Presidential VI

An accomplished senator, ruler of the senate, he tagged along with the Kennedys to become famous. Becoming president is a rich man’s game because of the amount of spending power it takes to become popular. John F Kennedy supported by his millionaire father Joe Kennedy Sr and his personal charm and charisma to win supporters and donors beat out older and more experienced democratic candidates Hubert Humphrey, Adlai Stevenson and Lyndon B Johnson to win the Democratic candidacy. Kennedy had full support from New England but needed LBJ as running partner to pull the votes of the western and southern states.

This running strategy was successful for the Kennedy team in 1960 against Richard M Nixon. However Kennedy and his team did not like or utilize LBJ once in office. Being vice president for the famous Kennedy got LBJ out of the senate and into the glamorous spotlight of the “camelot” white house.

When Kennedy was shot, LBJ was left with the reigns of the POTUS. Left with Kennedy’s team he immediately dedicated himself to continuing the Kennedy dream, aspiration and political platform that had been presented to the country. Johnson admired JFK, his family and loyal team for their youth, intelligence, and agency although recognizing that they recognized him as an outsider and sometimes even unwelcome and unwanted guest. While implementing the Kennedy platform he was unable to lead or connect with Kennedy’s family or team like his predecessor had. The men who followed Kennedy followed his vision, not the dogma that his vision became under LBJ. 

One at a time LBJ replaced Kennedy’s team so that by the time he campaigned for the presidency in 1964 he had men surrounding him that he believed were loyal to him not Kennedy. Among those excluded was JFK's younger brother, Bobby Kennedy, who served ably as Attorney General under the 1960-1964 JFK/LBJ presidency. Having left Kennedy's team and vision behind he pursued his own program, the Great Society, which happened to be the not yet legislated ideas of FDR.

White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1960. 1961. Harper Perennial Political Classics. New York, New York.

White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1964. 1965. Harper Perennial Political Classics. New York, New York.

Presidential V

 March to the Sea

Our camp-fires shone bright on the mountain

That frowned on the river below,

As we stood by our guns in the morning

And eagerly watched for the foe

Then sang we a song for our chieftain,

That echoed over river and lea;

And the stars of our banner shone brighter

When Sherman marched down to the sea

General William Tecumseh Sherman thought it wise to elevate the status of the Negro in America to something closer to the white man but he did not desire it be equal nor did he make it a hobby of his own to see this change of status occur. His attention to the crisis of the civil war was realized when he was living in the South and Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. A slave revolt was an old nightmare of the South and the South was to establish a separate nation in order to preserve slavery as an institution. Sherman moved out of the South in order to join the northern cause of fighting in order to preserve the Union. Ulysses S. Grant becomes Abraham Lincoln’s fighting man and General Sherman becomes Ulysses S Grant’s Raider of the Deep South.

Then cheer upon cheer for bold Sherman

Went up from valley and glen,

And the bugles reechoed the music

That came from the lips of the men;

For we knew that the stars in our banner

More bright in their splendour would be

And that blessings from Northland would greet us,

When Sherman marched down to the sea!

Then sang we a song for our chieftain,

That echoed over river and lea;

And the stars of our banner shone brighter

When Sherman marched down to the sea

After Grant and Sherman graduate a political and administrative labyrinth they secure the navigation of the Mississippi River. Lincoln then promotes Grant to be commander of all Union forces between the Appalachian mountains and Mississippi river. The first thing Grant does is secure advancement for Sherman. When Lincoln promotes Grant to Lieutenant General and Commander of all the Union armies Grant puts Sherman in charge of the forces of the West and the campaign to penetrate the Deep South.

Then forward, boys! Forward to battle!

We marched on our wearisome way,

We stormed the wild hills of Reseca -

God bless those who fell on that day!

Then Kenesaw frowned in its glory,

Frowned down on the flag of the free;

But the East and the West bore our Standard,

And Sherman marched to the Sea!

Then sang we a song for our chieftain,

That echoed over river and lea;

And the stars of our banner shone brighter

When Sherman marched down to the sea

While Grant becomes known as “The Butcher” for a fighting philosophy that includes sending as many forces into the fray as possible and known for the quote, “We will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer”, Sherman gains a reputation for commanding technical soldiers that lay waste anything in their path. Both strategies are successful and come to be known as total warfare. Sherman calls his specific strategy of damaging resources as enlightened war. 

