Friday, June 25, 2010

To Be or Not to Be . . .

                              "Without deviation from
the norm, progress is
not possible."
Frank Zappa 
**************
robert d. wilson's
The  Notso- Wonderland
Amusement  Park



 "Castles made of sand
fall in the sea
eventually."

Jimi Hendrix 
 
you're
     absolutely right . . .
I'm all that
and more; a teeter
totter from outer space

robert d. wilson


Ever since I returned from Nam, nothing's been the same. It's gotten worse, living a life viewed through the eyes of egotistical poets who don't give a shit about Buddhism, Jesus Christ, or Japanese short form poetry . . . living in a world where women, co-workers, spouses, I'm on number four, and my two oldest children think I'm self serving, arrogant, a con artist, a manipulator, the masturbator of trusting people's minds.
i'm a
goddamned mirror,
a fried
chicken gizzard boiling
in two day old lard?

robert d. wilson


Either I'm fucking mad, socio-pathic criminal mind with a hard on for getting whatever I want regardless of who I hurt, or . . . I'm not.  And if I listen to most people, I'm forced to opt for the "fucking mad, sociopathic" label, which means, I'm related to one of the angels who fell from Heaven to earth with Satan, when the Devil said, "No way, Jose" to God; and Michael Dylan-Welch blew a gasket.
 "Oh little Cody Pomeray if there had been some way to send a cry to you even when you were too little to know what utterances and cries are for in this dark sad earth, with your terrors in a world so malign and inhospitable, and all the insults from heaven ramming down to crowd your head with anger, pain, disgrace, worst of all the crapulous poverty in and out of every splintered door of days, if someone could have said to you then, and made you perceive, 'Fear life, but don't die; you're alone, everybody's alone. Oh Cody Pomeray, you can't win, you can't lose, all is ephemeral, all is hurt.'."
Jack Kerouac 

"Let us learn to appreciate
there will be times when 
the trees will be bare, and
look forward to the time
when we may pick the fruit."

Anton Chekov

I went to Nam a person who had friends, didn't take drugs, hated the taste of alcohol, loved to dance, surf, and make out with girlfriends, and, believe it or not, I was still a virgin, having never learned a thing from the videos they showed us in high school assemblies of a bull and cow coupling, and my parents never told me about the bird and the bees, though like all guys my age, my hormones were on hyper-drive without a driver, and I'd learned on my own how to masturbate (and a few other things). The only sex education I knew was the advice of my parent's childhood friend who called me aside after a gin rummy game with my parents and his wife, and whispered, "Remember to wear a rubber, Bob, whenever you do it with a girl."  Wow, I was set.  I now held the key to the chest of sexual knowledge!

she hustled
me, knowing i was
a virgin . . .
taking my money
that night in saigon

robert d. wilson

On your mark, get set, go!  My first night in the dragon's belly, hot and humid isn't the word for the weather AND the emotional tension in the air there one week before the TET Offensive, and I was going past every titty bar in downtown Saigon with my fellow
naval lab test rats, on the prowl to prove to myself and the world that Bob Wilson was a real man.  Half dressed babes in sexier clothes than anything I'd seen in the States, we're clawing at me, grabbing me by the balls, putting their blouses over my head (bra-less, of course), and no parents to say "No, no, son!" The first girl who asked me out right to fuck her, I fucked, after she took me for $50 instead of the usual $5, having me tip the bartender, the janitor, the girl who led us to our room, where she laid there without emotion or movement like a dead, light brown Patty Play Pal Doll, after telling me to stick it in her pussy, and oops, I was so sexcited I forgot to use a condom, and I cummed 10 seconds into the act, thinking I'd died and gone to heaven, when in reality, I was the Saigon's biggest sucker that night, the prince of fools, getting, as I learned the next day, nothing for the money, and paying her a giant fee after I'd blown my jets, without entering airspace. My first night as a stranger in a strange land, and that was just the beginning of what became the wild toad ride through hell, and when I got out of the toad's jalopy eleven months later, hell followed me home disguised as a psychedelic dragon.

girl-child
you make me wild!
those
hard brown titties,
a map 
of the park
i'll
call
wonderland
years
later
in
the philippines
after 
a road trip
to
hell
with
reverend green
aka
the wild toad
to
the

