Author Archives: Bill Watkins

Giving Your Life to God, Not “Country”

22 Sunday Oct 2017

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Don’t die for me in “defense of
our country.”

Please live.  Defend, and live.  Put down
killing weapons, stop killing
and learning how to kill—and live.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

M-16’s are not defense weapons; they
are killing ones.

Stop lying to us and to yourselves,
talking about defense while you
train to shoot bullets into people’s
torsos on the range!

God bless us to better living; honor
and true self-defense, like that taught
by the Tao Te Ching and general
martial arts practice!

***

And p.s. to the United States of
America: Get out of foreign countries
with your guns, unless invited there
by the peace-loving United Nations…

Remember that group, founded in 1945
to end all wars?

Truman and the CIA had no time for it,
kept perpetrating cold war, sewing
distrust—creeping around in the night,
until loe and behold:

They killed John F. Kennedy for not
leaning far enough to the right!

Disgusting, but before I judge let’s all
breathe and see again the wide, well-
traveled road to destruction.

There it is.

Now choose another, as you stand before
your army recruiter.

Tell him or her that you want to serve
God and country, but not by killing
or learning to kill.

They might tell you to join the Peace
Corps.

And this poem will not change the world;

men and women will still sign up to
kill, it’s a thrill like to the opioid addict
dropping that next pill.

Oh, but there’s always that stray cat
reader; the one purring on the fence,
re-thinking for a second how we claim
to cherish “national defense…”

“But that’s really offense, not defense,”
the cat wisely surmises.

Read these lines and line up no more
to kill.

Live by the gun, die by the gun—

say no to “country” if that’s the brand of
thrill they shill.

Give your life to God and ten commandments;
on to heaven if only peace of mind—

better than the pill…

Better not to kill!

Her Lips are Sealed

21 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry

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What causes the false start,
the gunk to get caught in a pipe
before the truth sledges out—

is the same force, call it “fear,”
afflicting the alcoholic, sipping
sadly alone on his beer.

The hefty bear, wandering around
pure as snow, collecting food for
the winter before time to go…

Hibernation is not just the dream of
the hairy beast; we hide behind the
rocks of safety when called to

tell our controversial truth.  Because
we were judged or abused once, we
are twice shy, and over time we inch

back, back, then far enough back to
turn a fuzzy science project out of
your favorite pie, a prayer to the sky—

Freud in fact said that we drink flammable
liquid for our failure to honestly express
love.  Sex can be scary; intimacy so tender

and again, bring in a past abuse or rejection
and complicated is the issue to the level
of dysfunction.  We lie to protect ourselves;

We shy and seal lips to protect, and that
process has a course.  It ends when we
can with God, Good Orderly Direction, or

Some sort of Power greater than us Forgive
a hurt and learn to trust again.  We must
at some point “out” ourselves, “so why not

now” I may ask a shy one I love. But she
needs time; the flower is not physically
closed—but emotionally and/or mentally

there may be a block.  Sometimes formidable,
but with faith whole mountains can be
moved from there to here, this belief is real—

Recovery comes to those willing to be honest
and heal, “what’s the deal,” well the thing
hinges on Open minds and willingness after

you are willing to trust, let someone in,
and peel back your dress.  God is with
the first feeling, wants us to be honest about

it, but I’ll wait for you to find courage in
the walk toward Truth.  A walk that cannot
be made without the Wife of my Youth.

First wife is last, there is no other; when you
find her, it’s like the day you found God…

There is no other.

Look for Right

19 Thursday Oct 2017

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“You need to go to a doctor”
may not be true.

In fact, our needs are quite simple.

Our health drops when we ignore
real needs; replace them with fake
ones like “I need my car.”  “I need
to go to the doctor.”

You do not.

We need air, breath, food, water,
a place to sleep, basic warmth,
nourishment.

We have ways of seeing things from
dark to light, fear and worry trying to
seep through; it’s a war of attrition

to look for right.

A star in the night, which sometimes
is clouded over by clouds that do not
kill the star…

Obfuscation is the devil’s job, that
and dazzling dark with light.

We cannot yield in the fight—

We must keep looking for right!

“I have a sore back, I need to take
a drug” misses the boat that shoves
off from the shore of truth, the boat
being that Pain is the Gateway to Joy.

If you do not Feel the pain, you miss out
on the joy!

Escape! Escape! Escape!

will make you late, late, late—Jonah
in the whale of refusing God’s will.

