sodomy, & fornication. Maybe they
can do away with rape and molestation while they're at it.
Orwell would be proud;
'cause every body knows changing the definition of something
is the best way to make it go away.
WELCOME. Take a moment to kick off your shoes, relax, and refill your cup. Enjoy some poetry and a bit of art. Browse through the assorted offerings, and hopefully you'll find something helpful, informative, or just fun. Oh, And chocolate!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Daily Life
by Susan Wood
A parrot of irritation sits
on my shoulder, pecks
at my head, ruffling his feathers
in my ear. He repeats
everything I say, like a child
trying to irritate the parent.
Too much to do today: the dracena
that's outgrown its pot, a mountain
of bills to pay and nothing in the house
to eat. Too many clothes need washing
and the dog needs his shots.
It just goes on and on, I say
to myself, no one around, and catch
myself saying it, a ball hit so straight
to your glove you'd have to be
blind not to catch it. And of course
I hope it does go on and on
forever, the little pain,
the little pleasure, the sun
a blood orange in the sky, the sky
parrot blue and the day
unfolding like a bird slowly
spreading its wings, though I know,
saying it, that it won't.
from: The Book of Ten. Copyright 2011.
A parrot of irritation sits
on my shoulder, pecks
at my head, ruffling his feathers
in my ear. He repeats
everything I say, like a child
trying to irritate the parent.
Too much to do today: the dracena
that's outgrown its pot, a mountain
of bills to pay and nothing in the house
to eat. Too many clothes need washing
and the dog needs his shots.
It just goes on and on, I say
to myself, no one around, and catch
myself saying it, a ball hit so straight
to your glove you'd have to be
blind not to catch it. And of course
I hope it does go on and on
forever, the little pain,
the little pleasure, the sun
a blood orange in the sky, the sky
parrot blue and the day
unfolding like a bird slowly
spreading its wings, though I know,
saying it, that it won't.
from: The Book of Ten. Copyright 2011.
Friday, April 29, 2011
DEVASTATION
Over 200 are dead after over a hundred
separate tornadoes left a trail of destruction across five states in the
American South. The nation appears headed for a record number of
tornadoes this year. -- Lane Turner.
Faye Hyde sits on a mattress in what was
her yard as she comforts her granddaughter Sierra Goldsmith, 2, in
Concord, Ala. April 27, after their home was destroyed.
A wave of
tornado-spawning storms strafed the South on Wednesday, splintering
buildings across hard-hit Alabama and killing nearly 200 people in four
states. At least 58 people died in Alabama alone. (Jeff Roberts/The
Birmingham News/AP)
The Big Picture documents the destruction down south.
TO DONATE: I have provided links here for
and
The permanent links for both are in my sidebar.
KEROUAC. HAIKU. Who Knew?
by Jack Kerouac
One flower
on the cliffside
Nodding at the canyon
from: Book of Haikus. Copyright 2003.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
[W]e need creative language "to keep the brain alive." He points out that so much of our language today, written in bullet points or simple sentences, fall into predictability. "You can often tell what someone is going to say before they finish their sentence" he says. "This represents a gradual deadening of the brain."
I LOVE TREES
Arbor Day is the last Friday in April of each year.
It all began in Nebraska in 1872. A special day was set aside for planting trees. This tree planting idea caught on and now we celebrate Arbor Day every year. ... [to continue reading, click here]WHY are trees are so important to us all:
1. Trees provide shade to keep us and our homes cool on hot summer days.
2. Trees give off vital oxygen through photosynthesis which you and I and animals need to breathe.
3. Trees absorb harmful pollutants and small particles from the air which could damage our lungs.
4. Trees provide protection from the wind.
5. Trees reduce noise pollution.
6. Trees give us products such as: chewing gum, crayons, soap, shatterproof glass, suntan lotion, cork, dyes, life-saving drugs, writing paper, syrup, perfume, pencils, firewood, building materials, and much much more.
- from: EEK!
Environmental Education for Kids.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Busy-Man's Picture
by Benjamin Franklin
Business, thou Plague and Pleasure of my Life,
Thou charming Mistress, thou vexatious Wife;
Thou Enemy, thou Friend, to Joy, to Grief,
Thou bring'st me all, and bring'st me no Relief,
Thou bitter, sweet, thou pleasing, teazing Thing,
Thou Bee, that with thy Honey wears a Sting;
Some Respite, prithee do, yet do not give,
I cannot with thee, nor without thee live.
