I’ve walked around a dead
city in search of what you
claimed love was. You spoke of it in skies, flowers,
laughing children. I believed you and
I committed my days of solace
to a wild goose chase.
Thus far, the love you’ve told tales
about hasn’t jumped out and surprised
me. It’s hidden in a vacuum of a dark
alley inside a trash can or under my
sneaker, I don’t know, but I’m keeping
my eyes peeled.
I asked for directions and I
got the run around. This love
is as allusive as the moon
on this black night
So thanks for nothing
I’m driving out of this one
horse town
In search of something more tangible
Lost In A State of Disbelief
http://seehowitfits.blogspot.com/2007/11/lost-in-state-of-disbelief.html
Don't be angry. Settle quietly. You can never get the world the way you want, children consume every last pocket of your private space, eat your possessions, put your life on hold. He clarified his own time, his own space, his own darkness. He tried to warm himself by the fire, and old bones ached. What a strange place to end up. He was covered in darkness and confusion, and didn't expect to have to make it through another grade. He was lost, entirely lost, but his irritation at the way things were motivated him, pushing things forward.
Our heart is splintered, split somewhere between the heart of the city and the heart of the country, a bustling matron who wants life again, who wants to see the chook pen full and the chokos climbing over the water tank, who wants her house to be the best house in the area once again. Haunted by other personas, it had ever been thus. The sixth Australian soldier has died and been buried since I've been off in the country, and upset patterns churn around in chaos. Back in Redfern, back in the heart of chaos, his lungs ached and he could hear the constant arguing down the block, as they squabbled like feverish, drunken hens, over what he could never tell.
These sounds, the traffic outside the door, the car that drives past at half past four every morning, as he struggles to wake up. The infamous life. The dazzled gaze of glamour, as they twitched their faces at a long forgotten party, as they learnt to be more than themselves, as the city was swept up in an astonishing optimism. Thousands of pilgrims have slept the night at Randwick racecourse. All your doing. All your mistakes. You should have been stronger. You should have embraced belief; been confined, looked upwards. Instead he found a scared place in the country, and became slave to a house that wanted to be restored, which once more wanted to be the best house in the village.
You could win the lottery, that would change everything. Cheap, capitalist dreams. They denounce as Neanderthals anyone who doesn't believe as they do. They come crumbling and tumbling through the side fence, the grandchildren that are coming. He forgot to put a space between the words. They fought and died on the edge of dead roads, amidst the drifts of sand, the turbaned shadows disappearing before they had time to retaliate. There wasn't any sure way to reconcile what had happened. Flashes of explosives. Mourning families. Geopolitical debate.
And all of it led where, to rationalisation, to crumbling defeat, to the search for security in far off places, in remote parts of the country where no one could find him, where clarity was pursued, where bad habits died hard and he was as out of sync as the day he blundered through the shrubbery wall in an inelegant, urgent need to escape a party, desperate to flee the drinkers he could no longer relate to. Glowing in self-confidence, in the security of their high moral ground, they could only sneer at the human wreckage before them.
He could be crinkled up and thrown into the wind like an old piece of paper, A4, just crumpled up and tossed and that was it; folded in in a moment and thrown up into the whipping wind, to disappear in a second what had taken a lifetime to build. He had always thought the memories would come flooding back, there would be no need to take notes, everything was so vivid, he was so naturally clever, but it didn't work that way and one day he stepped across the line, neglected his own care once too often, and was whipped away in the wind. Humble temples dotted the glowing horizon, little bigger than tents. Soldiers prepared for a dawn raid. Their presence shocked him, even now. Why not run back to the farm, back to the security of quiet mornings, the cluck of the hens. Instead they checked their weapons, and pretended they were not afraid to die.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/20/2308684.htm
Organisers of World Youth Day events in Sydney are expecting their biggest crowd yet at today's outdoor mass.
The final mass of World Youth Day celebrations is expected to attract a crowd of 500,000 across Randwick Racecourse and Centennial Park.
Priority access to viewing areas will be given to pilgrims but about 50,000 members of the public will also be allowed into the racecourse.
Pope Benedict XVI will fly over Randwick and Centennial Park in a helicopter from 9.00am and then move through the area in the Popemobile.
He will preside over an outdoor mass from 10.00am until midday and large television screens will be set up.
Millions of people around the world are expected to watch the mass on television.
The mass will be followed by entertainment from 12.30.
After the mass, the Pope will announce the next city to host an international World Youth Day in two or three years.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i93McMPYxNe5I5luHeUstklGV2RgD9214P6G0
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Visits with U.S. troops and Afghan officials in a war-weary region marked Barack Obama's first day in Afghanistan, the focal point of his proposed strategy for dealing with threats to the U.S. if elected president.
While officially a part of a congressional delegation on a fact-finding tour expected to take him to Iraq, Obama was traveling Saturday amid the publicity and scrutiny accorded a likely Democratic nominee for president rather than a senator from Illinois. Security was tight and media access to Obama was limited by his campaign, and his itinerary in the war zones was a closely guarded secret.
Obama, dressed in light khaki colored trousers and a checkered shirt with his sleeves rolled up, and others in the delegation received a briefing inside the U.S. base in Jalalabad from the Afghan provincial governor of Nangarhar, Gul Agha Sherzai, a no-nonsense, bullish former warlord.
"Obama promised us that if he becomes a president in the future, he will support and help Afghanistan not only in its security sector but also in reconstruction, development and economic sector," Sherzai told The Associated Press.
The area where the meeting took place is not far from where Osama bin Laden escaped U.S. troops in 2001 after his al-Qaida terrorist group led the attacks on Sept. 11. With the ousted Taliban regime resurgent and given the al-Qaida goal of terrorizing the U.S., Obama has argued that the war in Afghanistan deserves more attention as well as more troops.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/a-brave-australian-son-laid-to-rest/2008/07/18/1216163156812.html
TEN days after Signalman Sean Patrick McCarthy fell in a desolate, faraway land, his family, friends and comrades gathered yesterday to farewell him at home.
Born in New Zealand, the soldier spent seven years proudly serving his adopted homeland, before an improvised roadside bomb took his life while on patrol in troubled southern Afghanistan.
It was his second tour of duty there, split by a stint in East Timor. The bombers, probably the Taliban, made it his last.
The McCarthy family - his parents Dave and Mary, his sisters Leigh and Clare - have said Sean Patrick loved his middle name, and he loved his job. He found a career he was passionate about.
The 25-year-old is the sixth Australian to have died serving in Afghanistan, and the second this year. Just last month,
he was commended for his actions during his first tour. At the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church on the Gold Coast yesterday, the army showed its respect.
The flag-draped casket arrived on a gun carriage, topped with a slouch hat, flowers and a card which read: "A brave and determined man with a heart of gold, we love you and miss you already Seano. Thanks for the good times our friend and hero."
A piper played as members of his Special Air Service regiment carried the coffin.
Hundreds had come, to say goodbye and to pay their respects. The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, were there. So too was the Chief of Army, Lieutenant-General Ken Gillespie.
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