Feel the short term pain to garner
long term gains; Father Weston went
to AA and Al-Anon, “whatever feeds you,”

and recall that by bread alone man
does not eat, so bring the words of God
along!  This trip to heaven requires the
angel call through music and voice, holler
at the devil to “Get thee behind me” while
we erect a band to fight regret, take on hate,

turn the wheel to justice in your town, take
off your suit and rake!

Yes, the dirty acts yield clean, while money
shuffling around clogs our gutters.

Clean every day!  It keeps that doctor away!

Rise up, just for today.  Take a photograph.

Pause to laugh.  Write a schedule for your
twenty-four, God above, sleep at the bottom,

fill in the rest—live your dreams!

(But go nowhere without truth. Let’s
have it right here!)

Peace is the rainbow after the rain,
the swept-clean sky.

I cannot better the feeling of what Fall
means to the 100 degrees; every song
has his or her season, mine in winter
about to end,

so I truth in you call out, the devil away,
Look for Right instead of wrong, don’t
go to “doctors” if all you do is poke
and prod at problems.

Give God or Higher Power or Something
Big that loves you its due.

Love.  Needs are these, working, loving
and playing in the snow of never-never,
always better when we smile, and thank
God just for today.

“Enough is as good as a feast,” said
Mary Poppins—wasn’t she neat.

Beat, beat, beat, strike the band—
today is enough!

Enjoying it through that pain is the
reason this poem or any endeavor
is endeavored under the sun and
moon of no more complaints…

The Beginning.

Poets Don’t Own Cars

17 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poetry

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We rent and we drive on occasion,
but lock us into payments?

Never.

The vroom vroom, powering and
speeding and smoking our way to this
and that?  The noise, the hustle?

We prefer the slow stroll, the train
ride, the bus up the cliff, the hike
mile after mile, five senses becoming
six as we know there is more…

Rooftop to rooftop we hurl headlong
into vacant doorways of hope, dash to
and from buildings of dreams, scents
and poverty bringing us out of metal
and into the sweat of failure.

We must report something and so
stomach the stench, there must be a ground
if we are to elevate.  Support comes from
loving people, we are dedicated to words
but know they are nothing compared to
what we describe,

The ultimate hope of all endeavor to
yield peace of mind, this one mine as I
deny the mechanic’s offer to ditch another
hunk at high speeds—

I take one look back at my old life as
I speed down the freeway of God’s
paradise in my wife’s fast muscle car:

I have an errand to run and I’m tired of
the walk, I’ll play this song, burn this gas
this time, but can’t wait to shed the metal

for a walk again my friend, toward the more
elegant train of rhyme.

She Wiped a Pleasure Tear

17 Tuesday Oct 2017

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She had lost her husband.

Shot and killed, the streets of
L.A. between the trash and spray.

She had gained a friend, I checked on
her every day, whenever I shopped,
and my legs brought me by her place.

I gave her flowers.  A card.  Brought a
plant for her mother-in-law, the victim’s
mother, who lived above her.

She was in her thirties, me in my
forties, me not looking for love—I had
just given up extra-marital sex of any
kind!

But heat started to play.  Her vulnerability,
my eagerness to comfort her, her fake
blonde mane—soft to my hard in L.A.
between the trash and the spray.

I told her she was attractive many times,
kissed her hair.

I hugged and she hugged back.  We held
a moment, parted but marks were left
behind like what waves do to shores,
there was a mounting vibe.

Physicality supplied.  I’d cover up if I
was modest.  I have in an honest, funny
mood brought attention to arousal, but
this time prayed about it, decided to
ignore.

She smiled at me, took off the towel
guarding her wet hair, recently showered.

She faced me, and I her.  And there was
no pretense minus need.  We were in love
without the words, but to be sure I told
her “I love you”—

as I kissed her hair again in dusty L.A.
between the trash and the spray!

It all left a tear drop she could not ignore
like my enlargement, so to be sure
not to burst and show, she took her shirt,

tucked it down to wipe the tear.

Sexuality and mourning do not fully
belong together, and so we are patient
for the year to help us transition, get jobs
and financial security, an engagement ring

and a place to propose.

But the feelings are there to start, me almost
regretting I didn’t ask her for her shirt, but
smiling ideas days later are the futile fuel
of lacking frowns, I am glad for what we had

and have, am sorry for her loss.

Excited for our potential gain, with who
knows, perhaps another year of honest
rain, rainbows, truth and innocent touches
leading to spiritual growth and pleasure
tears.

