I’ve always been a fan of rolling art shows. Here in Spokane they tend to have some of the better works of art around. Of course I’m talking about the bombing or tags or, to the even less initiated, the spray painted letters and pictures, marked all over our freight trains.

Just recently I saw the above train going by as I parked my car in downtown Spokane. It’s hard to make out what exactly caught my eye from the picture, but it was a series of stencils, small, that were obvious outtakes from cables published by Wikileaks. Mainly Army intelligence with a series of NOFORN to warn about the importance of such creations.

Of course what each message said could not have mattered to national security, and only to the comfort of those in charge, but that’s another matter for another day.

The train and the long series of stencils, and trust me it was long, spoke of the numerous deaths in Iraq. Not only those who were unfortunate to accidentally or purposely face off with Coalition forces but the many bodies found as America’s war on all polities Iraq came to bear all its fruit and a civil war grew.

The train rolled by and I wondered what it was that got to me. Certainly the artist who tagged all these train cars was trying to get a point across, but my chest was filled with remorse as well.

It was only later in the day, when sitting in Huntington park with my dog that I saw another stencil marked with a similar message from a Wikileaks cable that I realized there was more to this than just a message.

And as the skateboarders tried their tricks the message from many years past, with all the weight of Army language, sunk in and a memory surfaced. Well not the memory but the emotions associated with it.

This was enough that I asked the skaters if they knew the graffiti artist who did these Wikileaks stencils and they played dumb. Suppose I looked old, but I kept asking until they gave me a name. A writer, they said.

So off to a bookstore I went, to find the physical book. Well I found the name, but only in a collection of poetry called “worth more than a bumper sticker on a VBIED”. Dark work, but I liked it.

On my way home, the skies darkening, and the stench of diesel too strong for my tastes, I saw more of these Wikileaks stencils, as if they were flooding the world.

The next day I found out how so many of these stencils were everywhere. Said poet was using drones to spray paint the world. Carpet bombing, was what the media was calling it, while the poet claimed it was only for people to drown in the knowledge of what had happened.

And you, dear reader, where do you stand on all this?