200511:1 halo guns

may 11 monday

  tonight there was a giant halo around the moon. [undated]

   :heard loud bangs tonight, don't know what it was - didn't sound like tv gunshots but i thought of guns. [undated] in the movie casablanca, in paris, they hear cannons, and rick says, "they're the new german 77s, and judging from the sound, only about 35 miles away." i have never heard guns in our safe little dead-end street. (or anywhere!) it seems unconscionable that we should live this sheltered existence while so many live in poverty, in the midst of violence. only a few kilometers away there are shootings and hardships and a kind of life that i have never known.
"rent a flat above a shop
cut your hair and get a job
...pretend you never went to school
but still you'll never get it  right.
when you're lying in bed at night
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you called your dad he could stop it all."*
so i've never been there. i would go downtown with nothing and attempt to live on the street, because i should know what that feels like, everyone should, but i'm afraid. i have never been so alone in the world that i could not find a bed and a meal. no one should ever be that alone.


*william shatner, common people cover