Posted on by Michael Romano

…still waiting for Biden to end support for the war in Yemen…

Considered to be by far the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, made worse by Trump’s labeling of the Houthi movement as terrorists. Biden promised an end to the support of Saudi Arabia in the conflict, yet executive order after executive order, we are still waiting. “We’ve been warning since July that Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis. If the war doesn’t end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Yemen’s young children,” said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. This included more than 12 million children according to UNICEF

“It is perhaps the most dangerous place on earth to be a child. One child dies every 10 minutes from a preventable disease. Two million are out of school. And thousands have been killed, maimed or recruited since 2015. Just last week, 11 were reportedly killed, including a one-month-old baby.”

“And now, despite repeated warnings, the country is facing a nutrition crisis. 2.1 million children are acutely malnourished — and almost 358,000 severely malnourished. We believe famine-like conditions have already begun for some children.

“These are not just numbers on a page. These are millions of individual tragedies. Millions of blighted futures. And millions of parents making the gut-wrenching choice between food and medical care for their children.” From Unicef executive director Henrietta Fore

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 7

“If liberty means anything at all. it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell

I awaken to water dripping down my face as I’m reminded of the words that destroyed me. Instinctively I reach out for them, reach out for the ones above me still snapping the pictures, still writing my story, telling me who I am. In a flash of shadows my mother and my sister appear still holding my burning words, I touch my stomach and see their large empty eyes, chaining me to the idea of my own existence.

– Can you tell me what this word means to you? What does love mean to you?

-…

I see The Movement slowly ascending the hill in the far distance as the man with the beard is furiously writing. The Movement is flickering in and out along with their candles, in and out of the shadows and fog becoming a slow flickering cloud moving along with the wind. I can no longer see them, but their presence does not disappear. The man with the beard appears to feel them, as in the middle of his furious pace, the words sing to his ears,

Now I understand what you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

They would not listen, they did not know how,

perhaps they’ll listen now*

In a slow fury the words he’s writing continue falling to the ground in a pile of ashes, flickering along with The Movement, entering the beat of his heart as he whispers, resist.

-Not sure the words exist anymore.

-Someone is taking the words? What does it mean to you?

-Your sentences are taking the words, telling me I’m crazy is taking the words, telling me who I am is taking the words. I am not you, will never be-

-What does love mean to you?

The Detective is in a large room, a Japanese restaurant where the tables are covered in white cloth, the entire back wall is a giant fish tank. There is a wind up lizard toy on the table shooting out sparks as it moves. A waiter stands in front of him, writing in his notepad even though The Detective isn’t saying a word. He places his hand over the candle in the middle of the table and glances around the room. There is not one person in the room whose eyes are not upon him. He watches a crack form running down the front of the fish tank as the lizard toy walks off the edge of the table. He clutches his stomach and closes his eyes.

-No separation…existing as one

*Don McLean

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 6

“His mother’s memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him…Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, or deep or complex sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down and still sinking.” George Orwell

My eyes adjust to the darkness as I touch for just a moment what I once was, the words melt in my hands into a pile of ash. Up on the hill, the man with the beard at his feet, continues writing. The flickering at the bottom of the hill below him, continues unbeknownst to him. The Movement enters the building, swept up in a wave they can no longer let go of. The building changes shape as they enter. Now there are windows and a light coming through as the man continues writing above, his words singing through the air although no one is listening. The Movement exits the building unsure where to go next as the shadows are once again floating overhead and are attaching to the planes along with the rainbows and the light exiting the buildings windows. The man continues writing faster and faster, but there is no catching up. His hand waves over a flickering candle and for the first time I can read his words, don’t forget, don’t ever forget…my mother, my sister, my eyes grow wide…”the mutability of the past” the pain, that’s why I’m here, the tweezers are in my hand…in a whisper you can take it away, you can remove the pain and I approach them as they hold my poem laughing as my heart is torn in two, laughing at the words that would define my life. The words that helped me to remember…how can we just sit by and watch, how can we sit back and watch people die, and buy things conceived with their invisible blood ossified into plastic? The words released themselves into the wind as I am carried along with it, a flash, hands reaching into my skull and I…

-What did you learn…when you filmed yourself?

-I was just doing your job for you.

-You almost never came back.

