Friday, November 4, 2022

When the Knock Comes, It Will Be Long Ago

My manic peaking, crash on my radar but not yet in sight. I surrender, won't try to pretend I don't choose if can't help to enflame panic over our shared clusterfuckful future, as imminent a crash as my manic down. I like what I make lately, your mileage may vary, though I'm tonguing my digital presence like a tooth I know will be sore tomorrow

The first names of the Ologies I needed to know in grad school I forget but still remember each's trajectory. What was the highlight of my forty-eighth year? When I dailyology with ising glass and stained glass deleted nightly in frank evaluation before waking to morning daymares of who what where when why ology's first names and especially what am I gonna do about it's, I ising glass and stain glass today what I'll dismiss tomorrow as another self-indulgent manic and futile diving expedition into relentless meology

Rest in Peace, George Booth
How America turned against the 1st Amendment
The part of the constitution shitlords want you to forget
GROOMERS!CAPITALISM!
It never was a democracy but what it was is about to end
Elite immunity = democratic illegitimacy
RETRO BIRCHERS!Reminder: Democrats have been ordered to lose the midterms, and they are remarkably effective at losing elections (see them underfunding Ryan in Ohio senate race against Turdly Vance), they are NOT incompetent, they're good at their job
Another day, another fake scare story
The crackerchrister candidate for governor of my state of Maryland
I fear for the life and well-being of so many friends with what's coming
The destiny of civilization: economic development, rentierism, debt
World War III has already effectively begun!
Three years later, still true: Kleiner Mann, Was Nun
Truly shitty shitlord of local helmetball team to sell team?
How to speak honeybee2022 November 2
One of my major gateway drugs!
How to speak crowTo twaater or not
Come panoply with me, or: spying on exes
Terrific review of Cartarescu's *Solenoid*
(which I have and will read after Everett's *Dr No*)
Hollow City: HopperBox built in an abyss
Four wonderful hours of excellent shoegaze
MONOLOGUE: I know professional Democrats have been ordered to lose both the House and the Senate this midterm and professional Democrats are good at their job, but thought experiment: what happens next Wednesday if the Democrats keep the House and gain two seats in the Senate and win state houses and gubernatorial races and not one of the defeated Republicans concedes?
2022 November 4MONOLOGUE: by 2024 America's crackerchristers will be violently fighting for their own dire and severe immiseration to own you and me
$400 for an orange RFK seat? The fuck no, laugh
MONOLOGUE: If our shitlords didn't want Crackerchristerfstan (what's more ear friendly, crackerchristerstan or christercrackerstan?) we soon wouldn't live in Crackerchristerstan
Hey, old local fucks like me, HFS when HFS was HFS, Lowell George interview
Review of new Bill Callahan (which I wish I liked more, I blame me)
Who's not seeing Yo La Tengo at 930 w me next Spring?
New Yo La Tengo song! new album 2/23!






THE FALL OF VARIA

D. Nurkse

The tanks from the Past rolled in this morning.
Our neighbors crowded the curbs to cheer
though only yesterday, they were snitching:
A has prior tendencies, B has backward dreams...

Already the old flag flies over the armory,
the cathedral, the courthouse, Mercy,
Parliament, Beaux Arts, a kindergarten.


Already we tell ourselves, “The Past rules,
but if we hold our breath we’ll emerge
safe in the present, vindicated, knowing
we’re steadfast, we passed the test of our lives.”

Troops file by, numberless as ears of wheat,
gray with ash, so tired they give off light,
eyes locked, forward, forward, never a glance
for our linden-shaded side streets; and we watch,
we force ourselves to peek, or not peek,
we part the curtain a hand’s breadth, a thumbnail.


At nightfall, gunshots in a distant suburb,
dry, faint, adamant as a cat’s cough.
For every twelve firing squad volunteers,
rumor claims, one is issued blank ammo:
so even in the Past, there must be shame.

Nothing happens fast. Rain of decrees.
But you can still get salt and whiskey
if you pay with a necklace, a deed, or boots.


Butter is rationed, then shoelaces, then spoons.
Lice return, roaches and rats: raccoons
rummage unchecked in a brimming dumpster.
We tell ourselves, “Vermin: this story is familiar.”


When the snow falls in its own silence,
spilling forwards, like blood in bath water,
and there is no heating oil, we think “childhood.”


Alone in the privacy of our triple-bolted room
we open our fingers and peek: yes, yes, the soldiers,
still advancing, bowlegged mountain boys
bearing the insignia of the Interior, tranced in cadence:
sometimes one stumbles, careens, topples forward,
but the boots march over him, the drum never pauses.

When the knock comes, it will be long ago.

1 comment:

  1. As always, Thankee for Link. "When the knock comes, it will be long ago" -- I haven't read a line of verse in the past >10 years that chills me more.

    ReplyDelete