One Foot in the Grave

1. My parents are finally moving out of the ATL. Which is great for them...which makes me really happy. I'm a little worried that since my stuff is in storage on their property (I closed out my apartment lease when I first deployed) and they have my cat, and my truck, that things could get difficult when i get home.

2. Hopefully tomorrow or later today i can post some pics from my trip.

REV!

MotherFucker.

I'm back home.

Mahmudijah.

The Mahm.

St. Michael.

What have you.

My truck, which I left here in good working order, is destroyed mostly.

The insurgency is on the rise in our area, with a most impressive coordinated assault on one of my sister FOBs (St. Joe) under their belt. Apparently they have enough folks and sophistication in my back yard where they can simultaneously place accurate mortar rounds on three seperate locations (at least 30k apart) to tie up any ground mounted quick reaction forces, as well as offer up multiple RPG strikes on the guard towers at Joe. These RPG attacks really bring out the QRF who face their own ambush as they come out the gate, at least 12 insurgents occupying buildings with an overwatch position to Joe's only entrance armed with more rpg's and small arms. The only possible responses are tanks or Apaches. Luckily we have both on call. 12 dead insurgents, destroyed buildings, a compromised FOB, sustained, accurate and unaswered indirect fire and lots o unanswered questions later... I'm here.

What the fuck has my chain of command been doing? We were winning somewhat when I left. And now we're being pinned down in our own fucking homes? Insurgents are pushing locals out of their homes and taking over my area at will? What kind of fucktarded plan have we been half-assedly executing? Obviously the kind that neglects sound contact with locals. Obviously the kind that gives further distance to unbridged gaps between soldiers and locals. Obviously the kind that has shown enough weakness when confronted by the insugency that it has been encouraged to grow.

Back home (the USA kind) I have no home, no job, and my commander in chief is on vacation (he's about 20 days behind Ronald Reagan right now in the race to become the most vacationing president ever. Hey W! we all got our fingers crossed! Here's to you and two more years of presidency...er vacationing!). Luckily pretty much everything that is important to me can fit into the back of a truck. Luckily I just paid off one of those.

In their fear to build relationships and get out of their hiding holes the FOBbits above me have fucked my friends and I.

We've just completed the first 1/4 of our tour. we've sent 4 of 24 members of this platoon home with injuries.

Thankfully we're not like another who has sent 8 home in body bags...but we got 9 months to go.

Stay true lambs,
REV

This quote from the WWE superstar Shawn "HBK" Michaels begins my post tonight.
And so with my own sense of realness I continue the story of my travels, or travails, as it were.

So begins booze and boobs pt. 2!

In Barcelona my drunken loneness was broken by the meeting of Sylvia...that's been stated. Whats hasn't been stated is my adoration for the young-dark-tressed-seductive-and-ultimately-unattainnable pharmacist whose late nite convenience enabled the coupling of Sylvia and I. I met her only twice. Twice she robbed me of illusion. Ill fortune making me need the thing she had. And what she had was copious and grand beauty (oh, and the issue that she was the only local shop open at 10pm/2200 that sold contraceptives of the male variety). Still, beauty took my composure, forcing the smiles of a caught and convicted man. A man noticing her returned smile that doesn't incur wrath for my need of fleshly accompaniment at this time. But a time-passed knowing smile, one that accepts the amor of a nightly and mostly anonymous romance. Romancing letters would I have sent her, bestowing the grace and composed adoration she deserved. And yet she deserved not a battery and condomn seeking male consumer lover. So love her I did not.

And So I Hate Sentimental Poetic Crap

I would write of her perfect and engaging eyes,
if!...I had the chance.
I would write of her sultry and alluring smile,
if!...it could be mine.
But, lone and needy is not
the time for romance.
Though, prone could I plead,
I would praise her indeed.

Yes, she in her proper white frock
holds my minds eye, and I in shock,
still buy a rubber for my cock,
and this makes for a short goodbye.



Them's the breaks,

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I noticed that last year I averaged a poem per month, or at least a poetic post per month. And this year is coming along sporadic yet still nearly there. I'm glad that I can continue to write. This makes me happy. I moved all said posts that i could find to my memories section. From there I'll begin editing for the submissions packet I've been putting off forever.

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On this, the last day of my leave, I give you the Wayfarer's Book Review.

