Friday, January 31, 2020

You Bastards! It's All Sherbet

  • I beg all Iowans regardless your loyalties
  • please vote Bernie, it'll be funny
  • our sociopath overlords'
  • nausea (sing along!) heartburn indigestion upset-stomach (falsetto) diarrhea









THE YOUNG

Roddy Lumsden

You bastards! It’s all sherbet, and folly   
makes you laugh like mules. Chances   
dance off your wrists, each day ready, 
                              
sprites in your bones and spite not yet   
swollen, not yet set. You gather handful   
after miracle handful, seeing straight, 
                        
reaching the lighthouse in record time,   
pockets brim with scimitar things. Now   
is not a pinpoint but a sprawling realm.   
               
Bewilderment and thrill are whip-quick   
twins, carried on your backs, each vow   
new to touch and each mistake a broken 
                 
biscuit. I was you. Sea robber boarding   
the won galleon. Roaring trees. Machines   
without levers, easy in bowel and lung. 
                  
One cartwheel over the quicksand curve   
of Tuesday to Tuesday and you’re gone,   
summering, a ship on the farthest wave.

2 comments:

  1. i read the 'bernie's last dance' piece - generally it's sensible, i think - i agree that there is a small but non-zero chance bernie might get the nomination and win the election

    i expect to vote for bernie on april 28, 'acela primary' day, in one of several northeastern states voting on the same date in the Democratic Party presidential primaries for the 2020 presidential election

    in the presidential election in the fall i will vote for brother bernie or whomever brother bernie recommends i vote for -

    may the creative forces of the universe stand beside us, and guide us, through the Night with the Light from Above


    and speaking of james tate - i began to search for a poem of his that might contain a particular word but stopped when i got to this

    Books from James Tate's Desk

    (various). A collection of the books that Tate had in the working area of his desk when he passed away in 2015. Seventeen books total: a thesaurus and a book of quotations (each with flagged pages); three types of dictionaries; a book of names; a companion to literature; four guide books (three on plants and one on dogs); two history books; a book on Beethoven; an atlas; a guide to the UMass campus; and a Bible. Also the 1978 calendar of Kansas history. A dozen hardcovers; varying editions; used book condition, on average very good. [#034369] $350


    https://lopezbooks.com/elist/174/

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    Replies
    1. and speaking of bernie - rana foorahar [daughter of an immigrant turkish engineer who grew up in the midwest - professional bio see https://www.ft.com/rana-foroohar] writes


      Ed [Luce], you do a great job sketching the case for what I think may be the likely outcome — a brokered convention or a fight on the floor. I have always seen the similarities between Trump and Sanders — not factual, but emotional. Both have appealed to a certain number of people who feel sold out by establishment politics (though I hope that this idea has been proven to be utter baloney in the case of the president). Both have risen off the back of a super galvanised base, rather than any ability to seek common ground.

      I’ve heard from people very close to Sanders (including some who campaigned with him last time around) that he is totally authentic, and yet completely ill equipped to work with others. To quote one person from that former team, “he can’t really be in a room with more than three people at a time”. And that’s coming from someone who is deeply committed to Sanders policy prescriptions. Not good for a future president.

      That said, these aren’t ordinary times. Millennials want wealth redistribution. Sanders is promising it. He may be the one to bring them out — and bring out the existential fight within the party that the Republicans have already gone through.

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