Pittsburgh's Three River Confluence & Nearby Area in Pictures

Greetings Earthlings: 

                     This post is a continuation of that post.   ===>   The City of Many Firsts

The actual center point of the Three Rivers Confluence.
Take note of the width when viewing it at point zero range.

Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Confluence at night ... on a winter's night.

The Confluence as seen from the bank of the Monongahela.  This is a side view of it.

Western Massachusetts has a three river confluence comprising the Ware, Quaboag, and
Chicopee Rivers.  A rusted walkway crosses the confluence there, and not much of any-
thing else is nearby.

The famous Triveni Sangama in India isn't a tri-river confluence.  It only consists in the
Ganges and Yamuna Rivers.  The third river is the mythical/invisible Saraswati River.
If it did exist, it ceased doing so in the past 4,000 to 8,000 to 12,000 to 16,000 years.

The Missouri River Confluence in Montana comprises the Jefferson and Madison Rivers
converging with each other and becoming the Missouri River.  This confluence is in a state
park where the nearest town, Three Forks, has a population of 1,869 people.  This means
that there isn't any potential to develop the waterways for engineering innovations, as well
as developing any type of metropolis.

The Trois-Rivières in Quebec comprises two rivers, namely the Saint-Maurice and Saint 
Lawrence Rivers.  An island causes the three rivers effect.

Croatia has a notable confluence in an extremely natural setting.  Such settings are still
needed throughout the earth.  Planet Earth still needs oxygen-producing greenery and
clean water.

Győr, in Hungary, has a three-rivers confluence, comprising the the Danube, Rába, and
Rábca.

There is also the cave river in Slovenia.  Known as the Pivka, it converges with the Rak
Creek and forms the Unica River.  The cave river is a tourist attraction.

In the Sudan, at Khartoum, the White Nile and the Blue Nile make for the starting point
of the world famous Nile River.

Downtown Pittsburgh; the sector near the Confluence ... near the Point.
Beneath this land and throughout the surrounding vicinity is a fourth river.
It's an underground aquifer called the Wisconsin Glacial Flow, 54 feet below.

In the Southeastern German city of Passau, the Inn River and Ilz River converge into the
Danube.  At Passau, there's a notable university founded in 1970 which is actually an ex-
tension of the much older one founded in 1622.  That university is famous for its schools
of Economics, Law, Theology, and Cultural Studies.

Passau was also noted for its craftsmanship of swords so much so that the a weapon
bearing the insignia of the Passau wolf carried prestige during the Renaissance era.
The same town was also famous for the 1555 Peace of Augsburg and the post-WWII
Displaced Person's Camp, American Sector.

The width of the Allegheny River at the point where it becomes the Ohio ... River.
This is only half of the Confluence.  The Monongahela side is behind this scene.

Then came the development and incorporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  As was as out-
lined in another pictorial, Pittsburgh has been the site of many technological innovations, as
well as six Super Bowl trophies and other athletic championships.

Add to this a list of stellar athletes, five Pulitzer Prize winners, stars of sound and screen,
and noted authors ranging from baseball legend Honus Wagner to Gene Kelly to Academy
Award winner Shirley Jones to Perry Como to  Rachel Carson to Gertrude Stein to dance
choreographer Martha Graham to Billy Eckstein to Mr. Rogers to Jeff Goldblum to George
Blanda to Babe Parilli to Joe Montana to Joe Namath to Dan Marino to Mike Ditka to Bill
Cowher to Curtis Martin to Tony Dorsett to Michael Keaton to Andy Warhol to Andy of 
Mayberry's Howard Sprague to the Riddler of the televised Batman series to the original
Agent 99 of Get Smart fame to comedian Marty Allen.

Incidentally, proof that the televised Batman series (starring Adam West) was a designed
to be a comedy is that a rich tycoon in the show was named John Paul Spaghetti, a spoof
on John Paul Getty.  The other proof was when Batman and Catwoman shared a malt in
a malt shop, while sitting at the same table.

Included with Pittsburgh life is the developed craft of occasionally driving up and down
sloped streets during inclement road conditions.  This consists in spinning wheels while
going uphill and sliding past a stop sign or red light, with the brakes in use, while travel-
ing downhill.

