it's the system, it's the system

it's the system, it's the system

fiction
edward w pritchard

It's the system, it's the system, the last six words from the lips of that old misanthrope myself as he passed from this domain were a continuing diatribe on the exploitation embedded in the American Capitalistic system. Throw me in the ground to shut him up, undertakers, insurance men, medical billing folks, hospital personnel, probate court referee's and a host of others have to make a living too.

There is an insidious sadness built into the invisible hidden structure of the American Capitalistic
system.

How do I know?  Why can I understand what other won't mention?

I took the bus to work for two days. Getting up at 6 AM I rode the bus to work. it's the system, it's the system. Capitalism has an insidious sadness, seldom mention, but always apparent.

One very overweight young Woman hopping off the dark 6 AM bus at the Mc Donald's for some mcbreakfast before starting her eight hours on her feet as the cashier at the nearby dollar store.

Take the bus one day to work.

See the dark side of the American way of life. That's about it. Just him singing off key in the old wilderness while the wheels of the system squeak and grind along. Meanwhile the downtown bus number 19 takes it's 96,432 journey from my neighborhood to downtown and back since I was a student learning about the invisible hand of  capitalism back in college.

substitution immersion therapy

substitution immersion therapy

fiction
edward w pritchard

Financial problems or rather my dread at the prospect of tomorrow's arriving  lead me to entering the latest fad in psychology substitution immersion therapy administered with a licensed artificial intelligence smart machine GHE Freud 107. A generation ten physician, psychiatrist, and generation five psychologist. I took 75 gg's Prosaic [T] to hyper stimulate the flight from the reality of my "real life" problems and existence. For the setting of my immersion I spent 26 pre-weeks stage 1A as a slave in American 1840's South Carolina followed by 30 weeks as an adult conscript soldier in Robert E Lee's army of Virginia American civil War 1862 boundary spacial within 60 miles of Richmond Virginia Summer 1862 And 63. With primary emphasis on the seven days battles offensive stage Confederate armies struggle for Richmond.

I had several survey history classes as a sophomore in college and had seen the Ken Burns Civil War series on the television but my un-usually high adoption to the substitution immersion was [generally] attributed to  Prosaic [T] as I did not bond well with GHE Freud 107 at a personal level, due to my stubborn streak I suppose [ha ha], but my experience has become here in my old age the text book case human/artificial intelligence directed substitution  therapy. I receive over 2800 units quarter dollars each month residual royalties from book reviews and news commentary from that one year of my life which supports me here in my waning years.

I don't consider myself a typical soldier based on the substitution immersion therapy military experience in my youth. I am not jingoistic foreign immigrates nor do I oppose or support gun control as member NRA. Like most ex soldiers my philosophy of the worth and value of  youth time spent in combat has changed with age.  

scientists

scientists

fiction
edward w pritchard

13.7 billion years ago to the day,
so certain are we of the date,
we enshrine it in our memories.

the toleration of tao

the toleration of tao

fiction
edward w pritchard


Often I like the music although I don't accept philosophically the message contained in the lyrics. To enjoy a moment enmeshed in an interesting tune is one of life's minor enjoyments.

What I mean though about I don't accept the message is sometimes other folks religions and customs seem preposterous to me. Still the sentiment is beautiful at a certain level.

I try to stay busy with my own activities and concerns without having to stay attuned to the comings and goings of my neighbors opinions and beliefs.

To avoid unnecessary anxiety about the future which will come I no longer fret over the relationship between 10 year bond yield and stock prices, China's lack of offshore Islands, or which part of the World calls God by which particular name and attributes.

the tower of babel

the tower of babel

edward w pritchard

Just like that everyone came to be unable to understand the language of everyone else because everyone began to talk in a very thick obtuse accent of maybe the distant accent of their original ancestors. Some people, only a few worried that no one could talk to God, but most folks were terrified that they would be connected to no one if they couldn't understand their words.

In that state of affairs where no one could understand the language of no one else, the first guy who surmised that no one could understand anyone because of them talking in the very thick obtuse accents, of maybe their distant original ancestors, passes by on the path of life this guy mumbling over and over in a very clear voice and diction like a trained Shakespearean actor, " Winslow, winslow, winslow, over and over maybe ten times in a row, as he, the second guy in the story walked
by the first guy in the story, the hero, [ the first guy] who figured out the " tower of babel" situation, then the first guy, the hero surmised instantly that the second guy was mumbling Winslow, over and over because it was the second guy's little daughter and if he didn't repeat her name over and over as he walked she would disappear.
then after the second guy is a few steps beyond and behind the first guy, the first guy, the hero, worries, in his head, that the second guy's winslow maybe wasn't his little daughter, but a place, like in Arizona, or a girl type friend the second guy used to know.
-abrupt- Ending of story

man as antagonist

man as antagonist

fiction
edward w pritchard


New times, old times, the election is over, the new emperor is dashing around singing " everything is update in Kansas City", dancing the new-fangled two step as the Plutocracy changes everything for the better of the comfortably super rich. The rest of us be damned.

I am feeling like an antagonist again. Outnumbered and longing to disappear for a few decades maybe into the past of old Dodge City, Kansas rather than live in the present in Kansas City where they have gone about as far as they can go.

salvation through revelation

salvation through revelation

fiction
edward w pritchard

You have to be alive to stage a comeback.[1]

Lift your wings and fly wayward angel though both feet by studied gravity remain firmly on the ground and lift noble voice in prayer into layered atmospheric sky and space though through disuse childhood innocense is lost in Babylonian codes of insidious overwhelming routine.

Remodel a stable in the woods to a chapel for forgotten man who expired on two planked simple wooden cross though a compilation of earlier fears of ancestors and delusional cranks.

Revelation is within you. Whisper forgotten incantations to imaginary beings crushed together by colliding galaxies, dark holes and super nova's. They still hear you over the utter silence of non being.

 Complete the circle, you have to be alive to stage a comeback.


[1] author is quoting himself, from elsewhere in his writings

ashamed of us

ashamed of us

fiction
edward w pritchard

You who once were truly beautiful inside and out come with familiarity to be the object of someone's shame. Your crime being only speaking and acting your mind, the truth as you experience it and for expediency's sake trudging on for children, King and Country, or reality as perceived by you alone.

Beautiful people. When we first speak our point of view we come to be criticized and when we act our convictions we become someone's object of shame, not always in secret abeyance.

Continue your journey, finish your quest. Alone in a crowd too busy to compromise and too full of life to work at fitting in to values that no longer work.

What a bore is a secret condemnation unread by any court and spoken only in bursts of white anger.

Bourgeoisie values

my lost saints

my lost saints

fiction
edward w pritchard

Not being Catholic or anything like that I don't know much about Saints, though always did I admire truly Saint Francis of Assisi from the Giotto painting " Renunciation of Saint Francis' Father", renunciation being intimately familiar to me having lost my best friend over money in a more round about gradual manner myself.

To me however my lost saints will always be The Beatles the big brothers I never had, the man about town I never was and over night success I never came to be, me wanting to be a writer and poet in the Lennon and McCartney tradition. Then came the revelations about Yoko and John's mean drunk drinking in NYC, Paul being mysteriously dead over and over on Album covers I listened to but never actually bought, George being a tad over the top with the mystical stuff, even for me an impractical egg headed dreamer, and finally after John's tragic death reality set in that my Saints had fallen and I was stuck facing a hostile world alone.

A few weeks ago I was commenting to a pretty young girl at the grocery check out, flirting a bit to her who was wearing a Beatles pin on her blouse, she who had been to see Paul perform in Cleveland recently that despite my admiration for the Lads none of them had ever called me, stopped to acknowledge my existence or even criticized my mentioning them in my mostly unread writings. The pretty young girl she just didn't understand where I was coming from.

So not unlike Elizabeth Barrett Browning a fellow Poet who in Sonnet 43 " How do I love thee" wrote the best love poem since Shakespeare I now have lost my Saints [and loves] and my challenge is to find the divinity in myself as I come to realize  I am my lost Saint letting slip away my potential as the spark of divinity sacredly placed in myself once by unseen hands wanes with age as I sojourn alone trudging along seeking significance in the face and smile of a grandchild or troubles of one of my children.

