The Past, The Present

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.
...
And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all.

(I looked at the place where my legs used to be and thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me to grieve and to mourn and to pity)

This Blog is the Fault of The Pogues

Now when I think of people from the distant past, my first inclination is to look them up on Facebook. Upon searching their names, old faces are replaced with douchebags from Astoria, cockily holding Airsofts with I-don't-care-about-high-school-because-my-dad's-confidently-invested-in-hedgefunds, shit-eating, goddamn grins on their manicured faces.

In that sentence, back there where I typed "invested"? I, at-first, accidentally, typed "infested."

Today on a bike ride, the clouds doubled the size of the hills where Lake Berryessa lay, and I realized that California allows you to predict the future. The clouds pile. Soon it will be summer in Siam. And tomorrow is rain. Tomorrow is rain. Tomorrow is rain.