Lock and Load 2.0

The National Rifle Association broke its silence on the massacre with what it called an “important statement from the National Rifle Association,” saying that the organization, which has steadfastly fought almost any federal or state gun control legislation, was potentially reconsidering its position.
“The N.R.A. is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to make sure this never happens again,” the statement said. It did not offer details.

New York Times, December 18, 2012


Certainly worth the wait, here are the N.R.A. contributions to national efforts to stem gun violence.  Be sure to Like on N.R.A. Facebook page.

·        A partnership with Lord’s Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony to conjure magical spells that allow bullets to pass harmlessly though the bodies of LRA child soldiers.  “It’s worth a try and obviously he’s doing the Lord’s work.  Ought to poll good for the holidays”, said an N.R.A. spokesman.

·        A new line of N.R.A. logo hunter orange wear for children and adults.  “Hold Your Fire fashions look great while making you less of a target,” said an N.R.A. spokeswoman, wearing a fetching camisole and garters made from shell casings and the recycled socks of Republican House members.  Sold exclusively at Target.

·        Make crazy people wear thick Poindexter glasses to reduce visual acuity.  Possible product tie-in with Coke Classic in green glass bottles.

·        Gatling guns in every school.  Disguise them as lions, tigers and bears and adopt as school mascots.

·        Bring back running boards on cars.  Gangsters firing Tommy guns from outside cars are easier to hit. 

·        Redesign schools to look like barns.  Everyone knows the old adage about the difficulty of hitting their broad sides. 

·        New mandatory university seating arrangements modeled on the 18th century military tactic of massed broadsides.  All incoming freshmen will be armed with black powder rifles.  Students with Arabic surnames will be issued wet powder. 

·        Institute mandatory work place morning prayer beseeching God to allow you to live another day or at least take one in the shoulder.  Employers not liable for missed work days due to gunshot under the Act of God clause.

·        People kill people so outlaw people.  We suggest the President, liberals, progressives, humanists and Nuns On The Bus for starters.  Visit the N.R.A. website and cast your own vote from a list compiled by a committee of Republican Congressmen, Baptist theologians and Ted Nugent.   

Fish Story

A Life

“A memoir is how one remembers one’s

own life, while an autobiography

is history requiring research,

dates, facts double-checked” opines Gore Vidal

setting us free to set all of it down

bound only by the porous net of our

recollection hauled dripping from the sea

slack save for a goggle eyed mackerel

ogling a hard knot of glistening green

crabs tangled as grandma’s fake jewelry 

and plastic six-pack cuffs in great bristling

hanks.  Arrayed on deck to dry in the sun

reeking of brine, repelling all but the

hardiest of gulls worthless talisman’s

resisting all but the most inventive

gypsy readers, I paw through the meager

haul clad in my oilskins and nor’easter

fillet knife clenched in my teeth awash in

sloshing viscera as I gut the past

heaving chum to the silent circling sharks.

Publication

In A Silent Town appears in Literary Kicks:  Intellectual Curiosities and Provocations, http://www.litkicks.com/

Philosophy 101

Scrambled Logic

I can no more fathom

necessity and sufficiency

than pluck a shell

shard suspended

in glaire free

from a blue enamel bowl

thumb and index finger

blunt and bumbling

mucking blindly

about objects

of scorn ladled on

in heaps by a very tetchy yolk

aloof and afloat

encapsulating rather neatly

that eternal 
barnyard stumper

which came first

the chicken 
or the egg. 

  

New publication

Pocket Thoughts, a new online lit magazine has published A Codeine Christmas in it's inaugural issue. 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117201311/Pocket-Thoughts-Issue-1

For Newtown

In A Silent City

Walk the streets of this silent city walk

all day all night and on into the next

until the sound of your footfalls ebb

by degrees, an eternity thin as

a bee’s wing between them, each one orphaned

to aimlessness stark as a sonar ping.

Find yourself before a modest house find

the courage to let yourself in to roam

empty stillborn rooms waxen in twilight

leaning lightly on a carved newel that will

never wear down beneath a warm steady

erosion of hands, their fingers destined

never to still the lips of whispering

lovers or sweep hair back from the foreheads

of feverish children or ever so

carefully lower yielding lids over

grateful eyes spared searing indelible

etching.  Small fingers laced in eternal

salvation from thoughts of putting a gun 
to God's temple and pulling the trigger.

Pray you’ll find the door and leave this house pray

for all the good it will do, solemn walls

silent witness to what will never be.

The First Step's A Doozy

Fiscal Cliff

Elephant graveyard

bristles with pachyderm bones,

bleached heaps down below.