( via / me )

"That never happened."

Pound had an immense effect on 20c poetry but wrote very few good poems himself ("Mauberley" is the best one). I had a copy of the Cantos for a long time & liked to try to squirrel away good lines whenever i could find them but in truth, this was not a joyful task & eventually i sold the book. I think into the 21c he can still be considered as a key link in the emerging Alliterative Revival, but now that the force of Imagism has been absorbed into mainstream practice, most of his reputation belongs to early 20c literary history. The part that people only want to talk about anymore, his rotten politics (&/or mental illness?)--now that we know so much about the other 20c "greats"--really has to be placed in the context of 20c fascism & not in our present desire to cancel or connect him with current events. I can easily imagine a new canon that bypasses him altogether.

"In 2024, 398 new pieces of anti-trans legislation across 43 states were introduced, and 274 were carried over from 2023. 613 of those bills failed, 50 passed."

If i could sleep, i'd sleep through four foul years,
cicada-like siesta underground.
I'd rest until this rain of maggots clears
   --if i could sleep.

But why stop there, when spared of sight & sound
of Rapist Cheetoh, i could hold my tears
& sloom until no trace remains around...

Here we are still, though: pierced with vicious fears
& barely able to dream we might rebound.
I'd stay awake to spike their cruel careers--
   if i could sleep.

Ain't that a mood.

( @violetbondart / me )

Command Nothing.

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”
--Frank Herbert via @mariejo1965.bsky.social

Allowables. Have taught this. Best poem about racism ever. Imagine that simple compassion toward racists would be so quiet & so unanswerable. I can't.

“Medicine Buddha”

Jesus wept because he came too late
To save, his promise made but badly kept.
Chagrin the more when murder is our freight:
Jesus wept.

You’d think with all the churches small & great
No effort would be spared for the margin-swept.
Under Jesus’s gaze they rant & hate.

His birthday gloats with ev’ry dazzling prate
Money can buy, morality’s inept
Substitute; & still they mouthe his fate.
Jesus wept.

Ghost Riders in the Sky.

( via / via )

Meanwhile, in Kafka's mail...

         "untitled"

            "My Druid heart" --Walter de la Mare

My Druid heart has found its final lair,
and in its last redoubt made fast its sleep;
yet this has not preserved from lancing pain
      my Druid heart.

The world let go of me, but not the moon
in whose regard i dance out some charade
with rays that ricochet around the vugg.

Now i emerge, a pharaoh from the sand
or from the night, a lustrous crackling grackle.
Silvery-crackle-shines in another kiln
      my Druid heart.

(publ in Illya's Honey vol 15 spring/summer 2009)

Bring It Up From The Dark.

"We depend on the men with blackboards to show us quarks; we depend on men with backward collars to show us some equivalent of quarks. But suppose that neither show us anything." --Roxy Gordon

The serpent tamer.