Business, thou Plague and Pleasure of my Life,
Thou charming Mistress, thou vexatious Wife;
Thou Enemy, thou Friend, to Joy, to Grief,
Thou bring'st me all, and bring'st me no Relief,
Thou bitter, sweet, thou pleasing, teazing Thing,
Thou Bee, that with thy Honey wears a Sting;
Some Respite, prithee do, yet do not give,
I cannot with thee, nor without thee live.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Kissing a man with a beard is a lot like going to a picnic:
you don’t mind going through a little bush to get there!
- Minnie Pearl.
(Sorry. Couldn't help myself. I stole this from The Dish.)
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Sourwood
by R.T. Smith
When the keeper has died,
whose hands have touched
so much honey,
the village will convene
to elect a successor
and to remember
the sweetness of his voice,
his dependable hymns,
the spell of smoke
and the hush just after.
While the elders
resist the old rhythms
of grief, one will speak
of the ancient belief –
that the bee-father’s demise,
kept secret, could cause
the death of the hives
in the coming winter.
Then the question will rise
in a nervous murmur:
Who will tell the bees?
QUOTE OF THE DAY
I'm not sure what is really scarier to the Florida GOP, the mention of the word uterus or the public invocation of the concept of "regulation."
But Scott Randolph is my new hero -- in one stroke he managed to not only tie together the entire social agenda of today's GOP -- crush unions, restrict abortions, and allow corporations to do as they please -- but to also reveal the hysterical prudery of the folks currently in charge in Florida.
A woman's womb is a scary thing, indeed.
Meanwhile, can someone get to work on my next T-shirt: "Get the government out of my uterus, and into Goldman Sachs"?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Pockets
by Howard Nemerov
Are generally over or around
Erogenous zones, they seem to dive
In the direction of those
Dark places, and indeed
It is their nature to be dark
Themselves, keeping a kind
Of thieves' kitchen for the things
Sequestered from the world
For long or little while,
The keys, the handkerchiefs,
The sad and vagrant little coins
That are really only passing through.
For all they locate close to lust,
No pocket ever sees another;
There is in fact a certain sadness
To pockets, going in their lonesome ways
And snuffling up their sifting storms
Of dust, tobacco bits and lint.
A pocket with a hole in it
Drops out; from shame, is that, or pride?
What is a pocket but a hole?
from: The Western Approaches. Copyright 1975.
Are generally over or around
Erogenous zones, they seem to dive
In the direction of those
Dark places, and indeed
It is their nature to be dark
Themselves, keeping a kind
Of thieves' kitchen for the things
Sequestered from the world
For long or little while,
The keys, the handkerchiefs,
The sad and vagrant little coins
That are really only passing through.
For all they locate close to lust,
No pocket ever sees another;
There is in fact a certain sadness
To pockets, going in their lonesome ways
And snuffling up their sifting storms
Of dust, tobacco bits and lint.
A pocket with a hole in it
Drops out; from shame, is that, or pride?
What is a pocket but a hole?
from: The Western Approaches. Copyright 1975.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Surrounded by Sheep and Low Ground
by Linda Gregg
When death comes, we take off our clothes
and gather everything we left behind:
what is dark, broken, touched with shame.
When Death demands we give an accounting,
naked we present our lives in bundles.
See how much these weigh, we tell him,
refusing to deny what we have lived.
Everything that is touched by light
loves the light. We the stubborn-as-grass,
we who reel at the taste of sap and want
our spirits cleansed, will not betray
the weeds, snake, or crippled mare.
Never leave behind what the light shone on.
from: All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems. Copyright 2009.
When death comes, we take off our clothes
and gather everything we left behind:
what is dark, broken, touched with shame.
When Death demands we give an accounting,
naked we present our lives in bundles.
See how much these weigh, we tell him,
refusing to deny what we have lived.
Everything that is touched by light
loves the light. We the stubborn-as-grass,
we who reel at the taste of sap and want
our spirits cleansed, will not betray
the weeds, snake, or crippled mare.