San Francisco
museum
of
modern art
on a weekday
when frank zappa
and
ferlinghetti
are 
sparring
with
chopsticks
in
chinese restaurant
serving
green tea
in
plastic
glasses
laced 
with
koolaid

robert d. wilson

Here I am again (TODAY), inside the circus mirror, a day dream dream of infant's breath, dangling on a clothesline made in the Philippines which means it'll last two weeks before it snaps, and my wife will blame me for it, because it's the Filipino way to blame another for what you, yourself are doing, and admit it's you, the O po's (yes sirs, yes ma'ams), a self defense mechanism left over from a need to survive during Spanish rule, the American rule three times over, the Japanese occupation, Marco's dictatorship, and the current reign of the "New Spanish," the rich Filipinos (and Chinese) who own 5% of the country's wealth, and keep their compatriots the least educated of anyone in any country world-wide, and so underpaid and void of the ability to adequately feed, house, or obtain medical care for themselves so that they'll willingly bow down and kiss the 5%'s asses for the privilege of existing, although they wouldn't have to if they had a backbone and weren't afraid to look in mirrors . . . and my wife gets pissed off and ignores me for the remainder of the day and night because I noticed on . . .

and in that minute, the circus mirror explodes, shattering every hollow cement block in our subdivision . . . the cards across the street unable to play croquet to the Red Queen's liking, leaving poor Alice unsure if she was ten feet tall or too fat to flee the rabbit hole filling rapidly with shards of flying glass.

"and the walls came tumbling down!" 

"Man must evolve for all human conflict
a method which rejects revenge,
aggression and retaliation.  The
foundation of such a method is love."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

think me
an asp striking the
dragon that
doesn't exist, a
monk sweeping lies

robert d. wilson


"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
 
-Jack Kerouac

The world is mad and only the mad can comprehend and feel their way around the Wonderland Amusement Park, finding kindred spirits in those unable to afford mouse ears, who parrot the wind, and sing with crickets under logs felled by puppets working for greedy lumber companies. . . those living in the wild west and east of the night, fighting dragons adults don't believe exist because thy lay still after dusk under semen scented sheets, afraid to look into their own closets where skeletons wait patiently to reveal what they don't want to hear, because the walls will come tumbling down, without a chariot to come forth and carry them home.


and still,
the dredges of
wonderland . . .
scales clinging to
to autumn's tail


the east . . . 
a sun dining
on teas leaves

troll with me
for feelings we haven't
felt before . . .
our critics, cartoon ducks
with empty captions

shadows
stare anxiously . . . 
dawn vespers

you insist
i am normal,
labeling
me a mumu
caught between moons


the patter
of handmade drums
. . . rain song


made, insane,
building square flower
beds for
the obese, and
. . . staring through them


mute, the
egret's swipe over
quilted mirrors


she too will
die because of the
dark colors
i paint on clouds
used in restrooms


he paints the
backs of cows chewing
summer's tail


autumn dawn . . . 
a young girl in torn
clothing
watching playmates
parade like camels

toddler, the
shadow you sculpt into
. . . a cockroach

henna
tattoos, the talon trail
on my arm . . . 
to convince me
i'm not crazy


deep thought . . . 
nudging clouds in
transit


think me
an asp striking the
dragon that
doesn't exist; a 
monk sweeping lies


her skin, and
the snails picked
for lunch




haiku
isn't zen, a piece 
of play dough
stretched across
gasping chasms




it could be
anyone, clacking
bamboo


tarry on
the "t" in moments
spent with you
shedding me into
a thousand pieces


jump with me,
alice, into the
march hare's mouth


savor the 
sick crunch of a hen's
neck, her bowels
gargling syllables
you pawned on me


madness, your
fingers trace what mine
wouldn't


that voice
again this morning . . . 
my smile 
replaced with an
emmet kelly yawn


sanity,
if only your finger
touched clouds


as if
i can do something
about their
being late, the
clinic, jousting toadstools


toad, where 
is the lab you make your
poison in?


side windows . . .
balinese puppeteers
cough up
phlegm with their pants down
this starless night


why should 
i hit you, scattering
blossoms?


