Really

Dedicated to the trapped in lies...May they be free of their ideas and find the truth.

What do you love
Is it an idea
Born in the past
Beaten upon the anvil of Should Be
Tested in relationships
Failing again, again, and again
Should Be is a demon
Lurking underground
Dressed as lover
Eyes flashing
Drawing you in
Closer, closer
Kiss as soft as rose petals
The Dream so wonderful
Soft feathers and bliss pie
The comfort is colossal
Easy chair of infinity
Sitting back
So simple to ignore reality
Loving the IDEA
Can look past the black eye
The mind game
The open flame
Past the sleepless nights
Past the scent of another
Holding on to Fantasy Island with a death grip
Can't open the lids of shuttered eyes
for the blackness is everywhere
Gotta imagine
MTV lighting the inner mind with
Snapshots of cool hip cool
Fool
Love is Real
Really real
Not an IDEA..thought...belief
Love is not a Will-'O-Wisp
Spinning just out of reach
Only the exalted getting to
Touch, touch touch it
How many nights clutching yourself
Wrapped in pain
Tears falling streams from endless inner springs to splash in an ever widening pool of want
How many days searching vast deserts
Hot burning yearning for just a taste of healing water
How long before you leave the Captor
Hearts can only be imprisoned by wanting
Wanting so much that reality disappears
and is Replaced with the narcotic of denial
Time to reach into the courage
Formed and forever down past the failure and
Rise, rise, rise and
Start living the truth
IDEAS are wife-beaters, pimps and salesmen
LOVE is real
Really

Copyright 2003 Harry R. Fagel

Giving What For?

Ok...I haven't been posting enough to this site lately..DAMN. But I'm trying really to do it. I have a seriously busy life like everyone else so that's my shitty, useless excuse. Good news tho'
My son started his first day of Kindergarten today. He was incredibly excited and it was pure cool.
Other than that I'm just a dieting and working out and working fool. New poetry coming soon.

Dick

"If you had had as big a dick as you were acting like, I would have been happy..."

-L.F. My wife after a discussion about my jerky behavior...ha ha.-H.F.

Behind

Just a quick blog....I haven't said much because I have been so busy I just have not had time to update the site as much as I would like to. However I will commit that I am going to try harder. For those in the world follwoing the diet, work out regime:
I am up to 400 crunches. I am down to 258.5 pounds. The personal challenge continues....

P.S. I will be featuring as Barry Dingle on September 30th at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Maryland Parkway....
It will be mucho fun (I hope) so be there if boredom is your monkey. 7 PM

Law Suit

“Welcome to McSues-you, may I take your order?” I can’t help but envision a day when we can order law suits at drive through windows, on the internet, by phone, with gift certificates and maybe even at the airport or bowling alley for convenience. And while it may be the bread and butter of the ever increasing army of attorneys populating our planet, at a minimum it’s a strange reflection of the way we increasingly solve our day to day problems; with advocacy. Watching the ABC news show Dateline two years ago I was struck by the interesting image of a yellow rental truck carrying precious ballots ( like gold ingots destined for a Kings empire) traveling across the great state of Florida with (and I quote) “Attorneys riding shotgun”. Wow. Visions of dusty lands and the wild west assaulted my mind as I imagined a saloon full of whiskey hardened cowpokes and a tinny piano playing parlor music suddenly stopping all action at the sight of a penslingin' brief filin' attache wieldin' lawyer, clad in an immaculate tailored suit and modest tie, busting through the batwing doors and throwing his briefcase on the bar top. “Someone’s gonna git sued” whispers all around.
The pen is mightier than the sword has taken on a whole new meaning in these litigious times. People talk about lawsuits in every aspect of their lives. From the very common auto accident personal injury types, through a myriad of the unexpected, more sensational types. We hear at the job about the rights of our “working environment” our labor rights, the importance of not talking about uncomfortable subjects that might offend various classes of people, the trend of sexual harassment litigation and hiring practices controlled more and more by filtering out potential trouble makers right at the start to avoid “costly court battles” later. At home we fear suits from neighbors for property encroachment, or if their kids get hurt at our houses. We know if we get divorced it's likely there will be “violent” legal maneuvering to obtain goods and children. We send our kids to school, hoping they don’t hit another kid lest the parents sue, not to mention the schools fear as well.
The overwhelming result of all this legal action has accomplished two things as I see it. One, there is a viable alternative for people who need to solve problems, and law suits have become somewhat of a panacea for solving every single issue that humans have.
Two, there is a general state of fear that one will be sued. This fear is a powerful force right now, that I believe motivates us all in some fashion. I can't help but wonder though, what the long term outcome will be. I profess that perhaps we will become desensitized and disenfranchised by the sheer multitude of suits. I envision a day when courts will tire of the frivolity in many of these maneuvering tactics, and maybe lawsuits will lose their power.
We seem to get farther and farther away from dealing with issues on our own, between people. More and more we involve advocates to solve these problems. Perhaps this is also lessening our social and interactive skills. There was a time when the first response to someone wronging you in some fashion was to talk to them. Learn what they had to say and perhaps (imagine this) come to some type of viable conclusion. Law suits were the exception, rather than the rule. I have seen people use the police the same way. Rather than ask a neighbor to turn down their music, they just call the police. Rather than dealing with their kids problems, they call the police. And more and more (to the delight of lawyers, I’m sure) they call an attorney. We rely more and more on others to make every single decision for us, giving up our own empowerment (and money, too) to others to solve our problems for us.
This does not lead to personal success in my opinion. I will agree that there is a time and need for legal experts to help us with the crafting of important documents, and to represent us when we are in trouble with the law, and to help write those laws. However, we need to try and get back to basics. Things like taking responsibility for our own actions, being reasonably aware that our world is a dangerous place, and having personal integrity. If we sue someone, we must realize that it has an enormous impact on that person, their family, and often times on their entire way of life. Law suits are not short term issues either. They usually drag on for a considerable amount of time, often sending a person into depression. I am not saying there is no place for suits in the world. After all, lawsuits have brought about many positive changes, such as safer cars and better public awareness of potentially dangerous situations. I just think that the pendulum has swung too far to the extreme, and we peel away some of our own humanity by making suing someone our first and only way to deal with a problem.
This is the product of being a civilized culture, I imagine. Instead of punching someone in the nose, you can file a motion to smack them in the pocket. If someone pisses me off, I will call my friend to drag that someone into court. We will argue our case before a “neutral” third party and I will pace back and forth during deliberation. In the worst case, I will lose, and will be out some legal fees. In the best case, I will score a jackpot and get money and perhaps humiliate that someone. And of course in doing that I feed the system, paving the way for more of the same. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if maybe the punch in the nose was far less trouble in the long run.