Never leave behind what the light shone on.
from: All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems. Copyright 2009.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Discipline of Craft, Easter Morning
for a Christ in the tree-mops,
a Moses winding his way up the mount
in
to the fire of God’s fresh stubble.
There is just a serious rain,
a steady crutch for the air,
colder than any April should be.
I am up to my neck in chores:
I am up to my neck in chores:
the cat needs more food,
my daughter’s clutter piles up like ant hills,
I fold her little sleeves, ghost by ghost.
What melody springs from the heart so well?
These lone trees can’t be dazzled by sun today,
they have such tremors like the Pope’s.
Lost loons pitched into sky folds,
their crusty buds just blinking
as
if to test how fierce the light is.
They sag and meander from their stems,
they bleed from transparency.
Needless or hopeless,
as overused fountains,
they are my metrics, my fortitude;
plants with lemony grass spigots
that will never go dry.
from: The Bad Secret: Poems by Judith Harris. Copyright 2005.
from: The Bad Secret: Poems by Judith Harris. Copyright 2005.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
QUOTE OF THE DAY
In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.
-Laurence Sterne
Solitude
by Stephen Sandy
Cretan farmers still press their olives. Swallow
retsina, tend their flocks. Our scholars know
—oracular computers tell them so—
it’s just as the Minoans did. Do we
know them then, the Minoans? Is their debris
ours too? Rather consider to what degree
warehouse palaces are dazzlements,
and through the dark mullions of romance
see for once that we see nothing, nothing.
from: Weathers Permitting: Poems. Copyright 2005.
Cretan farmers still press their olives. Swallow
retsina, tend their flocks. Our scholars know
—oracular computers tell them so—
it’s just as the Minoans did. Do we
know them then, the Minoans? Is their debris
ours too? Rather consider to what degree
warehouse palaces are dazzlements,
and through the dark mullions of romance
see for once that we see nothing, nothing.
from: Weathers Permitting: Poems. Copyright 2005.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Some Song Lyrics for GOOD FRIDAY (the VIDEO too) But The WORDS are STILL worth READING.
by Leonard Cohen
It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.
It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on ...
I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
A FEW more QUOTES FOR THE DAY
Joycelyn Elders Puts Congress on Blast
As social conservatives push cuts for reproductive health services, the outspoken former surgeon general says that not much has changed since her '90s battle with them.
* * *
We spend $9 billion a year taking care of children born to children, and then they talk about saving money. If they really wanted to save money, we would talk about comprehensive health education and make reproductive services, including abortion, available for women.
Any woman who has a congressperson who votes against women's reproductive rights is headed back to the Dark Ages, when they were owned by their husbands.
If everybody in Congress who'd ever masturbated in their life would turn green, then we would have a green Congress.
.
The solitude of an apricot
by Carl Adamshick
Away from leaf touch, from twig.
Away from the markings and evidence
of others. Beyond the shale night
filling with rain. Beyond the sleepy
origin of sadness. Back, back into
the ingrown room. The place where
everything loved is placed, assembled
for memory. The delicate hold
and tender rearrangement of what is missing,
like certain words, a color reflected off
water a few years back. Apricots and
what burns. It has obtained what it is.
Sweet with a stone. Sweet with the
concession of a few statements,
a few lives it will touch without bruising.
from: American Poet. Copyright 2010.
Away from leaf touch, from twig.
Away from the markings and evidence
of others. Beyond the shale night
filling with rain. Beyond the sleepy
origin of sadness. Back, back into
the ingrown room. The place where
everything loved is placed, assembled
for memory. The delicate hold
and tender rearrangement of what is missing,
like certain words, a color reflected off
water a few years back. Apricots and
what burns. It has obtained what it is.
Sweet with a stone. Sweet with the
concession of a few statements,
a few lives it will touch without bruising.
from: American Poet. Copyright 2010.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
As a positive counterpoint to Greg Mortenson and his 'Three Cups of Tea' scandal, I thought you might be interested in hearing about Sally Goodrich.
by Nikki Stern.
