Requiem For A Flag

GemFireAir
Requiem For A Flag
© marty kleva
July 4, 2008
permanent url


There are times when images represent an underlying reality of the accepted societal illusion. For me, such is the case with the photo “Requiem”, a sight that I came upon one day while I was on a walk.

I can understand why I had passed it by so many times before without notice. It’s colors are the almost unrecognizable red, white and blue, altered into a dull combination of faded colors and weather-beaten fabric.

Noticeable only by its position of prominence, the wooden dowel of the once brilliantly hued flag of the U.S. stands propped upon a stone wall beneath the portale, and against a hand-hewn pine viga post. Likely it had been carefully placed there on some former Flag Day, Memorial Day, or even some Fourth of July. When I first noticed it, I continued walking on by. I got about ten feet past, and as if something called to me, I looked back and saw the photograph to be taken — not a pretty one — nor even one that might attract a lot of common interest — but to me one that is archetypal and so very symbolic of what I have personally experienced in this country as an American.

To me, this flag expresses how more and more Americans are tired and feel battered; some few very conscious of the reasons why, the great majority not able to explain it, just that they sense that there is something very much amiss in this country. They are so busy complying with all the requirements placed upon them in order to keep a job or two that they have little time to investigate their concerns. They can only rely upon what the system has put in place from which to gather information and trust that they will be told the truth.

While the majority of these Americans have been going about their busy lives other things have been happening:

— the September 11-event that is greatly suspect — with a Commission Report that does not stand up to scrutiny and would not stand a chance in a true court of law.
— a “Patriot Act” that ironically categorizes patriotic Americans to be suspected terrorists.
— a foreign war in Iraq that has been proven to have been initiated for false reasons, those reasons highly suspected to be directly connected across party lines to politicians’ bank accounts.
— Billions of dollars that are admittedly lost by the Pentagon — lost to the military industrial corporations that cannot prove that the expenditures match the payments they have received.
— a President who continually requests more billions to create scores of U.S. military bases and an embassy that resembles a palace — all in Iraq.
— A Congress that continually signs the check for those billions the President asks for.
— A Federal Reserve that under the last and present governors has totally demolished the American Dollar — a currency that is used by the entire world to do business since the Bretton Woods Agreement was signed in 1945.
— A stock market that is not even a Bear Market vs a Bull Market but a totally Manipulated Market that hangs by a thread.
— A banking system that is based on air, having convinced the American people to exist by using “credit”.
— A court system that is no longer run under the Constitution.
— A system that codifies a ‘person’ — like you and me — as a ‘corporation’, not a full live man/woman. Unknowingly, we agree to this when we sign our children’s Birth Certificates and forms to enroll them into Social Security. This then makes us and them the fiduciary to the corporation whose title on the form magically matches our own personal name.

This already too-long list does not even begin to tell the full story of the history of such abuses and treachery against the American Constitution and the American people by some of the elite and major political parties.

However, items similar to those here and others are what finally woke me up sometime in the year 2000 — and like so many of us who are in a deep sleep — it is such a nasty experience to be shaken awake. I wanted to turn over and ignore the screeching alarm.

The once so dearly held so-called American Dream is not just a faded glory, but one that has been literally ripped out from beneath Americans. The disbelief by Americans is almost incomprehensible as I see and hear more and more, “It will never happen in America.” But you see it has already happened, we have just not been able to be awake enough to see it. We have been deluded by the mantra that “America is Safe, America is Free.”

Once this deception is clearly seen, the illusion can never be restored.

For me, it was then a simple matter to understand that what I believed to be a two-party political system is nothing of the sort. It is a conglomerate group of elitists playing their version of Summer Camp Color Wars that convincingly creates a place in the parade for victory to have the common man believe that he/she participates.

When an illusion like this breaks up, it is more than uncomfortable, it is downright devastating and creates an environment that is shaky at best. In this place you try to find others who have also been shaken awake and try to establish some common ground, only to find that even here there are great divisions, and people believing that once they now see clear of the illusion that their main goal is to resist all it stands for and to declare their own personal war upon the illusory beast.

I too struggled with this and more fortunately than many others, realized that resistance is debilitating and can be destructive and dangerous, but learning and further self-education is empowering. I went through a time when I wished more than anything that this country could turn back the clock to the original Constitution, what I mistakenly thought to be idyllic times.

But illusions are not simply cleared nor do they go away quickly. They linger and it's like walking through a deep penetrating fog that begins to shift back and forth and eventually opens into a light mist where the rays of the sun barely shine through. You have to wade through it all to come out on the other side. The important thing to remember is to keep moving and be aware of the many mirrors inside the illusion where one can be mesmerized and unfortunately become frozen and paralyzed by an illusory reality created for our distraction and entertainment by the producers of the carnavale.

