I've got the Internet here,
Where I'm typing.
And you have the Internet there,
Where you are reading.
So I am not sure that I need to tell you the name of that convention of Hindus at the convergence of the Holy Rivers,
Where congregate the largest gatherings of humanity.
If you do not know what I'm talking about,
Seek it, and you will find it.
But here in the bottoms of Illinois,
Where I'm typing,
To you in the Yukon,
Where the gold rushers explored the waters that drained from the snows on highest peaks in Alaska
Along the glaciers
Where the Inuit hunt seal, walrus, and polar bear.
Do you ever ask yourself:
Will I ever see the wide hips of the Mississippi,
That swing heavy and wide
Down past St. Louis?
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
The Ass's Tale
The ass was an investment banker with connections. He wanted to change the rules so that the sows only got to keep two of her piglets instead of three that had been guaranteed to her grandmother under the Bartlett administration. The ass could only say that the rules had changed and that one more of her sons would be required to help keep the motors of government operating smoothly and efficiently.
Previously, the ass had worked for the Jewish Sanhedrin. He had been hired out by a small lobbying group who needed a rental for the day. Someone down in Livestock didn't check the paperwork very closely, so when Judas Iscariot came paying with a silver coin bearing the face-stamp of their beloved emperor, his suspicions were impossible to raise.
The problem with the ass is that he never took anyone's side too seriously, at least nobody's but his own, and once an ass stops taking sides, it's a helluvalot easier to see the other guy more clearly. The other problem is, the other guy is usually an ass, too. Then the ass has to make a decision: Do I stop being an ass because that way I get to win, or do I keep being an ass because I make a whole lot better one than that guy over there?
So, the ass just kept delivering messages from the gods to the people, peacefully satisfying them all in various denominations of ones and zeros.
Previously, the ass had worked for the Jewish Sanhedrin. He had been hired out by a small lobbying group who needed a rental for the day. Someone down in Livestock didn't check the paperwork very closely, so when Judas Iscariot came paying with a silver coin bearing the face-stamp of their beloved emperor, his suspicions were impossible to raise.
The problem with the ass is that he never took anyone's side too seriously, at least nobody's but his own, and once an ass stops taking sides, it's a helluvalot easier to see the other guy more clearly. The other problem is, the other guy is usually an ass, too. Then the ass has to make a decision: Do I stop being an ass because that way I get to win, or do I keep being an ass because I make a whole lot better one than that guy over there?
So, the ass just kept delivering messages from the gods to the people, peacefully satisfying them all in various denominations of ones and zeros.
Whatever It's
The rose is not a flower but a plant.
Described by most as red and velvet soft,
Is just as jealous as her prickly green,
That scrabs about my boots as I walk upon her.
It's flower in new-budded spring arrives,
Grand sepals mantled round her bowéd head,
Morning bees will rend her soft'ning lips
To taste the nectar she has stored within herself.
In the winter, she dies, brown to the ground,
Her leaves leave her, naked, and in the bitter winds of January,
Her skin grows tough and brittle,
Till all that was green is brown, and all that was brown is white and all that was white is gone and all that was red is imagined.
Described by most as red and velvet soft,
Is just as jealous as her prickly green,
That scrabs about my boots as I walk upon her.
It's flower in new-budded spring arrives,
Grand sepals mantled round her bowéd head,
Morning bees will rend her soft'ning lips
To taste the nectar she has stored within herself.
In the winter, she dies, brown to the ground,
Her leaves leave her, naked, and in the bitter winds of January,
Her skin grows tough and brittle,
Till all that was green is brown, and all that was brown is white and all that was white is gone and all that was red is imagined.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Li Hua
Those of us who had known the small of the earth,
The bodies of its inhabitants,
And the riddles of the end,
Took longer to trust the machines.
So when we arrived,
We looked foolish,
But because we knew the earth,
We became gods.
Does not the mythology of the Internet Age
Begin in the central plains of Illinois,
Where the Missouri and Ohio and Wabash and Mississippi
Converge at Cairo?
He was born the son of a virgin,
In a town of no reputation,
Just north of the great delta upon which an empire was built
Upon the backs of slaves.
Let he who rises first declare himself to be the Messiah,
Our faces will be carved into stones.
As it turns out,
Galilee was a likely place for a radical of that kind to be born.
And all the other man ever really said about himself
Was that he was.
But mostly Jesus was just a do-gooder
Who decided to make a very political statement in a very public place.
The bodies of its inhabitants,
And the riddles of the end,
Took longer to trust the machines.
So when we arrived,
We looked foolish,
But because we knew the earth,
We became gods.
Does not the mythology of the Internet Age
Begin in the central plains of Illinois,
Where the Missouri and Ohio and Wabash and Mississippi
Converge at Cairo?
He was born the son of a virgin,
In a town of no reputation,
Just north of the great delta upon which an empire was built
Upon the backs of slaves.
Let he who rises first declare himself to be the Messiah,
Our faces will be carved into stones.
As it turns out,
Galilee was a likely place for a radical of that kind to be born.
And all the other man ever really said about himself
Was that he was.
But mostly Jesus was just a do-gooder
Who decided to make a very political statement in a very public place.
Friday, February 1, 2013
The Story of an Hour
In the Future, you will not be able to hide the ideas your mind has.
What passes through the fingertips passes through the neck.
What passes through the fingertips passes through the neck.
