What Are You Looking At?

Photos taken at the Como Park Zoo in St. Paul, MN.

Plant a Radish

"Plant a radish, get a radish,
never any doubt..."

In Which Both “He” and “You” Mean “I”

He wiped the condensation from the mirror and inspected his reflection, the blue of his eyes, and the lines at the corners of his eyes. He lathered his face with shaving soap.

“I look old,” he said.  He sighed.

“Yeah, you do,” said his reflection.

He unfolded the razor, raised it to his cheek, then stopped. “What?”

“You do look old.”

He began, hesitantly, to shave the whiskers from his face. “Oh, come on. I just worked nine hours in a hot, sweaty factory. I don’t look old. I look…tired. I look tired”

“You look old.”

He put the razor down. “That’s not…”

“You said it first,” said the reflection. “You said it. I can only repeat. Reflect.”

You’re nine. You’re nineteen. You’re forty-three. You’re getting up at five in the morning to go to work and there’s hair growing on the back of your ears. It’s all there in the reflection for you to see.

Clean shaven now, he wipes his face. He didn’t nick himself with the razor, not even once. The mirror is silent. The mirror has nothing to say.  The mirror is unresponsive. He wonders if he should grin.

Cruciferous

Radish Flower

Preflight Checklist

Verify weather conditions: check.
Verify airspace: check.
Inspect wings for damage: check.
Remove gimbal cover and lock: check.
Power up controller: check.
Check antenna position: check.
Calibrate compass: check.
Check for overhead obstructions: check.
Take off and hover: check.

He Thinks He's Wild

Our cat, Tang, is a house cat, mostly. He stays indoors except for a few hours,  a few days a week. He doesn't hunt. He doesn't climb. But, still he thinks he's wild.

The Totenkopf – Making America Great Again

There it was, the Totenkopf, not hiding, not disguised, or covert in anyway, but openly, brazenly, out for all the public to see. Unashamed, for why should the powerful be ashamed? Why should the strong be abashed? No. They wore their death’s head on patches on their shoulders, and painted them on their police cars, the official emblems of the forces of death.

Who is the victim trapped half in hellfire and half in brimstone smoke? Don’t bother to write this down – the victim is you. Eventually. Inevitably.

Nazi torture agents and U. S. Marine Reconnaissance Battalions baptized in the blood of the founding fathers – Christian freedom fighters fighting a war, an endless war to make America great again.

The School of Assassins is the School of the Americas teaching torture to would be dictators. A cast-iron corpse, a costumed cadaver, a strangled stiff put on display as a trophy and a warning, a boast and a threat to the world. See me and despair. Fear me and submit.

It would be untrue to say that they’d traded Spirit power for serpent Power – for, in truth, they’d never known that Spiritus Sanctus. But truth in advertising is just another Wall Street prevarication. That’s the patriotism we’ve come to expect from the cops and the corporations (they’re the same, anyway). Privatized prisons for profit – meeting the quota to satisfy the shareholders. Beating the prisoners to satisfy themselves. This is the serpent’s power. This is the death’s head. Isn’t it great?