like a spider web

In an attempt to understand the changes happening in my own community, I determined to discover who was behind the purchase of two of our largest local hotels by a firm that seemed- from rumors- to be associated with an Amish couple.

The rumors about this couple did not add up, as rumors often do not, so I determined to find the truth, for the sake of truth. But rumors are like stained glass windows- they may look good on the outside but behind that window may still lurk a shadowy set of figures, especially if the buyers hide under an LLC.

If we compare the process to discovering where the spider is on a web, each silk is traceable after a gentle misting. Like observer, I went back to trace the web, from silk to silk, until I could find the spider, the one behind the LLC.

It led me to conflicting information, to a business first, and then a residence. Someone, as the brilliance of the internet will sometimes show, had linked the couple to a nearby management chain and asserted via the wide world web that the spider was, in fact, neither Amish nor Mennonite, but simply an "English" venture to make money in Amish Country and other locations in the Midwest and Florida.

Further "facts" posted online by a government entity suggested that the same couple purchased both hotels on the same date, using the same address, but different LLC names and a different arrangement. The government records indicated that the previous owner re-purchased one of the properties a month later for $50,000, which certainly looks like a mistake, but could give credence to the couple being associated, or a principal, in a venture actually managing hotels rather than buying them.

The truth is that the couple behind the LLCs, having a name that is so common in their area, and is one also used in association with the hospitality management company, are so ubiquitous to the region that I would have to speak with them directly to really know. And that, perhaps, is the moral of this ordeal, for if you want the whole truth, there is no excuse but to speak directly with the one purchasing the property.

I did discover further that the purchasers of the two properties have listed their address as a location next door to a series of cottages and a house used as a hospitality location, one that has been established in that area for decades. That fact, and the fact that the contact's name for that venue appears to be the same, suggest that the purchasers of the two hotels, are actually the managers of that long-time business in Holmes County, Ohio. 

But whether they are Amish or not is anyone's guess.

going against the morass

sometimes, at sea's edge, you can see a mass of seaweed, covering all beneath...plopping back and forth with the current as if to say "you will never see it, even if you wanted to" considering the deeper regions so close to shore. as a child, it annoyed me, and now as an adult, the same is true when comparing it with what the tide has brought in to the same region in the poetic spaces of social media.

frankly, much of it looks the same, smells the same, and insinuates that all should be the same. i have rejected joining the massive stench, and would rather be a piece of driftwood cast upon the shore. if my poetry is raw but has a stark beauty, then i have surpassed the formulaic chaos that passes as contemporary poetry by those who profess to write it. 

what good is writing if it is pretentious? if it reads like a jumble from a psych ward patient? if it gives off the same kind of lingering whiff that machine-driven poetry gives? 

discordance has never resonated with an audience like rhythm, alliteration, and meaning have throughout the ages. no matter who or who does not read my poetic pieces, i refuse to produce a mass of debris that should be thrown out with the night's garbage. 

Pondering our future

 Twas a cold day we buried her

and all her memories.

 the whistling wind 

found my whitening moustache,

and like her birthday celebrations

the whirlwind blew around her.

she was always the center

the lifeline of generations

even under a gravesite canopy.

it took too many to hold the coffin

and too many to bear the burden

and too many to ponder their own future

beneath the bristling breeze.

Compliance

 

Someone is watching you drive, someone is watching you walk,  someone is monitoring your online life- all in the name of security, and standardization. Standardization is an obsession of Bureaucratic governments, and the Bureaucratic States of America is at the top of the throne.  

A randomly worded Federal Decree of 1995, which mandates that all usable toilets within the USA must flush with precisely 1.0 gallons of water (unless waterless), equalizing waste disposal, is one of the regime's finest regulations. The ADA inspects toilets to make sure they are compliant. This Toilet Police is supported by a beehive of office-dwelling government workers, whose sole job is to produce volumes of documentation. This, my friend, is what makes America what it is. To say we are grateful for their work is like saying we are grateful for PMS, the IRS, and the color of the UPS- the latter referring to the exquisite ca-ca brown of the colored trucks. 

In a classical video- featuring soothing music- one of the USDA’s leading Toilet Engineers reveals the wonders of the now globally standardized one gallon flush. ADA compliant toilet company, St. Thomas, reveals the secrets of this technology with a video demonstrating the awesome power of their porcelain pooper. Introduced to this slimline toilet, a sightless hand feeds 18 hot dogs, several carrots, plastic chess pieces, 3 pounds of Gummi Bears, and 78 plastic letters and numbers...like the entire contents of one set from Sesame Street. All are magically flushed with a whooshing sound like a vacuum sucking the air out of an entire room.

It is a reflection of insanity when your government discovers toilet compliance is necessary to ensure harmony within your nation. One wonders what might happen if the voting public demanded the redundancy of the toilet bureaucracy, saving the government millions of dollars per year. In a land run by clowns and featuring a diaper-wearing dementia patient, is it any wonder that we are knee deep in a stench that refuses to fade?

the current chaos

the world could fall apart, but if it does not fall apart at my doorstep...if it does not come to meet me at my doorstep...is it truly falling apart?

like youth strung out on their own lack of experience, i can feign ignorance of the thousands of invaders, the thousands of homeless, and the thousands of despondent, if it fails to touch my world. i can wallow behind a wall of indifference, if i want to hide my heart from the pain of humanity. but should i blend in with the clueless, give way to the heartless void present in a society destined for failure?

and if i do, what good am I? 

if i am wonderfully and fearfully made, by the mind and hand of a creator, what i do is important to that creator. it must be because that creator must have designed a purpose for me as that creator has purposed what appears to be a complicated world, of which I am a small but important part. not insignificant, in that i am not swatted away like a gnat or washed down the drain like an ant. not ultimate, in that i am part of a fellowship of humanity. it is humbling to know that the creator purposed my existence. 

the current chaos...the churning upheaval of western civilization, caught in a downward spiral by forces that seem to be allied together to destroy rather than create...is inescapable in the western world. Wall yourself off from the world and it will seep in through the cracks to remind you that there are forces that hate you, apparently for the mere reason of your reflective image from the creator. you have the capacity to create, like the creator. you have, deep within you, a capacity for compassion, for self-less love, unless you too have given yourself over to the chaos, to the religion of destruction. 

And that is truly what it is, a religion. A set of beliefs. It seeks self-destruction in the name of the antithesis of creation. The evil once incarnated is simply the absence of the creative. if the creator, or God, pre-existed, evil could not have existed before a choice was made to abandon creation. So, this chaos, this evil, has set about to accelerate decay, not create, destruction, not resurrection.