Thursday, July 29, 2010

Sometimes It Seems...

Sometimes it seems that

"Everyone's an art critic nowadays".


Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Transdermal Transsonic Transmutative Transception

So here's how it is. I was
Wandering one day doing my thing
Which as everyone knows
I hope nobody knows
Just happens to be
Well I can't talk about that now can I
But it's not a job nor a living but
Some things you can't get paid for
And so you do them totally for free

Look, things have gone totally
Wrong here. Wrong in so many way
But what can you do?
Not too fucking much
Do what you can
Not as if anything anyone does can do
Much about what's on our plate tonight
Fuck NO! I am not eating that
Who could? Nothing from this Earth
Can't digest those alien proteins

Proteins are proteins but you
Can't digest things that are folded
The wrong way. No way. They
Might not make you
Puke but you might
Wish you had blown your lunch
All over the plate rather than
Try to digest vegetation -- much less
Meat -- from alien worlds.. I don't
Know what this is. Mystery meat

With compound eyes.

Chitin isn't what most people
Expect in their diet unless perhaps
You are African and learned
That termites are very
Nutritious indeed. Unless
Of course you know that with the
Biota internal to the termite you can
Digest toothpicks. But who eats
Toothpicks other than by accident
Or sabotage? Crunchy. Eat the chitin

Down at the local dump the
Portable ultrasound images
Some guy in sunglasses
We sneakily run the
Transducer up his back
Chitin like a hundred pound termite
Chitin has its signature. Hard to
Miss at this distance with even a
Very old sonograph kludged to
Find a termite infesting the world of Man

We are the people of this world.

We thought we knew our own world
Now we find that there are people
Beyond people all over our world
More of them than of us perhaps
How did this come to pass?
Perhaps we cannot fight them
But we must know who they are
Which of "us" are really of "them"

What are they? We don't know
From whence they came? We don't know
What intention theirs? Mystery
Unfolding mystery is the work
Of a special breed of utter mutt
Woof we bark woof
Face the barking
Face it, face it!

Sonogram ultrasound
Vision seen will go around
We will see them as they are
Our best guesses travel far
We don't know what we can't see
With new eyes you'll follow me
Off to look to see what's there
Sample everybody's hair and

Look look look for

CHITIN

or for the wrongly folded isomer of

CHITIN

Friday, July 23, 2010

News and Notes for Late July 2010

Well, the completely underwhelming public response to me posting in bad prose poetic forms has caused me to reconsider this sort of thing.

What with the stalkers and crazies all brought out by the record heat wave (or driven into their darkened computer room lairs), misinterpretations doubtless will abound. For example, Post Operative Treatment probably wouldn't be recognized by anyone other than fans as a foreshadowing of the upcoming season of V. You know, what do you do if you're trying to stay alive as part of a Resistance movement opposing rather unpleasant and high-tech space aliens.

Well, since it generally goes badly for me in my personal life when I write anything that the stalker crazies can seize on, I should probably keep things short, sweet, and unambiguous.


Moving right along, I should point out that the Gazette now has a comments section on most (perhaps all) of their articles. Persons best left unmentioned have constantly complained about how the "mainstream media" doesn't have enough coverage of Montgomery and Maryland politics. Considering that some of the closest thing to actual debates in the two recent Special Elections took place in the Washington Post comments sections, a lack of coverage there meant that all other discussions had to take place on that unmentioned person's blog. And since ultimately that person has blown all credibility for even-handedness or any other journalistic integrity, it's excellent indeed that the Gazette has created an additional venue for Montgomery County voters and activists to speak their mind with some assurance that their remarks won't be refused because they don't support the Astroturfer Agenda.

Just look at the bottom of stories in the Gazette and you should see a link labeled "Comment". Please do!


Moving right along once again -- and so it goes -- Aspen Hill's effort get a Neighborhood Watch up and running are off to a slow and somewhat confused start.

Good news? Since the news got out that a Neighborhood Watch group was forming, calls for service to 911 have actually declined here.

Bad news? Mostly that we need more people involved, especially the sort of calm and observant people who will stick with the task for a long time.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Post Operative Treatment

So she had an impacted wisdom tooth
And so she went in to have them all pulled
And of course when she came back
Likely festooned with a shitload of alien technology
The very first thing we did was
To drag her almost screaming
Into a well-shielded room and
We fucking nuked her.

