A Technical History of Violence – part 1

     Si vis pacem, para bellum.

    Our contemporary language is indebted to the Roman men of action who had as many great words as they had weapons to wield when they needed them. Semper Paratus. Semper Fidelis. Great words to describe the human physique. Great words to understand the anatomical structure – jawlines and bone structures – of their subjects. They knew how to describe a variety of pharmaceutical effects. They knew how to accelerate the process when necessary. Roman guards with hammers and war-clubs killed as many as five hundred prisoners a day and filed the proper reports.

    But the toughest part of the executioners’ job – taking hours, if not days, sometimes as long as nine or ten days – was figuring out what drug and what dosage, precisely to finally kill the victim. Too much of the wrong drug and too little of the right drug produced equally unsatisfactory results. Administering the drug was precision work. You have to account for fungus and pH levels in the water, for barometric pressure, and semi-erratic auguries. Traumatic exposures of this sort often left them bleeding to death from the inside.

    Pause for the audience – seated at the bar in red shadow and gold lights, a moody backroom at the club on the corner. Drinking cheap beer. “Buy us a drink, player?” Lights flash green and gold in rhythm to the music from the jukebox. They do not look at themselves in the mirror behind the bar. Cigarette smoke drifts. Breathe. Prepare yourselves. Make your orisons here.

    They caught their victims by the beard – in every battle – caught them and smote them. Slew them with sword and spike. Many well-respected generals of the law were drawn out of the paw of the lion. They abandoned their soldiers to slaughter. All men most miserable, their young years given to cruelty and to blackmailers. Betrayed. Soldiers who trusted the day. Soldiers who braved the night, but were led to the slaughter.

    Our responsibility is for war. Our responsibility is to strength. In order to raise the mighty warriors of tomorrow, the soldiers of future generations, it is imperative that we make all the natural preparations. They need to be taught verbally. They need to be tested physically. This is freedom. War provides and strength enables everything.

Driving the Back Roads at Random

    It’s been a number of years so now we can openly acknowledge the story. Even with all the burdensome little asides, we can tell the truth. Try to reconstruct the story from the scattered fragments she left behind.

    She had time to kill, driving the back-roads at random, hurt and wounded, with a sandwich and two cups of coffee. She couldn’t go home to make things right. Or wouldn’t. She’d injured him. Reassured him. Shamed him. Shamed him and caused him to suffer. Hiding her disdain with twenty years of lies. And now the money was gone.

    What is happening here? The two of them, faces close, wedding pose...Flip the photograph and read the message. Reveal what was written even if it leaves us helpless. “My Darling...”

    I have no honest idea. I don’t know who she is. Or was.

    Behind the photograph, a newspaper clipping – something about a fire fifty miles away. Yesterday. For what purpose? Money? It’s always money, right? A significant amount of money. And maybe that was part of it. But she left and she’s not talking.

    Not about the money. Not about the fire. Not about her family. Not about the past.

    Whoever has the discipline of correction – she drives toward life.
    Whoever rejects it – she’s already gone astray.

Proverbs 10:17

White House Promises

    “Looks like rain,” said the man standing next to me as he sniffed the air. But, born and raised in the Midwest, I knew better. When the sky’s red and overcast in the morning, I know it will be storming soon. I know clouds in the west are for rain and wind from the south is hot. But this is neither.

    There were news cameras from all the major outlets, with a clear title and clean report. Cleared for the press corps by presidential aides, gathered on the lawn with their anchors prepping and primping in the ringlight. And me, taking notes for my forthcoming book – Misgoverned Houses and an Inheritance of Wind. No one would read it, of course. But the words must be written. Fame is better than gold, I am told. But I have neither.

    Meanwhile, dangling high for the cameras to see, was history in the making. A sentimental moment for salesmen without an ounce of self-denial. Salesmen with asymmetrical smiles, chewing the carpet. Explaining the complexities of imported mining exports and residual dividend transfers. Drilling holes for natural gas and paying off companies to not build renewables.

    The president was there. He was, of course, primarily concerned with conducting personal business under the presidential seal. Leaving a trail of unmarked graves and unexamined bodies. You know what they say about White Horse promises – conquering and to conquer the world...

    And the press conference began. Flashbulbs and shouting. Can we ask about:

    Affordable health care?
    Reduction of the national debt?
    Lower grocery prices?
    Lower gas prices?
    Lower energy bills?
    Stimulus check? DOGE check?
    Greenland, Canada, Venezuela?
    Where are we with Iran?

    Over the intercom, a response, “No. No. Not yet.”

    “Is everything okay?”

    “No. Put that man out. Revoke his credentials. Put those questions aside - there are tourists exploding on the mall. We are as polite as overwhelming anger. All you weak reporters. Lazy. Failing.”

    “Looks like rain,” said the man standing next to me as he sniffed the air but you know what they say - White House promises are heavy clouds and wind, but no rain.

Proverbs 25:14

Long Time, No Time

    I don’t want to see it.

    Her face framed in the doorway like a mistake, through dimmed and dreaming eyes. You should see her now-bruised and bound, sick and wounded, erring. Her hair is different now. She is alive and well, honeyed and oiled, but looks abandoned. I reach out, react. Feel my throat break free. Out. Down.

    She says, “C’mon. One more kiss.”

    I don’t want to say it.

    She took and split, my ex of one brief period of grief. Forsaking friend and covenant. Why does she look abandoned? The way she leans, tilts one hip. She opens the door and moves closer with a mischievous smile, her most Cheshire. The ground is shaky. I notice her shoes-oiled and scuffed.

    She says, “Long time, babe.”

    She says, “long time, no time.”

    Outside her empty window, a basement staircase plunges into soil. A heart of shadow glooms in the doorway like tokens of light in a graveyard lot. The air folds. The porch lights flicker. The steps and sidewalk furrow. The driveway falls.

    I tumble into the collapse with her silhouette of sinking concrete, with damp earth and forgotten things. Flesh and body consumed.

    I don’t want to be led this way.

(Proverbs 2, 5)

Words to My Friend

    My friend, my soul, I was younger and older still, yet I would be true. I would be pure.

    I might have been strong but…

    Even if nothing goes wrong, my friend, you’ll suffer. One day or more of suffering. It is the way – sorrow and night with a sense of inferiority in all my actions and a sense of insecurity as the result of my words.

    So, I’m talking of my soul now, my friend, with private language, of my memory and all my goals and goods. Still with the doubts I do not know.

    Be strong and show no weakness.
    Speak less and be more positive.

    Trust me; I’m not here to supplant you. As if so poor a soul could restore a faith to jubilant psalm...

    I’m sure that I live feeling secure, happier still. A consecrated life. Confident, happy, healthy right?

    No, my friend, I am not.

    But take my offered, beating heart. God will move.