tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48634281429854030472024-03-13T20:08:37.834-07:00DOG DYLAN AND THE SNOOTS: HIGHWAY BRIBERY Poetry of My Imaginary Band.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-26393646432080974632022-03-01T13:28:00.002-08:002022-06-15T23:46:42.308-07:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWmx8Ehtss7uk_IIcbkK4JBcJZ4Edz3RehUmVPz9cOBmLOEu1xzsv_QiDP8ASVGZSdn8oJHq3qRgquguxQE4K1X5byquAymfV2c98hj1w6VGiyI1hRQ_4yw_NVPrbMK1c6xyJglnpa1bhWigjJTga8gMttusY1kkkKrF_Ue38xIERC8g8aE0VK-wC2bg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="643" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWmx8Ehtss7uk_IIcbkK4JBcJZ4Edz3RehUmVPz9cOBmLOEu1xzsv_QiDP8ASVGZSdn8oJHq3qRgquguxQE4K1X5byquAymfV2c98hj1w6VGiyI1hRQ_4yw_NVPrbMK1c6xyJglnpa1bhWigjJTga8gMttusY1kkkKrF_Ue38xIERC8g8aE0VK-wC2bg=w509-h486" width="509" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-5494189951338172182022-01-21T10:49:00.004-08:002022-12-22T16:09:27.250-08:00Elegy for a Cohen<p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>In the middle of <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>my middle age <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>on a thick, grey<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>Christmas Day,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>I saw a photo of Leonard’s grave-- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>stark as bone, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>bleached by desert sun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>A Star of David etched, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>to light his way home. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>I wandered out from my own, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>to find a trace, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>of the certain sort of place, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>a high priest as he,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>might pray. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>Cantering lopsided, along …<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>a sweet black dog. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>We pushed through meadow, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>we pressed through fog. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>Over roots wrapped ‘round<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>sun-speckled boulder, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>finally stopping, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>by the river’s shoulder, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>where,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span>“<i>He </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i>sank </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i>beneath </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i>your </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i>wisdom </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i>like </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i>a </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span><i>stone</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-13183824866866738062021-01-18T21:58:00.004-08:002021-11-23T19:48:10.208-08:00To preen or not to preen, that is the question! <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YRS00Xl3mg/YAZ1b1PIK2I/AAAAAAAAAdA/9szYbw906QErWE2g9MSq3FdJmnYQ1WS7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/PeacockValeriaCoy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YRS00Xl3mg/YAZ1b1PIK2I/AAAAAAAAAdA/9szYbw906QErWE2g9MSq3FdJmnYQ1WS7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/PeacockValeriaCoy.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bfzthJir5OU/YAZ1gHYAn8I/AAAAAAAAAdE/tu8udyC9IzwBg7Mclzqi6d7B90_1nXxbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Peacock%253ARoses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bfzthJir5OU/YAZ1gHYAn8I/AAAAAAAAAdE/tu8udyC9IzwBg7Mclzqi6d7B90_1nXxbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Peacock%253ARoses.jpg" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wOVf-8ae8kU/YAZ0et85NSI/AAAAAAAAAc4/PP1U7wuXqGIRtvWlzd_R-7sfDDDWknrcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/5C1F3DB2-9275-426B-B875-F80C3184E8C7.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="610" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wOVf-8ae8kU/YAZ0et85NSI/AAAAAAAAAc4/PP1U7wuXqGIRtvWlzd_R-7sfDDDWknrcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w458-h610/5C1F3DB2-9275-426B-B875-F80C3184E8C7.JPG" width="458" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-4206203007654835762020-05-08T15:16:00.001-07:002022-12-22T16:03:58.060-08:00In-House Puppet With His Own Ball of Sunshine But No Tan Line<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-65501796755671373632020-03-10T04:17:00.003-07:002023-01-18T18:39:23.505-08:00Beast of Burning (Published in the Boulevardier May 2014)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freud suggested monsters are external, anthropomorphic manifestations of the internal threats we are too fearful to face. Originally applicable to the boogeyman beneath our beds, crafted in the likeness of an individualized anxiety, his theory was later applied in the analysis of cinema. When dialogue surrounding serious social problems becomes terror-induced taboo, a filmic menace appears in the creeping shadow of our unspoken uncertainty. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For six decades, Godzilla has been the gamma-rayed mammoth storming the room where the ills of nuclear capacity have been swept under the carpet. The overarching message of the franchise is clear: humanity has unleashed a scourge into the environment. The unified body of the beast itself, however, is a nuanced cumulus of emotions and associations. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On March 1st, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat happened into the path of a hydrogen bomb test being conducted on the Marshall Islands by the United States government. One immediately ailing crew member described the scene to Time Magazine: </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"We saw strange sparkles and flashes of fire, sparks and fire as bright as the sun itself. The sky around them glowed fiery red and yellow. The glow went on for several minutes--perhaps two or three--and then the yellow seemed to fade away. it left a dull red, like a piece of iron cooling in the air. The blast came about five minutes later (with) the sound of many thunders rolled into one. Next we saw a pyramid-shaped cloud rising, and the sky began to cloud over most curiously. The thought of <i>pikadon </i>flashed through my mind, I think, but we were busy and i went back to our nets."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"> </a></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Only months later would Godzilla be introduced to the world, appropriately destroying a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">As intangible as the shell casing after a detonation and ephemeral as the moment of an explosion, the monster</span><span lang="EN-US"> remains unseen in its first film attack. Directly analogous to the bomb, its presence is represented by a blinding light reflecting from the seawater it boils and signs of devastation on the deck of the boat engulfed in flames. Godzilla as a pitiless byproduct of human engineering is a notion fortified in later scenes, where the creature first becomes visible. Ingesting energy from electric towers or readying itself to spew heat, the flame-shaped plates along the monster’s spine glow and buzz as routinely as a coil element. Physically revealed, however, the monster generates another layer of meaning. “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” wrote Kahlil Gibran. If there is a case to made for endowing the literally massive character of Gojira, as he was first known, with the enduring soul of the Japanese people, it is indeed found in his searing scars. Keloid scars are growths created when collagen inhabits a wound and spreads beyond the wound’s original boundaries. Godzilla’s skin was designed to appear a blanket of such cicatrix, unifying him with the similarly marred survivors of the 1945 atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The beast may represent the machine but the ghost that begins to emerge is a human spectre. