The Post Surf Report

Rainbow, St. Augustine Beach, Florida  

photo by mike marcellino copyright 2009

Post Surf Report: St. Augustine Beach

By Mike Marcellino

Digging into the Internet to find data on shark attacks in the waters off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida probably wasn’t the writer’s best idea.

Sharks attacks are six times more likely off the northeast coast of Florida than in Hawaiian waters.  About an hour south of St. Augustine, lies New Smyrna Beach, known as “the shark attack capital of the world.”  “Great tourist line,” he thought.

It had been a dozen years since the writer had surfed northern Florida. At least he body surfed a few weeks before starting to research shark attack data for his new surfing blog -The Post-Surf Report. The writer chose the title of his new surfing series appearing in his Networked Blog, “The Point of the Whole Thing,” because it reminds him of cereal and The Washington Post

After his absence for his first love, surfing, the writer body surfed nearly every day since he arrived in St. Augustine Beach in mid September.  No hurricanes, a real draught.  Too bad, hurricanes bring bigger waves to northern Florida, but not this year. 

On his first day out, the writer was relaxing, treading, floating on his back in waters over his head when he heard,

“A shark hit by board.” the surfer said, passing by.  The waters were dark blue to black and murky.  The young surfer’s comment was dumb but unsettling.  “Why bother to tell me that?” the writer thought.  The waves were ragged, breaking fast, but he caught them whenever he wanted, some three feet high.

“He was as big as me,” he added.

The writer looked at the guy, without expression or a word. 

In the water, he thought about sharks, sometimes, not often. Once, a shadow freaked him out, but he realized it was his own, visible when the sun flickered.  Near record heat in Florida into the middle of October until a cold front finally came through.  He didn’t think much about sharks onshore. 

He told another surfer as he swam further south about the shark comment.  “He probably wanted to get you out of the water,” the surfer said, casually.  He added, “There are sharks out here all the time, especially when the mullets are running.”  The mullets come into the Atlantic from the Matanzas River south of Crescent Beach, just below St. Augustine. “Matanzas” is a Spanish word meaning “massacre.”

“How comforting,” the writer muttered to himself.

“Less talk about sharks, the better,” thought. 

Surfers, or swimmers, are more likely to die from a bee sting, or get struck by lightening, than get bit by a shark. 

That’s true in St. Augustine Beach, or any beach in Florida.  Surfers are the object of 57% of shark attacks.  Da, surfers are in the water much longer than swimmers and in deeper water there’s more room for the bigger sharks.

According International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History, these species of sharks most often attacked people in Florida waters from 1944 to 2008: Bull, Spinner, Blacktip, Hammerhead, Nurse, Tiger, Lemon, Sandbar, Blue and Mako. 

The writer started getting rather fascinated by sharks while writing his first surfing Internet column.  Searching, he discovered The ReefQuest Center for Shark Research maintained by Alex Buttigieg of Malta. 

Here’s the opening message on Alex’s website, Sharkman’s World Organization to Save and Protect Sharks:

For hundreds of years, Mankind has feared this creature. We have been brainwashed with visions of Shark Attacks, from stories and legends passed down from one generation to the next, from paintings, books, news papers, cinemas, etc... But what are the real facts? Are Sharks truly monsters of the deep? Are they all Man-eaters? What makes them so misunderstood?  Should sharks be protected?

These questions and many others will be solved in these pages. Together we shall take a look and find out the facts. So if you are interested, and want to learn more............. Keep an Eye on this page, I guarantee you will not regret it.

You enter his site by clicking on the skeleton of a shark with his mouth wide open (reminiscent of “Jaws,” which the writer never tires of watching.)  Alex’s site won an award for the best personal website in Malta.  The writer wonders just how many people live in Malta (403,532) and how many Maltese have websites (a few are written in the Maltese language).

In the world, Sharkman’s World Website www.sharkmans-world.com is the No. 530,810 most popular Website in the world, while www.staugustine.com is No. 81,834.  Putting this in some perspective the Website of the New York Times is No. 202. 

The writer found that MySpace is nearly three times more popular than Facebook, according to his unidentified website source.

The writer couldn’t resist by adding that the Vatican (Holy Sea, sorry, a surfer’s slip, make that See) only has 11 most popular sites, all the sites are inside the Vatican. Faith really reaches out.  Here’s No. 1 in the Holy See - www.vatican.va

The most popular site in Vietnam reveals times really are changing.  The most popular Internet site today in Vietnam, site of America’s longest war, is all about hotels - www.vietnamhotel-link.com.vn .    

Back to surfing.

In the water, surfers talk little, about sharks or anything, except a bit with their friends, but not much them either.  Surfers are doers, not talkers.  Surfers live in a world of their own, one that’s as hard to describe as feeling a surfer gets shooting in the curl of a big, well formed wave in glassy water.

The writer did meet one surfer, Cameron, and the two talked while waiting for a wave worth riding.  Cameron’s from Louisiana.  The writer found out he works as a deep sea diver repairing oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.  A good photo feature story some day, the writer thought.

A few girls surf St. Augustine Beach and they’re pretty good too.  They are even more laid back than the guys.  Their bodies seem to melt on their boards.  So far the writer’s spotted a few good surfers – one wearing a light blue suit, another in a dark blue suit and another with long bleach blonde hair. 

Surfers do acknowledge either other on St. Augustine Beach.  Walking the quarter mile back to where he got into the water, the writer passes surfers, boards under arm.  Usually, they give a knowing glance, a nod, maybe a word or two, like “hey.” Nothing profound.  Sometimes surfer boys, or skateboarders, about the same age as the writer when he started body surfing in California, say hi to the writer as he peddles his borrowed three speed girls’ bike along A1A, the highway hugging the shoreline along St. Augustine Beach.

Before the cold front dropped temperatures from near 90 to the 60s, the writer caught his best wave.

His timing was just right. The surfer’s arms stretched, cut through the wall of the wave, body straight.  He was in the right place at the right time, inside the wave, already covering him.  He felt himself shoot, fast, right out of the front of the wave.  He sailed outside the wave.  He flew in air, inside the mouth of the wave. 