... She was, among other things, a
teacher and school administrator; a cancer survivor; wife of a
small-town lawyer from North Adams, Massachusetts; the mother of a
young man killed on 9/11; and eventually, a dedicated advocate for
Afghan civilians, particularly for girls and young women. ...
In 2004, Sally heard from a Marine in Afghanistan, a friend of her late
son Peter, who asked her to collect supplies for school children. It
was then that Sally found her calling, a way to lift herself out of
depression and create something positive to honor her son’s spirit.
In
2005,
Sally and Don founded
the
SEE ALSO: NYT.Com, Boston.com.
Photo Via. House of Brinson.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Perhaps it is not too much to hope for the three wishes of Dorothy’s companions: A Brain to think about what we say; A Heart toward our fellow humanity; and the Courage to accept that we are but one human race with diversity having common needs.
To George Sand: A Recognition
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
True genius, but true woman! dost deny
Thy woman's nature with a manly scorn
And break away the gauds and armlets worn
By weaker women in captivity?
Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry
Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn—
Thy woman's hair, my sister, all unshorn
Floats back dishevelled strength in agony
Disproving thy man's name: and while before
The world thou burnest in a poet-fire,
We see thy woman-heart beat evermore
Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher,
Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore,
Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire!
True genius, but true woman! dost deny
Thy woman's nature with a manly scorn
And break away the gauds and armlets worn
By weaker women in captivity?
Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry
Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn—
Thy woman's hair, my sister, all unshorn
Floats back dishevelled strength in agony
Disproving thy man's name: and while before
The world thou burnest in a poet-fire,
We see thy woman-heart beat evermore
Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher,
Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore,
Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
WHAT EXACTLY DOES "Support Our Troops" MEAN?
Please forgive me if I seem a bit angry in this, the season of the greatest Christian Sacrifice, Easter, but the article quoted below brought to mind a number of other travesties concerning "Our Troops."
when we refuse to care for them properly when they are injured;
when we don't let them out of the service
once they've completed their term;
what does 'support' mean?
Paying for the flag we give their next of kin?[I]n the important next phase of Giffords’ recovery—months of intensive rehabilitation aimed at maximizing her quality of life—Giffords is receiving a level of care unattainable by thousands of Americans who have been wounded on the actual battlefield. That’s because the costly treatment Giffords is receiving at The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research at Memorial-Herman is being paid for by the federal government, but such care for U.S. troops is not.
... Most military personnel ... are covered by an insurance plan called TRICARE, which does not cover key elements of cognitive rehabilitation therapy. As revealed in a series of investigative reports by the non-profit news enterprise, ProPublica, TRICARE claims that the benefits of cognitive rehabilitation therapy are not well enough established to warrant providing it to troops. TRICARE bases this assertion on the findings of a study commissioned by TRICARE itself, and which ProPublica’s reporting has found to be “deeply flawed.”
by Peter J. Boyer.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Reading a book is only the first step in the relationship. After you've finished it, the book enters on its real career. It stands there as a badge, a blackmailer, a monument, a scar.
Still
by A. R. Ammons
I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:
but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is
magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:
I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up
and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:
I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:
at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!
from: The Selected Poems: 1951-1977. Copyright 1986.
I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:
but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is
magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:
I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up
and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:
I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:
at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!
from: The Selected Poems: 1951-1977. Copyright 1986.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
THE GIVING TREE, Or . . .
Via. Better Book Titles.
No HINTS Intended
(You know who you are)
HONEST
(You know the number)
Sort Of
* * *
DO NOTHING. BALANCE BUDGET?
[D]oing nothing allows all kinds of fiscal changes that politicians generally abhor to take effect automatically.
First, doing nothing means the Bush tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, at the end of next year. That would cause a moderately progressive tax hike, and one that hits most families, including the middle class. The top marginal rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and some tax benefits for investment income would disappear. Additionally, a patch to keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million or so families would end.
Second, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obama's health care law, would proceed without getting repealed or defunded. The CBO believes that the plan would bend health care's cost curve downward, wrestling the rate of health care inflation back toward the general rate of inflation.
Third, doing nothing would mean that Medicare starts paying doctors low, low rates. Congress would not pass anymore of the regular "doc fixes" that keep reimbursements high. Nothing else happens. Almost magically, everything evens out.- Annie Lowrey, Slate.
