THE BRAVE NEW LAND

I landed between rockets into a mine field of ideas, of philosophies, of religions and cultures on the day that I almost kissed the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport upon our return from Malaysia. I was extremely relieved to be home, with my children, with my family, with my people and in my land, having been trapped on the island of Borneo, a primitive, albeit advanced, island of barbaric wonder and a cacophony of culture. We rode planes from there, hopping from one country to the next, until, unknown to us at the time, one of our flights jettisoned through the airspace over the Ukraine. It flew on the same flight path that Malaysian flight MH17 took the very next day, as it was unceremoniously blasted out of existence transporting 298 souls on board… for nothing—not as a step towards the ultimate goal of an obviously mistaken philosophy, but only as a mistake in targeting. And the missile had missed us by an entire day, thankfully, allowing us to continue to perseverate about the

Pit Viper in the Jungles of Borneo Sitting here… reading the news on the Internet… I'm having a hard time remembering my travels in Indonesia and Malaysia last week, and the week before that, and the week before. I wanted to share so much about the people, the flora, the fauna… but alas… it may not be possible to do so without the sour taint of the kiss that I almost gave the tarmac upon my return to the Holy Land… last week… While reading within the allotted WIFI zones at each airport that I leapfrogged through on my way home, Kuching, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Vienna… I grasped that the world was becoming quite insane, like I was entering more finite levels of chaos/civilization at each step along the way… I was happily coming home and realizing that in doing so… I was losing something important to the 'me' that I had discovered… along the way… interspersed with the people, the flora, the fauna… I sit here now… sad to the core for the boys that have passed to the next

I guess it started with almost getting run down by a car skittering onto the sidewalk, stopping in front of me, the driver looking as if he was already coming up with a plan of action to downplay his fault in the matter, and…   ultimately causing me to jump out of the way of the out-of-control little green beast on wheels; but… that might be presumptuous... in the sense that it probably started with someone or something else that has more clout in the universe of real life, not the fringe-floppy one that I seem to inhabit. I worried about walking up and down that busy street right from the start. This was when I walked a whole of 10 minutes to get to the German gas system factory from my house, when I lived in a place called the Place across from The Winery. Now it takes me a half of an hour to get there… and then another half of an hour to get back home again.   I see so much stuff on my daily walks, stuff that could never be noticed from a car window, or even a bike or skat

Birthing belief in the stars, I feel the suck swooping down to encompass my silent haggis. Her rattle swears in its own single mammogram clutch selling crystal liquid from a bottle, The container that produces me spinning overhead like a cat in a burlap sack or a sacrificial chicken. Writing poetry over the wall furiously with blood green and messy, she is… Singing along with the echoes of her voice bouncing across the wallpaper around my mind Rattling with magnesium bullets, ricocheting in the ramshackle village where I grew up, showing bones bleached in the moonlight. My list of worries selfishly rolls out onto the floor, scratching the tile with a shifty rustling, like snakeskin catching on grass, My skin has risen, but I don't mind since I have forgotten what it felt like and don't know or care. In a sweat full of cheap and easy transactions, I awake, And awash with the wonder of clarity becoming emptiness, I look up to the blue sky