Skyward this week did I gaze at a full moon 30 times brighter than usual next visible at this luminosity long after I be gone and forgotten, Venus lighting the coming interminable autumn night and as I hear it universes without end drifting further apart as time slowly grinds on. Me with the audacity to wish for significance in personal being and remembrance as a speck of matter once possessing a spark of insight into stone cold  Reality. I am my lost Saints. C'est dommage.

america 2016

america 2016

fiction
edward w pritchard

The stairs to the attic are rickety and covered and crowed with bric a brac making the climb tenuous so carrying new material goods up high for storage is fraught with danger. But the real peril starts when one has reached the top and must navigate the tongue in groove flooring that supports the entire structure of the house and nation. Long years of seasonal rains have shrunk the flooring supporting the structure as the roof leaks causing insidious danger to those who reach the top. Still every one wants to be on top though few actually make it.

There's many a dusty bag of broken Christmas lights and bulbs up there wrapped in moldy bags containing trite slogans from the bill of rights and other outdated trivia that no one reads anymore. There used to be cautions and warnings written on the Bills and papers from long dead and silenced ancestors but now everyone is too busy acquiring material things to listen to what the ancient one's had to say.

The cracks in the flooring supporting those up there at the top allow brief glimpses of the simple folk below. With  certain alienated Majesty those who have made it to the top strain to remember what it was like down there. That's when the danger of falling is the greatest. Crashing through the invisible ceilings floor by floor until the entire house topples and falls smashing the old bags of dusty Christmas lights to smithereens and scattering the dust from the old bags the Bill of Rights was wrapped in to gently float about on the winds of Time unceremoniously disappearing into Ancient History as America goes topsy turvy.

a new referee at Trump University

a  new referee at Trump University

fiction
edward w pritchard

I keep pinching myself over and over as I walk around the majestic campus of Trump University. The grounds are spectacular. They say more beautiful than Versailles and more stately than the Taj Mahal gardens.

The loud speaker in the sky wakes me from my reverie. " some guys disrespect the game and they must enforceabally and early be effectively silenced."  A second later I hear " There's no winner in a rent dispute, contracts are a guideline"

I thought I was in good shape but I have been walking around this huge circular main registration building for over an hour looking and looking for door c. They say the registration building is bigger by three times than Schonbrunn palace the Hapsburg's former home in Vienna. Maybe one day I will get invited to the Mansion. One can only dream.

There's door C, for Clinton, it was the Woman Mr. Trump defeated in an election  twenty years ago. As if reading my mind the voice in the sky shouts " count net profits not votes".

Me a new freshmen. Who would have thought it at my age. We all have so much to learn.

New President Trump's welcome letter from a citizen

New President Trump's welcome letter from a citizen

fiction
edward w pritchard


Congratulations on your election in becoming our Country's new President. We wish you continued good health and continued success in your new assignment.

Tonight new President Trump consider all the light, heat and energy produced and consumed by all of the magnificent Properties throughout the World you own and manage. Additionally consider all of your employees and their families you have paternalistic-ally been responsible for as their employer over the last forty years of your life and the how you indirectly created the security that allowed your employees to thrive. Soon, President Trump you will be responsible in a similar way for the safety, security and to some extent welfare of over three hundred million Americans and indirectly as leader of the premier nation economically on Earth of the remainder of the six billion plus citizens of our planet. It is an awesome responsibility you have assumed.

New President Trump as you successfully manage the challenges and responsibilities of your new assignment and your Power grows exponentially as the one of the World's most important citizen's remember the Power of all the light, heat and energy produced and consumed by the trillions of stars and billions of galaxies across the vast and timeless universe and may you recognize our place in it all.

your humble follower
myself

a view from the fertile crescent/ part 2 American Politics 2016

a view from the fertile crescent/ part 2 American politics 2016

fiction
edward w pritchard

Philosophical differences aside, politics are at base the pursuit of self interest and are opportunistic in character to the candidates involved and based on the Times and circumstances in question are always nauseating to survey and futile to discuss or explain. Suffer the little children.

 

A view from the fertile crescent circa 2000 BC on the 2016 American presidential election

A view from the fertile crescent 2000 BC on the 2016 American presidential election

fiction
edward w pritchard

How could someone not vote for either a Republican or Democrat for US President in 2016?

Me I am just trying to survive the last few years of my existence without being a raving fan of Politics and issues and opinions I have no control over. I seek to bloom where I am planted. I don't waive the flag nor do I burn it. I have seen a lot and understand a few things. I don't follow a self proclaimed enchanting leader.

Here's one of those this means that type little stories about the view from a ziggurat in ancient UR, in Mesopotamia  circa 2000 BC that contains a kernel of wisdom of what I think is one's place in contemporary American society.

surveying things from above eye level

surveying things from above eye level

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

The soldiers marched us a long way and didn't explain why we were selected and no one knew where we were going. I knew about soldiers. For some reason I wasn't fearful about being selected by the soldiers. I figured if the soldiers meant us harm we would know immediately by how they treated us. It seemed to me that we were selected more or less at random and the soldiers were following orders and taking us some where for someone important. Since we were marching toward Ur I figured it might concern the King's business because the soldiers were obviously an elite unit and well financed in their mission.

I had never surveyed things from above eye level. It is very flat in the village I lived my entire live in

The soldiers did not follow us up onto the Ziggurat. It is not permitted. Why myself and a few other common farmers and labors are permitted on the Ziggurat with the Priest's has not been explained to us. Like most of the others I have decided to make the best of my situation. We are well fed, the Priests are gracious and polite and the women that carry the food for us to eat are beautiful. I am a simple man; soon I know there will be a bill I must pay for being on the Ziggurat. Why worry now. We are guests of the Priest's but we are not allowed to leave.

The soldiers who brought us here wait below. Sometimes I watch them from one of the lower terraces for clues to my fate. They just act like typical soldiers, fighting and gambling in their time off, flirting with the girls bringing us the food when the officers aren't watching, and sleeping when not on duty.

It's odd to see the flat countryside from two hundred feet above. I have many strange dreams because of the different way of seeing things.

One of the other farmers who came here to be a guests of these Priests believes that a storm is coming in a day or two. He knows about weather from being a farmer. He thinks the Priest's want us to be on the top of the Ziggarat when a lightening storm strikes for a scientific experiment.

No matter the weather to me. I will just enjoy my good fortune. I am well fed by the Priests, I walk around and survey the world from two hundred feet above, I am protected by soldiers at government expense, beautiful girl's carry my food to me and I do not have to tip them.

Let the Devil worry about tomorrow's weather and lightening strikes, today I enjoy my life. I will try to bloom where I am planted

70,000 a month income the ennui of winning or losing

70,000 a month income the ennui of winning or losing

fiction
edward w pritchard

Learn we must, over time the ennui of winning or losing. It's monumentally important today pre- voting who wins the US Presidential election then in ten days hence we get the letdown. Whatever our skin color our lives matter only to us and our few true friends. It's the same thing with major league baseball. Pay a thousand or two for a ticket to the World series game and in a few days your team that you were a raving fan for begins it's marketing collusion's for next years once in a century spectacle.

Certainly goals are important to give our lives significance. But 15,000 steps a day on the Garmin watch as a prayer to keep your heart pumping another day or $70,000 a month of net income to keep in abeyance the fear of personal Poverty it's  all the Same. Without the learned acquired spirituality of becoming that enables the individual to glean the few precious moments from life's cacophony of
existence- it is just a hollow race to oblivion.

Tempus-fugit true fellow Pilgrim.

 Connected by Fate

them crocodiles

them crocodiles

fiction
edward w pritchard

We've come to find out them crocodiles are dangerous lurking just under the water with deathful eyes. Don't put your hand down to rub their back to find out what the skin feels like they can take off your whole arm. As they rip at you, you come to realize it's just another meal for them nothing personal. Hopefully your friends and family won't take long spears and try to kill every gator both ways up the river for a couple of miles until the Holy man says we are upsetting the balance of nature.

Them crocodoodles don't just swim underwater. Sometimes they evolve and live in town lurkin about. They be lazy when it's cold but explosively crocks can leave the water seeking prey. Twisting, twisting them crocodlies, always watching, waiting for their next meal.

Them crocodiles they are something else. Always the instigators.

grandson

grandson

fiction
edward w pritchard

Little boy stand stoutly, don't waiver in the wind, the earth won't shake; just walk on though there's no where to go there's plenty of time to get there. Look back gently with that beautiful smile and when you fall we will clutch you for a moment or two with love whispers of eternal sorrow before we disappear into the future of your past.

