Browsed by
Author: Bartleby

Brexit, and the rest

Brexit, and the rest

I like my old folks anxious more’n wild.
In 1945 full half of you
were bled out rotting in the fields or ‘neath
our rubbled village, town, city too.

I like my old men worried, remembering the fall;
I like my old ladies broad, not silly tall;
I like my young ones wary watching taunts,
puffed fervors, thoughtless plots, vision in the gloat.

I need my people looking for the pit
where we’d toss our calm, our steady gentle hands
till blood and mud were one and t’was no stopping it.

The pouty vote and protest strut with arms
like chicken wings can’t save our souls or bind
what shake and rattle fold all wildly out.

The center must hold!
The center must deepen and widen;
the center must deliver.
The center must answer the call–
to form a juster course
for us people, our thoughts, purposes and passions.

Peace seems unavoidable
when its always there–
salty warm, freshly sweet–
and spiced betimes with gadgets great,
shows hilarious, pundits us all-knowing.

Great whale must swim a fathom deep,
must round the cold dark world;
thick cordy lips, a hide blue rubber steel.
Great whale humps through the secret sea,
alone quiet empty kind of free.

AMW/BW

Babe on the train

Babe on the train

You see her standing there,
babe on the train.
She’s wearing loose white slacks
of some material between sweats and canvas
and a pink white-striped cotton shirt.
Her ass is full in every way–
with large dimples in the fatty musculature.
Her tits hang low and sharp,
like torpedoes diving slant–
a revelation, an enlightenment:
an answer to the question you
can’t quite voice.

Narrow waist.

Her nose a little Greek; her cheeks a little
high-Cherokee; her face a little tanned;
her eyes a soft sparkled Mediterranean vacation.

Gabbing away, leaning over the upright luggage backs;
moving a ring off and on again her well-shaped,
sweet-tanned straight-laced fingers;
talking to a tortoise-freckled 40s tallthin blond-red.
Laughing; changing position; bending forward
haunches back; straightening up;
fiddling with her hair.
Only looking your way that once;
you let her see the longing,
the desire-swept tilted-head soft-eyed look-up;
she responds with a sympathetic eye-bat,
an understanding lip-purse.

Her hair rich thick brown river;
bunched up into a gush,
then split in two lilting falls–
played with by those hands.

I call her a babe; but that’s–
she’s gotta be the most wonderful,
the most sweetest, charming,
fascinating, precious–
in nowise vapid unawares
or anything but keen reals–
young woman I’ll ever side-slip past.

Let it pass; let it go; the painted slider
strains against the darkstill pond,
his wrinkly neck snorkled up.
You can’t have them all!
Sigh.

AMW/BW

He speaks of the hurt

He speaks of the hurt

I knew a man,
name was Jimmy gone get me,
lived down red shack lane,
kept a gerbil on a wheel,
a big-hair pinup on a wall.

I knew this guy,
name of Jimmy gone get me.
I see’m there shuffle down
the big-rock white road–
that alley way back ‘hind
the red brick row houses
three stories tall
ripples off red brick plant–
fackry big as the town.

I knew this guy,
Jimmy gone get me
gett’in older in the alleyway.
“Boys,” he says–
back then we were white
and our hair all soft
straw falling odds and evens–
“Yer jus boys–lads really–.
Ye can’t grasp it. Naw, can’t.
Still, all the same;
I’m gonna tell you
’bout this hurt.”

It seems it was wide
and deep
and sick
and old
and locked
and stored
and kept
and rich
and loud
and angry
and pathetic
and impossible
and proud
and desperate
wounded,
wolf caught in a trap,
whimpering
and gnawing half-heartedly
at its poor befangled
leg.

But it was also a form of radiation that blared from his gut through his chest, shoulders, neck, head, eyes–blared out a kind of aching nausea full of shame and confusion, full of trick mirrors and deadend plywood mazeways in a dusty rickety shack sprawling on and on, always expanding more so as to keep you full on lost–no matter how you rushed and raced and tried–oh you tried!

AMW/BW

Burn out Boy of the Barrio

Burn out Boy of the Barrio

I got the love,
but nowhere to put it.
I got the fire,
but it’s burning my floorboard out–
like the 67 Chevy long road sedan.
Dad fixed an old license plate
with wire
to patch the hole by the accelerator.

I got the spirit,
but not the space to unfold it.
I got the heart,
but not the strength
to show
share
live it on out.

I’m the burned out boy of the barrio.
Will I, mussed strand hair,
restaurant greased slacks,
fall by the wayside,
unrequested
opening Mickey D doors
unasked
pointing out directions
unheard
accepting tips.

