EXPLODING

MEN ARE DOING BAD THINGS AGAIN / MILD DECEMBER RAIN IN DC / GUNPOWDER SCENT KISSES THE FAR HORIZON / WORDS AREN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE / PODIUMS TUMBLE INTO THE DRY GULCH / A MARKER-SIGNED MISSILE / WHISTLES INTO THE MIDDLE / OF 100 LIVES / LIKE A DREAD METALLIC EGG / HATCHING FEVERS & DEATH FUNGUS /PRESSURE IN THE OBLITERATING RAIN / WHAT ONCE WAS STARS AND DISTANT CLOUDS / SEEN AS IDEAS OVER THE BLUE MEDITERRANEAN / IS A SKY OF WHIRRING FIRE SOUNDS / CATS SCATTER BENEATH COLLAPSED AWNINGS / SKETCHBOOK PAGES PINNED UNDER STONES / THE OUTLINE OF AN APPLE / A SLICE OF BREAD / A TEACUP / TRACED IN PENCIL / UNFINISHED

Tucker Carlson on Jimmy Dore, 12/29/23

 

Pages Shot into the Night

 

December 8, 2023

The revolution won't be televised

But the genocide will

And the Ecuador rep

Announcing the vote

Asks "¿En contra?"

"Against?" says the translator

A glassy half grin

On the US rep's face

He can't believe he's on

The UN floor

The lives of thousands

Poised in the air -

Mothers and grandmothers

Children confused by the rumbles

And land shocks -

And raises his arm

On the grimmest of missions

For the declining old man

"En contra"

Let the buildings fall

The walls all burn down

And the mosques collapse

Mosaic tile streaked with dust

Blisters and buckles

Licked by flames

Let the libraries explode

The lines of poets

Refaat Al-Areer Mahmoud

Darwish Maya Abu Al-Hayyat

Shot into the Gaza night

Like birds rising from the ground

And flying moonward

Pages shadows verses

To read To weep To wail

Milwaukee Musings

Milwaukee is still a place where you can encounter guys on the street who look like secondary characters from a Fassbender film from the late 1970s - on Brady Street, on Locust. It speaks to a certain kind of wonderful freedom still present in the city.

WMSE 91.7FM is a formidable radio station. Randomly in the car at 91.7 over three days in the city, I heard: swamp rock psychedelia, gothic new wave maybe contemporary or maybe from 35 years ago, intoxicating slow jams on the Saturday afternoon Boogie Bang & Dewey's Sunday morning show featuring an audience-member recorded Benny Goodman concert from the 1930s and I recalled how Dewey's voice and his music curation defined my Sunday mornings for the decade of the 1990s. And the man persists, still conjuring wonder from stacks of vinyl scavenged from bins spanning the continent, I imagine.

FAUST DRUM CENTER, and its haunting allusions to the idea of selling one's soul in order to be able to play like John Bonham or Neil Pert, may be no more on Kinnickinnick Ave, but the street possesses a heady density of vintage clothing, furniture and record stores. Just walking by the vitrines, one feels less depressed... 

Poems Bombs Silence

AND WHEN THE VIETNAM WAR BEGAN SAN FRANCISCO STREET POET BOB KAUFMAN TOOK A VOW OF SILENCE TO PROTEST / ONE GUY NO MONEY NO WAY TO SPEAK TO STONE MEN DISTANT DECIDING / FOR 10 YEARS BOB ORDERING COFFEE WITH NO WORDS / SAYING I LOVE YOU WITH HIS EYES / THE HILLS OF THE CITY GROW STEEPER AT TWILIGHT / GOLDEN GATE PARK LEADS DOWN TO THE SEA / THE PACIFIC STRETCHING TO GREEN VIETNAM COVERED IN SMOKE / WHAT WOULD BOB DO AS NIGHT FALLS ON GAZA NOW IN NOVEMBER / THE MADNESS OF THE LAST CENTURY PERSISTING / WOULD HE APPROACH STOPLIGHT CARS AND CREATE-SPEAK A POEM / POEMS PUT BOB INTO PRISON WHERE HE WROTE MORE POEMS / OR WOULD HE FALL SILENT IN THE MIST RISING OFF THE BAY / ALLEYS CORNERS SILENCES STORMS BOMBS LIKE GREAT HAILSTONES MADE FROM LEAD AND FIRE RAIN ONTO ROOFTOPS IN GAZA / NIGHT'S NOT FOR SLEEPING / IT IS FOR WEEPING / WOULD BOB SPEAK OR WOULD HE SCREAM OR FALL SILENT FOR 10 YEARS 100 YEARS 1000 YEARS 10,000 YEARS?

All reac

Stories from Many Realms

Cool art projects done by insufferable people

Indecipherable verse written by meticulous people

Bad song lyrics about opulence

Trance-inducing TV shows about cops, firemen, lawyers, doctors

Podcasts about podcasts about other podcasts done in

dim light with energy drinks, weed sometimes

Panicked dreams about inability, inaction