Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Crows With Lethargic Dispositions




  • >> Deferred (double) bleggalgaze, deferred (triple) tabletgaze, deferred (quadruple) pengaze
  • Orientalism, then and now
  • Read this and remember Democrats never campaign on Judiciary and conservatives doing this shit though of course they know and ask yourself why
  • Magnetized by despair
  • My congressperson - since I'm sloppy and tolerate no greys but more sloppy when I hate motherfucking professional Democrats and Raskin has been one sometimes, some credit here where due (though I'm tempted to call FAKE!)
  • Deep Space Nine, Season Four, Episode Nine, first of the Bashir, Julian Bashir, episodes, saved by Sisco as Drax for Drax's name alone
  • Hejinian! Just bought
  • Made a change (see if you see) at PoJ (plus new post)
  • Comparative Poetry
  • Occurred to me yesterday I haven't listened to Polly Jean in forever, the fuck is wrong with me







LAST ON EARTH

Mary Ruefle

It is said that many have been cured of madness by drinking
of the spring in the orchard of this convent, but I
doubt it, for it is a very pleasant place and a surfeit
of pleasantries often leads directly to madness.
I do not have much experience of madness (once
a sister ran naked down the hall) but I have tasted
the water and it is clear and fresh, there is nothing
unpleasant about it. The Abbess said of a certain man
he is a drink of water—meaning he was a bore—
but I want to meet that man, he would be as welcome
in my life as Jesus in the orchard here, though the fat
old Abbess might shoo him away.  I would be so glad
to have him drink, to serve him with a round of little glasses
on a painted tray, like the ‘cocktail parties’
in the secular world, and I the hostess, turning her cheek
to be kissed in the fray. I would wear white clothes and
my headdress, and he might carry a scythe and cut
the morning glories, or simply sit and sun his nose.
But they have taken my Lord away, lodged Him in the earth
somewhere, call Him leaves, vines, breeze, bird.
It cannot be true. Looking for Him in these things
condemns us to a lifetime of imbecile activity.
He has a face, arms, legs, a navel. He is a man,
for He is everything I am not. How can it be
otherwise? Before I leave the spring, I lean
over it and weep. I spit upon the flowers. I stumble
up the hill. We are somewhere below the Tserna Gota—
meaning the Black Mountain—and when I reach the top
I count the villages—there are two—where we
are the last on earth to think of Him as having a head.
Here, too, is the source of the spring, and crows
with lethargic dispositions circle and circle the spot.

4 comments:

  1. Drax: Bond villain in Moonraker.
    Dax: Trill symbiont living inside of Terry Farrell.

    This comment has been the pinnacle of my shabby little Internet career, and I move into retirement having made my world safe for mediocrity. Thank you all for your love and support lo these many years.

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  2. 1)i read the linked article about jamie raskin, your congressperson, and also the wikipedia bio of him - i have also seen him as a talking head on my cable news channel of choice, repeatedly - more than four and less than forty times - as well as in person at a public event once - if he were my congressperson, i would vote for his re-election if the opportunity presented itself

    2)i have my cable news channel of choice on right now - during commercial break i note

    a)pat benatar's hit of the song written by john 'cougar' mellenkamp - and by the way, mellenkamp grew up within ten miles of where my grandfather did, although decades apart, of course - is now the soundtrack to an applebee's ad - their advertising slogan is the commercial's tag line, but if you can't think of it i won't remind you

    b)the hotel search website trivago spokesman is back in a couple of new ads - i had speculated that his drunk driving arrest a month ago in houston would end his career with them, but apparently not

    he's also a country musician

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uNd2G6cCu8



    3)i read the latest piece by chris floyd you linked to, the full title of which is 'bipolar disorder: magnetized by despair' - and the comments thereto - old guys talking about when they realized that 'we' unitedstatesians were the bad guys

    a)i wasn't aware that senator little marco had tweeted a video of muammar gaddafi's last moments - once again i am reminded of the harvard law of behavior

    b)i was reminded of an opinion expressed by ian welsh in his book of essays he's just made available it doesn't have to be this way -

    You love your child, yes? You would let a hundred people die to save your child?
    You are a monster.
    Most other people would.
    They are monsters.


    welsh is strict in his adherence to the kantian deontological categorical imperative

    d)sometimes softer words are more useful - instead of 'monster', or 'fool', sometimes a term like 'spiritually immature' or 'less aware' might work better

    e)jacob needleman, in his book money and the meaning of life, contrasts two views - the psychoanalytic one, that sees people as not as good as they would like to think, nor as bad as they secretly fear - versus one that perceives people as much worse than they realize, but potentially capable of an illumination they cannot currently imagine

    f)in the gita krishna says people have both divine and demonic tendencies - to me that seems right

    g)if only more people would leave their couches in tatamagouche

    https://www.blckdgrd.com/2014/11/if-it-would-help-i-would-paint-my-house.html?showComment=1417014537229#c3325101842082700199


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  3. i looked at PoJ

    it seems more open - i like it

    animals, monsters, moral actors -

    as the saying goes, compared to what?

    “But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.”
    ― Robert Ardrey, African Genesis (1961)



    when i read this, i always speculate on which poets might be especially esteemed by our hypothetical interstellar audience - dante? shakespeare? whitman? my distant cousin, henry wadsworth longfellow? tagore? rumi? james tate?

    maybe they'd enjoy looking at https://www.shambhala.com/buddhist-poetry-a-reader-guide/

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  4. speaking of people's good and bad opinions of themselves, i just noticed the new text under the blckdgrd blog logo - how long since you've changed it?

    and i am reminded of a line from the mass, which i typically repeat approximately once a week

    "lord, i am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and i shall be healed"

    and speaking of jesus, as ruefle does in her poem - when cradle catholic missus charley returns from her trip at the end of the month perhaps i will discuss with her a former priest's recent article

    https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2019/05/abolish-priesthood/589633/

    although before then i may reread unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, mártir

    http://www.armandfbaker.com/translations/unamuno/san_manuel_bueno_martir.pdf

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