At the Age o' 33

...tiptoes in...

I had this boss - a fairly good-looking 50-something gentleman... balding, wrinkles, normal wear-n-tear.

He went on a two month "vacation".

He returned with a blondish-orange crew-cut rug. He returned with raised cheek bones, a slightly hooked aquiline nose, a be-dimpled chin. And he returned with eyebrows raised to the heavens. Some kind of tattoing process?

He never mentioned it. He acted like we couldn't tell and as if he'd always looked this way.

To me, he had lost his character. And - it actually felt like a bit of his soul, too. He was obviously concious of his changes, but really carried on as if this was the set of features he'd been born with.

So I always wonder... at the age o' 33... what would I do? What will I feel about myself as I age? Will it be easier than it seems or harder than it ought to be?

And at most given moments, I just try to go with the flow, take care of myself: exercise, eat, sleep, learn, and laugh as hard as I can everytime the opportunity presents itself.

Mouse or Elephant?

I read today that "the recipe for a mouse is much the same as the recipe for an elepant."

Yet they differ.

Some in my family speak racism with comfort and ease.

I ask if my discomfort stems from my disagreement with their views or an echoic sympathetic twinge - an acknowledgement that this is the stock I am from; so is racism a part of who I am?

If someone's dander is raised at the lowering of another confederate flag, a flag stitched in haste to represent a potential new nation whose core philosophy was an independent will to preserve its historic industries. At the cost of human life and dignity. This new nation's flag was intended to wave high its own beliefs, its separate strengths and disparate weaknesses. And it's right to dominate the beliefs and strengths of another people.

It is a waste of fabric to continue to sew this flag in this day and age. It is only a "tradition" in its deliberate perpetuation.

And if you're angry that the general public cries, "Take it down and put it away."

Take it down and put it away.

"It's just something else that THEY'VE taken from us."

What is being taken from you? Your heritage? Something to be proud of?

Something I should be proud of?

I love you and admire you. I aspire to be like you.

I am you. Your recipe.

Are we mouse or elephant?

Nile '03

Waving at strangers,
which god is at your side
fluorescent minaret?

You are a match struck
beside four-thousand year old
fading pigments.

You are a twist of pale grey
beside a sky of smoke, of history,
of farmers burning fields,
of Cleopatra's cigarettes.

Luxor '03

What really pisses
god’s fanclub off?
Egyptians.
They beat you to it.

History can brush off the youngsters –
Unitarian, Muslim, Baptist.

But Egypt
wags a stony finger in your face
jabs deep in the Christian heart it’s sting:
You blew it.