The writer didn’t think about sharks that day.  In the late afternoon, unexpectedly the ocean had flattened, the waves took better form, rising and falling more gradually without much white water.  The wave could have been four feet or more.  He can’t categorize or define the feeling he got on that wave.  Other than looking out not to get run over by a surfboard, the writer find himself along body surfing in the ocean. 

How does surfing make the writer feel?

If everything goes right, it’s like shooting down a small mountain of water.  You’re part of the wave, you’re faster than the wave, then you free of the wave,” he says.

Nature gives signals on the beach, like reflections of distant thunder clouds – all shades of blue, white grey - illuminated by setting suns in flat sand pools onshore. (That signal led him to write a poem song, “Spirits of St. Augustine.”)

Nature sent another signal the day before the writer shot out of the curl in a four foot wave.  After light, warm showers on and off most of the day, in late afternoon the clouds broke, scattered and the writer biked to the A Street inlet. 

On the beach, the writer was startled.  He looked north and saw distant giant rainbow circling the horizon from Jacksonville to some unknown spot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

As a 7-year-old, Mike Marcellino lived two blocks from the ocean in Long Beach, California.  For four years, he body surfed every day except in winter. He never wore a wet suit. 

In 1968, Mike board surfed off Bondi Beach, Australia. He was on R & R (rest and recuperation) from the Vietnam War, where he served in the U.S. Army as a combat correspondent and photojournalist.  He wrote a poetry song about surviving those eight days near Sidney and recorded the piece, “Bondi beach.”  You may listen to the song at www.myspace.com/splitpeace.  In his research, Mike discovered Bondi Beach is the third most shark infested waters in the world. 

Mike board surfed off St. Augustine Beach in the 1980s and 1990s.  Away from the ocean for 12 years, he returned in the later summer of 2009 and began body surfing off Florida’s northeast coast.  He loves surfing and looks forward to getting a used board, a long board.  Contact Mike by email at hangten1066@yahoo.com


The photo above is a Blacktip Reef Shark, Pacific cousin to the Blacktip Shark found in waters off the Florida coast.  The Blacktip can be six feet long and is responsible for 28 unprovoked shark attacks against humans.  They are responsible for 16% of the attacks that occur in Florida water, often striking surfers.

The Post Surf Report, copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009

Orwell's truth: 'a revolutionary act'

After the fall

By Mike Marcellino

In a time of universal deceit –

telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

                                                         

Stolen quotes

stolen hours.

Together,

day and night

frozen by time

after the fall.

A knight cold

in amour,

drinking

Irish whiskey

riding after

a girl of twenty

away

in a vegan powered bus to Omaha.

Stolen quotes

stolen hours

together,

day and night

frozen by time

after the fall.

Anarchists hidden

in castles of fog,

on grey naked fields

of Midi-Pyrénées

and the Counts of Toulouse

after the fall.

After the fall, Copyright 2008 by Mike Marcellino

A soldier's song

The walls of fire
By Mike Marcellino

The walls of fire
grow higher
higher,
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching -
rock cliffs and open fields,
Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh,
Devil’s Den, Gettysburg.

The walls of fire
grow higher
higher,
pools of blood
carnage,
bodies of brothers
touching -
sea to shining sea
lost in the Argonne forest
face down on beaches at Normandy,
frozen by the waters
of Chosin Reservoir.

The walls of fire
grow higher
higher,
pools of blood
carnage,
bodies of brothers
touching -
paddies, highlands
Nui Ba Dinh, the Black Virgin Mountain
Ashau Valley,
along the perimeter of Khe Sanh.

The walls of fire
grow higher,
higher
pools of blood,
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching -
empty deserts
filled with giant rising suns,
Fallujah rooftops,
unknown streets of Sadr City
barren mountains,
caves of Tora Bora.

The walls of fire
grow higher
higher
pools of blood,
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching.

The walls of fire copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009

Encore for President Obama

"Search and destroy

photo by Mike Marcellino

South Vietnam, 1968

copyright 1995

Time for Department of Peace

By Mike Marcellino

Challenges Facing Americans
La partie trois

Tell me, why is it that President Obama, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, sounds more like a hawk than a dove.

Here is a quote from an AP story about the President’s reaction to winning the prize:

”…Obama acknowledged that, while accepting an award for peace, he was commander in chief of a country engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  "We have to confront the world as we know it," he said.  He said he was working to end the war in Iraq and "to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies" in Afghanistan.

I will admit, Mr. President, that you got that right, in that, our enemy, and I image you are talking about the Taliban, is ruthless, harsh and totally nasty in war (and they way in which they treat Afghans, especially females) who in their belief (no matter how misguided) get out of line. 

But, Mr. President, ask any soldier, friend or foe, what war is.  “War is hell,” the soldier will reply. 

I asked you to recall what soldiers have said about war, soldiers like Union General William Tecumseh Sherman in our Civil War.  To Southerners, Confederates if you will, brothers, soldiers and civilians alike, knew General Sherman for what he was – ruthless in war.  He was know for his “scorched earth” policy in burning Atlanta to the ground and then marching his army using a calculated scorched earth tactic leaving not a blade of grass or stalk of wheat standing, marching from Atlanta to the sea – Savannah, Georgia.  And, President Lincoln didn’t object to the general’s ruthless tactics waged against an already defeated enemy, in this case their fellow countrymen, and many literally brothers.  Here’s what General Sherman said about war:

“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”- William Tecumseh Sherman

As a United States Army veteran of the Vietnam War an since, I don’t know of a single combat veteran who does not respect the enemy, at least if the enemy was a good soldier, meaning and effective one, willing to kill or be killed.  In battle, soldiers don’t fight for a cause; they fight for their fellow soldiers, the fight to survive and to get the battle over with. 