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once personified, Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla roars a swath of cathartic rage through the very real and repressive silence of censorship in Allied Occupied Japan. As per Professor Yamane’s lament in the film, that the kaiju or “strange creature” should be kept alive and studied, scientists harnessed nuclear power to replace fossil fuels. Godzilla’s gestational period in the Art Department of Toho Studios, Tokyo coincides with the birth of world’s first nuclear power plant opening on June 27th, 1954 in Obninsk, Russia. While the apocalyptic possibility of nuclear war remained a palpable threat throughout the remainder of the 20th century, the actual calling card of nuclear catastrophe came, time and again, as a result of in our inability to keep nuclear energy wholly contained within reactors around the globe. That the 60th anniversary of the Godzilla franchise be marked by a fresh installment seems appropriate. That the milestone film follows in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown-- irradiating the waters of the Pacific Ocean since March 11th 2011--seems painfully synchronistic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Long-term environmental repercussions at Fukushima, and the potential for similar disasters elsewhere, are topics seldom trending in social media feeds. Progress reports of the clean up effort in Japan are rarely offered by mainstream media outlets. An edition of PBS’s Frontline, “Nuclear Aftershocks” is aptly subtitled “Have We Turned Our Backs on Nuclear Energy?” When asked in the documentary whether renewable sources of energy will ever replace nuclear power, MIT Professor Ron Ballinger, though admitting his bias as a nuclear engineer, suggests that “unless we become a pastoral society where the energy use density is low enough” atomic energy will always be necessary to gird the grid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With no new nuclear facilities having been approved when the documentary aired in January 2012, Charles Ferguson, Physicist and President of the Federation of American Scientists, shed light on the tentative approach to fueling the future. Ferguson suggests nuclear power will be phased out only by default, as many of the 104 nuclear plants in the United States must retire in the next 20 years and new reactors are not approved. Sustaining the industrial and technological based lifestyle we want, without the energy we fear, remains an impossibility. Fuse desire with dread and the result is often a paralyzing reluctance to face the crux of a difficultly head-on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whereas 1950’s Godzilla is featured in film posters bombastically dead-on, planted in the forefront of a cityscape in full out offensive mode daring the viewer to defuse his glare, his most recent antecedent seems less far less cocky. Publicity for Gareth Edwards’ highly anticipated 2014 iteration of Godzilla<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"> </a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">shows the behemoth with its back to the audience. While, undoubtedly, in part to heighten anticipation and bolster box office for the big, filmic reveal come May 16th; the ambiguity of presentation mirrors our current ambivalence towards the nuclear threat. Godzilla is now fully entrenched in the midst of a metropolis on fire. The flames burn brightest directly in line with his torso and the viewer is left to make the educated guess that it is Godzilla who fuels the inferno. As the warm golden light from smaller fires diffuse into the central scene, however, it is difficult to say with 100% surety that it is not the city fuelling the beast</span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-70280648320767465332019-07-13T11:53:00.000-07:002019-11-16T08:11:48.747-08:00Editing Continuity<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efmsg-body yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efP_wpofO yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efiy_A" style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif;">
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">A ruddy hawk</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">circles the pond </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">across the lot</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">from the cafe</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">where Robin Hood plays </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">on a flat screen</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">mounted to the wall. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">Wearing burgundy robes,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">a monk steps in,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">facing me,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">parallel to the TV </span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">and to the caped-back </span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">of Errol Flynn.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">“You’re a strange man.”</span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">says Lady Marian,</span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">(Through the magic </span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">of closed-captioning)</span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">. . .I can't understand -</span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">you, a Saxon. . .”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">“Saxon. . .Norman. . .”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">Robin replies. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">“What does</span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">that matter?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">The monk clicks his tongue</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">to a rhythm disguised </span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">by his Beats headphones. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">He begins pacing in spirals,</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">blending some cosmic batter, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">around the communal table </span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">where I sit alone. </span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">And I wonder if it means </span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">that I'm finally churning into one</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 10pt;">with everything </span><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 10pt;">and every one--</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7264961755ydp6a5fd8efyiv2306477022ydp63e3c619yiv7441178329ydp63ad6aedMsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">the fish, the hawk,</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: serif; font-size: large;">the monk, the sun ...</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Olivia</span><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 10pt;"> De Havilland?</span><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
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</div>
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</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-18883754723660271892019-04-23T11:18:00.006-07:002022-12-23T20:05:05.945-08:00For Bob Dylan With Love from Aly D<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Blaring past the blues room <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">by the down and out motel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Dodge to give the muse room<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">(There’s an outline where he fell.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Tell it to the newsroom—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: white;">ah, tell it to the wind: </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Your butterfly’s been fingered,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"><span>she’s had her sweater pinned. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Robin, she was reckless</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and so did refuse to nest</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The jay birds were left breathless</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by the copper in her breast.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The cuckoo, too, was feckless</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">but he could talk her talk:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Clucked, "If you're renting by the hour,"</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"You oughta see my clock."