“We will do it in our own time and in our own way; that it makes no difference whether it be in one year, or two, or ten, or twenty; that we will remove and destroy every obstacle, if need be, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems to us proper, that we will not cease till the end is attained; that all who do not aid us are enemies and that we will not account to them for our acts.” - William Tecumseh Sherman

Still onward we pressed, till our banners

Swept out from Atlanta’s grim walls,

And the blood of the Patriot dampened

The soil where the traitor-flag falls;

But we paused not to to weep for the fallen,

Who slept by each river and tree,

Yet we twined the a wreath of laurel,

As Sherman marched down to the Sea!

Then sang we a song for our chieftain,

That echoed over river and lea;

And the stars of our banner shone brighter

When Sherman marched down to the sea

Sherman's Army of the West burns Atlanta and this cuts out southern reinforcements for General Lee of the Confederate army, saves the election for Abraham Lincoln and stops demands that Ulysses Grant be removed from his position. Sherman then moves his 62000 men on a march to the sea campaign from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. He does not take supplies and essentially goes off the grid from correspondence with anyone for two months. His mission is to destroy the South's will to resist by destroying railroads, houses, people's lives and livelihoods while crippling military resources and foraging liberally on the country. The location of each advancing corps could be seen by the flames along its route and Sherman's signature “neckties” that were created by an engineer regiment who would twist railroad bars with claws after heating so that they could never be used again.

Oh, proud was our army that morning,

That stood where the pine darkly towers, 

When Sherman said, “Boys, you are weary,

But today fair Savannah is ours!”

That echoed over river and Lea,

And the stars in our banner shone brighter

When Sherman camped down by the Sea!

“It seemed to me then that the terrible energy they had displayed in the earlier stages of the war was beginning to yield to the slower but more certain industry and discipline of our Northern men.” - William Tecumseh Sherman

From Savannah Sherman marches across South Carolina with more looting and burning even more earnestly than before. His troops' marches draw comparisons to those of the roman legions while the South compares him to the Goths sacking the Romans. After the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Lincoln, Grant and Sherman are united in not further molesting the South. Abraham Lincoln is shot and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, is captured disguised as a woman while wearing his wife's raincoat and shawl with half a million worth of stolen gold that he had taken when abandoning his post. After the war Grant, Sherman, Phillip Sheridan and an unlikely figure, George Custer focus on the settlement of the plains, the Indian wars and Reconstruction in the South.

Let them see us the way they are,

They said. Clean weapons and bare feet.

Let them look at us in our rags.

They’ll know who we are.

We are Uncle Billy’s men.

Flood, Charles Bracken. Grant and Sherman: The Friendship That Saved the Civil War. Harper Perennial, 2005.

Sherman, William Tecumseh. Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman. Literary Classics of the United States, 1990. New York, New York.

Creative writing I

 Just how weird can you take it

“Fuck it all man.”

“I’ve been down this road too many times. I cannot believe no one is calling my phone. I thought I had friends. People like my posts on social media but no one hits me up. I want to live in the time of Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, CBGB, Black Flag, the Grateful Dead, Skrillex, Future Islands. Where is the music in 2021?”

Jeb walks down the alleyway by himself at twilight trying to think of a creative way to spend another lonely night. He notices trash on the sidewalk, a raccoon in a gutter, and two women in mini skirts looking at him from the corner. Not a forwarded social person at this time of his life, underperforming and beginning his thirty-year long midlife crisis at age thirty, he walks right past them without making eye contact although they stared at him without saying a word the entire time.

“Thank God I reread the book of Proverbs yesterday. Those hoes were looking straight through me for my wallet. Damn they were fine though. I would like to get laid. How much even are whores? Do they all have all the diseases?”

So Jeb thought as he entered the liquor store with the intentions of buying a six pack of Budweiser. He became counter-intuitive at the last moment and bought a bottle of birthday cake flavored vodka. Assuming this was the the worst decision he had made in his life up to this point Jeb walked back to the corner to find that the beautiful women were no longer there.

“Fuck. Just another night doing the same shit, watching the same sports, thinking the same thoughts.”

Jeb then noticed the sound of voices from the second story of an apartment complex and looked up from the sidewalk. As Jeb raised his head his eyes made direct contact with two women wearing mini skirts standing on a staircase. Jeb’s eyes fell into his lung. His lung fell into his stomach. His stomach fell into his scrotum. For the first time in his life his balls fell into his ballsack.

“Hello.”

To Jeb it felt like two words: hell low. 

Low hell.

Bubba

“How does a man rob the cradle?”

“I would rob a cradle.”

“I would rob a cradle if there was some money in it.”

“I would rob a cradle if there was some jewelry in it.”

“I would rob a cradle if there was a computer with some bitcoins in it.”

“I wouldn’t rob a cradle for a damned baby.”

