Wednesday, October 29, 2014

He Tried the Sweet, the Gentle, the "Oh, Let's Hold Hands Together," and It Was Awful, Dull, Brutally Inconsequential





There is a whole new subset of music I'm digging that I am not allowed to listen to when Earthgirl is in the car. Tom yesterday posted Elephant Memories. I still haven't - and won't - read it, though I love Tom's posts (and his poetry). I responded to his email to me (he lets me know when there are new posts) that I was afraid to open the post. I crib from my emails in the chain: I saw a photo year ago, poachers surrounding a fallen-to-his-knees elephant, laughing, about to do the kill shot, it seared me, I see it and will see it every fucking second for the rest of my life, when I saw it the first time I filled with such a desperately impotent fury, it...  when I think about the Dark I feel more often and for longer times during bouts and point to the key that unlocked it, it was that photo. Tom often posts horrible scenes of human-on-human atrocities - he's been especially observant of the recent Gazan pogrom - but human-on-human atrocities don't provoke the same dark impotent fury I've caused myself last night and this morning by not only seeing but looking at that seared image of poachers laughing at a wounded elephant. I wrote: I have a troll that mocks me via email weekly that my "Kind" act in Blegsylvania is self-serving both as protection against ridicule and means for illusions of superiority. Sure. I think it more gratitude for the the opportunity to engage and not be an asshole as well as needed penance for the asshole I know I can be. Is Kindness dissent? I try to be Kind in real life (I am trying to be less catty in comments, though I do treat people as Kind as I am able), Kind, a small tiny moral position at which I fail repeatedly. Tom recommended a passage from a Robert Creeley poem:

I sd to my friend, as
I am always talking, 
a desperately impotent fury, it
surrounds us
and he sd, etc 
Where would we be without the Dark and Fury. 
Well, in a better place, but still. 

I don't think I stole desperately impotent fury from Creeley, but the poem is familiar so I admit the possibility of unconscious plagiarism. I'm still googling it, but can't find it yet. Meanwhile, have some Internal Rot (and others) and the Creeley poem below.







  • The Future as Posthuman Game Strategy.
  • Motherfucking professional Liberals. Michael Kinsley - if you still wear a Kinsleyian face-mullet, REVOLUTION! free yourself! lose the face-mullet!
  • The moral blindness of our leading Liberals.
  • Sad and anxious? You might be suffering from.....
  • Frances is in Ecuador, invites you to visit!
  • No, it's not this blog's most renowned troll, you long-timers who are curious. This one is a relative newcomer to hating me. A blogfriend tells me she delights in trolls, extrapolates readership from the number of trolls she's amassed.
  • I no longer hold myself to the Fuck-Me-Jig that I would record and post in front of my new season-ticket holder seat at a new soccer stadium in DC since I am no longer a season-ticket holder for reasons over-yodeled (click on the DCU tag for over-yodeling), but I still maintain there will never be a new soccer stadium in DC. This does not give me pleasure. I don't give a shit anymore when United says Fuck DC and moves, but I know people who do.
  • Grouper.







SELF-PORTRAIT

Robert Creeley

He wants to be
a brutal old man,
an aggressive old man,
as dull, as brutal
as the emptiness around him,

He doesn’t want compromise,   
nor to be ever nice
to anyone. Just mean,
and final in his brutal,
his total, rejection of it all.

He tried the sweet,   
the gentle, the “oh,
let’s hold hands together”
and it was awful,
dull, brutally inconsequential.

Now he’ll stand on
his own dwindling legs.   
His arms, his skin,   
shrink daily. And
he loves, but hates equally.



2 comments:

  1. So, are we calling this 'speed metal'?

    Kind is nearly always a choice, and often the best.

    Again, Dog, I ask: if no DC United—the Red, the Black, it's their color scheme—then wherefore the bloghandle? If, e.g., you're now a Nats fan, shouldn't it be REDDGWHITE?

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    Replies
    1. If you find last time you asked Landru responded with the history of the name. He is the originator of the dog part, and fills in the rest.

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