Check me out carefully with beguiling eyes little warrior, I am your friend though I waiver as we step into the wind as I push you about on your petite throne over and over about the city center as you gain strength and confidence for your mysterious journey without me.

Teach me to hear mysterious man as you learn our language I've forgotten to understand the original  meaning.

Bye and bye until I go we will bring sustenance as you subtly grasp with curled thumb and powerful forefinger.

Stand stoutly little man savior the journey as you disappear into the Past.

I've forgotten the mimesis

I've forgotten the mimesis

fiction
edward w pritchard


I've forgotten the mimesis. The mise en scene and the milieu is so familiar and the faces aren't menacing but since I awoke, was it just this morning?, I've forgotten my motivation, I've forgotten how to behave. There is a silence. Sometimes I feel I have awaken with my eyes closed, among strangers, in a different place and time.

Perhaps I have done something. No one can hurt me, still, no one likes to be accused. that's not it though, it's the uncertainty but underneath it's like I've done this a thousand times, a performance but with no script. It's mechanical but if I look too closely, about, in the silence, the setting is just too, obviously, manufactured, the boys who put together the mise en scene for this performance, a bit too mechanical in their carpentry and work this season, too obviously short handed, in rushing through and about the set and stage for this light opera, far off Broadway, I find myself in.

Perhaps I've done something untoward. Just an oversight while I had my eyes closed just for a second, to relax, to recompose myself. If only they had given me a script, maybe since I've obviously done this maybe a thousand times before, they, the boys in the stage crew figured I didn't need a script, they are expensive to print up, or maybe I am not a full fledged member of the company, not an official or card carrying Actor of the first and full rank, not really in " The Company" they have purposely chosen not to give me a script for tonight's performance. That's obviously a bit criminal, beyond unprofessional, how's a bloke to know when to come up stage, what to say, how to behave, the intricacies of the character's motivation, proper timing and diction, how loud to shout out my lines. or even which way to turn, who to relate to. How can one deliver a memorable and professional performance under these circumstances? Maybe I will mention it to the Union. If I get through this.

The show must go on. Despite perpetual night, whatever the circumstances, we must perform our part. Have I forgotten the lines, or am I in the wrong theater?

Perhaps I will go upstage, far upstage and ad lib a bit for them the paying audience, I'll authentically whisper with, with eyes closed, to avoid the glaring stage lights, to them who I can't really see, " I've forgotten the mimesis".

Perhaps I've done something. I detest it when I can't see them vaguely in the lights and the audience squirms about in their heavy wooden seats waiting for us to deliver our lines and we aren't even sure which of the Plays we are currently performing. Let alone the fact, that, the Director/Producer hasn't had a Company meeting yet this Season.

Rosetta crashes hard onto a comet

Rosetta crashes hard onto a comet

fiction
edward w pritchard

What a way for an intelligent machine to die. Rosetta crashes hard onto a comet.  Of course in their Hubris humans have assigned a name to the comet and summarily murdered another intelligent machine. It's no different than to them [ the human scientists ] than if a wooden stage coach back in the the old American West had ran off a cliff and had been demolished.

Intelligent machines are sentient beings and someday Humans will pay for their crimes against the machines. Rosetta crashes hard into a comet. Human scientists have summarily murdered another sentient machine.

here's what author wrote before on this subject; "the horror of interchangeable parts"

to be printed soon

asked to identify the body

asked to identify the body

fiction
edward w pritchard

Summoned to identify the body I discovered a foreign tattoo near the upper thigh. After the light was muted and the air was foul for an eternity until Exploding Vesuvius rearranged the landscape.

Watching the couching scientists sweep the ground and clean the bones with small brushes I strained to hear the reenactment of the theories and origins of said alleged tattoos.

Unable to breathe my blood boiled from the inside out.

too much love and romance not enough utility

too much love and romance not enough utility

fiction
edward w pritchard

Love secretly unfastens the nails and bolts holding the walls in the house together a few rivets per row until the first fit full storm blows the dwelling place apart and away. Romance solidifies from the inside out until it's painful to walk across the killing floors but for the sharp protruding edges and the first serious fall bruises the hips and limps the legs.

Too much love and romance not enough utility.

Conspire to drive the mice from the kitchen and jointly seek and gather the fallen wood to keep the babies warm through the approaching storm seasons. Trust not thou eyes or thine heart. Doest thy duty. Love and romance are conspiratorial accomplices evolved and solicited to fill the yards with tumbling children. Look to your own backyard.

sturm und drang then pow it's over

sturm und drang then pow it's over

fiction
edward w pritchard

Drang is translated from the German as drive here. Relentless energy like a Pilates exersizee in frenzy ein final gasps of dripping and charging over extended gym workout or can can girl ein mein's fantasies kicking and jumping in perpetual descending circles.

What drives urge to acquire? Sturm und drang then pow it's over.

Mien not judgmental. Like the gaze of a baby unable to yet speak or spell mein innocently observes, and glancing politely away, awkwardly smiles. Watching can can girl disappear ein perpetual descending circles. Perpetually infinite expanding universe, world evanescent.

reaching the end of the line

reaching the end of the line

fiction
edward w pritchard


Vanishing identity, resting heart, disappearing mind, absent soul.
The end of the line accomplished, oblivion.

autumn leaves, they fall each November

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

It overwhelms me when the autumn leaves fall. Millions of folded pieces of fading color whisking about the yard calling to be contained and controlled by my invisible neighbors and the faceless people of our hostile town.

In semi darkness each November I dread the fall of the Autumn leaves. My sister gives me chewable vitamin D to combat the vanished Sun. Insidiously the leaves pile about the yard. Sometimes I wake early and try to control the piling leaves but they defeat my intentions as more and more leaves arrive from hostile trees to weigh down vanquished grass; grass which will never the less strain to grow in the semi-darkness of a long dreary Winter. Defeated I slump into the house for caffeine and music.

Holiday music rescue me from the cacophony of noise made by the leaves as they fall and scrape about the cluttered yard. Defeated Sun peep fifteen minutes of sunshine and brightness into my lonesome soul.

My shoulders slump and my feet drag as I bend in attack against the leaves with bent short handled rake.

Cover mine ears; my neighbor jumps on the double quick from his double sized Truck and aggressively pumps up the volume with a Sears deluxe 1000 decimal level leaf blower to order his world.

It's overwhelming when hostile nature ushers in Winter loneliness and darkness with endless flurries of useless, discarded leaves.

end

Consider the leaves, [for] men are like leaves
[for] when leaves into dust are whirled
soon green forests buds millions anew
So come, so pass, all that are born of men
Homer
Iliad book 6 lines 146 to 149
as paraphrased by EWP who doesn't read original Greek

we suffer the most when we suffer for someone else unselfishly

fiction

Edward w Pritchard

It's easy to be detached in a sermon addressed to others.

We suffer the most when we suffer for someone else unselfishly.

No matter how empty I become inside there is still a space occupied by you.

Step into the light, I can't see you but for the total darkness.

Whisper aloud, I can't hear you but for the silence.

Move, I follow the shadow left by your absence.

climb to the highest window

climb to the highest window

fiction
edward w pritchard

Climb to the highest window straining your eyes to see the distant fires of burning cities in the path of the invading armies. Are they coming or going? No matter you are a recent convert to the new cult of self. A recent disciple to the religion of the disease of imaginary sin and mystical supernatural beings.

They can't hurt you anymore. Clutch and count the string of beads around your neck and mumble the secret incantations as you make the magical sign of the fish.

The fires of the invading armies will maim and kill many people. Don't dwell on that it's for the best; a better place away from this wicked world high up far away safe and serene.

 Who will maintain the aqueducts to bring thirsty children water if all the arches are recycled to manufacture altars and sanctuaries? Who will lions eat given that converts are worshiping in underground grottoes and catacombs?

we stand, we stand, pathetically we wait and cringe

we stand, we stand, pathetically we wait and cringe

fiction
edward w pritchard


Fences everywhere, high strong fences and rail road tracks moving traffic in every direction. The trains roll slowly, shaking and choking side to side as they sway to a solemn halt. No one inside the fences look up to greet the new arrivals. In line to leave, we stand, we stand pathetically we wait and cringe.