“There is kidnapping where you take a kid and demand a ransom.”

“The only reason I would take a baby out of it’s cradle though would be to change its diaper.”

“Or carry it around.”

“Or put it in it’s booster chair.”

“Or give it a bath.”

“Or put it in its playpen.”

“Or take it to it’s car seat.”

“Or hand it to its mother.”

John spoke all of this out loud standing across the room while looking into the eyes of his baby daughter Elizabeth crying at the top of her lungs from within her cradle.

Before your love will crack?

“Oh my God they have done it again.”

“My Grandparents are getting married in a recommitment ceremony for the 32nd time.”

“I can’t take it anymore.”

“Don’t they know that COVID is still a threat?”

Apocalypse II

 This narwhal society on this star far away from earth with the Phoenix circling the atmosphere was a patriarchal society. The male narwhals wore three piece suits and mustaches from the time they were born. The society was patriarchal but the rulers were matriarchal. The female narwhals wore red lipstick, heels and dresses from the time they were born.

The ruling class were matriarchs because they were the ones to force themselves upon the males to make it so. The male narwhals accepted this position and set about governing culture, creation and rule following while the women focused on their ruling. This all went on for eons in prosperity and serenity underneath the protective benevolence of the Phoenix in the sky.

There was a narwhal in this society who was born without a horn. No horn, no glory. No horn, no story. The narwhals didn’t take this situation lightly. The narwhal without a horn didn’t take it blithely. In fact he was a dolphin.

On this planet narwhals were the only species and only tended towards business. The women focused on the business of ruling while the males did anything they could to not feel completely useless and unengaged. Their food came from the Phoenix who awarded them with anything they wanted through instinctual appetites imprinted in their DNA. 

Where did this dolphin come from? No one knew he was a dolphin. All they knew was that he was a narwhal without a horn. The dolphin knew he was a dolphin. One thing was for sure that he was a ruler. He didn’t want to be ruler of the world just to rule himself. This led to many problems for the dolphin because the civilization of narwhals that he lived in was very successful and prosperous because everything was done in a specific way repeatedly to perfection. This dolphin was a wrench in the gears so to speak.

The civilized narwhals were a civilized nation who worshipped an active benevolent Phoenix. The dolphin, and the narwhals consistently looked to the Phoenix on what to do about their problems. Usually their problems were fixed instantaneously and their way of life was a well greased machine. The dolphin was not going away. Everything seemed to be perfectly orchestrated except the dolphin.

One day the dolphin said to the Phoenix,

“I am certainly not any closer. Although I may be closer. I couldn’t seem to get the time, energy, motivation. Then I would ask if I had the right. Am I cool enough to study? A really big one is if I could handle being around such beautiful young women and still focus. Wow, hey! Stop looking at that miniskirt this week!”

 The Phoenix continued to circle the world, listening and serving as the dolphin continued.

“I want to go. Then I think about how to get a person anywhere. A kind of grand scale of mountains that I would climb just because it is there. I say I may be closer because I am working now. We change the games.”

The warm hum of the Phoenix continued across the sky as the dolphin went on speaking.

“What would I go for? I could go back to learn a new thing. I could do a hobby like writing just to know more about writing. That wouldn’t be money or business inspired just my own curiosity. I don’t know a damn thing about it.”

The mountains rumbled as the wind blew through them.

“If I pursued I could be outdoors. For the last two I may need to do some science. It wasn’t cool. The girls get excited about sports, dancing, drugs, art and conversations.

I got so distracted in my life from a young age in what everyone else that I liked found ‘exciting’ that I stopped at a young age doing the things that adults told me were necessary. I was obsessed in outsmarting them. I still am!

Doing science with enthusiasm would make me feel so young because that was the last time I took it seriously. So now make me feel really old. I thought cooler. I guess. Maybe I could cash in.

It’s so horrible I don’t even know grammar or punctuation hardly because it is not ‘cool’! If I went back I would need to start. This all makes my idea of being cool sound like the worst thing ever. It is almost like knowing and doing as much stuff as possible that has nothing to do with money. It is so different.

There is this feeling I would need to return to elementary concepts about capitalism to understand it or embrace it. I could really get myself to focus on these capitalistic basics because I am not a socialist or anarchist. I am like an elementist. I like the elements.

I could work for a little while to get some food, heat, shelter, transportation and then get an idea for a sweet adventure and go do it. I am just not sure how sustainable, wise or even happy living like that would make me. Plus I have ignored capitalism for so long who is to say she will take me back? Maybe she hates me and wants to make me pay!”

