The Almanac of Saint Joan Reincarnated 2008-2016

Afghaneeland

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for

Tanya

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Afghaneeland psychonaut reporting, sir!

Yes, the vehicle is ready, we’re on our way

Yes, we’re afloat but it’s not a boat or a plane

I believe it’s a bubble of some kind in my mind

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The crew, a bunch of schoolyard girls, is hand picked

Grown-up now, wearing guns instead of pantaloons

I love them until they talk & then I groan

Click the switch!  Left rudder!  Take off that flag!

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Smooth sailing now, a crisp delight, horizon filled

There it is, we’re there now, sinking into the quick-sand

Of a cross-eyed,  tongue-tied, bitter bitter land

Ahh, partners now, grinding hard, Afghanistan!

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Watch out, boom, I’ve lost a leg, my eye is gone

We haven’t been here five minutes yet & I’m a vet

Ahhh, my crew, they stay cheerful, they massage my nose

The luckiest man on the planet asleep in 2 dozen foxholes

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My tongue is loose, my cock a goose, the night doesn’t end

One eye won’t shut, the medic salts the other one

Cuts it up & feeds it to the villagers at the gate

Who complain about everything but it is only fate

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episode 1

The Legend Of Col. Sheena Johnson

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Whad-a-ya do with a girl like Sheena Johnson?

Kills her dad, loves her mom, makes a bomb

Throws it thru the door of the boy’s locker room

Number one in class, will kick your ass

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Whad-a-ya do with a girl like that?

I’m living next door, doing a chore

Suddenly there she is in the driveway

Wearing a shredded washrag, calling me a fuckin’ fag

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My God, what am I supposed to do?

Here’s the girl next door making me her bottom floor

I’m working hard to be to be to be a man

She laughs & dares me to jump outta the frying pan

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The towers collapse in two-thousand-&-one

There’s Sheena standing there ~ the daughter of a machine gun

Stands there in my driveway as if the Princess of Mars

Enlists in the army & I follow, my eyes full of stars!

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episode 6

She Who Is Obeyed

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episode 9

The Strange Reality Of Afghaneeland

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The blue burqa lay crumpled on the deck

The garment inside of which Sheena disappeared

It lay there still & foreboding ~ a secret passage

Into a higher realm of heavenly grace

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Where had I bought it?  Who had sold it to me?

I had bought it at a noisy bazaar in a rickety village

downright invisible on a high mountain ridge

in Nuristan Province of strange strange Afghanistan

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My country is at war in this so-called graveyard of empires

We’re not trying to win anything, we’re just getting out

Leaving behind us a slim potential for peace

For a poor-boy population that knows only violence

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But these skinny people must know more than that

One of them, an old Sufi

Bejeweled In worthless glass beads & holy cards

Sold me this silly cloth inside of which a woman ~ poof ~ gone!

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The legendary Col. Sheena Johnson, U.S. Army

Of bold body & firm limb, of unconquerable beauty

Shed her uniform to range near & far in a scant loin cloth

The Taliban couldn’t hit her ~ made to instantly love & miss

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She was supposed to leave that war-torn land

She had become a detriment to the war effort

Rarely in uniform, never in a burqa!

‘Til I gave her this blue one while riding outta there

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episode 10

Lament For Long-Gone Col. Johnson

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I try to report what is true

Read ‘tween the lines of stories I find

Look for photos that do not lie

Bumble & stumble around the distant war

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From an easy chair thousands of miles away

My penetration is shallow indeed

Will peace get forged one way or another in that far away land

Does anyone in America know ~ Afghanistan?

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My infinity machine doesn’t always work right

And flying saucers are so undependable

Every time I think I’ve landed on that nation’s sand

I end up in a ridiculous bubble ~ called Afghaneeland

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I lost the most beautiful woman on the planet Earth

Col. Sheena Johnson, U.S. Army

In the mirage-brimming bubble of Afghaneeland

A blue burqa dangling from my trembling hand

!