1. The Big Nowhere James Elroy - Beyond all the literary and philosophical snobbery I gleaned from my 6 years of undergraduate work I found that above all reading I enjoy a good hardnosed noir detective novel. And Elroy is the best. I mean sure, some folks would cite The Big Sleep as THE best noir novel, and it may be. Raymond Chandler certainly had a knack, but I really dig Elroy's style. He captures the atmosphere of LA 1945-1955 in a breathtaking manner. Add to the intense atmosphere the ambiguous heroism/villany of his characters and a fucking twisted gruesome murder/conspiracy plot and you've got what, for me, makes a great read and a fun time.

2. The Subterraneans Jack Kerouac - Yes I've posted about this book countless times, but since I carry a copy with me nearly everywhere, and I ran out of a book while in Barcelona I picked it up again. Good read, nuff said.

3. Breakfast at Tiffany's; and collected short stories Truman Capote - Picked this up for a pound at a used bookstore in Liverpool. Really its the first time since I finished school that I even thought of Capote. It read smoothly, and the character of Holly Golightly was enjoyable and sometimes annoying, but the big part for me was the connection I came to feel with the narrator, who is a people watcher. And as a watcher he occassionally fixates on a certain people and is intent to figure them out, for no reason really. And whatever trespasses occur between him and his subject of study they eventually get forgiven, just so he can observe what happens next. I found the other short stories to be lacking in comparison, short morality-like stories with no real direction or moral. *shrug* maybe thats the point.

4. The Teachings of Buddha distributed by a japanesse non-profit intent on the dissemination of Buddha's wisdom - I found this book in the drawer on top of a gideon's bible in my Frankfurt hotel. I'd read some of it somewhere before, and spent a good deal of time meditating on the interconnectedness of all things. That everything happens because of a net-work of choices and actions, that my life is intrinsically tied not only to people around me, but all people, that this is where compassion should come from. And so on...

5. How to be Alone Jonathan Franzen - This is a collection of essays by a novelist who's work I've never read. What impresses me is that he was thrown out of Oprah's bookclub, for what transgression I don't know, but it instantly endeared him to me as a reader. The essays aren't really connected in anyway despite what the jacket suggests. And they range from literary analysis to reliving and re-valuing personal moments. I enjoyed the look into another person's projected thoughts and he's what I'd call a good writer. Maybe I'll read one of his novel's sometime.

I had planned to write a masterful prose/poetry piece as summation to my experiences, but I think I'll have to pass. Topics like the unequalled beauty of the condomn sales girl in a late night pharmacy, the apparent and regretful return-to-stylishness of the mullet in Europe, the horrors of fanny packs on people of all ages, and how American-ness may not be as hideable as I'd thought, will all have to stew a while longer and wait for the right moment for me to put them to paper.

Here's to me heading back to Mahmudijah,
Yippe-kay-yah!
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What I've seen that is successful is sending an innocent looking drink that is spiked with liquor or replaced by liquor. First chose a drink of suitable color to camoflage your alchohol ie coke and a brown liquor, lemonade and say tequilla. Then open the soda bottle, pour out all but enough to maintain a suitable coloring and texture fill the gap with chosen liquor. Then place a dot or two of superglue on the rim of the bottle, screw back on the cap til tight and let dry. Check to see if the cap turns (shouldn't) and package for shipping. Get creative and have fun!

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So, somewhere between travelling to Kendal UK, walking from there to Sizergh, and back then train hopping back to london and beyond to Frankfürt DE, i lost the desire to post. Here's to catching up...I offer these post experience tips for travel.
- If staying in Liverpool, make accomodations at the Embassie Hostel on Faulkner Square. It's a loverly place owned and operated by a nice man who once beat the Beatles in a battle of the bands, and has a flavorful introducory speech on the wonders of liverpool. In addition you'll be rooming with a mixture of Pols, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Finns, Swedes and other norse peoples as well as spainiards, the occassional true green mick and of course the odd american. I found this mixture to be pleasant although the smell sometimes wasn't. Ages ranged from 36 to 16 and everyone loved their alchohol and herb, which made nights out and in both enjoyable and enlightening. The Embassie is cheap, offers 24hr coffee and peanut butter sandwhiches, and loads of companions to enjoy an alien city with.
- If visiting the lake district, take an opportunity to walk from one town to the next. It won't be more than 10 miles and its really a great time. I put on some of my fav tunes and just enjoyed the leisurely scenery. And taking a detour through fields isn't looked down upon, the sheep won't hurt you and the locals are friendly. I happened to grab a map at a BP halfway through my walk so it made navigation a bit easier overland. It's a good opportunity to get away from the hustle of urban life and I wanted/needed some real relaxation time.
- If taking a train inside the UK don't worry too much about times, you can always catch the next one, and as long as you can find a station on the way towards your destination, you can almost always make headway. Plus the odd accidental stopovers allows time for beer.