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wolves detecting fresh meat</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">left Mister Pig in sutures, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">when he went down to Wall Street </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to swap pork belly futures.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Inside trading wasn’t discreet</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">they slapped him on the block ...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">chopped him into bullion, said:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> “Now he’s worth some stock.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: black; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: "big caslon", serif; font-size: 13pt;">Beat the weathered war drums.</span></div></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Cry, “Every <i>thing’s </i>been fought!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Wallow in the doldrums.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Aim, to take another shot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Swallow to save your eardrums <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">from the ricocheting din:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Vice has always been the virtue,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "big caslon" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"><span>kindness, always been the sin.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-69801489308236830192019-03-23T12:11:00.005-07:002019-03-27T15:18:15.531-07:00Beckett v. Tolstoy<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">beckett & tolstoy</span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">jousted on tuesday.</span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">one had a horse and a spear</span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">and a blister on his index finger;</span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">the other,</span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">the minimal shield</span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">of a tin-can buccaneer, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">and the steel to </span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">let 'less'</span><span style="background-color: white;"> words </span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">linger. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-65595473511123721922019-03-23T09:01:00.002-07:002019-04-04T05:11:38.620-07:00Raspberries<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA">I study human nature <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">as a bird sustained<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">by the beauty of brains,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">formed on brambles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-1628390119756204302019-03-21T14:27:00.003-07:002023-07-21T18:27:37.958-07:00For Peter on His 50th Birthday<br />
Oh New York! You bastard burning hope into my heart. You nondescript corporate Irish bar at 57th & Broadway—across from the 8 millionth coffee shop, of equally nondescript, corporate identity. It’s the way you keep your cheese on a roll, so thick and creamy even in its processed state, that makes me love you so.<br />
<br />
You, leaving me leaking blue-blooded songs and longing to regale in Penn Station and back, to wherever it was I wanted to come--through tin loudspeakers and tête-à-têtes with soldiers, ready to deploy.<br />
<br />
To your liveliest lights, in your darkest nights.<br />
<br />
To your well-planned parks that seem to suggest,<br />
humanity and technology<br />
can coexist,<br />
peacefully.<br />
<br />
You’ve a right to swallow the fire,<br />
of those nuisance gods,<br />
and belch it back up again,<br />
til Broadway yawns neon.<br />
.<br />
Who, save for you, New York,<br />
would have thought those claustrophobic theatres<br />
could be the last of communal cares,<br />
forever ducking the blind of progress?<br />
<br />
You, New York, in your grey-flannel suit,<br />
who undoes a top button once in awhile<br />
to let an outsider into your heart—<br />
maintaining history, without letting<br />
the historians intervene.<br />
<br />
Reckoning with your erosion,<br />
self-conscious of your past,<br />
but without need to redefine yourself,<br />
within the rhetoric<br />
of politics.<br />
<br />
You big liberal, you!<br />
Current affairs splash in your wake,<br />
but become ripples<br />
sliced aloft by your stoicism.<br />
No city is an island but you,<br />
New York …<br />
<br />
… a fiend and a friend and a find in the<br />art markets of Soho and the buckets of Chinatown:<br />
“Flesh or fish.”<br />
It’s all the same to you.<br />
<br />
From the golden mellow sun,<br />
At the entrance of Central Park,<br />
in summer.<br />
To the perpetual slate of Park avenue--<br />
where, for all its purported glory,<br />
the street becomes unnecessarily wide,<br />
in places,<br />
swallowing<br />
up<br />
its<br />
own<br />
stories.<br />
<br />
And, in the midst of Chelsea's tattered dregs—cloth and silken stems—where near morning, pigeons clamour, picking at the humbled ends of fruit stands hastily dismantled at night fall, renewing themselves again by noon, after spewing shredded lettuce amidst a Calvary of slated box tops, smashed!<br />
<br />
And oh, New York, with your wealthy enclaves outside yourself. Winding roads left wondering if they'll ever lead back to roam those precise streets, where many found, there, glory, and masses came upon their deaths.<br />
<br />
New York, you kill me slowly and I have always loved you for that.<br />
<br />
Especially that tiny hovel of clutter above 8th Avenue, where a strange man I once loved bought me cheese on a roll despite his better judgement. Because he knew I was young and tired and brilliant and needy and every adjective that a person who ever sought you out, might be after they'd arrived across the bridge and awed by the suspense, needed sleep and sustenance.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-31041139305775941722019-03-14T22:31:00.002-07:002019-04-07T10:09:57.898-07:00<div class="yiv3760801625ydp8120bc4MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">Transcendental Waitressing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">I read the work of the monk, Hahn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">all the way from Vietnam:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">“If everyone gave up grain alcohol & meat,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">there would be enough arid soil,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">to grow food for all people to eat.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">So, I gave up beef and booze,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">and lost my job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">Because I worked at a bar,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">and my coworkers were pretty sure,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">my abstinence was judgement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">But, that’s not how I meant it--<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">I wanted to sustain the right,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">to go back to beef and booze,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">if the need presented.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">I read Robert Thurman’s interpretation,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">of the Tibetan <i>Mother Meditation</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Look in the eyes of all people<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">as though they were your mother,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">because when we nurture life,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">we give birth to one another.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">But, not everyone’s mother taught, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">that love is the answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">So, I stare at a spot,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">above this man’s eyes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">where his balding forehead<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">is bearing skin cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">And, pitying the vulnerability in him, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">I forgive my own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">Because otherwise,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">I can’t atone<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">for my dismay<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">at the rude way<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">he orders lunch<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">every day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">I read the Dalai Lama,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">and for a while,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">gave up on all drama-- <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">save for the histrionics <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">of the woman in furs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">who suddenly demurs:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">“This food is no good.