Green Light

Red lights are the worst
after you've dropped everyone off
sitting there waiting
The mindless act of driving suspended
leaving you alone with yourself
and all your thoughts
Suddenly the least of which is if that's a cop

Alone, with the taste of her on my lips
I wish she hadn't
I'd rather be outside looking in
than to be sitting here, red cast
the feeling of what I'm without
carved into my pec by each of her teeth
I'd rather she hadn't kissed me
rather not have been bitten
in every sense of the word
My knuckles crack on the wheel
and ache to feel a destruction beneath their hardness

The opposing light goes red
an entire intersection bathed in the same color
of wait and think about it
And then green, and I am lost again
hiding in the simple act of
"is that a cop?"
and rehearsed lines.

Darwins Birthday, Damned Lies & Statistics

On the 200th birthday of Darwin, the state of knowledge regarding him is rather frightful, at least according to a recent Gallup poll, On Darwin's Birthday, Only 4 out of 10 Believe in Evolution.
More bothersome than the lack of support for evolution (don't worry, it bothers me a great deal) is the sheer lack of knowledge of who the man was, or what his contribution to science and culture was.
Whether or not you are a believer in evolution, Darwin's idea and work have touched your life. As have the works of those inspired by him, either inspired to carry his work forward or to challenge and deny it.

I find no surprise in the correlation between lack of education and an ignorance of Darwin. That doesn't mean I find it any less depressing.
I know plenty of well educated people who doubt evolution - I will (usually) respectfully disagree with them, but they are at least marginally educated on what they don't believe. They actually know who and what they rally and rail at.
The majority of the people who stand against evolution, do not - That Gallup poll is not needed to tell us this, it's just one of many pieces of evidence we have. They have sense of the history, no real knowledge of the field - All they know, is that something provides a challenge to their belief and it must be battered down. They are barbarians at the gate.
People are entitled to believe what they will and wish, but I'd honestly like to see them believe it for something that at least pretends to be an educated reason. I'd like to see people truly accept a challenge, and use it as a learning experience. Particularly when they stand opposite me on what is a rather bloody cultural battlefield.

It's not just evolution. Plenty of educated, non-ignorant people, have questions about evolution. But, this is an area in which the symptoms of a disease are extremely visible.
My greatest concern for the world in which I live is not war, it is not disease, nor poverty, nor population growth - It is education, or the lack there of. The rising tide is one of ignorance, globally. Of so many things, on so many fronts.
I believe an education is a necessity for ever person on Earth - To function in your world without destroying it, you need to understand it to the best ability possible. If I had to trade everything in my life for two things, I would do it for an education, and a rifle.
A rifle because of all the other people with rifles, an education because of all the people without - Tools to survive.
This is my calling in life - Rifles, and Education.

City Lighted Rain

There is a certain magic to Albuquerque after the sun goes down and the gentle rain begins to fall. The people on the streets, dashing from cars to shop doors beneath newspapers. The girl in Knob Hill who stands unprotected in her leather jacket staring up into the drops. Lights playing in the warm water, as the streets are slicked and washed. That smell of a rained on city rises through the open car windows, as the windshield wipers batter the rivulets for dominance of the glass. The car rushes past. Everything is standing still in the rain, and moving, dirty and washed clean. Nothing on those streets is captive, it is alive and rich with temporality.
Exposed by darkness what is hidden by reflection in day, everything is lost in the revelation nightfall. Every secret exposed is in turn cleaned by the rain. Where the wheels touch the street, they are washed clean, as the asphalt of the cars passing. Each footstep is amnesia. The calls and cries of a city whipping by the windows to become lost in the rain, laughter that cannot be hoarded.

In the cold and the dry, years later, I will wish for this. I will finally realize how much it meant to me. The absence of place and self, irrelevance of care. Bathed in the city lights and washed clean by rain, my own simplicity was a contrast and compliment to those moments of strangers laughter and rain washed shrieking.
But now, I drive and am washed away. If only the sun would set deeper and harder, and the warm summer rain would never stop. If only that, then the road would go on forever, in the laughter of women bathed in city lighted rain.