And on to the now.

I'm waiting out the remainder of my leave in frankfurt. It aint a bad town so far. I've wanted more private time, so I've stayed mostly in my room and read the free copy of the teachings of Buddha. I go out for drinks or to watch a soccer match, but thats about it. I'm ready to return to Mahmudijah for sure, one, I heard the brigade has taken some casualties and I'm afraid for my comrades, two, after living with them for fuckin 9 months now, they're practically family so I plain miss them.

Cheers,
REV

"In the twelfth century, King Henry II, one of the most powerful European rulers of his time, regained the northern counties of England. He granted Sizergh and other lands in North and South Westmorland to Gervase Deincourt sometime between 1170 - 1180AD. Sizergh was held in the Deincourt family for several generations until Elizabeth Deincourt, became the sole heiress. Later the estate was conveyed in marriage to her husband, Sir William Strickland in 1239.

Sizergh castle has since remained in the Stickland family for over 750 years, being their main place of residence. Due to financial difficulties the remaining family made a gift of the castle, house and contents together with the adjoining lands to the National Trust in 1950. Mary Strickland CBE, the eldest daughter with no surviving sons died in 1970. Her husband Henry Hornyold added the surname and arms of Strickland in 1932 by coinheritance. The remaining family, associated to date with the castle are the Hornyold-Strickland's." - from one of many Sizergh webpages

Can you believe someone is gifted with the surname Hornyold?!?
Someday I'll be a horny old Strickland.

Walking the full night streets and hills of Liverpool last night provided some perspective and some consolation. This morning a similar walk was refreshing. Welcome cloud cover and cool breezes, breaking sunlight and broken facades, and an absenteeism to counterpart last nights revelry. I came across stonework suitcases indicating that someone did not intend to leave here. And yet this is where most of Europe left from for the new world (for about 150 years at least). The great port city of Liverpool. It reminds me of dreams of expatriation. I've paid to stay here til monday.

Those of you who are new here should understand that I write and post crappy poetry from time to time, mostly to keep myself writing and to vent. This latest I wrote on the weary train ride from London. And so I offer it to you, sweet lambs.

REV

Cheers to suicide! So Where's my Martini?

Here's to monday mourning the honey suckled dew
tattered kites sheepishly fighting floating o'er
green hills rolling ether
and ether cloggin the brain and sogging
numbed, dulled, misty, muted...
greyed...
swayed in a bouyant vacuum
Void and Nulled.

Here's to saluting the ashes of Amurken flags.

Here's to marching the blitzkrieg bop.

Here's to hands dropped and swinging (9 front 6 rear)
fingers curled torpor laugh.

Here's to the missing milk of fumescent flowers,
the keystoned soul holding ancient towers,
Hell, everybody knows
everybody knows
where this train ends.
Slinking slinking back from shadowed white walls
hallowed halls of marble
(not the altars of innocence).
The inexperienced have nothing to offer.
And there's no qwelling a phantom with fears
swelling tears wetting no flesh
nor the tangential tangled mesh of a lover’s hair.

Here’s to bearded simpletons
silenced by the word
THE WORD
and wondering
wandering still
be still
be still.
(bearded simpletons?
Oh were it so!)
Bearded simpletons raising savant fingers and guns
Freshly goateed
Hiply unshaven
Smartly moustachioed
And even still pointing
evil still twirling
oddly yes
odd. Savants madly hurling leftovers and biled lunch.

Here’s to floating bodies
bloating exploding bodies
tampered with hampered with ambition.
Existenz.
Garbbled sentiments laughed at and lost
on an abandoned road out somewheres,
browned greened burning vegetation
sprawling and blackened
and no cloud notices without protestations of rain.

It just aint the same.
there’s unchecked pain
somewheres veinous and vain
and what’s dieing aint wholly,
it’s the holy part.
That concern cancered phantom nervous system
twitching the throes mortal
switching off a 21 gram light
breathing the soul go
go ghost go
to nowheres and beyond.