Touching AMERICAN LIFE, Profoundly
From 2006-2008, they produced an Emmy winning television version of This American Life on the Showtime network, which is now re-airing on Current TV.
Thet're also the co-producers, with NPR News, of the economics podcast and blog Planet Money.
There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always.
There’s lots more to the show, but it’s sort of hard to describe. Probably the best way to understand the show is to start at our favorites page, though we do have longer guides to our radio show and our TV show.
If you want to dive into the hundreds of episodes we’ve done over the years, there’s an archive of all our old radio shows and listings for all our TV episodes, too.
There are several ways to get the show:
- Stream radio episodes for free from the archive
- Listen on the radio
- Subscribe to the free weekly podcast
- Download the most recent episode a la carte, free, from the homepage
- Download old episodes for $0.99 on iTunes or Amazon MP3
- Stream episodes through our iPhone app or Android app
- Purchase greatest hits collections on CD
- Watch the TV show on Current TV Mondays at 10/9C.
- Purchase DVDs of our TV seasons
- Download TV Season One or Season Two on iTunes
- Rent or stream TV episodes on Netflix.
from: About This American Life.
Balance
by Adam Zagajewski
translated by Clare Cavanagh
I watched the arctic landscape from above
and thought of nothing, lovely nothing.
I observed white canopies of clouds, vast
expanses where no wolf tracks could be found.
I thought about you and about the emptiness
that can promise one thing only: plenitude—
and that a certain sort of snowy wasteland
bursts from a surfeit of happiness.
As we drew closer to our landing,
the vulnerable earth emerged among the clouds,
comic gardens forgotten by their owners,
pale grass plagued by winter and the wind.
I put my book down and for an instant felt
a perfect balance between waking and dreams.
But when the plane touched concrete, then
assiduously circled the airport's labryinth,
I once again knew nothing. The darkness
of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness,
the darkness of the voice that counts and measures,
remembers and forgets.
from: Eternal Enemies. Copyright 2008.
translated by Clare Cavanagh
I watched the arctic landscape from above
and thought of nothing, lovely nothing.
I observed white canopies of clouds, vast
expanses where no wolf tracks could be found.
I thought about you and about the emptiness
that can promise one thing only: plenitude—
and that a certain sort of snowy wasteland
bursts from a surfeit of happiness.
As we drew closer to our landing,
the vulnerable earth emerged among the clouds,
comic gardens forgotten by their owners,
pale grass plagued by winter and the wind.
I put my book down and for an instant felt
a perfect balance between waking and dreams.
But when the plane touched concrete, then
assiduously circled the airport's labryinth,
I once again knew nothing. The darkness
of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness,
the darkness of the voice that counts and measures,
remembers and forgets.
from: Eternal Enemies. Copyright 2008.
Monday, April 18, 2011
WHAT IS A "LIBERAL?"
[I]f by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
- by John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960.
A child said, What is the grass?
by Walt Whitman
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
QUOTE OF THE DAY
From the dog's point of view,
his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog.
INSHALLAH
by Ben Downing
-- which is to say "God willing," more or less:
a phrase that rose routinely to her lips
whenever plans were hatched or hopes expressed,
the way we knock on wood, yet fervently,
as if to wax too confident might be
to kill the very thing she wanted most.
It used to pique and trouble me somehow,
this precautionary tic of hers, but now
I understand why she was skeptical
of what Allah in His caprice allots,
because that she should live He did not will
or, more terribly, He did that she should not.
In Memoriam Mirel Sayinsoy, 1967-1999.
-- which is to say "God willing," more or less:
a phrase that rose routinely to her lips
whenever plans were hatched or hopes expressed,
the way we knock on wood, yet fervently,
as if to wax too confident might be
to kill the very thing she wanted most.
It used to pique and trouble me somehow,
this precautionary tic of hers, but now
I understand why she was skeptical
of what Allah in His caprice allots,
because that she should live He did not will
or, more terribly, He did that she should not.
