But When I Say, You Are Like a Swamp-Animal During an Eclipse, I Am Happy, Full of Wisdom, Loved by Children and Old Men Alike. I Am Sorry If This Confuses You
My latest self-portrait requires the top-of-the-line overhead scanner I will never own nor ever have access to, this the Self-Portrait of the Artist Seething before that one:
Marie, at least three of you here remember her as the friend of L's who whirlwinded dinner at C & R's wedding, screamed - SCREAMED! - at L when on a walk this past Monday when L (who, people can vouch, is abnormally nice and kind for a human) didn't agree that all Palestinians are savage sub-human animals deserving of painful death, every single one of them (Marie screamed at me a half year or so ago that I was an immoral idiot for not toeing the MSNBC line on Ukraine, What, so you support Putin? she inquired). Glad for L I was not on the hike though I believe (or at least like to think) I would have simply said, Marie, we're not talking about this and then walked a hundred yards ahead of them while Marie scolded L for not divorcing an antisemitic pig like me.
The breaking of kayfabe to militantly insist that broken kayfabe is eternal unbreakable kayfabe and the You Will Lose Your Job Lose Your House Lose the Use of Your Broken Kneecaps Lose Your Life You Fucking Ewjay-Aterhay If You Disagree Campaign going exactly as I thought it would so why am I so sideways beyond it's done in my name with my tax dollars and without my consent? Did I ever believe in any other telemetry?
Gridding the clusterfuck as much a form of self-therapy as the self-portraits though both crowd everything else out. I recognize its futility: if you disagree with me you won't read, if you agree with me you don't need and don't need reminding. When I need to quit I hope I can, if I don't need to quit I hope I don't
"When we watch videos like this which starkly illuminate Israel’s genocidal slaughter of children in Gaza, we must ask ourselves what we can do to make wealthy, hyper-entitled Jewish students feel safer on Ivy League campuses"
It is not a coincidence that as America's hands get bloodier in its genocide via its Zionist colony that hyperventilating over a Trump authoritarian inevitability is increasing in professional Democratic liberal-whisperer publications
"Fake reports of atrocities against Israeli Jews will always receive multiple times more outrage than real atrocities against Palestinians. There’s more sympathy for imaginary beheaded Jewish babies than for thousands of real ones in Gaza."
⇧
WHEN ISRAELI SOLDIERS ATTACKED THE FUNERAL PROCESSION OF SHIREEN THE USA CHRISTIAN JOURNALIST WHO THEY ASSASSINATED
"If you question any part of this official story, you’re an evil Jew-hating monster who loves terrorism and wishes Hitler had won. You should be censored, fired from your job, kicked off campus and disappeared from polite society, because you support genocide and you want good people to die"
I'm sure I've heard a Taylor Swift song more than once somewhere and she likes helmetball which earns infinity demerits and I give zero shit about Time Magazine's Person of the Year, but if she and the award makes crackers cracker, good on her
Of helmetball's heinous crimes, mono uniforms is particularly odious
Bandcamped (listened, didn't buy, was hoping I'd want to buy, but...) the new Gabriel, it's mostly meh but has it's moments (one below), as you would bet, I like the Dark Side better
WHY YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS YOU GOT AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOUR ANALYST
James Tate
When I think no thing is like any other thing I become speechless, cold, my body turns silver and water runs off me, as if repulsed. There I am ten feet from myself, possessor of nothing, uncomprehending of even the simplest particle of dust. But when I say, you are like a swamp-animal during an eclipse, I am happy, full of wisdom, loved by children and old men alike. I am sorry if this confuses you. During an eclipse the swamp-animal acts as though day were night, drinking when he should be sleeping, etc. This is why men stay up all night writing to you.
You're still there, walking among them, but I escaped, for good, shortly before they could start chanting "support our troops" under Dubya. 90% of my Liberal (former) Chums, from Liberal College days of yore, are like Incredibly Incremental Changelings, pretty okay when young, ever-alert to the threat of encroaching Fascism at 21 (we spent a third of our energy, in the '70s, staying coiled to kick Fascist ass)... and almost all of them lick Fascist boots and ass, now, like both are Burgundy Vanilla-flavored. Sure, many of the Europeans I live among, now, lick (Nutella-flavored) Fascist boots and ass, too, but the difference is that I didn't go to school with them. My Changeling Liberal School Chums destroyed huge swathes of my Past! Most of my friends now average 20-40 years younger than I am. East Germans lost a native country in 1989 and I lost a Past when one of my most cherished Exes posted something about how great the film "American Sniper" was, back when that was just one of a barrage of brainwashing devices. The Human Mind (even in adulthood) is far more malleable than once I thought, though the smiley, huggy, crypto-Fascist "psychiatric" professionals of my Motherland probably prefer the word "adaptable". They understand the power of their Wordgames.