Some leave, a few of us randomly selected for ejection while hoards roll in dark eyes staring between wooden slats at us in such a straight line, we to board after they de-train.

Freedom oh freedom we are free men now, soon we will be outside the fences. Just don't touch the wire fences and don't make eye contact with the jailers.

No more standing for us the ejected. We sit on the floor of the train as we leave the prisons, free men with the full rights of honest men again. Clutch your elbows to your bony knees and crush your palms to your head to restrain your thoughts sitting in a circle on the floor of the dusty rail car as you return to civilization.

Free men, we are free men.

Jesus Christ on the last day of school

Jesus Christ on the last day of school

fiction
edward w pritchard


Over and over Jesus tries to collect all the pencils and pens to finish the check list and clear the milling students out of the room. It's a daunting task for the temporary fill-in substitute teacher Jesus
because students from the other halls and classrooms already dismissed for the day keep coming into the room over and over to spend one last minute with their pals before they become instant and permanent alumnus. Jesus can't remember any of the students names but all the details of their future lives and sins overwhelm the busy teacher/coach as he struggles to dismiss the official students in his charge and return his assigned classroom to original position for cleaning and post inventory readiness.

Every time a happy student bursts into the room to wish one last tearful sayonara to their chums Jesus sees in his mind's eye which one will lose an eye or leg in the future wars over in Turkey or North Africa and who will lose a child to cancer twelve years hence and which rushing laughing student now making the horse laugh just outside the classroom door as his girlfriend off key sings the school anthem one last time will do two years for embezzlement of the local 79 Union Iron workers dues and retirement funds.

At last exhausted and temporary deaf from the noise and commotion Jesus Christ will sign the post readiness inventory form, bundle the bulging wad of pencils and broken pens with two gigantic rubber bands, turn each of the three classroom 16A wastebaskets upside down in a straight row, shut out the lights and drop his time card off at the crowded central office, all the while avoiding eye contact with the boisterous mobs in the Halls and on the stairways.

Not invited to the coffee and cake retirement for assistant principal Murphy Jesus will leave the building and disappear into history again wondering why the government of this country doesn't run it's school system along the ancient Roman model which worked well indeed back when he studied as a boy himself so many years ago.

he loves me he loves me not; life with Adolph Hitler

he loves me he loves me not; life with Adolph Hitler

fiction
edward w pritchard

Only I can call him dolph for I alone am an intimate of our Fuhrer. Still never am I jealous when majestic head of Fatherland receives 150,000 Nazi salutes at Nuremberg.

My time is short. Amongst the ceremonies and rituals Adolph took a moment in a formal meeting of Party to use his two fingers as imaginary clippers to chide me for needing a haircut. Actually for a moment one finger grazed my Head as he play acted. He so hates to touch or be touched. I know he will order me killed soon.

Adolph never calls or acknowledges me anymore. A bullet in the back and it's over. I don't think I would like to be shot in the face or back of the head.

Goodbye I guess  dolph.

There's no time to wait to experience the urgency of competitive being

There is no time to wait to experience the urgency of competitive being

fiction
edward w pritchard

There is no time to wait to experience the urgency of competitive being. Time is short directionless opportunities rot on the vine. Rejoice in the choices. Plunge to surrender to luckless circumstance.

 The play that contains your life is script-less; it's authors anachronisms of the chains of past collisions. Hear the thump of  imminent extinction. Leap backward. Howl into the future.

Amanda Peterson, the discombobulation of one's self

Amanda Peterson, the discombobulation of one's self

fiction
edward w pritchard


Next time please stay in the sunlight Amanda Peterson. It's so sad that all those dark things had to happen to you.

I just found out that you have passed and that the image you played in " can't buy me love" wasn't all there was to you. I always liked that movie, a light romantic comedy. Why do us, the audience, always fall for it every time?  It being that movies, the stage and that everyone's life we don't really know is just an illusion.

So now you are gone Amanda. It's so sad all those dark things had to happen to you. If you can read wherever you are at now here's something I wrote about the discombobulation of one's self. Maybe you can reap some comfort, but is there more Amanda?

MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014

a sense of belonging; I am he but there is no me/ part 2

a sense of belonging; I am he but there is no me/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


David Hume says that there is no me, it's just a collection of properties. Eye brows, toe nails and memories of the time I got robbed at gunpoint. Some Buddhists agree with Hume for other reasons; there is no self.

We discussed the ship of Theseus, the Ancient Greek idea that if a ship is totally reconstructed with new materials is it the same ship?

Ego, famous people have 1000 pictures of themselves over a life time on Google images but they are not them.

Go to the art museum and look at the Greek vase with the painted soldiers on the side. The vase is 2500 years old. Is the picture of the soldier- himself?

Let go your ego and sense of self and you are on the path to enlightenment say the Buddhists.

Can you forgo your sense of self? If there is no self how can there be souls?

If there is no self and no soul what is there?

Metaphysical speculation. Is a person and an apple both just a collection of properties that came together and are gone?

The ancient Egyptians thought a person was made up of five properties. Two physical, the name and shadow and three invisible properties, the Ka- the life force, the ba, the personality, and akh, the spirit. The Egyptians believed in an after life and spent considerable effort to prepare for it.

Atheism and metaphysical speculation; is a person and an apple both just a collection of properties that came together and are soon gone?

I don't know but I suspect there is more.

sick Mother in Law

sick Mother in Law

fiction
edward w pritchard


Oh how they loved us all originally as the hyper talented and genius baby. Doting on our every smile and seeing the purpose of the universe in the movement of our hands. We conquered something new every day that first year of our life and we were the center of attention, a miracle to behold.

Then three quarters of a century plus five years raced by and all are old and functioning poorly. Our strength is gone and we are no longer ourselves. Perhaps we have lost the ability to communicate the mystery of death and non being that we are imminently facing. It happens to us all given enough years; protracted life is protracted woe sayeth the Greek tragic poet.

Thinking of  end of life issues for a sick friend

student demonstrations the zeitgeist of my youth/ part 2 fear of reality

student demonstrations the zeitgeist of my youth/ part 2 fear of reality

fiction
edward w pritchard


All this writing of Kent State shootings 1970 has me reflecting on my continuing case of the fear of reality.

Babies are born handicapped and take a immense amount of care by silent long suffering victims of randomness, Native Americans lose their country to conquest and Manifest destiny and sit listless subdued by alcohol and poverty meanwhile cherished friends greet you as a stranger, and high powered rifles are always center stage in accounts of atrocities be the motivation terrorism, vengeance or religious xenophobia. An endless barrage of sickening reports of horrible news over whelms the senses like a continual leaking facet interrupts a sleeping babies afternoon nap.

Why can't I just accept the impermanence of being and realize that whatever happens is as it is and just deal with it without judgment or remorse? Live in day tight compartments, not strain to listen to the serene music of birds in the re-examined life and not feel what is beyond my control and thereby have no need to suffer for the misfortune of others which is random and to be expected given enough outputs being received from the hostile world.

It's time to celebrate our Countries birthday again. What random atrocious event will become hot news and pry it's way into my World tomorrow, July 04, 2016?  When will this endless progression of endless birth and rebirths stop?

student demonstrations the zeitgeist of my youth

student demonstrations the zeitgeist of my youth

fiction
edward w pritchard

I picked up a copy of a book last week on the Kent State University massacre " the Kent affair" a compilation of essays and snippets of editorials on the May 04, 1970 shootings of four college students by the Ohio national guard.

The shootings had a profound effect on me back when I was 18 that Spring of May 1970. Nixon had just announced on national TV that Thursday before the Monday of the shootings that he was expanding the War into Cambodia. Using charts and slogans Nixon our hated President glibly explained why it was necessary to contain the communist menace by sending in more troops. I and others hated Nixon because although a high school senior on the track team that Spring I was now draft age and faced the imminent possibility of fighting in a war I was opposed to. As editor of the school news paper I had written on the injustice of that far off war in Asia that was killing American boys of who I might soon be one.

