Murder Most Foul 1963

an excerpt from chapter 4, King of Soul.

Mississippi, 1963: If ghosts could speak, they would probably confirm what Uncle Cannon was saying. As he sat on the lowered gate of his black Ford pickup truck, with one leg on the ground and the other swinging beneath the tailgate, the old Mississippian spoke some of his thoughts about the state of affairs in the state of Mississippi. His friend, Geehaw Kent stood listening. “The murder of Medgar Evers was a tragedy: he was a young man,” Cannon said. “He had slogged his way across Europe, along with thousands of other Allied soldiers, to arrive triumphantly in Germany and then knock the hell out of the Nazi war machine. So he contributed to that great collective effort through which we won the big war. But then he came back to Mississippi and was told—what the hell—to go to the back of the bus.” “So, at the end of his homeward journey, Medgar entered, almost involuntarily, into another great war, but it was a war of a different kind. It was an old war that had been started by old men. That is to say: men who we think of as old because they had lived and died in the prior era, and yet some of them were still living—men who, in days past, had retained, even cultivated, the prejudices and the limitations of their ancestors. “Last year, only six months before Kennedy was killed, Medgar Evers was shot dead in his own front yard in Jackson Mississippi. He had just come from speaking to some brothers and sisters at New Jerusalem church.” “Now, this summer, you know we had bunches of them starry-eyed college students from up north come down here and try and help the Negras get the vote. Over in Meridian, a few of them were trying to get the blacks organized to boycott a store that wouldn’t hire some of them same blacks who shopped there every day, every week, all year long for years and years. Then about two months ago, three of them students disappeared. Kinda mysterious, don’t you think?” https://www.amazon.com/King-Soul-Louis-Carey-Rowland/dp/1545075115 Listen: Underground Railroad Rides Again

Death in London 1937

The old fellow, quite dapper in a brown derby that shielded bright blue eyes over apale, fleshy face, double-chinned over a red bow-tie, seemed nevertheless to be slowly collapsing beneath the burden of his own weight. He clutched Nathan’s arm. “Young man,” he insisted, though weakly, “Would you be so kind...” He was faltering. His cataracted blue eyes closed slowly, then managed, laboriously, to open again. He looked up at Nathan’s expectant face. “...currency stabilization...on the gold standard...perils...bloody monetary experiments...reverse...a calamity...Here, my boy, take this, please.” The old man proffered a small notebook, which Nathan, puzzled, and attempting to support the fellow’s faltering constitution, managed to accept with his left hand. Then the old fellow collapsed. “Doctor! A doctor!” yelled Nathan, frantically. A thread of drool dripped from the old man’s open mouth as Nathan struggled to lay his limp body down gently on the sidewalk. At the nearby corner on Haymarket, the lights changed, and traffic commenced.

Nathan and Philip, speechless, knelt beside the stricken man, whose portly, suited body now lay motionless on the sidewalk. His eyes stared blankly upward into the morning mist. A crowd of people stood and stared. Smoke

First Ezekiel

Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoicachin’s exile, the word of the Lord came expressly to mEzekiel the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar and there the hand of the LLord upon Ezekiel. As I looked, hehold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in the midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire. Within it there were figures reembling four living beings. And this was their appearanc: they had human form. Each of them had had human four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. ATheir wings on four sides were human hands. Their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved; each went straight forward. Each had a face of a man; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left; and all four had the face of an eagle. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies. And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, without turning as they went. In the midst of the living beings there was somethingthat looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright and lightning was from the fire. And the living beings ran to and from like bolts of lightning. Now as I looked at the the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings, for each of the four of them.

The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another. Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions without turning as they moved. Their rims were lofty and awesome, with all four having eyes round about. Whenever they moved, the wheels moved with them. And whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose also. Whenever the spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction. And the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. Whenever those went, these; and whenever those rose from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal, spread out over their heads. Under their expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body on the one side and on the other. I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters. Smoke. .

