Gun Violence in the Twin Cities out of control; Politicians and local leaders want more meetings…#fail

By Don Allen

Two people dies yesterday from gunshot wounds suffered over the weekend. The city is in chaos. Local leaders want to have more meetings to talk about the senseless violence and untimely deaths of people who in some cases will never have the opportunity to be a father or mother; or see the evolution of life unfold before their eyes.

More meetings. A friend of mine, author Tim Wise said, “Conversations hardly ever result in actions.” There are some who want to study the black animals in the Twin Cities who kill by weapon. Some leaders abandoned facts and rationale thinking in order to start Soul Patrols. A soul-patrol to address youth death and violence in the Twin Cities? How about a patrol to address youth opportunity? Nobody thinks like than anymore.

Yesterday a huge fight broke out at a church in north Minneapolis during a funeral. Knives, police and the mortician confused on how a day of death people could fight in the street.

Politicians who are born to believe in war have started a war on young, unemployed and poor youth, who search for something that cannot just appear out of thin air.  

Maybe if these kids had a job?

Maybe if these kids had a better education?

Maybe if these kid’s parents were able to show them what a hard days work and the payment looks like? Nobody thinks like that anymore.

That’s what cracks me up.

His first kiss...

(photo: random photo - not Sweet Thing)

He kissed her; in her mouth; on her lips - where she spoke from. It made her his girlfriend. “Sweet-thing,” her nick name; a 15 year-old former prostitute who found religion and ended up right in front of him, in the same church, willing to give an offering to a lucky fella, although luck had nothing to do with Sweet Thing's juices.

He did not notice or understand.

The kiss on Sweet thing’s mouth did not have any meaning for her. It was just another kiss from a man, a boy; men had already fucked her, she, Sweet Thing. What could a boy in the church offer her? It was dusk, right after hot summer Sunday night church service. The Holy Ghost had not left the building. Traffic zooming by on the freeway drowned out the conversations of church members socializing outside the big stone alters on the cool sidewalk. A world within a world; created it was; for him that night, a virgin of the first kiss, lie and eternal ignorance.

He did not notice or understand.

The naïve man-child hunting prematurely for something to put his penis in other than one-hand while the other hand held the cold uncaring Penthouse magazine. “Splush.” The city lights from downtown started to light up the skyline. The church mother’s kept a keen eye on Sweet Thing. Her tight dress clinging to her shapely ass; a body with perfect teardrop breasts; and skin that glowed and her walk, a sexual manifestation that set off ten-alarm fires of, “fuck me if you can,” made the old deacons watch her closely, wanting to take her in the back room of the church and lift her dress and feel the taboo heat she was so willing to share in the most sacred place, including a van parked around the corner. Some female church members too searched on how to taste the red lipstick on her lips and be close enough to see the blue eyeliner surrounding the eyes of this worldly creature. At 16, his first kiss was from someone who knew what happens next; the order of things to come; and come again - because he did not.

He did not notice or understand.

A church musician, a good boy; a straight a student was ready for that feeling his friends talked about behind closed doors. She played the game of first kiss like a Wordsmith writing a sonnet; 13 lines with meaning, if you can find it. He whispered to her; she smiled while looking at the church drummer.

He did not notice or understand. 

Ode to the North Side

Better signage...

Those boys don’t work; those boy can’t cope. Wearing their jeans down around their butt, a white man knows they will not make the cut. Those boys smoke dope; those boys make plans, but when the munchies come there is no hope; looking at refrigerators empty, cabinets naked, a life of crime might work, they just take it. These boys shoot; at houses, at cars and at people; a 3-year-old was buried in the steeple.  Those boys don’t have a father; those boys don’t have zilch. Those boys are lost, forgotten and nothing. God, the city, county and state cannot save those boys. SMH, Those boys. Keep hope alive? Those boys were the hope that died.

Tautology: Happy

Dedicated to my wife and sons.

The boys; my boys.

You find me happy; a condition that lives with me, happy to be alive, happy to breath, happy to have two boys (sons), who are happy and a wife that calls me her “honey-doo.” Life is good when it’s happy; happy is good when it’s a part of your life.

Listening carefully, I hear the voice of my mother; the voices of my father; the voice of my uncles; the voice of people I do not know who need something I do not have, but voices calling that make it apparent I can get what the voices need. Listening, I hear the voices of the mothers and their children on the bus stops on a hot summer day or a cold winter night asking why me; what did I do wrong in my timeline to not be in a cool car or have my own warm ride? The babies call, sad, crying, hungry, some dying with the flying bullets from people who will not listen to the graves of last years past.

Life makes me presents; a present that is not a gift, a present in the here and now; the today and tomorrow, this year and next year – not promised, but hoped for. Working hard everyday to make sure my to boys see the way is worth the pain, worth the trouble, because when I look into their eyes, its Daddy’s body double.

MAP

I look at a map of the universe I see a galaxy filled with stars and burning bright balls of fire moving at speeds that cannot be measured; Congregations of rocks, ice cold frozen together unable to break away from in the fringed interior of intergalactic mayhem. A tail; a tail of rocks shooting across my stern, scorching the whiskers on my beard; the sound of nothingness looking at time move slanted, rearward, onward and motionless. I am only an onlooker traveling in a time vortex protected by wormholes that dance with new openings and celebrate the mysterious deliveries and intentions for new and great possibilities.  I was here when he created that special place, moving, shifting, molding and mining a place for air, water and life. I was here when he said, “it is good.” My ship rested beside him when he slumbered on his final creation.

MAP