I’m the burned out boy of the barrio.
Will I, fingers gray dirt caked,
sweatshirt and jeans worn and powdered,
work for the man,
drink with the boys,
come home to the bitch,
or to the woman–
come home to the fight,
or to the peace–
who am I now?
Burned out boy of the barrio.

Us losers,
we become our retreats.
Us failures,
we become our faces.
Burnt out,
left behind,
a never mind–
but that’s not the end.
Measure me
by the size
of my love
and the shape
of my life.

Disappointment in the family den,
called-out loudmouth,
caught-out daredevil–
OK, fine,
with the lines wearing through
and the mojo fizzing gone.
OK, fine,
But what’re you gonna do about it,
that’s what I’d like to know.

There’s still the walk
along the dock,
still the ships swaying
in the cupping waves,
still the ones who
hear what I say
see what I do
know where I stand.

Burned out boy of the barrio,
but that’s not the issue now.
Will my face crease
smile or frown
squished or open eyes
open or closed?

A man longs for his woman.
Let him forget the wishes
that don’t mean much.
Let him find the path
the place
the people
the person
that help him.
Help him, God around,
find his
keep on keep’in on.

AMW/BW

Look, Lady

Look, Lady

Look, Lady
Formed by responding in-line to the first part of Blow, Bugle Blow

Her hair rich dark choc’late thick,
Her snowy summits coolly yearning,
She long looks wide the countryside
To spot straw lad of red cheeks burning.

Burst beauty, burst, set the green fields falling,
Stop beauty; answer; a free day fair day calling.

O hark, O hear, yet far yet near,
Inside, outside; all in all whirling!
Ah hope-swept glance, ah self-caught prance.
The slippered lady mirth-lipped looking!

Look, swoop a breathe–the fresh hearts leaping
Reach, lady; answer, your bright eyes keeping.

AW/BW

Blow, Bugle Blow
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The splendour falls on castle walls
Her hair rich like choc’late’s thick,
And snowy summits old in story :
Her snowy summits coolly yearning,
The long light shakes across the lakes,
She long looks wide the countryside
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
To spot straw lad of red cheeks burning.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Burst beauty, burst, set the green fields falling,
Stop beauty ; answer, it’s calling, calling, calling.

O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear,
O hark, O hear, yet far yet near,
And thinner, clearer, farther going !
Inside, outside, all in all whirling!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
Ah hope-swept glance, ah self-caught prance.
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing !
The slippered lady mirth-lipped looking!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying :

Look, let it breathe, the fresh hearts leaping
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Reach, lady; answer, your brights keeping, keeping, keeping.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river :
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Race, a Public Service Announcement

Race, a Public Service Announcement

Just so you know:
Race is a social construct.
That’s all.
Emotionally/Mentally, it isn’t anything–
we all slide together there, in the loci of our,
you know, humanity.
Can’t be helped.
That’s all.
Nothing to see here.
Oh well.
All those theories; all that research; all that yearning searching:
oh well,
it’s better this way–
the way it actually is.

AMW / BW

The Theory of Poetry Podcasts

The Theory of Poetry Podcasts

A theoretical problem, a math problem:

Suppose one were to gather together a few strands of the unruly information age and knit them together into a poetry podcast, taped and broadcast once per lunar month. Is it possible to configure this enterprise in a way that is particularly worthwhile?

It was Kwizsler who provided the first solution to this problem. The world would have to wait another 3.45928 centuries for Kamarati’s proof that there were in fact infinite solutions to the problem, and that each problem was a fractal petal off of the Kwizsler’s original, old-fashioned, antiquated, dusty, backroom solution.

But what happens when we add the following detail:

The founders must be two different people–one who’s first suggestion is that the poetry club get cohesiveness by cleaving to poems involving New York City; and one who’s first instinct is to leap atop the long, beerhall-style oak table and, after summarily–with his arms up like bat wings and his lips disdainfully curled and eyes painfully scrunched like a valley girl inching past a homeless person–pushes everyones’ food and drink onto the floor with the tip of his beige, sneaker-shaped walking shoes, declare:

New York City has enough memorabilia, enough fanware, enough paraphernalia!

In this world evil lurks among us. The devil dog runs amok. With foam swilled over yellow jag-snag teeth, it haunts the edges of each human twist and turn! Aye, it dogs us!; it sneaks into each every crevice of our individual and collective thought, perverting, dragging down, making sick, puking raw right through!