King Money

...A side note...some good people actually took up a collection and gave me the money I lost....so Karma karma karma

I couldn't believe it
Money lost again
Jumping out of my pocket like some evil imp to
lay on the ground
Sitting in the parking lot
Laughing as I walked away
Somehow money is sentient
It's in tune with humans
It knows it's own power
People say that it is just a piece of paper
Then kill for it
Lie for it
Steal for it
Give up all for it
So I don’t know about that paper theory
A kind hearted stranger found my money
Moments later and searched for the owner
Me
But instead found someone else
Who lied and stole it
That was bad enough
My reaction was worse
Vile expletives burst from me like
Pustules of hate
A sarcoma of negativity
A litany of down sliding emotion
20 heads turned to listen and they too
were infected with my anger
All for paper
All for nothing
I know that there could be something good from this
Maybe a 70 dollar lesson
That was cheap enough to remind me
To maintain my own goodness
In the sometimes seas of shit

Copyright 2003 Harry R. Fagel

Killer

You know you have done it
Thought of murder
Maybe the guy you saw on t.v. who molested his eight kids
You thought of killin'
Or maybe the ass who had the audacity to cut you off in traffic
He could use a lead pipe
Wrapped around his brain stem
How about the neighbor who cuts his lawn and lets the clippins' drift
Endlessly onto your fresh as a just washed fancy linen napkin driveway
Green cliplets just pilin' up clutterin' up the place making grass stains that even
Ultra fancy cleansers won't eliminate
You see him
Cleaved in two
By the same lawn mower blade
Your teachers, policemen, journalists, priests, friends and foe and even your wife and
Gulp
Even your children have stepped into the cold rigid sights of your inner sniper rifle if for even
The briefest moment when thoughts flash like lightning and leave a guilt smear in the brain pan
Of course you go on
Living your life
Happy
These are minor occurrences
Normal even
Part of humanity
Beasts of visualization that we are
And tamers of chaos that we try to be and mostly succeed and
We are happy
So I still can’t get my mind around
The people who don’t just think about it
They kill
And sadness is their banner
It always ends in tragedy
Truly no one wins and even the small people like me suffer
Watching the survivors cry
Watching the murderers cry
It's all a river of tears
That carries sanity on broken logs down the rapids
To an ocean of pain
So I just don't understand
So I just won't understand
Thoughts are not killers but some
People are

Copyright 2003 Harry R. Fagel ARR

Day 9

OK....
Bis/tris
25 minutes bike
250 crunches

Day 8

Well it's the start of week two.
Shoulders
22 minutes revolving stairs
200 crunches.

Jaywalker

Reprinted from "Street Talk" published by Zeitgeist Press 1999

Like Pond bugs
Skimmin'
Across a Black Lagoon
The Jaywalkers Dance on
Maryland Parkway
Matadors in black clothes
Swishin at the furiously passing cars
Whose honks are like elephants
Farting
Loud and Rude and Often
Cars are like cave bats blind and
Hungry and seeking sustenance from the
Teeming insects that swirl and whoop in the
Darkness
The Jaywalkers mission is simple mostly
To score a forty ounce bliss bottle from the
7-11 and to get away from the crack house
heat and 7 kid stink that
Permeates the cheap apartment that serves as