I wonder, Mr. President, if you recall the scene in Apocalypse Now, the brilliant, dark, frightening soliloquy of Colonel Kurtz, an American Special Forces soldier, a hero, gone driven insane by the hell of war.  He spoke of the ruthlessness of the enemy, cutting off the arms of children after they had been inoculated by United States Army doctors.  If you haven’t seen Frances Ford Copula’s brilliant film, or don’t recall it, I suggest you watch it and ask your staffers to watch it too.  Many, perhaps most Americans find Apocalypse Now exaggerated.  Even I did for a while, but not after some reflection and talks with many veterans of fighting in Vietnam, as well as World War II, Korea, the Gulf wars, Iraq and Afghanistan.  I wrote about those wars as a newspaper reporter for more than a decade and learned even more working in veteran and military affairs for a congressman and mayor.  But I really learned that war is hell by being in Vietnam and talking with my fellow combat veteran friends over the years.  The men and women I talked with are all over the waterfront in politics, backgrounds and opinions, but they all agree that war is hell.

With that introduction, Mr. President, here is my second column about the war in Afghanistan:

Okie, dokie.  When I opened my soundless HP laptop this morning I was dumbfounded to discover President Obama had won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Here's my take: The President talked the peace game during the campaign. Now he talks peace one day and war the next and gives serious consideration of escalating the war in Afghanistan. But, hand it to the Nobel Prize guys (hopefully girls too), they decided to give the American president a big nudge - the Nobel Prize for Peace, before he actually did anything in that regard. The reason - Their next chance to give him the prize is three years away, right in the heat of his campaign for reelection (Republicans and conservatives let alone right wing radicals are already tearing into him, i.e. some people putting out color posters with President Obama's picture with a Hitler-like mustache and another with the President hanging out with the Nazi dictator, mass murderer, and his henchmen). Well, all I can say is good luck President Obama, good luck Nobel Prize committee, good luck America, good luck Afghanistan, good luck Iraq, world, etc. Guess we just have to hold onto our tickets (aka, citizenships) and wait and see.

Okie dokie. My suggestion in the meantime to our President is” to ask one of your foreign policy advisors to read my commentary below then read or reread Fire in the Lake by Francis Fitzgerald about the fallacy and futility of the Vietnam War.  Many good books have been written about the Vietnam War but Fire in the Lake is the most insightful and documented in history. 

Fallicy in the Urban Dictionary, oddly, came up with the heading "Evangelical" and reference to the "American religion" tracing its origin to 33 AD. I'll give you the first fallicy listed: 1.the subjectivist fallicy: "I have faith" (translation: it's true because I believe it is).

In her book, Ms. Fitzgerald exposed how little we understood about Vietnam and the Vietnamese.  Yet we made up an excuse, The Gulf of Tonkin incident, and plowed ahead, ignoring history and opportunities to talk with our “enemy.”  We labeled it a war to stop communism, “the domino theory” in which Asian nations and others would one by one fall to communism.  How did we know that would happen?  The notion was just a political invention for an excuse to go to war in Southeast Asia.  In reality it was a war for power and control of resources. 

Even President Eisenhower in his farewell address warned us of the growing threat to the American democracy from within by the military industrial complex.  I would add political to his description of this “complex.”

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” – Dwight David Eisenhower

But, while I am at it, here are two more quotes timely and important comments of President Eisenhower, America’s commanding general in World War II who led our nation and its allies in defeating Hitler and the Nazis, the Axis – the ruthless dictatorships of Germany, Japan and their allies.

“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. 

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.”

Both quotes speak for themselves.  Too bad former President George Bush, the most recent, didn’t read the latter Eisenhower quote before staring the wars in the Middle East.  I wonder if he ever saw another brilliant film, Lawrence of Arabia. Actually, Mr. President that film should also be required viewing.  The first quote is, gee, just profound.  It also reminds me of worrying ourselves to death. 

But, do not get me wrong, Mr. President.  In no way am I suggesting that we just throw down our guns and go home.   Now that we have fueled the flames of war and created a good deal of chaos, we can’t just stop on a dime, not even Mercury. 

Mr. President, I have an idea, a way for you to follow up on winning the Nobel Prize for Peace.  Why don’t you create a Department of Peace?  Give it as much power and status as waging war and military solutions to the world’s problems.  In that new department, make sure you set up an agency for civic action. 

The only good thing I ever witnessed in the Vietnam War, besides the incredible courage and sacrifice of our troops, was the thankless and unheralded civic action work done by soldiers and civilians caring for the wounds of victims, many children, and helping Vietnamese build refugee towns as a place to live after both sides did a great job of destroying their homes and villages.  And today, sadly we’re doing pretty much the same thing more than three decades after the end of America’s longest war in Vietnam.

Finally, Mr. President, once all the hoopla of the Nobel Prize for Peace subsides, ask Congressman Dennis Kucinich about how to go about setting up the Department of Peace.  After all it is his idea.  Maybe Dennis should have won the Nobel Prize for Peace.   He also ran for president, but he didn’t win that either.


Mike Marcellino, a two-time national award winning newspaper reporter is now a freelance journalist, poet and performance artist with the band, Ensor in St. Augustine, Florida and New York City


Encore for President Obama, copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009

The War in Afghanistan: Another course

"Oriental River" photo by Mike Marcellino, South Vietnam 1968, copyright 1995

Plowshares, not swords
By Mike Marcellino

Vice President Joe Biden has it right. There is another course for America in Afghanistan.

Do I get this right? Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama disagree over the right course in Afghanistan?

Vietnam should show us that we’ll never "defeat" the Taliban unless we are prepared to fight without an end, without victory in sight.

The Taliban is led by Mullah Omar, a peasant fundamentalist Muslim and fierce fighter who lost an eye fighting with the mujahedeen defeating the Soviet forces.

No matter how distasteful we find the strict Muslim laws, and especially harsh treatment of woman and girls, if we send in tens of thousands of more troops we must be prepared for a long winter.

The Taliban traces its origin to the 7th Century. The Taliban with large havens in a bitter, mountainous countryside, in many respects, like the Viet Cong with support from the North Vietnamese regular troops, in remote jungles and highlands of South Vietnam.

