14,137. THIS IS REACH

THIS IS REACH

This is reach, and I feel

not alive anymore: Reach

is as far as I can go, the

depths of my feelings, the

intensity of my likes and

dislikes too.

-

Once, at the Brooklyn Navy

Yard, I had visited the studios

of various artists who'd invited

me in. It was a Mother's Day

weekend, as I recall, and I do

recall only because I witnessed

one of the people there stop

what he was doing and 'text'

his mother his Mother's Day

greeting. I'd never seen that

sort of thing before.

-

We sat around, for what seemed

an endless amount of time, on

a quite warm day, in a heavily

glassed-in atrium cafe. The

views of Manhattan were nice,

though I'd seen better angles

before. Then later, while we

walked around  -  the old slips 

and piers had really attracted

us; more my style than was 

the art-studio stuff  -  a harbor 

police guy on detail to the

Navy Yard/Wallabout Bay

swooped down and threatened

us with arrest if we did not leave

those pier areas immediately.

 -

I said, 'What the fuck? What's

up with this? I get invited in,

to visit, and I get treated like

this?' My anger bordered right

there on crossness. The guy

put his hand to his nightstick,

and he also had a holstered gun.

So I hastened to back off, and

apologized instead. 

-

Figuring it wasn't worth dying as

an innocent over, I rolled, and

we left. But it's always stayed

in my craw now some 15 years

later, how when you give power

to some unworthy shithead, it

goes right to their ego, and pumps

up their image of what 'self'

should be.