Poem: Orienteering, or, What Do I Do Now?

The way through is unclear.
You look for an omen,
Like the old kings,

And contemplate
Advance and retreat,
Fight or flight,

Waiting for The Lamplighter
In his own sweet time
To show you a sign.
---o0o---

Poem: The Recurring Nightmare

You drag your wooden leg
Up a shattered staircase,

Across the sagging boards
Of a crumbling porch.

The only light filters down
Through banks of fog,

Radiating in waves from
A cockeyed half moon.

You hear whimpers
In the dark basement.

The door is locked.
You jiggle the knob.

The door creaks open.
You pause at the threshold,

Take a deep breath
And shuffle in.
---o0o---

Check it out: http://www.bannination.com/

I am really enjoying Bannination. It's somewhat similar to Fark, with less restrictions. And the people seem way less snarky.
---o0o---

Painting: Augie 2008

click to enlarge
---o0o---

Music video: Pierre Nadeau's "Girls Boys."

This is a video of Pierre Nadeau's "Girls Boys." It will probably one day be looked upon as a seminal music video. . .around 3:25 or so, you'll see Pierre rocking out on the KeyTar. The French video was re-released a couple years ago as Dans Le Speedo de Pierre Nadeau.


---o0o---

Poem: The Peacekeeper

1
The hawk on a high wall
is hardened in his wickedness

2
A roiling thunderstorm clears the air
Like Wyatt Earp's peacekeeper

3
You can overcome a bad beginning
But a good end lasts forever
---o0o---

POTUS 44: President Obama portrait on day five

click to enlarge

President Barack Obama, still smiling on Day Five of the new administration. Godspeed, bro'.
---o0o---

Poem: Gitmo

1
Is it goodness
To see justice
Administered with a granite fist
In an asbestos glove?
Let it come down
Like thunder and blue lightning,
Like the old surprise visit,
And an image of
Biting
Through.

2
The old kings made iron-clad laws
With exponential penalties.
Is a punishment that fits the crime,
Punishment at all?
When his feet are fastened in the stocks,
And his toes disappear?
When his neck is fastened in a wooden cangue,
And his ears disappear?
When the punished veer
From pleading for life
To pleading for death?
---o0o---

Painting of Keelin Curran at Yosemite, 2008

click to enlarge

---o0o---

The text of Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural Poem (and a mini-review)

By
Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Why would I review a poem, instead of Jack? Because immediately following the Democratic Convention, Jack hectored the transition team with sample poems, bottles of Washington Cabernet Sauvignon bundled with Theo Chocolates, pleas, outright lies, donations, flattery, and schmaltz. . .all in hopes of snagging the poet slot at the inauguration.

Jack knew his chances were slim at best, and if anyone from the transition team went so far as to check his blog, or actually read his work, well, then:::::::::::::pffffft!

He didn't relent until the day in December the team named Elizabeth Alexander as the Inaugural Bard. In short, I am reviewing the poem because it would be sour grapes for Jack Brummet, and besides he is perhaps even more pathetic a reviewer than me.

Alexander chose the form of an African praise song. "These traditionally celebrate the life of an individual, giving their name, genealogy, totem animal, job, personal attributes, etc." These songs are done in a call-and-response/trading fours style. I've read some cool ones.

To use this old form was a great idea. It could have been a raucous, rhythmic, densely worded, and colorful celebration of America and change. As it turned out, Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem was a snoozer.

Walking is a dominant image, and probably the appropriate one, since BHO often talks about the journey, the path, and the road. But to make walking a central concept, walking needs to be more than plodding (for a celebration of walking listen to Guy Clark's recent "Walking Man").

The poem has virtually no wordplay or deep images. It is depressingly prosaic. Alexander ends at least one verse with a preposition (of). The rhythms are flabby. It's like a poem written for people who don't much like poetry, so why bother to change their minds? The almost random, but hopeful and kaleidoscopic view of America is nearly devoid of music. All that said, her heart was in the right place.

Most occasional poems are weak. Why would this be an exception? Alexander has written many a better poem. It had to be a tough writing job, and lord knows how many constraints she was working under! Here's the text. What do you think?
_______________________________________________________


Praise Song for the Day
A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration

by Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.


Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.
---o0o---

Senator Jay Bulworth raps on Money and Obscenity

From the movie, Bulworth, Senator Jay Bulworth's rap on Money and obscenity:

Obscenity? The rich is getting richer and richer and richer
While the middle class is getting more poor
Making billions and billions and billions of bucks
Well my friend if you weren't already rich at the start
Well that situation just sucks
Cause the richest motherf****r in five of us
Is getting ninety f***in' eight percent of it
And every other motherf****r in the world is left to wonder
Where the f*** we went with it
Obscenity? I'm a Senator
I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day I'm in Washington
I ain't getting it in South Central
I'm gettin it in Beverly Hills
So I'm votin for them in the Senate the way they want me too
And-and-and I'm sending them my bills
But we got babies in South Central dying as young as they do in Peru
We got public schools that are nightmares
We got a Congress that ain't got a clue
We got kids with submachine guns
We got militias throwing bombs
We got Bill just gettin all weepy
We got Newt blaming teenage moms
We got factories closing down
Where the hell did all the good jobs go?
Well, I'll tell you where they went
My contributors make more profits makin, makin, makin,
Hirin' kids in Mexico
And a brother can work in fast food
If he can't invent computer games
But what we used to call America
That's going down the drains
How's a young man gonna meet his financial responsibilities
Workin for motherf****n' Burger King?
He ain't! And please don't even start with that school s**t
There aint no education going on up in that motherfucker
Obscenity? We got a million brothers in prison
I mean, the walls are really rockin'
But you can bet your ass they'd all be out
If they could pay for Johnny Cochran
The constitution is supposed to give them an equal chance
Well, that ain't gonna happen for sure
Ain't it time to take a little from the rich motherf****r
And give a little to the poor?
I mean, those boys over there on the monitor
They want a government smaller and weak
But they be speakin for the richest 20 percent
When they pretend they're defendin' the meek
Now, sh*t, f**k, c***sucker, that's the real obscenity
Black folks livin with every day
Trying to believe a mothe****in' word Democrats and Republicans say
Obscenity? I'm Jay Billington Bulworth And I've come to say
The Democratic party's got some s**t to pay
It's gonna pay it in the ghetto
It's gonna pay it in the ghetto.
---o0o---

Poem:Inauguration Day

1
The fortress wall
Crumbles into the moat

And the King's body
Hangs naked from a flagpole.

2
Cold winds scrub the desolate earth
And we try to get it right one more time.
---o0o---