This craft additionally includes drivers throughout the city who make room for this type
of thing, thereby preventing accidents.  The occasional brick roads in the city are slippery
in the rain, as well as in snow.  So, snow skidding is not unseen during Pittsburgh winters.
This translates into the Pittsburgh pro-democrat, pro-labor mindset.  It goes as follows:
The Pittsburgh way is to give Leeway and adapt.  This is why the 1990s were an aberra-
tion.  For those not familiar, police abuse was rampant in Pittsburgh in the 90s, and Pitts-
burgh housed one of the most corrupt and ruthless bishops in America, as is outlined at:

www.donaldwuerl.com

Pittsburgh is the City of Bridges.  It was once the Steel City.  In fact, it was even called the
City of Champions after the Pirates and the Steelers won the Super Bowl and World Series
in the same calendar year.  This was also the general time span when the Pitt Panthers won
the NCAA football crown, followed by the Pitt Panther basketball team being a long-term
contender and occasional Big East champion.

Before the Pittsburgh area became the king of steel, it was
heavily engaged in the production of glass, meaning that it
was previously the City of Glass.  However, Pittsburgh is
more essentially the City of hills, inclines, and sharp slopes.
The three rivers which mark Pittsburgh, therefore, comprise
an aquatic valley ... a glacial valley.  The Wisconsin Glacial
Flow makes for the fourth river, located 54 feet below the
Pittsburgh vicinity.

As far as goes the reputation of Pittsburgh being a blue collar
town filled with people who can barely speak English in any
appreciable fluency, Pittsburgh is the home of the prestigious
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pitt Med School, and University
of Pittsburgh Press that publishes the yearly winners of two
major literary awards.

Add to the Pittsburgh education equation Duquesne Univ., Chatham Univ., Carlow
Univ., La Roche College, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, the Cordon Bleu Institute
of Culinary Arts, Point Park College, and the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics,
as well as worthwhile trade schools.

When it comes to the blue collar realm, a Pittsburgh area construction worker needs
added athleticism and dexterity, due to the slopes and inclines of the area, as well as
due to the older parts of the city where one encounters narrow alleys and a closely
knitted infrastructure which makes demolition work and heavy equipment operating
a surgical task at times.  Plus, bridge construction and repair work always requires
added diligence, even though workers are pacing themselves and don't seem to be
working rapidly.

Now, the problem with Pittsburgh is that it's near West Virginia, and therefore, the
rural outskirts are plagued with the Hatfields & McCoys confrontational mindset.
Pittsburgh has its metropolitan culture, its blue collar culture, and an occasional
rural antagonist who is entirely misplaced, quite isolationist, and feisty at times.
They are people locked in the late 18th and early 19th Century mindset.  Plus,
Western Maryland is backward and isolationist, too.  In fact, in the 21st Century,
I saw a Western Maryland billboard, located near a convenience store, telling the
reader that the pope is the anti-Christ.  The interesting thing is that there have been
over 260 popes, but there can only be one anti-Christ.  So, which pope was the
anti-Christ?  None the less, the outskirts of Pittsburgh has its backward mindset.

Below is a pictorial of Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Confluence and the nearby terrain
known as Gateway Center.  When you add the Confluence with Gateway Center, you
have what is referred to as the Golden Triangle.  Here's the Confluence photographed
at a distance close enough to literally touch the Monongahela, Ohio, and Allegheny
Rivers.  Gateway Center is also represented here.

The fountain in the background marks the location of the Confluence of the
Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers.  The underpass seen in silhouette
form will take you directly to the Confluence that Pittsburghers call the Point.

A view of the Confluence when standing on the Monongahela side of the Point.

The Allegheny side of the Three Rivers Confluence.
Behind this bridge is the major league baseball stadium.

Barge traffic still passes through the Confluence regularly.
You can literally sail to New Orleans from here.

When you're at the Confluence and turn around, this is what you see.

One of the operative inclines, on the Monongahela side of the city.
This is the one closest to the Confluence.  It actually does carry passengers.

Riverboat paddle wheel

The same Duquesne Incline at a different angle and closer distance.

Heinz Field, the National Football League stadium of the city.

The Confluence, in relation to Heinz Field.

Docked river boats on the Monongahela River.
Twelve to eighteen blocks further is my place of birth.

After passing through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and Fort Pitt Bridge, this is the greeting you see.

