Tim Barrus, The New York Times

Blue Shadow Ghosts

I am a communist. Not a Communist With Guns. But a communist who in the face of complete political insanity, fumbles, bumbles, and stumbles through my nightmare of a bi-polar world, two sides to everything. But look at physics. Public Policy is a photon torpedo Scotty I Need Power. Business corrupting government. We do not see Afghanistan as a Narco-state. A poppy. A flower. A bulb. Without it, I would be dead. I am already that. The sun over Kabul will blind you blue. The dust in your mouth of promises. I have a fatal disease. The poppy numbs pain. I am a diseased communist. There is no real remorse for failure. The America Defeat of Lessons Learned do not lend historical restraint. Yes or no or no don’t go. South East Asia is a Mirror Memorial of authorized squeaky communist cleanness. Ezra Klein is more right and articulate than he knows. The Afghanistan of today is different flipped on its head or addicted to drugs when many years ago I rode the Bus From Grit And Hell, from one end to the other. Like America. The rich and the poor. Big Strong Americans parachuting in with free money from the likes of the muscular gods-of-Greece. I want free money. But I am the dead. The Mediterranean will lap at the sands of Afghanistan soon enough. I want to die with Poppy. I never saw a woman on that bus who was human; all I saw were broken bent over blue shadow ghosts of Public Policy Religious Sex Slaves. The Dead. Power and Desire mix like rape and another hatred of You Name It. We stone ourselves in the village square. Because we think we can afford it. A couple of women in blue pick up stones. Your beast of a head looks around.