Journeys
Cloud
Timothy M. Leonard's books on Goodreads
A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
ratings: 4 (avg rating 4.50)

The Language Company The Language Company
ratings: 2 (avg rating 5.00)

Subject to Change Subject to Change
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Finch's Cage Finch's Cage
ratings: 2 (avg rating 3.50)

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Thursday
Apr192007

Heart chains

you created everything
imagining insatiable incurable incessant insanity

carrying chains across water
through cultures
hiding them in your heart

no one to talk with
hear, listen or help
you

chains constricted your heart
growing heavy, sad, lost, lonely

you released them,
tired of everything
finally
everyone
all the strangers

chaining doors
from inside

dark lonely inside
clanging, clinking, rumbling
angry chains

voices, all the voices
strangers

Thursday
Apr122007

War(s) Czar Vacancy

A great job is available in Washington. You get to run the war in Afghanistan and, as a special bonus with extra incentives including free meals, free transportation, free insurance, and a free Iraq mess.

Yes, it's true, the stone cold neo-cons are desperately looking for someone with a plan - any plan will do, cobbled together with inept corruption, graft and absolutely zero sense of historical perspective - to run the wars. Run them into debt, run them into a brick wall at high speed. Run and gun endless wars into Iraqi cemeteries and VA hospitals.

Run the wars with integrity, dedication and carte blanc financial support from big oil and special interest groups.

Wheel and deal the war your way today. Say yes to this amazing long term disaster opportunity. They need a War Czar to assume total control and responsibility. Certified paranoid schizophrenic delusional maniacs, fools, thieves, morticians and gravediggers will receive hiring priority.

"Want to buy a good used car, mister?"

After hearing their sales pitch and declining to be za Czar, a retired general said, "They don't know what the hell they are doing."

Wednesday
Apr112007

Whining Convention Convenes

The 1st Provincial Whiner Convention got under way today, hey say children, "Can you whine with the best of them?"

"Yeah man, I started whining when I found out, being an only child in a one-child takes all crap game, that whining is a fantastic way to get things you want," said Faceless. "I wanted a lot then and I want more now."

"That's nothing," said Insecure, another whining contestant. "Whining is a fine art in my book. I've never read it because I'm lazy but I know how to whine with feeling. I've had practice. I practiced on my parents, practiced on my grandparents and now I practice on my friends. A little whine here and there works wonders. You ain't never get any good at whining in life without practice."

A whine went up from the crowd.

"We want a REAL whiner. These are fakes. They have no skill, ability, creativity or enthusiasm for whining. Send them back to Whiner Elementary. They are whining failures. Poor."

"Ok, ok," said Maladjusted, a whiner with a degree in Manipulation.

"How's this?" and they started yelling and screaming, contorting their face into tears, stamping their feet demanding instant gratification.

"Give it to me now!
"Give it to me now!
"Give it to me now!
"I will whine until you give it to me!"
"I am a spoilled brat and I demand you to give it to me NOW!

The crowd gratefully swallowed the passive-aggressive whining performance.

"Not bad," one whiner said to another whiner.
They voted with their feet to Whiner Street to practice whining in public.

Wednesday
Apr112007

Lines

“Anybody have any spare change?” queried a waif with panhandling dreams.

“Hmm, well, there’s a faint star at a conjunction of the head and heart life line. Does that mean anything?” said a kid fingering palms approaching Easter Is-land.

“Depends,” a child orator ranted, standing on a dove shaped soap box. “Do you mean faint as in non-distinguishable or feint as to throw one off the tacit socially agreed upon path implied by pretending to understand anything at all while processing information with a deft movement?”

“Yes,” a child philosophized with the wit of Camus. “It’s a sublime paradox, this sleight-of-hand absurdity theater. We have aspects of knowing. Freedom is terror. It’s not so much that there is something strange about time. The thing that’s strange is what’s going on inside time. We will understand how simple the universe is when we recognize how strange it is.”

“You’re just saying that,” said a young voice.
“All we know is what we think we know.”

“Sounds like __________ speaking of strange,” one resident commented to no one in particular.

“Please pass the Democracy.”
“No lie flutterbye,” sighed a Monarch’s wings in Greek orastory.

“What’s that have to do with the conservation of angular momentum?” queried a child rotating tires doing wheel reel feel alignments for their friends.

“Do I love you because you are beautiful?” pondered Rose. “Or are you beautiful because I love you?”
“Both,” sang the chorus.

“Time on a mountain top runs faster than time at sea level because gravity is stronger at sea level and gravity slows time down,” a scientific kid postulated, devouring Everest.

“You get what you pay for,” said a kid spreading their map out over 300 count linen.
“The map is not the territory,” observed a shrink-wrapped child reading The Dictionary of Symbols. They shared a story about dance.

“Dance is about process, becoming, the passage of time. Shiva symbolizes the union of space and time and also indicates creation. This is why dance is one of the most ancient forms of magic. People wear masks to hide their transformation, seeking to change their dancer into a god or demon. Dance is the incarnation of eternal energy.”

“Well, all right then!” said a kid, dancing in their death mask. “Let’s trip the light fantastic.”

A couple of engaged children took turns speaking play lines.

“I thought you’d never get here.”
“Sorry, I was delayed.”
“Obviously. Are you staying?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know, you’re such a mystery child to me.”
“You talk too much.”

Tuesday
Apr102007

Going Mobile

A cheap Mobile Ear Cleaning Phone-y money honey blasted the Asian market today to wild applause from a gallery of fools. The louder addicted talkers yell, the deeper the rich silver spoon edges out unwanted noise, rumor, gossip and useless verbiage in ear channel canals. Rotate clockwise.

People are raving. Raving with delight at high decibels. Ding-dong, ring tone your abs. Tonal quality in high definition wide scream, ear splitting credulousness recovers dusty memory blanks.

Far away in a unique reality sound bite an old woman on a bare bones pension placed a needle on an old revolutionary vinyl recording entitled, "THE LONG TALK."

It blasted down polluted rivers, over lakes, slithering into dorms where frustrated, lonely, bored college students slept, perchance to dream as wealthy rats scoured their totalitarian universe seeking high speed DSL connections, inflated currencies, cheap rice, soggy green veggies, memorized texts, abject indifference and greasy callous attitudes dancing with piles of smelly unemployed laundry.

Beggars disguised as bureau-c-rats enjoy daily competition with packs of wild savage dogs investigating ubiquitous heaps of garbage, trash, raw sewage and restaurant leftovers. One beggar got real lucky.

"Look," she yelled, "I found a Mobile Phone-y, with unlimited mileage."

"Cool," said her independent friend. "Let's yell, for help."