Saturday, April 30, 2011

BLOOD DIAMONDS

I met a man in the parking lot
sitting in his parked car
he told me stories
talked of his life
his death
he's died more than once
showed me his scars
bullets, entered here
cut out there

He showed me pictures
child soldiers
a village of burned bodies
children, charred
skin peeling away from their fragile frames
and mud
digging in the mud
men, boys, next to each other
next to other men and boys,
dead
covered in mud
naked
mud on their eyes
in their ears
on their penises
but still digging, the men and boys
looking for diamonds,
its the only way to stay alive,
digging, all day
you stop, they shoot
digging
maybe a mango for lunch
well, breakfast, lunch and dinner,
the same
green, not ripe

Maybe your best friend,
he finds a diamond
puts it in his pocket
or maybe mouth, safer
thinks he'll run,
buy his way away
free
winks, makes a sign like "shh"
you look away, scared
digging, digging

Then it's there,
the barrel at your head
then a gun is in your hand
you look up to see your friend
gun at his head
shaking his head, no, no
they're yelling at you,
kill him, shoot him
he is a cheater, a liar,
he must die
you saw him take a diamond
shoot him
or we shoot you both
now

You don't even care
dying
you've been dead before
your family is dead
you saw them shot
you were dragged away
to the rebel camp
in the cold jungle
what is it to die?
better
it doesn't matter

But you pull the trigger anyway
they kick his body in a ditch
in the mud
kick you in, too
dig

You dig
around your dead best friend
no tears
no feeling
just keep digging
that's all

He tells me,
looking at the green field
at students, playing
volleyball
soccer
running
I cry, he says
to look at this

You don't know what you have here
they say this boy is twelve,
he shoves a picture at me
look, is he twelve?
no, he is just a boy
the caption says the boy's name, 12, in Congo
fighting with Rebel forces
he shoulders an AK-47
peering into the distance
they are ten dollars there, he says
he is talking about the guns
people here, they say they like to shoot
I laugh
you like to shoot?
I'll take you to a place
where you can shoot
free guns, free bullets
shoot whatever you want
see if you like it
like to shoot

I cry, he says
people, they don't know
they wear diamonds
bling
and black people!
they have no idea
some don't care
they wear it anyway

But it's blood
those diamonds
they buy

they are blood diamonds.


© lindsy r. glick 2011

Saturday, April 23, 2011

the best use for business cards

So sometimes while at work I get little Ideas and I scribble them down on little scraps of paper, or my business cards, since I don't really give them out to anyone, anyway... They're usually little phrases, or ideas to expound upon later (which never happens), or short poems, something related to the music I'm listening to at the moment, and sometimes utterly invented. They've been floating around my purse, and in order to get rid of the clutter, I'm going to just type them up here, and throw away my little paper scraps.

* 'Round here, the wind blows so strong you turn 'round and look the other way. 'Round here you've got to stand up straight, and walk into the wind. If you don't you end up facing away, missing life, blowing by. 'Round here you've gotta look the wind in the eye.

* "I pledge my life to the World of Disbelief, where I belong." -Sum 41, "Walking Disaster"

* -pdf's, doc/docx, problem loading flash, 15" screen, shadows telling time on windowsill

* The Ballad of the Desert and the Sea...

* Opposites attract -> but what happens when there's a barrier between us?
Miss you, but can't live with you... meant always to be apart.

* to go out walking, in the sun
to go out walking, without shoes
to go out walking, anywhere with you
walking in my sleep, walking in my dreams
wake up, and you're not walking anywhere with me

* I Can't Believe I Bought a Lint-roller, and Other Corporate Sell-out Stories [Hehe, this one I actually want to make into a children's book; it would scare children into following their dreams. haha!]

Monday, April 11, 2011

Behold! I have found my vocation

in the midst of a (very good) introduction to Smoke and Mirrors, a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman. And it goes like this, "...I wondered about where stories came from. This is the kind of thing that you wonder about when you make things up for a living. I remain unconvinced that this is the kind of activity that is a fit occupation for an adult, but it's too late now: I seem to have a career that I enjoy which doesn't involve getting up too early in the morning. (When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far it seems to involve lots of foreign travel* and not having to get up too early in the morning.)"

Ha! Perfect! Making things up, foreign travel, *eating delicious toast and drinking good coffee in the mornings, and not getting up to early in the morning! I added that bit about the toast and coffee, because I think it's a good one, and clearly fits with the rest of the job description. Besides, I already do said ritual on a nearly quotidian basis, so I'm part way there already!

But really, I do think I would love to write... now I just have to figure out how to somehow "become a writer" because, uh, it doesn't seem the sort of profession that one just applies for, generally... (And yes, I realize that if I actually have even semi-serious ambitions regarding writing I should, probably, write a lot more in general. Even here, blogging, because I clearly have not been prolific of late. Hmm...

In other life-vision-related news, last month I also had a flash of vocational inspiration and applied to Doctors without Borders. I thought just maybe my handy skills (um... Spanish? and, uh, construction and radio communication? I tried...) would be just what they needed in some lovely "underdeveloped" country in Latin America or something. It was a good thought, and really, it seems about perfect... but apparently they don't need me, at least not now. Hmph. Maybe I should study something medicine related?

So many options...

But before I do something crazy like go back to school (ugh) I want to be pretty sure that I want to do X thing for more than a few months/years.

And right now...

I'm still feeling pretty gypsy.

So maybe I should make more things up, do lots of foreign travel, and not get up too early in the morning. (¡¿Right?!)