Tuesday, June 2, 2020

having proceeded by the logic of your personal vacuum you will perceive your continued lightlessness as an excuse to go on

At approximately the time motherfucking pigs dispersed peaceful protesters from 16th and H so Diapered King could cosplay as a Christian, Earthgirl and I hiked past Hidden Pond at Rachel Carson




  • I live in a democracy of three and am outvoted more than not so I wasn't Downtown and, until I win a daily vote (I anticipate losing again today) I won't go - they are fearful I'll lose an eye to a rubber bullet, sure, have my skull cracked by uniformed crackers with immunity for cracker crimes, sure, but they are deeply frightened I'll catch plague and, in the case of one, will give it to her before it manifests itself in me. I feel guilty, yes, but not enough to create discord in my peaceful coalition (beyond damage to my own self-regard at not participating)
  • Today is Maryland's primary. I received my paper ballot two weeks ago, it went into the three-day mail isolation MOMs paper grocery bag the day I received it and I recycled that bag without reviewing its contents a week ago yesterday. I could mask-up and blue nitrile glove my hands and vote at the Gaithersburg Community Center but fuck that, and not from fear of plague
  • Hey, beaver in Hawlings River last night at Rachel Carson










LOGIC

Alice Notley
 
It was a poem
men took because it said ovary
 
didn’t take my
political poems
they took the one that said ovary
 
Are you sure it was because it 
           said ovary?
 
Yes, for them that’s logical.
 
---------------------------
 
Destroy another
          city 
What 
else 
is war for? So
 
you’ll go down
each of you does. dies in
                           whirlwind
 
each of you who does, dies 
          paying
for the pain you experience
         Just that 
and nothing is established
 
Because I am a woman
Cutting as many cords 
as tie you to me. this isn’t
           anarchy 
it isn’t anything you
           could name
 
You’re still here 
without ties?
 
because they were logical.
 
---------------------------
 
Dance little asshole dance
oh he gets elected, like a Calvinist 
He says, I have these guts 
Men, I have these guts.
 
---------------------------
 
Having dedicated whole 
regions to the destruction
          you inspire, the 
logic will be to go on doing it 
doing it. Having proceeded by
 
the logic
         of your per-
sonal vacuum 
you will perceive your continued
          lightlessness 
as an excuse to go on. having 
gone on 
as you have. And so one continues.
 
-----------------------------
 
Lead the boy out of
          the building on fire
his head twisted 
          upwards
all fucked
 
What else is there to
       know if 
one has gotten 
twisted up 
all fucked
 
he is a screaming fire
 
-----------------------------
 
In the explanations 
of our lives’ experience
 
they’ve left out this wild moment
the long mirror on the right-hand wall of the
corridor suddenly shattered
I can’t see myself anymore.
 
-----------------------------
 
I repeat that I am not frightened
          and why not 
I don’t know 
what my reactions 
are supposed to be.
 
-----------------------------
 
        “Please tell me something 
with which I’m familiar.”
 
isn’t there another part of now

2 comments:

  1. Maybe there's something wrong with me but I don't feel any guilt for not participating. It's not clear what exactly goes on but I suspect the cops are instigating violence one way or another as an excuse to crack your skull. As for those who encourage violence I think you're assholes. Be careful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 1)how to be a good white ally

    https://www.vox.com/2020/6/2/21278123/being-an-ally-racism-george-floyd-protests-white-people

    1.3)premier stephen mcneil of nova scotia ended his press conference in halifax yesterday, after speaking in a complimentary way of the antiracism demonstration there, with these words -
    black lives matter

    2)jared diamond has written recently about how the coronavirus crisis could help humanity to mobilize a global effort to deal with common problems [or maybe not]

    https://www.edge.org/conversation/jared_diamond-best-case-and-worst-case-scenarios

    3)English Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough [1819-1861] suffered from the intense pressures of high expectations. He attended at the prestigious Rugby School and then studied at Oxford, but he resigned his fellowship and eventually found a career as an examiner in the British Education Office. Clough is best known for his early, shorter poems and for the longer, later work that sprang from his intense religious doubts. He was an important influence on later poets such as T.S. Eliot, and his best work hints at the radical experiments and split subjectivities that would become the hallmarks of Modernism.



    Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

    By Arthur Hugh Clough


    Say not the struggle nought availeth,
    The labour and the wounds are vain,
    The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
    And as things have been they remain.

    If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
    It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
    Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
    And, but for you, possess the field.

    For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
    Seem here no painful inch to gain,
    Far back through creeks and inlets making,
    Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

    And not by eastern windows only,
    When daylight comes, comes in the light,
    In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
    But westward, look, the land is bright.

    ReplyDelete