- What had been for yesterday deleted today. I think of this as place-holder but you can call it filler.
- I deleted what was there for what I can't write about here as well as what I could write about here but will only say I'm glad to join Earthgirl and SeatSix on Monday evenings, the weekly event gives me a chance to think about every reason I'm both good glad and bad glad I'm there.
- Did you know that Pere Ubu put out a new album this past July? I did then forgot, Pere Ubu and other David Thomas projects one of two permanent members of My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game.
- I bought the new Krasznahorkai, while he's not on *that* MSADI5G he is one of my favorite novelists, I'd avidly read the first three of the tetrology the new novel completes, after 50 pages
- I've a bad case of darkinevitabalism, coughing fuckitloogies work woods yellow barns
- You know there's a new Swans album? I got it last week.
- Excellent meh (as opposed to me sick with my terminally ordinary meh addiction).
THE POETS ARE DYING
Brenda Shaughnessy
It seems impossible
they seemed immortal.
Where are they going
if not to their next poems?
Poems that, like life, make do
and make that doing do more -
holding a jolt like a new born,
a volta turning toward a god-load
of grief dumped from some heaven
where words rain down
and the poet is soaked. Cold
to the bone, we've become. Thick-
headed, death-bedded, heartsick.
Poets. Flowers picked, candles wicked,
forgiving everyone they tricked.
Did you know Wire has a new album coming out in January, supported by a tour, stopping there right after stop here for which tickets snapped up this weekend during Wisdaughter's nuptial festivities?
ReplyDeleteYes! and so does Destroyer, album and tour! I know I posted the new Destroyer, forget if I posted the new Wire, I think I did, I could check, but.....
DeleteWill see them both in DC in 2020
our friends at wikipedia tell me
ReplyDeleteSwans' music has transformed greatly over the decades, but is typically dark and "apocalyptic", often focusing on themes of power, religion, sex and death, and has been most generally associated with experimental rock. According to Spin, the band demonstrates "unparalleled ability to translate the absurd violence of the human condition into music that’s as intoxicating as it is intense."
speaking of unpleasant subjective states, as the title of this post does -
Deletethe following poem by rumi called to mind james tate's 'goodtime jesus' - mentioned in these comments here earlier
https://www.blckdgrd.com/2015/04/we-welcomed-our-poor-hackneyed-christ.html
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Jesus On The Lean Donkey
by Rumi
Jesus on the lean donkey,
this is an emblem of how the rational intellect
should control the animal-soul.
Let your spirit be strong like Jesus.
If that part becomes weak,
then the worn-our donkey grows to a dragon
Be grateful when what seems unkind
comes from a wise person.
Once, a holy man,
riding his donkey, saw a snake crawling into
a sleeping man’s mouth! He hurried, but he couldn’t
prevent it. He hit the man several blows with his club.
The man woke terrified and ran beneath an apple tree
With many rotten apples on the ground.
Eat! You miserable wretch! Eat.
Why are you doing this to me?
Eat more, you fool.
I’ve never seen you before!
Who are you? Do you have some inner quarrel with my soul?
The wise man kept forcing him to eat, and then he ran him.
For hours he whipped the poor man and made him run.
Finally, at nightfall, full of rotten apples,
fatigued, bleeding, he fell
and vomited everything,
the good and the bad, the apples and the snake.
When he saw that ugly snake
Come out of himself, he fell on his knees
before his assailant.
Are you Gabriel? Are you God?
I bless the moment you first noticed me. I was dead
and didn’t know it. You’ve given me a new life.
Everything I’ve said to you was stupid!
I didn’t know
If I had explained what I was doing,
you might have panicked and died of fear.
Muhammad said,
If I described the enemy that lives
Inside men, even the most courageous would be paralyzed.
No one would go out, or do any work.
No one would pray or fast,
and all power to change would fade
from human beings
so I kept quiet
while I was beating you, that like David
I might shape iron, so that, impossibly,
I might put feathers back into a bird’s wing.
God’s silence is necessary, because of humankind’s
faintheartedness. If I had told you about the snake,
you wouldn’t have been able to eat, and if
you hadn’t eaten, you wouldn’t have vomited.
I saw your condition and drove my donkey hard
into the middle of it, saying always under my breath,
Lord, make it easy on him. I wasn’t permitted
to tell you, and I wasn’t permitted to stop beating you!
The healed man, still kneeling,
I have no way to thank you for the quickness
of your wisdom and the strength of your guidance.
God will thank you.
The Essential Rumi-- translated by Coleman Barks