ve read too much today to stay silent. People whom I love now have the same rights as I do where yesterday they did not. This is no small thing to me. Others want to decry this as society slouching towards Gomorrah, but I rather see it as towards Bethlehem, where society is being reborn to newness of life.

Those couched in traditional Christian church culture will recognize that I am using the language of baptism. That is deliberate. A baptism signifies for a church that someone has moved from disbelief to belief, from apostasy to affirmation of truth. And that is what has happened in America today. America has been baptized into a new truth, the truth that Neanderthals and HomoSapiens are equal. The truth that people of different color are equal. The truth that people of different genders are equal.

And just as before, in a dark, racist past, where blacks and whites were unable, by law, to marry and “intermingle” as this was abhorrent and immoral and wrong and that was proved to be the odious, sickening language of hate and ignorance, so too now, we are emerging from a dark, sexist present where gays and lesbians were unable, by law, to marry and “intermingle” as this was abhorrent and immoral and wrong and that too has proved to be the odious, sickening language of hate and ignorance.

We have been baptized into a new future, where ALL legal, consenting adults have the freedom under the law to marry whomever they love. Love has won the day! Now those that were once marginalized are now as mainstream as the rest of us.

Is this the decay of society, a future of woe and trouble? Only time will tell, but like the ending of apartheid, and segregation, and the birth of Civil Rights, I think history will shine out the brighter after this. Rights acknowledged for one is rights acknowledged for all.

But what about religion, founded on a Bible, a Bible that seems to say that such homosexual behavior is deviant and wrong? Usually I don’t care about a dissenting opinion to freedom and truth, no matter how vocal or quiet, but in this case I know many who might read this who are genuinely struggling with this question. I am no Bible scholar, but I will say this: perhaps those passages have been misread. Perhaps it is your interpretation of them that is lacking. Or, if the Bible really does say exactly what you think it says, then maybe the Bible is simply wrong. The Bible is wrong about a great many things: morally, culturally, scientifically, and socially. How do you know this is not one more error?

I understand that for you this is a matter of deep belief and long held tradition, but know this: beliefs and traditions change in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons. Remember those who held most strongly to the idea that blacks and whites shouldn’t marry? Many of them were your physical and spiritual ancestors of a time not that long ago. Their beliefs and traditions were based as strongly on the Bible as your beliefs about homosexuality and they were as wrong. Please do not live an unexamined life.

As far as the Bible, and everything else goes, I believe that love conquers all. Love’s greatest champion was a Jewish guy named Yeshua. I follow his example and love all, regardless of what an ancient text may or may not say. Love conquers bad theology, upside down society, inequality, and ignorance.

Today, love has won.

The Final Rest

Recently, my grandmother died and with her I lost the final of my closest grandparents.

When my grandparents came to visit, usually around Christmas time, my family and I would enjoy the time with them and wish it would last forever. But, as always happened, the time came to an end. They would pull their car out of the driveway, and head down the street. My brother Nate and I had this tradition: we would run on the sidewalk alongside the car as fast and as long as we could until we could no longer stay abreast. Then we would stop and pant and have a rest and wave goodbye.

Some of my grandmother’s last words were “maybe I just need to rest”.

I doubt she knew she was destined to die just hours later. But she longed for rest.

I cannot stand here and tell you with surety what happens after death, but I can tell you for certain what my grandmother believed. She believed in a swift flight to a celestial city and a reuniting with her Savior, Jesus, and the love of her life, my grandfather.

I am no theologian nor scientist; I don’t know what happens when breathing ceases. But I can tell you about a life. My grandmother’s life was a long journey full of happiness and joy. But the thing about long journeys is they often tire the soul and come with setbacks and sorrow. And you long for rest at the end.

My grandmother lived surrounded by many friends, family, and loved ones. She enjoyed nothing more than serving others and loving many. Many can attest to my grandmother’s caring way. But it wasn’t always easy, especially of late as injury and illness started to steal her vitality. And more and more the loneliness of lost love weighed on her heart. And she longed for rest.

I’d like to think that somewhere, my grandparents are reunited, once again young lovers full of life.

But I simply don’t know. What I do believe, what I hope, is that after death came a rest. A rest from this world, perhaps in another.

Did heaven await my grandmother in the form of God’s arms and grandpa’s embrace?

I only know this: my grandmother is finally at rest, from all sorrow and weariness and pain. And that is a comfort to me.

On Friday last week, we laid my grandmother to rest in the Ohio ground. I wrote the following to memorialize that rest.

Into the ground, into dust.
We weep the sorrow of failed fires
and ashes to ashes.

Like the old prayer rhyme
Now I lay her down
To sleep the forever sleep

I pray what lord on high
Her soul to snatch
And in bulwarks keep

Here on earth her shell
Is buried, betwixt her beloveds
‘Neath earth’n deep

Into the ground, into dust.
We weep the sorrow of failed fires
and ashes to ashes.