And you’d speak of pleasant clubs with tame, gentle edifications! The aircraft carrier’s hook catches the landing jet–time is short. For as long as I’ve been sort of paying attention (which is usually all I’ve been able to stomach), I’ve watched flailing, violent, dyspeptic, ulcerated chaos advance. I’ve watched my world become more and more a dying giant squid, robbed of its water and its depth; its great yellow mirror-eye cracked with hopeless choked-out panic; its unweildy red, flabby-flapping tentacles–with their poignant rose-bud tips–lashing out every which way frantic and pathetic.

And I’ve thought that I should do something about this! But what? About what? What is going on? Why do I feel so queasy every time I turn on the TV? Is it really any worse than before? Isn’t this actually going pretty well? Order’s maintained pretty solidly and you’re allowed to say things–no matter how insightful or idiotic–about the government and society. So it’s basically OK, right? And what, I mean, what is it supposed to look like? What can it look like? But–well, I just can’t shake the sense that we are focusing on spectacle instead of substance, and I cannot help but recall ‘Cabaret’s’ thesis that it was such hiding in spectacle that allowed the Germans to slide themselves down the gullet of Naziism. Not that we’re necessarily going to start rounding up and exterminating millions, but that we’re going in the wrong direction and at some point you’ve slid so far down the wrong way that you can’t get back to decent. Also, I think that we as a nation actually could talk and come up with workable policies, but we’ve decided it feels safer to cocoon ourselves into little group-think echo chambers–complete with comedians who are much better at seeing the ridiculousness of the other side than of our milky-gauzy home. Well, there’s that general critique, and then there’s my own partisanship: I cannot fathom Republicans anymore.

The club I dream of will help me get some purchase on this sorrow–some way to push against the evil in me and in the collective; some way to get not some set of pre-cherished ideas and attitudes to win, but to get good ideas and real kindness to more and more guide myself and the collective. The more corrupt a place is, the easier it is to be cruel and selfish and hard-hearted and close-minded, and the harder it is to be kind and generous and gentle-hearted and open-minded. The more corruption in an individual, the more easily those soul-ignoring ignobilities can squeeze internal awareness and honesty out; and the harder it is for the easy-flowing joy to take back conscious territory. Likewise in a society/government–the more corrupt a society/government is, the easier it is to live happy and comfortable there while being indecent; and the harder it is to live happy, comfortable, and decent. The more corrupt a society/government is, the more it forces you to choose between happiness and decency. But be careful young rebel!: one of the show-off motor’s favorite tricks is to pretend that your setting is more corrupt than it is. Sit back, relax, pull back your shoulders, open your chest: helping begins with an honest critique, which includes admitting what is good that you already have and shouldn’t toss out–there’s nothing heroic about pouting and praying for chaos: chaos is not a safe place to unfold your heart and mind and body; chaos is a brutal massacre.

How can we move towards less individual and collective corruption? No, but for real!

This must be the quest of our joint venture. Otherwise, what’s the point?

What is a good poem? What is it’s relationship to Truth = Beauty = Goodness = Justice? What are the poems that will help as individuals and as groups to grow in wisdom–to shake off the stupid-jeer and the pouty-swarm, to circle round again and dip back into love? What poems can we as a nation use to start moving together towards the common reality?

I think our quest should be poems that help us as individuals and groups live more fully and well, more joyfully, more honestly, more life-overflowingly. What poems do that? Why? How? And how to get them out so that, like love bombs, they do the maximum damage to wrongheadness within ourselves and our shared dreaming space?

AMW/BW

the give up wins

the give up wins

It overtakes your shoulders, pulls you into the center like a twinkle-spin-out-disappearing blackhole. Alone, walking on the beach. Unable to love, unable to stand life. Start out young; the heart is what really ages, as it grows stiff–cynical, beaten, unwilling to shake off the scar tissue and try again–it turns the rest of you to dust, like a plant on dried out ground.

Or is that just pouty talk?

Hey Now

Hey Now

Hey now, don’t you know it?
Hey now, can’t you feel it?
A young man turning old.
And the band plays on.

Why won’t you grow up?
Knives that fall onto the lawn.
I feel like a failure walking through cotton candy.
Never mind.

What can be done?

What can be done?

Clinton’s email fiasco that may or may not turn into a criminal charge. And the arrogance and lack of judgement that the incident demonstrates.

