Independence Dependence
July 04
17:18
2013
JOHN BENNETT
Four dead in O-hio. Six million dead in Cambodia. Carnage on the freeway, carnage in the coal mines, big-breasted babes singing Wagner in Carnegie Hall.
The telltale canary. Throat lozenges and rice fields. Carbines and spent shells. Seat belts and air bags. The knot and the noose. The rooster crows and Judas slinks off to his coffin with a spike thru his heart.
Let’s get started now, let’s take a good run at it, let’s pretend the fairy godmother didn’t yank out our gold tooth. Let’s pretend the nightmare ends happily and wasn’t some sort of harbinger. Let’s pretend we didn’t sell our soul to the devil.
The quick fix, the easy fix, there is no System to set right again or bow down to. The Lie is bigger than all of us lumped together, even bigger than Disney Land.
What am I doing with a credit card, even if I do throw away the bonus points out of principle? What am I being given credit for, some form of allegiance? Who compiles all the answers, the seven dwarfs in the forest or fat bankers on Wall Street wrapped in flags?
Which-ever button you pushed it’s the wrong one, you don’t get the new Subaru and the trip to the coal mines, you don’t get to go to Kent State and set doves free. You don’t get to sing with Bob Dylan or carry a concealed weapon, you are a concealed weapon, getting scanned at the grocery store for gas points and potato chips. All you gotta do is love it, whether you understand it or not, and you don’t understand it, no one does, it’s a dark rush of extinction.
This has been a history lesson. The one true history that no one has the guts or the know-how to write down. Please excuse my feeble attempt, my whacked-out grammar and emotional ups and downs, my twisted stab at belonging. I’ll let it rest now and let you scoot on out to the barbecue.
Just remember this: the British had it coming. That should carry you over to Christmas.
Find John Bennett’s novels, short stories, and shards at Hcolom Press. You can contact him, or get on his Shards list at dasleben@fairpoint.net.
Read a review of his novel Children of the Sun & Earth here
SEE ALSO
Adam,
Please let John know how wonderful this is.