The surreal city in plate glass.
Of the 700 to 900 photos I've taken and posted in the past two years, this is my favorite.

The same building at a slightly further distance.

One of the Gateway Towers, near the KDKA studios.
KDKA was the world's first commercial radio station.

The official marker of the Confluence's central point.  Mention of Point of Conflict
on the marker is a reminder that battles were fought here.  A strategic blockhouse
which was part of an 18th Century fort, still stands near the Confluence.

The Fort Pitt Blockhouse, formerly known as the Fort Duquesne Blockhouse.
It was pivotal during  the "French & Indian" War and Pontiac's 1763 Rebellion.
The British captured Fort Duquesne and the blockhouse in 1758.

At the Three Rivers Confluence, the original colonies
style of American flag is flown, comprising 13 stars.

The front view of the same blockhouse.

Near the blockhouse is an indoor museum.  Here's an exhibit,
placed outside, with a facsimile of Old Glory and its 13 stars.

A different canon displayed outside of the Fort Pitt Museum on a different day.

The other common sight from the Three Rivers Confluence is the entrance to the
Fort Pitt Tunnel.  The hills in the Pittsburgh area are sometimes so steep that a few
tunnels going through the hillsides needed to be built.  This included the Liberty Tunnel
and the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, as well as the Wabash Tunnel which was originally designed for trains. 

  

 

                                                       As a parting reminder, via rote: 
                           The Ice Age's Wisconsin Glacial Flow is situated 54 feet below.

__________________________________________________

More of Pittsburgh in Pictures

The Union Trust Building, in the Heart of Downtown Pittsburgh.

       Below is the third pictorial of the metropolis built on terrain etched at the end of the
       Great Ice Age, after the glaciers as nearby as Moraine State Park started to melt.
       The post Ice Age deicing of melt water came through the Three Rivers Confluence
        under which exists the Wisconsin Glacial Flow ... 54 feet below.

    Pittsburgh was once the City of Glass, in having had 40 manufacturing outlets in its pre-
    cincts.  The same Pittsburgh was once the King of Steel.  Furthermore, it was coined
    the City of Champions after the Steelers and Pirates won the Super Bowl and World
    Series in the same calendar year.

   Pittsburgh remains the City of Bridges and the Western Hemisphere's most celebrated
   aquatic triplicity, with a bonus subterranean river included.  Pittsburgh was also a heavy
   impact zone during the Industrial Revolution.  It was so much a keystone of America's
   Industrial Age that it was once called, Hell with the Lid Off.  In fact, the snide, yet
   honest, joke about Pittsburgh at the time was, "Six months in Pittsburgh is grounds
   for suicide."

   The influx of Eastern European immigrants, with their Catholicism & Orthodoxy, ended
   up changing the motif of Pittsburgh, shifting it away from the Hell image, as is illustrated
   below, in the Ukrainian Catholic Church built on the busiest street of the South Side.
  Yet, the image of a Hellish Pittsburgh wasn't changed until long after the Homestead
  Riots lefttheir brutal etchings on Pittsburgh history.  The riots were consisted in immi-
  grant Slovaks vs Pinkerton Detectives who arrived by river barge.  The outcome was
  brutal and bloody.

A bit of Plate Glass Psychedelia

Actual rainbow ivy in the autumn.

Inside the Fort Pitt Tunnel.

The top of the Union Trust Building, from a different angle.

The ground level front entrance of the same Union Trust Building.

The view from the North Side, near Heinz Field.

The Gulf Tower

A few blocks from where I live,
at the time of this writing.

One Oxford Center.  It looks like the Sphinx

   

Mount Washington, close to the Overlook Platforms and the Inclines.

Polish Hill

Gateway Center as seen from the Blvd of the Allies.

Close to Duquesne University and the downtown.

The general vicinity of my place of birth ... the South Side of Pittsburgh.

The general street where I was born;  Carson Street on the South Side of Pittsburgh.

My place of birth; 2117 East Carson St., Pittsburgh.

This is located across the street from my place of  birth.
Creative environs, to say the least.

This shop, built in 1889, is a couple blocks from where I was born.

Marked 1913, it's four to six blocks or so away, on the same street.

This sign is located  a block or two away from the former Saint Joseph's Hospital.

One of the inclines, transporting people to and from Mt. Washington.