The Taliban, a religious fundamentalist movement, will resist modern, Western culture indefinitely. Its leader, Mullah Omar is nearly a prophet. Even if he is killed, as have other fundamentalist leaders, someone will take his place. The war in Afghanistan is a civil war with sharp cultural differences such as the American Civil War.

We look at the conflict and fundamentalism in Afghanistan through a Western view of the way the world should be. Already, elements in America view our actions in the Muslim world as a holy war - good against evil. Somehow I don’t think God created America to wage endless wars.

Omar recently told the Western press that Taliban's oppression against women and girls are misrepresented. We find their practices repulsive. We still have not achieved equality at home and there’s certainly too much abuse against females. The Taliban movement traces its beginnings back to the 7th Century. Forerunners of the Taliban defeated Alexander the Great, Omar points out. Actually, the small nation of Vietnam defeated China in the 14th century.

America should concentrate on rooting out elements actually threatening America's security. Otherwise, we should not send swords but plowshares, builders, not soldiers, tools, supplies and expertise to help Afghanistan rebuild and strengthen their own communities. We might be surprised what reaction we would get from the people. We should also set a good example at home use the money we’ll save from not using military force to rebuild our own communities. The various factions in Afghanistan will have to settle their own differences. They’ve been fighting for quite some time before we came along. Of course the very people we’re fighting now were only a decade or so ago our allies. The support of the people in towns and villages invariably determines the outcome in civil wars. Oppressive regimes fall eventually; decay from within without the support of the people.

I've noticed without relish, an interesting and deadly phenomena (a word used only by poets for 350 years) is going on in Afghanistan and it also goes on in Iraq, and probably a lot of warring states. The Taliban sets off bombs and kills civilians. It works, unfortunately. Then the Afghans don't want American (or NATO) soldiers fighting the Taliban because they think (or know) that if the foreign forces stop fighting to Taliban, the Taliban will stop killing their fellow citizens. Ditto for Iraq, except we sent in an overwhelming number of troops and there are many differences in the nature of things in Afghanistan and Iraq, dah (a word by the way derived from the Russian word for yes, now meaning, "yes, what else," dah.)

Another phenomena going on is what I call the "body count" or "body bag" syndrome (I hate it when certain politicians like former President George Bush junior kept referring to the "Vietnam syndrome" meaning (if he knows) that Vietnam veterans are a bunch of abnormal people, like he's saying to ex-troops, "enough said, you people and our nation just have to get over 'Vietnam syndrome.'" Excuse me George it ain't that simple. Have you ever heard of Agent Orange, George?)

Now, during the last presidential campaign, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and how to get out of them was the hot topic, until US casualties diminished, i. e., fewer dead troops were returning home in body bags (as you recall, the Bush administration didn't want the media to photograph and film these sad events).

So, today, in Afghanistan fewer of our troops are returning in body bags, so the nation has now returned to American Idol and the ageless issue of health care reform, Part X). Noteworthy too is just the other day Americans polled rated Idol host Simon Cowell and an actor as a hero, both rated higher than President Obama. So much for fleeing stardom, Barrack, welcome to fickle America, tick, tick, tick, change, change, change.

You know some people have a theory that wars are necessary to hold down world population growth. I have a theory that dead American troops don't need health care anymore, in fact, dead civilians don't either. So, why isn't ending war our Number 1 Priority? Oh, I got it, if we kill people it will reduce health care costs, right? By the way, to make it “perfectly clear” I do not subscribe to either theory in relations to the benefits of war and killing people.

Now, Vice President Joe Biden, as far as he goes, is right. We need to do constructive, not destructive things in Afghanistan to win the support of the people. Then we can use more military resources to root out the bad guys trying to do in America and the West. The Taliban is a treat to the United States only in any support of terrorism. Use Special Forces and similar units together with precision strikes at real targets. Hey, we might wind up getting help from the Taliban as we did fighting the Soviets and communism in Afghanistan. Our constructive actions, not increased military force gives us a much better chance of winning support of the people, the “hearts and minds.” We should have learned that lesson in the Vietnam War. The will of the people eventually determines the outcome.

We may not like the Taliban and their harsh practices, but we have no choice but to live with them unless we are prepared to spend the lives of thousands of American soldiers and tons of money. If we engage them constructively maybe they change for the better.

In the Vietnam we learned that military power did not bring the outcome we sought. We found an enemy prepared to fight until they achieved their ends.

We could achieve a stalemate in Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, but many Americans will die without changing much of anything.

No one seems to talk about Gandhi and Martin Luther King anymore, but their methods worked. Why not use non-violence as a weapon. Setting a better example at home might also help too.

Mr. President, I ask you to take a good, hard look at what your vice president is saying. No one in our government today has more experience in the world than Joe Biden. And, he is one former senator whose son has served in our country’s armed forces.

President Obama, consider another way to demonstrate the power of our democracy - the American experiment to create a level playing field.

The whole world doesn’t have to be a mirror of America.

At times we must use force, but let’s use it with clear purpose and victory in our sights.

Let’s not again put the lives of American troops on the line with our fingers crossed.

Mike Marcellino served in the U. S. Army in the Vietnam War from 1967-68 as a combat correspondent and photojournalist

The War in Afghanistan, Another course, Copyright mike marcellino 2009

Surfer's lament

Only shadows in twilight

By mike marcellino

Skies clear violet,

pale turquoise.

Night swallows

seas of silk, swells,

shadows in twilight.

The black deep -

Jaws of death?

Only shadows in twilight.

Only shadows in twilight copyright Mike Marcellino 2009

Poetry in sand

Spirits of St. Augustine
by mike marcellino

Clouds the size of
galleon sails
dance in ocean pools
burnt by the falling sun
charred black grey,
red of campfires
miles an’ miles
a footprints
on flat cream sand
spirits of St. Augustine.

Costal clouds like
perimeter flares
hang
without motion
held up with
parachute suspenders.

Headlights in the dusk
head this way
scenes from Doctor No
miles an’ miles
a footprints
on flat cream sands,
spirits of St. Augustine.

Riding sweet Betsy to E
a woman an’ girl
hand an’ hand
out of the surf
with ankle length halter top dresses
pants of cotton on.

