Asian Pacific Heritage Month Poetry Spotlight #APHM (oops... saved from the draft folder)

Redacted from a Know-Your-Rights Training Agenda—
 ~Cynthia Dewi Oka

That a potholed street in the middling borough of Collingswood, New Jersey bears the name Atlantic, after an all-consuming body of water.


That all-consuming is Atlas’ curse to bear the heavens on his shoulders.

That after the fall of the gods, half of the heavens is darkness.

That inside the car speeding down the street, I believe I am safe from being halved.


That “I” am not a white box, but a body of water.

That white is a pattern of boys who expect to live long enough to become men.


That some of these boys are whistling by on their bikes, and behind them, clear as a dream, welcome candles in the windows framed by blooms of vervain.

That “welcome” means I thought I was not afraid of the dark.

Since the jade scrubs of the cancer ward.

Since the florescent grid of the factory and the vista of small bones in my father’s collar while I was interpreting for the twenty-something-year-old white citizen,

                                 “Tell your dad he can quit or I can fire him.”

Grief had already burst its cocoon; it ate him like an army of moths from the inside.

That brown men and women kept stitching jackets under the heavens of the machines.

Welcome.

That a moth is trapped in the car with me – it will die, but I do not want to practice florescence alone.

Like a first language bleeding hearts call, speaking truth to power.

I don’t know how they don’t know that power doesn’t care.

That watching fires go out will become a pattern.

That fire is everywhere, and therefore, cheap.

That the hole in my foundation is all-consuming and at its bottom a frangipani tree opens its yellow hands.

That POLICE ICE is printed in yellow or white on the jacket of the night.

That the night walks freely among the ranks of the sun.

That a body of water parted once like a red skirt then sealed over the armored horses of Egypt.

That Whitney Houston is a bone blasting

out the car windows.

That tonight, the night after, the night after that, for as long as the distance between god and a pothole, a moth’s flight will spell,

                                 “They are coming for you.”

Copyright © 2018 Cynthia Dewi Oka. Used with permission of the author.

this is all I got

...for now.

I am regrouping and hope to be able to put my words down soon...

oh, and happy veterans' day

NRU, Obama...

I imagine much to the chagrin of the Republicans, the news on Obama of late certainly points to just how full of shit those GOPers are.  For one thing, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) apparently is not only hitting its goals in terms of getting the uninsured insured, but it is also costing much less than it had been projected to cost.  As far as I know, it must mean that the ACA is working.  Alas...I guess the only hope for the GOP now is that the Supreme Court will lobby another one of its Anti-Obama rulings.  Certainly this is not unheard of...those history will not be kind to this Court, a fact I am sure they know well.

I can't think of another story that could rankle the GOP more than this piece on the deficit.  [Of course, what the budget office gives, it also takes away.]  Have they not been screaming, incessantly, for the past six years that Obama's socialist (and alternately fascist) big-government policies were creating a mountain of debt that our children's children's children would never be able to scale?  Yeah, that's what I heard ... because I listen to Fox News as a way of opposition research. And, Jon Stewart also likes to keep up with Fox's mound of bullshit, so I hear it from the Fox news network through Jon.  Read the article... and let it sink in because I think this is big.

Here is a tidbit about student loans that all students and parents should know ... it is good news, I promise.  It speaks to the importance of filling out the FAFSA ... to finishing your degree and to not worrying about the cost of the degree.  Although Obama cannot take full credit for this one, just like he can't take full credit for the turn around in the economy, his administration has taken some lemon curd and turned them into souffle (assuming souffle is better than lemon curd).

It's truly too bad that the president's and the Democratic Party's communication teams have been so terrible at setting the dialogue -- or even contributing to it at all.  I am clear that racism is the greatest cloud over this presidency.  I am sure that history will not be kind to the racists either, but as a contemporary citizen, I sure would love to have more *truth* spread than have to wade through so much bullshit.

I had some other stuff I wanted to link here, but I ran out of time ... but check out Larry Wilmore's piece on the State of the Union for the comedy. 

All of our veterans...[long rant]

There are times when I would like to avert my eyes and pretend that horrible things aren't going on around me ... too many times lately.  But, holding in my feelings isn't helping me.  And I believe in standing up for what we believe in.

