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Friday, July 27, 2007

On the off-beat

The False Decree --an open verse ramble by John R. Evanetski

“I see this old man, he’s watching life pass,
hoping to squeeze a smile out of his ass”


Prolog: It was April 1994, I recall, when I agreed to drive Uncle Max home from his most recent 120 day “visit” at the State of Washington Treatment Center for Behavioral Disorders, near Seattle. I didn’t mind. To me, he was neither dangerous, nor crazy. He did exaggerate a hell of a lot, I thought.
“I’m a victim, sonny. Look at them! There the ones who are sick,” Max protested, pointing to the doctors and staff, leaving the Center for the day, white lab coats slung over arm or shoulder, talking and laughing.
“They look happy Max;” I said. At that, Max scowled a scornful grin through those chapped lips and tobacco-stained teeth, turned his aged face my way and said.
“Let me tell ’ya what the hell they do to ya’ in there, sonny.. Then ya’ be laughin’ out yer’ ass.“ Max snorted.

It didn’t take much to get Max going. So, he starts like this:

….it was time for more coffee. I'm not sure where the day would take me, probably to submit to another involuntary commitment at the local brain-drainer. Yea, it went down just like before..….Ya’ know, I’m getting that “vu j’ia de” feeling all over again……ready…….remember….er last time… when, I was hallucin….all…. strapped on that gurney like a sack of sh…….then they shoved that tub up my….

I was forced to admit to a stress-driven fit,
a flawed mental processes mistakenly identified,
but-quickly justified by Dr. HSN Habib
Aribarhubarb, MD, one of those questionably-educated,
not-professionally-dedicated, definitely-under motivated,
Middle Eastern mind-bending brain-drainers who,
with his scrawled John Hancock sealed my fate
for the next three-mounts to a state-run, no-money-for-fun
stalag for a test-and-rest, did he Habib-Arib, in a move
like a Turkish whirling-dervish, spin-around and beat-feet,
fast-and-neat to a small rurally-rustic north woods backwater
cow-town, to take post at an average-pay cash booty for
a no-sweat cakewalk diagnostic duty, thereby violating a
previous sworn oath to restore educational loan amounts
granted him from government accounts by willingly giving
his medical best to heal their sores, open their clogged pores,
and unlock the doors to a life of rewarding chores for the
inner-city nervous, whom confined through no fault of their
own inhabited those over-populated spaces owned by
over-copulated foreign races packed into tenements amid
the feted slums, the diseased bums, the hardened criminal
scums, and the post-leaning lot of street-walking dumb-dumbs,
to prove Habib did falsely decree, without shame. What a bastard….

“Max, we’re home,” I breath with a sigh. “Thanks a lot, sonny” Max replies in sincerity, like always. He tips his hat, turns his backside full my way, and “Did ya’ get a good laugh out of that, sonny. See, ya’ next time around“ Max smiles. I‘m sure I will.

Epilog: Uncle Max was like a father to Sonny. Without fail he was only one in the family to offer his emotionally trouble nephew a ride home form Sonny’s various commitments for multiple-personality disorder at the State of Washington Treatment….”

Current poems published

These two poems appear not just here, but published as well in the Summer 2007 Issues of Artistry of Life, an online literary magazine. Besides the poems, I produced another essay as part of my regular column in AOL, and wrote the Editor's Message for the summer issue, for which I served as Interim Editor.


Kansas Golden Plains
Decades gone now being nourished
by sweat shed generations ago from
farming families tilling, tending fields
into abundance as Kansas golden plains.

Rise to set, seed to harvest they wrought
America's great bounty fired in the belly
by their honest labor and forged it onto
a larder that could feed the whole world.

Pioneers, pilgrims, proud citizens
persevering as unheralded heroes
they bore misfortune undiminished
with courage, faith, determination.

Noses scent the sweet, ripe grain.
Eyes swept windy ribbon-rows of wheat,
Corn, alfalfa flow in long undulating acres.

To overcome daily toil and strife brought
liberty to their life. They mark success in
humble nobleness. Confirmed heart and soul
in self-control, head held high in stoic reply.

Adversity ignore, faith implore, a reward Divine
honorable legacy enduring, God's Grace inuring
set them a holy place, gazing on His smiling face.


Dakota Buffalo: Evolution
At present...handsome, healthy herds
Bison, North America’s great wooly beast
Restored, revived census now at 600,000.

Graze safe on federal ranges, strong, they feed full
sleep like sheep ‘neath beautiful for spacious skies.

A bridled liberty it be. A once nomadic flow
secured and sequestered by federal mandate.

Surveyed, moves monitored, mating inventoried.
Stand eyes wide open in amber waves of grain.

This Century...laid-waste, freedom lost. L’mort!
Slaughtered down 1,000, a white hunters blood-lust
kill for trophy, severe heads, leave carcass rotting.

Rescued by enlightened men of conscience
apply rules of sciences , enforce legal decrees.

In the beginning...with a big bang
Free-rovers, 60 million, unmolested Prairie Kings
thundered in massive herds over Dakota’s plains.

Pungent their musk of careless, carefree wandering
Rumbling hooves beat out an anthem of freedom.

Revered as life-giving by native American tribes.
Great Spirit’s gift food, clothing, cover,.. and all.