Do you always do this,
Hold hands?
No, I imagine you hold hands a lot.
Do you always wear dresses in the ocean?
They are modest. They cover our skin.

Yesterday’s crescent moon
tonight’s near a half.
Ships light the east horizon.
Seas darken
lure bulls an’ black tips
near 14 foot long.
Parties retreat to
houses in silhouette.
Scrub brush wrestle
in southeast breezes
on tales of Spanish saints
miles an’ miles
a footprints
on flat cream sand,
spirits of St. Augustine.

The writer in the night
rides by the trail,
daring not to cut though rabbit
rattle snake dunes.
The writer sees
lights
of the beachcomber,
visions
of the island of broken shells,
a fair Dutch girl
Nicole,
and brown skin Albina,
from Albania,
down to Augustine
to get their fortunes read
by the daughter of
a Rumanian celluloid queen.

Albina picks up
a tear drop
gun metal stone
cut with pin hole
from the sand of St. Augustine,
a trimast ship etched on. Nicole,
her flower dress gently flowing
gazes out to sea, wistfully
thinking of a short board
surfer
in her day dream.

Visions of
Anastasia,
in the night
miles an’ miles
a footprints
on flat cream sand,
spirits of St. Augustine.


Spirits of St. Augustine by Mike Marcellino copyright 2009

Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings

Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings
by mike marcellino

"Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things." - Amelia Earhart, 1927



amelia earhart,
Love your picture
in flight.
Love your goggles,
love your lips.
Love how you circled the world,
single handed.
amelia
amelia
amelia.

Like that leather
air cap.
You’re a goddess, a woman,
soft white,
ahead of your time,
such afterglow
night
in shinning armor.


Meet me on a northern coast,
not far from the equator,
above the island
where they made King Kong.


Your Atlantis, risen
in my South China Sea.
amelia
amelia
amelia.


Oh, your last flight.
Oh your last flight.
What a night.
Looking at your picture
in my book,
soft silver
soft silver
wings.


Your lips, painted colors
light, pretty pink.
Those eyes,
imagine,
sigh.
Your nails, natural,
fingertips.
Taking you with me.
amelia
amelia
amelia.


Soft silver
soft silver
wings.


Courage


Courage is the price that Life extracts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release.
From little things.
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear.
Not mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
How can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair. - Amelia Earhart, 1927


You made the crossing
not alone.
Meet you over the Atlantic.
amelia
amelia
amelia.


Soft silver,
soft silver,
wings.


copyright Mike Marcellino amelia earhart 2009

Flatbush, a new poem

Flatbush

by mike marcellino



Flew into New York
on wings of Peter Pan.
Flew into New York
on wings of Babylon.
Perfect trip, eleven minutes late.
Coastal Jersey the same,
belchin’ chemicals and oil -
industrial desolation
in the boot of this deep down.


Flew into New York
on wings of Peter Pan.
Flew into New York
on wings of Babylon.
On the heels of Jupiter,
not a bad act to follow
on the right a
Santa Anna’s banner,
lighter green an' red, white
tricolor
blazoned to the fire escape
of a third floor dirty red brick
tenement, a place the West Indians
call Flat Bush,
perfect spot for Jimmy Cliff.
Mariachi music filled the air
all Saturday.

Flew into New York
on wings of Peter Pan.
Flew into New York
on wings of Babylon.
Soft good mornings in English,
more likely Patois
darkened skins
standin' outside temples
ol' ladies an' gentlemen
takin’ numbers for dinner
in a church
outside
a
redemption,
after
a
revolution
into
a
resurrection.


Flew into New York
on the wings of Peter Pan.
Flew into New York
on the wings of Babylon.
Walkin on graves a stone
17th Century soldiers'
worn blank
in this once 'Vlacke bos'
Dutchland flat plain.


Flew into New York
on the wings of Peter Pan.
Flew into New York
on the wings of Babylon.
Jupiter on the right now
not as bright,
on this clear
an’ quiet night.




Wings of Babylon copyright by mike marcellino 2009

The James Brown

by mike marcellino

Can man can,
only 80,
strong arms guide a bike,
his headlight of cans
arms of V-8 juice.

Can man can,
his Sears bike, an Elgin
then J.C. Higgins
thirty four model,
rusted over an over
runs straight ahead anyway
on tubes and tires.

Can man can,
aluminum down to 40 cents
from 71, in this depression.
His heart's still strong,
operated on.
His Elgin still runs true
along the yellowing brick roads
like a West Virginia
company coal town,
wood box houses
homes of steel workers
in the middles
of the then.

Can man can.
James Brown
ride on to Marietta,
down to the river
makin’ his way to Somerset,
Kentucky.

Can man can by mike marcellino copyright 2009

Long distance love

Love long distance
by mike marcellino


Long distance love.
Love, long distance,
far as the brightest moon,
fulfilling
empty blue black skies,
the star next door, Jupiter,
afterglow
afterthought
light in the wilderness.
Long distance love.
Love long distance.


Copyright by mike marcellino Long distance love 2009

Legacies in another harbor, a new poem

Legacies in another harbor

by mike marcellino


An American salute -
hope she’s right.
Her flag born
over a fort, guarding
Fell’s Point.
Legacies in another harbor,
Then Baltimore.
Lanterns on the road, headlights down the highway.

An American salute -
Centuries after
The Revolution,
almost forgot.
Still, leftover in real ages,
finding
virtually reality
picturing
her waving, flapping
flying over Key’s song spot.

An American salute -
born
in the blood of our brothers,
sweat,
tears, fears
years an’ years.
Soldiers fighting
to get back home,
suddenly unfriendly, unfamiliar.
Kiss their sweethearts.
Salute Old Glory,
the nation they knew -
The one they lived for
loved for, died for.

An American salute -
Across rivers, time
worn, forgot.
near frozen
worker army
almost forgot
across the Delaware
River,
with a founding father at the helm.

An American salute -
To a plain, anguished
man in rough spun cover.
Saving a union in chaos, carnage.
Freeing the slaves.
Remember Abe,
a great paperback writer
picked folks out of oppression
from a culture,
Southern.
States not possessed.