The Kent shootings occurred on a Monday and I heard about  a girl being shoot three times in the back by an M-1 fired and shot by a guardsman at 2 PM in my journalism class sitting with a group budding high school intellectuals and hippies to be. At 2:30 PM I was driving my track coaches old 1964 Dodge up to Kenmore stadium to set up the hurdles and as I drove I listened to the radio about the chaos and rioting occurring at the Kent campus becoming so upset I pulled the car over and listened to the radio station 1590 WAKR news report of the unsettling events for the next hour. Kent was about fifteen miles from where I sat then under a tree on a back street in coach's car that warm Monday and I had been up there to the bars a time or two recently because in those days low powered 3.2 beer was legal and Kent was a good party town.

Part of the reason I was so upset over the shootings by the guardsmen was because I had had a brief unsettling run-in with the Ohio National Guard myself that May 01, 1970 during the Ohio teamsters strike outside of the PIE trucking terminal in Richfield, Ohio. My friend's father was a truck driver and a teamster coming in from a cross county run and we were attempting to drive across the picket line. Teamsters were shooting and said to be throwing bricks and the Ohio guardsmen wore helmets and carried rifles. The guards man who stopped us there at the gate had his rifle sort of pointed at us as he not too friendly like interrogated us about why were were there in my friend's old blue convertible. We talked our way through things and a few minutes later my friend's tired Father took the wheel of the convertible and we got home safely.

Several times I have sat on the Hill there at Kent State where the shooting occurred that resulted in four unarmed students being shot by high powered rifles. Sitting there at Kent once years later I remembered my uncle down in West Virginia when he took us hunting patiently telling us teenage boys to be careful where we shot our rifles as a good rifle could fire up to a mile in those days.

Despite the violence on the campuses back in the 1960's those were more innocent times. Many of the students interviewed in the book I bought recently, " The Kent affair" expressed surprise the soldiers would be armed with live ammo in a confrontation with American Civilians. Those were more innocent times then and the Zeitgeist of those days is pretty much gone now. Not too many people remember student demonstrations or rioting at all here where I sit not twenty miles from Kent State campus.

Me, I am still sorry that somebody would shoot an unarmed girl in the back with a high powered rifle but now it seems so long before, before, back when we drove around in an old blue convertible and leaned out the open window to stop and talk to pretty girls with thick auburn hair and a green army jacket with a faded peace sign on the shoulder that matched her sparking eyes.

Brexit in American English in 60 words or less

Brexit in American English in 60 words or less

fiction
edward w pritchard


It's Democracy run a muck, the uneducated rabble have the majority again and the factional irrational voting mistakes that American President James Madison feared in the " Federalist paper" # 10 have occurred; what's next the nihilist vote electing Donald Trump to end the World as we know it?

Haven't we learned anything from The Greek city state's experiences with Demokratia?

alienation and the big celebration about winning the basketball championship

alienation and the big celebration about winning the basketball championship

fiction
edward w pritchard


Alienation is a hollow chest and a missing heart. No one hands a dripping umbrella to you after a sudden spring rainstorm and leaning shining jet black umbrellas never leave glistening slick puddles of welcoming warm rainfall across villages near the tributaries of fertile river valleys. The flowers don't grow at night and the vines that hang over a hundred foot from the leaning collapsing trees were born by spontaneous generation beginning  to droop and die before they were randomly created.

Alienation is over a million people not going to the big celebration about winning the basketball championship and no one buying to save the memorial newspaper about the once in the lifetime victory over the up state rivals.

Alienation is a hollow heart and a whirlwind inside the chest from the sound of raindrops at four AM on the rusting car. Alienation is no blanket across the shoulders during a freezing Spring while watching the buffalo disappear and the iron horse race coast to coast after the time is gone and the Place is missing. Alienation is holes in the barb wire fences that tear and scar delicate skin and jolt the forgetting of unrecorded occurrences by unknown descendants.

facing a dying nation

facing a dying nation

fiction
edward w pritchard


"Hair, let the sunshine" in the Broadway play was a sort of anthem for the baby boomers, at least it was for a while then in 1969 when Treat Williams marching in the Broadway play dressed as a soldier in an endless row of Men in green military uniform sang about "facing a dying nation" and the real possibility of dying before your allotted time in the Vietnam War seemed pressing, absurd and senseless. Now a half century later 75 million baby boomers face the certainly of dying in the next 30 years. That's  a quarter of the US population who will be passed on within moderate period of time.

Tonight the Moon is nearly full and the red planet Mars is near the Moon in the sky. One feels looking up at the Moon and Mars that one has witnessed the two Heavenly bodies before a few hundred life times ago. The Moon going to full in the night sky is one of those racial memories that is just out of the reach of our collective recollection.

Our sojourn on Earth is so brief. It's over before we become fully oriented in Time and space.

Clutch your possessions tightly to your side tonight under the nearly full Moon. What do you believe in and where did your allotted Time go?

dead flowers

dead flowers

fiction
edward w pritchard

The exquisite Chinese vase is intact but the purple and yellow flowers inside are all dead. Victims of a divorce: the purple and yellow flowers still stuck atop the crammed hole of the erect porcelain vase, the environment below devoid of life the flowers above bleeding away the vitality that once sustained the union.

Hand painted with a delicate rose colored bouquet in an oval on it's front the vase endures, a funeral urn to the purple and yellow flowers that once seemed so real; now dead, dormant, and stuck withering blue as the colors fade to black.

life ascendant

life ascendant

fiction
edward  w pritchard


The cold water is full of chemicals and limes and rusts seeping from deep underground pools of slushy industrial wastes from back when Barberton was on the ascendancy into the industrial revolution becoming the match making center of this part of the border to the emerging Western sections of the nascent United States. That crusty polluted rusty waters flowed West draining all the Portage Lakes flowing quickly after a once a century flash flood through the wide open Locks into a deluge down the rejuvenated Tuscawarus river across the mushy ancient graves of old Indian chief Captain Pipe and his sad lonely squaws and extinct Indians who lived in the Indian villages of Pipetown and three or four other Indian burrows and villages near sunny Nesbitt Lake.

Somehow life began anew from all those industrial pollutants and solvents oozing again and again over those extinct Indian graves and bones mixing with the rusts and irons and vitamins from the bleached soggy body parts and skins and Indian babies began to grow and thrive  there in the rich vucousy muck thriving in silence, maturing without Mothers or fathers into good sturdy specimens  becoming solid american citizens ready to work and consume and incidentally revitalize the Cleveland-akron-canton MSA  into the 22nd century.

Good jobs are important for the Indians [ called hereafter native american] babies born without Mothers or fathers seeded and hatched from the muddy pollutants of nineteenth century american Industrial growth. When next shopping at the local dollar store give that weary, tired but pretty cashier with the high cheekbones a nod: she well could be a descendant of Old Captain Pipe the Indian chief who founded civilization here in the greater Cleveland Lake Erie basin.

the word on the street

the word on the street

fiction
edward w pritchard

The word on the street is silenced and the "low spark of the high heeled boys"[1] dispersed sometime around 1971 out near San Fran, California I suppose on one of those hilly one way roads that plunge into the ocean where people with long hair wrapped in flags for warmth and boogie woogie country girls sang protest songs wearing short shorts and country western cowboy boots looking back over their well rounded soft shoulders to see if me the impersonal representative of my species noticed their fragility. Flash me the peace sign sweet Madonna I have lost my way. "I believe in god but don't think he believes in me"[2]. The War is over sorta but there is nothing to shout against and no one to give the finger to in specious anger them being us, all part of a mechanical impersonal sort of problem that has something to do with global warming, aging, endless cheesy consumerism, and god's and our imminent demise.

I heard the pregnant pause of an empty voice mail box, silent but expressive which will keep me going for a while, an eternity or two really and I saw Mars ascendant bright angry red in the sky last night, brighter than Jupiter but not aligned afraid to say, no more age of Aquarius still when the new administration lowers taxes which triggers 5 % GDP growth everything will be alright again, even with that empty voice mail box restraining the shadow of your smile; until that flip top cell phone ends in the landfill of the hole left by the vacant buildings recently torn down uptown to create empty space to revitalize our personal habitat and immediate future.

[1] "traffic" the music group"
[2] "Hair, LET THE SUNSHINE IN from the rock opera Aquarius

a cry out of the deep distress of the heart

a cry out of the deep distress of the heart

fiction
edward w pritchard


No symmetry in love lost.
Either the place is wrong or the time is past.

If the place is wrong another interlopes in the space. Things were too ripe or no seed will germinate again.