The Smithfield Street Bridge; a bridge between downtown Pittsburgh and the South Side.

This is the Shadyside sector of Pittsburgh, somewhat near the Pitt campus.

Night along the Monongahela River.

A photo of downtown Pittsburgh where all three rivers are hidden from sight.

                                          The following is an involved lesson on the Ice Age:
               http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/cs/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_014595.pdf

A Candelabra of Tail Lights

If a picture's worth a thousand words, then one poetic image is a chapter in a saga.
Imagery filters the distortion and static of modern life.  In as much, you sometimes
need to exercise the other circuitry within you beyond the mechanical/numerical
wiring of charts and graphs.  It prevents you from easily falling for deceit.  Upon
using the other circuitry, you discover that there's a universe within each one of us.
It's one of those discoveries that will change your life.

Stationed discretely,
beneath the midnight crossroads of the stars.
Standing vigilant,
precisely in the middle of night.

Here is where winds converge.
In the periphery, swaying twigs snap.
Soft geodesic spheres in the moonlight
take flight off of a dozen dandelion stems,
while brittle tree leaves scurry past an open field,
only to get caught in the long swooping stems of blackberry brambles.

These leaves,
now dried parchment,
no longer tell the story of autumn.

Meanwhile, the remaining dust of vacated anticipation
intersperses within a patch of crash landed may apple leaves
which remain attached to their dilapidated stems
in the dried puddle of moonlight.

To the east,
a half moon slowly sinks into a silhouette of tree branches,
all the while carrying within its crescent a slate black moon.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the hill, on a road near the woods,
ghosts of fog bounce off a procession of auto headlights.

Overhead, a long winged jet passes
                                            slowly rising out of sight
                                                                         slowly becoming gone.

                                                  II
A newly arrived wind,
one having traveled through several time zones of emotions,
secretly etches lines on the face of an unlocated phantom
who stands concealing its thoughts,
while slowly bleeding into the night.

While streams of neon-tinted blood reach my feet,
memories begin to burn into the form of photographic negatives
transposed upon the planks of a 1960s wood burning set.

Each of the recessed memories is like a stilled reel frame
that once melted upon a fiberglass movie screen
during school hours, when the projector was stopped,
while its light bulb remained lit.

I do not want to forget loss
like a liar who stages his own amnesia
and then changes his identity within a pea & shell game
of relabeled file folders.

I cannot give tacit approval for damage left in disrepair,
by walking blindfolded past a world of cold ruins.

Nor must I block the traffic of emotions
which take an off-ramp to an intersection of uncertainty,
in preference to following a candelabra of tail lights
along a securely marked highway
traced with red felt-tip ink upon a glove compartment's road map.

                                                III

I reach out into the air
and touch the raised dots and dashes of a familiar destiny,
mounted along the sill of a spacious sky.

Peace illuminates at my finger tips.

The streams of my interior instantly dilate and flow
toward the direction of infinity the same way in which they do
at the unexpected voices of unseen cardinals
heard in the middle of a snowscape on a blinding afternoon.

As I step,
the distant murmurs of assassination crinkle and crumble.

The curses of the envious dry on their branches
and fall to the ground like the bolted iron emblems of tyrants
that crash into gravity at the end of an allied invasion.

Watch dogs sit and wag their tails,
having scratched the barbed wire from their collars.
                                                  
I inhale the echo of a forest's past leaves,
while getting touched with an impulse
by one of nighttime's unseen winds
that blows through blond wheaten grasses,
en route to the nearest town,
inviting me among the trees
whose branch tops of heated maroon
outline the November horizon by day
and exude the coming winter's touch by night.

As I make my approach, the instinct within the depth of night
suddenly falls into my hands, ready to flow at will
into the hands of a distant forest or nearby town.

Join the stars and immerse yourself
into that which is objectively wonderful,
and speak the snow which replaces the summertime bats
that flew around street lights in the middle of the night.

You are now free to transform into the objective of your love
within the deepest blue tint cast between a red hilltop tower light
and the compass that the paperboy left behind at the outskirts of infinity,
the night his mother died.
____________________

Weightless Night

Parallel rows of streetlights
construct diagonal lanes to the skyline,
etching narrow canopies of illumination
in the middle of a blackness
that drapes the hillside in its solitude.

