brushing my long hair,
the brown ribbon
she tied into it last night
fell out, dropped
straight into my hand,
"what's that?!"
our love came in the same way
pretty much,
that famous,
cold st patrick's
Friday, December 11, 2009
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Self-Pity
I told a man I know that his conversation was always centred around himself.
He took great umbrage at this and said: "I really want you to take that back. I don't think you have any idea what a low opinion of myself I have. I mean, as far as I'm concerned I'm nothing. A nobody. A complete twat. A heap of..."
"You're still talking about yourself, though, aren't you?" I said.
Self-pity is inverted egotism.
He took great umbrage at this and said: "I really want you to take that back. I don't think you have any idea what a low opinion of myself I have. I mean, as far as I'm concerned I'm nothing. A nobody. A complete twat. A heap of..."
"You're still talking about yourself, though, aren't you?" I said.
Self-pity is inverted egotism.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The New College Being Built
Crane climbs into
clear November sky.
Workman in blue hardhat
underneath
drills a granite mountain.
clear November sky.
Workman in blue hardhat
underneath
drills a granite mountain.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Mr. Jones
Sometimes I feel like Dylan's Mr. Jones:
Quite alone inside the teeming crowd;
Unsure what's happening anywhere
Ten feet beyond my own front door.
Most people tend not to feel like that.
Mr. Jones is usually your enemy,
However many cast you in the role
Unbeknownst to you, because you're not like them.
Of course, this is among the shrinking number
Who are still familiar with Dylan's music.
Most I know prefer a bit of pounding grime.
And like Mr. Jones, I'm baffled to explain the reason.
Quite alone inside the teeming crowd;
Unsure what's happening anywhere
Ten feet beyond my own front door.
Most people tend not to feel like that.
Mr. Jones is usually your enemy,
However many cast you in the role
Unbeknownst to you, because you're not like them.
Of course, this is among the shrinking number
Who are still familiar with Dylan's music.
Most I know prefer a bit of pounding grime.
And like Mr. Jones, I'm baffled to explain the reason.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
SEIZURE
The preceding moments are surreal,
like talking nonsense in an echo chamber.
But once it's happened once,
you have a pretty good idea what's coming.
And then you wake up on the floor.
You don't remember how you got there,
or occasionally, where you are.
That filters back; sometimes it takes ages
of frustrated pawing at your memory.
You have to deal with sympathetic faces
asking if you're okay now,
telling you they're glad you didn't die.
Your muscles ache as you stand up.
You've taken all the skin off your left arm.
You're limping; but that will go away.
You wish the lookers-on would scram as well.
Afterwards, you only want your lover.
You're scared that she will be revolted.
You want silence and the dark to hide in
to look up at the moon and curse
whoever struck you down with seizures.
And then you sleep. Your dreams
are movies of the ordinary.
And in the morning you resume your life.
Every twitch and flutter in your head
feels like another episode.
You're tempted just to hide indoors,
but obviously you can't.
You go shopping. You go to work.
Do everything you always do.
But you have an added reticence
that some interpret as withdrawal.
like talking nonsense in an echo chamber.
But once it's happened once,
you have a pretty good idea what's coming.
And then you wake up on the floor.
You don't remember how you got there,
or occasionally, where you are.
That filters back; sometimes it takes ages
of frustrated pawing at your memory.
You have to deal with sympathetic faces
asking if you're okay now,
telling you they're glad you didn't die.
Your muscles ache as you stand up.
You've taken all the skin off your left arm.
You're limping; but that will go away.
You wish the lookers-on would scram as well.
Afterwards, you only want your lover.
You're scared that she will be revolted.
You want silence and the dark to hide in
to look up at the moon and curse
whoever struck you down with seizures.
And then you sleep. Your dreams
are movies of the ordinary.
And in the morning you resume your life.
Every twitch and flutter in your head
feels like another episode.
You're tempted just to hide indoors,
but obviously you can't.
You go shopping. You go to work.
Do everything you always do.
But you have an added reticence
that some interpret as withdrawal.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Che Guevara And The Street Gangs
(from the author's private journal)
Apparently that music the youngsters like to play in their shiney cars is called "grime". It's a word lifted from a Rolling Stone interview with Karen Carpenter. (Okay, it isn't.)
I discovered this fascinating fact during a news item on the radio about a movie (I didn't catch the name of it) depicting gang life in the Midlands. The movie has apparently been banned by some cinema chains because it glamorises guns, violence and drug abuse.
