Laughter hope sock in the eye's Blog

What did you do in the Global War on Terror, Daddy?

(Editor’s Note: I am not the person who brought Mr. Goldberg’s family into this. It was Jonah Goldberg who hid inside his own daughter’s skirt when it came time to fight in a war he so assiduously promoted)

People move into violence by a disposition to treat the world as entirely theirs.

–Alfred Kazin

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

Jonah Goldberg

What is a Crappy Little Country, Mr. Goldberg?

What’s a crappy little country, Mr. Goldberg?
When cluster bombs are dropped upon its conscripts
Is it fecal matter rather than blood
That drains from their bodies?
When a little girl in a crappy little country cries
Because the car transporting her family
Was shot to bits at a checkpoint
Does she cry saline tears, like your daughter?
Or does liquefied shit ooze out of her eyes?
Or am I just taking your metaphor too literally?

by Richard W. Bray

(We are thrilled to announce new guest poster”> Wade, an artist who expresses himself in many media. He paints self-portraits on a variety of surfaces including toasters and other people’s artwork, and has recently turned his attention to dismantling, reconstituting, and painting discarded, often headless dolls which are then nestled together in the “basket o’babies.”

He is also a fixture at Southern California poetry readings and has published a book of poems entitled Madcap: Spontaneous Western Haiku by a Guy Named Wade. One of his first art pieces involved a doll’s head impaled on a skimmer pole, entitled “Baby Wade’s Head on a Stick.” It was utilized for emphasis during his poetry readings and lead to his self-portrait series.

He lives in Southern California with his wife and their furry children and is hard at work on the next painting in his admittedly egotistical self-portrait series.)

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE READER

Spontaneous Western Haiku #1996

Old places, new days

Old roles are recast

A clown (The Ghost) sits alone

EDTIOR’S NOTE:

Hey Kids! Want more poetic bang for your buck?
Rearrange the order of the Spontaneous Western
Haiku’s first three lines and repeat the previous
instructions

Low, Dishonest Decade

I sit in a Starbucks
In the town of Bill and Ted
As my once-great nation,
Founded with bold words and blood
Against the imperial yoke,
Horrifies the planet
With our lust for “revenge”
How did we who warded off
The brigands of Tripoli
Transmogrify into
Petroleum pirates?

by Richard W. Bray

Minor Chords

I’m the fly on the wall
The varnish on the table
The ghost in the doll

Yet, I am never truly noticed.

(Editor’s Note: Brian S. Linville is an educator and existential warrior who lives in Southern California. You can reach him at brianslinville@gmail.com)

Sound Effects, Air Guitar and Spooky Little Chicks

I want to hear flowers sing the blues
And wrestle the sunset for possession of the day
Mold diamonds with my teeth
And hear the Devil pray

Then when all the hungry have been fed
And the last word has been said,
I will sit down on my bed with a sigh,
For then and only then will I ever be ready to die.

(Editor’s Note: Brady Rhoades is a Southern California writer whose work has appeared in Visions International, Chiron Review, Comstock Review, Beacon Street Review, Bryant Literary Review, Antioch Review and many other publications. We are thrilled to have him as our first guest blogger.)

What Your Dad’s Underpants
Have To Do With Space Travel

Been thinking of the astronaut who drifted away

in his capsule, still drifting in the huge space out there,

part of a loop. Eighty five years old,

going bony, brain splat on the steel hatch,

mouth in a slush, thighs running around the cabin.

Written off by the Russian government in 1960.

Nobody wants to think of him this way. It’s better

not to think of some things, like your Dad’s underpants.

Where is the good in my Dad’s underpants? you ask.

And what’s it got to do with astronauts?

Which reminds me: he must have been wearing underpants.

It’s not all about spacesuits, radar, physics.

Nobody wants to admit that sad diaper was loosed

on the universe, but it was, an artifact

of the human race, and they’ll draw conclusions, you know.