My Obsessed Incessant Itch and Interest in Things Found Frightful

• Morton Feldman, born 93 years ago yesterday, innermost circle of rotational MSADI5G.
• I didn't forget - I knew, know, will remember he has the same birthday as Earthgirl.
• In middle of a satisfying (as opposed to standard) seethe yesterday, I indulged the seethe.
• Life in the Seethocene.
• I didn't want to post Feldman in a satisfying seethe, diminishes both the seethe and the Feldman.
• Put another way, Feldman too important to my ears to use as zoloft on my seethe.
• Here's Feldman's Ubuweb page (you do throw your pocket's coins at Ubuweb, yes? No.).

• I. Hate. Motherfucking. Snow. Not as much as I. Hate. Motherfucking. Democrats. Not even close, and I. Hate. Motherfucking. Snow. LOTS! People can vouch.
• The seething never stops in The Seethocene.
• Disappointments of The Apocalypse.
• Professional liberal concerned Jeff Bezos wife gets half.
• I don't watch TV because I don't watch TV, I don't need TV to spy on me, I can spy on me for Power enough online and on my phone and email etc.
• Maggie's weekly links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• Rest in Peace, Joseph Jarman.

NIGHTWATCHMAN'S SONG

W.D. SNODGRASS

I

 

What’s unseen may not exist—   

Or so those secret powers insist   

            That prowl past nightfall,   

Enabled by the brain’s blacklist   

            To fester out of sight,   

 

So we streak from bad to worse,   

Through an expanding universe   

            And see no evil.   

On my rounds like a night nurse   

            Or sentry on qui vive,   

 

I make, through murkier hours, my way   

Where the sun patrolled all day   

            Toward stone-blind midnight   

To poke this flickering flashlamp’s ray   

            At what’s hushed up and hidden.   

Lacking all leave or protocol,   

Things, one by one, hear my footfall,   

            Blank out their faces,   

Dodge between trees, find cracks in walls   

            Or lock down offices.   

  

Still, though scuttling forces flee   

Just as far stars recede from me   

            To outmost boundaries,   

I stalk through ruins and debris,   

            Graveyard and underground.   

  

Led by their helmetlantern’s light   

Miners inch through anthracite;   

            I’m the unblinking mole   

That sniffs out what gets lost or might   

            Slip down the world’s black hole.   

 

II

  

(ending his rounds, the watchman, somewhat tipsy, returns)

 

What’s obscene?—just our obsessed,   

Incessant itch and interest   

      In things found frightful:   

In bestial tortures, rape, incest;   

      In ripe forbidden fruit   

  

Dangling, lush, just out of reach;   

Dim cellars nailed up under each   

      Towering success,   

The loser’s envy that will teach   

      A fierce vindictiveness,   

  

The victors’ high court that insures   

Pardon for winners and procures   

      Little that’s needed   

But all we lust for. What endures?—   

      Exponential greed   

  

And trash containers overflowing   

With shredded memos, records showing   

      What, who, when, why   

’Til there’s no sure way of knowing   

      What’s clear to every eye:   

  

The heart’s delight in hatred, runny   

As the gold drip from combs of honey;   

      The rectal intercourse   

Of power politics and money   

      That slimes both goal and source.   

  

What’s obscured?—what’s abscessed.   

After inspection, I’d suggest   

      It’s time we got our head   

Rewired. I plan to just get pissed,   

      Shitfaced and brain-dead.