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">She takes me to task,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">I just smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Have you tried beef and booze?” I ask.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="yiv3760801625ydp8120bc4MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-70555295419094666452019-03-01T10:02:00.001-08:002022-02-10T19:48:53.201-08:00Not All Who Are Lost Wander<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I hit a pothole in the black top, </span></span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">deep enough to force a Mac Truck </span></span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">full stop. </span></span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">But my hatchback was synched to Iggy Pop</span></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">And the car’s backbeat sustained the song’s </span></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">daring hop--</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">“Got a Lust for Life.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The license plate on the grey sedan </span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I was behind,</span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> read, “PERDU 1”</span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">And a blue car crossed the broken line </span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">with a license plate that replied, </span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">“PSHERPA.”</span></div>
<div class="ydp4f3bf088MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">And I followed them around the curve </span></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">that hugged the water line, </span></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">and the sun pulled me closer to an ending,</span></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">and I was unafraid.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-37233176845322961792019-02-10T02:32:00.000-08:002019-03-26T07:13:48.594-07:00Ice Is<span style="color: cyan;">Not one of those days</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">when ice is anything else ...</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);">Bed sheet </span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);">on a sick tongue,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);">slick and milky</span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);">where the sidewalk curls.</span></span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255); color: cyan;">A collection of sharp, sustained drips</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);">chattering </span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);">to find charity</span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);">from the sun. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 255, 255);"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;">Crystalized dendrites--</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">a neurological hinterland of </span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">sparse thoughts</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">solidified in a palace of clarity. </span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: cyan;">Spools of grey matter</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">curdled on the windshield </span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">when the pane fogs from the inside;</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">a maze through which the warm rain</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">will run, </span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">unwinding licks</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;">one by one by one by one.</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: cyan;">Today ice is ice is ice is ice is</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: cyan;">ice</span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: cyan;">and ice only. </span><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-60497749710702017872019-02-09T00:14:00.004-08:002019-02-09T00:26:28.308-08:00EDGAR ETHAN ALLEN POETRY<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I dreamt of a staircase, cascading down a hill.</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Crafted of dark, auburn driftwood</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> the steps curled into a highway at dusk. </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I began to twirl</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">downwards, </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">delighted,</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">or (at least) </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">nonplussed.</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Headlights turned on <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">pointing up</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">from the off-ramp below</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">highlighted broad </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">strokes of lacquer</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">across stairs I thought safer, and deeper in span.</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So, I ran quicker, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">to keep apace</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">down </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">a surface not steeper but slicker, </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">than that for which I had originally planned. </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">On the first step, I was jay-bird naked, </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">On the next, wrapped in a warm grey blanket. </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">On the third, in a golden swimsuit with leopard’s spots, </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">that mirrored endless whirlpools </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">of the wood’s burnished, black knots. </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So, it went</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">down in ‘uniformity,’</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">until I became unaware,</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">of appearances</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">and saw beyond the last stair,</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> a ravine </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">where, </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">the remains of a desk presented:</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;">Four shattered legs upended.</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;">A porcelain Rose pierced</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;">the center of its protruding drawer.</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;">My instinct to flight relented, </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;">and I settled down for the night. </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;">The sweet-smell of decomposition </span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "times" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times" , serif;">lifting from the earth’s tender floor:</span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv7469354814ydpadf4e860yiv6105851852ydp89cdfe51yiv8568608532ydp2d839c68msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times" , serif;">And the world began to right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cfe2f3;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cfe2f3;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cfe2f3;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-5746925184888605672019-02-09T00:05:00.001-08:002019-02-09T00:18:55.295-08:00Womb Bats<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">Hanging on the wall <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">its tail wound, upwards, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">like a gravity defiant tongue in rigor mortis—the purple lizard. