Saturday, August 20, 2016

This Trace, If It Exists, Is Alms for Delusion



  • All the colors of the Dark.
  • A friend asked if I'd received any response, even a thank you but fuck you you suck, from either of the the publications I submitted my poems, and no, of course not. And yes, ▲ from 2013.
  • Inside the burn area.
  • The contemporary crisis of the American ideology. It's been a bit since I said this, but a supreme irony is that capitalism, which holds sacred the idea of competition - that competition rewards the consumer by driving makers to construct better products in order to succeed - has sucked since it lost its primary competitor.
  • Jonathan Chait's worldview: The Clinton Foundation is a stand-in for the Clintons’ sloppy ethics in general. In the eyes of their enemies, the Clintons are criminals on a world-historic scale; in the eyes of their supporters, innocent victims of a massive smear campaign. The reality is that their venality is rather ordinary. There’s a reason the term politician is synonymous with lying, calculation, and ambition — these are common qualities for politicians. The Clintons are common politicians, motivated in general by a desire to implement policy changes they think will make the world a better place, but not immune to trimming and getting rich in the process. None of their behavior is disqualifying, given the number of elected officials, presidents included, who have done the same. Neither does it justify it. It is unfair for Hillary Clinton that her skeptics, many of them sexist, imagine her as a figure of unique malevolence and corruption. But politicians have to deal with unfair circumstances rather than wish them away. So it's lack of response to the perception that she's - what's the word I'm looking for: pleonectic! - and that instead of directly addressing the issues she employs - what's the word I'm looking for - tergiversation! - that's the problem, so yes, all this for to set up that joke. And fuck me, I read Jonathan Chait, I deserve the bowl of shit I eat. 
  • One was Painted Bride Quarterly. I don't remember the other. The friend was L - my professor and friend, of the late Thursday Night Pints, who I had pints with this past Thursday - who was the friend who badgered me to submit in the first place. Much love, L, thanks for encouraging me, I won't say I won't again but I won't again soon.





CLOSING HOURS

Ann Lauterbach

This trace, if it exists, is alms for delusion.
An arch uncurls from the floor
scented with the scent of a tapestry, housed here.
I recall the hour but not its passage
unless dream captures and ties it to sleep:
a fat bellhop smiles, shows me to the tower
where I can watch the departure.
But some days settle so that nothing
crosses the horizon; stare as I will, no star
needles the air. Now I am left
on the outskirts of a forest hemmed in by wheat
where plump trees hide the image, its symmetry
shot up and blown across the ground like feathers.
The unicorn, the grail, blue and red wings
of kneeling musicians, these are embroidered
elsewhere. Perseverance was crowned.
Hope and Pity prayed for success.
How fast is this camera? Can it record a trace?
There was a voyage. Four mounted horses
strain against centuries.
To each is allotted: dust kicked up, smoke, plumage.


2 comments:

  1. as a fan of freddie mercury or as an aficionado of felines (2:37 in the video) you might possibly enjoy lake street dive's cover of bohemian rhapsody

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqEiWN44L3M

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Chair article was mildly amusing, but the comments were comedy gold!

    ReplyDelete