As happens often in my life I've realized I don't really know what I'm doing, and could've made a much better go of things if I'd sat down and thought them through.

I'm sitting in Conrad's sepulchred city, London, after a day long sojourn from Barcelona. sure the travel was interesting with stimulating company and the wonders of euro-rail, but I blew quite a wad of money getting where I am, and am not too sure its where I wanna be. In fact I know I don't really wanna be here. Its sort of a check in the box of life for students of literature and at this point in my life it doesn't even interest me. My final destination here in the UK is to be Sizergh castle, home of the Strickland family, who lives there even today...its quite a ways off, but what the hell, I've got time and no inclination to stay anywhere else but my ancestral home. The only things in my way are this funk du road I'm brewing and sheer confusion over the UK rail system...

Why leave Barcelona you may ask?
*shrug* It didn't fit. Maybe I need more time to decompress from the fucking insanity of FOB St Michael, but I really didn't want to leave my room all too much. I enjoyed the beach. Talked to people only when drunk. And met one fairly interesting woman of notorious profession, but I wasn't living Barcelona. I couldn't bring myself to. It's a city of parties and bars and those invariably involve tons upon tons of breathing flesh that I don't want to be around right now. I want quiet. Seclusion. Green. I want a place I can sleep and ween myself back on to normal human interaction. Maybe that's too much to ask right now.

We'll see.

If'n it don't work out I'ma just head down to Deutschland and wait out my exile from Iraq. August 10th here I come...I know you're waiting on me.

Always,
REV

So far I think hangovers aren´t as bad as I remembered them.
I think euro-trash is a fitting title for many europeans, and I mean it in an endearing sense.
I think one night stands that involve many showers and Camus make for good memories.
I think topless beaches should be adopted more readily in America, hell, worldwide.
I think its odd how 8 months ago two shots of tequila wouldn´t have made my nose run, no matter how many other drinks it accompanied.
And I think the interview I conducted with the one eyed spaniard could´ve gone better had I been less impaired and not prone to staring at his eyepatch.
- Apparently, he works at a discotech in Seville; apparently, warm champagne is kinda pressurized and gets all explody when it hits a table corner. And apparently, champagne bottle fragments to the eye is as good a reason to go to the beach as any. Also, apparently, one eyed spainiards enjoy hitting on me. And so I awkwardly finished my interview in order to meet Sylvia/Rebecca, who with squared bangs and cuffed pants talked as poorly in english as I do in spanish, but wants to discuss philosophy anyway.

Now for making up words:

Boozification: or observations of a drunken fool

Spinning round
In a squared moderne chair
Red faced bliss
in ringlets, back long,
and straight banged smiles.
Laughter carried off by the breeze
replaced by a rhythmic wheeze
and its fat fortyish man,
In shower and skin shaking
Red faced hiss
in four counts making
Jumping Jacks.


Vaya con Dios (or don´t) sweet lambs,
REV

I remember having a hard time focusing, what seemed like hours of tasks and seconds to do them. Beneath me was the road, black topped, six foot embankments dropping on either side, a canal to the north reeded and muddy, and farmland stretching everywhere else. It was the Mulla Fayad expressway screaming "welcome to the cootch of civilization" its mouth split wide by a 250 lb aerial bomb and two propane tanks wired together as a carepackage from the insurgency...
( Read more... )

because sometimes they come off, never to be put on again.

What makes something like rejection sooo shitty is that the rejector and the rejectee can't possibly see the rejection in the same light. It looses meaning in the translation between two brains, or alters somehow in the space between lips and ear.

( Flashback Ahead )

120 degees is too fucking hot to have no AC. . . and its not as high as its gonna get yet.

I talked for a while with an Iraqi teenager two nights ago. What struck me about the boy was that while we talked he stopped mid sentence and asked to touch my face. Sure, says I. He places his hand on my cheek feeling stubble and bug bites and in a sort of surpised and contemplative voice says "So you are human too."

Aren't we all? I ask. And we switch topics to Futbol. He's a Manchester United fan, I love Liverpool. He favors Saudi Arabia in the next cup, I think Germany will be strong at home but South Korea could be a suprise. His dad comes up and gives me a cigarette and I look around as they talk to me. Doc is treating wounded kids from a VBIED that hit their mosque. Their car lights and our Humvee lights surround the makeshift triage. And a little girl is harrassing our soldiers for beanie babies, dollar bills, and chocolate. what else could an 8 year old girl want from a foreign military.

