Sunday, November 6, 2016

Amidst the Piles of Outcast Citizenry and Burning Barrels of Waste and Rot, the Plump Rats Darting Freely, the Havoc of Blown Newspapers, Lay the Little Shroud of My Lost Friend: Small and Gray and Threadbare, Windworn by the Ages of Scurrying Hither and Thither, Battered by the Avalanches and Private Tornadoes of Just Being a Gnome, but Surely There Were Good Times, Too

Today in fine metaphors abounding: when I opened up gmail this morning there was a banner across the top. VOTE! it ordered, do I need to know where my polling place is? I got out my iPhone to take a photo, damn, my laptop screen is squat and long, couldn't get an aesthetically pleasing shot (and Olive wouldn't stand still in the background), so I printed screen and pasted into my motherfucking free blogging platform. Guess what.

Driving home from dinner with Oakton last night we were talking the motherfucking election. Planet and Air said that the HRC mail scandal is basically caused by HRC's refusal to learn how to use ANY device - phone, tablet, PC - other than her Fisher-Price blackberry. Here I am, thinking it's regal fuckyouedness, fuck it if I'm caught when legions are trying to catch me, I'm Hillary Fucking Clinton. Is it really she's a moron who can't run two email accounts simultaneously?

Here, let me get up from my dining room table and walk ten feet.















  
SHROUD OF THE GNOME

James Tate

And what amazes me is that none of our modern inventions
surprise or interest him, even a little. I tell him
it is time he got his booster shots, but then
I realize I have no power over him whatsoever.
He becomes increasingly light-footed until I lose sight
of him downtown between the federal building and
the post office. A registered nurse is taking her
coffee break. I myself needed a break, so I sat down
next to her at the counter. "Don't mind me," I said,
"I'm just a hungry little Gnostic in need of a sandwich."
(This old line of mine had met with great success
on any number of previous occasions.) I thought,
a deaf, dumb, and blind nurse, sounds ideal!
But then I remembered that some of the earliest
Paleolithic office workers also feigned blindness
when approached by nonoffice workers, so I paid my bill
and disappeared down an alley where I composed myself.
Amidst the piles of outcast citizenry and burning barrels
of waste and rot, the plump rats darting freely,
the havoc of blown newspapers, lay the little shroud
of my lost friend: small and gray and threadbare,
windworn by the ages of scurrying hither and thither,
battered by the avalanches and private tornadoes
of just being a gnome, but surely there were good times, too.
And now, rejuvenated by the wind, the shroud moves forward,
hesitates, dances sideways, brushes my foot as if for a kiss,
and flies upward, whistling a little-known ballad
about the pitiful, raw etiquette of the underworld.



9 comments:

  1. You're unbelievably fast (one reason it is understandable that the "science of earworms" link is not. Thanks as always.

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    1. Fixed, thanks.

      Was rushing to get my pickled beets at farmers market before they sold out. VICTORY! Also too, sriracha bread & butter pickles. Also too, broccoli kimchi. Yowza.

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    2. I think I've had all kinds of kimchi but broccoli. Sounds pretty good.

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  2. an anagogic critique of tate's gnome poem - see comments at
    http://www.blckdgrd.com/2015/07/my-felisberto-is-handsomer-than-your.html

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  3. I voted in Berkeley Springs. All the Mountain Party candidates (Jill Stein for Pres, Charlotte Pritt for Governor).

    That makes me one of them lady-hating Bernie Bros you read about, I suppose.
    ~

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    1. Well, here's one and perhaps the only reason to wish you'd been back in Ohio, so you could throw away your childishly, naively, and petulantly taken vote in a state where your irresponsibility would have mattered.

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  4. speaking of the aaargh -

    sunday night on fox news they a graphic showing where the candidates and surrogates were appearing in the next couple of days

    among these were

    HILLARY CLITNON and
    CHELSEA CLITNON

    i could have accepted one misspelling as accidental - but both? i don't think so





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    Replies
    1. Apparently Lil' Rupert and his Issue, Jimmy The Fish and Lack Lan, don't see value in accuracy or proofreading. In their view, news is only another form of entertainment.

      It's all about the broad view, you see; details are unimportant, so long as they can charge confiscatory advertising rates for telling the Peasantry what to buy, and increase Jimmy & Lacky's inheritance.

      And, Mongo votes "No."

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