Tuesday, May 24, 2011

You're Seventeen and Tunnel-Vision Drunk, Swerving Your Father's Fairlane Wagon Home at 3:00 A.M.




That's new Bonnie Prince Billy.

Holyfuck, I found myself scribbling about the 2012 POTUS season like I was writing about a soccer game in which I don't have a rooting interest, say Chelsea versus Madrid (if forced to pick which I hate more I'd say I hate motherfucking Madrid .06% more than motherfucking Chelsea), writing about tactics and players, Pawlenty versus Romney versus motherfucking Obama, this after spending the last five days off-putting if not alienating all but the loyalest readers (and many of them too) with Fleabus photos and United yodeling and existential angst over Kate Bush's latest album and Planet's exceptional art and especially overbearing bleggalgazing. Why would I start writing about what drives eyes here today except lust for pings?

Kidding. I am that vain to think I make this blog so suck, but I'm not stupid: the Blog Days of Summer start in May in Blegsylvania. Look at those blogrolls. Look at the usually flush comment counters on overlords' blogs. Spring semester is over! Blogging is a winter sport. 2011 is a throwaway year in the Potus League anyway.

Hey! Bonnie Prince Billy is playing Birchmere October 2. I'll be buying tickets this weekend. Who's in? Hamster! I'm looking at you.




  • Apart.
  • The people v Goldman-Sachs.
  • Preach it, Brother Hedges. Another friend commended the Hedges to me, and while I agree with Hedges thoughts on establishment Liberals attacking anyone who questions Liberal orthodoxy, I can concurrently maintain I've thought Cornel West an assclown for at least a decade.
  • I've said all along that Obama's reelection strategy is to let the crackers cracker themselves out. Pint bets still stand.
  • Rogue client state, part 37
  • David Brook's wetdream.
  • On patriotism. (h/t
  • Press release from MINIPEACE.
  • This will be the last shamelessly bleggalgazing post until the next one, but I do want to say while I've no gah for rephrasing myself at the minute, there are things to be read and listened to, so links and reads and poems and songs and Fleabus and United may or not continue while I take a few days off (barring some kaboom) to not worry what I want to do here next.
  • UPDATE!









DEER HIT

Jon Loomis

You're seventeen and tunnel-vision drunk, 
swerving your father's Fairlane wagon home

at 3:00 a.m. Two-lane road, all curves 
and dips—dark woods, a stream, a patchy acre

of teazle and grass. You don't see the deer 
till they turn their heads—road full of eyeballs,

small moons glowing. You crank the wheel, 
stamp both feet on the brake, skid and jolt

into the ditch. Glitter and crunch of broken glass 
in your lap, deer hair drifting like dust. Your chin

and shirt are soaked—one eye half-obscured 
by the cocked bridge of your nose. The car

still running, its lights angled up at the trees. 
You get out. The deer lies on its side.

A doe, spinning itself around
in a frantic circle, front legs scrambling,

back legs paralyzed, dead. Making a sound—
again and again this terrible bleat.

You watch for a while. It tires, lies still. 
And here's what you do: pick the deer up

like a bride. Wrestle it into the back of the car—
the seat folded down. Somehow, you steer

the wagon out of the ditch and head home, 
night rushing in through the broken window,

headlight dangling, side-mirror gone. 
Your nose throbs, something stabs

in your side. The deer breathing behind you, 
shallow and fast. A stoplight, you're almost home

and the deer scrambles to life, its long head 
appears like a ghost in the rearview mirror

and bites you, its teeth clamp down on your shoulder 
and maybe you scream, you struggle and flail

till the deer, exhausted, lets go and lies down.

2
Your father's waiting up, watching tv.
He's had a few drinks and he's angry.

Christ, he says, when you let yourself in. 
It's Night of the Living Dead. You tell him

some of what happened: the dark road, 
the deer you couldn't avoid. Outside, he circles

the car. Jesus, he says. A long silence. 
Son of a bitch, looking in. He opens the tailgate,

drags the quivering deer out by a leg. 
What can you tell him—you weren't thinking,

you'd injured your head? You wanted to fix 
what you'd broken—restore the beautiful body,

color of wet straw, color of oak leaves in winter? 
The deer shudders and bleats in the driveway.

Your father walks to the toolshed,
comes back lugging a concrete block.

Some things stay with you. Dumping the body 
deep in the woods, like a gangster. The dent

in your nose. All your life, the trail of ruin you leave.


11 comments:

  1. Hey, everyone, did your Senator just vote for extension of the Patriot Act? Chances are the answer is Yes. Only 8 voted No.

    So thank your Senator for shitting on the nation, the Constitution, and you. What a great country! Free shit for all!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey I just cleaned my 12" with the extended mix of "Running Up That Hill" last night.

    Nice poem today too. Not that I know anything about poetry. But one of my favorites since "Allende".

    I like bleggalgazing. Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
  3. "We are not out of harm's way and no one should believe that," said the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Banker Buttlicker Margaret Thatcher Feinstein (the dragon lady with no fcuking heart), D-Calif.
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  4. Feinstein has been worthless for a long time now, and on national so-called security she has been downright harmful.

    I wrote to my Senators, Mikulski and Cardin, this morning, via their on-line contact forms. No, I didn't say "fuck you," but darn near close.

    I've had it with all the cowards in Congress. Democrat or Republican, they are equally spineless.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Babs is the patron saint of NSA and Fort Meade. Cardin does what he's told.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You do realize that if you stop bleggalgazing, you might veer dangerously close to SeriousLand, and who wants that?

    Who hates David Lee the King of Schmaltz? Oh, the other Roth.

    Who hears a who? Horton, that's who.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm an unabashed fan of Ben. Just sayin'

    And since this is obviously my heretic day.

    What in the bloody blue blazes is the matter with 5 PM on Sunday?

    ReplyDelete
  8. . . . This is the worst bill ever because it gives presidents the power to single-handedly launch wars and to lock people up without trial.

    This legislation, Section 1034 of the worst bill ever, undoes the limitations on one-man rule put in place by the U.S. Constitution over two centuries ago. This is the biggest formal shift of power in our government since we've had a government.

    We have military operations now in some 75 countries, and a significant war in Libya, all illegal under the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Act. But the worst bill ever will erase the War Powers Act, and the Constitution will simply be ignored.

    Meanwhile the significant withdrawal that President Obama promised to begin in Afghanistan has been scaled back to a withdrawal of 2.5 percent of U.S. forces.

    Call Congress today and tell your Representative and your two Senators:
    Enough is enough. End the wars. Bring the troops home. And don't pass the worst bill ever!

    Call toll-free 1-888-231-9276.


    http://warisacrime.org/content/worst-bill-ever-congress-0

    ReplyDelete
  9. That poem has many autobiographical echoes, from the Ford stationwagon, the tunnel-vision drunk 17 year old at 3AM, to the deer (although I did not put it in the car).

    Sasha - five in the afternoon screws up both the afternoon and the early evening. Play at noon or at night, please.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dood, just the title made me shudder uncontrollably for a second or two, and you know why, times two. Fucking remarkable, though clearly from a different place as that which was.

    I understand your fundamental position that pigs are pigs, and we expect better of those we (well, you) once thought to be non-pigs, hence your extra adverbial vitriol for the President. But really? You can seriously (and deservedly) put those adverbs in front of Team Franco, Team Russian Mafia, and Obama, but not in front of pigs? This pretty much bespeaks my entire problem with your cant. Except for the fuzzy navel shit, which is its own cant, and I've already rewarded the metametashite enough by acknowledging it, so you win again.

    ReplyDelete