Audio Composition of "Skins" by H. Newberry

Soundcloud audio composition of "Skins" by H. Newberry

A Pale Sun Rises

Adrift on faint motes
dissatisfaction lingers,

dancing between us

it marks the growing distance

like particles of faded ink

on ancient maps,

luring us away from

the mystery.

We are blind explorers,

you and I,

stubborn and insistent on

trekking into the fullness

of our unhappiness,

our loss of lust and symmetry,

determined to find this

lowering of love

and the forgetting

of those tender groves

where once we found sweet, hungry life

and midnight hours anointed by discovery.

Such a pale sun rises

over this land

we forged from fire.

Cold shadows seep like wounds

eclipsing the dragon's breath

that was the soul of our world.

And yet, instead of pressing onward,

instead of searching deeper

we turn,

our backs becoming siblings

who push away

from each other,

from the uncharted heart

and begin the completion

of a journey towards

the edges of our ending.

© H. Newberry, 2016

Skins

(For Holly)

I want to peel off our skins

and hand them across

these ropes of barbed wire.

I will wear you and

you will wear me

like cloaks

so we can move

about hidden as

the thing we are supposed

to dread, and our eyes

would see different worlds

not so very far from our own.

If we could spit out the flavors

of stupidity and hate

from the safety of

the other side of the wall,

slip each other on and

clamor over the fence

into a no-man's land

beyond ignorance and fear -

fear that should be hollow,

ridiculous nothings

except for the lives

it crushes and the ones

torn in two separate,

ragged pieces of

you and me,

and your babies and my

babies, making it impossible

for them to find a way

to find each other.

I want to merge these hues,

this difference,

this otherness,

into a golden Oneness

of every shade

from the inside out

and see with our eyes

where it wounds so deeply

without spilling a single drop

of my own blood

except when it's dripping

from your veins

and taking us away

from each other,

from us,

from everyone.

I want to peel off our skins

and give them to each other

to wear

like life jackets

or survival suits

to keep our beauty

safe from hate

and protect the

hearts beating in our

chests for another day.

© H. Newberry, 2016

The Care and Feeding of Your Idiot

© G. Johnson, 2016

There are 7.4 Billion people on the planet and for every single one there is an idiot; a person perceived to be lacking intelligence, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way.

Of course, I do not live everywhere so I can only speak with surety in regards to my own country,  however, it's safe to assume we are a decent sample of what humanity has to offer (both good and bad) and here you don't have to look far to find an idiot.

How is this possible? you might wonder.  If there were actually an idiot for everyone wouldn't the population be closer to 15 Billion?  Are these idiots invisible?  (Unfortunately, no.)  Are they some shadowy, counterproductive-clan lurking unseen for the most part?  (Yes.)  Do they exist to covertly rise, lob volleys of egregious stupidity and then - poof- retreat into anonymity?  Yes, they do, and we (all of us) are where they hide.

A few will bristle at this declaration.  "I do not shelter idiots," they will say.  "I fight them.  I fight them everywhere I find them."  And they're right.  They do.  We all do.  Or at least we think we do.  In fact, most of us consider ourselves the world's greatest idiot locators.  We can spot them for miles.  After all, we've all had this experience - struggling to educate another and discovering we're dealing with a level of 'lacking intelligence' which stuns us into speechlessness.

Still, we harbor them as well. In fact, I say with confidence, just about every single person ever born has had an idiot; a dimension of themselves perceived to be lacking intelligence, or who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way and every once in a while (for some it's a bit more frequently) they pop out in all their heinous, low-browed, knuckle-dragging glory.

For instance, if you are a breathing, thinking person and you do not consider yourself biased (an unfair inclination or prejudice for or against someone or something) in any way - you are in full possession of an idiot.  Because we are all biased.  Every last one of us.  We have all made assessments and judgments about gender roles, people, places, and cultures based on second-hand perceptions given to us through family, society, media, religion and politics.  We can't help it.  It's the way we work.  Our minds are constantly struggling to understand and define the world we live in in an effort to build a sense of stability and security for us.  To do that we must form determinations of everything we perceive (note I said perceive, not experience) and since we cannot possible know everyone, taste or smell everything and be present in every place on the planet, we make 'guesses' at what is 'out there' based on second-hand reports (opinions) and from these 'guesses' we decide whether it's good or bad.

