Jim Needler and His Pretty Good Band

Broken Tho’ts for a Monday Morning   

This morning I’ve gotten the report that the National Guard has killed someone. The streets are too dangerous so we take to the streets. Take down the fuck signs, please, the haranguing tirades. Someone will shoot you just to shut you up. The sweet potato has sprouted thru’ the ground & I have pepper seeds late demanding to be planted.   

Go away & come back, grieve & keep talking. Say what you think, say what you feel then stop & listen, encourage your friends to speak & your enemies. You’ll hear fear & anger, embarrassment, desire & sense. You may even hear of the way to move in reality. The way to preserve the land of breathing creatures. Unless you intend to provoke a fight. Everyone likes a good fight.   

(Men w/ tall hats on horses w/ swords cutting down protesters in a cull de sac like wheat; machine guns on roof tops; tanks in the street.) Carry off that screaming woman. Her rage has been well noted, baffling the frightened guard. Get rid of those fuck-the-cops signs unless you want to get shot; want mortar rounds dropping into your neighborhood. Let the apocalypse be a revelation.   

What we want is communication; confront & listen & work out the changes. The police depend on each other in chaotic brutal terrifying situations; charged w/ making the place safe for conversation, they protect each other & we give them guns & clubs. This too often gives them an attitude. Too often they become scarred, furious people w/ guns & a license to kill. And, then, they have to be removed; taken to a safe, quiet place where they can possibly become human again.   

The city is a war zone every day. Listen, follow instructions; there is one, a united one, higher than the oppressor; the produce of the earth belongs to everyone. Even the president & the C.E.O. depend upon the field – the field of lentils & rice, corn & beans, squash & cucumbers, greens & tomatoes – green ones & red ones, yellow ones too. Be careful that what you do will help feed the people.   

I suppose there are many who have their guns ready & may be going out this morning for more ammunition. Jesus said to die. He said to give away all you have. He said, follow me. He said, watch & ask – plead. He said to everyone, pay attention & get to work. The produce is coming in. (Monday, June 1, AD 2020) 

Maybe Not This Time  

When I woke this morning from a locker room where I couldn’t find my shoe & the one I had on, probably not mine, I tho’t I heard helicopters like Nostradamus stepping out into a vision. Outside it was only the morning traffic headed for work; a good sign & pleasant again like waves roaring in from the ocean. Sirens then too. No report yet on how things went last night. My neighbor who had been among the protesters every day told me she expected it to be rough.  

So, I tuned in again just after five p.m. to Nick P’s live stream from the front lines where the protesters had gathered preparing to walk, preparing to chant, You Can’t Stop the Revolution when three police came among them bareheaded & faces uncovered; two black men & a white woman. They came w/ left hands on belts, right hands outstretched to meet what appeared to be the point leaders of the protest who looked confused for a moment but quickly accepted the hand & knelt w/ them there on the pavement in the evening sun.  

They prayed & talked & listened to each other. No weapons visible. There was a woman who wanted to continue yelling, not ready for any kind of reconciliation but she was soon gone from the picture. Someone complained that this was just P. R. by the cops but I don’t care. Conversation is good no matter the reason.  

The conversation went on for several minutes & ended w/ embraces & the march began; first one way that was blocked by the usual police line then another, first waiting for the light to change, the honking cheerful cars to pass.  

Yes, there are good cops; men & women of compassion & courage there to serve & protect, trained in de-escalation. I don’t know many police personally. The ones I do know, I trust as I would any friend. Maybe the scenarios from history won’t repeat themselves here. Maybe the beast won’t overcome us this time.  

Still I am concerned. The virus certainly doesn’t care & there may be others. (June 2 AD 2020)    

Our Father

Our father, strength of the sky
In hope that your reputation be kept clean,
Your movement noted, your pleasure accomplished 
On the ground as it is in the sky;
See that everyone has enough to eat today
And pick us up, put us back to work
As we have done for everyone in our way
Don't take us off into deep water to see what we will do
But snatch us away from disaster & rot