No, we didn't set off a nuclear device
Yes we feel free to mention old news
It started as a microwave oven and
Did its duty. She screamed
Who wouldn't? -as the gum-line implants
Melted into useless disarray
They're on to us, of course
No human may live free and
If they see a meat body over age eighteen
If it doesn't have a SmartPass it's targeted

Cataracts? They can make that in you
Retinal burns? Laser pointers are everywhere
As are colloquially named "booster kits"
I guess you didn't know a green laser pointer
Pumped by fifty over-triggered CD reader diodes
Puts out enough power to
Fry an egg "over easy"
Nothing's easy about hearing her scream
As her bleeding post-operative gum line is
Seared by melted alien tech rendered useless

She screamed and she's beautiful
She's lovely and she screamed
Screamed and hated us
Because we set her free

Hatred masks her
Or him or they
However you want to parse it but
Electromagnetic Pulse
Stops the flow of current to the pleasure center
If you want a junkie's hate
Just cut off their supply
No matter how quickly they adapt
They'd rather have the needle than your respect
Don't even expect compassion returned
For compassion given
Slaves of alien tech
Denied their fix live only to kill humans

Ah back again to the microwave
Quite lucky she is as after all
Preferentially the aliens will
Simply take out wisdom teeth and
Inflict major frontal lobe damage
Docile, unprotesting
Down to a science
Graduate University
A product of medical science
Brought to us from outer space
Cut some brains, make some slaves

But I guess they had other plans for her
Nothing but a GPS tracker with
Full audio feed. We watch the packets
Flow across our network analyzer
When and where, she's just a SPIME now
A bug-eye. History documentor.
We put her in the room and fire
Hey, look, she deserves it:
She likes to put
Unsuspecting callers on speaker phone

The device destroys all things with transistors
And not a single bit of neurons

Flash! poof and screaming but
It's over in a moment as
Suddenly she is a free human being
Hating everyone for the uncertainty
Of release from barely-suspected total slavery.
No more unseen voices for you, babe
No more machinery from space
Speaking to you in the voices of your friends
The friends you ask "did you call me yesterday"
In fear they say "I can't remember"
They know their voices were stolen
And no longer ignorant -- they got their teeth pulled
Long ago and have come to wonder what replaced their teeth --
Those aren't your friends... only their loquacious ghosts

Screaming in the decontamination room
Little miss utters: "But I loved the voices
Don't take them from me!"
You loved being a junkie for
Alien tech putting current and voices
Inescapably into your brain
Now learn to love the human beings
Who move now to surround you
They, too, once were current junkies
But now they love this Earth, and you

Who are now no longer enslaved.

Like them.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Wisdom Extraction -- Mind Along With Teeth

So one day I am sitting around and
One of my friends says
Jim your breath is fucking foul
What the fuck have you been eating
You sorry bastard
And I tell him "dude you know
we get lunch at the same place
Why am I not bitching about your breath."

Discussion followed discussion and much of that
With this person shielding their nose from my breath
And eventually it was resolved that my final molars
Just had to come out. This was not something
One would anticipate with glee, this is
Major surgery. Look, any time a medico must
Stick a chisel in your mouth and beat on it with
A hammer, lots of times, this isn't like
Getting a splinter pulled out nor even like an early
Abortion. No, this is serious shit.

So, into the hospital I go. Before the procedure
I am standing around smoking a cigarette
And this was back in the days when even doctors smoked
And perhaps they mistook me for a med student or
Perhaps they were fucking with me. I can't say but
All I can tell you is that well-educated people -- hey we're talking
Actual medical doctors, okay? -- were referring to a human
Life on their table scheduled at some specific hour
As their "Mercedes payment". To this is humanity reduced:
We can keep talented sociopaths on track only with Mercedes.

My head, my head. After the doctor says count backwards and
The lines of the acoustic tiles in the ceiling twist and warp and fade
And depart into a place where once only dreams were seen
The sounds remain. I'm not much of a man for smells and
In any case there's not much to smell in a hospital
Other than hospital. Yet the banging isn't easily ignored
Especially when every whack of the hammer on chisel
Rock my head back, rocks my skull past the limits
Of where a head can go and still be attached to a neck
Internally decapitated whack whack whack still I listen

Dead as a hanged man
Dead as anything can be that still has a heartbeat
Why do I survive as the anesthesiologist turns up the gas
Why do I survive as I hear my final molars break free
Only after my head leaves my neck
Why are my struggles -- believe me I am fighting --
Unanswered at my muscles though my mind fights as if
G_d himself stiffened my limbs to be weapons of righteousness?
As the friendly doctor reaches above my head to push on
The syringe in the cart full of lethal injection, Why do I yet live?

And watch?

It's not as if I am some astral being
Floating above the operating room
Trying to decide
To follow
The
White
Light which some say beckons
I don't see that at all
All I see is my head bent back
With a chisel in my mouth
With a hammer going
Bang bang bang
Isn't the tooth out yet
Isn't he dead yet
Turn up the gas turn up the drip
Isn't he dead yet
Fuck look here doctor you put
Too much of that shit into him and
It's clear malpractice.

Bang bang bang well this isn't clear malpractice
Says the dentist even as the anesthesiologist mutters
I can't handle this much pain without killing him
Fuck it says the doctor Back Off I am not losing
My Mercedes payment.

Ow ow OOWW OW! cut the nerve
Says the anesthesiologist
Done! says the surgeon and pain vanishes
But sensation of location continues as a tooth
One two three four teeth vanish from internal radar
Boom bang bang bang whack
Bang with the hammer but it's not half as bad as
Crunch with the pliers as the vise-grip
Locks hard onto the last of the wisdom teeth and
Schchlrssch goes the last final molar.

