Radar Angels

[dr_con]

Radar Angels

 

I worry that we are radar angels

Souls of dead soldiers returning

to guard the hidden vices

that bind

the world’s capitals together

 

Algorithms of blush or anger

wipe us from their big screens

noise filters for unexplainable echoes

echo areas

We repeat and eliminate non-essential

 

threats Repeat and eliminate non essential

Sex comes to mind or drugs or plain stupidity

Greed Ignorance and Anger are clearly virtues

Right there

we hardly need mention it The frame is just perfect

 

biology hardly interferes and culture is so polished

I can see right through-it with barely hardly any pain

besides it disappears in a few almost already gone years

Bound echoes

that defy understanding even in the living language of birds.

 

http://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/radar-angels/

Edited July 25, 2011 by dr_con

[eclipse]

Radar Angels

 

I worry that we are radar angels

Souls of dead soldiers returning

to guard the hidden vices

that bind

the world’s capitals together

 

Algorithms of blush or anger

wipe us from their big screens

noise filters for unexplainable echoes

echo areas

We repeat and eliminate non-essential

 

threats Repeat and eliminate non essential

Sex comes to mind or drugs or plain stupidity

Greed Ignorance and Anger are clearly virtues

Right there

we hardly need mention it The frame is just perfect

 

biology hardly interferes and culture is so polished

I can see right through-it with barely hardly any pain

besides it disappears in a few almost already gone years

Bound echoes

that defy understanding even in the living language of birds.

 

http://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/radar-angels/

 

what an excellent and interesting concept

[David W. Parsley]

Another example of what can be done through the medium of poetry and nowhere else. Imagine trying to make a video or story that conveyed this sense of displacement and alienation. Political or social commentary? A sound bite interview? Not a chance! Nice job.

 

- Dave

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

hi Dr con and juris smiles.

 

 

 

wow what gut wreching thoughts your recent poem not only conveys but truly provokes and antagonizing to say the least. your poem could start a very worth while movement all on its on. i love poems like these. let freedom rock in your poetry.

 

 

 

victor

[Benjamin]

Your excellent poem draws me to think of how birds and turtles etc: navigate the world's magnetic fields with with such ease; and then to wonder where we went wrong and of the consequences. Benjamin

[tonyv]

Very, very good, Juris. This poem takes me to (among other places) Los Alamos, New Mexico, to those days of J. Robert Oppenheimer. I agree with Dave's comment on a poem being the perfect vehicle, and I see this working on multiple levels with seemingly sporadic, well timed transmissions coming through like bursts of white noise.

 

Tony

 

PS -- Thanks also for the informative link. It reminds me of the Distant Early Warning Line (along with the Rush song "Distant Early Warning"). It's interesting that the DEW line sits abandoned and in disrepair. From the relevant article:

 

"A controversy also developed between the United States and Canada over the cleanup of deactivated Canadian DEW Line sites. The stations had produced large amounts of hazardous waste that had been abandoned in the high Arctic. Especially damaging were the large quantities of PCBs. While the United States insisted that it was Canada's responsibility to clean up the sites they had managed, the Canadian government disagreed. In 1996, an agreement was reached that saw the United States contribute $100 million to the estimated $600 million cleanup effort. The cleanup is now underway, site by site."

 

Pics of some of the sites are available in Google Image.

Oppenheimer

[dr_con]

Thank You All! I'm glad it worked and on several levels- Tony the static was exactly right- I went into it thinking about my favorite Jim White Song:

 

Static on the Radio:

 

 

(Everything I think I know is just static on the radio)

 

Now there's a church house about a stone's throw down

From this place where I been staying.

It's Sunday morning, and I'm sittin' in my truck

Listening to my neighbor sing.

Ten years ago I might have joined in

But don't time change those inclined

To think less of what is written

Than what's wrote between the lines?

 

‘Cause I know

(dreams are for those who are asleep in bed)

And I know

(it's a sin putting words in the mouths of the dead)

‘Cause I know

(for all my ruminations I can't change a thing)

Still I hope

(there's others out there who are listening)

 

To the static on the radio.

(Everything I think I know is just static on the radio)

 

Static on the radio

(Ain't praying for miracles, I'm just down on my knees)

Static on the radio

(Listening for the song behind everything I think I know)

 

(Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.

Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.)

 

That is the magic of poetry as David said- Passing a message that wasn't even written through the aether;-)

 

Many Thanks All!

 

DC&J

Edited July 29, 2011 by dr_con

[fdelano]

Just a note to add irony to the headaches of the first radar operators: The new invention was code-named "Aspirin." Thank you for a most (to me) eerie feeling in the poem.

[dr_con]

Eerie indeed- One of the first readers sent me this message:

 

Chills, dude! even now minutes after reading it.

 

;-)

 

Thanks!

 

DC