"I don't like english." Says Mohammed. "It's difficult." Yeah, I gave up on Arabic, so I can't blame ya.

His father thinks we'll be here for 20 years. That Iraq and the US are one now. Maybe so. Hopefully in that time we can all figure out what Mohammed did. The other guy is human too.

But what if the guys who boobytrapped the corpses I went to see yesterday don't recognize anyone but themselves as human? And here I say that like we're much better.

Humanity, I think, is what fills the little gaps between all the broken shit, all the breaking, and all the plans, schematics, graphics and orders. Its the sand slipping out of grasping fingers. Its our instinct without progress as a motivator. It's who we are when we concentrate on being more than doing.

Should a soldier feel bad about an eager kid pulling a beanie baby out of the razor wire it landed in, due to poor throw? Or should he/she take heart in the child's eagerness and the opportunity to girlishly throw a stuffed toy?

I think its win win. And not a bad way to spend a day.

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Peasant - "No one will forget what they have seen this day."
KCC - "There is nothing honorable in taking a life."
Peasant - "What will you do now?"
KCC - "Work. Wander. Rest when I can."

Kung Fu kicks ASS!

I'm experimenting with the layout. Excuse the mess.

DT Suzuki (a somewhat renowned Zen teacher) said something to the effect of enlightenment can't just sit on the mountaintop it must venture into the pit of the world.

And so mostly i think that mortality is a sonofabitch.
A buddy of mine is under the knife right now after receiving some wounds over here.
Between that and this jackass's article
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/custom/blogs/guard/entries/2005/07/08/killing_field_b.html

My questions to Mr Hirschman: How are we supposed to deal with 8 bodies? Every moment here can't be an introspective delve into the mysteries of life and death, the injustices of poverty and oppression, or the brutality of mankind. You're asking too much of any person to take in all this shit and treat it like its happening to your family, your fucking neighbors. There has to be a distance.

And so as I wound down last night, listening to the great Dean Martin and playing chess with my hebrew friend from Bremen, I realized that the only people I should care about here are the ones closest to me. Everyone else should take the back seat. I empathize with the locals here, really. They're eating a HUGE shit sandwhich right now, caught between militants and soldiers that can't get close to them, can't trust them, can't reach out, and vice versa, and the fucking assholes who are just here to kill (on both sides).

Bottom lines sweet lambs (and don't miss the small print): Life is finite no matter how comfy or secure or destitute or endangered. Me-the-misanthrope could use some damned private time (down days give me some distance, and time away from the old comrades-in-arms gives sanity), a little seclusion for oh so many reasons, but its becoming more important to be around those I love and miss. Don't take this is a settle down movement-in-the-making, I'd just rather get back to a place where the guy across the street doesn't see me as the nobody, and I don't return the favor.

And on a final note...The new War of the Worlds completely sucked ass, i saw a pirated version that cut out about 30 minutes, and I'm completely uniterested in seeing the whole thing. AND I LOVE WAR OF THE WORLDS! Sumbitch.

Things to do:

Sleep (check!)
play guitar(check!)
sleep(Check!)
clean weapons(CZECH!)
sleep(and Check)
finish watching Kung Fu (pilot episode)(before bed!)
sleep(after bed)
read more emerson (soon enough)
sleep(can't do this anymore)
avoid going to mass graves we found today (REALLY hope i get a check here)


that is all

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Yesterday was my day off/maintenace day.

But good ole alpha section gets roped into a convoy escort mission that keeps me up the entire night before waitin for an SP. We were projected to move out at 1230am pushed back to 0330am, finally moving at 0430am to Lucifiyah/Potato Factory. Thanks to a grand convoy brief by the lietenant to our escortees (a Lt COL 3 Capt's and 11 Heavy transports) 4 of them missed the initial turn saying fuck it we're going to Stryker/baghdad.

So we started off on two left feet...and lots of bad feelings everywhere.
qp4, who is now my driver, and I waited 500m away from any friendlies for about 45minutes for the pogues to get turned around and on track. And then off we go, into the rising sun and oblivion...

wait, no, it can't end there!

( Read more... )

Cookies and Kool-Aid anyone?

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