So, I am going to poke some holes in the hypocrisy of the moment.  [And you know what I mean because those who profit from hypocrisy move to the next *most important example* of whatever they pretend to care about at the drop of a hat.]

Bowe Bergdahl is coming home after five years in captivity.  The circumstances of how he got captured are largely irrelevant to me.  He was in Afghanistan as a member of our military -- if he were not in the military, he would not have been there.  He did not go to Afghanistan, as other American young men have done, to become a terrorist.

I am not for war -- in fact, I am emphatically against it.  It is not a secret.

However, I believe that those folks who volunteer to serve in our military deserve to be treated with respect and cared for both while on active duty and afterwards.  I believe their families should be acknowledged for the sacrifices that they make.  Though I wish that they were not asked to kill others in my name, I still believe that all citizens should support the military.

We can hate the action and still respect the actor.

In fact, my belief system allows for that to be true for all people, not just the military.

Therefore it will not be surprising that I am thankful that an accord made it possible for Bergdahl to return to his family and the long road of recovery that awaits him.

I think it is unconscionable for media outlets to speculate on the circumstances of his capture or release.  Where was this outrage when a year ago they were publishing information that was released by what the government calls a treacherous act? Interviewing people who *think* Bergdahl deserted without interviewing anyone who might actually be able to call this a desertion is irresponsible and stilted.  These are two media outlets that I regularly use to stay connected to the world -- I would say trusted media outlets, but I am not sure that we have any of those anymore -- or if we ever did.

What we know, so far, is that Bergdahl joined the military because he wanted to help the people in Afghanistan and that he had become disillusioned with the actions of the military.  We know this from private communications with his family -- snapshots of his thoughts, not necessarily explanations of actions.  We do not yet know exactly what happened on the day he was captured, or even in the days preceding that capture.

A kid in war was afraid, ambivalent about the war, worried about his part ... where is the compassion for that?  Are the journalists speculating veterans?  Can they speak to what it feels like to be in a war zone?  I cannot, therefore, I cannot presume to judge.  I can only imagine having compassion for all those in that situation.  And, again, to wish they were not there in my name.  I welcome him home and wish him the best in his recovery.

Let us remember that we have forgiven, acquitted and excused our military killing innocents in the name of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (lately) and many other places in the past.  We recognize how trauma from their service has caused many veterans and some active duty service people to commit crimes, inflict pain and death on others and to take their own lives.  We *know* the psychological toll that their service is taking on our military and their families.  It is not a secret or an unproven hypothesis.

So, I call those who will point the finger hypocrites.  If, as a public, we are to keep in mind the horrors of war and how they prey on the men and women in the military, then surely there is some compassion for Bergdahl.  Surely we can, at least, give him the benefit of the doubt until the investigation is complete.  I seem to recall the so-called American Taliban receiving more compassionate sentiment and treatment upon his return to the United States -- we could perhaps start that conversation with the fact that he was not sent to Guantanamo for his sentence.

Note that I am not even addressing the most egregious media outlets in the business of hypocrisy.  I cannot even stand to listen to what they are saying.  These are the folks who routinely call for our military to be sent into harm's way.   It makes my blood boil...

There is another hypocrisy that needs to be addressed that this issue calls into our consciousness: those that are now in Guantamo, for the most part, are the detainees we cannot either release or try.  We choose not to release them because we fear they are dangerous.  We cannot try them because they are more than likely victims of torture at our military's hand.  It is possible that we created the danger by torturing them as our prisoners.  If we could trade them for one of our own, why not?  It is small recompense for torture and indefinite confinement.

I reserve a considerable amount of my scorn for the *president* of Afghanistan who refuses to deal with the dangerous situations in his country because he does not want to deal with the Taliban.  I look forward to the time when none of our troops are in Afghanistan.  I look forward to a time when Mr. Karzai cannot simply point his finger at us and pretend that he has no complicity in the terrible situation he and his country find themselves in.  I don't abdicate our role, I simply refuse to give him a pass as well.

Ugh...

I remain thankful for Bergdahl's release and his return to his family.  May they all find peace.