Out from the slopes of infinity, and on to a moonlit road,
comes an ancient vision of undaunted innocence,
traveling like a peasant one hilltop above
a procession of automobile headlights
off of which bounce ghosts of fog.

Upon approaching the first 'Y' in the road,
this vision of ageless wonder runs between the two dividing lanes,
through a triangle of grasses which leads to a living room of trees
carpeted by ferns, moss, and lanes of sanctuary where I stand,
seeking to grasp the depth of this weightless night.

The remaining leaves of autumn's tree branches become fluttering wings,
as the invisible wind makes its presence known in the woods.
Simultaneously, dozens of fleeces of starlight, from dandelion stems,
leap into the stratosphere of their beauty.

II
The trace of this wonder now vanishes,

and ordinary dew begins to cover the trails
which lead to the owls of vigilance.

As I step, all becomes silent.

As I stand still, dread taps on my soul.

Dread continues to strike deeper and deeper.

I feel the slow ticking of a metronome coming to an end.

I can no longer feel anything else within,

as I await the gong of the executioner of rejection
with every strike tapping on the depths of my soul.

There is nowhere to flee and nowhere to wait
for the final sinking into annihilation.

However, the dread turns out to be a match striking a matchbook within,

and an inextinguishable spark soars out from the middle of my nothingness,

coasting to the summit of the Dark Night of the Soul,
automatically illuminating it with a glow that doesn't blind the eyes.

Then, stopping and turning toward me from mid air,
this living spark says, "See, it's only me."

I recognized who it was.

Instinct fell more clearly into my hands,

in the midst of a man recognizing and understanding
the state of the unknowing.

At the same time,
everything seems comprehensively simple.

At the same time,
an empty space deeply within became a living room. 

III

Silence now permeates the cold

and icicles begin to smoke at their roots.

At home, in the heart,

one suddenly becomes detoxified from the poisons accumulated through:

1) the seduction which pealed off of billboards,

     2) modeling runways which lead to the hallways of anorexia,

         3) the anarchy of deregulation, amidst hermaphrodite aquatic life,
             4) and the infections injected by the teeth marks of gossip.

This weightless night has become the home's compass

to that magnetic north, where, in between, is an ocean of celestial night,

deeply anchored in an agile focus that requires neither straining nor tension.

It's a sightedness that soars through an abyss
which is widely opened, yet completely covered,
with the protection that causes the intruders of terror

and the robbers of peace to become lost, at their first steps of attack.

IV
Along the roadside of this night's journey lay

the smug facial expressions of social manipulators
who raised hundreds of millions of other people's dollars,

in order to control those same people's thought patterns

and to implant in their minds cliches that replaced instinct.

It is along this roadside

where the smug facial expressions

are left smeared on pencil erasers,

laying disjointed from their voices.

It is along this roadside

where the enemy moves in a slow staccato cowardice,

in having become unable to rejoin the faces to the voices.

The deafening hiss of opinion polls now become deflated,

as the presentations of the pompous turn into a mutely slurred quaking.

In sequence,

interest rates without coupons

and consumer surveys without free samples

start to bleed black ink onto white lab coats.

Meanwhile,

cultic looking suit jackets

which bear the alertness of a park bench's wet paint

find a hiding place in a dry cleaner's back room.

All the while,

flocks of fear fly out from behind the stalactite of the mind,

exiting the nearest cave opening, and suddenly,

a universe of stars is discovered inside of one's entire being.

This weightless night preserves vessels and arteries,

as well as highways and railways,

from becoming the broken guitar strings of a mishandled instrument.

This also unlocks the pulse from the constricting vaults
which were made shock resistant to the legalized crimes
of fashionable nations that served the premeditated selfishness
of those who took advantage of politicians' fears of opinion polls

and the lack of lobbyist checkbooks.

As I walk throughout this cricketless night,

a two-story valley of intermingled slate

has become a hallway of collected peace,

as well as a path of adventure: 

          of adventure

          on the ice covered slate of a creek,

          where the icicles along its bordering inclines

          blind the flash bulbs of the nature photographer.
V
As I find myself walking through a more narrow ravine,

where overhangs a trestle of sumac branches,

I find myself approaching a place visited by me before.

