Poetic Reflections: bombilation

There is a lot of static in the world. The drone or buzz of contention in the air. A steady hum in your ears if you’re like me. You can hear it if you stop to listen. It’s there, whether soft or loud, in the electric wires; in the throb of pulses, the steady march of Time. In the heat of a moment when everything stands still and some messed-up misguided member of society feels alienated or miserable enough to contemplate something unthinkable, drastic, catastrophic . . . in a vain unconscionable effort to balance chaos.

Bombilation is all around us, and if we paused to pay attention it might deafen us. Among the clamor is the figurative ticking of literal bombs. We’re practically tripping over them. I am not referring to the type that signifies a personal disaster, a public flub of some sort or other. Well, we do make mistakes. Big and little blunders. But I mean the real deal. Time-bombs, missiles, nuclear reactors, drones, torpedoes, pressure-cookers, landmines or what-have-yous that seem to permeate modern civilization. As in “Bombs away!”

You just never know when someone might drop or plant another bomb. Not the kind that means bad news, although technically any bomb is bad news because what possible good can a bomb amount to? It is bound to be trouble, inflicting damage, injury, mayhem. The world would be a much nicer place without them, and I wish all the craziness would stop.

Forget about the bombs, people! Stop putting them together, stop wearing them, stop scattering them around because it simply does not make any kind of sense-justice-statement to blow yourself up or anyone else. These days knowledge is much more than power — it could be a bomb, and that to me represents the height of ignorance.

Now, I know I tend to be humorous and even downright ridiculous in this column . . . yet I assure you I am being serious at the moment. I can be as serious as ripping off a bandaid! I can even pull the chain to turn off that figurative dangling cellar lightbulb and go dark. Very dark. This is a topic that is no laughing matter. It is sad and tragic and unnecessary. There has never been a positive bomb. Never a rational bomb. Never ever in my opinion a called-for, needed, unavoidable, inevitable bomb.

Never.

Explosive devices are impersonal. They do not look you in the face. They generally end lives indiscriminately even when attempting to target individuals. Others are affected, often randomly. I ask you, why do we need them with so many problems facing us all? Where is the sanity in making things worse? I just thought I would point this out. It needs to be said, over and over, at the risk of sounding redundant.

In Southern California, where I live, there has been a great victory for the entire planet with the closure of a nuclear power plant in San Onofre. The disasters in Chernobyl and Japan are grim reminders of the hazards. There have been more disasters and near disasters all around the globe. It is time (long overdue) to get rational and stop risking. It should be common sense to rely on safer cleaner methods like wind and water, the sun. So why not build those devices instead of bombs???

For some it is easier to turn a deaf ear and accept the dreadful deeds going on in the world . . . whether to humans, animals, or Nature. Most of us feel pretty helpless and so we shake our heads, shrug our shoulders, shut it out and move on. I merely suggest that we need to be aware of the evil proliferating around us. We need to hear the static; listen to the cautionary bells toll in our belfries once in a while; shatter the epidemic of silence from which no one is immune and almost everyone afraid to speak like in a church. At any level of Society, terrible things occur. Stay alert. Sound the alarm. Paranoid is forewarned, that’s what I always say. (Okay, that may sound a little . . . paranoid.)

But that is probably why I am a horror fan. To be prepared. Along with striving to derive some sort of logic out of the darkest corners in my life.

Some would blame Horror for what is going wrong. I write of horrors myself because it reflects the darkness if done well and shows us the light. It illuminates our fears and helps us face them, conquer them, control them. It equips us to be braver and feel better about our situations. Old-fashioned Horror makes us tingle with suspense, anticipation, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

My work demonstrates that I do not care for Horror without a conscience or message. There is no glory in violence, but since ancient cultures it has served as entertainment. Have we learned nothing in the centuries and centuries between?

Guard against apathy. Beware of turning stone-cold inside like a chunk of jaded rock. I fear it is happening, spreading, a Medusa Disease, for a number of reasons. One, I believe, is that we are desensitized by the escalation of real-life horrors in the news that rob us of the shock value similar stories once held, fictional or nonfictional. There have been atrocities throughout history, but people didn’t hear about them as frequently. Another may be that we are losing the ability to concentrate and think on a deeper level. Or am I the only one who feels increasingly distracted? Perhaps, “bit” by “bit”, daily doses of Internet exposure will both transform and traumatize us into . . . what? Generations less human than the last? A race of fleshbots, humanoid machines existing by rote, governed by a mindless focus?

Aren’t Thought and Emotion supposedly what make us Human? And yet, there are nonhuman creatures who think and feel as well. What truly separates us from other species? Is it the soul? Is it simply a matter of degrees?

There are human beings, and then there are human beasts who kill for pleasure. Or because someone else (real or imagined) told them what to do. Or they just don’t think about the consequences of their acts.

Any tool or instrument can be used for destructive purposes. A video game might indirectly be wielded as a weapon, or inadvertently train a disturbed individual to become a detached killer; to solve problems bluntly and accurately without feelings, by merely aiming a rocket or a gun. Don’t governments train soldiers to do the same?

Excessive violence in movies and books, without redeeming value and context, can either inspire or dull the senses of sociopaths. News of shooting sprees and other mayhem could condition mixed-up minds to seek infamy, to demand attention. Just as abuse can occasionally, not always, produce a chain of abuse or the desire for revenge, whether conscious or unconscious . . . like a ticking bomb waiting to explode.

Which brings us back to bombilation. We can block noises by focusing on the quietness, the lulls; we can filter out the wars and terror in the world by concentrating on interludes of peace. But ignoring bombs won’t make them go away. Let us build a world that does not rely on building bombs to make a point. That is the point I am trying to make here.

I know, I know. Not everybody you meet is a mad bomber or some maniac with a grudge. It could seem I am making a mountain out of a molehill of beans with these dire utterings. However, such a feat would require the balance of a Karate Kid and the mind-over-matter control of a Jedi Knight. Or perhaps the stick-to-itiveness of Elmer Fudd’s Glue. Yes, there most likely would be gluing involved. If, that is, moles were able to stack beans. And should one attempt to stack a molehill of Jumping Beans, well, the critter is either incessantly ambitious or ambitiously incessant . . .

Which brings us to my conclusion: In case you failed to notice, I just turned back on the light. It’s as easy as that. And now it’s time for some poems. I can’t guarantee anything. They could go up the cellar stairs or down. I find it is best to simply let them go where they will and do my best to follow . . .