We All Dream Big Dreams, We Work, We Die

As a child I dreamed of being an Astronaut

Then I watched the Challenger take a fatal flight

Being scared at a young age

I dreamed of other things

Of adventure

Fantasies boiled up within me

Then I wanted to be a doctor and help the sick get well

I worked in a hospital and couldn’t stand the smell

That antiseptic smell of money lingering in the halls

To join Medecins sans Frontieres

But I lacked the courage

My will disintegrated

I retreated inside myself

Bolted the door for two years and stared at the walls

Alone in my room I read thousands of books

I talked to no one

I meditated

I considered suicide two thousand three hundred and forty nine times

I never tried it once

I looked inside myself and destroyed who I thought I was

I stood up and walked into the sunlight

Not afraid of life

Not afraid of death

Now I am living as a soldier facing death everyday

And all I wish is that I was a students

Studying to make the world a better place

(death to comes to us all it is what we do with our lives that makes us men.)

Where's her Bailout? Wells Fargo got theirs.

700 Billion by Jeffrey M. Hopkins

700 Billion is money well spent.

700 Billion is enough money for the rent.

700 Billion buys food for the kids.

700 Billion to buy skeletal babies bibs.

700 Billion while we haggle over scraps and bones.

700 Billion to get denied education and home loans.

700 Billion spent correcting bankers’ mistakes.

700 Billion to say life’s rough those are the breaks.

Everyone gets a bonus for a job well done!

A new Ferrari, stock options and a swimming pool in the sun.

Where’s your bailout? What do you mean your finances are in arrears?

Are you deaf or blind or just plain dumb?  Even Wells Fargo got theirs!

“700 Billion” and the photograph “Where’s her Bailout?” are copyright 2009 Jeffrey M. Hopkins, Hard Oak Press, LLC.

Basketball Court in the Southside

When I was walking through Hyde Park, I noticed this scene and took a photo.  Years later the verse came to me as I dug through my hard drive for images to share with you my readers. I think I took this photo in about 2006, prior to Pres. Barack Obama’s election as president.  This is his neighborhood.

Basketball courts are closed this time of year

Hoops sawed off with dull hacksaws

Bent low by slam dunks or ignorance

Where do the neighborhood children play?

And can they afford the entrance fee?

“Hoop Dreams” is copyright 2009, Jeffrey M. Hopkins, Hard Oak Press, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

This is one of my favorite photographs from the San Francisco series I did.  It is not like I was paid or ordered to do a San Francisco series.  I went there and took one of my notebooks and my Leica M3 and got busy with it.  What you see here is an older member of the gentry passing a young down and out.  One of the pair has more time than money, the other has more money than time.  They did not meet somewhere in the middle.  That the young man is invisible goes without saying.  He is in the background, out of focus.  His life is out of focus.  This photograph was taken last summer as I went about my loner ways writing and photographing while I was supposed to be studying Arabic at a Military Institute located somewhere on the West Coast.  Is it difficult to capture bitter ironies in still black and white?  I think not.  Only, you must adjust your lens to the world.

“Time and Money in San Francisco” is copyright Jeffrey M. Hopkins, Hard Oak Press, LLC.

The Tin Harvest was taken in Cairo, Egypt in February 2009.  It was composed with Leica M3, 50 mm Summicron, and Ilford Delta 100 Film.  All images copyright, Jeffrey M. Hopkins, Hard Oak Press LLC.

A Construction Site in Cairo, Egypt

Men shouting epithets

Verbally mixing it up the mortar seeps

Between calloused fingers and empty pockets

Strangers behave like orangs throwing bricks blindly

A harangue to modern pharaohs and president hozni mubarak

Jeffrey M. Hopkins is a sometimes poet and alltimes thinker of wonderful thoughts.  He is the author of Broken Under Interrogation and other forthcoming works of fiction and thought.

Dear Readers,

Compositions of Light and Literature will be undergoing some major changes in the coming weeks as it joins to the Hard Oak Press.  Hard Oak Press is an independent publisher of fiction and great supporter of the literary arts.  We feel that the focus of the blog, Compositions of Light and Literature, as being on the sharing of the photographic art and literary compositions of American author and artist Jeffrey M. Hopkins, was lost during the past year.  The fiscal year of 2010 brings us exciting new possibilities.  Mr. Hopkins is working at a fevered pace on his next novel, while serving his country in Iraq.  Hard Oak Press welcomes him to our family and wishes him well in his continued service to the people of the United States of America.  We look forward to his future output, which we are confident will be professional, meaningful, and uplifting.

Thank you for your continued attention,

Richard T. Price

President, Hard Oak Press LLC

I am asking myself this question now.  Does it have to do with TBI and PTSD?  Does it have to do with loss of hope, loss of morale, the knowledge that the public gives two shits about Iraq?  The knowledge that men and women died there for no real good reason?  Someone tell me the reason for it, please.

It is best to come home and forget that you were even there.  If you are married reconnect with your family.  If you hate your wife, divorce her before she gets her claws on your war chest if she hasn’t already spent it decorating the house or buying size 18 Air Jordan shoes for Jody.  If she is with Jody don’t shoot them both.  Find another woman who is worth your time and your effort and who has patience for your career.  A woman like this is hard to find now.  Most of all learn to be patient with yourself.

