Ken Hada is a fourth generation Oklahoman, descendant of Danish and Hungarian immigrants:
Gypsy poets, barn dance aficionados, art lovers, amateur philosophers, wheat farmers,
preachers, teachers and common-
“These poems, acting as spare parts themselves, go into the making of one smooth-
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Author of Pushing the Bear
The Meager and Invisible Souls of Goya | by Jennifer Hecker
I am invisible. I am not seen by anyone passing by. I stand as paralyzed as the bronze statues that adorn the street, but I serve no purpose here. I have inhaled seemingly infinite breaths here; hours worth of respirations despite the fact that the sky is grey and the wind blows cool blue currents commanding the few puny trees to bow down. There is an unvarying hum of cars, some far in the distance and others passing by me at any given minute. I do not hear a single human voice but a melody of motley tunes that are sung rather than spoken. I understand some things and others are foreign to me, and strange to my frozen ears. There is a slow beep that corresponds to a flashing green light informing the world that it okay to cross the street, however I do not cross. The beeping speeds up announcing the final chance to cross before it dies.
Those who have crossed go their separate ways now. They have come to my side of the street in pursuit of individual tasks. The people scatter; they flee; they take flight. I am grounded, rooted to the soil, to the land. They flood the shops to spend a few more Euros before the sun runs away. They imbibe another cup of coffee and consume one more galleta. Once again they indulge in the desires of their own corpses. But I linger in the street studying them with apathetic interest. The same affected person marches by me a thousand times. Rows of pork legs drape from the windows. They are dry, cured, void of color, grey as the sky above me.
The shops are all illuminated. They sport neon signs seducing the people, drawing them in. The items glisten and glitter greater than gold and all rush to see what they may obtain from the stockpile of rare matter. Vendors exert themselves to ensure their own prosperity, praying their competitors will fail. Words are inscribed on the tall flat walls, but all are as illiterate as the scruffy dog that runs along, only pausing to sniff the excrement on the sidewalk. Communication is vital, the key to the citadel, but appearance is the preferred language where as words are forgotten, futile and pestering. The truth is exchanged like worthless stock and lies are bought reshaping reality and the notion of genuineness.
I am not the only forgotten soul in this paseo of seduction and sin where the common
man slithers by snakishly. I stand beside one as invisible as myself. She rests
her spine against the unbearably hard wall of the shop and her legs are curled up
on the arctic concrete. She hides her face, concealing it with her hand. She can
longer stand the glares that she receives. She is ashamed, humiliated to be human.
Her life is open and exposed. She is naked and stripped to a raw and dull form.
She in shunned, ostracized, expelled from the paradise around her. The gate into
the world of the pretentious is sealed and guarded from the vagabonds like her. The
only ornamentation and beautification to her corner-
The planter is muddy and disgusting. It is the dwelling for rodents, bacteria and viruses of the city. Nothing healthy grows here; only an ailing weak tree that has no room to develop. It is flimsy, meager, suffocated by the fumes of existence. But this tree is the throne of the peddler who sits in the dirt twiddling away at the blocks of wood before him. His face is dark, covered in the very grime that he works in. He focuses only on the future masterpiece before him, envisioning splendor and exquisiteness. He is the Michelangelo of the cesspool; the sewers are his Sistine Chapel. He recreates the Last Supper and the crucifixion of the Lord. The blood sweat is his own. He relives Christ’s suffering over and over. Repetition is all he knows; one more Last Supper and another tomorrow. He carves, he engraves, he cuts into the wood as a dagger pierces his own heart. He is alone, forgotten, repulsive, a nuisance to the world, and yet he has some incomprehensible yearning to survive and endure. Without words I remain beside him. In the grunge as just another virus I stand there unseen, never heard. If the hand of some divinity could alleviate the agony of anyone, it would touch this peon and offer him solace in the comfort of heavenly hosts.
The wind blows and scatters the dust. Heals stomp on scattered papers advertising
a restaurant. They are propaganda, calling the people to rise up and revolt against
the boring tapas of yesterday and to form a new nation of the Menu del dia. It is
a land of democracy where one can chose between pork and lamb and between potatoes
and rice. Another twelve Euros disappear into the wind. The wind changes direction
and ash crashes down. The immigrant passes out the flyers. His skin is dark and
hides the red blood that would otherwise inform the world of his shame. He opts for
this service rather than having to feel the affliction of watching his family starve.
With each flyer handed to someone there is another ounce of hope, a tiny drop of
optimism in a dry fountain. Far away from this street his daughter bawls and a distraught
mother panics over how she will feed that radiant face. But the fur coats and ipods
that pass do not see that. Without words and without motion I stand beside the immigrant
man. I alone peer into his eyes. He does not count the number of people who ignore
him each day, but I do. One thousand six hundred fifty-
I am invisible. I stand motionless; but just this once. Today and today alone I see the suffering of the most meager and invisible souls of Goya.