An American salute -
Not her uniforms.
Not our flag.
Our Revolution,
almost forgot.
Our Constitution.
almost forgot.
Our bills of rights
almost forgot
intended not just for men,
but for women, even children.
Our bills of rights
drawn by rich
land an’ property owners.

The poor,
almost forgot.

An American salute -
On wings of dreams.
On freedom’s rings.
On,
Remember
The Revolution
almost forgot.

Remember
The Revolutionary men
Their dust
Lying
in graves unknown.
Martyrs born in
The Revolution
All
but forgotten.
Abe, Martin, Bobby and John,

An American salute -
Legacies in another harbor,
Now Boston.
Lanterns on the road, headlights down the highway.

An American salute - Legacies in another harbor by mike marcellino copyright 2009

Bring me a rainbow

Photo credit : (cc-by-nc-nd) Bruno Monginoux / http://www.landscape-photo.net 


Bring me a rainbow
by mike marcellino

Rainbow me a rainbow,
on my wall
now two,
oranges, reds
greens, yellows,
blues,
down southwest of the cracks.

Bring me a rainbow,
painting
rolling farms on the wall
in a bed, living room.
Terraces rise up
to nearby hills,
far mountains,
giving chills,
Thoughts of Van Gogh,
countryside’s in the south of France,
the Pyrenees.

Bring me a rainbow,
next to an old burnt
red brick wall,
ladders leading
nowhere.
Rainbows on the wall,
appear, disappear, lost in temptations.

Bring me a rainbow,
bite into Ohio
sour apple,
painting those rainbow colors,
ones from the wall.
Bring me an apple
right
from the heights of Berlin
Farmers unpack them fresh, sour apples
out of the box
right
off the trees
outside a century market,
on Cleveland’s West Side.

Bring me a rainbow,
sour apples too,
gone
eaten
by gods of the sky,
gone,
eaten
by a man’s
way of surviving,
wondering
how rainbows are,
come to be
projections on the wall.

Bring me a rainbow
again
sometime, i pray,
wish,
for an apple
sour, colors true
trucked by farmers
from the heights
above Berlin.

Bring me a rainbow,
open windows,
unscreened,
to tree leaves
inches, fields away,
blown by the wind.

Bring me a rainbow,
i pray, again,
on my pale papered
green wall
of printed flowers,
prehistoric.

Bring me a rainbow,
again,
i pray,
wondering why
apples, sour,
brown once bitten,
touched by man.

Bring me a rainbow by mike marcellino 2009

Back to Woodstock, a poem

Back to Woodstock
by mike marcellino

Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising.
Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising.

Reaching out
to touch you
shampoo in my eyes, burning
cloudy.

Reaching out
to touch you.
Morning
in Ohio.

Requesting
Richie Havens
‘Freedom’
Forty years
back to Woodstock.
Forty years
back to Woodstock.

First call
a girl from Arkansas.
Old wounds
break open
releasing
a streak of blood
down to my toes.

Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising
back to Woodstock.

Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising.
back to Woodstock.


Back to Woodstock, copyright mike marcellino 2009

Bit of brown paper, a poem

Bit of brown paper
by mike marcellino

Trois chanson d'amour de partie

Prisoners,
not a long time.
Prisoners,
not a long time.
Bit of brown paper.

Prisoners,
not a long time.
Prisoners,
not a long time.
Bit of brown paper.

Prisoners,
that won’t be confined,
defined.
Prisoners,
that won’t be confined,
defined.

Prisoners,
that won’t be contained
by love,
life,
war,
death.
Ready
to break
loose
at a moment’s notice.

Prisoners,
that won’t be contained
by love,
life,
war,
death.
Ready
to break
loose
at a moment’s notice.

Prisoners,
that don’t say
‘That’s ok, never mind.’
Prisoners,
that don’t say
‘That’s ok, never mind.’

Prisoners,
as Lincoln at Gettysburg -
‘As the sculptor
must dream the statue
prisoned
in the marble,”

Prisoners,
‘As the musician dreams a song.
so he who writes
must have a vision
of his finished work
before he touches to begin it,
a medium more elastic.
more vivid,
more powerful than any other,’
she writes, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews,
in her “Perfect Tribute”
to the man with ‘the deep-lined face
bent over Seward’s bit of brown paper.’

Prisoners,
wearing
four hats at a time,
not a long time,
not a long time.

Prisoners,
not a long time.
Prisoners,
not a long time.
Bit of brown paper.


Bit of brown paper copyright mike marcellino 2009

Against the wall
by mike marcellino

Trois chanson d'amour de partie

On the futon
back against the wall
all hung up.
back against the wall
all hung up.

Restin’ on a pillow
back against the wall
all hung up.
back against the wall
all hung up.

Do you love me?
Do you love me?

Do ya?

Do ya?

Do.

Back against the wall
all hung up
all hung up
all hung up.

Do you love me?
Do you love me?

Do ya?
Do ya?

Do.

Back against the wall
all hung up
all hung up
all hung up.

Against the wall, copyright mike marcellino 2009

Alphabet coffeehouse, a poem

Alphabet coffeehouse
by mike marcellino


Alphabet Coffeehouse,
“Where can it be?”
Wandering streets,
A to Z
the East Side,
New York City
aimlessly,
late afternoon, after a show.
Red, white and blue
chipped, cracked lettered
no name circle concrete park,
bed of violet flowers
in the middle,
back lit
crimson eyed Susan’s
no name circle concrete park.

Alphabet Coffeehouse,
“Where can it be?”
sundown of existence,
A to Z
the East Side,
New York City,
10th and C.
Only a clue,
whisper,
unknown friend, fellow traveler
searchin’ for the
Alphabet Coffeehouse
9th and C,
‘round the corner from Banjo Jim’s.

“It’s nothing,” the young man replied,
aimlessly.
“Everything is nothing here,” he said again,
“nothing” about
Alphabet Coffeehouse
“Where can it be?”
A to Z,
red, white and blue
no name circle concrete park,
flag pole,
no colors up.