If you are unmarried I cannot stress the importance of getting a life affirming hobby besides drinking and womanizing.  Women love us because we are fit, nihilistic, live day to day, and usually put it down well – however this sort of lifestyle can only lead to your ruin.  Or unwanted children, which will lead to your ruin.  Or death threats from shotgun wielding husbands, which will lead to your ruin.  Or sexual addiction.

Get a life affirming hobby.  That means a hobby which celebrates the fact that you are alive and didn’t die in that third world shithole of a sewer Iraq.  I do hope that there is a Middle East Disneyland there one day, but having been there – I highly doubt it.  I would love to take my kids to Babylon.  I don’t see it happening.

Take up car repair.  Take up an art.  Buy a camera.  Write something.  Read a bunch.  Take college classes.  But by all means don’t waste your life sucking down brews in a bar waiting to talk to the next phony in a pony tail that sits next to you.  Make something of yourself.

Don’t kill yourself over a woman.  No matter how much shame you feel that she “Jodied” you, write her off for the whore that she is.  Or the poor lonely person that couldn’t wait for you.  Have you tried waiting for someone for fifteen months?  Have you sent your wife on a weekend getaway before you started pulling your hair out with worry?  Some women can’t take it.  Either make up or divorce her and get on your quest to find someone nice.  If you married a stripper outside of Ft. Bragg for BAH, no harm no foul.  Try to find a nice girl in church.

If your wife did something totally off the wall like set up a brothel in your on base housing where she pimped other military spouses out, hire a lawyer and sue her for some of the profits, then get rid of her.  You are not your wife.  She is an adult woman capable of making her own decisions.  Man up and kick her to the curb.  Children will complicate things, but it is best to have them someplace stable, than with a total ginned up floosie.

Remember even though you are a professional and member of a team you are still an individual capable of independent thought.  No need to be dependent on others for everything.

I can assure you.  If you make a commitment to give up the booze and take up a new hobby, you will feel better in a few months.  Also if things don’t get much better you can go to www.militaryonesource.com or speak with your chaplain.  Iraq is not worth ending your life over.

Jeffrey M. Hopkins is the author of Broken Under Interrogation, where two Iraq war veterans take up the not so life affirming hobby of robbing, torturing, and murdering drug dealers in their rust belt hometown.  It is intentionally all the nastiness of war.  It is available on Amazon.com.

Without telling to much of the book, one of the things that really comes to mind is the book’s reliance on descriptions of torture methods. These are not told in a poetic manner that has you feeling rage or anger toward the victim, rather you are left with a hollow feeling after being a witness to an almost porn like description of violence. The story does offer enough twists and turns to keep you interested in reading the unwinding tale of military man who uses the violence he learned to silence he perceives to be angry,

This individual gave Broken Under Interrogation 3 stars out of a possible 5.

I don’t understand this review.  It seems unfinished.  I do, however, enjoy the way that scenes of torture are not told in a poetic manner, instead leaving you with a detached hollow feeling.  Porn like descriptions of violence.  Porn in my mind aides people in “getting their rocks off”.  It isn’t real, and it numbs.  Is the danger we are faced with our own numbness to violence that we are actually considering letting things as are depicted in this book occur?  I hope not.

Jeffrey M. Hopkins

This young boy approached me at the Giza Pyramids offering me a ride on either on of his “fine” horses for ten Egyptian Pounds.  His name is Waleed and he is the second youngest horse bound tour guide in Egypt.

Boy:  Meester…..al hessan….ashra gennae fahqut.  (Mister…the horse….only ten egyptian pounds)

Me: Kam omruk?  (How old are you?)

Boy:  Ana? (Me?)

Me:  Aywa….enta…kam omruk?  (Yes….you….how old are you?)

Boy:  Sabah (7)

Me:  La areed an irkub al hessan ehlan….rakubtu al jamel min qabl!  (No I don’t want to ride the horse now, I rode the camel before!)

Boy:  “Min fadluk sayid…terkub al hessan….min fadluk…..themanea gennae fahqut.” (Please….sir…..you ride the horse….please….8 egyptian pounds only.)

Me:  “La, la, la areed….mish aesh….” (No No, I don’t want….I don’t want (Egyptian Dialect))

Boy:  Min fadluk ya sayid….min fadluk….hamza gennae fahqut!”  (Please….sir….please…..five pounds only!”

Me:  Abuk feen?  Lematha enta qaid al hessan?”  (Where’s your father, why do you lead the horses.)

Boy:  Nahnu fakeer….min fadluk terkub al hessan…..thalatha genae fahqut.”  (We’re poor…please…ride the horse….3 pounds only.)

Me:  Ma ismuk?  (What’s your name?)

Boy:  Ismee Waleed.  (My name is Waleed.)

Me.  “Ya Waleed, la areed an irkub al hessan, areed an ikuth souratek…..lil thalatha genae.” (Waleed, I don’t want to ride the horse, I want to take your picture….for three pounds.)

Waleed:  Okay mister.  Three pounds.

Click

Me.  Shukran…enta baeeya tayib.  (Thanks, you are a good salesman.)

Waleed:  (Laughs)

That is how this picture came about.  Actually, Waleed’s horses were so skinny I was afraid I would break them.  If you go to the Pyramids, and see him…..take his picture, but give him a tip.