Sander’s longshot campaign, his lack of foreign policy experience, and does he understand how dangerous terrorism has become? A handful of crazy people could nuke a city, or poison its water, or a mall’s ventilation system–or do that to several cities at once. Or they could blow up the House while most everyone in the Federal government is present (suggested solution: most people can send representatives while watching it on TV in someplace dignified–for example, their state’s capitol). Can he handle this? Privacy is important but so is keeping New York City from evaporating (actually, any city dweller with any imagination will notice that evaporation is about the best option for dying in a terrorist strike).

Trump’s insane ideas: building walls across Mexico that the Mexican government will pay for; stopping all Muslims from entering the country; using his magical bartering abilities to turn the world’s governments into rival businesses that he strong-arms and outmaneuvers. And then also the usual (for a couple generations anyway) bank-breaking Republican fiscal policies that make the poor get poorer, the rich get richer, the government unable to fund necessary services (D+ on our last infrastructure report) and the economy stay unstable. Oh and then there’s the narcissism, flagrant misogyny, and general Nietzschian conception of “might-makes-right or at least it wins and winning’s the thing”. Except that doesn’t even win: when you reduce all to power plays, you are the ones that become Nazi Germany, and someone else must give the King’s Speech and say that might doesn’t make right, that there is more to life than power and money, and that government’s are responsible to those human values first: to creating and maintaining places where people can be both physically OK and morally decent. That is the vision that allows for the mutual trust and support necessary for collective success!

So what can be done?

Because Elizabeth Warren isn’t running and so I’m thinking we won’t unite: we’ll all stay alone in this giant, ill-conceived, incoherent mosaic.

What can be done?

Why would it have been different with Elizabeth Warren running? Because she can explain the necessity of financial regulations, the compatibility of healthy capitalism and taxation and even some redistribution. She can explain that ad-money linked to a candidate’s ear is corrupting our democracy, and she can help us think through our way back to the steering wheel–or at least the brakes: in a representative democracy the primary responsibility of the electorate is to serve as a final check against excessive corruptions and flagrant madnesses of the political class, a duty we’ve largely traded-in for teatime with pundits and rabble-rousers where we pretend we’re all political geniuses and/or that the other side’s too perverted to talk to.

What is different about Elizabeth Warren? Well, she’s not hated by the right like Clinton is, and she lacks Clinton’s email problem. The left acts like it’s the Republicans fault that Clinton is hated: that’s somewhat true, they’ve spent 30 years maligning the Clintons. But is the point here who’s fault it is? And isn’t the email mess more than just Republican headhunting? Wasn’t that at best really stupid? The nation desperately needs someone who can unite us, and it is hard to see how that person could be a Clinton, and easy to see how it could be that sunny, sweet, irresistible, and so very accurate without being pretentious or impractical Elizabeth Warren, who, I regret to say, is not running for President.

Bernie Sanders still is running for president, but he’s excessive: we could make college an affordable part of life without mandating that it be free; we could improve the health care reforms we’ve started without demanding that we jump straight to single-payer; we could regulate the financial sector without acting like they’re all a bunch of crooks; we could move slowly but surely towards a better society–and cranky perfectionism is not the way to do that.

The Republican party is hopeless because their budget ideas are all based on fanatical magicalism, and they flip constantly between hating and trying to dismantle government and pretending they want to and can govern–and even keep social security going. Donald Trump is an arrogant fool with no experience governing and even supposing he is a good businessman and not more like a good self-promoter and con-man, the country is not a business–it is a country, and the bottom-line is not the annual profit report: it is justice, freedom, liberty, safety, and the tools and space for everyone here to become their best so that we as a nation can become our best: yes, staying safe and financially healthy, but most fundamentally becoming kinder, more just, wiser, more fun, more creative, more human–living out our inner landscapes more completely: that is the path to sustainable collective success, and anything else is the Titanic.

What can be done? What has gone wrong? Why can’t we even unite around no-brainers like stopping banks from using publicly-insured money to fund risky investments, taking back the political process from the “ad money + lobbyists = you listen to me” political investors, and improving our D+ infrastructure? Look–the sickness is most pronounced in the Republican party because they’ve given themselves most completely over to the myth that money is the point and justifies everything else. It is that ugly truth that makes bipartisanship tricky. The Democrats are not perfect, but the Republicans have lost their minds. And yet this exact same position in reverse is held by the majority of Republicans. How can I see with their mind/hearts enough to find a common ground? It is painful for me to try. I am so baffled by them. And yet no progress will come to the land that now slouches with flat heavy feet down the rocky ravine–just asking for the decisive tumble into the abyss–unless we can find a common reality.

AMW and BW, worried on of a Sunday morn in the year 2016.