Or, if you don't believe you're bigoted (a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions) you are in full possession of an idiot.  Because at some point or another we are all bigoted.  Think about it.  Consider a staunch opinion or view you have.  Gun control?  Abortion?  Politics?  Religion?  Now think about the 'other' side of that issue.  Think about those stubborn faces and hand-painted signs blatantly proclaiming the opposite view.  Are your hackles rising?  Do you sort through your 'friends' list in an effort to weed out those unenlightened morons?  Have you given them up as hopelessly stupid?  Or maybe they should be forced to live together in a segregated community where no one has to listen to them?  Get is now?  Right.  Bigot.  Idiot.

How about we wiggle down into misogyny (dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.)  For example: if you have ever a) assumed a woman was a slut/whore based on your judgment of the way she was dressed  b) assumed a female with a good job/grades/pay exchanged sexual favors to get it  c) automatically wondered what a rape victim was wearing or why she was where she was or doing whatever she was when she got raped  d) have ever been pissed at rude/bad driver and upon recognizing it was a woman felt like the situation now made sense - Guess what?  You, darling, are in full possession of an idiot.

Or the big, hairy one no one wants to own, racist.  (A person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.) You are definitely not a racist!  After all you have -insert various label- friends!  And you can own that - provided you've never been uncomfortable when you suddenly find yourself the minority in a group.  And as long as you have never looked at faces of a different hue on the street and instinctively worried for your safety.  (By the way, shifting your purse to the other hip isn't going to stop someone if they are intent on robbing you.)  As long as you have never rounded a blind corner and twitched at the unexpected sight of a member of a different race and had to choke down a flash of panic.  Because guess what, sugar lump; if you take for granted you're safe when the faces around you are the same color as your own - Yep, that's right; you are racist and you are in full possession of an idiot.

Still want to argue it?  Well, you must be better than every human being who ever graced us with their presence, because we all have an idiot.  Go digging back into the lives, writings, quotes and thoughts of humanity's saints and heroes and you will find glaring examples of their idiots.  So, no - if Gandhi and Saint Peter had moments of glaring misogyny and John F. Kennedy could refuse to allow Sammy Davis, Jr. to perform at his inauguration in a evident moment of racist idiocy while actively fighting for equal rights, and if Abraham Lincoln can have said this:

"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality ... I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men,"

during a campaign speech on September 18, 1858 in Charleston, Illinois, (Source - "What Lincoln Said in Charleston in Context: Parts 1 & 2"by Brooks D. Simpson, 01.29.2011) and still went on to issue the "Emancipation Proclamation", then it's pretty strong evidence we all possess an idiot or two.  Kinda like tenacious foot fungus.  And just like a bad case of Athlete's Foot, no one wants to own it.  Well, get over it.  You have one.  I have one.  But like the above examples we do not have to be susceptible to the stupidity of our idiots.  We can learn to dis-empower them and go on to make the world a better place.  For everyone.

© G. Johnson, 2016

First, after you accept you have one, you need to try to understand where your idiot comes from and simply being in possession of one does not make you a terrible person!  It is - I repeat - it is the natural state of the human animal to fear or be made wary by anything which differs from the known.  It's an animal instinct still buried in our lizard brains that helped us survive when we roamed mountains, plains and grasslands being eaten by large, furry things with huge teeth.  (Or other humanoids for that matter.)  If not for this knee-jerk wariness we would not be here.  Still, despite the fact our chances of being eaten by toothy, hungry quadrupeds has fallen significantly, our caution has not.  So, taking this into account, it isn't a hard stretch of the grey cells to understand if the faces around you are all the same color, then those are the faces which seem 'normal', known and thereby predictable (or safe).  And when we catch sight of one that isn't?  Given we instinctively think of anything different as 'unknown' and the unknown scares the shit out of us! (Ears sharp, eyes narrowed, body tense and nostril flaring...)  Yep, this is the homeland of our idiots.

