Another Way to Play

by Michael Lally

  before that. It would be pathetic

  if it wasn’t emblematic of the

  brainwashing fossil-fuel coin

  has bought in recent decades.

  TAKE IT EASY

  1.

  Take it easy?

  How many fuckin times

  did I hear that when

  I was a kid. And a

  young man. And a

  middle-aged man.

  Take it easy Michael,

  take it easy son, take

  it easy brother, take it

  easy man, take it easy

  mister. Lot easier to

  say than do.

  How the fuck do you

  take it easy when

  you’re born into a

  world that’s more

  violent than it’s ever

  been.

  I’m not talkin about

  now I’m talkin about

  when I was born into

  World War Two the

  bloodiest period in

  history.

  How you supposed to

  take it easy when you

  look around and people

  are talkin about shit

  you know isn’t true as

  though it is true.

  I’m not talkin about

  Trump I’m talkin about

  people makin general-

  izations when I was

  young about black

  people and white

  people and I didn’t

  see anybody who was

  white or black, I saw

  people that were

  gradations from fair

  to dark, and everything

  in between.

  They even had fuckin

  laws that didn’t make

  no sense. You could have

  a man or woman who

  looked as pale as a bone

  who they said was legally

  black and someone who

  had darker skin than them

  passing for so-called white

  and how was a kid or a

  young person or a middle-

  -aged human or even an

  old one supposed to take

  it easy with so much fuckin

  hypocrisy all around them . . . .

  But I eventually learned,

  how to at least sometimes

  take it easy, because

  not takin it easy cost me

  so much, not just jobs and

  friends and lovers and

  careers and prizes and

  money and security and

  serenity and health but it

  became clear that not

  takin it easy often made

  things worse than what

  had made me not take it

  easy at first . . .

  2.

  On the other hand, when

  I was a kid and someone

  said take it easy when they

  were leaving, it was just

  a hipper way of saying

  goodbye, but it implied a

  kind of admonition to be

  cool, what I always longed

  to be but couldn’t quite

  achieve because my

  unforgiving temper was

  so hot and got me into

  all my troubles . . . it’s not

  that way as much anymore

  since I learned and earned

  the right to take it easy

  more and more . . . though

  if you get me at the right

  or wrong moment, depending

  on your view, I can seem

  to take it easy now when

  I’m secretly saying fuck you

  TOO MANY CREEPS

  Back when that Bush Tetras song

  became the anthem of the down

  town scene, in the 1970s I knew,

  we’d add our own list of what

  there were too many of, like

  yuppies, lawyers and real

  estate speculators buying up

  the lofts we lived in illegally,

  forseeing the powers that be

  changing the laws in time

  for the yuppies and lawyers

  and real estate speculators to

  buy up our neighborhoods

  we never called “Soho” or

  “Tribeca” but instead “So What”

  and “Washington Market”

  as it had always been known . . .

  Now the list would go on

  forever, like too many lies,

  and too many people believing

  them, and too many filthy

  rich greedheads rigging the

  game and then blaming

  the rest of us for problems

  they cause, and too many

  people in poverty and

  deprivation, too many of

  them homeless, and too many

  evictions of poor people, and

  too many bullies, and too

  many cars, and too many

  TVs, and too many eyes on

  too many screens, and too

  many scams, and too many

  overworked underpaid

  people, and too many tax

  exempt churches and

  football stadiums, and too

  many fundamentalist Christians

  and Jews and Muslims and

  Ayn Randians, and too many

  hypocritical politicians and

  pundits, and, What about too

  many poems, you might ask,

  and I’d respond There can

  never be too many poems . . .

  FIRST TWO REACTIONS:

  1. THE NIGHT OF

  You want someone to blame?

  Blame the racists, cause maybe

  not everyone who voted for him

  was a racist, but every racist

  who voted, voted for him. Blame

  white women, more of whom

  voted for him than for her.

  Blame the Latinos who voted

  for him at a higher percentage

  than voted for Romney. Blame

  the African-Americans who

  didn’t vote, or vote for her, but

  voted for Obama. Blame the lefties

  who spent the election campaign

  bashing her, or the election

  voting in protest for anybody

  but her, which was in effect a

  vote for him. Blame Julian

  Assange and Wikileaks for

  targeting her and not him.

  Blame her for one of the

  lamest slogans ever—I mean,

  I’m with her?—what does

  that promise?—and a logo

  that looked like an Amtrak

  sign from 1980. Blame the

  Democratic Party which used

  to know in its bones that “all

  politics is local” but forgot,

  letting the Republicans co-opt

  that strategy, starting with

  school boards that control what

  our kids are taught. Blame the

  media, or its audience, for not

  being able to make money on

  facts or anything else that isn’t

  sensational or divisive. Blame

  old people for being afraid of

  the future, and young people

  for thinking the future was

  theirs without a price to be

  paid. Blame Russia, and China,

  and Mexico, and Japan (wait,

  scratch Japan, that was the

  1980 election). Blame the

  stars, blame the gods, blame

  Ayn Rand and Fox News and

  Irish-American traitors to their

  ancestors: Hannity and O’Reilly

  and their ilk. Blame fucking any-

  one and anything, but yourself.