I will miss my grandparents, now that they no longer walk this earth, but at least they are both together now and are at rest.

Celebrating Life

On April 3rd, The Fast and the Furious 7 will hit theaters, and with it the sharp reminder of franchise star Paul Walker’s death last year. He died doing what he loved: driving.

Today, March 12th, is my birthday.

There was a time when I wasn’t sure I was going to see Furious 7. I wasn’t even sure that I was going to see today. That time was not that long ago, and I haven’t told anyone what I am about to say now, except for my therapist who helped me live through it.

Several months ago now, but still recent enough to haunt me, I was sure I was going to die, and not in any macabre way, I was sure I was going to kill myself. I literally saw no future beyond January 1st. My depression had started to overwhelm me, and I was drowning in it. Days were literally as well as figuratively dark and cold. I looked up and saw no sky; I looked out and saw no horizon. I was alone and I was suffocating on nothing.

I had one thing before me: my sister’s wedding. I had nothing after that. I was determined that I was going to attend the wedding and have one last good time and then end it all. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die” as the saying goes. I knew I was going to see my immediate family at the wedding, and so I could say one last goodbye and be done with life on this terrestrial sphere.

The wedding was as wonderful as could be. It was warm, sunny, and the happiest of occasions, but a darkness and a chill had settled in my core. I knew my days were shorter rather than longer. Once the wedding week was done so was I. I used up any positive energy I had left smiling for pictures and keeping it together so as to not ruin my sister’s big moments.

I returned from the wedding and stared down a calendar of days until the 1st of January. I manage to stave off hospitalization because I told my therapist I wouldn’t do anything to myself until at least then, but I knew that day was coming.

I welcomed it. I cherished the thought of the final release. When one has nothing to live for, one tends to think of the end as blissful nothingness. I hoped, and still do, that there is no afterlife. One life is enough pain and struggle and weariness without another life to endure. When I do die, I want that to be it, for it all to be over. I don’t want to live again, or to live eternally. As the philosopher Yoda said on his death bed, “Forever sleep: earned it, I have.” I want to earn my forever sleep.

More than anything, that dark December of last year, I wanted my forever sleep. My weariness screamed for it.

And then, just when it was almost over, just when I had the bottle of pills in my hand, when I grew tired of setting it back down, unopened, just then I found a glimmer of something else.

Hope.

Hope for a future, for a better tomorrow shone through my deepest depression. I decided to make a radical decision for life instead of against it. I decided that January 1st was not going to be my last day on earth. I can’t tell you exactly where that minuscule drop of hope came from, or why I decided to delay death, but I did. In my mind, I simply decided to see exactly how long I could stretch life. At the time, I didn’t know how long that would be. At least another day. At most, a week. Here I am, three and a bit months later, still going.

Along the way, I decided to move to Texas, to physically grasp a brighter, warmer, sunnier future. I decided to leave all I could behind me, and strike out for something new. I am making my run for the border, eating and drinking and being merry for tomorrow I live.

In just a few weeks, I will sit down in a theater and watch the Fast and the Furious 7, and silently, simultaneously, mourn Paul Walker’s death and honor his life, and I will do what I have been doing since January 1st: I will live fast and furiously, one quarter mile at a time, until I have earned a natural end and a forever sleep.

No more do I contemplate my own death, at my hand or by Nature’s. It will come when it comes. For now, there is living to do. And never more have I been aware of that than today, on my birthday, as I turn 28 and start a brand new year. I honestly did not think I would see today, but here the sun sets and this day is almost over. Another one is coming.

The Power of a Like

I exist on a variety of social media platforms, (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I think I even have an unused Tumblr sitting around somewhere) and sometimes I post things and sometimes I get likes on them.

For instance, I recently posted this on Instagram, a picture of blue cake with yellow icing. I got a few likes, one from a cousin I haven’t seen since I was 7 or something, one from a friend I haven’t seen in a few years, one from an aunt I haven’t seen in a few years, one from a friend I haven’t seen since college, and one from a person I have never met.

But the in the instance of each like, I felt connected to each person, if only for the briefest of seconds.

My cousin just recently got married, in a very bohemian wedding, in a way that I have come to know is totally her. My friend loves Harry Potter and is a total NERD. My aunt is one of the best people I have ever known. She recently was at a beach. My college friend is a professional photographer, and I love seeing her work, mostly of weddings and other portrait sessions, but also of her dog in the snow and the early morning sun cracking over the Adirondack mountains. One person apparently likes blue cake with yellow icing and posting pictures of LEGO.

I’ve heard all the arguments about how people are glued to their phones and how they don’t interact anymore, and how the world is losing something in its increasing digitalization. But each time my phone notified me of a like on my silly Instagram picture of blue cake with yellow icing I felt more connected in that instant than I had before.

Sure, two of the five people I’ve known since I was born. The others a few years. One I’ve never met. But I follow each on Instagram and thus see the slivers of their lives that they share through little square pictures.