So, now that we have established the ownership and the birthplace of our idiots, what do we do with them?  Destroy them!, some will yell.  Banish them off the planet!  Yeah, well, good luck with that because, sad though I am to say it, we can't get rid of them completely.  Not really.  Spawned by our inherent dread of the unfamiliar mating with our need to feel secure through understanding our world they are the bastard children clinging to us until the unknown becomes known.  Unless you are someone who can be everywhere and everyone in every culture, race, and religion your mind will panic and always try to slap a judgment on what is different while screaming danger signals like an over-reactive, neurotic goose.  So, yeah, long story short (I know, I know - too late) you have to learn to live with your idiot.

After you have stopped trying to make an orphan of your idiot, the second step is to learn it.  (You are the idiot expert, right?)  Keep a wary eye on it when you're moving around your part of the planet.  Discover what it reacts to.  Force yourself to sift through the foul, toxic garbage it vomits based on nothing more than collective labeling, fearful imaginings and biased possibilities.  Dig in and find all the nasty little tags and assumptions it has happily slapped on anyone who is not like you.

Next, disarm it.  You can't shut it up (not entirely) but you can sure as hell get some control over it.  And how do you do that?  With the same organ that spawned the damned thing.  Take charge of your thoughts and point out right quick your idiot is acting like - well, an idiot.  That it is judging one human being based on assumptions.  Or fear.  Or the actions of a few.  Or that it is making unfair assessments while playing lizard-brained, "worst-case-scenario" games.  That's literally it.

And stop letting it play with other people's idiots.  Please.  It just makes for a bigger mess.  When you encounter another person's idiot, don't pretend you didn't hear the sexist/racist/biased comment.  Don't act like it never happened.  Don't mumble some embarrassed non-response - or worse yet - force yourself to agree just to keep the peace.  Either admit you are working to control your own idiot and they might want to do the same or just walk the hell away and leave them and their ass-showing idiot pontificating for all to see.

If you want to control your idiot you will also have to be careful what you feed it.  Do not, under any circumstances, allow your idiot free-range grazing!  Plopping your idiot down among one sided-view points and allowing it to only be exposed to like-minded information/ people/experiences is a bad idea.  Homogenization (creating an artificial sameness) leads to oneness (as opposed to Oneness- as in one race, the human race) which, unfortunately, is a place where our idiots thrive since it closely resembles their homeland.  Instead, your idiot should be exposed to people and things which are different as well as a wide selection of various viewpoints and opinions.  (And facts, for the love of God - facts you know through personal experience to be true.  Because idiots love to feed on rumors, panic and unfounded opinions.)

Another delicacy which helps to inoculate your idiot against over-activity is strong and repeated doses of commonality, or finding something about a different individual which is similar to something about you in an effort to relate to the other person as a person and not as a race/culture/religion or opposing viewpoint.  Idiots only relate to other idiots who hold similar views but human beings can easily relate to other human beings across the board.  Fortunately, there are numerous areas of life with which you can treat your idiot, a varied and palpable selection given we all share the same basic human experiences and emotions.

Also, your idiot will be forced into a state of benign, distracted confusion if you force it to see those you encounter as individuals instead of stereotyped groups.  Idiots can only see collectives, or groups as a whole.  For instance, to your idiot one African American is thought to be all African Americans.  One white person is used to identify all white people.  One Latino = all Latinos.  Etc.  (This, I might point out, is not only severely lacking intelligence it is horrendously counter-productive to society as a whole.)

If you wish your idiot to arrive at a supreme state of docility (submission) treat it with conscious and continuous applications of open-mindedness (curiosity and non-judgement) and love (compassion) for those with whom you share the planet.  Compassion for yourself and the fear which spawned your idiot will lead you to compassion for everyone else who is struggling with their own idiot. 