Children, all of us, reeling in the years…

Aging and Death

16 Monday Oct 2017

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We get weird, extra hair.  Moles turn
up unannounced like the relative who
scares us with their honesty.

Wrinkles and gray hair—yes, we’re on
the way, physically going back to dust,
so decide now whether to panic or not.

Western doctors are not a must, but the
way some pitch themselves, you’d never know
there was an end to white coat wisdom and clout—

You decide on surgery to shave years back,
then have a complication, because the
drug they used malfunctioned, and the cut

they made got infected.  Maybe we should
have accepted the age we were on instead
of calling God a know-it-all moron.

We can run around, detect bad things
to fix, or… ignore the bad—go on a Mary
Baker Eddy rant, an Ella Wheeler Wilcox spat,

spouting the dream to be complaint-free.

Ahhh!  Maybe gratitude is the key.

Dementia, like cancer and diabetes—a myth
of ingratitude, and not being prepared to let
your body expire with grace.

Look at your family’s face.  Let them thank you,
as they gather around your bed; in this you
realize that death itself is mythological fancy.

We are here forever in our ideas and children,
our grandchildren carrying us forth to the
next generation, and to theirs!

Pull your loved one out of strangers’ arms
if you care!  They are being turned and changed,
drugged and tamed. Then you check in

every once in a while, grimace and pay a bill.
Confront “death” and convert it to a beloved
sacrament of all who get to live here.

What It’s Like to be Suicidal

09 Monday Oct 2017

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Suicidal image1

-by Bill Watkins 10/9/2017

***

I was suicidal off and on from 1998 to 2002.

The first glitch I felt toward unhinged depression was around my 25th birthday in 1997.  Mom got me my first laptop, I liked hanging out with her, the computer was cool, but…

I was writing a very creative piece, attending many Al-Anon 12-step meetings, and more and more: I felt weird, a manic-depression settled into my life.

High in the throes of my creative projects, low afterward, with NO SCHEDULE FOR MY DAY, nor contentment at a day well-lived toward Sleep.

***

I was and am alcoholic.  I did not fully know that back then.

The suicidal bug, which came from the manic-depression bug, stemmed from my first drink of flammable alcohol on Dad’s lap when five years old.

I started drinking it with friends at age twelve, started blacking out off the substance at age thirteen.  Yes, Maradona was down in Mexico becoming a legend while I was awoken by my sister’s friends PEEING ON THEIR COUCH.  I was in a sleep-walking blackout after many beers consumed into my sub-five foot, sub-100 pound frame.

My drinking peaked at age sixteen, the false god alcohol fully worshipped in place of God, life, and being honest with the girl I loved.

None of that story went away when I started to curb back drinking Senior year of high school and into college.

I was a periodic partier, who drank and smoked pot on occasion, overdosed in the form of blackouts and pass-outs before officially overdosing on prescribed medicine in 1999 and 2000.

The OD’s came on the heels of a trip to the Bay Area from my native Southern California.  Up there I flagged down old friends, and considered jumping off the Golden State Bridge.

I stared down that jump all of one afternoon, for hours.  I finally “chickened out,” which made me more depressed, then saw an old school friend and his beautiful wife before hitting an AA meeting in town.

Within a week, I finally jumped—into the bathroom cabinet and its pills instead of into that San Francisco Bay water.

It seemed less illegal, but it hurt just the same.  My body stopped working during one of those first overdose cycles, and I called 911.

My stomach and diaphragm still don’t always work, eighteen years later, because of what I did.  I am now fifteen-plus years sober and off all medication, drugs, caffeine, soda—even sex.

I found parenting and help in God, the bible, Alcoholics Anonymous and wise friends who had recovered from insanity as well.

***

Being suicidal is scary, confusing, and groundless.

Some do mass murder before they commit suicide, some dream about it while suicidal—I myself had visions of glory’s blaze, stepping out into traffic, jumping off bridges, turning a fast-moving car into a center freeway divider.

Those are potentially homicidal acts, and so the reader should note that being suicidal has a homicidal quality—a lack of care for All life.

What kept me from a lot of those acts was a growing concept of Higher Power, a symbol of the quiet, peaceful Jesus within me.  I’d call on it when tempted, and here I am still alive, just for today!

“Suicidal” is a Motive for Mass Murder

08 Sunday Oct 2017

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Guns1

-by Bill Watkins 10/8/2017

***

I am formerly suicidal.