“Everything is nothing here,”
echoed across
the East Side,
New York City’s
middle a projects
brick, white window sills
houses of thirteen stories.

Jump rope,
rapping voices,
rollerblades,
bikes
black and brown
German Sheppard
walkin'
over a freeway
crooked overpass -
bottom of 10th,
East River Park.
Softball diamonds,
a dog like Sally with her master,
cars speeding, either way.

Banjo Jim’s open.
“Listen,”
the LA country girl sings,
Rebecca Turner,
no cover.


Alphabet Coffeehouse, copyright by mike marcellino 2009

Watching over a lone rider, a poem

Watching over a lone rider
by mike marcellino

A postcard half moon,
stamped on a dark envelope
in the empty night sky.

A postcard half moon,
rested in her fuzzy white nest,
tattered cloud of sorts.

Postcard half moon,
cradled thoughts,
wishes,
distant dreams,
desires
beyond his reach,
lost.

Postcard half moon
looked upon a world,
black and white,
traveled on seas,
time and space
watching over a lone rider.

Copyright by mike marcellino 2009

President Obama rallies for health care reform

Setting the Stage:
President Barack Obama  
Town Hall Meeting On Health Care Reform 
Shaker Heights High School
Shaker Heights, Ohio

by Mike Marcellino

Challenges Facing Americans


Being a relatively kind journalist, in my travels over the past two days, I’ve tried to “set the stage” for President Obama’s Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform at Shaker Heights High School. My two sons and stepdaughter all went to school there.


Ari, my youngest just graduated from Ohio State University. Sean went out to LA to be a rock star after singing in Jesus Crisis Super Star and every other musical at Shaker High. He went to the School for the Recording Arts in Hollywood, still has a band, opened for Deep Purple before 5000 people outside and lives and works as a sound engineer in Germany. Rachael, got her LPN from Cuyahoga Community College and has made a career as a concierge in Las Vegas after working as a nurse in a doctor’s office for a year.


Shaker Heights High School is touted as one of the best public high schools in the country and some students do win a lot of academic honors.


I know one thing for sure – the Red Raiders hockey team - against all odds - won the Ohio state championship in 2001 and Ari, played right wing. He had a sweet left handed shot, finesse and pin point passes. His team members were swell. No one expected the Raiders to win anything that year. I blogged a story about that magical season on the Shaker Youth Hockey website. His journey began at 8, but most kids started at 3 or 4. It was our family’s life, and the life of many families, a good life and lots of fun traveling to Pennsylvania, St. Louis, New York, Michigan and Canada, getting creamed in the latter two.


While I was a long time newspaper reporter, winning a couple of national awards for investigative and community journalism, I decided to cover President Obama’s meeting with the public as myself - a veteran of the United States Army who barely survived a year as a combat correspondent and photojournalist covering every kind of mission under the boiling sun and monsoon rains.


I wrote for years about the health, personal and family costs of combat stress as far back as the 1970s. That’s when Dr. John Wilson, a Cleveland State University psychologist and professor, helped coin the phrase, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” This continues to help millions of people, not just veterans, around the world suffering from traumatic stress. He interviewed 600 Vietnam combat veterans from across our nation and published “The Forgotten Warrior Project.”


Years later, in a meeting room at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Louis Stokes Medical Center in Brecksville, I looked up at chalk board filled with the symptoms that I and a half dozen combat veterans identified ourselves.


I said to myself, “Man, Mike, you got some of all of these, a classic case.”


Actually, I have post VA hospital stress disorder, as the system, though a leader in what I call “bionic prosthetics” is just about as screwed up as the private system. The VA system is still rated one of the best hospital systems in the country. I know a lot of people in the Cleveland hospital. For the most part the staff is dedicated, hard working and they respect veterans. The VA has improved to be sure since the 1970s and 1980s when I wrote about it or attended weekly investigative meetings as an aide to former Congressman Stokes. Well, the body count is lower now and most veterans still don’t complain.


I don’t look forward to going to the VA. I go often, oh, for prostate surgery, or hernia surgery and a four month long prostate related bacterial urinary tract infection, and for a while PTSD. I think about having prostate cancer, or some other cancer picked up from all the Agent Orange we sprayed from planes to defoliate South Vietnam. Actually, some days at the VA go well – good, friendly doctors who actually entertain and answer questions and listen, and cute, funny nurses. I do like seeing and sometimes talking with my fellow veterans, including those from Iraq and Afghanistan.


If I had prostate cancer, I’d get disability compensation. Not a pleasant thought though.


Got up before six this morning, made coffee, French roast, downed a couple cups, smoked a Bugler roll your own cigarettes and got to work. Just after 8 I got an email confirming that I get in the door at Shaker High to cover President Obama’s Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform. That’s a mouthful. Actually the health care mess is more than a mouthful, it’s a monster.


Getting through Tower City on my bike, a Japanese model, to avoid a hill, I asked a young woman of color on the elevator, “Did you know Obama’s coming to Cleveland tomorrow?”


“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.


“What do you think about his health care reform?”


“We’ll see what happens,” she said smiling. I smiled too.


At the tiny specialized office supply in the Standard Building, the only place I can get reporters’ notebooks, I asked the thin, mild mannered, friendly clerk, “Did you know Obama’s going to be in town tomorrow?”


“Yes,” he answered.


“What do you think of Obama’s health care reform?” I asked him.


“Nutrition.” His one word answer. He went on to point out that there could be a lot less grossly overweight and obese people if they paid any attention to nutrition.


Since I felt these interviews were pretty revealing and comprehensive I gave myself a coffee break at Phoenix on West 9th Street in the yuppie Warehouse District. I got a European blend, like Dutch or something, medium roast. But I was preoccupied trying to “set the stage” for President Obama’s Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform and my series of blogs I would start posting tomorrow.


A man of color on a bench outside the cafe, just behind me, bummed a Bugler and rolled it.


“Did you know President Obama is coming to Shaker Heights tomorrow?” I asked him, really nailing the question at this point.