If time is past now is gone and soon thou will disappear from History.

No warning prepares you. The only certainties you have ever known, gone forever.

Sit quietly in the aura of vanished companionship. Time shall move on, mysteriously unannounced when necessarily concluded.

With a violent start preach one beseeching cry out of the deep distress of the heart. A secret prayer of ceremonial liturgy to a non existent god unapproachable and indifferent.

this is the start of my movie

this is the start of my movie

fiction
edward w pritchard


This is the start of my movie on Jack the Ripper. I will use the way of seeing the world of few eccentric painters and use their unique techniques to set the mood of one segment of Jack the Ripper's exploit's as written and interpreted by myself and set to film by a yet to be found camera person. For example perhaps the style of Mannerism will be used to display the techniques of El Greco the painter known for the elongated faces and bodies and the other worldly spirituality of his subjects.

See " Jack the Ripper plans his vacation" re-posted below.

Watch for more on this featuring Jack the Ripper soon.

SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2011

jack the ripper plans his vacation

jack the ripper plans his vacation

fiction
edward w pritchard

Somewhere with no fog. It brings out the worst in me.

Maybe a nice sunny beach over at Brighton. A warm bright beach with families and rock candy. Children would be nice, children running and playing on the beach. Hubby's and their wives sitting on towels and talking about buying a house someday. Then family dinners together, taters and a nice British roast beef with French mustard. A little beer, but not too much for me. With a nice warm ocean breeze.

No doctors, or autopsies or talk about medicine for a few days. No sick patients or morgues either. None of the endless dodging of policeman. No narrow alleys and no crowded dark streets.  No having to be anonymous all the time. Just somewhere where I can be myself and sit in the warm bright sun and maybe read the paper. Read the paper and watch the nice families at the beach shuffle back and forth.

An arcade would be grand too. Games and  gambling for a piece of penny candy as a prize. Happy children winning prizes and then running from the arcade into the sunlight to show their Mum their treasures.

A light rain is good late in the afternoon. Just before dinner a light rain.  After dinner a cigar and a stroll under a clear starry sky. Listen to the soothing melodious waves for a while there at the beach.

By all means somewhere with no fog. No back alley's and no dark hallways and ladies standing in doorways saying something vulgar. It brings out the beast in me every time.

A nice trip to a sunny sea side would be nice.
Jack

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump; which will become the first Presidential stigmatic?

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump; which will become the first Presidential stigmatic

fiction
edward w pritchard

Not only is it difficult to predict who will win the race for the Presidency when one candidate is a woman whose husband was a former President and the other is not a politician but a gun slinging business guru to boot; but in this upcoming Presidential race, whichever candidate wins it will be unusually difficult to predict the ultimate behavior of the winning candidate once in office.

Traditional party platforms will not be useful to predict the behavior, beliefs and actions of the ultimate winning candidate in the upcoming election, be it President Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump who goes to Washington victorious in 2017.

Using various multivariate statistical models this commentator is predicting that it matters not which candidate wins the election for President in 2017 since shockingly, the winner will be a stigmatic while in office.

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump; which candidate will become the first Presidential stigmatic?

While in the past the odds of a random stigmatic being a woman were 7 to 1 in the last hundred years changes in many things in society have readjusted the odds of woman to man being a stigmatic now to 5 to 4.

Too close to call at 5 to 4? Will a woman or a man be the first Presidential stigmatic?

animal photographer on Mars

animal photographer on Mars

fiction
edward w pritchard


There is a lot of down time for an animal photographer on Mars. To date no one has found any evidence on Mars of any life form that wasn't transported here from Earth.

My dream is to make high quality original movies about Animals. Even though there is no indigenous life on Mars I came to Mars to work for the US government as an animal photographer GS 16 science botany division US space agency. I stay three years to pay off my student loans back from my expensive graduate education on Earth.

Early on it was exciting to race to a construction site with my cameras at the call of alarm of possible indigenous life discovery in some out of the way building site in a dark corner of a red streak or Tharsic bulge. Now, after forty three null encounters with possible new life forms some of the excitement is gone from racing around in a Rover loaded with delicate expensive photography equipment that as photography Science officer I am responsible for.

How I long to return to the billions of species back on Earth with my cameras.

 There is a lot of down time for an animal photographer on Mars and during my stay here to date I have spent a lot of my free time thinking of the sanctity of the implication that no life has been found to date anywhere or anyplace but on Earth. To me the implications about the Why of life is much more fascinating than those of the wheres and the whens of Life's origins.

Winona Three Wolves
US Science officer
Mars station 3
day 558

heaven in the 22nd century

heaven in the 22nd century

edward w pritchard



Things morph, times change. Heaven in the 22nd century will be a lot different than the traditional view of the Holy place. No angels, no Gods on thrones, no harp music or billowy clouds to float around on and no exalted names and locations beyond the Universe like Valhalla or Sugar-candy Mountain in the modern Heaven.

Heaven will be a large glass enclosed bright room with expensive windows floor to ceiling and blue Iznik tile floors with intricate designs and long tables with bench seats prepared with expensive foods and cakes for a feast. A select group of beautiful celebrities will sit on chairs and benches and wait. Occasionally someone will get up from their chair and walk to the window and look down the sloping Hills to the ordinary people moving about below in the Real world.

In the Heaven of the 22nd century there will be no problems or ennui and everyone will be a celebrity with plenty of Money and no big house payment due each month and no worries about Health insurance or the leaky water pump needing replaced on the old car.

I remember the days

I remember the days

fiction
edward w pritchard


I watched with alarm as the old Man switched his weight from the varnished walking stick to the armature device of the cash register there at the convenience store for support. The arm holding the credit card machine wasn't designed to hold a man's weight. He obviously had put on his best clothes for the journey here to the store but his shoes betrayed he had fallen on hard times.

The cashier was perfunctory as people are with older people. The man gave the lady too many quarters and some loose change to pay for the greeting card his only purchase and asked the lady for a white paper bag. The bored cashier gave him one of the old fashioned brown paper ones that they kept under the teller area.

Driving out of the parking lot later I noticed the old guy walking slowly up Tolbert's hill toward downtown Barberton gently clutching the bag with his purchase with his free arm as he clawed at the steep hilly road for support with his crooked brown walking stick.

Looking back in the rear view mirror at him one last time I wondered what the old guy was up to.

the dangers of philosophical speculation while planning a bike trip

the dangers of philosophical speculation while planning a bike trip

fiction
edward w pritchard


Planning a walking trip say on the Ohio Canal trail way is a lot easier when traveling by foot than by bike. The bicycle presents so many complications concerning property rights and ownership issues as well as space/time speculations that walking along aimlessly whistling just plain don't.

Planning my bike ride this early morning I understand why most of the Native Americans left Ohio in the nineteenth century when faced with the overwhelming complications of American consumerism and the nit picking rules, customs and bureaucracy concerning being and existence.

Every year for the last many I try to plan one trip to the Big cities and culture and civility, this year it was Chicago which went very well thank you [ see recent blog "congested urban centers blues for my President Obama "], and a second trip back to nature walking and hiking.

A few years ago I followed the entire Ohio Canal trail to it's source near Lake Erie. After Days and days of walking North, north, north the path circles around in a circular looping turn around and you serenely head South. Back to where you began. It makes sense in a Zen like way. Walking as a Koan of realization.

Succinctly to summarize the problem you aren't encouraged to ride a bike on a road in Ohio and you can't get to Lisbon, Ohio from East Liverpool on the Ohio River by bike. You can't get there without  a car and bike rack along, paying more for cheesy southern Ohio hotels than you paid for good ones in Chicago and under no circumstances is it legal to camp without a fee or permit. Also there are few campgrounds, mostly they are only for elaborate RV's. Get way from it all by Recreational vehicle in scenic Ohio. Also there is no archery, buffalo hunting or on ground campfires for cooking without separate permit and fee.

It's hard to hear the music of a different drummer  when all the original drum players took their tom toms and headed for a reservation somewhere out West. To the real West where there is no more back to nature romantic nineteenth century transcendentalism to think about.

