Thursday, February 22, 2018

The Cross Not Christian but Gracious




  • I am small and ungracious and spoke ill of motherfucking Billy Graham and his imaginary friend White Jesus at news of the motherfucker Graham's death.
  • I told Bill Clinton to fuck off to the sea (and take the motherfucker's imaginary friend White Jesus with him) when Clinton took an ex-POTUS platitude dump.
  • I typed I. Hate. Motherfucking. Democrats. when Obama dumped his.
  • Enough already.
  • I lost a hand playing Swans
  • my Kind tonguing splice
  • a nut selfing kick
  • for this seven syllable
  • alibi? If I 
  • believe my direst
  • Cassandra, trust canary
  • suicides, hermit,
  • dammit, and be kind
  • to animal mineral
  • holy kind back ghost.
  • Reminder:











HOW SPRING COMES

Alice Notley

    Toys and rose               The zoo body zigzags
I think fish too
                                        but I'm a polite
social being, I'm a Ladle Lady or purple
and blue I write green letters and gold
editorials for the Krystal Oxygen Company
I have one hip as far as I can see, that
I see as I write say
                                         white tee-shirts
                                            upsidedown
                                         turn em around
                                           & put them on
                                             your muscles
                                                my angels

                      or

                                   a semi-colon
                                      is blue window
                                           to me
is that a haiku? I fly over San Diego in some one or
another real despair and ask you to comfort me. You
more or less do, you aren't even here
            my best me my worldly me
            my taste of spring my continuance my
            comfort will you comfort me?
I offer you my heart over Tucson
                                                I can't use it
               take it to comfort me
                                                             free
                  me be it take it take it to
                  be it
which apparently you don't or take you help provide
me it I think, that
happens among true people, that poem I was writing
no good poem
                                    but Moment framed the Pleiades
The garnets ring more beautiful the longer you
                                             are waiting for me in them,
                                             where Deity makes me friendly there.

But who put on all the tee-shirts in Hunter's
Point? Well we're all good boys my son said so.
A semi-colon is a semi-precious garnet cluster
telegram; what we love are such depths between all
the messages. Pass the salt; Ladies of the Tang,
bubble of night; this book about Harry Truman is wonderful.

I see the Gulf Moon Rising every night. I'm familiar
with the zonked starfish. I've the sheen on under
the fire-escape railing all streetlight-lit. The
hollow suddenly appeared to enlarge and fill with a
bright light. Wild with the taste of wine it does not
remember the despair of an hour ago, which was true
that is of a true woman. She was somehow hating her
position on the round earth in the dusky sky on a
harsh Sunday. On the ground forgotten flowerlike
firmaments. She addressed in uneloquent hatred
SMUG LIFE
                          the one who soothes one's foolishness the
Great Face Construct who loves you for your kinks child
anyway, the Guru God:

              Oh I will come back a knockout tomorrow
                      Useless to you!
                                        You're not it you smug face
               I'm not doing your yoga not wearing
               Your moondrops using your cream
               Rinse letting you fuck me Exquisite
               Like I was one of the Ones With Brains Too!
               Intelligence in panties with peekaboo
                                                                    holes—

               No I'm coming back raw
               I'm getting drenched in the rain
               It's rain and it's wet I'm soaked I'm
               Chilled and I'm coughing the air's raw
               To my throat, which is raw from
               Coughing, coughing so strong
               Coughing and laughing
                         So strong from killing you!
Etc.
         
                  She didn't kill nothing.
                                                            & I don't get to share
no secrets with the stars. I make chow. I contemplate
semi-colons. I despair as a mother. I scream at that
kid I'm gonna crack open your big walnut if you don't
go to sleep. Theories of grace, that it implies no
surprise no shock. Ukrainians sudden on Sunday speaking
Ukrainian, the cross not Christian but Gracious
                            and when I want to cry or cough violently
it must diffuse back into my embassy; hard, that takes
hard. And if it weren't for you . . . not you smug life
face, but real you. Please play cribbage.
                                 Pass the salt.
                                 Think of a garnet-black cabbage, a
Ukrainian is selling it on 7th Street in honor of our
marriage. A Spanish fan opens in my abdomen
                           I have Spanish dancers in my stomach

         they're my arching striving in dance where it's black
red flowers darken to be huge pleasuring the
                severe, tried Angel who meets transition,
           transport, as abruptly as necessary
                                                  for everyone's are apt

Says the Unassuming Graceful
Whose down-hip-ness
Is that window
The dancers' sensuous flaw
That admits Spring,
Contingent upon our personality
Spring is for the worldly
                                                       just like the HaHa Room
                       Just like dearest rockbottom
                                                                  suddenly gone buoyant

                               
                                 To be black geese to be
                                 strenuous dancers
                                 is not to dignify a passion but to
                                 grip it.