“They’re trying to derail him,” he said flatly, meaning his detractors and enemies in Congress are using President Obama’s shot at providing health care to everyone to stop the popular president with a Hollywood glow in his tracks. He says these people don’t care about health care one way or the other.


He told me President Obama is right about health care reform. He agrees that everyone should have health care.


But, he added, “There’s a lot of racism still left in America. He told me he had come from in a little town in Mississippi, near Memphis. The man, in his fifties I guess, said he blew his lips out playing the trumpet, touching them with his hand. He took off running for the trolley to find a friend.


To cap off my “setting the stage” for President Obama’s town hall meeting, I called a few people that I trust and have some sense left. I told them I was covering Obama’s town hall meeting at Shaker Heights High School tomorrow and asked them what do they think about health care in America and President Obama’s reform package.


Boy did I get an ear full. Now I know for sure the health care crisis in my country is a total disaster, a monster, and it must be fixed or America will go under a sea of red ink. Here’s just some of what ”my team of experts" had to say. Be prepared, it’s frightening.


“While you read this stuff I’m taking my antibiotic. I have to stop forgetting,” I said to myself.


Here’s the scoop –


America doesn’t compete very well in health care with the rest of the developed nations in the world. These other countries provide access to health care for everyone but taxes are higher than ours, at least in most cases.


Since we don’t compete in health care, we don’t compete very well in everything else, i.e., jobs, the economy.


That stuff comes from my brother. He used to be a newspaper reporter too and then did corporate PR for a major power company.


But, my brother’s final point I liked best.


“We need a department of coordination.” he said sleepily. I could hear his pain from bad disks, surgery, procedures and pills. He says every time we try to fix a big problem we screw something else up while we’re at it.


My economic guru, a former sports reporter and CPA, really had the shocker.


“Anchor babies. Ask Obama what he’d do about anchor babies.” he said. I could tell over the phone he was smiling somewhat as I was as to just how preposterous this was.


My friend says that illegal immigrants each year give birth to 500,000 “anchor babies.”


“How many illegal immigrants are there,” I asked him. He said about 20 million. And more and more and coming to take advantage of our health care system and working in laboring jobs, driving wages down.


He pointed out that by making our health care better we are actually inviting more illegal immigrants to cross the border and take advantage of our stuff. He said Congress should get rid of the law granting citizenship to children of illegal immigrants.


But, my chief economic advisor wasn’t finished. He claims, excuse the expression, that insurance companies charge people without insurance two to three times what they charge people with insurance.


“Man, that’s sounds backwards to me,” I reacted.


Oh, he also points out that in his humble opinion insurance companies are a total rip off.


“They try to get you to pay as much money as they can get for your policy and try not to pay claims, and are very good at it, making tons of money.”


A Palestinian friend can’t figure out how President Obama is going to get the drug and insurance companies to go along with his health care reform when they are making so much money right now doing what they do best, making money. Now, the President did say in his news conference tonight that the drug companies are pledging $80 billion dollars to health care reform. Somehow these days that doesn’t seem like very much.


A small businessman and artist, he thinks the only way to pay for health care is cutting military spending. Even President Obama admits that Medicare and Medicaid alone, left alone, will “break” out country. “See why I find this scary?” My friend also thinks the way to heal our economy is by supporting growth of small business, kind of like starting all over in America. He adds that Congress is kind of in the sleep mode.


My chief economic advisor winds up my effort to “set the stage” for President Obama’s Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform.


He read that colleges are closing nursing schools to tighten their belts because they are too expensive, lab equipment and all. Yet, there is a real shortage of nurses.


“See, this gets right back to my brother’s point which my chief economic advisor agrees with.


“We desperately need a department of coordination.” I thought.


Finally, my chief economic advisor says without a shudder, “Forty percent of our health care costs are for patients in the last six months of their lives.”


He told me there are hospitals in Florida with nothing but patients on ventilators. Yea, I know, you say, “Boy, he’s all heart,” but he says he has no problem if someone wants to keep their loved one alive in a comma or vegetating, if they pay for it out of their own pocket.


My Palestinian friend, kind of my secretary for peace, wonders why the United States has 40,000 troops in England, and thousands in Germany and a few odd places I can’t remember, maybe the Philippines. He says the only way to find money to pay for health care reform, saving lives, is to close down some of these bases. He says there are something like 60 of them or more. He figures no one in America is going to readily give up their guns so to speak and actually cut weapons of low to mass destruction.


My friend also reported to me that the drug companies had recently won the favor of many congressmen and senators in recent days. They donate a lot of money to them.


Oh, I almost forgot. A 20 something girl with a nose ring serving coffee said she didn’t know President Obama was coming to Cleveland tomorrow.


“What do you think of Obama and health care reform,” I asked politely.


“I have 8000 words,” about that, she replied, looking up slightly and then facing me. But she had “no comment.”


“Are we going in the right direction?” I asked.


“The wrong direction,” she replied without explanation.


“I guess that explains why some of my young friends are anarchists,” I thought.
Last word for “setting the stage” goes to my very tired, at this point in the phone call, chief economic advisor.


“No matter what is in the bill that goes to conference from the Senate, very few Congressmen will read it,” he says, his temperature rising. “The bill may run 300 pages, maybe a lot more, and they will get it one day and pass it the next.”


“This is ludicrous,” I gasped.


Well, finally, I have my say in “setting the stage” for President Obama’s Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform at Shaker Heights High School where my kids went.


One thing I know for sure –


Vietnam combat veterans outnumber all combat veterans of all other wars combined and they are flocking to the Veterans Affairs medial centers all over the country with all kinds of ailments and conditions.


And sadly, when the many many Vietnam War veterans are finally coming home they’re finding not enough room at the inn.


See tonight’s Notebookwriter Blog for the second in the series of street journalist Mike Marcellino’s coverage President Obama’s visit to Cleveland and his Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform at Shaker Heights High School where my kids went to school.


I switched to Gambler roll um up cigarette tobacco for a change. This morning I heard on National Public Radio the 188th British soldier was killed in Afghanistan and wondered how many of my American brothers and sisters have died.


Copyright 2009 by Mike Marcellino