"...white liberals have become people of color." --Rob*rt Oscar Lop*z

"As I sat staring at the woman, the horror of the war came back to me- the days upon days of bombing and shooting- the tanks blasting away down the streets, and helicopters hovering above menacingly. I wondered how she would spend the next couple of agonizing days, waiting for word from her son and husband. The worst part of it is being separated from the people you care about and wondering about their fates. It’s a feeling of restlessness that gnaws away inside of you, leaving you feeling exhausted and agitated all at once. It’s a thousand pessimistic voices whispering stories of death and destruction in your head. It’s a terrible feeling of helplessness in the face of such powerful devastation." --Baghdad Burning

"All Along the Watchtower

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl."

--Dylan

March of Folly.

On dit.

"It is a fearful and tempestuous time,
The concave firmament, the angel's bridge
O'er the world's day and night, is visibly
Bowed down and bent beneath its load of thunder,
And through the fiery fissures of the clouds
Glistens the warfare of armed elements,
Bellowing defiance in earth's stunned ear,
And setting midight on the throne of day."

--B*ddo*s

this is a calamity, not only for us, but for all humans.

The Age of Shrinkwrap.

evening after this
morning i ask the not yet
bloom song celebrates

and her wine for me as through

deep sky a strange star relents

11 02 04

A tale with a moral.

Blake as Johnny Cash. (Can't wait to see the cover of the movie tie-in edition!)

Elsewhere...

This Time We're Watching.

Saved.

“Christmas Night of ‘62

The wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry’s tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.

Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster round the blaze
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.

My sabre swinging overhead
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow,
And memory leads me to the dead.

My thoughts go wandering to and fro,
Vibrating ‘twixt the Now and Then;
I see the low-browed home again,
The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.

And sweetly from the far-off years
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the Long Ago!
My eyes are wet with tender tears.

I feel again the mother-kiss,
I see again the glad surprise
That lightened up the tranquil eyes
And brimmed them o’er with tears of bliss,

As, rushing from the old hall-door,
She fondly clasped her wayward boy--
Her face all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once more.

My sabre swinging on the bough
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow
Aslant upon my saddened brow.

Those cherished faces all are gone!
Asleep within the quiet graves
Where lies the snow in drifting waves,--
And I am sitting here alone.

There’s not a comrade here to-night
But knows that loved ones far away
On bended knees this night will pray:
‘God bring our darling from the fight.’

But there are none to wish me back,
or me no yearning prayers arise.
he lips are mute and closed the eyes--
My home is in the bivouac.”

--William Gordon McCabe, in: Poetry and Eloquence from the Blue and the Gray [The Photographic History of the Civil War, Part Nine], ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller (1911)

"Peace rules the Day, where Reason rules the Mind." --William Collins, 2nd Persian Eclogue

Japanese CD Singles. These are the cutest packaging--i don't even care that i can't read the names of some of the bands...

You might say this is the "story behind the story" of The Rule of Four.

A wonderful set of links.

“Xanadu, the Gate Shattered”

Gossamer these days
And passing-bright, & also threatening rain;
And silent in the little things,
And full of raging fury for the rest.

My reach is a desire not to fall,
And i am ignorant how exactly far
This paradise of guns & shouting goes,
This neighbor & the gossamer that holds.

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

10 27 04

Listening to: Bartok- Cantata Profana, plus Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta

“And the lonely Fomalhaut
In the dark south, paces low...
Stretching toward the kingly one
Dusky, dark Aldebaran.”

--Teasdale

"After I was brought from these long and doubtful thoughts and phantastical imaginations, and remembering all those marvellous divine shapes and bodies which I had personally seen with my eyes, I then knew that they were not deceitful shadows, nor magical illusions, but that I had not rightly conceived of them." --Mclean's Poliphili tr (1986)

Map of Pluto. (Still a "planet".)

If "Right" & "Left" modernisms, why not Right & Left traditionalisms?

Samhain Page.

"At the moment, I think we're getting a pretty good idea of what Trotsky felt, looking at Stalin." --Jack Womack (via William Gibson)

Blackboard Poetics.

Geof makes some useful distinctions.

“...I received [these poems] at the Hands of a Merchant, who had made it his Business to enrich himself with the Learning, as well as the Silks and Carpets of the Persians. The little Information I could gather concerning their Author, was, That his Name was Mahamed, and that he was a Native of Tauris.

It was in that City that he died of a Distemper fatal in those Parts, whilst he was engag’d in celebrating the Victories of his favourite Monarch, the Great Abbas. As to the Eclogues themselves, they give a very just View of the Miseries and Inconveniencies, as well as the Felicities, that attend one of the finest Countries in the East.

The Time of the Writing them was probably in the Beginning of the Sha Sultan Hosseyn’s Reign, the Successor of Sefi or Solyman the Second. Whatever Defects, as, I doubt not, there will be many, fall under the Reader’s Observation, I hope his Candour will incline him to make the following Reflections:
That the Works of Orientals contain many Peculiarities, and that thro’ Defect of Language few European Translators can do them Justice.”

--preface to William Collins’s Persian Eclogues (1742)

Listening to: The Electric Prunes- Just Good Old Rock and Roll

“Fragmentary Stars

So wide the wells of darkness sink,
These, having their own light, that are lost with the light,
Appear, immersed in mournfulness over the night,
Like things that in sleep will come to the mind’s brink:
The bright Aldebaran and seven that hover,
Seven wild and pale, clouding their brightness over;
And the flame that fell with summer, and the rose of stars returning,
Like tears piercing the sky,
Glittering without cause, for the piece of a legend,
Wept I know not why,
As none can say,
As countless they weep
Ranging without fold beyond the order of day--
The brightmost, the forgotten,
Gathered only of sleep,
All night upon the lids set burning,
Shaken from the lids of morning.”

--Léonie Adams