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">Two baby bats cling to its undercarriage, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">and squint out Morse Code in the sun. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">The veins of their wings merging, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">into tiny panes of puce. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">Encased in no crown-molding,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: white;">my family crest <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(128, 0, 128); color: white;">falling. </span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-53635098715747886322018-07-02T22:25:00.000-07:002018-07-02T22:28:39.627-07:00I Wake Up<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wake up odd.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wake up ugly.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I try to sleep </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">within the embrace of a broken world,</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wonder whether the joys of lemon meringue or acquiring real estate will ever outweigh the longing for a true, human love. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think:</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Will any one ever wake up at all?"</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I shake. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wake up lonely.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wake up hungry. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some days I wake up, </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">already sold on a promise of what will be, </span><span style="color: magenta; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">based on what has been. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So inclined,</span><br />
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I roll over like the sun before me </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and whisper to the moon: </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"I'll tell you truthfully-</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I never wake up anything, </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">except for dreaming." </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-59665926613295936012018-05-19T11:40:00.002-07:002021-11-23T19:51:21.938-08:00<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">See foaming form on pallmall lips, </span><br />
<span style="color: white;">filing steadfast, and halting clatter for the kid--</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"> bemoaning warm snail trail sips, </span><br />
<span style="color: white;">piling protest on a platter of sphincter squid:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white;">MY HUMANITY IS NOT SELFLESS!!!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">MY HEART IS MINE, YOU BOWL OF SHELLFISH!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white;">Love is a heaven where Gods do lounge and lust?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Love is just a couch of clouds bound to shift and bust?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white;"><i>"Piss of frog on a goldenrod stem</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><i>Irish mist on the lady's hem</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><i>Pink veins bleed charcoal crinoline"</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white;">Inky gropes on grosgrain strings</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Shuffles velvet decks of cordate kings </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Ass imbibes the red banquet</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">She dreams now of love she's never met</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Eats out now on begs and achin'</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Dreams of all the heart she's fakin'</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white;">"Oh, he can lance a Chimera's boil with a salt and peppered laugh</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Oh, he can dance Chicken Eater coil round a halting Shepherd's Staff."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white;">Puttering, exuding on a zinger "Multinodular goiter on the grey man with blue breath."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Muttering, brooding so as to linger ("A might faulty if you loiter...whittling words till nothing's left...")</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">Shuddering, concluding with index finger:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="color: white;">"Public Indecency Causing Death!"</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-79874511552949349742018-05-18T00:27:00.002-07:002019-03-21T21:04:17.651-07:00Bad Luck<br />
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<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">I waited up for days.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">You never showed.<br /><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">No. </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">It was just one night<br />that, spent in waiting, glowed-<br />with an excitement that surety never brings.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Infallible as chain link in a fence-</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">anticipation, a woman’s best defence.</span><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Protecting one from being a heroine ...</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">another from being a wench.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Your hand always plied with equal calm, </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">over papers and thoughts.<br /><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Discerning, determining nothing except for </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">the plausibility of another person's wants, </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">while petting your dog,</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">or taking up a cup.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">If you hem, I stitch another plot<br />
To meet the expectations of a world</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"> I know you recognize as fraught. </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Artifacts of collective truth are all we're ever promised.<br />
Ah, to possess the patience of a Ruth, and the doubting of a Thomas.
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">And nothing is possession </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">except these obsessions </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">that coddle us, cradle to grave. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">I'm sorry for nothing in this life, </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">except the joy I could not save.<br /><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Expenditure is my appendage. Yours?<br />
A flowering average thriving.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">If stuck between heaven and the deep blue sea, </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">I have to say, "I'd rather be diving."<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Grappling for the specifics of that hue,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">
the nature of that incandescent, unknown blue.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Seagulls scream at sun up,<br />the fish are at a loss<br />
A black cat scratches on the corner </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 13pt;">Waiting for a man to cross,<br />
who'll call bad luck his owner. </span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-41829567181777530102018-05-04T21:40:00.001-07:002018-05-06T22:43:11.251-07:00The Vanilla Martini Day Massacre<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">"Hello, Barrow Street. I'm a bonny avenue." </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">Yes it's nice to meet you too.
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">here, at this 'Winterstice' ... where fevered white
pellets commune in the chocolate square cracks, of a manhole cover concealing centennials of crap.
