Poetry Old Addresses Forgiven

I write 

1893 miles from-

the start of the connect 

the dot puzzle,
(Start) Lakeland Florida
to Atlanta Georgia,
to Chattanooga Tennessee
to St. Louis, Missouri,
to Lawrence, Kansas,
to Denver, Colorado,
up to my home Longmont.
(End)  
29.5 hours trapped
behind the steering
wheel, and day dreaming
like a little train headed
across I-70 and down I-75.

I think I see a picture 

emerge, one that looks 

like a rabbit 

with an enormous 

carrot. Did you 

think I would 

be crass?

Or sick?

Use teenage boy humor 

to amuse his friends? 

Did you perhaps, 

want me to disturb

you?
Well too bad, so sad 

for the route
is long
and
fat.

Meat on A Cargo Plane (Original Writing by Gregorio Roth)

Rattling in the oppressive tin can, with recycled, filtered oxygen; the tin can lifts into the air.   Apprehension air a baby cries, an old man coughs into his handkerchief, and I sit there thinking... "how much longer".    My wife Jessica is busy taking pictures out of the window of the plane.  She hates to fly, so finds something to occupy the time; she snaps digital pictures of the airplanes wing.  Apprehension, things appear to quickly in this universe.  Fear and a baby cries, an old man coughs into his handkerchief, and I sit there asking myself,

“How long is the flight? Where is the first stop?-Dallas. “

Let me look at the Dallas airport in this complementary magazine.  

“Dallas looks like an easy to manage airport!?”   

 I can’t wait to get back to Florida or at least Texas so I can stretch my legs.   The seats are so jam packed in this plane.  (I guess they are looking to maximize profit margin.)  I think back to how difficult it was to get our baggage stored in the overhead compartment.   Even though I am so far away from my family and my origins I can reach out to old friends on viral machines and fuselages in orbit.   Why do we pack ourselves into a tin can and soar to other places?  Oh yeah for the love of family.  

My wife continues to snap pictures of the wing of the American Airline’s plane.   

I think to myself, “What if she takes a picture of a Gremlin, or a goose that is about to take down our plane. Are there even geese in San Francisco, I know there are seals, but geese... I am just meat on a cargo plane. I wish I could open a window...but the lack of oxygen created by the crack in the window would be more stifling than sitting here cramped in my seat.  I am going to die, I am going to die, damn not here, not now, later…I am  going to die on a tin can, packed like a sardine, bound to Dallas Texas! Man I have always hated Texas! ”  My fears  surround me, I feel more crammed as the man in the seat ahead of mine leans back!  The plane has flown to its cruising altitude. "I wish I could open a window."

Jessica asks, “Do you want to see the pictures I took?”    

I snap, “No!”

Correcting myself, “Yes dear, but lets wait till you are sitting safely on the ground.  I am afraid that one of your pictures may have a gremlin or a goose on it! What would we do then?"

Jessica grins and goes back to snapping pictures.

Mind Bomb

 I recognized on a recent flight back from San Francisco, that I need to check in my fears and assumptions before boarding an airplane.

 

  I sat next to a Muslim woman who was wearing a hijab.  My fears all of a sudden streamed up.   A psychologist may say that I suffer from "Xenophobia!"  I would say I suffer from too much information on how others mistreat the west and how all of our lives are at jeopardy every single day.

 

 

The tension become higher when she left her back pack under her chair, and moved up to be with her manager. She wanted to review a sales booklet with her boss, but I could hear the tick tock tick tock of the imaginary bomb, locked inside her back pack frightened me. 

 

"Oh my God I am going to Die!"

 

I told myself, "Be Brave!"     

 

Paranoia started sending alarms to do something about the matter.   

"Oh my God I am going to Die!"

 

But I did not want to invade her privacy, so I just sat there and prayed. 

"Lord please protect me from the evil of the world." 

My wife Jessica laughs at the story and thinks my fears are  based on an active imagination and a saturation of alarming news coverage. It also did not help that the security at the airport was on high alert.   Also flying in a tin can is never an "Awe Shucks, lets lay back in my hammock as the world goes by "moment.   An airplane defies the laws of tradition, and proclaims that a big thing, bigger than any bird, can spread iron wings and fly in the air.   

There was s just too much stimuli to ignore things properly.

 

 

I may have acted differently if the passenger was not wearing a head scarf.    The average westerner is not any more tame than a Muslim, we all have the potential to do our brothers and sisters harm.    Just because it looks like a good, non poisonous plant does not necessarily mean that it is safe. (Just ask my dead parrot Charlie who thought he was doing good by getting stuff for his nest, only to die from poison.) We however must look at the degree of hatred that lies deep inside us and put it up to the light of truth.   

 

By the way of course it was my imagination and nothing happened on my flight... but that "Oh my God I am going to Die!" fear seemed real at least for five minutes. 

 

Then I settled down and continued reading my book "Stranger in a Strange Land".