Well, congratulations idiots, now you've increased the cachet of the movie tenfold among the people you fear will be most influenced by it. Illegal downloads will be flying everywhere.It was interesting to consider the film, whatever it is called, and the lifestyle it depicts, after watching "Che Part One" last night.
One of the stars of the gang film was on the radio spouting all of the usual drivel we hear from apologists for these thugs: "It's a fact...It's the way it is...They look at a choice between a lifetime flipping burgers on the minimum wage or the guys in the gangs wearing expensive rings and driving around in big flash cars...What are they supposed to do?"(Grow up?)
So victimhood is the rationalisation they use for turning themselves into a more brutal micro-version of their own oppressors? exploiting the people in their own neighbourhoods for money and status? I don't necessarily accept that the people in the gangs are clever enough to think it through that intelligently, but supposing they did: how lazy, how pathetically cowardly, that would be.
Here's a suggestion from Amiri Baraka: "make some muscle in yr. head" if you want to escape a lifetime of poverty. I don't mean (again, necessarily), get educated and climb the Capitalist ladder--although some could, to some degree, if they stopped using environment as an excuse. I mean teach yourself how the System works, learn what the causes of social injustice are, if you don't want to play the game; then try to use the System against itself to change it. Or go for Revolution, if you really think that's the answer (history suggests it's not, but you will have to decide that for yourself). Be a MAN, not a whiney boy with a big gun shouting "It's not fair!" as you shoot down a defenceless shopkeeper.
Guevara may have been dogmatic; his methods may have been wrong (Individualism and Capitalism are far from the same thing--Capitalism transforms its subjects into drones just like Communism--but Che dismissed Individualism as bourgeois and denied the call of Spirit too)(that's why Allen Ginsberg was kicked out of Cuba). Che's vision and his courage, though, were enormous. He saw suffering and injustice and decided he would put his life at risk in a herculean effort to make it go away, for everyone. In the selfish world we live in now, where giving a shit about anyone except yourself is seen as passe and sentimental, that's tremendously inspiring.
Like I said, street gangs are just Capitalism in miniature. Uneducated avarice is what makes the whole darn Western world go round.
Apparently that music the youngsters like to play in their shiney cars is called "grime". It's a word lifted from a Rolling Stone interview with Karen Carpenter. (Okay, it isn't.)
I discovered this fascinating fact during a news item on the radio about a movie (I didn't catch the name of it) depicting gang life in the Midlands. The movie has apparently been banned by some cinema chains because it glamorises guns, violence and drug abuse.
Well, congratulations idiots, now you've increased the cachet of the movie tenfold among the people you fear will be most influenced by it. Illegal downloads will be flying everywhere.It was interesting to consider the film, whatever it is called, and the lifestyle it depicts, after watching "Che Part One" last night.
One of the stars of the gang film was on the radio spouting all of the usual drivel we hear from apologists for these thugs: "It's a fact...It's the way it is...They look at a choice between a lifetime flipping burgers on the minimum wage or the guys in the gangs wearing expensive rings and driving around in big flash cars...What are they supposed to do?"(Grow up?)
So victimhood is the rationalisation they use for turning themselves into a more brutal micro-version of their own oppressors? exploiting the people in their own neighbourhoods for money and status? I don't necessarily accept that the people in the gangs are clever enough to think it through that intelligently, but supposing they did: how lazy, how pathetically cowardly, that would be.
Here's a suggestion from Amiri Baraka: "make some muscle in yr. head" if you want to escape a lifetime of poverty. I don't mean (again, necessarily), get educated and climb the Capitalist ladder--although some could, to some degree, if they stopped using environment as an excuse. I mean teach yourself how the System works, learn what the causes of social injustice are, if you don't want to play the game; then try to use the System against itself to change it. Or go for Revolution, if you really think that's the answer (history suggests it's not, but you will have to decide that for yourself). Be a MAN, not a whiney boy with a big gun shouting "It's not fair!" as you shoot down a defenceless shopkeeper.
Guevara may have been dogmatic; his methods may have been wrong (Individualism and Capitalism are far from the same thing--Capitalism transforms its subjects into drones just like Communism--but Che dismissed Individualism as bourgeois and denied the call of Spirit too)(that's why Allen Ginsberg was kicked out of Cuba). Che's vision and his courage, though, were enormous. He saw suffering and injustice and decided he would put his life at risk in a herculean effort to make it go away, for everyone. In the selfish world we live in now, where giving a shit about anyone except yourself is seen as passe and sentimental, that's tremendously inspiring.
Like I said, street gangs are just Capitalism in miniature. Uneducated avarice is what makes the whole darn Western world go round.
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