  2. THE DAY AFTER


  The day after I was born,

  German U boat 106 sank

  a US tanker in the Gulf of

  Mexico. Twenty-two were

  killed. Hitler and his allies

  had been winning World

  War Two and it looked like

  they were about to take

  over the world. Including

  the USA. Three years later

  Germany surrendered and

  the war in Europe was over,

  followed pretty soon after

  by the end of the war in the

  Pacific. In my brief three

  year old life the world had

  witnessed the greatest

  death and destruction in

  the history of humanity. It

  was tragic and deeply sad

  but even so, great acts of

  courage and kindness,

  sacrifice and love were

  committed, great art and

  music and movies and

  more were made. Nothing

  anywhere near as massively

  brutal and deadly has occurred

  since. Despite continuing wars

  and oppression, the world has

  not in my now seventy-four

  years ever been as violent

  or destructive as it was then.

  That’s not to slight the severity

  of anyone’s experience of

  repression or cruelty, but

  only to say as my old friend

  Hubert Selby used to, that “You

  can’t have up without down,

  success without failure,

  pleasure without pain,” and I

  would add, dark days without

  ones filled with light. Let us

  be that light for those who will

  need it now.

  THE TIMES THEY’RE ALWAYS CHANGING

  I was born into a war and world where

  Most thought they’d be speaking German

  Or Japanese soon. Then the times changed.

  My paternal grandfather lived down the

  Street. He’d been born into a thatch roofed

  dirt floor cottage in Ireland at a time when

  Native Irish were depicted In the English

  Press as an inferior race, often equated with

  Native Africans. Then the times changed.

  My father was born into the end of the 19th

  Century, dropped out of grammar school to

  Go to work in a hardware store to help his

  Family and ended up owning the store by

  The time he was twenty and many more by

  The time he was thirty at the height of The

  Jazz Age. Then the times changed and The

  Great Depression began, and, as he liked to

  say: “The big boys bought back everything

  I owned for a dime on the dollar, and some-

  Times a nickel.” My maternal grandmother

  Burned all the I.O.U’s to her husband after

  He died and she moved in with us, saying

  He would have wanted it that way. I helped

  Care for her all through my boyhood and

  Teenage years before I left home. The best

  Lesson she taught me was: “If you’re born

  To be hung, you’ll never be shot.” My mother

  Was a high school graduate making her the

  Intellectual authority in our household. She

  Was born in Newark in a neighborhood where

  Her mother remembered what they called

  Then “race wars” between the earlier German

  Settlers and the newly arrived Irish. Then the

  Times changed. Her mother couldn’t vote

  When she was twenty-one but my mother

  Could, thanks to the new law letting women.

  When I was stationed in the then legally

  So-called racially segregated South Carolina

  In 1962, African-Americans weren’t allowed

  To go to the drive-in movie in their own cars,

  That’s how bad it was. And when I went to a

  Greenville bookstore looking for James Baldwin’s

  Latest book, they didn’t have it, and wouldn’t

  Order it, and the library said the same, so I had

  One of my sisters buy it in Newark and send it

  To me. The only integrated place I found down

  There was a home that hosted secret meetings

  Of the Ba’Hai faith, one of many spiritual paths

  I tried on in my youth. And then the times they

  Changed. My oldest children were born into a

  World where men didn’t raise kids on their own

  Even though I did. And then the times changed.

  When my youngest was born at the end of the

  Last century, Bill Clinton was called “The first

  Black president.” And then the times changed.

  When our latest White House occupant won

  Many citizens felt so despondent they found it

  Hard to go about their daily lives and get any-

  Thing done at all. But the day after he moved

  In, The Resistance did begin, and once again:

  “THE TIMES / THEY ARE / A-CHANGIN’.”

  LOVE IS THE ULTIMATE RESISTANCE

  We are here. This is what is happening. And

  the first step to changing any of it is acceptance

  of what already is. It’s bad enough politicians

  use the phrase “The American People” followed

  by “demand” or “want” or “believe” or “support”

  or whatever. As if they aren’t aware of the divi-

  sions in our populace, that is so stridently po-

  larized a cheap con artist can get appointed

  president. Enough with the wishful-thinking or

  deliberately-misleading or just-plain-ignorant

  appellation “The American People” as subject

  or object of any sentence from now on. I know:

  If Only. Though the good going on—and going

  to, and coming out of—recent hurricanes, earth-

  quakes, fires, and even massacres, elevates us all

  with the truth that there’s a lot of love in a lot

  of humans, manifested in caring about others in

  trouble, including, most importantly, strangers.

  The bad going on, and going to, and coming

  out of, recent hurricanes, earthquakes, fires,

  and massacres, is the direct result of personal

  and corporate greed, and the actions of those

  who serve it. Like the deliberate ignoring or

  deregulation of safety standards for guns or

  construction or overdevelopment, or our air

  and water, screens and ear buds, planning

  and lives. Human Need vs. Corporate Greed.

  But, do not despair. The lies and hate and

  fear, the mass hysteria and mass hypnosis,

  smothering the so-called social media(s),

  have always existed side by side with the

  sweetness and romance and struggle to find

  —to get as close as possible to—the truth,

  no matter what it may be, or turn into. We

  are all losers and winners, veterans of life

  and naïve beginners. And one day will all

  be the Finishers. For now, let the focus be

  on the survival of the victims, innocent or

  not. Love is always the ultimate resistance . . .

 

 

 
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