                                        Not saints but always pupils
pupils dilated fully black in full achievement of
gut-feeling. Joy.



4 comments:

  1. this is an intriguing list

    https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2016/03/19-marvelous-unbelievable-books-about-the-strange-history-of-man-and-animals/



    ReplyDelete
  2. with respect to the late rev. billy graham...the humor publication weekly world news...one of their driest jokes ever was a feature they did on billy graham's view of heaven - they played it completely straight...



    from The Weekly World News, 1998



    In a review of Reverend Graham's writings, sermons and interviews, five themes emerge – five principles that he believes every human being should strive to live by in order to join God in Heaven. They're based on the Bible and on Reverend Graham's own experience. Here are the five ideas Billy Graham stresses over and over again in his written and spoken words. Practice them in your daily life and Heaven is definitely in your future.




    Pray regularly



    Reverend Graham has often said that too many people use prayer as a last resort – praying only when they need God to get them out of a jam. But as long as people think of God as some kind of errand boy or lifeguard, Heaven will always be out of reach. Jesus tells us God wants to be our friend. You wouldn't treat a friend that way. You want to spend time just talking and listening to your friends, enjoying their company. God wants us to visit Him regularly – for no other reason than that we like Him and He likes us. So it's important to spend time in prayer every day, even when things are going well.

    Love others

    This doesn't mean we have to "feel" loving toward everyone all the time. We are human and sometimes other people are going to upset us. The point is that we should act in loving ways – even to people who aren't very lovable. Remember Jesus said that if we're only kind to people who were kind to us, it means nothing. Even people who don't have God in their lives do that. The thing that sets believers apart is their willingness to try to love even difficult people.

    Read the Bible

    Reverend Graham says even he has not done as much Bible reading as he feels he should have. "I wish I had studied a great deal more. I wish I knew the Bible better than I do," he said not long ago. But he says it's never too late to start. He says that studying and reading the Bible can not only lead us toward Heaven, it can also help us get more enjoyment from our lives on Earth.

    Resist temptation

    The charismatic evangelist admits that in the past he spent too much time railing about hellfire and damnation. "I was too emotional in my early years," he says. Nevertheless, yielding to temptations of the flesh can give the Devil a grip on your life and pull you away from Heaven. When asked how he has managed to avoid the indiscretions that have brought down other, weaker evangelists, Reverend Graham says one prayer always works: "Lord, help me RIGHT NOW!” God will help us resist temptation if we ask Him.

    Be humble

    Always remember, if there's good in your life it's God who put it there. Taking credit for God's kindness will only separate you from Him and His Kingdom. To be humble is to be teachable. We all have a lot to learn. And an openness to learning more about God is consistent with citizenship in Heaven.



    Of course, no one can practice these five things perfectly. Reverend Graham freely admits that even he has fallen short of the mark many times. But doing your best to practice these principles will ensure you a place in Heaven.



    [end of quote from Weekly World News]

    what struck me about this advice when i read it in the 20th century, and still strikes me today, is how generally applicable it is

    in the interest of greater ecumenicism i would expand "pray regularly" to "pray or meditate regularly", and i would broaden the reading material from the bible to devotional, spiritual, and philosophical literature from other wisdom traditions of the seeker's choice

    i particularly liked graham's admission he had overdone the "hellfire and damnation" stuff in his earlier years

    may the creative forces of the universe be with you, and also with me

    ReplyDelete
  3. Probably commenting on wrong subject, but just wanted to say I read "The Brothers Karamazov" every year. Good for the soul (or lack of it).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good to hear from you!

      I read Karamazov this past summer in Maine on vacation. It's an every 5th or 6th year reread.

      I've avoid C&P because of the horse dream. I got to it last night, had to skip it.

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