-Came back where?…

…as he looks out upon the wastes of the world, The Detective falls to his knees and scoops up water into his mouth. How could they have forgotten how to live here? There is an insecure unsafe feeling entering him. He remembers he does not know where here is. He calmly places his hand on the desert land as the pulse becomes him, and he tips his hat to the sun and continues on walking.

-I wanted to know what I was.

In the middle of the vast desert, he sees a dying dog howling up to the sun, He places his hand on her beating heart, instantly remembering why he’s here.

-And what are you?

There is a vast labyrinthine building in the distance, seemingly where the sun ends. The dog lets out another cry, and the yelping is roaring from The Detectives own mouth. And he hears the music in the background and he can see the flickering cutting through the darkness. The Detective once again places his hand upon the pulse of the Earth, as it pulses through his beating heart and the cries are no longer separate from his. The shadows float over his head, reaching down in an attempt to attach themselves. He looks up as the tears of the sun in pink orange droplets fall from his eyes…

-Love, just love man, your worst nightmare.

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 5

“He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken.” George Orwell

The sky was dark, almost reddish orange and the sun looked like it was bleeding down the sky. In the melting sun as if painted across the sky were the words, ” We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.” And I no longer know if the tears I shed are from our dying world, or from my life that died so long ago. On my knees I reach up to the sky and my answer comes along with the jack boots pounding in succession, echoing across the Earth in every direction. I touch my stomach as I feel it again, I feel the pores of my skin breathe the dying air, the blood from the sun melts down into my eyes, the rattling and the tinkering and in a flash…I need help…the pounding gets closer and I see the torches and the judgmental eyes and that look, that cold, hard, empty look and they Know what I am but I don’t have a clue. They surround me and they are pointing at me as I touch my heart and remember. The crying grows louder because the box was broken and they can’t watch anything. The building no longer has shadows releasing from it and I know something is wrong and the screaming and the pounding enter my mind as the circle grows bigger around me and the tears from the sun now block my sight. I touch my stomach and close my eyes and there you are, still holding her hand as you let out a smile and the only sound I can hear is the wind and my beating heart.

-Why did you decide to make a movie about two children committing suicide?

-To protest the war, they committed suicide in protest of the Vietnam War.

-Yes but-

-They gave their lives to protest all that is wrong with our society and they were ignored, that’s why, to give them the voice they never had.

-But none of your movies before this-

-I know, American Mercenary didn’t start an antiwar movement(laughs)…I don’t know, something in the wind I got swept up with, no answer for you really

…and I fall into that glass house where they took me to see. And I saw the dead words, empty sentences of scenes I did not yet know how to express. The pain I felt from all across the universe, unable to let out a whimper and I knew then I failed them, but I would never give up. I promised that, and I promised patience, when her dark voice spoke to me through the night. I always knew I’d be here, seeing this, feeling this, expressing the blood falling from the sky and in the darkness way out by that dark impenetrable building I saw flickering light and I saw quiet, calm as the words overtook me as that building didn’t seem all that impenetrable anymore. In a chant heard around the universe I heard, “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.” And in a flash a movement was created, The Movement as equally as impenetrable as that building, because once we learn how to feel what peace feels like, there’s nothing that can tear us apart, besides our own minds.

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 4

“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.” George Orwell

A light shines on my face as I close my eyes. -Why are you here?

-Where am I?

I’m tired, tired and trapped here, it feels like I’m trapped in a science fiction movie and I have to crawl myself out. But crawl into what? I always knew it would be like this, I was born for this, we all were. And we just need to stand up.

-The movie, we need to know why…

-Why, I’m The Director, that’s why…why…why…

“Because we see that people just won’t do and say what they feel and you can’t just tell someone to. It seems that people are only touched by death and maybe people will be touched enough to look into their lives and if just one person is touched enough to do something constructive and peaceful with their life then maybe our death was worth it. Why-because we love our fellow man enough to sacrifice our lives so that they will try to find the ecstasy in just being alive.” Love and peace, Craig Badiali

-That’s why.

The light again blinds my sight and I hear rumblings I cannot decipher them. Through my blindness I’m taken back to that house, all made of glass, even the pipes that carried my blood filled vomit to its destination. And the new eyes they placed upon my own, lenses that dissolved into me and I thought now maybe I could see everything. I walk through the restaurant, the entire back wall is a fish tank, walking through words I had written so long ago. It’s now all alive in front of me and I know what to do, because I’ve been here before.