There was no answer from the Phoenix. The dolphin in desperation was trying to find next steps for his future without any luck from himself or the Phoenix. The society of males couldn’t figure what to do with him and indictments were read against him and the dolphin plead guilty because he was at the same odds of his own failure as they were with their failure to find a place for him. The issue had come to the attention of the women and immediately it was decided the dolphin would be killed.

The women wanted to hear his story before they had the men slaughter the dolphin and the dolphin bravely told them.

The dolphin pleaded guilty on all counts of disrupting society and general unruliness and was slaughtered. 

Chapter II

The detective 

I crack open a beer and look at this shit heel of a case on my desk. It’s a front page headline of a newspaper and I know it will be my responsibility to figure. I fondle my badge and think how I am the smartest man on the force and how everyone knows it from the janitor to the governor. There is something about this case that irks me. It’s on the black side of town.

First thing I see when I walk in is the red on the wall and the first thing I smell is the iron smell of fresh blood. A mouse skitters behind a mahogany dresser and I reach for my holster. Like a rush of blood to my eyes I notice the dead woman’s flush red lips.

To regain focus I light a cigarette. My armpit drips sweat and I scratch the top of my head. The room is too dark. This room gives me the creeps. I refocus my mind on the sound of a mouse behind the dresser and try to remember what I had for breakfast.

I had a bagel and cream cheese with orange juice not coffee because I was going to get a Red Bull on the drive over to the crime scene. The dead woman with the red lips lies on a queen sized bed. I can hear a conversation downstairs. The toe nails on her feet are the same color as the lipstick on her mouth.

Black people talking downstairs make it hard to think. This place reminds me of places I had been to as a kid. When you were a kid you could go anywhere with anyone. If I was a black guy I could come back here tonight and have myself a time. These aren’t bad guys who run this joint and obviously it attracts good looking women.

I light another cigarette. I don’t know why I smoke these things. I also don’t know why this woman is dead. I also don’t know why she is so attractive. This room smells like piss.

Or is that just the smell of this cigarette? Cigarettes always smell of piss. Why do I smoke these things? What would the woman look like without the sheet over her?

It looks amazing. The perfectly white sheet over an immaculate woman lying on top of a blood-stained bed sheet gives off a very pleasing aesthetic. Maybe the murderer thought so as well. The room smells like my cigarette and reeks of lye. The floorboards although old are the only thing clean in the entire room save the top bedsheet and my record.

I could use a whiskey at the bar downstairs. A pressure is beginning to give me a migraine. Is it bad juju to share an ashtray with a murderer and his mistress? Anyways the husband is back at the station with his high-dollar attorney and wants a report more desperately than my superiors do.

Oh, the ceiling is clean as well. I like her perfume. God, I am tired, I could use another Red Bull. I could use something stronger than a Red Bull. Too bad I won’t ever know what kind of perfume that is.

A beautiful day

To walk down the street

& look at trees

But there is murder in the air

Let us laugh &

Let us joke &

Smile shit faced grins

All is good &

All is golden

With this new murder in the air

The Deputy

She was shot through the stomach. She was shot through the stomach in this hotel room on the black side of town above this bar. She was shot through the stomach in this hotel room on the black side of town above this bar during the day. Then the murderer went down the stairs and killed one of the black owners at the bar and stole money out of the cash register.

Full ashtray. Mahogany dresser. Blood on the wall. Floor washed with lye.  Clean bed sheet. Blood stained bed sheet. Clean ceiling. Mouse under dresser. This seven-figure looking broad on the bed, dead.

Marlboro and Camel cigarette butts in the ashtray. One must be from the detective. Why do people smoke cigarettes? I’ve always thought they reeked of piss. This mouse under the dresser probably knows the whole story but he is talking as much to the cops as the black guy who runs this place.

I’ve been on the police force for a couple years and never been promoted. Stuck with each grunt job that they can make up. Sometimes though they can come up with some dirty shit. “Eat your wheaties today, we have got a body we are going to need you to throw in a river.” Like I could eat a bowl of Wheaties.

Wheaties are just a step above grape nuts. Being a grunt police officer like myself is a step above being a mobster. The police ain’t as bad because they don’t run the entirety of the organization off of causing crimes, just some of it. Like us cops didn’t kill this woman but we are dumping her body into a river instead of taking it to forensics.

This is a nice place. Shame this crime had to happen in an establishment like this. Good decent black folk run this show. If I had more black friends I could come down here and have a time.

I might get some cigarettes after this. The woman only weighs a couple hundred pounds. She ain’t fat by any means but she is dense. In this body bag it’s like I am taking out the laundry. Husband left a hefty donation for the chamber of commerce.

