Poetry by Robert Bly: Stealing Sugar from the Castle

The First Day of 2010

Questionnaire

by Wendall Berry

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

via Pulse

Fabric

Give up the illusion of the perception of truth.

There is no unmoving spot of ground on which to rest.

Now we are wanderers whose only point of reference is the echo of our pounding hammers. Nailing shreds of peach chiffon, charmeuse, old yellow prom dresses and the velvet black party dress your mother wore when she was beautiful. Sirens sounded around her. Listen.

Rip up the shirt that didn't fit her well as she was dying. Nail it to the utility pole, it is behind us, in the future. Walk on down the road. Tear little strips from a green calico dress. Hammer them to leafless trees.

Fluttering tulle and taffeta, bits of bandana, flannel pajama. We are wanderers whose only point of reference is the echo of our pounding hammers.

Mother Theresa was a Cowgirl

Funny, coming back here, I feel like I'm coming back to someplace significant. Like driving down M66 into the river valley that was my childhood home. Maybe the most significant thing that has happened in my absence is that life has gone on. Dollar stores proliferate.

People are populating, blogging, facebooking, tweeting... the world is full of ambient noise. It is an abundance of insignificance.

If this were a yearly Christmas greeting, I'd say... "I'm TOTALLY in love with Morrissey (I TOLD you I could never be happy), I am still "teaching" and becoming more jaded-like-my-father. I miss some things. I, an obedient daughter, have many regrets, one being that I failed to devote my life to homeless people in India who have no human being who will sit beside them as they die.

If I could only be a cowgirl.

Holidays, Birthdays, Happiness, Sadness, Mothers and Friends

Why am I grouchy and sad and overwhelmed?! Oh, I remember why. It’s Christmas! Not only have we co-opted a day that is about love and sacrifice and made it a selfish capitalistic orgy, but we have placed expectations on ourselves that doom us to failure. I cannot make everyone in my family a scarf. I push myself to the edge of sanity making ONE scarf.

I think part of my melancholy is about my mom, and what the holidays were like with her. I can’t rise to the level of wonderfulness that she was, and I miss her. Life wasn’t perfect, I mean my dad was a mean depressed drunk and all, but my mom was beautiful and giving and loving and you KNEW she loved you. No mistake about it. Her departure really left a hole. Especially during the holidays, and my birthday. She never forgot me. She was the one I knew would always love me. She was funny and popular and knew everybody in town and everybody loved her. I rode on her coattails. She was so unlike me, and she knew me so well. She was a master at making me laugh, she knew I had hives because I was stressed (when I didn’t have a clue), she never read a book, she was loyal, she was basic, she was full of fun, she held the family together, she was mine.

I am acutely aware that one day my own kids will be dealing, each in their own way, with my departure. I hope they remember that I was THEIRS. Everyone needs someone that really sees them, and really loves the shit out of them. Even if they aren’t perfect. Even if they drink too much. Even if they swear. Even if they don’t read books. Even if they failed or if they succeeded, or if they left, or if they came back again. These days I just try and love my kids unconditionally and discern where our relationship will take us.

Happy Holidays, Friends. This year I am most thankful for you. You know, I think my mom would have really liked you.





“What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — it’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies. “

I Think I See My People

Credit: NASA

Copyright: Wikimedia Common

I was taken by this image this morning. Maybe because we’ve been caught in the election bubble for so long. We are so short-sighted. GM is delaying the release of its’ next gas-guzzler until January because they are afraid they won’t get any bailout money, and Jennifer Aniston FINALLY talked shit about Angelina Jolie. We can’t see two feet ahead of us.

I think this is my new home! When I am 90 I will travel across our solar system and enter a new one, a stranger in a strange land (like all of us), though we shy away from complaining. We are thankful for little things.

Change Must Come from Us

"... by the very design and scale of national politics, no presidential campaign could offer more than a wink and a nod to true participatory politics. Activism isn’t something that happens on TV for a general viewing audience, but at home with real people who aren’t watching the tube at all. While a president can provide some inspiration – Oprah-style, if need be - for a whole lot of people, the executive isn’t the locus from which real change occurs. As president, Obama could enact policies that make activism easier to accomplish, jobs easier to create, and corporations more easy to resist – but this activity itself would have to come from us." - Douglas Rushkof

Globalism=Imperialism

"Globalization is an attempt to extend corporate monopoly control over the globe."
- Michael Parenti

One Winter Soldier's Tale

American News Project

War Talk

While the democrats fiddle about, the Republicans have big plans for winning the election:

"The nation's top military officer said yesterday that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" as one of several options against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq." (The Washington Post)

It doesn't matter how much propaganda we are fed, or for how long, or that we KNOW it's propaganda! Through our silence, we give permission.