-Why? Can you answer that for me? Why? And in a flash of darkness, The Interviewer disappears…

I fell here, weeping for all I remembered and reaching out for all I forgot, but in the blink of an eye, it all disappeared. An electric pulse overcomes me as I continue falling with no end in sight. There is a shadow hovering over me. Each time I look at it, it seems to grow bigger, following the movement of my eyes, I can’t look past it. It pulses out of my stomach, like a puff of black smoke, it becomes a veil I look through. Water drips down my forehead as I remember, I am trapped here, at the bottom of a well, and the whole world is watching from above.

Pounding of boots can be heard slowly approaching, I am not scared. My lips mumble words I can no longer understand, and my heart beats along to a song I can no longer hear. And they keep on assembling and they keep attaching them to the shadows over head and the cries grow louder…the only words I can understand, why…why my heart knew, it could see the chains breaking from our wrists and his hand, their eyes looking so deep into each other there was no separation and the wish, the love, the only thing they had to give to possibly change this, their hands tightened in each others grasp, and they instantly knew that living truth is the only thing that could stop the boots from approaching.

-Why? This is my redemption song…our redemption song and all we need to do is listen to the beat.

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 3

“Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought.” George Orwell

My feet were no longer my own. They will not move under my control. They become a number, attached to the conveyor belt they were no longer separate from, just another item shuffling along to its destination. The truth which was promised me doesn’t exist here. I see empty eyes being filled with shadows and light, split right down the middle. Ears being filled with mumbling nonsense and mouths being filled with endless nonsensical chatter. The hope that was sold to me disintegrates into light filled floating dust accumulating around me. I only hear echoes of something, of voices babbling within my mind, telling me what to do and how to be and what to hold and how to close my eyes while they’re still opened, how to open my eyes and no longer see. And in a flash I forget exactly what I am standing on.

The old man is still writing as he whispers my way and even his words now die in a puff of smoke. They can’t take this! He screams, pointing at his heart. A part of me dies within his struggle, my silence awakens a spark in his eyes. Don’t forget your voice here, you can’t forget your voice! But all I can do is watch as the flames overcome his body and he disappears into the shadows. And I watch the planes buzzing overhead filling up with bombs, their only real truth, floating shadows released from the screaming Earth attaching to each instrument of death. There are no tears here, only blank covered faces, empty eyes, chaining me to the seat which appears below me as I watch ideas flow by. Shards of darkness, repeating themselves, I close my eyes, but they are still open. I cry but nothing comes out as images and words scatter around my head, they mean less and less.

The shadow in front of the room is waving a wand as the empty robotic eyes around the room follow the wand waving at nothing and at seemingly random times, I watch a body, attached to those eyes float up through the air, securing itself to the planes flying above. In between the mumbling and the shadows above me and the chains wrapped around me which I couldn’t touch; and sometimes thought might not even be there, I remember what I once was. The leaves twirl down from the ceiling, orange, brown, remembering what fall felt like and here I am falling, as the voices and the lights remind me of what I am. I reach for the doll, the bear that gives me comfort, the one I could never let go. The cold I felt as I clutched him was the only comfort I knew. And the shadows flew by over head and we would immediately take shelter. Sometimes we couldn’t even see them, but we still knew, we could feel them crawling up our skin. They left fire in their tracks, suffocating, blinding fire. A fire that was no longer even frightening, just tiring, so tiring and I forgot how to breathe here.

The old man, as a vision from my mind screams out to me as I see him running in a trail of fire. And he shows me how they closed their eyes in that car on the hill, dreaming of a better world. And how they held hands. How they thought this was the only way they could make a difference. Where were they? On that hill. I needed to find them I needed to stop them, but maybe they did achieve the only thing they really wanted to. I am here talking about them. I am here and there is nothing I can do anymore but fight this thing. The old man reminds me in his trail of fire, the only thing I can do is never let those flames get too close. I close my eyes and I am both of them and there is a smile on their faces and there is something living there that gets released, something that we can all feel if we could see. I wish I didn’t because here I am in the darkness, everyone with an opinion digging deep down into me, telling me what I am. I only know one thing here, but it’s enough, a lot ain’t right here and this fire and these bombs that never stop falling, the smoke everywhere and the shadows hanging over us, this ain’t right. There is a buzz and a flash and I am there in that car, on that hill, choking on the smoke as the two of them hold hands in a peaceful act of love in the midst of suffocating death. And I dissolve into a letter floating down with the fall leaves, a letter to us all that we’ll never read, but will always be there.