Sunday, December 3, 2017

have you ever seen a regatta of flies sail around a pile of shit and then come back and picnic on the shit



  • Beloved Sugarloaf, yesterday. Appalachian Trail today.
  • The Future: What is more likely, if the possibility of a large shift to the left is stifled, is cyberpunk dystopia (sadly, so far, minus the cyberwear). Surveillance police state, vast slums abandoned by corporations and governments, corporate syndicalist towns and enclaves (already happening, as tech companies start building housing for their employees), and so on.
  • Believe you me: the shift to the left will be stifled.
  • Mood.
  • Hat by Earthgirl. She doesn't understand that it looking like Moe's haircut is one reason I love it.
  • Condor Wing 3.
  • Gestalt in Yellow.
  • Maggie's weekly links.
  • { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
  • Dan's week's reads.
  • I was born without Merwin gene, though I'm trying.
  • Bark release.




  
FLIES ON SHIT

Frank Stanford

To the gentlemen from the south   
to the tourists from the north
who write poems about the south   
to the dumb-ass students
I’d like to ask one lousy question
have you ever seen a regatta of flies
sail around a pile of shit
and then come back and picnic on the shit
just once in your life have you heard
flies on shit
because I cut my eye teeth on flies
floating in shit


2 comments:

  1. 1)speaking of southern gentlemen and northern tourists i have told this story here before - it is a true story

    when i first moved from new york state to the part of virginia that is west of west virginia i was told a joke about the difference between a yankee and a damn yankee - this was the first time i'd heard it but it is a well known joke

    a yankee comes down, looks around, and goes home
    a damn yankee don't go home soon enough

    i left four and a half years after i arrived

    at least i warn't a god damn yankee, who "comes for a visit, never leaves, and then goes on and on about how much nicer it was back home"

    2)i told this story in the comments here on april 23, 2015 - by following links from the main post of that date i got to something showing a video of sinead o'connor defying an audience by shouting a bob marley song (i.e. "war") - after which she is hugged by kris kristofferson

    http://www.markrichardson.org/post/18332201412/i-havent-seen-this-in-years-pretty-hard-to-get

    3)mark richardson hasn't posted on his blog since jan. 20, 2017 - his tweeting continues in real time, however - recently he retweeted something very favorable about "a comic about Jawbreaker and music and life and aging and everything else"

    https://t.co/UD9WUeb4un

    4)back in 2015 i mentioned karen armstrong's book twelve steps to a compassionate life

    although 'twelve steps' are specified, they are not the same twelve steps as alcoholics anonymous and kindred groups use

    judy lee trautman's dense 8 page summary of armstrong's book is still available at

    www.multifaithcouncil.org/pages/12stepssummary.pdf

    it took me 20 minutes to read this document through (just reading silently) this morning - ymmv

    5)i am grateful that our host here tolerates my comments and allows them to persist over time - may the creative forces of the universe smile in his general direction

    6)it may be that the shift to the left which would be, in my opinion, the most appropriate response to the current political problematique in the next year or so is thwarted - however, you never know when something surprising might happen


    ReplyDelete
  2. >> My mother's family: all Yankees except those who weren't and went to North Carolina; my Urgroßvater who experienced Antietam, Fredericksburg, wounded at Gettysburg, after Appomattox (he watched Lee and the horse he rode in on) becoming a Baptist minister and Chaplin to a Territorial Legislature. Before dying out West, he remarked, "We haven't even begun to pay for the sin of slavery."

    >> Not sure what to say about circumstance prompting the Rilke. Doesn't mean I won't think about it, though.

    >> For Herr v. D. Danke for the listing, u. mit Bezug auf aktuellen u. früheren Aufsatz: Sehr Richtig!

    ReplyDelete