</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">With a glass heart blowing fire, burrowing holes in my
back
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">and the cold provides clarity so the wind portends
calm<br />
and all of my longings, they are, so far, longings
long gone.
</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">times I alight with a life swept, spent, lilt<br />
or cowering in the webbed spans of counterclockwise
guilt sifting the sands
</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">babe cradled by tide, tide rocking in silt.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">But i am ok...
Okay?<br /><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">"If it's ok with you.” </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "bigcaslon"; font-size: 14pt;">NYC - 2007</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-10039754307852902472018-02-19T22:58:00.004-08:002021-03-08T01:19:53.485-08:00Renne-Van Rose - In Memory of Renne <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n8mPdrgnXpI/WovGq_EOEGI/AAAAAAAAASA/g4uxw_KZm3Ej1YaMzT_Xg7HilJlW29HVwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0039.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n8mPdrgnXpI/WovGq_EOEGI/AAAAAAAAASA/g4uxw_KZm3Ej1YaMzT_Xg7HilJlW29HVwCK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_0039.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NgZSwD2mCxU/WonDUsO-McI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/0uHhTyrCzTceed1Qmdl9OxXUP59oDzUQgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1"></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9ead3; color: magenta; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-63UuDBrf_XM/Wox7eisoz1I/AAAAAAAAASQ/trN66_Pr1c8dgHWI4-eVmixjxLXRY_kmQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-63UuDBrf_XM/Wox7eisoz1I/AAAAAAAAASQ/trN66_Pr1c8dgHWI4-eVmixjxLXRY_kmQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/IMG_1643.jpg" width="240" /></a><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3; color: magenta; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> Most of my earnest attempts to “be serious” in life, only made people laugh. I finally decided it that the world must need more whimsy! Ever since, I have become seriously whimsical in writing comedy and in creating creatures who come to life with foam, glitter, glue and perhaps an incantation or two! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;"><span style="background-color: #d9ead3; color: magenta; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The masks and lanterns I make reflect my love of comedy as a means to investigate the constant conflicts of being human. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9ead3; color: magenta; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Ultimately, I believe humour is the surest gateway to hope. It is a belief reinforced by my friend, Renne Rose, before she passed away in January 2016. The jaunty bird, Renne-Van Rose was created in her honour, with good faith that she took flight. Before she left, she helped me find my wings. I sometimes sense she still leaves lovely, shiny things in my path. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-24125793326572939532018-02-19T12:23:00.001-08:002022-12-23T19:55:53.203-08:00Atomic Chicken <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwRxKWLriCU/Wosxuj509RI/AAAAAAAAARY/lhBZKetCSigleFPFVWgcw72jwdaucsGHwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1609.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwRxKWLriCU/Wosxuj509RI/AAAAAAAAARY/lhBZKetCSigleFPFVWgcw72jwdaucsGHwCK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_1609.jpg" width="480" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-50132052057626144682018-02-14T13:29:00.004-08:002022-06-11T19:36:58.027-07:00My Father, The Pirate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_GWzGdRLNOc/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_GWzGdRLNOc?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-56650469921047585902017-12-29T22:06:00.006-08:002021-03-14T10:34:46.158-07:00Planet Earth is Blue ...<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Monday January 11, 2016. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>I’m not a morning person but this, particular morning feels easy in a most peculiar way. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The entrance to the QEW is at the end of my street. I turn the radio up. The song may be melancholic in an objective sense, but it suits the grey concrete barring the highway and I’m delighted as the lanes spread out before me like cosmic sheet music.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“<i>…I’m feeling very skilled and I think my spaceship knows which way to go.” </i></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>I slide into the left lane with no traffic behind me and little traffic ahead. </b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The sun is barely yet over the water. It radiates the orange wavelengths of an oven burner on low, cradled by reds with a slightly thicker stage presence. I think of HG Wells’ description of the world’s end in <i>The Time Machine. </i></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>A shudder of mortality shimmies up my spine. I remind myself I still have rhythm and spark up the seat heater. The DJ says it wasn’t so long ago that he saw Bowie’s glam rock fashions displayed at the AGO. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“Ah! Bowie’s new album is coming out today.” I remember reading about it in <i>The Guardian</i>. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The day is crisp, without wind. My small car stays its course, gliding over the Skyway. I retune the radio as I often do, when the click-clack of inane chat interferes with my driving beat. </b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Over an hour later on campus, and our class is waiting to get inside a locked rehearsal hall. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“Now that David Bowie’s dead-” Claire says, in conversation. </b></span></span><br />
