Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Aubade

An aubade is a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning. By the 1930’s it was clear that the war that was supposed to end all wars was not going to. MacNeice wrote this in 1934 and it well expresses a sense of impending doom. Not the dawn of a bright new era of hope and fresh…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The hand that signed the paper

In light of decision-making by executive order and the White House signing ceremonies that seem to exude smug gloating – a poem and pictures. Decisions, signings, authorizations, treaties, orders have consequences. The hand that signed the paper  The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

On the Fifth Day

On the Fifth Day the scientists who studied the rivers were forbidden to speak or to study the rivers. The scientists who studied the air were told not to speak of the air, and the ones who worked for the farmers were silenced, and the ones who worked for the bees. Someone, from deep in the Badlands, began posting facts.…

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Art, Food, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

A Polished Performance

A Polished Performance Citizens of the polished capital Sigh for the towns up country, And their innocent simplicity. People in the towns up country Applaud the unpolished innocence Of the distant villages. Dwellers in the distant villages Speak of a simple unspoilt girl, Living alone, deep in the bush. Deep in the bush we found her, Large and innocent of…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Power

Power by Audre Lorde The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children. I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds and a dead child dragging his shattered black face off the edge of my sleep blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders is the only liquid for miles and my…

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Education, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Those School Brochures: How to stand out from the crowd

If you’re in the market for an independent school – or a college for that matter – you will have seen your fill of those wonderful shiny brochures aka viewbooks that now primarily reside on websites. And as you read, you think Wow! This sounds good. Look at this stuff they do and how they care and how kids excel.…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

On the Steps of the Jefferson Memorial

The simplest poems can be amongst the most profound. On the Steps of the Jefferson Memorial We invent our gods the way the Greeks did, in our own image—but magnified. Athena, the very mother of wisdom, squabbled with Poseidon like any human sibling until their furious tempers made the sea writhe. Zeus wore a crown of lightning bolts one minute,…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Bent to the Earth

Here is a scene of violence and inhumanity that feels torn from the front page of the newspaper or a report on the latest immigration raid outrage. But this is the kind of news that stays news because it keeps happening. Bent to the Earth They had hit Ruben with the high beams, had blinded him so that the van…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

At The Bomb Testing Site

Jerry Harp’s commentary in the Kenyon Review brought this poem back to mind. Always good to be reminded of William Stafford. At The Bomb Testing Site by William Stafford At noon in the desert a panting lizard waited for history, its elbows tense, watching the curve of a particular road as if something might happen. It was looking at something…

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My Poetry, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

About Those Daffodils

So there I was, wandering about, Strolling the gardens, minding my own business The way one does on an April afternoon Unencumbered by seder or service, Thinking random simple thoughts  *** About the world and its ways. A frog at the margin, sitting tight. A goose honked. Flowers peeping by the stones, Buds bursting out and whatnot. Then …  suddenly…

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Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

A Ballad on the Taxes

We pay through the nose for subjecting of foes. Abroad we’re defeated, at home, we ‘re cheated. The ides of April are upon us and that means taxes. Just read this astoundingly relevant piece of tax outrage. It provides some consolation that “twas ever thus. A Ballad on the Taxes by Edward Ward 1. Good people: What? Will you of…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Epitaph on a Tyrant

Epitaph on a Tyrant Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. by…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

What Kinds of Times are These

What Kinds of Times are These by Adrienne Rich There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled this isn’t a…

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Art, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

Art and Treason: War Crimes and Responsibility

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And…

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Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Before Disaster

“Fool and scoundrel guide the State.” That’s true enough. In the early 1930’s when this was written speeding traffic on a Californian freeway was still something new and probably pretty scary to many. Just as the rise of fascism was to those who could see it. Before Disaster by Yvor Winters Evening traffic homeward burns Swift and even on the…

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