In Memoriam Mirel Sayinsoy, 1967-1999.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
QUOTE OF THE DAY
I dread no more the first white in my hair, Or even age itself, the easy shoe, The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair: Time, doing this to me, may alter too My anguish, into something I can bear.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
A Fear of Old Age
by Jack Anderson
The dread, always,
of coming to this:
to sit
day after day
chain smoking
in a soiled undershirt
beside the cracked window
of a fifth-floor walkup
on Railroad Avenue
with stains on the wall,
dead flies on the sill,
no hot water,
and the cold water rusty;
to sit
smoking and coughing
watching dust settle down,
freights rumble by,
and beyond the tracks
the river flowing
gray and tedious
while on the other,
the opposite, shore
the distant lights
of someplace else
rise up in a glory
more awesome than Rome
and now unreachable
as anyplace anywhere.
From: Getting Lost in
a City Like This. Copyright 2009.
Friday, April 15, 2011
A VOICE of COMPASSION on the BUDGET ISSUE
"The moral measure of this budget debate is not which party wins or which powerful interests prevail, but rather how those who are jobless, hungry, homeless or poor are treated. Their voices are too often missing in these debates, but they have the most compelling moral claim on our consciences and our common resources.
A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons. It requires shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly."United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The F.B.I. Needs Your Help!
(Click on the images to embiggin)
Have you seen similar codes?
Do you have any information about the Ricky McCormick case?
If so, write to the following address:
FBI Laboratory
Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit
2501 Investigation Parkway
Quantico, VA 22135
Attn: Ricky McCormick Case
There is no reward being offered, just the knowledge that you may be solving an intriguing murder mystery.
For more about the story: NetWorkWorld.
Irritable Mystic
— "mu" fifth part —
His they their
we, their he
his was but if
need be one,
self-
extinguishing
I, neither sham nor
excuse yet an
alibi, exited,
out,
else
the only where
he'd be.
Before
the long since
remaindered
body, imagines
each crack, each
crevice as it sweats
under
cloth,
numbed
inarticulate
tongues touching
down on love's endlessly
warmed-over
thigh.
The awaited one
she mistook him for haunts
him, tells him in
dreams he told
him so.
Such offense,
but at
what
won't say,
moot
remonstrance,
no resolve if not
not to be caught
out. . .
Abstract advance, its
advantage unproved,
unbelieved-in,
vain
what wish would
give. . .
Late eighties
night
momentarily bleached by
bomblight. Awoke,
maybe inwardly wanted
it,
wrestling with dreams
of the
awaited one
again.
Thought
back but a moment later
what moodier start
to have gotten off
to,
angered by that but
begrudged it
its impact
and
so sits remembering,
pretending, shrugs
it
off. . .
Arced harp. Dark
bent-over body. Esoteric
sun whose boat its
back
upheld. . .
Unseizably
vast underbelly of
light,
limb-letting thrust.
Tread of
hoofs. Weighted udders of
dust. . .
His it their she
once they awake,
the
arisen one,
world
at her
feet,
her feet
one with their
rapture,
ankledeep in damage
though she
dances. . .
The slippings
off
of her
of their hands
define
her hips, whose are
the suns whose
heat
his
nights taste
of
and as at last he
lies her legs loom,
naked,
loose gown
pulled from
her,
sleep
turns.
And he with his
postures
cramps
the air,
bent
lotuslike, lips
part kiss,
part
pout
from: School of Udhra.
Copyright 1993.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Man in Clown Outfit
by Gretchen Mattox
He's waving a plastic pointer, stiff flag enter lot here,
parking
at the edge of Lincoln--bright-yellow clown suit with bold
ruffles
and
floppy shoes
(the kind with stuffed toes) and from even a short distance
he could be
anyone degraded selling what?, he could be, but he is a man,
clearly
Mexican,
underneath the nose that honks, a black mustache, illegal
alien? probably.
Like the girls in bikini tops and grass skirts outside
casinos in
Las
Vegas,
who say Come get your free lei (colored plastic wrap á la
Hawaii), he does
what he's been told to do: on automatic, flag arm ticking
like a metronome.
Underneath the painted smile is another expression--harder
to place.
The urgency of traffic, who has time to care?
He takes his job seriously. On the way home, reverse route
back,
he's still there waving, a swimmer treading water.
From: Buddha Box.
Copyright 2004.
Painting: The Sad Clown, by Aiden Ivanov.
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