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<span><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;">“Is that true?” I ask in a muffled space of suspended animation. Or, perhaps, more l</b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>ike a cartoon cow whose routine narrative purpose is to get hoofed in the eye, except the resulting stars look very different today.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>I make it through class a poor man’s Prometheus. Perhaps Bowie is in galactic earshot now, so I pray that I might nab a slender flame of his unfathomable fire for my own inspiration. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Maybe it’s only shock, but the notion of slicing through sadness seems better suited to the daring poses of Bowie’s earthly incarnations far more than might stoic eulogy. My inner voice bellows, “Let’s dance!” </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“Yes, let’s.” He calmly replies, a dapper improv partner. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The psychological pay-off is prominent, and I approach the day’s work with more joy than usual. Either my prayers are answered, or I’ve simply smiled more, imagining myself in close proximity to a former song and dance superhuman now undoubtedly gone supernova. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Musician, actor, visual artist, designer ... Bowie was many things and seemed, often, to be many people. Much has been written about his various personas, particularly in relation to mental health issues. Of particular resonance, is the extent to which Bowie’s artistry was in formation to trauma.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>In an episode of VH1’s Legends, Bowie spoke of “a dark cloud … of mental instability” on his mother’s side. He noted that two or three of her siblings had died by suicide. He spoke of half-brother Terry’s schizophrenia related psychosis, and the hallucinations it inspired. “Most of us (his family) have battled reality and something else, for most of our lives.” he said. In another portion of the broadcast, he mentions his fondness for experimentation, another cornerstone of the creative psyche. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>A Rolling Stone review of 1973’s “Aladdin Sane” points out Bowie’s capacity to harness creativity unto the seeming dissolution of familiar ego states, without disappearing himself, and suggests that in doing so he tackles the bleakest of existential concerns: </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“If by conventional lights Bowie is a lad insane, then as <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>an Aladdin, a conjurer of supernatural forces, he is quite sane. The titles may change from album to album — from the <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>superman, the homo superior, Ziggy, to Aladdin — but the <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>vision, and Bowie's rightful place in it, remain constant. The pun of the title, alternately vaunted and dismissive, <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>plays on his own sense of discrepancy. Which way you read it depends upon whether you are viewing the present from <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>the eyes of the past or the future.” (Gerson)</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Psychiatry often discourages the romanticizing of mental illness in relation to creative ability. The two states, however, have long been anecdotally and empirically linked. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The capacity for divergent thinking that shaped Bowie’s expansive creative universe, may well have been the result of attempts to escape a harsh emotional landscape. His tendency towards experimentation, an internal search engine seeking to rebalance perceived instabilities—both in himself and the world. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>British psychoanalyst Oliver James has written extensively on Bowie’s use of creativity and persona as a bulwark against childhood trauma:</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Bowie often wondered why he was chosen for greatness and <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Terry for madness and wrote of his fear of mental illness in a series of albums. While his brother’s childhood was a textbook case of the causes of psychosis, Bowie had the right mix of emotional neglect and entitlement to create a man who could face his childhood demons through creativity. Through Ziggy Stardust and his subsequent personas, he engaged in an internal dialogue played out on an <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>international stage.” (James)</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>It is not certain that shifting identities always made a smooth passage for Bowie in his life offstage. He reportedly suffered psychotic breaks himself at various points, the result of drug addiction. The analyst’s mention of healing through persona, however, hints at Jungian psychology, in which one is must integrate various aspects of the self and ego to achieve wholeness. Bowie was long interested in Jung’s work and incorporated the terminology into his own writing:</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Symbolic and specific references to Jung abound throughout <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bowie’s career. Arguably beginning with his 1967 song ‘Shadow Man’ that poetically encapsulates a key Jungian concept, in 1987 Bowie tellingly described the Glass Spiders of ‘Never Let Me Down’ (1987) as “…Jungian figures, mother figures” around which he not only anchored a worldwide tour, but also created an enormous onstage effigy (Swayne 1987).” (Stark)</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Bowie was widely lauded for blurring the line between masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche, touching on the concept of anima—Jung’s idea that men have an active, underlying feminine aspect to their personality, just as women have an underlying masculine aspect to theirs, known as animus. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“If she says she can do it, she can do it, she don’t make false claims.” he hiccups in <i>Queen Bitch</i>. One wonders if he is not, in this instance, projecting his own highly developed feminine perspective. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>January 11, 2016 - Epilogue</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Not everyone has the luxury of spending the day in transit. As the morning wanes, I dash off a Facebook post aimed at consoling friends who feel trapped in the void of Bowie’s absence:</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“He’ll tell you all about it on the next bardo.” </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>It is a reference to a Buddhist plane in his song “Quicksand”— the song's lyrics are a laundry list of philosophies. It is a rock lament with a chamber music vibe. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Like Bowie I've have long been interested in the dharma, and I feel no desire to rush out and grasp at his last album. But it’s an eerily slow evening at work and I leave early. When I get in the car, <i>Blackstar</i> is being played in full, on the radio. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>I go to the A&W and get a root beer float. </b></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Sitting in the parking lot of a strip mall, between the dive bars and the car wash bays, I turn the radio up, up as wide as the clear winter sky. