politics

Home

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Home no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their throats the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory … Read more

The Poltroon

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Poltroon – the very word is like a … what? a.) A North American mammal of the raccoon family known for its habit of rooting for grubs in the undergrowth of deciduous forests b.) A metal or earthenware pot typically having a funnel-shaped top, often kept under the bed c.) An abject or contemptible coward, lacking courage; ignobly … Read more

Aubade

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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 … Read more

The hand that signed the paper

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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 … Read more

Power

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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 … Read more

On the Steps of the Jefferson Memorial

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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 … Read more

Bent to the Earth

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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 … Read more

About Those Daffodils

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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 … Read more

A Ballad on the Taxes

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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 … Read more

Epitaph on a Tyrant

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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 … Read more

What Kinds of Times are These

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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 … Read more

Art and Treason: War Crimes and Responsibility

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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 … Read more

Before Disaster

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“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 … Read more

Stalin’s Heirs

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Stalin’s Heirs by Yevgeny Yevtushenko Mute was the marble. Mutely glimmered the glass. Mute stood the sentries, bronzed by the breeze. Thin wisps of smoke curled over the coffin. And breath seeped through the chinks as they bore him out the mausoleum doors. Slowly the coffin floated, grazing the fixed bayonets. He also was mute- … Read more

Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)

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Muriel Rukeyser wrote this in 1968. Read it and tell me it doesn’t feel like she is writing for this moment in history.  How many mornings recently have you been “more or less insane” as the news pours out of “various devices”? Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars) I lived in … Read more