Speaking of which: notice how few people are using the word "Holocaust" in reference to what is being done to Palestinians...? (Perhaps they're afraid of committing a copyright violation)
1/and now i know - the poem was revised with the phrase mentioned deleted and the poem given a different title - and i agree with tate, the poem is much better off in its revised standard version
2/looking through the old tate posts i saw again
Tate once said, in a Paris Review interview, "I love my funny poems, but I’d rather break your heart. And if I can do both in the same poem, that’s the best. If you laughed earlier in the poem, and I bring you close to tears in the end, that’s the best.”
1/to be more specific - when tate revised the poem featured here he dropped the phrase "as if repulsed" and changed the title to "entries"
2/enumerating examples, our friends at the maine department of environmental protection tell us that general wetland species in maine include bullfrogs, turtles, blue herons, osprey, mink, beaver, deer, moose, showshoe hare...
WILD BEASTS In the front all the weapons were loaded. We sat there in the dark with not so much as a whisper. We could hear sounds outside—skirrs, rasps, the occasional yap, ting. We were alert, perhaps, too alert. Ready to shoot a fly for just being a fly. When you don’t sleep you start to hallucinate and that’s not good. One night this crazy notion started to possess me: I said, “Who are our enemies anyhow? We don’t have any enemies. What are we doing here? We should be with our families doing what families do. I’m laying down this gun and I’m leaving right now.” I knew there was a chance that one of them might shoot me. Instead they all laid down their guns and we walked right out into the moon- lit night, frightened, now, only of ourselves. —James Tate
amy gerstler reads and discusses this poem courtesy of the library of congress
You're still there, walking among them, but I escaped, for good, shortly before they could start chanting "support our troops" under Dubya. 90% of my Liberal (former) Chums, from Liberal College days of yore, are like Incredibly Incremental Changelings, pretty okay when young, ever-alert to the threat of encroaching Fascism at 21 (we spent a third of our energy, in the '70s, staying coiled to kick Fascist ass)... and almost all of them lick Fascist boots and ass, now, like both are Burgundy Vanilla-flavored. Sure, many of the Europeans I live among, now, lick (Nutella-flavored) Fascist boots and ass, too, but the difference is that I didn't go to school with them. My Changeling Liberal School Chums destroyed huge swathes of my Past! Most of my friends now average 20-40 years younger than I am. East Germans lost a native country in 1989 and I lost a Past when one of my most cherished Exes posted something about how great the film "American Sniper" was, back when that was just one of a barrage of brainwashing devices. The Human Mind (even in adulthood) is far more malleable than once I thought, though the smiley, huggy, crypto-Fascist "psychiatric" professionals of my Motherland probably prefer the word "adaptable". They understand the power of their Wordgames.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which: notice how few people are using the word "Holocaust" in reference to what is being done to Palestinians...? (Perhaps they're afraid of committing a copyright violation)
1/and now i know - the poem was revised with the phrase mentioned deleted and the poem given a different title - and i agree with tate, the poem is much better off in its revised standard version
ReplyDelete2/looking through the old tate posts i saw again
Tate once said, in a Paris Review interview, "I love my funny poems, but I’d rather break your heart. And if I can do both in the same poem, that’s the best. If you laughed earlier in the poem, and I bring you close to tears in the end, that’s the best.”
3/i also saw a few photos of duckdog
Duckdog has new friends, I'll photo and post when all is green and azaleas blooming
Delete1/to be more specific - when tate revised the poem featured here he dropped the phrase "as if repulsed" and changed the title to "entries"
Delete2/enumerating examples, our friends at the maine department of environmental protection tell us that general wetland species in maine include bullfrogs, turtles, blue herons, osprey, mink, beaver, deer, moose, showshoe hare...
https://www.maine.gov/dep/water/wetlands/life.html
3/many of tate's poems feature animals - e.g.
WILD BEASTS
In the front all the weapons were
loaded. We sat there in the dark with
not so much as a whisper. We could hear
sounds outside—skirrs, rasps, the occasional
yap, ting. We were alert, perhaps, too
alert. Ready to shoot a fly for just
being a fly. When you don’t sleep you
start to hallucinate and that’s not good.
One night this crazy notion started to
possess me: I said, “Who are our enemies
anyhow? We don’t have any enemies. What
are we doing here? We should be with our
families doing what families do. I’m laying
down this gun and I’m leaving right now.”
I knew there was a chance that one of them
might shoot me. Instead they all laid down
their guns and we walked right out into the moon-
lit night, frightened, now, only of ourselves.
—James Tate
amy gerstler reads and discusses this poem courtesy of the library of congress
https://tinyurl.com/gerstlerbeasts