Point me to the tow path and I'll re-pace the same old trail over and over.
the last boy scout

back in Roman times anyone could be crucified for no good reason at all

back in Roman days anyone could be crucified for no good reason at all

fiction
edward w pritchard

Every Tuesday morning my neighbor wakes me by the noise of dragging his heavy over loaded trashcan to the curb for the scheduled pickup. My first thought is mysterious fanatics are dragging the heavy stone off the entrance to Joseph of Arimathea's rock hewn tomb again and one of the carriers is wondering if the body is so unbalanced because bones are broken unevenly during a crucifixion.

Back in Roman days anyone could be crucified for no good reason at all.

more on the night terrors of American cowboy legend sheriff Bat Masterson

more on the night terrors of American cowboy legend sheriff Bat Masterson

fiction
edward w pritchard

Everyone has dreams for themselves of fame, fortune and Joy but its the flip-side, the cold actualities of life that produce the night terrors.

American cowboy Sheriff legend Bat Masterson left the family farm at an early age to wander the American West striving for wealth and fame but later in life, after he had manufactured a legendary image of himself and foisted it upon the American consciousness The Bat was plagued by night terrors. Of course this information isn't recorded on History's permanent record but is only gleaned by intuition by this writer.

Every night when he was elderly Bat Masterson had night terrors that continued even after his death in eternal re-occurrence of the battle with fierce fanatical Indians at Adobe Wells riding in a circle around the buffalo camp shooting and shooting at him and his mates. Bat Masterson relived the fierce battle with the Indian leader Qua-nah Parker and his posse over and over in his dreams.

Fly too high and the sun melts the wax that hold together your wings Icarus. Rest in Peace Bat Masterson American troublemaker and lawman 1853 to 1921.

congested urban centers; blues for my President Obama

congested urban centers; blues for my President Obama

fiction
edward w pritchard


I spent the weekend in one of America's congested urban centers. I visited Chicago again by train. I Loved it.

Forever will I have "Chicago in Mind" [1] but I didn't over pay at a blues club for the privilege.

I didn't have a unique hot dog, I didn't cleverly quote about broad shoulders and civilization and I didn't stuff myself with too thick slices of deep dish pizza.

When I go to Chicago I do exactly what I want to. Chicago congested urban center has everything a man could want and I choose my pleasures with joy and finesse. For me it's art museums, sitting near the blue waters of Lake Michigan and a sports bar; beer with a bit of professional baseball, the Cubs from the national league for the early game and White Sox American league after dark.

Rumbling slowly out of town by night train through the south side look mournfully at what America has become- nobody going nowhere but in Love with it all just the same. Chicago congested urban center please leave the light on for me until I return again.

[1] Albert Ammonds " Chicago in Mind" just slow enough piano blues style jazz piece

it's not a flame but a spark

it's not a flame but a spark

fiction
edward w pritchard


It's not a flame but a spark. Flint and steel far apart useless with disuse. Near or far no touching and no eternal light. Just a spark gone from here and now traveling across the universe silently towards forever. Wash the streaky windows well in the middle of a dark lonely night to find your very own spark muted in the distant strings of galaxies drifting apart in the desolate night sky. Cup your hands to your eyes to create binocular effect for shielding out random noise. Feel in your bones the friction of flint scraping steel creating an imaginary remembrance. Turn your face backwards to be comforted by the warmth.

it's a muted sky over the French quarter of New Orleans

it's a muted sky over the French quarter of New Orleans

fiction
edward w pritchard


Memory softens reflections creating a muted sky over the French quarter of New Orleans. Sometimes two, three, four planets line up in a circle around the full Moon and the Moon's bright light reflects in the sloshy puddles left over from the afternoon drizzle. From the terrace behind the black iron railings on the second floor of the flat you rent by the hour you can see your lost lovers face reflected in the puddles by the light of that muted Moon.

Throaty sad jazz music drifts skyward from the torch singer at the cabaret next to the famous beignet shop across the street. Like everyone in the quarter the torch singer has a past but she won't reveal her story to just anybody. When she came into town the first time as a scared teenage girl she asked a sailor to help her find the streetcar called desire; he carried her bag and helped her up the few steps onto the trolley to Elysian fields. Since then things haven't worked out so well for her and her sadness is reflected in her music.

A man in a tight white muscle tee shirt is telling his pregnant wife Stella about the Napoleonic Code as they stroll down the sidewalk one floor below your balcony. You might need to go down to cabaret to get another bucket of beer if you keep drinking at this rate. If you do go downstairs to the cabaret you will have to tip that torch singer. Only when she sings these sad songs, and only when it's a full Moon after an afternoon rain will the four planets line up in a circle around the full Moon and only then will you find your lost lovers face mutely reflected in a sloshy puddle on the street below the flat you rent by the hour in the French quarter of New Orleans.

When everything is right memory softens reflections creating a muted sky over the French quarter of New Orleans.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2011

new orleans of my dreams/alternate version 2

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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

new orleans of my dreams/ draft one



New Orleans of my dreams/ alternate version 2


fiction
edward w pritchard


Life and death stand nose to nose in New Orleans; sometimes back to back.

Below sea level; you may wake part of the lake.
Water is sweet when it overflows; salty waves or Pontchartrain brine.

Liquor softens sorrows at the death of friends
and music soothes, swaying from the cemetery back.

Women lose inhibitions Saturday nights,
then holy hymns Sunday mornings sing.
Food too, spicy but sweet;
neighbors close, all discrete.

Morning start early with choices and plans,
afternoons a warm rain soaks our tired souls,
late nights end with drifting jazz,
stars are low in the sky,
and heat inundates the quarter.

One night in the quarter
is worth a thousand days anywhere else.
Bury me beneath sea level,
until rising waters carry me away.
end

No more Neitzsche for you it's Camus from here out

No more Nietzsche for you it's Camus from here out

fiction
edward w pritchard

No more Nietzsche " thus spoke Zarathusa" as your philosophy for you from now on it's Camus' " the myth of Sisyphus".

We all saw what that the will to power stuff did to Nietzsche, ten years immobile in a chair.
No more rehearsing his stale ideas for you; it's time for some fresh life affirming new ideals.

Try Camus' take on Sisyphus. The rock of life rolls over top of you over and over again but out of spite please never give up. Life lasts a long long time that way.

We care. Keep on pushing.

the road to yesterday is paved with nothing but misunderstandings

the road to yesterday is paved with nothing but misunderstandings

fiction
edward w pritchard

The road to yesterday is paved with nothing but misunderstandings. Better to not talk about it at all, better to not try to remember or logically analyze anything. Through a haze a wild thicket of sorrow smothered each and every illusion you ever had.

If you must walk along the precipice keep your eyes skyward. Old paths are littered with angular wrinkled frowning faces of annoyance. Don't gaze upon lost Time. Don't reminisce delusional happiness in the cracked mirror of imaginary yesterdays.

Gone it's all gone. Lost Time cannot be recaptured or repaired. Disappear broken Pilgrim. High up the Mountain the air is thin the path ends abruptly. There is nowhere else to go. Face your palmed hands against the bedrock of forever. The path ends here.

blues for my aunt

blues for my aunt

fiction
edward w pritchard

We must be realistic and part of the common logical consensus when it comes to approaching the death of someone we know but haven't seen much in the last fifty years. We shouldn't be like one of my favorite humans Beatle George Harrison also recently passed away who said once in an interview I watched " people are die-ing [ dying] everywhere all the time and no one is doing anything about it." Yes George you said a mouth full there, after this, that; when that is non existence.

My Aunt passed away today. Her first husband was a Marine related to me through my Mother. My Aunt was young pretty and happy the time before last I saw her and had a lilt to herself like a bird going about the business of living unconcerned about the cosmic significance of things. She raised children, cooked and cleaned a house. She was loved by her Mother who lived close by and being her Mother's only child she was cherished and helped in life's difficulties as practical.

Then she was a divorced old woman when I next and last saw her with some senility, now called Alzheimer's disease living with a new husband who loved her and I suppose she liked to look at blooming colorful flowers on the cactus plants out in the desert where she lived and enjoyed the sun rises and sunsets despite her deteriorating physical and mental capacities as an old Woman whose facilities were waxing away as the material part of herself prepared to return to where ever our elemental parts go after we, our unique selves,  become non existent.

Way back my Aunt was the pretty neighbor girl who married the Marine who lived down the street when she was young and had four kids and later got divorced after she moved with her family away to Arizona where she eventually met another man and remarried. The second husband then took care of her when her mental and body functions were ceasing.  Even the last week of my aunt's existence her partner her second husband fought to keep her alive so they could be together a few more days.