It is a horrible, irrational state in which to find yourself.  Bedeviled, truth is clouded, and there is an all-out fight going on for your soul.

“Suicidal” is an unfortunate but perfect motive for mass murder—a perfect storm that can lead someone into a “suicide by cop” situation, a “blaze of glory” of taking other lives down as you kill yourself.

It’s like that drowning victim, who if you’re not careful, will drown you too as they submerge.

The drowning individual must be knocked out sometimes, as I understand, to be saved by a rescuer.  Dying somehow wants company…

***

For this reason, it seems odd that people are still desperate for a “motive” in the recent Las Vegas shooting.

The shooter was suicidal; killed himself after the horrible shooting of others.  A dying suicidal guy doesn’t care!

A total loss of care in life is dangerous to the suicidal, and unfortunately can be fatal to others surrounding that person.

Citizenship Test Should be Required for High School Graduation

08 Sunday Oct 2017

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Diploma image

-by Bill Watkins 10/8/2017

***

I graduated from a very high-rated private school in Pasadena, California in 1990 a full-blown alcoholic heading for college, Phi Beta Kappa honors, division one sports and two drug overdoses.

A straight-A MVP drunk, incapable of intimate relationships, love and ignorant of the Law.

In fact, I routinely broke the law, at times with the attitude of entitlement that comes with being a member of a family that had money.

“What do I need with the law?  I’m a member of a country club!”

***

It’s easy to get off point here, and talk about the trappings of perceived social “class.”  Education-wise, the answer I have for rich and poor, as they journey through grades K through 12 merely adds to my last article and thought—extends from it naturally.

The only required course in all of our schooling should be Law.  Civics grows from that, and from a course and value on civics:

Citizenship.

No student should be eligible to receive a High School diploma without first demonstrating a suitable level of Citizenship.

I’m not referring to a few hours of “community service.”

I am talking about a fundamental respect for and knowledge of our nation’s laws, state statutes and even local regulations.

A willingness to be a legal member of society is more important that College.

“College,” in fact, can be a false god, the great “cure-all” sold to the young and their families.  “If you just get into the right college, all will be great.”

Hogwash.  Wherever you go, there you are.

It doesn’t help you or your college to arrive there with illegal views and practices.

***

A test should be developed.  One to test a high school senior of their law knowledge, and their assertiveness at stating their allegiance to it and our country.

Tack that on to Community Service requirements already in place, perhaps throw in an Interview with school administrators.

The interview would be an oral test to see if the child in question was worthy of a high school diploma, beyond grades received and standard extra-curricular story points.

The idea is to put more meaning into that Diploma; to make it a tougher thing to acquire.

To tell employers and college admissions staff that a young student or prospective employee has undergone great scrutiny, succeeded, and is in possession of a great Proof of Citizenship.

Teaching Law and Civics in Lower Schools

07 Saturday Oct 2017

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Law Image

-by Bill Watkins 10/7/2017

***

The only required course in all of our schooling should be Law.

To pass on law, and make it the study only of lawyers and police officers, is to keep a majority of citizens blind to what governs them.

Ignorance in law is a temporary bliss, fine in the bubble until it bursts…

Private schools and country clubs think Law may be a silly study, as money brings in a false sense of entitlement.  “As long as we are well-mannered and respectful, that’s enough…”

Public schools are set often in the middle of litter-filled, noisy squalor, and “that is what we know, let’s just get our ABC’s and 123’s!”

***

We can do better.  Strive higher.

We need Law in our schools; I have taught it to children as young as five years old. Children love numbers and codes, start with:

California Penal Code 374:

Don’t Litter.

CPC 240:

Don’t Assault.

CPC 422:

Don’t Threaten.

There’s Vehicle Code for wearing safety helmets when riding wheeled devices; kids should be brought up knowing as many codes as possible, starting with the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights!

A great high school course could be made of Friedman’s History of American Law, a very readable text that could lead to many discussions.  “Is that a good law?”  “Why or why not?”  Discussions that lead to full civics reviews, field trips to City Council meetings, projects for writing councilmen and women, state representatives, Congress and the President.

Be a part of this world, not ignorant sheep, waiting for the law experts to manipulate you their way!

A good course in law and civics, schools inserting legal language into their credo’s and mission statements, are actions that will lead to the graduation of better citizens.

In fact, my next article will expound on the need for high school students to pass a Citizenship Test before being eligible to receive a diploma.