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episode 11

Capt’n Chuck Fiddler

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Sunrise, sunset, I go about

My daily intrigues without too much alarm

Eating at the cafe & reading the newspaper

Squinting quizzically at the questionable clientele

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Mohawks, tattoos, loose women & barbie dolls

So much diversity in the American lifestyle

I’ll have one more cup of coffee please

Before I go to the hazy crazy valley below

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Other than a lopsided nose & a back with a bolt or two missing

I have no real problems as memories get glazed over

And war wounds hobble along in

A lovely land of free-will & democracy

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With one marble eye, one fake leg

Capt’n Chuck Fiddler, yours truly, pays the bill

takes another glance at the paper, low n’ behold

There’s Col. Sheena Johnson, so profound, so bold

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In her customary little slipping & sliding cat-hide rag

Yellow hair waving, baby blues beaming, casual stance

She’s advising native villagers in Afghanistan

in a recent photo right here in the daily paper!

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So she inexplicably shows up again

In that far away land of tremulous doubt

Where the women are rising & men kill for one sick goat

Where you’re blamed for everything as you try to help them out

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Jesus Christ & Mohammed too, have mercy on us all

I have to go back, say “hello” one last time

To she whom I have worshiped obeyed & missed my whole life long

What’s the name of the hamlet where she has appeared?

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My one good eye, it squints, it strains, line after line

Tears spill, overjoyed, I can barely see

The name of the place, I search for it exasperatingly

I wipe my eye!  I see!  The village of Pluckame!

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episode 12

Burqa Time

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Col. Sheena Johnson

No longer on the radar

Her outpost so carefully nurtured & thriving

Is bombed & abandoned

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A detriment to the war effort

Yes, no longer on the radar

provocatively walks up

In her jungle-girl allure

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Walks up to Habibullah the young Taliban

Her arrow has been stuck in his hand for some time now

He’s pinned to the wall of the busted-up village mosque forever

She breathes on his face

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Habibullah’s wide-open eyes roll in his head

Suddenly he wants this dangerous half-naked infidel in his bed

His jihad heart ceases to hate the arrow in his hung-up hand

Col. Johnson communicates to him that she wants a burqa

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episode 13

Dervish Whirl

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Ollie spin spin spin

All around the ruin of the village mosque

Bump into walls, out hole in a wall

Up the path, thru the gate, into the house

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Spinning like a top, spinning ’til he drop

A grinning little lass burning lots of gas

A midget dust-devil whirling room to room

‘Til finally he bump Mom & say:

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“Burqa burqa burqa!”

“Wha?”

“Burqa burqa burqa!”

She hand him a yellow polka-dot burqa & he spin away

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Meanwhile back in the ruins big brother Habibullah

Twist his hand around n’ around Col. Sheena Johnson’s arrow

That so long ago zzzzzzzip thru that hand &

Pin him to the wall

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He twist his hand around & around

The pain shoot up n’ down his arm

In n’ out his heart

Col. Johnson see Taliban eyes full of hate go gooey

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Here come little dusty Afghanistani whirlwind

spinning spinning & grinning

Ollie puts Momma’s burqa in Habibullah’s other hand

Bulla hands the holy garment to my denudated U.S. Army colonel

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episode 14

Taliban Polka

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Col. Sheena Johnson, U.S. Army

Forever, no matter what, with valor

Slips the yellow polka-dot burqa over her head

The silk toboggans down her She curves & rides!

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Oh oh, Taliban Bullah’s eyes are oat meal

His captured hand sloshes red syrup up & down her arrow

Remember, his hand is pinned to the ruin of the village mosque

Col. Sheena stands there & let’s it happen

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Eyeball to eyeball, their eyeballs explode heaven

Sheena misses walkin’ down the block to the 7-ll

Sheena becoming Pluckame on the high Nuristan ridge

A dew drop plummets from a cloud passing by

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Outta the yellow burqa comes Sheena’s knife sharper than invisibility

Slices off the feathered end of the protruding stick

Habibullah’s hand slips off, he’s free

Musical notes glide outta his eyes singing “Marry Me”