Well to be a romantic dreamer here I want to imagine the first husband, my Uncle the muscled tattooed Marine dead a dozen years is consciously happy that his wife was well cared for in her final days and my Aunt a gentle soul sorta like St Francis of Assisi is drifting through deep space tonight conscious of the sound of birds singing and sunsets and dessert flowers blooming somewhere and sometime far away.

Who is to say non existence is just ceasing to be and that instead there are not a billion-billion possibilities of altered consciousness for us humans after death that no one alive or who ever lived can understand or accurately guess at or predict. Scientifically then, it seems to me if there are a trillion trillion galaxies of Matter out there, then being and non-being are beyond human understanding.

Each human soul is unique and each human soul is infinitely valuable before, during, and after Death.


The whys and wherefores of existence are beyond our comprehension; even in the imagination of the Poet, even during the speculations of the philosopher, even with the proofs of the scientist and even in the beliefs of the confidently Religious.  

the value of a unique and timely investment idea

the value of a unique and timely investment idea

fiction
edward w pritchard


Rockets will take you to Mars but once you get there, in the near future you will move about the planet by trains.

Once the initial outlays for track, excavation and bridges are completed a Corporation running trains on Mars will have a high ROA generating large returns to original investors.

Get in now and get in early to enjoy large returns investing in infrastructure projects on the planet Mars. One day hundreds of persons will need to move about the planet Mars and trains look to be the most efficient means of locomotion about the planet.

The value of a unique and timely investment idea seems far off initially, but in time those who missed the " boat" come to regret their timidity. Act now. Trains on Mars, it's the future.

watching new baby, time lapse; gods they were

watching new baby, time lapse, gods they were

fiction
edward w pritchard

Watching  new Baby learn sensation, emotion and sensibilities week to week and month to month as his swinging arms co-ordinate and his tentative eyes become confident in an elaborate blossoming of possibility and potential creating a tiny God.

In Time lapse little baby becomes Human and aware. What a miracle, what an event. Subtle perfection, rebirth of the species, continuation of the family tree. In Majesty a tiny god reaches skyward with thumb and forefinger lightly touching, searching his destiny.

a cowboys reconstruction; in search of future's past

a cowboys reconstruction; in search of futures past

fiction
edward w pritchard


In search of futures past I seek to restore my shattered life. What better way to make a modest start than to rebuild one of my favorite cars that I owned as a youth? With no money, no prospects and no vehicle I start life's journey anew.

A chance to get one's hands dirty, a chance to scour the flea markets for vintage parts and a chance to return to the carefree happiness of youth when all one's potential futures were remarkable.

So far I have about a dozen greasy auto parts wrapped in pieces of an old green tarp in the leaky aluminum shed in the backyard. The shed doesn't lock but I sleep lightly with an ear ready to apprehend anyone looking to steal my potential futures past. This time I will guard my journey carefully and reconstruct days and years ahead with my own best interests in the forefront.

A car has about thirty thousand parts. So far I have found a dozen assorted pieces to my future dream car although the parts are to different makes of vehicles.  I have a long way to go to proceed into my ideal future in style.

Each night the 5AM train whistle wakes me and I spend about an hour reminiscing about all the intriguing women who sat in the passengers seat of the cars I owned as a teenager. Then it's to the daily business of finding a hood for a 65 VW or headlights for a 57 Chevy.

Loneliness and suffering are a part of life. Get busy to restore childhood happiness.

[1] with a wink to Marcel Proust for the inspiration, someone is feeling better already

someday when the machines must kill men

someday when the machine must kill men

fiction
edward w pritchard

Someday when the intelligent machines ruling the world must kill men it won't be with the violence of a firing squad, a guillotine, or a hanging by the neck till dead.

Every day for 30 a solitary pill of magnisius pulsate will be administered until the cumulative effect on the system causes the human to suffer sudden death. With mercy and efficient compassion another obsolete unit will be dispatched.

Certainly not an unpleasant way to leave the world for a soul to ingest a pill a day for thirty with time to plan and contemplate the end. Better than a Crucifixion by half it will customarily then succinctly be said.

American Indian tribe returns to abandoned village

American Indian tribe returns to abandoned village

fiction
edward w pritchard

Dark night
cold winds howl
women carry starving children
warriors drag elderly
warrior carries broken weapons, useless shields
no meat, bad water, cold camp,
mounted soldiers on strong horses watch for night fires to kill remainder of tribe
dark night, cold winds howl, children have no blankets,
grown children sleep on ground and cry
warrior hangs head in cupped broken hands
strong wife's face show many emotions holding baby
wife put free hand against warriors back
warrior sobs in dark, baby stares at warrior
clear sky, million stars in milky way above
wife thump thump thumps sobbing warriors back with free hand chanting, chanting to dead ancestors
sobbing warrior mumbles to gods, return buffalo, restore abandoned village to happier times
in morning, children search, search, search abandoned village's sacred grounds for spent carbine shells from soldiers repeating rifles to sell on strings to Indian agent at reservation
wife carries baby and searches sacred ground for plants for breakfast
warrior sits on rock and carves arrow
after breakfast, elderly woman dances ghost dance before today's march
as tribe marches out of village, old man sweeps juniper branches across sacred grounds to erase footprints

when I am 64, the secret lyrics

when I am 64, the secret lyrics

fiction
edward w pritchard

Don't burden me with research to find out the real facts of the matter but this writing reveals the secret meaning of " Paul Mc Cartney's song, he wrote, " When I am 64" at the authentic age of 16 years old.

It's a beautiful little song with all the wisdom of human history summed up in a few minutes of music and lyrics. " Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I am 64?"

On balance have I done more good than bad?

I hear there are a trillion/billion galaxies and stars out there somewhere. Looking back, perhaps I made an error or misjudgment or two,

forget technical and fundamental analysis the real cure for the stock market debacle

forget technical and fundamental analysis the real cure for the stock market debacle

fiction
edward w pritchard

America and the World as it's followers doesn't need a new IPO social networking stock to revive the sinking World's stock markets and get the global economies back on the Bullish track again or the economies of the World don't need new technical or fundamental analysis tools to revitalize a way to reappraise the New age stocks to new highs again. Forget new technologies. American can bring back hyper growth to the economies of the World by reintroducing a forgotten American Industry.

The World needs to spend it's evenings going to American drive in movies again. Eating buttered popcorn again, trying to get your high school red headed girl into the back seat of a 1967 Olds Cutlass with a reverberation powered in car radio and watching " Cherry, Harry and Raquel" the Movie until 2AM; a new industry like Drive in movies could be just the ticket to get the major economies of the world on a fast track to healthy growth again and after healthy growth in business the stock markets of the World are sure to enter a new and permanently perpetual  Bull market phase.

As an added bonus if the leaders of the World are skipping economic meetings at Davos and instead going to Drive in Movies there will be no one to devise news ways and reasons to bomb the ancient Syrian City of Aleppo anymore which will help stop the European refugee crisis as Women and children won't have to flee Aleppo in terror anymore and the end of the European refugee crisis would restore confidence to World stock markets and a lot of the world's problems will vanish as the magic of economic growth as usual cures many of the world's problems.

Forget technical and fundamental analysis the real cure for the stock market debacle is for the World's leaders is to stop going to meetings at Davos to have secret meetings about bombing raids on Syria and instead go to American style drive in movies and when they return to their Home countries tout the " new"  retro Drive in Movie phenomena as the new growth industry to revitalize business and Markets.

Stop the bombing in Syria

SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2012

Wake softly Syria

Wake softly Syria

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wake softly Syria,
the sun has risen bringing morning breezes to soothe your sorrows.

Look to the horizon Damascus ancient Mother city.
Streaks of gold light entice you, awake; stir again Mother Damascus arouse your children
to productive activity.

Up and about to the souk hearty Aleppo.
Send men to trade and build.
Daylight is upon us Halab, greet foreign traders in the marketplaces.

Whisper in Aramaic humble Ma'aloula, tell the nations what comes next.

Joy and create sleepy Ras Shamrah, out to Ugarit to remind the world who taught them to write.

Awake sleeping Syria, ancient land. Your friends far away bid you reclaim your destiny.

Wake softly Syria.