In summation, begin working diligently to domesticate your idiot but do so knowing this will be a life long occupation.  It is for me and it will be for you.  My idiot and I are well known to each other.  She's reactive and irrational.  She's embarrassing and judgmental.  She jumps to conclusions and tries to destroy my curiosity and wonder by making me anxious as hell because I am in the midst of difference and diversity.  She even tries to lure me into long games of "Misanthropy" (a general hatred, distrust and contempt for humankind).

However, I fight like hell to resist (though I admit, sometimes I fail).  But even in those initial moments, when her howling blindsides my better sense, I have a store of rational understanding to cool the fires quickly.  For one, I've learned her judgment sucks given she is wrong about nearly everything100% of the time.  Secondly, I've found her to be little more than a dis-empowered, terrified creature who, if she had her way, would rob me of everything that makes my life worth living; hope, amazement, wonder, joy, friendship.  And finally, the only thing she cares about - above my loves, my children, my world, is keeping her own ass safe from whatever might be 'out there' waiting to eat her.  Which, as a mother, wife and woman - as a human being - is a mindset I refuse to tolerate in myself.  And for a very good reason.  When it comes time for me to hand over my part of this world I want to pass it off to my children and my grandchildren - to your children and your grandchildren - from my heart and not from my idiot.

The Un-United States of America

artist unknown

I grew up in a family of proud Americans.  Most of the men in my family served, fought and some died for it.  My mother and fore-mothers worked hard to instill respect and even relief that I had been lucky enough to be born in it. Public school educated me to the 'Great American Melting Pot' and Christianity reinforced that I lived in a country of 'God, church, and Love Thy Neighbor'.  I grew up thinking I lived in a noble place, a free land, a land comprised of a humanity which lived, loved and worked towards a common goal.  A democratic Utopia where people had an opportunity to rise based on nothing more than dedication, character and hard work.  Where individuality was protected and everyone had the right to live as they choose.  Under the wing of "All Are Created Equal" I was indoctrinated into the "This is the Land of Brotherhood" cult from birth despite the glaring evidence that confused the hell out of me growing up.

Well, I'm a grown-assed woman now; a wife, a mother and an American, and I call "bullshit".  Because that's not where I live.  It never was and it never has been.  Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the America I was spoon-fed was a huge lie.

Let me tell you where I now find myself.  I live in the un-United States of "Us Against Them" Land co-mingled with "We Are All Equal" Nation.  And it's not very nice here today.  In fact, shit is hitting the fan in a slow-motion, downhill plunge and today it's a frightened, pain-filed, grieving country heading towards a catastrophic collision which could land us squarely into "What the Fuck Have We Done Land?" if we don't wake the hell up right-freaking-quick.

In the past two years America has gotten heated and everything noxious has boiled to the surface in all the glorious/rancid colors of a nation comprised of sects, cliques, clubs, parties, boundaries, labels and tags sprinkled with healthy dashes of ignorance, compassion, prejudice, love, fear and hope.

Here, if you're complacent, too busy, or lazy and don't think for yourself, religion, Politics, and television are just waiting to tell you who to love/trust and who to hate/fear.  Pro's and con's thrive on both sides of every issue, empowered, optimistic and 100% sure their way is the RIGHT way.  Men and women smile proudly under "Make America White Again" banners as they blow adoring kisses to greedy, man-boy racist, misogynists while across the ropes loud, proud sisters and brothers proclaim equality and march to chants of "Humans of the World Unite".  Here people feel their right to be 'right' is more important than human life while others fight and die for the rights of others to live as they choose.  It's a place where those who are supposed to protect us shoot too quickly and those actually trying to protect us are callously shot dead.  Where children walking down the street are viable targets and gated communities are heavily-patrolled, homogenized fortresses.  It's a land where bigots can exchange white robes for black ones and white/blue collars who shriek for WWIII scream and rail against having to pay taxes that might go to feed orphans, widows and veterans while others give away their lives to care for the hungry and disenfranchised.  Where greedy, self-serving partisans sell basically anyone not white, male and rich into a quagmire of inescapable poverty while others are working their asses blind to bring change, build houses and educate the populace.  It's a land which sanctions separatism in red (blood), white (skin) and blue (lineage) while striving towards unity in red (valor), white (innocence) and blue (justice).