Maybe that is the sad realization of the times, but look at who I was connected to: two friends, a cousin, an aunt, and a person I know only by screen name. The cousin lives in California, the friend and aunt in Virginia, the college friend in New York, and I haven’t the foggiest notion where the other person lives. And I, in frigid Wisconsin, was connected to them all in an instant. At that exact moment in time, I knew that each was doing what I was doing: looking at my picture on Instagram.

Their likes said that they saw a piece of blue cake with yellow icing and it made their moment. They “liked” it. In that moment, it compelled them to tell me that, only that, simply that, merely that. None of them felt the need to leave a comment or communicate further, and that is ok. This isn’t about comments or actual communication, this is about sideways communication, the power of a like.

A like is a very simple way of saying: “You put this in the world, where it didn’t exist before, and I like that”.

I like that, too. I also liked my blue cake with yellow frosting. It was delicious.

(By the way, if you are interested in following me, you can find me on most social media platforms as PhilRedbeard.)

Down the Dusty Road

Hey there, everyone, anyone who reads this blog or who has read it in the past,

I am thinking about what to do with this blog. For a while there I was using it was a portal for my poetry, while I was regularly writing poetry. But I am not doing that anymore and I find myself with a blog and nothing regular to write on it.

Except that I often have a lot to say, and no one to say it to, or nowhere to say it, except this dusty old blog of mine.

So, if it’s ok with you, I am going to start saying things here. Feel free to read them and respond and have a good time with it or ignore it completely. I won’t mind. Often I just want someone to talk to, and the good ole’ internet of friends, family, and complete strangers will sometimes suffice just fine.

Thanks,

Phil RedBeard

The Last Poetry Roundup

Hello all. Today was a cold, cold day as I made my way to Barnes & Noble. Such is fall/winter in Wisconsin. After I had got inside the store and warmed up, I sharpened my pencil and began to write. Today’s last two chapters were on the sonnet, that grand old form that served Shakespeare so well, and other miscellaneous “forms”.

I must be honest: I don’t like sonnets, and I’ll tell you why shortly. But, they come in two varieties, the Petrarchan sonnet and the Shakespearean sonnet. They both have fourteen lines, but the Petrarchan sonnet is differentiated by a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBACDECDE whereas the Shakespearean sonnet has a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Really, that is all the difference I can find in the form, though each, perhaps, has its uses and themes that are better suited to pairs of rhymes or what not. I wrote one sonnet of each variety. The first, a Petrarchan, could also be called an ode, as it is written about a personal object that I so love.

Minifigure

The little man with yellow face and smile,
he stands upon my desk to greet the morn.
Though well he has been played; little worn
is he. His legs could walk a million miles,
his arms could lift a heavy plastic pile.
And should an arm or leg from body shorn
with careful reattachment he’s reborn
to last again some many little whiles.
But this tiny person is not too real:
he’s molded plastic, a child’s plaything,
minute and pallid, this man is but a fake.
Yet I like him and he has great appeal
to me. He and his kind, though small, are kings
of the playground. For him a world I’ll make.

The second sonnet, a Shakespearean, tells, at last, why I hate sonnets.

I Hate Sonnets

Though poet I am and poet remain
some forms of po-et-ry I do disdain
and try, as much as I can to refrain
from composing: the sonnet I abstain.
It’s overlong, and I don’t like the rhymes
Which come in separated pairs of ab
or cd or ef. And did I say the crimes
include a steady beat and meter drab?
Why it’s enough to drive the poet mad!
That is, if the poet’s me and not Bill
Shakespeare or, uh, Petrarch who both wrote scads
of poems in sonnetical form at will.
It seems, to some, like them, it’s easily wrote.
Apparently I got in the wrong boat.

Ha ha. I thus amuse myself.

The final chapter of my book, The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry, as yes, I have at least reached the end, was on miscellaneous and sundry forms that are not, really, proper forms. There are the whimsical non-forms of ee cummings that seem to do whatever he wants them to do to fit the theme, and there are other poems by poets that make a shape to illustrate themselves. Finally there are forms for forms sake, such as the rictameter, which for no particular purpose is in the shape of a diamond. Here, I’ll demonstrate:

Shapely

They say
that a diamond
is a girl’s very best
and that to win her heart you must
buy one, ring one, set upon her finger
but I find it crass and capital
to buy love with a rock
white, sparkley
and cut.

See? Diamond themed AND diamond shaped. How bout that?

Lastly, I took a stab at an ee cummings type poem.

Faucet

From here it

drip

drips

down

la
sp sh

And there you have it. A dripping faucet.

I have very much enjoyed my poetical foraging, and for now I’ll put down the pencil. For one, next week is my sister’s wedding and I will be quite otherwise entertained, and for another, I’m done with my guidebook and must now think how to proceed without a set structure to follow. As always, I hope you enjoyed reading my poems.