The Cat's Tale
Once upon a time, there was a kitten, who was dropped off at our house after being located in a box in the rafters of a garage, and mother having become exterminated was left to die unweaned before you bottle fed human infant baby formula. I named it Wallace Stevens.
The cat died. It died approximately 24 hours after I said to my wife these words: "I'm going to go ahead and say out loud that I think that this cat might be one of my favorite animals I have ever had."
It scurried outdoors one night, which was normal. We often let our cats out since we live in the country, and our house is a purposeful walk from the nearest neighbor. The next morning I got a call from my wife as I pulled from our driveway on the way to work.
"Turn around," she said.
What she had seen, and what she had wanted to deny, was that our cat Wallace Stevens had been struck by a car in the road near our front yard.
And you know, when I sat down to write this story I thought to myself, "Self, you ought to feel something important about yourself because you named that cat Wallace Stevens, and then it died, and then you coped with that by reading 'The Emperor of Ice Cream' aloud to your daughters at the hasty funeral we had for it in the month of December or January (January, likely, since that is the month of my birth.)"
I remember coming home from school one day when I was about the age of my daughter Evelyn who is in the fourth grade. Or perhaps I was the age of my daughter Emmalee who is seven years old. In either case, my cat, which was a yellow tiger-striped cat to whom I owed no particularly strong sentiment, was flattened in the road before our driveway. I m sure that I had loved the cat in some of those moments, but overwhelmingly, I was curious to know about the nature of death. Here had been a cat that I had known, and now it is dead.
Schroedinger.
In the case of the 20th1st Centurians, like me ---
WHOAH.
Do you realize that if you are able to read this, there is a very good chance that you are someone who was alive in both of those centuries? You are the same as Frank Lloyd Wright?
In 1867,
In January,
African-American men were granted the right to vote in the Capital of our Country.
In February,
The first ship passed through the Suez Canal.
In March,
The University of Illinois was established*
In April,
Alaskans enjoyed their first full month of American citizenry.
In May,
Canada was born.
In June,
Frank Lloyd Wright was born.
In July,
The missionary Thomas Baker was cannibalized.
In August,
A Negro man voted for the first time in a southern election.
In September,
Robert Freeman graduated from Harvard.
In October,
The natives agreed to relocate to western Oklahoma.
In November,
The Rose was born in France, Marie Curie in Poland, and Das Kapital in Germany.
In December,
Charles Dickens read a book to a crowd in New York City.
Wallace Stevens was born in 1879. I was born in 1977. I hope you are understanding the connection.
(I also wrote a poem about Haiti on
*Okay, folks: the new post-post-modern period everyone is thinking about. Here is what it is called: The Age of Self. In the popomo culture, the story only matters in that it intersects with the Self. There it is. The Self and the Story:
Duly defined.
I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English with a Minor in Comparative Literature (English).
Then, there was Jerome, who disappeared. I must have ridden my bike through the neighborhood streets a hundred and ninety-two times looking for that cat.
The cat died. It died approximately 24 hours after I said to my wife these words: "I'm going to go ahead and say out loud that I think that this cat might be one of my favorite animals I have ever had."
It scurried outdoors one night, which was normal. We often let our cats out since we live in the country, and our house is a purposeful walk from the nearest neighbor. The next morning I got a call from my wife as I pulled from our driveway on the way to work.
"Turn around," she said.
What she had seen, and what she had wanted to deny, was that our cat Wallace Stevens had been struck by a car in the road near our front yard.
And you know, when I sat down to write this story I thought to myself, "Self, you ought to feel something important about yourself because you named that cat Wallace Stevens, and then it died, and then you coped with that by reading 'The Emperor of Ice Cream'
I remember coming home from school one day when I was about the age of my daughter Evelyn who is in the fourth grade. Or perhaps I was the age of my daughter Emmalee who is seven years old. In either case, my cat, which was a yellow tiger-striped cat to whom I owed no particularly strong sentiment, was flattened in the road before our driveway. I m sure that I had loved the cat in some of those moments, but overwhelmingly, I was curious to know about the nature of death. Here had been a cat that I had known, and now it is dead.
Schroedinger.
In the case of the 20th1st Centurians, like me ---
WHOAH.
Do you realize that if you are able to read this, there is a very good chance that you are someone who was alive in both of those centuries? You are the same as Frank Lloyd Wright?
In 1867,
In January,
African-American men were granted the right to vote in the Capital of our Country.
In February,
The first ship passed through the Suez Canal.
In March,
The University of Illinois was established*
In April,
Alaskans enjoyed their first full month of American citizenry.
In May,
Canada was born.
In June,
Frank Lloyd Wright was born.
In July,
The missionary Thomas Baker was cannibalized.
In August,
A Negro man voted for the first time in a southern election.
In September,
Robert Freeman graduated from Harvard.
In October,
The natives agreed to relocate to western Oklahoma.
In November,
The Rose was born in France, Marie Curie in Poland, and Das Kapital in Germany.
In December,
Charles Dickens read a book to a crowd in New York City.
Wallace Stevens was born in 1879. I was born in 1977. I hope you are understanding the connection.
(I also wrote a poem about Haiti on
SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2010
*Okay, folks: the new post-post-modern period everyone is thinking about. Here is what it is called: The Age of Self. In the popomo culture, the story only matters in that it intersects with the Self. There it is. The Self and the Story:
Duly defined.
I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English with a Minor in Comparative Literature (English).
Then, there was Jerome, who disappeared. I must have ridden my bike through the neighborhood streets a hundred and ninety-two times looking for that cat.
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