love hurts

this is the first time since i have lived in this town one year that i have heard anything loud except artillery. the new neighbors are having a party and i am joining in without joining them. point is i live very close to the practice war zones and many times you hear shells or gunfire for hours, very near. and thats odd because it causes no fear, yet for all the places it is eventually intended i am sure the sound causes great fear. yet it is still so horrible and sad here--all these children and sociopaths being trained in the most deadly weapons and taught to hate and sent home dead and we are supposed to feel greatful they are protecting our liberty, while we can all easily see the difference between this and the real war, the second world war. thats more of a tease than a truth but you see.

so i'm thinking all places in kansas have this same beautiful yet horrificness. even lawrence, the best town in kansas will always be known as the town that was burnt to the ground. garden city with its logical union of labor, capitalism, desolation or dodge known for boot hill and the heros that died there--hiawatha and jetmore and every small town in between whose landscape makes a person feel in a way i cannot articulate, so pure; yet the people riddled with meth, the small town contagious cancer. and then there is the inelegant capital, known for enormous amounts of strip clubs with no holds barred, where every person who makes over 50 K commutes. i dont know whats the matter with kansas. it seems to me that when people live so far apart like that, detached from everything seen on tv, they tend to either be very much themselves (interesting and scary) or they tend they escape. maybe some dont see meth as an escape but since someone told me it was like god breathed in their mouth, i knew, thats what it is. like i didnt knwo already with my chronic gulpolism

this wasnt meant as a tirade on kansas. kansas is very beautiful. it is big and green and brown and white. it is how we live, the way people can sustain themselves once the future hits and the revolution wipes out regular trade. it is real life, true life given by plants or animals. so it is forever the future and it glows and the green is vibrant and the winter hurts but then the land heals. and thats the important thing.

i now feel like i am trying to talk the hills and plains of kansas into bed, which is not my intention. i have driven all of this state, its rectangular corners, avoiding the wichita areas when possible. it is not the same as the ocean, it does not feel as powerful as the ocean, but it is a similar feeling of need, connectedness, peace with the roundness of eternity.

but the people...people are people