For Inauguration Day I sit in the waiting room of Fitz Subaru getting my PVC valve replaced and my engine idling-wobbler tightened. The TV in the waiting room tuned to GRIT, apparently a 24-7-365 station of shitty western movies and shows from the fifties, sixties, and seventies, the white men all rugged American assholes, the Indians fuckugly white men painted red, the women in bras that raise their tits impossibly, they look at you, pointed right angles that white rugged American assholes and fuckugly white men painted red stare at brazenly, nudging each other, and as she walks away from the white rugged assholes they stare at her ass and call her "handsome." Twitter tells me Trump on a helicopter, many of the people I follow tweeting out some version of *Bye, Bitch.* Joe Namath pitches prostate health magic pills, Joe Theismann pitches health insurance affordable even to not *yet* corpses, then the program music of the show out of commercial makes tomahawk chop noises so without turning around to see the screen I know there are fuckugly white men painted red in the scene
Most weirdless to me is almost every friend who thinks within six feet of me predicted this cracker shit when the moons of Saturn were forming out of dust and *we* are still the whacked
Trump spending the last night in Oval Office squeezing the nuts of each fuck begging for a pardon
^^^^ The peasants can’t win, but they can cause trouble. They will keep voting erratically for increasingly strange and bizarre political figures. These candidates have little understanding of social problems or capital mobility. They can’t get the kind of results which might win over the constituencies they need to establish a power base within elite institutions, but they can offer disgruntled folks the catharsis of feeling seen or aesthetically represented. If the elites cannot even offer that much, they will continue to now and then suffer the indignity of losing to vulgar rogues. But that’s all it is, for the time being–an indignity.
Weirdest part to me is how old post-Trump already feels
<<< If you know her throw the coins in your pocket towards her pension, if you read the story and want to please throw the coins in your pocket towards her pension
Remember that connected guy fabulously rich from harvesting child-rape for fabulously rich shitlords, I mention because
"I rarely construct books around themes, in the writing of individual poems or even sequences: yet somehow they, the books, come together, and I come to think of them thematically" >>>>
Saw the oral surgeon, he's gonna roll back my gums and yank out a toothstump then drill posts into my jaw, "should take 20 minutes, you won't feel a thing," says Dentist Yank
Restrictive Cardiomyopathy, meds for rest of life, but good Nap news, good
A POEM WITHOUT A SINGLE BIRD IN IT
Jack Spicer
What can I say to you, darling,
When you ask me for help?
I do not even know the future
Or even what poetry
We are going to write.
Commit suicide. Go mad. Better people
Than either of us have tried it.
I loved you once but
I do not know the future.
I only know that I love strength in my friends
And greatness
And hate the way their bodies crack when they die
And are eaten by images.
The fun’s over. The picnic’s over.
Go mad. Commit suicide. There will be nothing left
After you die or go mad,
But the calmness of poetry.
speaking of yankees, it's been over three years since i repeated this story here
when i first moved from new york state to the part of virginia that is west of west virginia i was told a joke about the difference between a yankee and a damn yankee - this was the first time i'd heard it but it is a well known joke
a yankee comes down, looks around, and goes home a damn yankee don't go home soon enough
i left four and a half years after i arrived
at least i warn't a god damn yankee, who "comes for a visit, never leaves, and then goes on and on about how much nicer it was back home"
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry. A sea we must wade. We braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn't always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn't always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we'll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we've made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It's the past we step into and how we repair it. We've seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour. But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future. Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain. If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the golden hills of the West. We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover. And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn balloons as we free it. For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it.
Long live Napoleon!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't trust me no Yanky Den'ist.
Insist on Nitrous Oxide for the periodontal.
ReplyDeleteFlesh Eaters, Minutemen, DOA, will the last American band to get played on the radio please raise the flag?
ReplyDeletespeaking of yankees, it's been over three years since i repeated this story here
ReplyDeletewhen i first moved from new york state to the part of virginia that is west of west virginia i was told a joke about the difference between a yankee and a damn yankee - this was the first time i'd heard it but it is a well known joke
a yankee comes down, looks around, and goes home
a damn yankee don't go home soon enough
i left four and a half years after i arrived
at least i warn't a god damn yankee, who "comes for a visit, never leaves, and then goes on and on about how much nicer it was back home"
The Hill We Climb
ReplyDeleteby Amanda Gorman
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn't always peace,
and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn't always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we'll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we've made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It's the past we step into and how we repair it.
We've seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain.
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it.
If only we're brave enough to be it.
Amanda Gorman’s Poem Rhymes With Biden’s Climate Agenda
Delete“The Hill We Climb” offers both inspiration and warning in the face of the climate emergency. By Mark Hertsgaard
https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/amanda-gorman-climate-biden/