A Picture Worth 719 Words

I saw the tweet . . .

Tweet from MoveOn.org(@MoveOn)

What's Wrong With Wall Street And Today's GOP In One Picture
#OccupyWallStreet http://t.co/H5JCXjet

and mildly curious as to what graphic would be used to depict the odiousness of Wall Street this time.

It is not the picture I was expecting . . . but I would affirm is very much appropriate.

I looked at that man. As a human being. As a man. Except for differences in physical condition, he could be me, I could be him.

He too longs to be wanted. To be needed. To be loved. To receive, the love of another.

To give of himself, of his love. Too. To know how that matters to another. That he matters to another.

I look at his eyes. So piercing. So intent. So wanting. The expression of grit determination pursed on his lips. His determination as a fighter, flaunted for anyone to perceive who dares to look.

His hands. Emaciated. None the less, functional. And the tips of his fingers. Sensitive? Sensuous?

Is there someone in his life who is exhilarated to feel the tips of his fingers. A woman? A man? Is there someone who holds his hands. Warms them. Massages, so very carefully and gently, fragrant moisturizing cream into his hands. His arms. His back. His buns. His legs.

Those little blue canvas shoes. What do they conceal? The stretched tautness of pale naked sensuous skin. Who last massaged those feet? Who last pressed them close to their face? Let him feel the warmth of a face through the coldness, dryness, of the soles of his feet.

I look at the tautness of denim-covered butt up over his right shoulder. Who has massaged the tautness of those amply confined cheeks? And the hands above the young man's head. What? Who? How? Have they touched. With an expression of love. And compare them to the gauntness of this man's butt. Possible with the makings of ulcers when bone wares holes in skin because of butt cheek padding emaciated away.

I glance back at the young man.

Can he maneuver the transfer from chair to toilet himself? Is there any way near the strength in his upper body to do that. When he hugs, surely he hugs, can the person he hugs feel strength in that hug?

Can he transfer himself from out of and into his bed? If he needs assistance, is this with the coordination of the one he loves and who loves him, or some custodial obligation contractually performed by the hourly on duty.

Does he sleep alone? Not only physically by himself, but alone in his dreams. Is he very alone sans soul-mate sharing? Does someone, is there someone, to hold him in the night when he feels the most vulnerable?

Who replaces that swathe of neck support with a face of wet lips to cuddle and to nuzzle the sensuousness of his neck, and that little special place behind his ear?

Who is there that receives that reciprocal intimacy from him? To feel the sadness in his face.

Has he experienced the sharing of his penis with another? Had his testicles cradled and fondled with warm hands. Had a finger make little swirls and curls in the pubic hair encircling his manhood. Let the tip of a tongue tantalize the tip of a nipple. Bury a face into his pits. Lick him. Kiss him. Taste him. Eat him. Bring his frail body to a peak of fulfillment. And receive the sharing with the taking of turns. Did he experience wholeness? Fulfillment? Did he realize his own joy of being fully capable to fulfill the requisite sexual need of another? And complete his sense of value and dignity as a person by melding in these primal ways.

Of course. How stupid, how delusional of me.

He has mutual reciprocity in everything in life that matters with his partner. It is so fulfilling. So rewarding. The touch is pervasive and overwhelming. The intimacy is beyond imagination. His very existence is testimony of the benevolence of their love.

For his partner is Wall Street.

It is, after all, a person now.

A person that is the best our fascist government money can buy.

Why would he think he needs to carry a sign like that?

The Refectory Manager

Purpose-Driven Sound

The sound of The Silence granted permission to listen.

Not the damn ringing in my ears. That is just white noise vouching for old circuitry in the head. Or like how the random snowflakes, sparking on the screen of the old Motorola, vouch for the old circuitry of the Big Bang.

But to listen.

To the burbling emitting from the living gut of the woman sitting next to me in The Friends (Quaker) Meeting.

To the rumble kurplunk from the hallway behind where John Pemberton's automated dispenser-contraption for his ubiquitous carbon dioxide infused coca elixir resides.

To the Silence of the Light that I can never hear.

To the punctuated ejaculations of emotional amplitude responding to the rise and fall of the strategies and tactics of the crucial war of football.

I listen.

My eyes open.

I see.

At eye level, just across from me, out through the glass wall, on the brick retainer holding back a bed of low-crawling junipers . . .the squirrel.

No move is without a purpose-driven cause.

Jerk. Look. Listen. Chew. Freeze. Drop down. Reach. Pick it. Sit up. Roll it in his hands. Bite. Chew. Spit. Bite. Chew. Spit. Stop. Wait. Listen. Drop down. Reach. Pick up. Sit up. Roll it in his hands. Bite. Chew. Spit. Bite. Chew. Chew. Spit. Chew. Stop. Wait. Listen. Drop down. Dart. Stop. Repeat.

Purpose-driven.

An action by him for the every needed action of his doing.

The sound from The Commons is both filtered and amplified by the wall of glass.

The Commons is a tumult of a rainbow of jerseys, sheltering rolling dark thunder clouds of loins with their flashes of red and yellow depicting allegiance to the rivaling herd , all supported by a forest of hirsute power poles ambulating in chaotic orchestration. Just the manifestation of the manliness requisite to the spontaneous folly of fall flag football on the college campus.

It is purpose-driven.

Every instinctively purpose-driven choreographed motion so involved with the sheer randomness in the movement of an elliptical pigskin.

The squeals. Of delight. Of disappointment. The interlude of the sound of Silence. The squeals. Of delight. Of disappointment. And the dance moves a few yards hither.

To hear. Sounds.

Permission accepted.

To be purpose-driven.

To listen.

To The Sound of Silence.

The Refectory Manager