i hate the
dance of rice when
jeepney's sing . . .
her beef jerky arms;
the slouch of bridges

robert d. wilson


Sunday, June 13, 2010

PTSD: Inside and Out


robert d. wilson's 
The Infamous
Wonderland 
Amusement Park
             
like a dog,
ptsd
wags its tail,
trailing the scent
of steel dragons

robert d. wilson


"Pssssst! See that guy over, there?  Don't stare at him! He's one of those loony toons who came back from the Vietnam War.  Probably eats dog food and screams in the middle of the night." 
 
i meet my
shipmates on the ball  
field to watch
streaks of light play chess 
on guernica's back

robert d. wilson

Once upon a time, when Goldwater and Ed Sullivan were everyday names, a war fought in a southeast Asian country most of us had never heard of, flashed on and off on our television sets like broken florescent lights.  Close-ups of American soldiers engaged in fire fights, dead bodies in pine wood caskets covered with American flags, a Buddhist priest setting himself on fire, villagers begging us to help them. We were told the country was the Republic of South Vietnam and it was in danger of being taken over by the communists whose master plan was to take control of one small country at a time, a domino effect newscasters and politicians called it, and the North Vietnamese Communists were closely allied with the People's Republic of China, and if we didn't stop the dominos from falling, Southeast Asia would become a communist stronghold.

late at night
a dragon walks
through me

robert d. wilson


"The most shocking fact about war is that  its
victims and its instruments are individual 
human beings, and that these individual 
beings are condemned."

Aldus Huxley

Have you noticed that those who start or jump into wars don't fight in them.  Neither do their children, with few exceptions.  It's the poor and middle class who fight the wars and their officers are rich kids who graduated from a military academy with little weapons training and almost zilch when it comes to people skills.  They isolate themselves from the troops except on the battlefield, and see the troops as inferior human beings.  It's different on the battlefield because an officer wants his troops to cover his back, so he too fights the battle and works together with all as a unified team.  An officer who treats his troops badly on patrol could accidentally end up with a bullet in his back, friendly fire or otherwise.


Imagine for a few minutes that you're aboard a river patrol boat (PBR) or some other patrol boat navigating a canal (river feeders) that is only thirty feet wide. It's a starless night.  No moon, no stars. The only sound, your heartbeat, breath, and the boat's engine. You can't afford to relax.  You must remain hyper alert. Sleep is not an option, and smoking is a death invitation.  You are scouting for the enemy who live in the area and know it better than we do. They can hear us a mile away. They're not wearing helmets, flack jackets, or camo clothing. They are dressed in black silk pajamas wearing cone hats that blend in with their surroundings.  The enemy, Viet Cong (villagers fighting for the communists) quietly wait for the right moment, and may have placed mines or trip flares in our paths. 

The enemy are poor villagers guaranteed two bowls of rice a day, their family will be safe from Cong retribution, and they too are led are fighting for the powerful in Hanoi who don't fight wars, nor their children. The enemy and our troops were never told
the truth about why they 
were fighting each other.


I remember asking an old man (papa san) in a semi-arrogant way, "Aren't you glad we Americans are fighting for you?"  His answer was unexpected.  He looked at me straight in the eyes and said, "I don't want you here and I don't want the communists here. I want them to leave us alone and let us farm and feed our families."

The Communist leaders in North Vietnam despise the South Vietnamese and think of them as inferior. What they care about is something missing in their country: oil, titanium, rubber, etc.  South Vietnam is a source of wealth, and nothing more. But of course, the villagers were threatened and given false propaganda
by the North. Propaganda they used as wallpaper for their thatched roof home-lets.

a dream?
workers change hats
at dusk

robert d. wilson

Oh my goodness, or should I say, hot damn?  I'm opening up and talking about something I crammed inside of me since I returned from the war in 1968.
That can be scary, like opening up a can of worms, or in my case, anchovies, and facing the dragon that swallowed me, spat me out, and followed me back home.  Flashbacks? Depression? Failed relationships? Poor sleep patterns? Hyper-alertness? Socially ill at ease?  Keep to yourself? Overly sensitive? Forgetful?
Forget where you are at times? Outbursts of temper?  Impulsive behavior? Hmmmmmmm(psst, that's just some of the symptoms), and most people don't even have a clue what PTSD is or what the initials stand for.

the man who
told me he wished we'd
go home
is sleeping today
on his grandson's mantle 

robert d. wilson


"Oh dear, oh dear, I'm gonna be late for the Madhatter's tea party!"