It's a place where the contour of the topography features a familiar clearing

land-marked by a patch of clover and burdock

from where bees once retrieved the vestiges of a fallen house of peasantry.

From this path's vantage point, however,
I can neither see nor feel the clearing's patch.

From here, it is obstructed by something faded.
From here, it takes the parting of a sea of clouds

to bring the visibility of moonlight into the clearing,

in order to discern the obstruction that blocks an entrance-way

where beauty in action transformed into the meaning of the beauty portrayed. 

VI

So many times have I gone out of my way to avoid this obstacle

which has been found standing in so many places, slowing so many lives.

So many times did I redirect my steps away from this thing,

so as to not cross its path anymore.

Yet,

once again,

it turned out to be another inevitable encounter with it.

Once again, it is placed in my way.  Once again, I'm standing before:

            1) Stone tablets without prophets ... made of a stenographer's note pad.

        2) Fine print without explanations ... on an adjacent graffiti of persuasion.

    3) Subscripts ... placed next to a revolving door of opinions.

4) Attachments ... with the Sunday work schedule, on a hymnal of time cards.

It was over this

that opposing members of political parties argued,

while posing in front of numerous photographers

for each one's hometown newspaper.

It is over this thing I should leap.

This is where

I saw red turn to maroon

on a canvas of neglected time.

This is also where

I saw the discarded colors of a student council election

that decided the official school colors which bled during the wash cycle.

VII
It was also here where I first saw
competitive & nonsupportive women,

with unresponsive glazes in their eyes,
walk away from the weightless night,

looking to marry the check books of bankers
who held liens on remodeling company warehouses.

Their hunt and their wait for the highest bidder

was claimed by them to be their ordained destiny,

even though they never said who it was
who gave them the predestination.

Why were they the chosen ones?

because they were glamorous ... too glamorous for the company of commoners.
because they had feelings        ... feelings too divine for our palpitations.

because they were artistes       ... too talented for contact with any untouchable

                                                from India to America and all points in between.
Such great poets were they

that they never had to write poetry to prove it.
Such great philosophers were they

that they never had to give reasons for anything they said or did.
Such great psychologists were they

that they could diagnose you immediately:

1) by the clothes you wore,

     2) by the car you drove,

          3) by the checks you cashed,

              4) by the price range of the colognes
                  in the counter window over which you stopped.

The cosmogony and ecology of creation
was never important to these women

who wore faces of arsenic bought at the cosmetic counter.

Neither moral theology nor ethics nor even courtesy

was of any concern to them,

because the covers of the educational books
had no highly paid models on them,

and because the pages had no circles to scratch and sniff.

The fate of the world never mattered to them, either.

Only the fate of themselves did.

Matters of conscience were of no concern to these weakest of animals

who only followed the trail of synthetic chemical scents and nothing more.

Not even the pain & deprivation which they caused others

were any concern for these princesses & priestesses of death.

In their voice patterns one can still hear:

1) fire ripping away tee pees that collapsed around the knelt pleas of squaws,

    2) whips cracking slaves tied to sun welted wood sheds,

        3) billy clubs on strikers before world series batting practice,

             4) and the ignored thuds of murder.
 

VIII
The men whom they sought turned out to be the hunters

who hunted for pleasure and convenience at will,

while believing themselves to own any woman at the saying,

even though the chiseled features of a suave Zorro were non-existent in them.

These were the men whose final goal of all existence

was to yell out "score" & "mine" with neither brakes nor mercy.

As a result of their beliefs in nothing, they ordained themselves the lords of Sunday

which they designated as the day of profit upon the tired & weary.

They demolished the local playground and the ball field,

putting up interest bearing real estate in their places,

so that the profits could afford for them
season tickets at the arena and the stadium,
where they could watch a master race of cardboard cut-outs
who were displayed near the beer & chip sections of grocery stores
during playoff season.

The 13% rule of designated recreation ground

was then placed by the zoning officer

in the woods.

While these hunters sat in comfort

and raised the temperature of the warm security constructed by:

1) carpenters &; electricians,

    2) cashiers & drivers,

        3) laborers & installers,

            4) engineers & draftsmen,

they sought to lower every wage that they could get away with lowering.

The end result was that these tablets without prophets

once again made the model homes for the third world's work force,

thereby raising the rent for the working poor of all the Americas. 