Here people cling more tightly to their right to bear arms than they do to the right of children to live safely.  It's a place where damn near everything is for sale and the media is carefully cultivated to whip the unthinking, under-informed masses into a constant state of panic that 'someone' is going to 'steal' what little they have in an effort to distract them from the real thieves because in this place ignorance, prejudice and panic are manipulated like pieces on a chess board by hands reaching from the safety of hallowed, white halls into the hearts of human lives struggling to survive long enough to pay for the rings gracing those fingers.

Given all this confusion, it's easy to understand why it is a country whose population is rapidly loosing sight of being human.  It has become a warring, seething land of Black, White, Law Enforcement, Citizen, Gay, Straight, Lower Class, Middle Class, Upper Class, Christian, Non-Christian, Republican, Democrat factions which cannot seem to rest easy with the fact the other sides live and breathe.  It is a country which indoctrinates instead of educates, afraid its people will realize the hollow, hopeless battles they are fighting are doing nothing beyond destroying themselves and their children.  

So, no, this was never the country we were told it was.  But it's to one we have and there is a chance we could be headed that way.  Because whether we like it or not something different is being born.  A problem isn't a problem until you realize it's a problem, right?  Well, here you go.  We've rolled belly up and sky-high in a perfect storm of past sins and present misdeeds, exposing a reeking weakness of character which is being played out on the world stage instead of whispered out of the sides of smiling mouths.  Our make-up has come off, boys and girls, and all our ugly, segregated imperfections are right there where only the most intentionally blind person can pretend otherwise.

For all these flaws and failings America was a nation fashioned from the longing for integrity, freedom, individuality, justice and equality.  With this energy she gave birth to her first child through blood, battle and fire.  Yet by denying those rights to all the members of our country we narrowed down our sights, started making labels and forgot all that.

Call me an optimist, but I honestly recognize these as birthing pains.  Change comes from pain and right now after centuries of abuse, misuse, lies, repression and rape from within America is a compromised, battered, bartered lady pregnant with the need to bring something different into the world.  And we have a obvious resource which could shape the outcome and end this insanity in a way that would help us to our feet and onto a righter, truer path this time.  We the PEOPLE.  That's right.  US.  No labels.  No tags.  Be proud of who you are and where you came from, but retain the ability to look at life as human beings FIRST; fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, wives, husbands, lovers, friends, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers.  Because before the tags and labels slapped onto our chests we belonged to one race; the human race.

Of course, the problem with this is we might grow uncomfortable only applying this vital fact to those born within our boarders.  Because if Americans are human beings that would mean so are those biped mammals to the south of us.  And so are those to the west of us.  And the East.  Holy hell, we might just be forced to realize the people we are swapping shots, bombs and droning off the face of the earth are...

But how better to blur the lines used in the repression and killing of our children than to refuse to feed the machine?  No label.  No line.  An African American man is shot and killed without cause and you're a white, suburban mom?  No.  You are a human being and a mother.  Just like the woman who is being told her child is dead.  A young, white girl is raped and murdered and you're an Asian American dad?  No, you are human being and a father.  Just like the father who now has to identify the body of his child.  A cop is killed in the line of duty and you're a blue collar worker?  No.  You're a husband/wife and a mother/father trying to make a living for your family and do the right thing.  Just like the person on the cold, hard slab who left behind a spouse and a small child.

Right now, this country is being drawn and quartered by her own people. Obedient to our masters, we've gotten so good at narrowing down the right to live to smaller and smaller segments of the world population we have actively poisoned our own well to the point that the sludge is undrinkable.  Our country is being torn into a million bleeding pieces, staggering in this toxic waltz of our savagely defended us and them mentality.  And us?  We're being played like a rigged carnival game.  Why?  Because if we drop the labels and the lines, there is NOTHING LEFT TO DIVIDE US.  God forbid we wake up and move against those who have bought and sold pieces of this world back and forth for centuries.  We might actually wind up with the country we were told we had.