I stumbled onto these places — and in some, I battled ethereal windmills, while in others I studied my surroundings very carefully before moving out of the warped maze of mirrors through the one opening that was an aperture to escape the perpetual circle of deceit.

Over and over the lesson was repeated for me. I felt great need to stop and rest and sometimes I did if only from the sheer exhaustion. However, a great internal force of tension kept moving me onward. One thing I was sure about is that when I no longer felt the need to resist then I would have made it through to the edge of the great penetrating fog and no longer under the sole influence of its power.

Once there, it is as if a binding shackle has been shattered. The release from such a force can be extreme and disorienting. This is new territory and the terrain is not familiar. You don’t know what’s what or who’s who and you must figure it all out from scratch.

In between there is a slight window of time when one can step back, back into the deep penetrating fog if one chooses to — and some do.

It is here at this edge of the unknown light before you that all your doubts and demons are summoned to the surface. There is that innate knowing that one more step forward is the one that crosses the Rubicon. I decided to make the crossing and find myself here today knowing that the illusion, the list of distractions and entertainments have not been solely created in my lifetime, but have been steadily added to since before the advent of the birth of this nation.

The difference is in the knowing — knowing that you live in a house of cards and mirrors is entirely different from the one that is lived believing everything is built on safe granite.

Coming to terms with feelings that are thought of as negative greatly adds to the knowing, and as one works through the anger and resentment, rather than insist they do not exist, the journey opens further, and continues to unfold into a clearer understanding of the difference between where you’ve been and where you now stand.

However, much overlooked is the process of grieving, for even the grief felt from leaving an abusive environment is painful. If the pain is buried and never acknowledge, it becomes a festering wound that will eventually show up as a major event in the future.

So I am of the thinking that the process of grieving is a bridge between the past and the unknown future yet to be created — a possible step into a new paradigm. Having come to this place after eighth years of waking up to this situation, and after six months ago coming upon this symbolic scenario that had been created by time and events long past by someone I do not know, a photo resulted, one claiming all the pieces in one click of the shutter that has enabled me to culminate the process of waking up and seeing the illusions I have lived in — at least to this moment of time.

Only here, and after an expression of grief will this country be able to step forward into a new future without the constrictions of the past or the agenda of those who would have us believe in their new illusion of 'one size fits all’ called a ‘one world order.’

To this end, one of a new paradigm, a future yet to be hewn and carved by conscious choice, I offer the following — “Requiem For A Flag.”


“Requiem For A Flag.”
© marty kleva
7-2-08

Lamentably where once this country invited the ‘tired and poor’ onto these great shores
— the tired and poor now rest upon them.

The once noble nation for which this flag gloriously flew in honor of the inalienable rights of freedom
— now decomposes into its elements of corruption and putrefaction.

The once grand and stately flag, shamed and defiled, hangs limp and weathered, unkempt and ragged
— its red and white stripes reduced to sackcloth and ashes.

The once blazoned stars of extraordinary vision no longer rest upon a field of midnight
— poked out of the fabric meant to fuse this country’s ideals.


There is a great and vainglorious rift that has rent the heartland from its moorings
— as it drowns in a flood of tears.

The people mourn the loss of a dream once lived
— too short.

The Republic has been beaten and battered into submission
— by the sleight of hand elitists who have duped the world in the aftermath of a blustering silent coup.

Now it is reduced to a dream that has no more substance
— than an ad agency’s shallow hype or the politicians eternally empty promises.


A dream so many have lived and died to experience
— just one more day.

A dream of freedom that is now awash in a sea
— of unprincipled lawlessness and illusion.

Where once there may have been statesmanship
— there is now pernicious political greed.

Where once there may have been integrity
— there is a vast integral of unpardonable criminality.


It is a time of mourning
— for this once greatly esteemed nation has lost its centerboard.

Its sails droop
— for there is no longer a clear breeze to fill their wings.

The captains
— have been intoxicated with demented power.

And the crews
— dare not even turn their mutinous backs upon one another.


Where once this country was a shining light to all
Where once the trumpets blared with symphonious ruffles and flourishes
— there remains only a dim resemblance of such sight and sound.

Now decomposed into a dissonant dirge
— at the hands of those whose watch, the lit lamp is snuffed out and the harmony reduced to a cacophonous Babel.

The Death Song is heard in every land
— across every sea and over every mountain.

The procession of plodding and persevering mourners deplore the end
— swaying like willows to lament the loss.

We/They go forth to put the final fist of earthly dirt upon the coffin of our dreams
— to unleash the unseen specter of Retribution upon those who have so miserably betrayed their oaths.

And to finally set free the Spirits of Redemption and Resurrection.


with ‘hayam’ — love that wanders the earth,

~ mek


————————————————————————





Labels: , , , , , , , , ,