High Holy Place

A scene from my novel, Glass half-Full

Beneath a cold, clear, azure sky the city of Jerusalem lay stretched upon the mountains and valleys like a fuzzy glove upon God’s hand. People from all over the world had gathered here to unearth evidence of God at work among the people of the earth. Some sought a temple that no longer exists. Some sought a mosque where a prophet entered heaven. Some trod upon the cobblestones of ancient, holy real estate, pleading for reconciliation, seeking atonement for the human condition. A man wandered beyond the dome, past the blocked-up eastern gate; curving around northward, he noticed a large open area beside the mosque. Was this where the former temple had stood? What a beautiful mosque. Could not the owners of this hill sell the adjoining, vacant acre or two to those pilgrims who, standing daily at the wall below, were wailing for their wonderful temple? Why not make a deal? Such a deal. Cousin to Cousin. Temple and Mosque, Mosque and Temple…Mosque Shsmosque, Temple Shmemple. Such a deal. Everybody happy. You pray your way; I pray mine. Aliyah Yerushalim

To Be or Not To be

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in this nation to pardon the slings and arrows of outrageous insurrection?

Or to take action against a slew of magamaniacs, and by. opposing convict them? To give in; to pretend that trump is noble, and pretend that he is of that same noble character that was demonstrated by the 44 presidents before him: ’tis a fantasy foolishly to be wished. To concede; perchance to give in; aye, there’s the rub. For in that concession what further crimes will come. This president’s wrong; such a destructive man, who fires bombs to send Iranian citizens to their eternal Shiite home, while requiring our patriots to go in harm’s way and elude their drones. . . and all this without a Congressional declaration of war, as if he were building trumptower casinos on the Jersey shore and bilking the contractors along the way. We the People stand helplessly by, caught in the spell of magamania, while the little Fox steals the vines. We scroll idly by, whistling dixie in the dark, blatantly ignoring Amendment XIV, Section 3, which disqualifies the chief insurrectioneer from re-occupying our oval office.

When we will have shuffled off this oval occupant, we must appoint a new president, one whom we can respect, who makes not so much calamity; for we must not tolerate such slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes that are now being made, while requiring our boys to face the drones and moans of outrageous warfare, whilst our Constitution is ignored and our Rule of Law is quashed. Glass half-Full

Paris 1937

an excerpt from my novel, Smoke; the year is 1937 “This city is on the edge of Germany,” she said. “But the border is hundreds of miles away.” “Paris is closer than you think, to Berlin.” Philip considered this. Then he pointed beyond the Russian edifice, to the west, and said, “Over there, between us and where the sun will set, is Versailles, where the treaty was agreed to and signed after the war. The treaty should ensure peace and security, n’est que ce pas?” “That doesn’t mean a thing to Adolf Hitler.” Her eyes, stern with the memory of where they had just come from, were cast down upon the Seine. “Germans know. That treaty means nothing to the Nazis.” “Do they? Do Germans know?” “Some of them do, though they will not say it. There is a lot they will not say. We have neighbors in Munich who will not say that they have done business with my father for many years. Instead, they pretend to not know us. These last few months when we were at home, near the shop, when I would walk on the streets, I felt at times that I must have some horrible sign on my head, something like a mark of shame, a big. . . yellow patch of . . . verboten, or something . . . Even people my own age would act as if they had never known me. What makes people do such things? What compels them to change their attitude toward others whom they have known all their lives, people they grew up with?” “They must be scared as hell of the Nazis.” “Nazi police; they call them Gestapo.” Lili’s expression turned sour. She had been casually surveying the busy scene of pedestrians and pavilions around them, but suddenly her gaze fixed upon the German pavilion. Philip turned to look at it. “That monument over there—the obscene monolith with the swastika on top of it—it upsets me,” she explained, speaking deliberately, precisely. “I can understand that, Lili, since your brother is still in prison there.” “I don’t want to be here, Philip. Is there somewhere else we can go?”

Carey Rowland

Death then Life

Back in Urdor, Virginia, Moses Reece lay, unresponsive, in a hospital bed at Wessex County Medical Center. The dragon had stretched forth its murderous will and snatched the passing pilgrim from beneath a canopy at the Belmont Hotel, in that same torturous instant that it had so rapturously hurled Aleph Leng into the next dimension. But Moses was still hanging on for dear life, as if on a precipice. For seven days he had lain there. Behind him was a life well-lived; before him…a half-full vision of heaven. Beside him stood his son, Alexander, and his daughter, Diana. Alexander was watchingthrough teary eyes; Diana was praying. He had no way to speak to them. They could not know that he was looking into the abyss; they could not know that he was rejecting it. They could not know that he was seeing, on the dark side, the unknown pane of infamous death’s door…two paths diverging. This was Moses’ view from the precipice: two paths, diverging. http://www.micahrowland.com/carey/Traveler’s Rest.mp3 Glass half-Full Carey Rowland