Crunch goes the tooth and I cannot move
"Internal decapitation, did you say, doctor?"
What am I, Aemon Goethe after his third botched hanging
And what the fuck did I do to deserve this?
The eternal endless question of all of Goethe's victims
Bend the head back and pound out the final molars

Ooopsies! tsk tsk internal decapitation
Fuck it, I don't know why he's alive
But I'm getting my Mercedes payment
Or my cousin will sue
Fuck do you mean he'll be walking the streets
With a fucking broken neck?
Fuck him. Let a lesson be learned
Let a lesson be taught
What exactly should I have learned here?

A few years after I staggered out of
Wisdom Tooth Extraction Surgery
-- All four at once, and why the hell not --
A friend of mine informed me that
They were going to hospital for
The same procedure. They almost
Cried as they said: If I come out of hospital
The same way that you did...
Please please don't hesitate fo
Just fucking kill me. They said

"I couldn't live like that."

Friday, July 16, 2010

Cataracts



copyright 2010 all rights reserved by Thomas James Hardman Jr.



Sitting in front of a television I cannot see
Brian Williams: I swear to g_d, that man cracks me up
With a totally straight face -- or at least with
No change of expression -- he can turn a wry pun
Leaving me evenly divided between a smirk and a chortle
But I can tell you for sure that I am not
Laughing at his looks because frankly
I can't see whether or not he's wearing a tie
Or maybe he's given up on keeping viewers
Solely on the basis of commentary on content
Or if perhaps he's posing as if for Playgirl or
Perhaps for Cosmo as if on a casting couch.
Who knows. Probably everyone but me. I
Can't fucking see him. I am going blind.

Too much daylight, maybe? I don't know
Exactly what brought this on, but somehow I seem
To be relegated to some fate -- or if not for modern medicine
Would be -- of coming from a family, a genetic line
Where I'll easily live for ninety years in fine health
Possessed of excellent memory well stocked by youthful
Search for knowledge, as encyclopaedic as I could read it
I won't be reading any more. Ninety years, easy..
And blind. With excellent memory, excellent indexing
Excellent recall, especially of all I once could see.

Half my life spent in darkness, not that I can't see light
I can see light and darkness just fine but light is pain
Pain like you can't imagine -- as the lens of my
Eye protests it has been damaged enough -- no more please!
Not as if any lingering in darkness can restore
What I lost: the printed work, the television screen
The easy visual grasp of well-indented code
Brian Williams's wry smile and brilliant suit
All faded. Faded into white when I am in light I
Cannot stand... and into darkness which has no pain.

Fifty years in light: blessed by nature and interesting
Insights gained through a certain amount of research and
Lots of LSD. But the first time -- the very first time I
Ate the paper and thought about it -- childhood nearsightedness
Disappeared; I felt that something within me had needed to see
Nothing nearby: and what could that have been? My books
Gave me sweet escape and I read all I had and bought more
And what I could not afford, the taxpayers put in my library.
What I have ever read and understood I do remember.
For 40 more years, I might expect to speak it to all asking.

Research suggests that it could be genetic and if so I am
So very glad that so far as I know I have had no children
To come of age and curse me -- though I have many blessings
While still young I am made to go blind -- and thereafter healthy
Remain as a resource. Rhetoric might serve me well and I might
Deliver to mocking children making foul faces all that I
Saw or ever knew, read, learned, cherished, grasped and understood.
But if there was admiration on their faces and respect in their silence
Or simply stalking around the old fool who cannot see the disrespect...
For 40 more years I might in apprehension blindly wonder.

Surgery for this sort of thing is, so they say, .quickly done and
Little difference in life is experienced by the folks who have
Their lenses cut from their eyes -- to be replaced in the former days
by crystal, now by plastics -- perhaps most wore glasses before
Their internal lenses opaqued. Blessed I have been with slow aging
Few injuries, no cancer, and excellent vision, in dark or light
A strong back and a thorough mind. And now blind. Where before
I could see a 1200 DPI printout and say if the printer head was
Clogged or misaligned, now I cannot read the Extra Large Print
Of a childrens' book. On doctor's table I shall lie as he shall cut into my eye.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Dictatorship in District 4?

Well, it's not that bad, though it's getting pretty close to it.

Yesterday, July 6 2010, was the deadline to file a candidacy.

I did not file. Why?

Well, I've had enough of Maryland politics, and I've pretty much had enough of Maryland.

The State Board of Elections is pretty damn speedy about listing the candidates on the website, and here in District 4, out of the vast majority of Democrats in the district, there isn't a single one running against Nancy Navarro.

Those Central Americans probably a celebrating because their new homeland has become just like their old one, moreso than that, even.

The Party doesn't even put forward a field of identical candidates.

They just appoint someone to the position and the elections are just a formality.

Welcome to Dictatorship, Montgomery.

You know you deserve it and it's what you've always wanted.