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Suddenly Taliban surround the broken building

brandishing gun & rocket & stoic hypocrisy

Their holy war now gots only hate within

Gonna punish Habibullah real good for his handsome sin

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episode 15

Mosque

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God organizes His forces

Bolts of lightning spruce-up the sky

There is much attention to detail

On a minuscule planet among planets

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Love doves & bleary-eyed mules

Gather ’round the holy-war warriors who are

Full of bullet-flattering burro shit

Killing God’s children & reaping heavenly reward

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Ah yes, we doves & mules gather around

We gots bullets & rockets & A-bombs too

If you wanna be a nuisance

Keep on killing like insects do

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What you need is a brain

Fueled-up for the wise adventure

And a heart that

Beats the real rhyme

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So “suddenly” turns into months

While the village sets-up voting polls

Votes for a president & rebuilds the mosque

Sheena & Habibullah are wed

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episode 16

Vagina Envy

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Yes Sir, the villagers rebuild the mosque

With brick & mortar payed-for by the U.S. Army

Under the supervision of Col. Sheena Johnson

With Taliban breath on the backs of their necks

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Her Taliban-fodder fiancee mixes the mortar

He & his fellow villagers lay the brick

Too soon, Sheena’s husband Habibullah is wanted dead or alive

In Haqqanni Network lairs high n’ low over Pakistan way

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There’s a price on his head for lovin’ the beautiful colonel

Taliban bullets sing all around him, his old Taliban friends

Try with flaming sticks to burn out the eyes of his little brother

But in the nick of time Sheena kills them all

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One of her tricks is to place 3 arrows

Against the taunt string of her bow held horizontally

Only Ollie’s bountiful sister-in-law can do it just right

She pulls the string way back under her chin

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Before the arrows hit their mark she does it again

like she is the daughter of a machine gun

& that’s exactly what she is

So years ago she had to kill her father too

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She has no choice, faced with such fearsome vagina envy

Her sleek arms get oh so sore but she doesn’t give up

She throws off her worn & faded yellow polk-a-dot burka

100 extra arrows in the quiver a hanging on her back

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The village is surrounded by 100 & one Taliban

Nobody knows how she does it

At point-blank range the Talibanees jerk & they miss

At any range they fall in love and they miss!

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episode 17

Voting-Card Envy

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While battling the formidable Taliban

The brave citizens of Pluckame set-up

a voting poll

in a shed owned by one of the elders

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Everyone in the village has a voting card

Even Ollie & his midget friends have voting cards

Goats & chickens have voting cards hung around their necks

Only Taliban lurking behind distant trees don’t have them

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From very far away the Taliban share a pair of binoculars

They see even a blind goat is going to vote

In the nationwide election for the next president

Everybody is going to make a difference but not the Taliban

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Their Al Qaeda leader peers thru the binoculars & grimaces

He says something rude about what he sees

A swift arrow made in the USA cracks thru one of the lens

And sticks out the back of his head

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As the Arab falls-over a voting card is suddenly revealed

To his “holy war” buddies

It is nailed on the tree beside which their leader has been sitting

They look around ~ all the trees have voting cards

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episode 18

Capt’n Fiddler’s Afghanistan Vision

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But with the imprint of Col. Sheena Johnson’s footprint

Upon the land high low & lightly wherever she go

I am able to present to you this enchanting vision

Of Afghanistan democracy meant to be & totally free

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What the Taliban sons of this awesome nation gots to do

Is lighten up, stop being so tense & mellow out

All this blatant killing has got to go

So Habibullah & Sheena can slow dance in the moon glow

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I want you all to sing scooby dooby dooo

Won’t you all bring some scooby dooby dooooo

Jus’ fling some scooby dooby dooooooo

Col. Sheena Johnson of the U.S. Army loves youuuuuuu!

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episode 19

Reinforcements Arrive At Pluckame

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episode 20

Interlude

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entire text

Copyright Clyde Collins 2015

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photo

Jennifer Lopez as Jungle Girl

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Afghaneeland II

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