Dr. March Hare

"Thoughts are the shadows of
our feelings - always darker, 
emptier and simpler"

Nietzsche


"That guy, that . . . guy, the Vietnam vet, you know who I'm talking about, the one who stops midstream during a conversation, then starts another subject.  It drives me fucking crazy.  And before you can snap your fingers, he goes back to the first subject, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. He repeats some of the stories over and over and over like a tape recorder, as if that's all he thinks about."

When I stepped of the plane after leaving Vietnam, it was as if I'd fallen into the same hole Alice fell into, a wonderland of madness, at least for the so-called normal folks, whatever the hell, normal means.  Even adults have their prom kings and queens! Society in San Francisco was a battlefield of the mind, as was Berkeley, Los Angeles, Hollywood, all of my old haunts.

"Something happening here.
What it is aint exactly clear
a man with a gun over there 
telling me I've got to beware"

Stephen Stills

It was wild.  Everyone smoking grass, popping LSD,free sex, free food, people dressed like circus clowns,cowboys, pirates, refugees from William Blake's poetry, music that was unlike anything we'd heard before . . . Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar, playing it with his teeth, and ending Woodstock with a version of the Star Spangled Banner, that for once said it exactly like I'd experienced it in Nam.  America was undergoing a social revolution, MAdnEsS in the minds of those on both sides.

This is what we came home to . . . not the America we'd left and fought for to protect . . . What the hell had happened? When we returned home we were called baby killers and had to lie and deny we were Vets in order to get a $1.20 per hour job as a burger-maker for Carl's.

Whose side were we on?  Who the hell thought of us at all?  My fiance, when she opened her door and saw me, knew I'd changed, and, instantly, said, "Goodbye," and shut the door.  Baby killers?  What do you do when a seven year old girl charges at you with a hand grenade?  "Now, now, little girl (as if she understood English), put down the grenade you just pulled the pin out of and go home like a good little girl."

haunted by
the deep spaces 
in eyes
unprepared for the
 . . . am of who i am

robert d. wilson

my feet . . . 
in a salon with
autumn


bamboo,
cover me with your
bosom . . .
nurse me this noon
with mother's words


again . . .
i spend the day
with bamboo


a thousand
eyes in multiple
illusions . . .
painting canvases
Picasso would envy  


would you kiss
me if you knew i'm
i'm part dragon?


a brain maimed
by the dragon who
followed me
home beneath the wings
of a great eagle


those eyes . . .
like looking through village
windows


haunted by
the deep spaces
in eyes
unprepared for the
. . . am of who i am


convince me
the thunder  isn't
mortars

what's overtime

to an arched bridge who
sees her face
at dawn and dusk . . .
the heron's heir to mud?

late night . . .
a dragon walks
through me


she talks to 
me until clouds part . . . 
the fruit in
my hand, a bali
shadow puppet


spotty rain . . .
the darkness in my
mind's winter


like a dog
my ptsd
wags its tail 
trailing the scent 
of steel dragons


here and there . . .
stared at like diseased
lepers


what is and
isn't a dream?
numbers
erased, leaving me 
with a choice colors


the voice
again this morning . . .
cool coffee


will you 
remember me when
my smile's 
replaced with an
emmet kelly yawn?


you startled
me with your yell . . .
incoming!


passing trees
on top of a
red dragon . . .
don quixote 
dodging mirrors


if i drank
rain, would i too
grow limbs?

i meet my
shipmates on the ball
field to watch
streaks of light play chess
on guernica's back


dugongs
floating through stars in
glass bottomed boats

 cold coffee . . .
waiting for the
man at 
immigration
to process my dream  

cold feet . . .
a salmon swimming
backwards


the people
shaped patterns in
my flashbacks
are laundry girls
lit with a torch


arid noon . . .

a sea turtle
laying eggs

____________


All poetry, artwork, photographs, and prose
unless otherwise indicated, are by robert d. wilson
and not for use by anyone unless permission is
given by the author.
foamfish@gmail.com