“Appreciate it if you would clean it up nice and tidy like.” “Things were great when it started.” “Can’t stand to see my social status slip farther than it already has.” Yes sir Bob, me neither. That’s why I carry your wife around in a body bag in my trunk.

In the tv shows when a guy does something like not have his wife’s dead body sent into forensics it’s a big blaring clue that he is a prime suspect for the murder. She was and is dolled up real nice as well. Did he fuck her and then kill her? Or just kill her? What a creep show.

No one says a damned word about anything. The detective. The husband. The chief. The black guy at the bar dressed as a white guy. The mouse. Just that I should eat some nasty cereal and tidy things up. 

“You have a job to do and you had better let yourself do it.” Like hell. The detective could tell the chief that the mouse told the black man dressed as a white guy that the husband had told him that I was the one who slept with and killed his wife, the black business partner and took the money. Since it is me and my squad car and a woman’s body sinking to the bottom of a river I wouldn’t give a damn if a mouse did tell a lie like that.

The husband killed his wife and then because he had just killed his wife he went and made love to her, aces high like, and since he was shitting in high cotton, he killed a black man for kicks downstairs and stole money to feel like a teenager again. Don’t give me a raise or give me a title though because I’m untrustworthy and I’m a loose cannon. What am I going to eat for lunch today? KFC or Popeyes? Maybe I’ll just get some smokes and eat KFC or Popeyes for dinner.

Morbid eyes

Morbid lips

Morbid breath

Morbid kiss

Morbid sex

Morbid legs

I can see morbid thighs

Morbid lung

Morbid tongue

Morbid dreams of Jung

Morbid loss

Morbid cost

Chapter I

 Piss fills my lungs. In the dead silence my match was lit and still hate the taste of tobacco. The bed is filled with detachment from fulfilled attachments. The exchange of niceties rise from the floorboards. Back and forth, back and forth like a gentleman’s game of ping-pong or skilled tennis players. This cigarette is yet to impress me.

The niceties don’t slow as I wonder how they do it I reach for my holster and exhale smoke into the room, a la French, and prefer my skill set to theirs in general although the familiarity of their banter beckons me in this moment.

In fact I have come to hate this room more than my cigarette. I cough as smoke is stuck in my lungs and remove the gun from it’s holster to balance myself. Cigarettes. I swear they put piss in these things. I wish she was still here. An angel by my side never disloyal and as close as a sister and a better fuck than any porno.

Red on the wall and smell of iron is what the mouse tells me. Into the room she greets me with the kiss of death. Her lip lock demands I listen to the story of her murder.

The mouse sees that her ghost has got the story from here and retreats to it’s home beneath the mahogany dresser only to comment from time to time with slurries within the wall.  

Her lips suck the life out of me as she places my cold hands on her deathly frozen breasts and the icy tips of her fingers close around my warm cock and I know she wants me inside her dead carcasse. Her bloody body draws me towards the bed. Suddenly I get the sensation of being naked little boy in the presence of a mature older woman.

He eastern star of my great great grandmother comes to mind unexpectedly. I wish I wasn’t alone in this woman with this gorgeous still figure lying disgraced in front of me. I feel as though I am in over my head. If she was alive she would be beckoning me to fuck her without a condom so as to give her a child and a future but she is not alive, so no seductive calls associated with movements occur. 

A wave of confusion overwhelms my mind. The loss of life placed in my hands is staggering. I stagger like I have been hit in the chest and my hands flail without the command of my mind. I have to get out of here. I need to get out of this room.

I will die in this room with her if I can’t pull myself together. Her naked body has lost it’s glow. I have no idea who she is. Her eyes open. I jump. I check her pulse because she is not breathing. Nothing. I close her eyelids. I open her eyelids. I close her eyelids. The door slams behind me.

I just want to fuck her one more time. To eat her out. To kiss her mouth. That is all over now. The only passion I will know now is to fuck a man. I have never even touched a man in a sexual way before. She was all I’ve ever needed.

As I walk out of the room a tear falls down my face as I look at my beloved, wife of ten years, bloody corpse one last time.

I walk down the stairs and there are two black men wearing white face. I walk over and shoot one with my gun. The ceiling above the cash register is dripping blood. The other man puts a glass away and takes a shot of Hennessy and washes his face. I empty the cash register and light a match.

The door to hell

Is always there

It cannot be destroyed or hid

The door to hell

Is always there

With an open lid

The door to hell

Becomes the cross

A man carries all day long

The door to hell

Becomes a ring

Inside a woman’s dream