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Snippets of Bowie's earthly life are tossed into a futuristic abyss. The title song begins with chanting, engulfed in an aura of compressed air that is slowly leaking from a ramshackle vessel. An erratic techno heartbeat interjects alongside a panting sax, giving way again to the chants as they soften. </b></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Suddenly, it’s stardust tossed over a disco lick … “How many times does an angel fall?” What could have been a cliche pickup line at Club 54, is now profoundly rerouted. There’s a call and response between himself and “the Great I Am!” All his former selves: film star, pop star, ‘gangstar’ are denounced.<i>“I’m a Blackstar.”</i> insists Bowie. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“Stardom is the means towards attaining a vantage point from which to foresee, and an elevation from which to lead." wrote Gerson in Rolling Stone. "The awesome powers and transformations civilization associates with heaven and hell will be unleashed on earth.” </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The review of <i>Aladdin Sane</i>, seems astonishingly prescient when considering <i>Blackstar’s</i> denouement some 43 years later. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“Look up here, I’m in heaven.” Bowie sings in <i>Lazarus. </i></b></span></span><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: large;">Beginning with a deep, elongated pull on the sax, the pop potential of the song distorts into muddy, existential jazz, and finally flutters to cosmic, release. </span></b><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>“Just like that blue bird, I’ll be free.” And the song bird escapes through the holes of a wind instrument, with its mechanics on the fritz. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><i>Dollar Days</i> could well be a Buddhist mantra on letting go of earthly attachments before death: “If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to, it’s nothing to me. it’s nothing to see.” And the artist runs downhill in an attempt to let go, only to hit a wall in, <i>I Can’t Give Everything Away</i>. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The album floors me. Over the next two years, I come to recognize the cumulative pull of Bowie’s influence on my own creative drive.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>As a kid, I fell hard, fast and head-on with the music of Bob Dylan. Nonetheless, Bowie seems to have had always been hovering in my creative blind spot. I often incorporated him into my visual art, sound cues and written work automatically, yet not obsessively, as though my unconscious mind were doing it for me. </b></span></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The following journal entry from May 2007, is one example:</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>Well, I’m reveling in seventies sex sax as composed </b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">by David Bowie ...“sex sax” so-called,‘waz’</b><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">prominent in a lot of seventies music ... I think that </b><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">may have been why I came about in the first place...my </b><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">memoirs beginning late one night, with the </b><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: small;"><b>recollection of thoughts filtered through the dent </b></span><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">riddled sieve of pubescent angst, further </b><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: small;"><b>fuelled by identity issues and while listening to the </b></span><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">local radio station, golden light glowing through a </b><b style="color: red; font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">massive silver stereo receiver. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>I wondered why seventies music was so melancholic, and why the radio station hadn't </b></span><b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">bought any new records since 1979. This impossibly vague and intense familiarity with rhythms </b><b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">… can only be the merging of unconscious memories of death and rebirth; blue breaching the air, becoming red, merging briefly in space dance slow-mo, turning purple, and all of it set to music and repeating, until the fear has been </b><b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">expunged" </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">The entry began as an attempt to offer some parody of a Dickensian introduction, of being born on one's back with hands in pockets. But Bowie’s music inspired introspection of greater depth. Interestingly, the language of the passage hints at another quote from the Aladdin Sane review:</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>"Bowie's program is not complete but it involves the elimination of gender differences, the inevitability of Armageddon, and the conquering of death and time as we know them.” (Gerson)</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>When considering Bowie’s masterful exit—from his last album to the final photo shoot, in which he projected himself as a person playfully at ease in the midst of what must have obviously been great pain, it’s hard to imagine his program wasn’t as complete as is humanly possible and his psyche fully integrated. </b></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-79325004330457343362010-10-16T14:38:00.000-07:002020-03-26T20:26:05.586-07:00A-Train of Thought Derailed"Try to be pure at heart, they arrest you for robbery<br />
Mistake your shyness for aloofness, your silence for snobbery<br />
Got the message this morning, the one that was sent to me<br />
About the madness of becomin’ what one was never meant to be"<br />
-Bob Dylan<br />
<br />
A- Train of Thought Derailed<br />
<br />
I'm taking a soundbite.<br />
I'm looking at a set of porcelain teeth with grey, mudded crevices.<br />
Hatred is purity elsewhere persuaded.<br />
<br />
In his mother's arms, a baby<br />
babbles on his harmonica hand.<br />
The ground rumbles beneath us<br />
and all the words tumble from cold, clean slabs,<br />
and wriggle on the floor, awaiting reclamation.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4863428142985403047.post-72688894721936906012010-08-13T18:20:00.000-07:002018-10-16T20:52:27.799-07:00OId PoemThere's no logic in biology, its eventualities and strains<br />
No empathy in a climate that floods indifferent drains<br />
<br />
No satisfaction with a sun that ends the solace of the night,<br />
No serenity in the moon, or its parasitic light.<br />
<br />
There's no reprieve in the shallow stream slippery with moss,<br />
No glory in a victory that is someone else's loss.<br />
<br />
Not water from a well can ease this universal thirst,<br />
I have no demon ridding ritual nor talisman when I'm cursed<br />
<br />
Stars fall without struggle, the heavens' sparkling lies--<br />
Now I take my only liberties from your animating eyes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0