IX
The first urge is to cat-paw oneself past these condensed versions of thought.

Past:

the slave auctions etched into the wood grains of port docks.

Away From:

the neon signs that still read, "Catholics need not apply."

Past:

the jack hammering of the wedding's altar,
replaced by the courtroom bench.

Further Away From:

the whistles that monitored the factory shifts of the children of smoke.

Far Around:

the 8 year closed market operation,

uptown from the afternoon soup kitchen.

Further Around:

the 30 year mortgage,

on faded aluminum siding. 

Making your schedule anything other than:

the Marxist's 7 day work week,

done in the name of free enterprise,

and

the hypocrisy of Sunday holiday shopping,

done in the name of sacred rites. 

Avoiding Contact With:

the grabbing hands under the broken pinata

and

the stretched-out hands over the rock star's stage. 

While Keeping a Course Far Away From:

the goose stepping rhythm of deathly pale minds

who prevented sunlight from ever touching the face of children. 

While Avoiding a Countdown With:
the early morning mushroom clouds of clear Pacific days
which left shadows at ground zero.

X
Let Everyman and Womanhood cat-paw a path into something else:

Into a schematic of regenerated moonlight on leaves,

during the poet's walk near the blackened stripes of willow branches.

Into a schematic of regenerated water beads splashed into coastal air
by those who made albatross-like swan dives into a nearby gulf stream,

in order to retrieve the wreckage of ancient mariners.

Into a schematic of regenerated branches and leaves

                                                  gardens and markets

                                             classrooms and studios

                                                    forests and lakes

                                        neighborhoods and homes

                                                   treaties and contracts

                                                     fabric and design

                                                highways and rest stops

                                            work hours and store hours

                                    historic moments and the hour of our death:

Into a schematic

entirely unmarked by the graffiti of genetic engineers

who try to make for themselves a master race

out of pirated DNA.

Into regenerated breezes:

Of breezes through the hair of women

who do not place the destiny of their lives

on the brands of their shampoos.

Of women

with soft chiseled features,

absorbing contemplation

while following the contour of love.

Of breezes on the faces of men

who do not place the destiny of the world

on the rate of return of interest bearing funds.

Of men

standing in the crossfire of love,

while holding doves coos in their hands

without crushing them.

Of humanity

letting the bilateral currents of love flow on the lanes of its own propulsion.

Of humanity

supporting those who have wilted.

                     XI

Concerning these tablets
over which was traced centuries of lies

told by those who replaced the faces
they once tore out of stolen picture frames
with their own:

What do I do?   What is anyone to do?

Does one simply breeze around them?
Does one ignore them and act as if they never existed? 

ANS:  No.

Neither go around these tablets nor over their line items,

rearranged after every caucus

by the side who spoke the loudest and most intrusively.

Neither flee in the opposite direction from these prophetless tablets,

nor spray an aerosol graffiti of protest upon them.

Go through them.  Break through.

Break through the conventions of compromise

and through the incarnate lies.

Through this thing that vetoed all that is holy, majestic, and sacred.

Break:   1)  the unchallenged plane,

                2)  the hypnotic trance,

                   3)  the spell of caped magicians
                         who hold lightning bolts of dust.

Run through this unconsecration

at a finish line speed and break the finish line tape,

while groomed campaign managers in recessed meeting rooms

draw one dimensional animals on the cave walls of their minds.

Run.

         We were made for it.

Gallop.

             We were instilled with it.

Sprint.

            We were coached to do it.

Go into the forbidden zone,

where men and women seek to know the reason why things should be so.

Into a zone of meaning, where one speaks as if
it will be the last chance to ever speak again,

making communication sacramental,

instead of making it a sacrilege,

in mimic of morning radio shows. 

XII   THE RIP AND TEAR OF PEACE

It was so exhilarating.  I'm alive.

Now, the dead can be buried.

A convention of winds

now gathering through the shreds

has become the laser jet printing

of a returning dawn.

At this point,

to sleep through the remainder of the night is enough.

- to melt the unbandaged edges of fatigue

  that rattle the window panes of the body.

- to view a gallery of dreams upon the window to the soul.

- to rest, to heal, and to awaken 

  free of the aberrations of the plagiarist's cliches

  that hung on the strings of runaway puppets

  during shows that children did not watch.